On a wooded height, hidden in the heart of the forests of the Bavarian highlands, stood an ancient hunting castle, the property of the Wildenau family. A steep mountain path led up to it, and at its feet, like a stone sea, stretched the wide, dry bed of a river, a Griess, as it was called in that locality. Only a few persons knew the way; to the careless glance the path seemed wholly impassable.
Bare, rugged cliffs towered like a wall around the hunting castle on its mossy height, harmonizing in melancholy fashion with the white sea of stone below, which formed a harsh foreground to the dreary scene. Ever and anon a stag emerged from the woods, crossing the Griess with elastic tread, the brown silhouette of its antlers sharply relieved against the colorless monotony of the landscape. The hind came forward from the opposite side, slowly, reluctantly, with nostrils vibrating. The report of a rifle echoed from beyond the river bed, the antlers drooped, the royal creature fell upon its knees, then rolled over on its back; its huge antlers, flung backward in the death agony, were thrust deep down among the loose pebbles. The hind had fled, the poacher seized his prey--a slender rill of blood trickled noiselessly through the stones, then everything was once more silent and lifeless.
This was the hiding-place where, for seven years, Countess Wildenau had hidden the treasury filched from the cross--the rock sepulchre in which she intended to keep the God whom the world believed dead. Built close against the cliff, half concealed by an overhanging precipice, the castle seemed to be set in a niche. Shut out from the sunshine by the projecting crag which cast its shadow over it even at noonday, it was so cold and damp that the moisture trickled down the walls of the building, and, moreover, was surrounded by that strange atmosphere of wet moss and rotting mushrooms which awakens so strange a feeling when, after a hot walk, we pause to rest in the cool courtyard of some ruined castle, where our feet sink into wet masses of mouldering brown leaves which for decades no busy hand has swept away. It seems as if the sun desired to associate with human beings. Where no mortal eyes behold its rays, it ceases to shine. It does not deem it worth while to penetrate the heaps of withered leaves, or the tangle of wild vines and bushes, or the veil of cobwebs and lime-dust which, in the course of time, accumulates in heaps in the masonry of a deserted dwelling.
As we see by a child's appearance whether or not it has a loving mother, so the aspect of a house reveals whether or not it is dear to its owner, and as a neglected child drags out a joyless existence, so a neglected house gradually becomes cold and inhospitable.
This was the case with the deserted little hunting seat. No foot had crossed its threshold within the memory of man. What could the Countess Wildenau do with it? It was so remote, so far from all the paths of travel, so hidden in the woods that it would not even afford a fine view. It stood as an outpost on the chart containing the location of the Wildenau estates. It had never entered the owner's mind to seek it out in this--far less in reality.
Every year an architect was sent there to superintend the most necessary repairs, because it was not fitting for a Wildenau to let one of these family castles go to ruin. This was all that was done to preserve the building. The garden gradually ran to waste, and became so blended with the forest that the boughs of the trees beat against the windows of the edifice and barred out like a green hedge the last straggling sunbeams. A castle for a Sleeping Beauty, but without the sleeping princess. Then Fate willed that a blissful secret in its owner's breast demanded just such a hiding-place in which to dream the strangest fantasy ever imagined by woman since Danae rested in the embrace of Jove.
Madeleine von Wildenau sought and found this forgotten spot in her chart, and, with the energy bestowed by the habit of being able to accomplish whatever we desire, she discovered a secret ford through the Griess, known only to a trustworthy old driver, and no one was aware of Countess Wildenau's residence when she vanished from society for days. There were rumors of a romantic adventure or a religious ecstacy into which the Ammergau Passion Play had transported her years before. She had set off upon her journey to the Promised Land directly after, and as no sea is so wide, no mountain so lofty, that gossip cannot find its way over them, it even made its way from the Holy Sepulchre to the drawing rooms of the capital.
A gentleman, an acquaintance of so-and-so, had gone to the Orient, and in Jerusalem, at the Holy Sepulchre, met a veiled lady, who was no other than Countess Wildenau. There would have been nothing specially remarkable in that. But at the lady's side knelt a gentleman who bore so remarkable a resemblance to the pictures of Christ that one might have believed it was the Risen Lord Himself who, dissatisfied with heaven, had returned repentant to His deserted resting-place.
How interesting! The imagination of society, thirsting for romance, naturally seized upon this bit of news with much eagerness.
Who could the gentleman with the head of Christ be, save the Ammergau Christ? This agreed with the sudden interruption of the Passion Play that summer, on account of the illness of the Christ--as the people of Ammergau said, who perfectly understood how to keep their secrets from the outside world.
But as they committed the imprudence of occasionally sending their daughters to the city, one and another of these secrets of the community, more or less distorted, escaped through the dressing-rooms of the mistresses of these Ammergau maids.
Thus here and there a flickering ray fell upon the Ammergau catastrophe: The Christ was not ill--he had vanished--run away--with a lady of high rank. What a scandal! Then lo! one day Countess Wildenau appeared--after a journey of three years in the east--somewhat absentminded, a little disposed to assume religious airs, but without any genuine piety. Religion is not to be obtained by an indulgence of religious-erotic rapture with its sweet delusions--it can be obtained only by the hard labor of daily self-sacrifice, of which a nature like Madeleine von Wildenau's has no knowledge.
So she returned, somewhat changed--yet only so far as that her own ego, which the world did not know, was even more potential than before.
But she came alone! Where had she left her pallid Christ? All inquiries were futile. What could be said? There was no proof of anything--and besides; proven or not--what charge would have overthrown Countess Wildenau? That would have been an achievement for which even her foes lacked perseverance?
It is very amusing when a person's moral ruin can be effected by a word carelessly uttered! But when the labor of producing proof is associated with it, people grow good-natured from sheer indolence--let the victim go, and seek an easier prey.
This was the case with the Countess Wildenau! Her position remained as unshaken as ever, nay the charm of her person exerted an influence even more potent than before. Was it her long absence, or had she grown younger? No matter--she had gained a touch of womanly sweetness which rendered her irresistible.
In what secret mine of the human heart and feeling had she garnered the rays which glittered in her eyes like hidden treasures on which the light of day falls for the first time?
When a woman conceals in her heart a secret joy men flock around her, with instinctive jealousy, all the more closely, they would fain dispute the sweet right of possession with the invisible rival. This is a trait of human nature. But one of the number did so consciously, not from a jealous instinct but with the full, intense resolve of unswerving fidelity--the prince! With quiet caution, and the wise self-control peculiar to him, he steadily pursued his aim. Not with professions of love; he was only too well aware that love is no weapon against love! On the contrary, he chose a different way, that of cold reason.
"So long as she is aglow with love, she will be proof against any other feeling--she must first be cooled to the freezing-point, then the chilled bird can be clasped carefully to the breast and given new warmth."
It would be long ere that point was reached--but he knew how to wait!
Meanwhile he drew the Countess into a whirl of the most fascinating amusements.
No word, no look betrayed the still hopeful lover! With the manner of one who had relinquished all claims, but was too thoroughly a man of the world to avoid an interesting woman because he had failed to win her heart, he again sought her society after her return. Had he betrayed the slightest sign of emotion, he would have been repulsive in her present mood. But the perfect frankness and unconcern with which he played the "old friend" and nothing more, made his presence a comfort, nay even a necessity of life! So he became her inseparable companion--her shadow, and by the influence of his high position stifled every breath of slander, which floated from Ammergau to injure his beautiful friend.
During the first months after her return she had the whim--as she called it--of retiring from society and spending more time upon her estates. But the wise caution of the prince prevented it.
"For Heaven's sake, don't do that. Will you give free play to the rumors about your Ammergau episode and the pilgrimage to Jerusalem connected with it, by withdrawing into solitude and thus leaving the field to your slanderers, that they may disport at will in the deserted scenes of your former splendor?"
"This," he argued, "is the very time when you must take your old position in society, or you will be--pardon my frankness--a fallen star."
The Countess evidently shrank from the thought.
"Or--have you some castle in the air whose delights outweigh the world in your eyes?" he asked with relentless insistence:
This time the Countess flushed to the fair curls which clustered around her forehead.
Since that time the drawing-rooms of the Wildenau palace had again been filled with the fragrance of roses--lighted, and adorned with glowing Oriental magnificence, and the motley tide of society, amid vivacious chatter, flooded the spacious apartments. Glittering with diamonds, intoxicated by the charm of her own beauty whose power she had not tested for years, the Countess was the centre of all this splendor--while in the lonely hunting-seat beyond the pathless Griess, the solitary man whom she had banished thither vainly awaited--his wife.
The leaves in the forest were turning brown for the sixth time since their return from Jerusalem, the autumn gale was sweeping fresh heaps of withered leaves to add to the piles towering like walls around the deserted building, the height was constantly growing colder and more dreary, the drawing-rooms below were continually growing warmer, the Palace Wildenau, with its Persian hangings and rugs and cosy nooks behind gay screens daily became more thronged with guests. People drew their chairs nearer and nearer the blazing fire on the hearth, which cast a rosy light upon pallid faces and made weary eyes sparkle with a simulated glow of passion. The intimate friends of the Countess Wildenau, reclining in comfortable armchairs, were gathered in a group, the gentlemen resting after the fatigues of hunting--or the autumn man[oe]uvres, the ladies after the first receptions and balls of the season, which are the more exhausting before habit again asserts its sway, to say nothing of the question of toilettes, always so trying to the nerves at these early balls.
What is to be done at such times? It is certainly depressing to commence the season with last year's clothes, and one cannot get new ones because nobody knows what styles the winter will bring? Parisian novelties have not come. So one must wear an unassuming toilette of no special style in which one feels uncomfortable and casts aside afterwards, because one receives from Paris something entirely different from what was expected!
So the ladies chatted and Countess Wildenau entered eagerly into the discussion. She understood and sympathized with these woes, though now, as the ladies said, she really could not "chime in" since she had a store of valuable Oriental stuffs and embroideries, which would supply a store of "exclusive" toilettes for years. Only people of inferior position were compelled to follow the fashions--great ladies set them and the costliness of the material prevented the garments from appearing too fantastic. A Countess Wildenau could allow herself such bizarre costumes. She had a right to set the fashions and people would gladly follow her if they could, but two requirements were lacking, on one side the taste--on the other the purse. The Countess charmingly waived her friends' envious compliments; but her thoughts were not on the theme they were discussing; her eyes wandered to a crayon picture hanging beside the mantel-piece, the picture of a boy who had the marvellous beauty of one of Raphael's cherubs.
"What child is that?" asked one of the ladies who had followed her glance.
"Don't you recognize it?" replied the Countess with a dreamy smile. "It is the Christ in the picture of the Sistine Madonna."
"Why, how very strange--if you had a son one might have thought it was his portrait, it resembles you so much."
"Do you notice it?" the Countess answered. "Yes, that was the opinion of the artist who copied the picture; he gave it to me as a surprise." She rose and took another little picture from the wall. "Look, this is a portrait of me when I was three years old--there really is some resemblance."
The ladies all assented, and the gentlemen, delighted to have an opportunity to interrupt the discussion of the fashions, came forward and noticed with astonishment the striking likeness between the girl and the boy.
"It is really the Christ child in the Sistine Madonna--very exquisitely painted!" said the prince.
"By the way, Cousin," cried a sharp, high voice, over Prince Emil's shoulder, a voice issuing from a pair of very thin lips shaded by a reddish moustache, "do you know that you have the very model of this picture on your own estates?"
The Countess, with a strangely abrupt, nervous movement, pushed the copy aside and hastily turned to replace her own portrait on the wall. The gentlemen tried to aid her, but she rejected all help, though she was not very skillful in her task, and consequently was compelled to keep her back turned to the group a long time.
"It is possible--I cannot remember," she replied, while still in this position. "I cannot know the children of all my tenants."
"Yes," the jarring voice persisted, "it is a boy who is roaming about near your little hunting-castle."
Madeleine von Wildenau grew ghastly pale.
"Apropos of that hunting box," the gentleman added--he was one of the disinherited Wildenaus--"you might let me have it, Cousin. I'll confess that I've recently been looking up the old rat's nest. Schlierheim will lease his preserves beyond the government forests, but only as far as your boundaries, and there is no house. My brother and I would hire them if we could have the old Wildenau hunting-box. We are ready to pay you the largest sum the thing is worth. You know it formerly belonged to our branch of the family, and your husband obtained it only forty years ago. At that time it was valueless to us, but now we should like to buy it again."
The Countess shivered and ordered more wood to be piled on the fire. She had unconsciously drawn nearer to Prince Emily as if seeking his protection. Her shoulder touched his. She was startlingly pale.
"The recollection of her husband always affects her in this way," the prince remarked.
"Well, we will discuss the matter some other time, belle cousine!" said Herr Wildenau, sipping a glass of Chartreuse which the servant offered.
Prince Emil's watchful gaze followed the little scene with the closest attention.
"Did you not intend to have the little castle put in order for your father's residence, as the city air does not agree with him in his present condition?" he said, with marked emphasis.
"Yes, certainly--I--we were speaking of it a short time ago," stammered the Countess. "Besides, I am fond of the little castle. I should not wish to sell it."
"Ah, you are fond of it. Pardon me--that is difficult to understand! I thought you set no value upon it--the whole place is so neglected."
"That is exactly what pleases me--I like to have it so," replied the Countess in an irritated tone. "It does not need to have everything in perfect order. It is a genuine forest idyl!"
"A forest idyl?" repeated the cousin. "H'm, Ah, yes! That's a different matter. Pardon me. Had I known it, I would not have alluded to the subject!" His keen gray eyes glittered with a peculiar light as he kissed her hand and took his leave.
The others thought they must now withdraw also, and the Countess detained no one--she was evidently very weary.
The prince also took leave--for the sake of etiquette--but he whispered, with an expression of friendly anxiety, "I will come back soon." And he kept his promise.
An hour had passed. Madeleine von Wildenau, her face still colorless, was reclining on a divan in a simple home costume.
Prince Emil's first glance sought the little table on which stood the crayon picture of the infant Christ--it had vanished.
The Countess followed his look and saw that he missed it--their eyes met. The prince took a chair and sat down by her side, as if she were an invalid who had just sustained a severe operation and required the utmost care. He himself was very pale. Gently arranging the pillows behind her, he gazed sympathizingly into her face.
"Why did you not tell me this before?" he murmured, almost inaudibly, after a pause. "All this should have been very differently managed!"
"Prince, how could I suppose that you were so generous--so noble"--she could not finish the sentence, her eyes fell, the beautiful woman's face crimsoned with shame.
He gazed earnestly at her, feeling at this moment the first great sorrow of his life, but also perceiving that he could not judge the exquisite creature who lay before him like a statue of the Magdalene carved by the most finished artist--because he could not help loving her in her sweet embarrassment more tenderly than ever.
"Madeleine," he said, softly, and his breath fanned her brow like a cooling breeze, "will you trust me? It will be easier for you."
She clasped his hand in her slender, transparent fingers, raising her eyes beseechingly to his with a look of the sweetest feminine weakness, like a young girl or an innocent child who is atoning for some trivial sin. "Let me keep my secret," she pleaded, with such touching embarrassment that it almost robbed the prince of his calmness.
"Very well," he said, controlling himself with difficulty. "I will ask no farther questions and will not strive to penetrate your secret. But if you ever need a friend--and I fear that may happen--pray commit no farther imprudences, and remember that, in me, you possess one who adds to a warm heart a sufficiently cool head to be able to act for you as this difficult situation requires! Farewell, chere amie! Secure a complete rest."
Without waiting for an answer, like the experienced physician, who merely prescribes for his patients without conversing with them about the matter, he disappeared.
The countess was ashamed--fairly oppressed by the generosity of his character. Would it have been better had she told him the truth?
Should she tell him that she was married? Married! Was she wedded? Could she be called a wife? She had played a farce with herself and Freyer, a farce in which, from her standpoint, she could not believe herself.
On their flight from Ammergau they had hastened to Prankenberg, surprised the old pastor in his room, and with Josepha and a coachman who had grown gray in the service of the Wildenau family for witnesses, declared in the presence of the priest that they took each other for husband and wife.
The old gentleman, in his surprise and perplexity, knew not what course to pursue. The countess appealed to the rite of the Tridentine Council, according to which she and Freyer, after this declaration, were man and wife, even without a wedding ceremony or permission to marry in another diocese. Then the loyal pastor, who had grown gray in the service of the Prankenbergs, as well as of his church, could do nothing except acknowledge the fact, declare the marriage valid, and give them the marriage certificate.
So at the breakfast-table, over the priest's smoking coffee, the bond had been formed which the good pastor was afterwards to enter in the church register as a marriage. But even this outward proof of the marriage between the widowed Countess Wildenau and the Ammergau wood-carver Freyer was removed, for the countess had been right in distrusting her father and believing that his advice concerning the secret marriage was but a stratagem of war to deter her from taking any public step.
On returning from the priest's, her carriage dashed by Prince von Prankenberg's.
Ten minutes after the prince rushed like a tempest into the room of the peaceful old pastor, and succeeded in preventing the entry of the "scandal," as he called it, in the church register. So the proofs of the fact were limited to the marriage certificate in the husband's hands and the two witnesses, Josepha and Martin, the coachman--a chain, it is true, which bound Madeleine von Wildenau, yet which was always in her power.
What was this marriage? How would a man like the prince regard it? Would it not wear a totally different aspect in the eyes of the sceptic and experienced man of the world than in those of the simple-hearted peasant who believed that everything which glittered was gold? Was such a marriage, which permitted the exercise of none of the rights and duties which elevate it into a moral institution, better than an illegal relation? Nay, rather worse, for it perpetrated a robbery of God--it was an illegal relation which had stolen a sacred name!
But--what did this mean? To-day, for the first time, she felt as if fate might give the matter the moral importance which she did not willingly accord it--as if the Deity whose name she had abused might take her at her word and compel her to turn jest into earnest.
Her better nature frankly confessed that this would be only moral justice! To this great truth she bowed her head as the full ears bend before the approaching hail storm.
Spite of the chill autumn evening, there was an incomprehensible sultriness in the air of the room.
Something in the brief conversation with Herr Wildenau and especially in the manner in which the prince, with his keen penetration, understood the episode, startled the Countess and aroused her fears.
Why had Herr Wildenau gone to the little hunting-box? How had he seen the child?
Yet how could she herself have been so imprudent as to display the picture? And still--it was the infant Christ of Raphael. Could she not even have one of Raphael's heads in her drawing-room without danger that some one would discover a suspicious resemblance!
She sprang from the cushions indignantly, drawing herself up to her full height. Who was she? What did she dread?
"Anything but cowardice, Madeleine," she cried out to herself. "Woe betide you, if your resolution fails, you are lost! If you do not look the brute gossip steadily in the eye, if so much as an eye-lash quivers, it will rend you. Do not be cowardly, Madeleine, have no scruples, they will betray you, will make your glance timid, your bearing uncertain, send a flush to your brow at every chance word. But"--she sank back among her cushions--"but unfortunately this very day the misfortune has happened, all these people may go away and say that they saw the Countess Wildenau blush and grow confused--and why?--Because a child was mentioned--"
She shuddered and cowered--a moan of pain escaped her lips!
"Yet you exist, my child--I cannot put you out of the world--and no mother ever had such a son. And I, instead of being permitted to be proud of you, must feel ashamed.
"Oh, God, thou gavest me every blessing: the man I loved, a beautiful child--all earthly power and splendor--yet no contentment, no happiness! What do I lack?" She sat a long time absorbed in gloomy thought, then suddenly the cause became clear. She lacked the moral balance of service and counter-service.
That was the reason all her happiness was but theft, and she was forced, like a thief, to enjoy it in fear and secrecy. Her maternal happiness was theft--for Josepha, the stranger, filled a mother's place to the boy, and when she herself pressed him to her heart she was stealing a love she had not earned. Her conjugal happiness was a theft, for so long as she retained her fortune, she was not permitted to marry! That was the curse! Wherever she looked, wherever she saw herself, she was always the recipient, the petitioner--and what did she bestow in return? Where did she make any sacrifice? Nothing--and nowhere! Egotism was apparent in everything. To enjoy all--possess all, even what was forbidden and sacrifice nothing, must finally render her a thief--in her own eyes, in those of God, and who knows, perhaps also in those of men, should her secret ever be discovered!
"Woe betide you, unhappy woman--have you not the strength to resign one for the other? Would you rather live in fear of the betrayer than voluntarily relinquish your stolen goods? Then do not think yourself noble or lofty--do not deem yourself worthy of the grace for which you long!"
She hid her face in the cushions of the divan, fairly quivering under the burden of her self-accusation.
"I beg your pardon, your Highness, I only wanted to ask what evening toilette you desired."
Madeleine von Wildenau started up. "If you would only cease this stealing about on tip-toe!" she angrily exclaimed. "I beg pardon, I knocked twice and thought I did not hear your 'come in.'"
"Walk so that you can be heard--I don't like to have my servants glide about like spies, remember that!"
"At Princess Hohenstein's we were all obliged to wear felt slippers. Her Highness could not endure any noise."
"Well I have better nerves than Princess Hohenstein."--
"And apparently a worse conscience," muttered the maid, who had not failed to notice her mistress' confusion.
"May I ask once more about the evening toilette?"
"Street costume--I shall not go to the theatre, I will drive out to the estates. Order Martin to have the carriage ready."
The maid withdrew.
The countess felt as if she were in a fever--must that inquisitive maid see her in such a condition? It seemed as though she was surrounded like a hunted animal, as though eyes were everywhere watching her.
There was something in the woman's look which had irritated her. Oh, God, had matters gone so far--must she fear the glance of her own maid?
Up and away to nature and her child, to her poor neglected husband on the cliff.
Her heart grew heavy at the thought that the time since she had last visited the deserted man could soon be counted by months.
Her interest in the simple-hearted son of nature was beginning to wane, she could not deny it. Woe betide her if love should also grow cold; if that should happen, then--she realized it with horror--she would have no excuse for the whole sensuous--supersensuous episode, which had perilled both her honor and her existence!
