It was morning! The lamp had almost burned out! Josepha and the countess were busied with the boy, whose sleep was disturbed by a short, dry cough. The mother had remained at the little castle all night and rested only a few hours. When with the little one there were times when her maternal affection was roused. Then she was seized with dread lest God should recall a precious gift because she had not known its value. It would be only just, she was aware of that--and because of its justice it seemed probable, and her heart strove to make amends in a few hours for the neglect of years. Perhaps thereby she might escape the punishment. But when she had gone, the little pale star in her horizon receded into the background before the motley phenomena of the world in which she lived, and only in isolated moments did she realize, by a dull pain, that feelings were slumbering within her soul which could not be developed--like a treasure which lies concealed in a spot whence it cannot be raised. It was akin to the parable of the servant who did not put out his talent at interest. This talent which God entrusted to men is love. A lofty noble sentiment which we suppress is the buried treasure which God will require of us, when the period for which He loaned it has expired. There were hours when the unhappy woman realized this. Then she accused everything--the world and herself! And the poor little child felt in his precocious soul the grief of the "beautiful lady," in whom he presciently loved his mother without knowing that it was she. Ordinary children, like animals, love best those who provide for their physical wants and therefore frequently cling more fondly to the nurse than to the mother. Not so this boy. He was almost ungrateful to Josepha, who nursed him the more faithfully, the more he was neglected by the countess.
Josepha was passionately attached to the boy. All the sorrowful love which she had kept in her desolate heart for her own dead son was transferred from the first hour to this delicate, motherless creature. It reminded her so much of her own poor child: the marked family likeness between him and Freyer--the mystery with which he must be surrounded. A mother who was ashamed of him, like Josepha at the time--it seemed as though her own dead child had returned to life. And besides she passed for his mother.
The boy was born while the countess was travelling in the East, and it was an easy matter to arrange with the authorities. The countess, while in Jerusalem, took the name of Josepha Freyer--Josepha that of Countess Wildenau, and the child was baptized under the name of Freyer. It was entered in the register as an illegitimate child, and Josepha bore the disgrace and returned to Germany as the boy's mother.
What was lacking to complete Josepha's illusion that the child was hers, and that she might love it as a mother? Nothing, save the return of her affection. And this was a source of bitter pain. She might give and do what she would, devote her days and nights to him, sacrifice her already failing health--nothing availed. When after weeks and months of absence the "beautiful lady," as he called her, came, his melancholy eyes brightened and he seemed to glow with new life as he stretched out his little arms to her with a look that appeared to say: "Had you not come soon, I should have died!" Josepha no longer existed for him, and even his father, whom he usually loved tenderly as his god-father--"Goth," as the people in that locality call it--was forgotten. This vexed Josepha beyond endurance. She performed a mother's duties in all their weariness, her heart cherished a mother's love with all its griefs and cares and, when that other woman came, who deserved nothing, did nothing, had neither a mother's heart nor a mother's rights--she took the child away and Josepha had naught save the trouble and the shame! The former enjoyed hurriedly, lightly, carelessly, the joys which alone could have repaid Josepha's sacrifices, the child's sweet smiles, tender caresses, and coaxing ways, for which she would have given her life. She ground her sharp white teeth and a secret jealousy, bordering on hatred, took root in her embittered mind. What could she esteem in this woman? For what should she be grateful to her? She was kind to her--because she needed her services--but what did she care for Josepha herself! "She might give me less, but do her duty to her husband and child--that would suit me better," she secretly murmured. "To have such a child and not be a mother to him, not give him the sunshine, the warmth of maternal love which he needs--and then come and take away from another what she would not earn for herself."
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."
The countess, with aristocratic self-control, struggled to maintain her composure. Then she said quietly, though her voice sounded faint and hoarse: "The child seems weak, I think it will be better to give him something to eat before washing him."
"Yes," pleaded the little fellow, "I am thirsty." The words reminded the countess of his father, as he said on the cross: "I thirst." When these memories came, all the anguish of her once beautiful love--now perishing so miserably--overwhelmed her. She lifted the boy--he was light as a vapor, a vision of mist--from the bed into her lap, and wrapped his little bare feet in the folds of her morning dress. He pressed his little head, crowned with dark, curling locks, against her cheek. Such moments were sweet, but outweighed by too much bitterness.
"Bring him some milk--fresh milk!" Madeleine von Wildenau repeated in the slightly imperious tone which seems to consider opposition impossible.
"That will be entirely different from his usual custom," remarked Josepha, as if the countess' order had seriously interfered with the regular mode of life necessary to the child.
The mother perceived this, and a faint flush of shame and indignation suffused her face, but instantly vanished, as if grief had consumed the wave of blood which wrath had stirred.
"Is your mother--Josepha--kind to you?" she asked, when Josepha had left the room.
The boy nodded carelessly.
"She does not strike you, she is gentle?"
"No, she doesn't strike me," the little fellow answered. "She loves me."
"Do you love her, too?" the countess went on.
"Wh--y--Yes!" said the child, shrugging his shoulders. Then he looked tenderly into her face. "I love you better."
"That is not right, Josepha is your mother--you must love her best."
The boy shook his head thoughtfully. "But I would rather have you for my mamma."
"That cannot be--unfortunately--I must not."
The child gazed at her with an expression of sorrowful disappointment. =At last he found an expedient. "But in Heaven--when I go to Heaven--you will be my mother there, won't you?"
The countess shuddered--an indescribable pain pierced her heart, yet she was happy, a blissful anguish! Tears streamed from her eyes and, clasping the child tenderly, she gently kissed him.
"Yes, my child! In Heaven--perhaps I may be your mother!"
Josepha now brought in the milk and wanted to give it to him, but the boy would not take it from her, he insisted that the countess must hold the bowl. She did so, but her hand trembled and Josepha was obliged to help her, or the whole contents would have been spilled. She averted her face.
"She cannot even give her child anything to drink," thought Josepha, as she moved about the room, putting it in order.
"Josepha, please leave me alone a little while," said the countess, almost beseechingly.
"Indeed?" Josepha's cheeks flushed scarlet, it seemed as if the bones grew still more prominent. "If I am in your Highness' way--I can go at once."
"Josepha!" said the countess, now suddenly turning toward her a face wet with tears. "Surely I might be allowed to spend fifteen minutes alone with my child without offending any one! I will forgive your words--on account of your natural jealousy--and I think you already regret them, do you not?"
"Yes," replied Josepha, somewhat reluctantly, but so conquered by the unhappy mother's words that she pressed a hard half reluctant kiss upon the countess' hand with her rough, parched lips. Then, with a passionate glance at the child, she gave place to the mother whose claim she would fain have disputed before God Himself, if she could.
But when the door had closed behind her, the countess could bear no more. Placing the child in his little bed, she flung herself sobbing beside it. "My child--my child, forgive me," she cried, forgetting all prudence "--pray for me to God."
Just at that moment the door opened and Freyer entered. All that was stirring the mother's heart instantly became clear to him, as he saw her thus broken down beside the boy's bed.
"Calm yourself--what will the child think!" he said, bending down and raising her.
"Don't cry, Mamma!" said the boy, stroking the soft hair on the grief-bowed head. He did not know why he now suddenly called her "mamma"--perhaps it was a prospect of the heaven where she would be his mother, and he said it in advance.
"Oh, Freyer, kill me--I am worthy of nothing better--cut short the battle of a wasted life! An animal which cannot recover is killed out of pity, why not a human being, who feels suffering doubly?"
"Magdalena--Countess--I do not know you in this mood."
"Nor do I know myself! What am I? What is a mother who is no mother--a wife who cannot declare herself a wife? A fish that cannot swim, a bird that cannot fly! We kill such poor crippled creatures out of sheer compassion. What kind of existence is mine? An egotist who nevertheless feels the pain of those whom she renders unhappy; an aristocrat who cannot exist outside of her own sphere and yet pines for the eternal verity of human nature; a coquette who trifles with hearts and yet would die for a genuine feeling--these are my traits of character! Can there be anything more contradictory, more full of wretchedness?"
"Let us go out of doors, Countess, such conversation is not fit for the child to hear."
"Oh, he does not understand it."
"He understands more than you believe, you do not know what questions he often asks--ah, you deprive yourself of the noblest joys by being unable to watch the remarkable development of this child."
She nodded silently, absorbed in gazing at the boy.
"Come, Countess, the sun has risen--the cool morning air will do you good, I will ring for Josepha to take the boy," he said quietly, touching the bell.
The little fellow sat up in bed, his breathing was hurried and anxious, his large eyes were fixed imploringly on the countess: "Oh, mamma--dear mamma in Heaven--stay--don't go away."
"Ah, if only I could--my child--how gladly I would stay here always. But I will come back again presently, I will only walk in the sunshine for half-an-hour."
"Oh, I would like to go in the sunshine, too. Can't I go with you, and run about a little while?"
"Not to-day, not until your cough is cured, my poor little boy! But I'll promise to talk and think of nothing but you until I return! Meanwhile Josepha shall wash and dress you, I don't understand that--Josepha can do it better."
"Oh! yes, I'm good enough for that!" thought the girl, who heard the last words just as she entered.
"My beautiful mamma has been crying, because she is a bird and can't fly--" said the child to Josepha with sorrowful sympathy. "But you can't fly either--nor I till we are angels--then we can!" He spread out his little arms like wings as if he longed to soar upward and away, but an attack of coughing made him sink back upon his pillows.
The husband and wife looked at each other with the same sorrowful anxiety.
The countess bent over the little bed as if she would fain stifle with kisses the cough that racked the little chest.
"Mamma, it doesn't hurt--you must not cry," said the boy, consolingly. "There is a spider inside of my breast which tickles me--so I have to cough. But it will spin a big, big net of silver threads like those on the Christmas tree which will reach to Heaven, then I'll climb up on it!"
The countess could scarcely control her emotion. Freyer drew her hand through his arm and led her out into the dewy morning.
"You are so anxious about our secret and yet, if I were not conscientious enough to help you guard it, you would betray yourself every moment, you are imprudent with the child, it is not for my own interest, but yours that I warn you. Do not allow your newly awakened maternal love to destroy your self-control in the boy's presence. Do not let him call you 'Mamma.' Poor mother--indeed I understand how this wounds you--but--it must be one thing or the other. If you cannot--or will not be a mother to the child--you must renounce this name."
She bowed her head. "You are as cruel as ever, though you are right! How can I maintain my self-control, when I hear such words from the child? What a child he is! Whenever I come, I marvel at his intellectual progress! If only it is natural, if only it is not the omen of an early death!"
Freyer pitied her anxiety,
"It is merely because the child is reared in solitude, associating solely with two sorrowing people, Josepha and myself; it is natural that his young soul should develop into a graver and more thoughtful character than other children," he said, consolingly.
They had gone out upon a dilapidated balcony, overgrown with vines and bushes. It was a beautiful morning, but the surrounding woods and the mouldering autumn leaves were white with hoar frost. Freyer wrapped the shivering woman in a cloak which he had taken with him. Under the cold breath of the bright fall morning, and her husband's cheering words, she gradually grew calm and regained her composure.
"But something must be done with the child," she said earnestly. "Matters cannot go on so, he looks too ethereal.--I will send him to Italy with Josepha."
"Good Heavens, then I shall be entirely alone!" said Freyer, with difficulty suppressing his dismay.
"Yet it must be," replied the countess firmly.
"How shall I endure it? The child was my all, my good angel--my light in darkness! Often his little hands have cooled my brow when the flames of madness were circling around it. Often his eyes, his features have again revealed your image clearly when, during a long separation, it had become blurred and distorted. While gazing at the child, the dear, beautiful child, I felt that nothing could sever this sacred bond. The mother of this boy could not desert her husband--for the sake of this child she must love me! I said to myself, and learned to trust, to hope, once more. And now I am to part from him. Oh, God!--Thy judgment is severe. Thou didst send an angel to comfort Thy divine son on the Mount of Olives--Thou dost take him from me! Yet not my will, but Thine, be done!"
He bent his head sadly: "If it must be, take him."
"The child is ill, I have kept him shut up in these damp rooms too long, he needs sunshine and milder air. If he were obliged to spend another winter in this cold climate, it would be his death. But if it is so hard for you to be separated from the boy--go with him. I will hire a villa for you and Josepha somewhere on the Riviera. It will do you good, too, to leave this nook hidden among the woods--and I cannot shelter you here in Bavaria where every one knows you, without betraying our relation."
Freyer gazed at her with a mournful smile: "And you think--that I would go?" He shook his head. "No, I cannot make it so easy for you. We are still husband and wife, I am still yours, as you are mine. And though you so rarely come to me--if during the whole winter there was but a single hour when you needed a heart, you must find your husband's, I must be here!" He drew her gently to his breast. "No, my wife, it would have been a comfort, if I could have kept the child--but if you must take him from me, I will bear this, too, like everything which comes from your hand, be it life or death--nothing shall part me from you, not even love for my boy."
There was something indescribable in the expression with which he gazed at her as he uttered the simple words, and she clung to him overwhelmed by such unexampled fidelity, which thus sacrificed the only, the last blessing he possessed for a single hour with her.
"My husband--my kind, noble husband! The most generous heart in all the world!" she cried, caressing him again and again as she gazed rapturously at the beautiful face, so full of dignity: "You shall not make the sacrifice for a single hour, your wife will come and reward your loyalty with a thousand-fold greater love. Often--often. Perhaps oftener than ever! For I feel that the present condition of affairs cannot last. I must be permitted to be wife and mother--I realized to-day at the bedside of my child that my guilt, too, was growing year by year. It is time for me to atone. When I return home I will seriously consider what can be done to make an arrangement with my relatives! I need not confess that I am already married--I could say that I might marry if they would pay me a sufficient sum, but I would not do so, if they refused me the means to live in a style which befitted my rank. Then they will probably prefer to make a sacrifice which would enable me to marry, thereby giving them the whole property, rather than to compel me, by their avarice, to remain a widow and keep the entire fortune. That would be a capital idea! Do you see how inventive love is?" she said with charming coquetry, expecting his joyful assent.
But he turned away with clouded brow--it seemed as though an icy wind had suddenly swept over the whole sunny landscape, transforming everything into a wintry aspect.
"Falsehood and deception everywhere--even in the most sacred things. When I hear you speak so, my heart shrinks! So noble a woman as you to stoop to falsehood and deceit, like one of the basest!"
The countess stood motionless, with downcast lids, shame and pride were both visible on her brow. Her heart, too, shrank, and an icy chill encompassed it.
"And what better proposal would you make?"
"None!" said Freyer in a low tone, "for the only one I could suggest you would not accept. It would be to atone for the wrong you have committed, frankly confess how everything happened, and then retire with your husband and child into solitude and live plainly, but honestly. The world would laugh at you, it is true, but the noble-hearted would honor you. I cannot imagine that any moral happiness is to be purchased by falsehood and deceit--there is but one way which leads to God--the way of truth--every other is delusive!"
The beautiful woman gazed at him in involuntary admiration. This was the inward majesty by which the lowly man had formerly so awed her; and deeply as he shamed and wounded her, she bowed to this grandeur. Yet she could no longer bear his gaze, she felt humbled before him, her pleasure in his companionship was destroyed. She stood before the man whom she believed so far beneath her, like a common criminal, convicted of the most petty falsehood, the basest treachery. She fairly loathed herself. Where was there anything to efface this brand? Where was the pride which could raise her above this disgrace? In her consciousness of rank? Woe betide her, what would her peers say if they knew her position? Would she not be cast out from every circle? What was there which would again restore her honor? She knew no dignity, no honor save those which the world bestows, and to save them, at any cost and by any means--she sank still lower in her own eyes and those of the poor, but honorable man who had more cause to be ashamed of her than she of him.
She must return home, she must again see her palace, her servants, her world, in order to believe that she was still herself, that the ground was still firm under her feet, for everything in and around her was wavering.
"Please order the horses to be harnessed!" she said, turning toward the half ruined door through which they had come out of the house.
It had indeed grown dull and cold. A pallid autumnal fog was shrouding the forest. It looked doubtful whether it was going to rain or snow.
"I have the open carriage--I should like to get home before it rains," she said, apologetically, without looking at him.
Freyer courteously opened the heavy ancient iron door. They walked silently along a dark, cold, narrow passage to the door of the boy's room.
"I will go and have the horses harnessed," said Freyer, and the countess entered the chamber.
She took an absent leave of the child. She did not notice how he trembled at the news that she was going home, she did not hear him plead: "Take me with you!" She comforted him as usual with the promise that she would soon come again, and beckoned Josepha out of the room. The boy gazed after her with the expression of a dying roe, and a few large tears rolled down his pale cheeks. The mother saw it, but she could not remain, her stay here was over for that day. Outside she informed Josepha of the plan of sending her and the child to Italy, but the latter shook her head.
"The child needs nothing but its mother," she said, pitilessly, "it longs only for you, and if you send it still farther away, it will die."
The countess stood as if sentenced.
"When you are with him, he revives, and when you have gone, he droops like a flower without the sun!"
"Oh Heaven!" moaned the countess, pressing her clasped hands to her brow: "What is to be done!"
"If you could take the boy, it would be the best cure. The child need's a mother's love; that would be more beneficial to him than all the travelling in the world. You have no idea how he clings to his mother. It really seems as if you had bewitched him. All day long he wears himself out listening and watching for the roll of the carriage, and when evening comes and the hour that you usually drive up arrives, his little hands are burning with fever from expectation. And then he sees how his father longs for you. A child like him notices everything and, when his father is sad, he is sorrowful, too. 'She is not coming to-day!' he said a short time ago, stroking his father's cheek; he knew perfectly well what troubled him. A delicate little body like his is soon worn out by constant yearning. Every kid, every fawn, cries for its mother. Here in the woods I often hear the young deer, whose mother has been shot, wail and cry all night long, and must not a child who has sense and affection long for its mother? You sit in your beautiful rooms at home and don't hear how up here in this dreary house with us two melancholy people, the poor child asks for the mother who is his all."
"Josepha, you will kill me!"
The countess clung to the door-post for support, her brain fairly whirled.
"No, I shall not kill you, Countess, I only want to prevent your killing the child," said Josepha with flaming eyes. "Do you suppose that, if I could supply a mother's place to the boy, I would beg you for what is every child's right, and which every mother who has a mother's heart in her breast would give of her own accord? Certainly not. I would steal the child's heart, which you are starving--ere I would give you one kind word, and you might beg in vain for your son's love, as I now beseech his mother's for him. But the poor little fellow knows very well who his mother is, and no matter what I do--he will not accept me! That is why I tell you just how matters are. Do what you choose with me--I no longer fear anything--if the child cannot be saved I am done with the world! You know me--and know that I set no value on life. You have made it no dearer to me than it was when we first met."
Just at that moment the door opened and a small white figure appeared. The boy had heard Josepha's passionate tone and came to his mother's assistance: "Mamma, my dear mamma in Heaven, what is she doing to you? She shan't hurt you. Wicked mamma Josepha, that's why I don't like you, you are always scolding the beautiful, kind lady."
He threw his little arm around his mother's neck, as if to protect her.
"Oh, you angel!" cried the countess, lifting him in her arms to press him to her heart.
The rattle of wheels was heard outside--the countess' four horses were coming. To keep the fiery animals waiting was impossible. Freyer hastily announced the carriage, the horses were very unruly that day. The countess gave the boy to Josepha's care. Freyer silently helped her into the equipage, everything passed like a flash of lightning for the horses were already starting--one gloomy glace was exchanged between the husband and wife--the farewell of strangers--and away dashed the light vehicle through the autumn mists. The mother fancied she heard her boy weeping as she drove off, and felt as if Josepha had convicted her of the murder of the child. But she would atone for it--some day--soon! It seemed as if a voice within was crying aloud: "My child, my child!" An icy moisture stood in drops upon her brow; was it the sweat of anxiety, or dew? She did not know, she could no longer think, she was sinking under all the anxieties which had pressed upon her that day. She closed her eyes and leaned back in the carriage as if fainting, while the horses rushed swiftly on with their light burden toward their goal.
The hours flew past. The equipage drove up to the Wildenau palace, but she was scarcely conscious of it. All sorts of plans and resolutions were whirling through her brain. She was assisted from the carriage and ascended the carpeted marble stairs. Two letters were lying on the table in her boudoir. The prince had been there and left one, a note, which contained only the words: "You will perceive that at the present time you dare not refuse this position.
"The friend who means most kindly."
The other letter, in a large envelope, was an official document. Countess Wildenau had been appointed mistress of ceremonies!
