The countess was "herself" again, as she called it. "Thank God!"
The Ammergau episode--with all its tragic consequences--belonged to the past. To-day, under the emotional impressions and external circumstances at that luckless castle, where everything conspired against her, she had thought seriously of breaking with her traditions and the necessities of life, faced the thought of poverty and shame so boldly that this appointment to the highest position at court saved her from the gulf of ruin. Stopped at the last moment, tottering, giddy, the startled woman sought to find a firm footing once more. She felt like a suicide, who is not really in earnest, and rejoices when some one prevents his design.
She stood holding the document in her hand. This was truth, reality, the necessity for self-destruction was imagination. The disgrace whose brand she already felt upon her brow could no longer approach her!
She set her foot upon the shaggy skin of a lion--the earth did not yet reel beneath her. She pressed her burning brow against a slender marble column--this, too, was still firm! She passed her slender fingers over the silk plush of the divan on which she reclined and rejoiced that it was still hers. Her eye, intoxicated with beauty, wandered over the hundreds of art-treasures, pictures and statues from every land with which she had adorned her rooms--nothing was lacking. Upon a pedestal stood the Apollo Belvedere, whose pure marble glowed warmly in a sunbeam shining through red curtains, as if real blood were circulating in the stone. The wondrous face smiled in divine repose upon the motley array, which the art and industry of centuries had garnered here.
The past and the present here closed their bewitching chain. Yonder stood a Venus de Milo, revealing to the charming owner the majesty of her own beauty. In a corner filled with flowers, a bathing nymph, by a modern master, timidly concealed herself. In a Gothic niche a dying Christ closed his eyes to the splendor of the world and the senses. It was a Christ after the manner of Gabriel Max, which opened and shut its eyes. Not far away the portrait of the countess, painted with the genius of Lenbach stood forth from the dark frame--the type of a drawing-room blossom. Clad in a soft white robe of Oriental stuff embroidered with gold, heavy enough to cling closely to the figure--flight enough to float away so far as to reveal all that fashion and propriety permitted to be seen of the beauty of a wonderful neck and arm. And, as Lenbach paints not only the outward form but the inward nature, a tinge of melancholy, of yearning and thoughtfulness rested upon the fair face, which made the beholder almost forget the beauty of the form in that of the soul, while gazing into the spiritual eyes which seemed to seek some other home than this prosaic earth. Just in the direction of her glance, Hermes, the messenger of death, bent his divine face from a group of palms and dried grasses. It seemed as if she beheld all these things for the first time--as if they had been newly given back to her that day after she had believed them lost. Her breath almost failed at the thought that she had been on the point of resigning it all--and for what? All these treasures of immortal beauty and art--for a weeping child and a surly man, who loved in her only the housewife, which any maid-servant can be, but understood what she really was, what really constituted her dignity and charm no more than he would comprehend Lenbach's picture, which reflected to her her own person transfigured and ennobled. She gazed at herself with proud satisfaction. Should such a woman sacrifice herself to a man who scarcely knew the meaning of beauty! Destroy herself for an illusion of the imagination? She rang the bell--she felt the necessity of ordering something, to be sure that she was still mistress of the house.
The lackey entered. "Your Highness?"
Thank Heaven! Her servants still obeyed her.
"Send over to the Barnheim Palace, and invite the Prince to dine with me at six. Then serve lunch."
"Very well. Has Your Highness any other orders?"
"The maid."
"Yes, Your Highness."
The man left the room with the noiseless, solemn step of a well-trained lackey.
"How can any one live without servants?" the countess asked herself, looking after him. "What should I have done, if I had dismissed mine?" She shuddered. Now that regal luxury again surrounded her she was a different person from this morning. No doubt she still felt what she had suffered that day, but only as we dimly, after waking from a fevered dream, realize the tortures we have endured.
Some one knocked, and the maid entered.
"I will take a bath before lunch. I feel very ill. Pour a bottle of vinaigre de Bouilli into the water. I will come directly."
The maid disappeared.
Everything still went on like clock-work. Nothing had changed--no one noticed what she had almost done that day. The struggle was over. The royal order, which it would have been madness to oppose, had determined her course.
But her nerves were still quivering from the experiences of the day.
The child, if only she were not hampered by the child! That was the only thing which would not allow her to breathe freely--it was her own flesh and blood. That was the wound in her heart which could never be healed. She would always long for the boy--as he would for her. Yet, what did this avail, nothing could be changed, she must do what reason and necessity required. At least for the present; nay, there was even something beautiful in a sorrow borne with aristocratic dignity! By the depth of the wound, we proudly measure the depth of our own hearts.
She pleased herself with the idea of doing the honors as mistress of ceremonies to kings and emperors, while yearning in the depths of her soul for a poor orphaned child, the son of the proud Countess Wildenau--whose husband was a peasant. Only a nature of the elasticity of Madeleine von Wildenau's could sink so low and yet soar so high, without losing its equilibrium.
These were the oscillations which Ludwig Gross once said were necessary to such natures--though their radii passed through the lowest gulfs of human misery to the opposite heights. Coquetry is not only cruel to others, but to itself--in the physical tortures which it endures for the sake of an uncomfortable fashion, and the spiritual ones with which it pays for its triumphs.
This was the case with the countess. During her first unhappy marriage she had learned to control the most despairing moods and be "amusing" with an aching heart. What marvel that she deemed it a matter of course that she must subdue the gnawing grief of her maternal love. So she coquetted even with suffering and found pleasure in bearing it gracefully.
She sat down at her writing-desk, crowned with Canova's group of Cupid and Psyche, and wrote:
"My dear husband! In my haste I can only inform you that I shall be unable to come out immediately to arrange Josepha's journey. I have been appointed mistress of ceremonies to the queen and must obey the summons. Meanwhile, let Josepha prepare for the trip, I will send the directions for the journey and the money to-day. Give the boy my love, kiss him for me, and comfort him with the promise that I will visit him in the Riviera when I can. Amid the new scenes he will soon forget me and cease waiting and expecting. The Southern climate will benefit his health, and we shall have all the more pleasure in him afterward. He must remain there at least a year to regain his strength.
"I write hastily, for many business matters and ceremonies must be settled within the next few days. It is hard for me to accept this position, which binds me still more closely in the fetters I was on the eve of stripping off! But to make the king and queen my enemies at the very moment when I need powerful friends more than ever, would be defying fate! It will scarcely be possible for me now to come out as often as I promised you to-day. But, if you become too lonely, you can occasionally come in as my 'steward,' ostensibly to bring me reports--in this way we shall see each other and I will give orders that the steward shall be admitted to me at any time, and have a suitable office and apartments assigned to him 'as I shall now be unable to look after the estates so much myself.'
"If I cannot receive you at once, you will wait in your room until your wife, freed from the restraint and duties of the day, will fly to your arms.
"Is not this admirably arranged? Are you at last satisfied, you discontented man?
"You see that I am doing all that is possible! Only do not be angry with me because I also do what reason demands. I must secure to my child the solid foundations of a safe and well-ordered existence, since we must not, for the sake of sentiment, aimlessly shatter our own destiny. How would it benefit the sick child if I denounced myself and was compelled to give up the whole of my private fortune to compensate my first husband's relatives for what I have spent illegally since my second marriage? I could not even do anything more for my son's health, and should be forced to see him pine away in some mountain hamlet--perhaps Ammergau itself, whither I should wander with my household goods and you, like some vagrant's family. The boys there would stone him and call him in mockery, the 'little Count.' The snow-storms would lash him and completely destroy his delicate lungs.
"No, if I did not fear poverty for myself, I must do so for you. How would you endure to have the Ammergau people--and where else could you find employment--point their fingers at you and say: 'Look, that is Freyer, who ran away with a countess! He did a fine thing'--and then laugh jeeringly.
"My Joseph! Keep your love for me, and let me have judgment for you, then all will be well. In love, Your M."
She did not suspect, when she ended her letter, very well satisfied with her dialectics, that Freyer after reading it would throw the torn fragments on the floor.
This cold, frivolous letter--this change from the mood of yesterday--this act after all her promises! He had again been deceived and disappointed, again hoped and believed in vain. All, all on which he had relied was destroyed, the moral elevation of his beloved wife, which would at last restore to her husband and child their sacred rights--was a lie, and instead, by way of compensation, came the offer--of the position of a lover.
He was to seek his wife under the cover of the darkness, as a man seeks his inamorata--he, her husband, the father of her child! "No, Countess, the steward will not steal into your castle, in order when you have enjoyed all the pleasures of the day, to afford you the excitement of a stolen intrigue.
"Though the scorn and derision of the people of my native village would wound me sorely, as you believe--I would rather work with them as a day-laborer, than to play before your lackeys the part which you assign me." This was his only answer. He was well aware that it would elicit only a shrug of the shoulders, and a pitying smile, but he could not help it.
It was evening when the countess' letter reached him, and while, by the dim light of the hanging lamp, in mortal anguish he composed at the bedside of the feverish child this clumsy and unfortunately mis-spelled reply, the folding-doors of the brilliantly lighted dining-room in the Wildenau palace, were thrown open and the prince offered his arm to the countess.
She was her brilliant self again. She had taken a perfumed bath, answered the royal letter, made several sketches for new court costumes and sent them to Paris.
She painted with unusual skill, and the little water-color figures which she sent to her modistes, were real works of art, far superior to those in the fashion journals.
"Your Highness might earn your bread in this way"--said the maid flatteringly, and a strange thrill stirred the countess at these words. She had made herself a costume book, in which she had painted all the toilettes she had worn since her entrance into society, and often found amusement in turning the leaves; what memories the sight of the old clothes evoked! From the heavy silver wrought brocade train of old Count Wildenau's young bride, down to the airy little summer gown which she had worn nine years ago in Ammergau. From the stiff, regulation court costume down to the simple woolen morning gown in which she had that morning spent hours of torture on account of that Ammergau "delusion." But at the maid's words she shut the book as if startled and rose: "I will give you the dress I wore this morning, but on condition that I never see it."
"Your Highness is too kind, I thank you most humbly," said the delighted woman, kissing the sleeve of the countess' combing-mantle--she would not have ventured to kiss her hand.
The dinner toilette was quickly completed, and when the countess looked in the glass she seemed to herself more beautiful than ever. The melancholy expression around her eyes, and a slight trace of tears which she had shed, lent the pale tea-rose a tinge of color which was marvellously becoming.
The day was over, and when the prince came to dinner at six o'clock she received him with all her former charm.
"To whom do I owe this--Prince?" she said smiling, holding out the official letter.
"Why do you ask me?"
"Because you only can tell!"
"I?"
"Yes, you. Who else would have proposed me to their Majesties? Don't try to deceive me by that air of innocence. I don't trust it. You, and no one else would do me this friendly service, for everything good comes through you. You are not only a great and powerful man--you are also a good and noble one--my support, my Providence! I thank you."
She took both his hands in hers and offered him her forehead to kiss, with a glance of such sincere admiration and gratitude, that in his surprise and joy he almost missed the permitted goal and touched her lips instead. But fortunately, he recollected himself and almost timidly pressed the soft curls which quivered lightly like the delicate tendrils of flowers.
"I cannot resist this gratitude! Yes, my august cousin, the queen, did have the grace to consider my proposal as 'specially agreeable' to her. But, my dear Countess, you must have been passing through terrible experiences to lavish such undue gratitude upon the innocent instigator of such a trifle as this appointment as mistress of ceremonies, for whose acceptance we must be grateful to you. There is a touch of almost timidity in your manner, my poor Madeleine, as if you had lost the self-control which, with all your feminine grace, gave your bearing so firm a poise. You do yourself injustice. You must shake off this oppression. That is why I ventured to push the hands of the clock of life a little and secured this position, which will leave you no time for torturing yourself with fancies. That is what you need most. Unfortunately I cannot lift from those beautiful shoulders the burden you yourself have probably laid upon them; but I will aid you gradually, to strip it off.
"The world in which you are placed needs you--you must live for it and ought not to withdraw your powers, your intellect, your charm. You are created for a lofty position! I do not mean a subordinate one--that of a mistress of ceremonies. This is merely a temporary palliative--I mean that of a reigning princess, who has to provide for the physical and intellectual welfare of a whole nation. When in your present office you have become reconciled to the world and its conditions--perhaps the day will come when I shall be permitted to offer you that higher place!"
The countess stood with her hands resting on the table and her eyes bent on the floor. Her heart was throbbing violently--her breath was short and hurried. One thought whirled through her brain. "You might have had all this and forfeited it forever!" The consciousness of her marred destiny overwhelmed her with all its power. What a contrast between the prince, the perfect product of culture, who took into account all the demands of her rank and character, and the narrow, limited child of nature, her husband, who found cause for reproach in everything which the trained man of the world regarded as a matter of course. Freyer tortured her and humbled her in her own eyes, while the prince tenderly cherished her. Freyer--like the embodiment of Christian asceticism--required from her everything she disliked while Prince Emil desired nothing save to see her beautiful, happy, and admired, and made it her duty to enjoy life as suited her education and tastes! She would fain have thrown herself exultingly into the arms of her preserver and said: "Take me and bear me up again on the waves of life ere I fall into the power of that gloomy God whose power is nurtured on the blood of the murdered joys of His followers."
Suddenly it seemed as if some one else was in the room gazing intently at her. She looked up--the eyes of the Christ in the Gothic niche were bent fixedly on her. "Are you looking at me again?" asked a voice in her terror-stricken soul. "Can you never die?"
It was even so; He could not die on the cross, He cannot die in her heart. Even though it was but a moment that He appeared to mortal eyes in the Passion Play, He will live for ever to all who experienced that moment.
Her uplifted arms fell as if paralyzed, and she faltered in broken sentences: "Not another word, Prince--in Heaven's name--do not lead me into temptation. Banish every thought of me--you do not know--oh! I was never worthy of you, have never recognized all your worth--and now when I do--now it is too late." She could say no more, tears were trembling on her lashes. She again glanced timidly at the painted Christ--He had now closed His eyes. His expression was more peaceful.
The prince gazed at her earnestly, but quietly. "Ah, there is a false standpoint which must be removed. It will cost something, I see. Calm yourself--you have nothing more to fear from me--I was awkward--it was not the proper moment, I ought to have known it. Do you remember our conversation nine years ago, on the way to the Passion Play? At that time a phantom stood between us. It has since assumed a tangible form, has it not? I saw this coming, but unfortunately could not avert it. But consider--it is and will always remain--a phantom! Such spectres can be fatal only to eccentric imaginative women like you who, in addition to imagination, also possess a strongly idealistic tendency which impresses an ethical meaning upon everything they feel. With a nature like yours things which, in and of themselves, are nothing except romantic episodes, assume the character of moral conflicts in which you always feel that you are the guilty ones because you were the superior and have taken a more serious view of certain relations than they deserved."
"Yes, yes! That is it. Oh, Prince--you understand me better than any one else!" exclaimed the countess, admiringly.
"Yes, and because I understand you better than any one else, I love you better than any one else--that is the inevitable consequence. Therefore it would be a pity, if I were obliged to yield to that phantom--for never were two human beings so formed for each other as we." He was silent, Madeleine had not heard the last words. In her swift variations of mood reacting with every changing impression, a different feeling had been evoked by the word "phantom" and the memories it awakened. Even the cleverest man cannot depend upon a woman. The phantom again stood between them--conjured up by himself.
As if by magic, the Kofel with its glittering cross rose before her, and opposite at her right hand the glimmering sunbeams stole up the cliff till, like shining fingers, they rested on a face whose like she had never seen--the eyes, dark yet sparkling, like the night when the star led the kings to the child in the manger! There he stood again, the One so long imagined, so long desired.
And her enraptured eyes said: "Throughout the whole world I have sought you alone." And his replied: "And I you!" And was this to be a lie--this to vanish? It seemed as if Heaven had opened its gates and suffered her to look in, and was all this to be delusion? The panorama of memory moved farther on, leading her past the dwellings of the high priest and apostles in Ammergau to the moonlit street where her ear, listening reverently, caught the words: This is where Christus lives! And she stood still with gasping breath, trembling with expectation of the approach of God.
Then the following day--the great day which brought the fulfilment of the mighty yearning when she beheld this face "from which the God so long sought smiled upon her!" The God whom she had come to seek, to confess! What! Could she deny, resign this God, in whose wounds she had laid her fingers.
Again she stood in timid reverence, with a glowing heart, while before her hovered the pierced, bleeding hand--Heaven and earth turned upon the question whether she dared venture to press her lips upon the stigma; she did venture, almost swooning from the flood of her feelings--and lo, in the kiss the quivering lips felt the throbbing of the warm awakening life in the hand of the stern "God," and a feeling of exultation stirred within her, "You belong to me! I will steal you from the whole human race." And now, scarcely nine years later--must the joy vanish, the God disappear, the faith die? What a miserable, variable creature is man!
"Dinner is served, and Baron St. Genois has called--shall I prepare another place?"
The countess started from her reverie--had she been asleep where she stood? Where was she?
The lackey was obliged to repeat the announcement and the question. A visitor now? She would rather die--yet Baron St. Genois was an intimate friend, he could come to dinner whenever he pleased--he was not to be sent away.
She nodded assent to the servant. Her emotions were repressed and scattered, her throbbing heart sank feebly back to its usual pulsation--pallid despair whispered: "Give up the struggle--you cannot be saved!"
A few minutes after the little party were celebrating in the brilliantly lighted dining-room in sparkling sack the "event of the day," the appointment of the new mistress of ceremonies.
