Several minutes have passed--to the duke a world of happiness--to the countess of misery. The duke bent over the beautiful trembling form to clasp her in his arms for the first time.
"Have I won you at last--my long-sought love?" he exclaimed, rapturously. "Do you now perceive what your dispensations of Providence mean? The shrewdness and persistence of a single man who knows what he wants, has baffled them, and driven all the heroes of signs and wonders from the field! Do you now believe what I said just now: that we are our own Providence?"
"That will appear in due time, do not exalt yourself and do not blaspheme, God might punish your arrogance!" she said faintly, slipping gently from his embrace.
"Madeleine--no betrothal kiss--after these weary years of waiting and hoping."
"I am still Freyer's wife," she said, evasively--"not until I am parted from him."
"You are right! I will not steal my bride's first kiss from another. I thank you for honoring my future right in his." His lips touched her brow with a calm, friendly caress. Then he rose: "It is time to go, I have not a moment to lose." He glanced at the clock: "Seven! I will make my preparations at once and set out for Prankenberg to-morrow."
"What do you wish to do?"
"First of all to see what is recorded in the church register, and to ascertain what kind of a man the Catholic pastor is, that I may form some idea of what the Wildenaus have discovered and how much proof they have obtained. Then we can judge how far we must dissimulate with these gentlemen until your relation with Freyer can be dissolved without any violent outbreak or without being compelled to use any undue haste. I will also go to Barnheim and quietly prepare everything there for our marriage. The more quickly all these business matters are settled, the sooner our betrothal can be announced. And that I am ardently longing to be at last permitted to call you mine, you will--I hope, understand?"
"But my relation with Freyer must first be arranged," said the countess, evasively. "We cannot dispose of him like an ordinary business matter. He is a man of heart and mind--we must remember that I could not be happy for an hour, if I knew that he was miserable."
"Yet you have left him alone for weeks and months without any pangs of conscience," said the duke with a shade of sternness.
"It was not I, but the force of circumstances. What happens now I shall do--and must bear the responsibility. Help me to provide that it is not too heavy." Her face wore a lofty, beautiful expression as she spoke, and deeply moved, he raised her hand to his lips.
"Certainly, Madeleine! We will show him every consideration and do everything as forbearingly as possible. But remember that, as I just respected his rights, you must now guard mine, and that every hour in which you retain this relation to him longer than necessary--is treason to both. It cannot suit your taste to play such a part--so do not lose a moment in renouncing it."
"Certainly--you are right."
"Will you be strong--will you have the power to do what is unavoidable--and do it soon?"
"I have always been able to do what I desired--I can do this also."
The duke took her hand and gazed long and earnestly into her eyes. "Madeleine--I do not ask: do you love me? I ask only: do you believe that you will love me?"
The profound modesty of this question touched her heart with indescribable melancholy, and in overflowing gratitude for such great love, which gave all and asked nothing, she bowed her head: "Yes--I do believe it."
The duke's usual readiness of speech deserted him--he had no words to express the happiness of this moment.
What was that? Voices in the ante-room. The noise sounded like a dispute. Then some one knocked violently at the door.
"Come in!" cried the countess, with a strange thrill of fear. The footman entered hurriedly with an excited face. "A gentleman, he calls himself 'Steward Freyer,' is there, is following close at my heels--he would not be refused admittance." He pointed backward to where Freyer already appeared.
The countess seemed turned to stone. "Request the steward to wait a moment!" she said at last, with the imperiousness of the mistress.
The man stepped back, and they saw him close the door almost by force.
"Do not carry matters too far," said the duke; "he seems to be very much excited--such people should not be irritated. Admit him before he forces the door and makes a scandal in the presence of the servant. He comes just at the right time--in this mood it will be easy for you to dismiss him. So end the matter! But be calm, have no scene--shall I remain at hand?"
"No--I am not afraid--it would be ignoble to permit you to listen to him. Trust me, and leave me to my fate."
At this time the voices again grew louder, then the door was violently thrown open. Freyer stood within the room.
"What does this mean--am I assaulted in my own house?" cried the countess, rebelling against this act of violence.
Freyer stood trembling from head to foot; they could hear his teeth chatter: "I merely wished to ask whether it was the Countess Wildenau's desire that I should be insulted by her servant."
"Certainly not!" replied the countess with dignity. "If my servant insulted you, you shall have satisfaction--only I wish you had asked it in a less unseemly way."
The duke quietly took his hat and kissed the countess' hand: "Restez calme!" Then he passed out, saluting Freyer with that aristocratic courtesy which at once irritates and disarms.
Freyer stepped close to the countess, his eyes wandered restlessly, his whole appearance was startling: "Everything in the world has its limit, even patience--mine is exhausted. Tell me, are you my wife--you who stand here in this gay masquerade of laces and pearls--are you the mourning mother of a dead child? Is this my wife who decks herself for another, shuts herself up with another, or at least gives orders not to be disturbed--who has her lackeys keep her wedded husband at bay outside with blows--and deems it unseemly if the last remnant of manly dignity in his soul rebels and he demands satisfaction from his wife. Where is the man, I ask, who would not be frenzied? Where is the woman, I ask, who once loved me? Is it you, who desert, betray, make me contemptible to myself and others? Where--where--in the wide world is there a man so deceived, so trampled under foot, as I am by you? Have you any answer to this, woman?"
The countess turned deadly pale, terror almost stifled her. For the first time, she beheld the Gorgon, popular fury, in his face and while turning to stone the thought came to her: "Would you live with that?" Horror stole over her--she did not know whether her feeling was fear or loathing, she only knew that she must fly from the "turbid waves" ever rolling nearer.
There is no armor more impenetrable than the coldness of a dead feeling. Madeleine von Wildenau armed herself with it. "Tell me, if you please, how you came here, what you desire, and what put you into such excitement."
"What--merciful Heaven, do you still ask? I came here to learn where you were now, to what address I could write, as you made no reply to my announcement of Josepha's death--and I wished to say that I could no longer endure this life! While talking with the servant at the door, old Martin passed and told me that you were here. I wanted to say one last word to you--I went upstairs, found the footman, and asked, entreated him to announce me, or at least to inquire when I could speak to you! You had a visitor and could not be disturbed, was his scornful answer. Then the consciousness of my just rights awoke within me, and I commanded him to announce me. You refused to receive me: 'I must wait'--I--must wait in the ante-room while you, as I saw through the half-opened door, were whispering familiarly with you former suitor! Then I forgot everything and approached the door--the servant tried to prevent me, I flung him aside, and then--he dealt me a blow in the face--that face which you had once likened to the countenance of your God--he, your servant. If I had not had sufficient self-control at the moment to say to myself that the lackey was only your tool--I should have torn him to pieces with my own hands, as I should now tear you, if you were not a woman and sacred to me, even in your sin."
"I sincerely regret what has happened and do not blame you for making me--at least indirectly responsible. I will dismiss the servant, of course--although he has the excuse that you provoked him, and that he did not know you."
"Yes, he certainly cannot know me, when I am never permitted to appear."
"No matter, he should not venture to treat even a stranger so, and therefore must be punished with dismissal."
"Because he should not venture to treat even a stranger so?" Freyer laughed sadly, bitterly: "I thank you, keep your servant--I will renounce this satisfaction."
"I do not know what else you desire."
"You do not know? Oh, Heaven, had this happened earlier, what would your feelings have been! Do you remember your emotion in the Passion Play, when I received only the semblance of a blow upon the cheek? Did it not, as you said, strike your own heart? How should you feel when you saw it in reality? Oh, tears should have streamed down your cheeks with grief for the poor deserted husband, who the only time he crossed your threshold, was insulted by your lackey. If you still retained one spark of love for me, you would feel that a single kiss pressed compassionately on my cheek to efface the brand would be a greater satisfaction than the dismissal of a servant whom you would have sacrificed to any stranger. But that is over, we no longer understand each other!"
The countess struggled a moment between pity and repugnance. But at the thought of pressing her lips to the face her servant's hand had struck, loathing overwhelmed her and she turned away.
"Yes, turn your back upon me--for should you look me in the eyes now, you would be forced to lower your own and blush with shame."
"I beg you to consider that I am not accustomed to such outbreaks, and shall be compelled to close the conversation, if your manner does not assume a form more in accord with the standard of my circle."
"Yes, I understand! You dread the element you have unchained? A peasant was very well, by way of variety, was he not? He loved differently, more ardently, more fiercely than your smooth city gentlemen. The strength and the impetuosity of the untutored man were not too rude when I bore you through the flaming forest, and caught the falling branches which threatened to crush you--then you did not fear me, you did not thrust me back within the limits of your social forms; on the contrary, you rejoiced that the world still contained power and might, and felt yourself a Titaness. Why have you suddenly become so weak-nerved, and cannot endure this might--because it has turned against you?"
"No," said the countess, with a flash of deadly hatred in her fathomless grey eyes: "Not on that account--but because at that time I believed you to be different from what you really are. Then I believed I beheld a God, now I perceive that it was a--" She paused.
"Go on--put no constraint on yourself--now you perceive that it was a peasant."
"You just called yourself by that name."
Freyer stood as though a thunder-bolt had struck him. He seemed to be struggling for breath. "Yes," he said at last in a low tone, "I did call myself by that name, but--you should not have done so--not you!" He grasped the back of a chair to steady himself.
"It is your own fault," said the countess, coldly. "But--will you not sit down? We have only a few words to say to each other. You have in this moment stripped off the mask of Christus and torn the last illusion from my heart. I can no longer see in the person who stood before me so disfigured by fury the image of the Redeemer."
"Was not the Christ also angry, when He saw the moneychangers in the temple? And you, you bartered the most sacred treasures of your heart and mine for paltry-pelf and useless baubles--but I must not be angry! Scarcely a year ago, by the bedside of our sick child, you reproached me with being unable to cease playing the Christ--now--I have not kept up the part! But it does not matter, whatever I might be, I should no longer please you, for the love which rendered the peasant a God is lacking. Yet one thing I must add; if now, after nine years marriage with you, I am still rough and a peasant, the reproach does not fall on me alone. You might have raised, ennobled me, my soul was in your keeping"--tears suddenly filled his eyes: "Woman, what have you done with my soul?"
He sank into a chair, his strength was exhausted. Madeleine von Wildenau made no reply, the reproach struck home. She had never taken the trouble to develop his powers, to expand his intellectual faculties. After his poetical charm was exhausted--she flung him aside like a book whose contents she had read.
"You knew my history. I had told you that I grew up in the meadow with the horses and had gained the little I knew by my own longing. I would have been deeply grateful, if you had released me from the ban of ignorance and quenched the yearning which those who are half educated always feel for the treasures of culture, of which they know a little, just enough to show them what they lack. But whenever I sought to discuss such subjects with you, you impatiently made me feel my shortcomings, and this shamed and intimidated me. So I constantly deteriorated in my lonely life--grew more savage, instead of more cultivated. Do you know what is the hardest punishment which can be inflicted upon criminals? Solitary confinement. It can be imposed for a short time only, because they go mad. Since the child and Josepha died, I have been one of those unfortunates, and you--did not even write me a line, had no word for me! I felt that my mind was gradually becoming darkened! Woman, even if you had power over life and death--you must not murder my soul, you have no right to that--even the law slays the body only, not the soul. And where it imposes the death penalty, it provides that the torture shall be shortened as much as possible. You are more cruel than the law--for you destroy your victim slowly--intellectually and physically."
"Terrible!" murmured the countess.
"Ay, it is terrible! You worldlings come and entice and sigh and kiss the hem of our robes, as long as the delusion of your excited imagination lasts, and your delusion infects us till we at last believe ourselves that we are gods--and then you thrust us headlong into the depths. Here you strew the miasma of the mania for greatness and vanity, yonder money and the seeds of avarice--there again you wished to sow your culture, tear us from our ignorance, and but half complete your work. Then you wonder because we become misshapen, sham, artificial creatures, comedians, speculators, misunderstood geniuses--everything in the world except true children of Ammergau!" He wiped his forehead, as if it were bleeding from the scratches of thorns. "I was a type of my people when, still a simple shepherd boy, I was brought from my herd to act the Christ, when in timid amazement, I suddenly felt stirring within me powers of which I had never dreamed--and I am so once more in my wretchedness, my mental conflicts, my marred life. I shall be so at last in my defeat or victory--as God is gracious to me. And since everything has deserted me--since I saw Josepha, the last thing left me of Ammergau, lying in her coffin--since then it has seemed as if from her grave, and that of all my happiness, my home, my betrayed, abandoned home, once more rose before me, and I felt a strange yearning for the soil to which I have a right, the earth where I belong. Ah, only when the outside world abandons us do we know what home is! Unfortunately I forgot it long enough, while I believed that you loved and needed me. Now that I know that you no longer care for me--the matter is very different! Like a true peasant, I believed that I had only duties, no rights, but in my loneliness I have pondered over many things, and so at last perceived that you, too, had duties and expected more from me than I can honorably endure! That I bore it so long gave you a right to despise me, for the husband who sits angrily in a corner and sees his wife daily betray, deny, and mock him--deserves no better fate. So I have come to ask what you intend and to tell you my resolve."
"What do you desire?"
"That you will go with me to Ammergau, that you will cast aside the wealth, distinction, and splendor which I was not permitted to share with you, and in exchange accept with me my scanty earnings, my simplicity, my honest, plebeian name. For, poor and humble as I am, I am not so contemptible in the eyes of Him, who bestowed upon me the dignity and honor of personating His divine Son, that you need feel ashamed to be my wife in the true Christian meaning."
The countess uttered a sigh of relief. "You anticipate me," she answered, blushing. "I see that you feel the untenableness of our relation. Your ultimatum is a proof that you will have strength to do what is inevitable, and I have delayed so long only from consideration for you. For--you know as well as I that I could never assent to your demand. It will be a sacred duty, so long as you live, to see that you want for nothing, but we must part."
Freyer turned pale. "Part? We must part--for ever?"
"Yes."
"Merciful Heaven--is nothing sacred to you, not even the bond of marriage?"
"You know that I am a Rationalist, and do not believe in dogmas; as such I hold that every marriage can be dissolved whenever the moral conditions under which it was formed prove false. Unfortunately this is the case with us. You did not learn to accommodate yourself to the circumstances, and you never will--the conflict has increased till it is unendurable, we cannot understand each other, so our marriage-bond is spiritually sundered. Why should we maintain its outward semblance? I have lost through you nine years of my life, sacrificed to you the duties imposed by my rank, by renouncing marriage with a man of equal station. Matters have now progressed so far that I shall be ruined if you do not release me! Will you nevertheless cross my path and thrust yourself into my sphere?"
"Oh God--this too!" cried Freyer in the deepest anguish. "When have I thrust myself into your sphere? How, where, have I crossed your path? During the whole period of my marriage I have lived alone on the solitary mountain peak as your servant. Have I boasted of my position as your husband? I waited patiently until every few weeks, and later, every few months, you came to me. I disdained all the gifts of your lavish generosity, it was my pride to work for you in return for the morsel of food I ate. I asked nothing from your wealth, your position, took no heed, like others, of the splendor of your establishment. I wanted nothing from you save the immortal part. I was the poorest, the most insignificant of all your servants! My sole possession was your love, and that I was forced to conceal from every inquisitive eye, like a theft, in order to avoid the scorn of my fellow-citizens and all who could not understand the relation in which I stood to you. But this disgrace also I bore in silence, when a word would have vindicated me--bore it, that I might not drag you down from your brilliant position to mine--and you call that thrusting myself into your sphere? I will grant that I gradually became morose and embittered and by my ill-temper and reproaches deterred you more and more from coming, but I am only human and was forced to bear things beyond human endurance. The intention was good, though the execution might have been faulty. I lost your love--I lost my child--I lost my faithful companion, Josepha, yet I bore all in silence! I saw you revelling in the whirl of fashionable society, saw you admired by others and forget me, but I bore it--because I loved you a thousand times better than myself and did not wish to cause you pain. I often thought of secretly vanishing from your life, like a shadow which did not belong there. But the inviolability of the marriage-bond held me, and I wished to try once more, by the power of the vow you swore at the altar, to lead you back to your duty, for I cannot dissolve the sacrament which unites us, and which you voluntarily accepted with me. If it does not bind you--it still binds me! I am your husband, and shall remain so; if you break the bond you must answer for it to God; as for me, I shall keep it--unto death!"
"That would be a needless sacrifice, which neither church nor state would require. I will not release myself and leave you bound. You argue from a mistaken belief that we were legally married--it is time to explain the error, both on your account and mine. You speak of a vow which I made you before the altar, pray remember that we have never stood before one."
"Never?" muttered Freyer, and the vein on his forehead swelled with anger.
"Was the breakfast-table of the Prankenberg pastor an altar?"
"No, but wherever two human beings stand before a priest in the name of God, there is a viewless altar."
"Those are subjective Catholic opinions which I do not understand--I do not consider myself married, and you need not do so either."
"Not married? Do you know what you are saying?"
"What I must say, to loose your bonds as well as mine."
"Good Heavens, what will it avail if you loose my bonds and at the same time cut an artery so that I bleed to death? No, no, you cannot be so cruel. You cannot be in earnest. Omnipotent Father--you did not say it, take back the words. Lord, forgive her, she does not know what she is doing! Oh, take back those words--I will not believe that my wife, my dear wife, can be so wicked!"
"Moderate your expressions! I guarantee my standpoint; ask whom you choose, you will hear that we are not married!"
Freyer rushed up to her and seized her by the shoulders, shaking her as a tempest shakes a young birch-tree. "Not married--do you know then what you are!" He waited vainly for an answer, he seemed fairly crazed. "Shall I tell you, shall I? Then for nine years you were a----"
"Do not finish!" shrieked the countess, wrenching herself with a desperate effort from the terrible embrace and hurling him from her.
"Yes, I will finish, and you deserve that the whole world should hear and point the finger of scorn at you. I ought to shout to all the winds of Heaven that the Countess Wildenau, who is too proud to be called a poor man's wife, was not too proud to be his----"
"Traitor, ungrateful, dishonorable traitor! Is this your return for my love? Take a knife and thrust it into my heart, it would be more seemly than to threaten me with degradation!" She drew herself up to her full height and raised her hand as if to take an oath: "Accursed be the hour I raised you from the dust to my side. Curses on the false humanity which strove to efface the distinctions of rank, curses on the murmur of 'the eternal rights of man' which removes the fetters from brutishness, that it may set its foot upon the neck of culture! It is like the child which opens the door to the whining wolf to be torn to pieces by the brute. Yes, take yourself out of my life, gloomy shadow which I conjured from those seething depths in which ruin is wrought for us--take yourself away, you have no longer any part in me!--Your right is doubly, trebly forfeited, your spell is broken, your strength recoils from the shield of a noble spirit, under whose protection I stand. Dare to lay hands on me again and--you will insult the betrothed bride of the Duke of Barnheim and must account to him."
A cry--a heavy fall--Freyer lay senseless.
The countess timidly stroked the pallid face--a strange memory stole over her--thus he lay prostrate on the ground when he was nailed to the cross. She could not help looking at him again and again: Oh, that all this should be a lie! Those features--that noble brow, on which the majesty of suffering was throned--the very image of the Saviour! Yet only an image, a mask! She looked away, she would gaze no longer, she would not again fall a victim to the old delusion--she would not let herself be softened by the wonderful, delusive face! But what was she to do? If she called her servants, she would be the talk of the whole city on the morrow. She must aid him, try to restore him to consciousness alone. Yet if she now roused him from the merciful stupor, if the grief and rage which had overwhelmed him should break forth again--would he not murder her? Was it strange that she remained so calm in the presence of this thought? A contemptuous indifference to death had taken possession of her. "If he kills me, he has a right to do so."
She was too lofty to shun punishment which she had deserved, though it were her death. So she awaited her fate.
She brought a little bottle filled with a pungent essence from her sleeping-room, and poured a few drops into his mouth. It was long ere he gave any sign of life--it seemed as though the soul was reluctant to awake, as if it would not return to consciousness. At last he opened his eyes;--they rested as coldly on the little trembling hand which was busied about him as if he had never clasped it, never kissed it, never pressed it to his throbbing heart. The storm had spent its fury--he was calm!
The countess had again been mistaken in him, as usual--his conduct was always unlike her anticipations. He rose as quickly as his strength permitted, passed his hand over his disordered hair, and looked for his hat: "I beg your pardon for having startled you--forget this scene, which I might have spared you and myself, had I known what I do now. I deeply lament that the error which clouded your life has lasted so long!"
"Yes," she said, and the words fell from her lips with the sharp sound of a diamond cutting glass: "Yes, it was not worth it!"
Freyer turned and gave her one last look--she felt it through her lowered lids. She had sunk on the sofa and fixed her eyes on the ground. A death-like chill ran through her limbs--she waited in her position as if paralysed. All was still for a moment, then she heard a light step cross the soft carpet of the room--and when she looked up, the door had closed behind Joseph Freyer.
