Felix Lanzberg's Expiation Part 4

IV.

Felix rode home.

It was a moonlight night, but none of those which remind one of theatre scenery and silver-flecked green paint, such, as painted in oil, endanger all German art societies; the objects did not float in that universal green-black indistinctness; on the contrary, they stood out in sharp relief.

The tall poplars and the short bushy gra.s.s at the edge of the road, the yellow fields of grain with their dark piles of sheaves, the pale flowers in the ditches, the red and black roofs of a distant village sleeping between green lindens, a round church cupola and a cemetery with its low, white wall, and the dark rows of crosses and monuments--all could be seen plainly, only with somewhat faded colors, and over all was a misty veil like thin smoke, and a white light shone on the poplar leaves, rustling and turning in the night wind. The reapers were still working. Through the mild air sounded their song, hollow and monotonous, with the quiet sadness which characterizes Slavonian folk-songs. Their scythes sparkle in the moonlight; occasionally the pleasant face of a young woman, nodding to a youth, rises before Felix's eyes from the crowd of workers, irradiated by the mystic half light.

Felix watched them as he slowly rode on. He would gladly have been one of them, and would have taken upon himself all their burdens in exchange for the one he bore. He could have wished that the night had been less beautiful, that a dead, winter stillness had prevailed around him instead of this strange charm of the mild July moonlight.

The night wind, warm and gentle, caressed his face and his hands, and awakened the strangest longing in his heart. His head grew heated; the allurements with which his imagination tormented his despondent heart grew more and more intense.

The monotonous pace of his horse, the melancholy reaper's song lulled him not to sleep, but to that half slumber which produces dreams. He did not wholly lose the consciousness of motion; the open road, the trees, the wheat-fields, with everything, was mingled a light form; two large eyes sparkled half in sadness, half defiantly, and two full red lips smiled at him. An indescribable breath of youth and fresh life met him.

The yellow fields and the reapers have sunken into the earth--folk-song and the swing of the scythes have long sounded only like a vague murmur of waters to his distracted ear. His horse stumbles, a twig strikes him in the face, he starts.

The white dream-form has vanished, all is dark around him, a solemn, far-distant murmur breaks the stillness, and gigantic trees meet over the head of the solitary rider.

The horse trembles under him, then rears suddenly, and as he checks it he sees in the distance something low and black hurrying away in great leaps, sees there--there, close before him, a light figure which slowly rises from the ground.

He breathes heavily--for Heaven's sake is he still dreaming? That is surely she--Linda!

"Ah! Baron Lanzberg, you here? Thank G.o.d," cries she.

"You seem to have met with an unpleasant adventure," says Felix confusedly, coughs and springs from his horse without thinking what he is doing.

"A very unpleasant one," says she in her high, fresh, girlish voice.

"That is what comes of insisting upon riding a donkey. We set out on foot, my brother and I, to the burned mill, to have the great enjoyment of seeing charred beams and skeletons of hens, and devouring black bread and sour milk, we---- Have you a weakness for sour milk, Baron?"

looking up at him with a childish glance and smile.

"No, not exactly."

"I was not at all satisfied with my expedition," she continued, with the self-satisfied fluency of all young girls who are accustomed to have their chatter listened to for the sake of their pretty faces. "Not at all. Then I discovered two donkeys, one of them had a saddle like an arm-chair. Raimund must hire them. I left him no peace! His donkey goes splendidly, but mine! I cannot move him from the spot. I call to my brother, but he does not hear, he is singing college songs, thunders like a whole chorus and has ears for his own voice only. I do not love Raimund's singing, but as it gradually sounded further and further away, and finally ceased entirely, I had quite a curious sensation.

Then my donkey threw back his ears, opened his mouth, and--here I lay.

I am so glad that I met you."

The moonlight breaks through the green net-work of the woods, s.h.i.+nes between the rushes, flowers and brambles of the ditch along the road, lights up Linda's face, the beautiful white face with the large dark eyes. Her hair is tumbled, she has lost her hat, her gown is torn, the affectation which usually conceals her inborn grace completely vanished.

"I do not know the way," says she, "and what will mamma think when Raimund comes home without me?"

After he has overcome his first fright, Felix tells himself that his dread of her charm must not prevent him from helping her. "If you will trust yourself to my guidance and will take this path across the fields, you can reach Marienbad in a half hour," he remarks, and tries to fasten his horse by the bridle to the low branch of an oak.

"Ah, it will inconvenience you so; if you will only point out the way----"

"You surely do not imagine that I could let you go alone, in the pitch-dark night? No." He smiles at her encouragingly. "What a child you still are, Miss Linda. Come."

He goes ahead, carefully pus.h.i.+ng aside all branches for her. The air becomes more and more sultry, an enervating damp odor rises from the ground, in the tree-tops rustle wonderful melodies.

An intoxicating shudder runs over him at the thought of being alone with her in the great, silent, lonely woods. Then he becomes alarmed, quickens his steps, in order to run away from his thoughts and shorten the way.

Then a voice behind him calls laughingly and complainingly: "How you hurry--do not make fun of me, I am tired--one moment, only one moment!"

Linda stands there out of breath, heated, with half-closed eyes and half-opened mouth, her hair loosened by the rough caresses of the thicket, hanging over her shoulders.

How beautiful she is. Shall he offer her his arm? No, no, no!

He is one of those warm and weak natures in whom pa.s.sion in one moment drowns everything, annihilates, crushes everything, intellect, honor and duty.

He has more conscience than others, but not that prudent, warning conscience, which withholds one from a wrong deed, but only that malicious, accusing one which points the finger, grins and hurls sly insults in the face after the deed is done.

"If you wish to spare your mother a fright, we must hurry," says Felix, with the last remnant of prudence which is left in him.

They go on. Before their feet opens an abyss, barely ten feet broad; in its depths filters a small thread of water which the moonlight colors a bluish silver. At the edge of the abyss, curiously looking down into it, bending deeply down to it, grows a bush of wild roses, covered thickly with white blossoms, trembling slightly, like a living being; with outstretched wings it vibrates over the depths, as if it hesitated between the longing to fly up to the sacred mystery of heaven, and the desire to plunge down into the alluring enigma of the abyss.

A small plank leads over it, slippery and tottering. Felix strides across it quickly and then looks around for Linda.

There, in the middle of the board, trembling, her teeth set in her lip, stands Linda, and cannot advance. "I am giddy!" she gasps.

There are few more attractive things in the world than a pretty, frightened woman.

Felix rushes up to her, takes her in his arms and carries her over. All is forgotten, he holds her closely to him, his lips lose themselves in her loosened hair, burn on her forehead, seek her mouth, but then he suddenly pauses. The enormity of his deed occurs to him.

"For Heaven's sake pardon me!" cries he. Whereupon she replies with a nave smile and tender glance:

"Pardon? Ah, I knew that you loved me."

"That indeed a blind man could have seen," murmurs he bitterly. "But, Linda, could you resolve to be my wife?"

"Could I resolve?" she murmurs with tender roguishness. "And why not?"

"In spite of my past?"

Past! The word has a romantic charm for her. It wakes in her an idea of baccaret and mabille, of a brilliantly squandered fortune, of ballet-dancers and duels. A "past" in her mind belongs to every true n.o.bleman of a certain age.

"If your heart is now wholly mine, what does your past matter to me?"

says she softly.

Then he kisses her hand. "Linda you are an angel," whispers he, and silent and happy, they finish their walk.

Ten minutes later, before the ambitious singer, Raimund, reaches home, Linda was in the house.

She stood on the balcony of the "Emperor of China," between dead-looking oleander trees which exhale a tiresome odor of bitter almonds: she stands there, her arms resting on the bal.u.s.trade when Raimund and his donkey emerge from the shadows of the street. His red cap pushed back, his face s.h.i.+ning as if freshly shaven, with glance directed upward in terror he comes along, the picture of bankrupt responsibility on a donkey.

A gay laugh greets him.