Withered Leaves Volume Ii Part 7

"She is ill--she will die--Ktchen lives!" said the little one, as she suddenly rose and extended her arms, as though she would press Blanden to her heart.

"Poor child, you must not stay here! The night-dew will make you ill; I will see about a night's quarters for you with the maidservant. But you must not return here again; I forbid it--the dogs here are let loose upon uninvited, nocturnal visitors."

Blanden knocked at the bedroom door of the Forester's servant, and pretended Ktchen was a messenger who had come at night, and must have some place to rest in.

"The idiot child loves me," he said to himself, "her frog's eyes receive a gleam of intellect when she looks at me! And then she crouches behind the sloe hedge, treated in as step-motherly a manner as that unhappy fruit which would gladly be a plum, but which tarries for ever in sour immaturity. Nothing is more touching than these half-human beings, with their distorted souls! An evidence of the poverty of Creation's plan! It may be vast and grand upon the whole, but it can value the human mind but little which it can thus embitter! Certainly it often seems as if the comprehension of the world and of life creeps with astounding suddenness into the twilight of such minds."

On the following day, a rainy one, which drew a melancholy grey net over the whole sky, Blanden sat lost in thought beneath the eaves of the forest house; he was stroking the bull-dog which had placed itself at his feet, listening contentedly to the monotonous plas.h.i.+ng from the water pipes, while it only reminded Blanden of the everlasting sameness of human life, and a sensation of as infinite weariness overcame him, at the regular fall of the drops, as he should have felt at the tick-tack of an old clock on a wall. All measurement of time oppressed him; life at such moments only appeared to him to be a nervous struggle to avoid hearing the beats marking its flight, the pulse-like throb of the seconds, the chiming of the hours, and like a clock's hands pa.s.sing away over the thin and thick lines, over that empty scheme of time, whose laws we are to carry out, well or ill, often when our heart's blood is being shed.

He thought of Paulina, of Eva--and when he wished to forget the inevitable, other cares of life arose to his mind; he had been without news from Kulmitten for some time, and the election to the Provincial Diet must have taken place within the last few days; perhaps his partic.i.p.ation in public life could console him for the miscarriage of the hopes of his heart.

He was awoke out of these dreams by the noise of an approaching carriage; in the woodland solitude of the forest house, the arrival of visitors was quite an event.

Two men sat in the conveyance; the one in a dripping mackintosh was his friend von Wegen; in the other, who on descending lifted a ponderous chest with care out of the carriage and deposited it immediately in safety beneath the verandah, he recognised the strange amber merchant.

Wegen shook himself like a dog coming out of the water.

"Desperate weather! Heaven opens its sluices--a perfect deluge; the roads abominable--one longs to make the Landrath drive upon them from morning to night. If they are thus already in summer, one ought to make one's will in winter before trusting oneself to these causeways of logs."

"You are heartily welcome," cried Blanden to his friend, and shaking him by the hand. "What brings you hither in this tropical downpour of rain?"

"A very ungratifying piece of news, which I must explain; besides, I bring a dealer with me, who went to find you at Kulmitten; he brings costly goods, which he says were ordered by you, and which he would be loth to place in other hands; I therefore considered it best to bring him with me."

The amber merchant stepped forward and announced that he had punctually executed Herr von Blanden's orders.

The latter nodded and signed to him to open the box.

The toilet casket of amber, the billing little doves, the bracelets and necklaces, everything gleamed in perfect workmans.h.i.+p, so that Blanden rejoiced at sight of the beautifully formed works of art, and expressed ready admiration of the delicate, exquisite ornaments.

Then only did the melancholy feeling a.s.sert itself completely and fully that his amber-nymph, whom he would have decked with all the treasures of the deep, was lost to him. He turned aside in order to conceal a tear in his eye.

Wegen felt for his friend, but sought as quickly as possible to overcome the most painful sadness.

"You might hand over that rubbish to me," said he. "I shall be engaged some day--I quite lost my heart at that dance beneath the pear-tree, and the lucky finder thereof knows my address. Even if it cost all my rye-harvest--what will one not do, when any especial happiness in life befalls one?"

"I shall not part with these ornaments," replied Blanden. "Yes; who knows I may yet deck my lost bride with them, as I could not adorn her whom I had won. She shall preserve these jewels for a lasting recollection of a spring-time in her life which was all too soon destroyed by tempests. Should she cease to be my friend, because she may not be my wife? It is folly that we must fly from one another like criminals, as though lightning had struck the earth between us, because no inward change--because only external fate separated our hearts."

Wegen nodded approvingly; the two guest chambers in the forest house were a.s.signed to him and to the amber merchant, who, according to Blanden's desire, had brought his account with him.

Wegen returned to his friend, after having a.s.sumed dry clothes; he began to feel comfortable once more over a gla.s.s of negus and a cigar.

Nevertheless, he hesitated with the communication which he had to make, and moved about uneasily upon the sofa while puffing vast clouds of smoke into the air.

"Well, and the election?" began Blanden.

"What a pity about that splendid election-dinner," replied Wegen.

"I am not returned?" asked Blanden, excitedly.

"Alas, no!" replied his friend, while shaking his hand. "Now it is out!

Now let us talk it over quietly."

"Tell me about it," said Blanden. The words forced themselves out with difficulty. At that moment he had become poorer by one great hope.

"It is always the old story, which ever remains new," said Wegen.

"Since the dinner all was running most smoothly; even the sheep-breeder was well-disposed, and only Frau Baronin von Fuchs moved Heaven and earth to circ.u.mvent the election of a man with such a dubious past. You know woman's indefatigability when she wishes to carry a point; she offered me 'check' on every side with admirable persistency. No sooner had my brown pair left the gates, before her dappled greys appeared.

She was like the evil fairy in the tale. She did not turn to the men but to the women, and she holds a position amongst them, because she possesses an imposing mind, in the presence of which one like ourselves does not feel comfortable, that outrageous decision of thought and action which allows no contradiction to arise. To marry such a woman requires courage; I am sorry for poor Baron von Fuchs. He is a well-bred, pleasant gentleman, but he is not equal to his wife's eloquence. If women possess intellect, which sometimes happens, it is sure to be of an amazing quality, and can inspire one of us with alarm."

"Well, Ccilie von Dornau possesses intellect also. Take care of yourself!" said Blanden, playfully, hoping thus to overcome his mournful mood.

"That is quite different! Hers is intellect of a most refined kind; those are the golden threads of _esprit_ with which they entangle us; but with Frau von Fuchs they are s.h.i.+p ropes of logic with which she flogs us."

"But, to the matter, friend!"

"The victory was in no wise certain for her; because, even if she did gain the women, the men steadily held their ground. Then came two pieces of intelligence which made their triumph quite complete. The rumour of your engagement in Neukuhren, of the commotion which Frau von Salden's arrival called forth suddenly arose on the sh.o.r.es of our Masuren lakes, and was circulated most inexplicably, naturally improved in the most appalling manner! How the people in that killing monotony thirst after any tale of scandal, and live upon it for long, like the camel of the desert upon the water that it collects in the store-closets of its interior! You should have seen the Frau Baronin's dapple-greys then, they absolutely flew along the forest roads and pawed the flags of every gentleman's courtyard with their hoofs!

Wherever I went--and this time I followed her tracks--all was in flames, and I arrived too late with my fire buckets. I could reduce the exaggerations of the rumour to their true value, but the fact remained, and I could not refute it. The evil of it was, that this most recent event brought the past into broad daylight, and it was even difficult for those who were well-disposed to pa.s.s on to the business of the day, taking no more notice of it than they would of a dark legend whose moth-like flight they do not wish to rouse again."

"Withered leaves!" cried Blanden, "beneath their foliage they choke up every flower of spring that ventures forth into light; the arch enemy of our future is our past. Are we not like galley-slaves, who are seared with an ineffaceable brand? The spectral clatter of the chains accompanies us through life."

"But most unfortunately it must just happen that now at this especial moment the verdict of the second court upon the leading ministers of that community should be given after a delay of many years. It was far, far milder than the verdict of the first court, but it brought the affair forward again. Public opinion was busied with it; even in our circle the discussion was renewed of that story, long since forgotten, which was suddenly served up again as freshly as champagne in ice. And, in the midst of this disturbance of the ghosts, fell our election day!

That you were not present displeased many, although, under the circ.u.mstances, they considered it only natural. You had many votes, even Baron Fuchs voted for you; it was a daring deed, and evil tongues maintained that a matrimonial divorce hovered in the air; the Landrath, too, with his nearest dependants, stood upon your side. But you could not attain a majority; that voting against you was a sort of trial by ordeal, that declared the princ.i.p.al landowner in the neighbourhood to be excommunicated."

"And thus I look upon it," cried Blanden. "All my hopes are destroyed!

A domestic hearth, a busy, active life, political labour for the welfare of the Province for the honour of my name--all lies in ruin and ashes. Nothing else remains to me, save only to plough my acres, to bury myself in my forest loneliness, and even, like an outlaw, to s.h.i.+rk my neighbour's glance. Can I endure it? Or shall I venture forth again into a world of adventures from which an internal lack of contentment drove me back? Truly the old adage applies to me, that we are the forgers of our own destinies; but the forms into which they have once been wrought upon the anvil, are maintained for evermore, and when we would re-mould them the hammer becomes paralysed in our hands."

Wegen sought to console his friend in a good-natured manner; he should stand firmly by Blanden in good and evil times--they, and those who held similar views, were still a considerable party; but Blanden hardly listened to those words of consolation; he relapsed into deep melancholy, so that Wegen deemed it best to leave him to his own thoughts.

Blanden had all the sensation of having lost a decisive game upon the chess-board of life; the ashen-grey sky without, the unceasing drip of the rain, were in unison with the internal fatigue that had paralysed all his mental motives of incitement. Nothing now seemed worth wis.h.i.+ng, worth struggling for; did not everything turn against him; he comprehended the Nirvana of the Buddhists.

The amber merchant departed on the following morning; then Blanden was particularly struck with the man's rugged, furrowed features; his whole demeanour told of a ruined, wasted life. When he had received the heavy price for his goods, and had the door-latch in his hand, he turned suddenly round once more, and while closely contracting his bushy eyebrows, and darting evil-boding flashes from his glowing eyes, he asked--

"You can probably tell me, Herr von Blanden, where the Signora now lives whom you once visited on Lago Maggiore?"

"Why do you ask this question?"

"I have a reason for interesting myself in that lady."

"She does not owe you anything? Certainly in those days you did not deal in amber?"

"My interest in her is of another kind, and in addition my secret."

"But how do you know--"

"I stood on the sh.o.r.e of the Lago as you and she stepped out of the gondola; I stood at the gate of the garden whence you issued at an early morning hour."

"Ah! now I recollect--you followed me even, so that I might have taken you for a hired bravo."

"You would have been mistaken. I am an honest man."