Withered Leaves Volume Iii Part 16

"You are mistaken, my child. I do not allow the thread by which I hold you to be so easily withdrawn from my hands. I have my spies, and when I heard from Antoinette, my little scout, whither Beate intended to go, I knew enough. At first I accompanied her in the greatest possible _incognito_, then I gained a considerable start in order to obtain the necessary information. I was at the See at Milan. I knew that an enquiry into some forgery was pending against the former priest of San Giulio. I have staunch friends, even at the holy courts of law. A priest, with whom I worked formerly in Monaco, at my desire, enquired if amongst the deeds of the suit a copy of the registry of San Giulio did not exist; a legal official copy certified by the chaplain. I had reason to expect this because the suit concerned a falsification of the register. My supposition was well-founded--now I was safe, now I could play with that dangerous culprit who is your greatest friend, as a cat does with a mouse. All respect to you, we are quits. I awaited her arrival in Orta, dogged all her steps, and my knowledge of the church permitted me to hide myself in the little crypt. The fire of joy at midnight I vouchsafed to her with malicious pleasure, but our marriage, my child, is signed and sealed in the legal copy in the register number two, that lies at Milan, valid before G.o.d and man. It is a pity that the travelling expenses, and heroic courage were spent in vain, that the triumph was useless--I have the proofs!"

Giulia's courage fell with each of Baluzzi's words. She felt herself to be completely in his power, thus everything that she had done to free herself from him, even Beate's criminal proceeding, was all in vain.

She looked at him with the glance of a mortally wounded deer.

"You do not believe my story? Here in my pocket-book is the most exact information as to where the doc.u.ment can be found which proves my perfect right to you. Now will you still cry for help?"

Silently Giulia covered her face with her hands.

"You are going to be sensible, my child; I thought so! That is why I come to you at night, it is very considerate of me, and on a toilsome road too. A wonderful child led me here--my rare little sea-devil, whom I have taken into my service. It is the road upon which you must now follow me!"

"What are you thinking of? Impossible!" said Giulia, springing up.

"The road is not very pleasant! Close beside the sh.o.r.e of the lake there is a cave--my blood-hound found it; it is overgrown with thistles and bushes, the little one worked with an axe and sickle all last night to clear the pa.s.sage. One must stoop to pa.s.s through. It leads to the old tower, which, with its ivy-clad walls, casts its shadow below upon the moonlit shrubs in the park. It was the watch tower, the battle and sally-tower of the knights, and the hidden road ensures them flight in case of defeat. From the tower a secret walled pa.s.sage leads into the Castle. It is covered with rubbish and ruins, and there are awkward steps to go up and down. But then a little masked winding-staircase in the wall leads up to this mirror door. My wonderfully clever seal discovered all this. It took us some time last night before we could find out the mechanism of this door. We knew that these rooms were destined for you. We tried a long time, but I am clever at such secrets, and beneath its external disguise found the spot where one must press so as to make the wooden panel move and slide back. The little one waits below with a dark lantern--the boat is tied up close to the egress of the hollow way. It will cost a few bruises and torn clothes, then we shall sail over the lake and away over the Russian frontier."

"You are out of your senses, Baluzzi!"

"Shall I remind you of our past, of our agreement? We were married secretly. You were a singer whose fame was waxing. I, an inferior chorus singer, who could do no better. I saw myself, that your prospects would be damaged if the world knew of our marriage. Soon I resigned the miserable position of an incapable helper's helper in the troupe of singers at the theatre, and I must confess it, gave myself up to a somewhat dissipated life. I drank and gambled. I became a croupier in Monaco, your fame was augmenting. Our paths led farther and farther asunder. All the same, I loved you fervently, but I perceived that your love diminished daily. You were ashamed of me. You began to avoid me, to fly from me. I required money, much money for my habits of life.

They are as respectable and distinguished as those of a well-born prince who squanders his heritage. How often was I not in embarra.s.sments enough to make one's hair stand on end, badly in debt.

It was at that time we made an agreement that I should avoid you as long as you were at the theatre, but, that in return, the greater portion of your abundant gains should always be paid over to me. So long as you were at the theatre--that was the condition. Recollect it!

No evasions! I am a man of my word, and I shall see that faith is kept with me also. _Cospetto!_ In my hand I hold the power to compel you."

"I, too, kept my word," said Giulia, "and more than this, I have often starved that you might live luxuriously."

"For two years," said Baluzzi, "when you were here in Prussia during the summer I was left without news of you."

"Owing to your irregular life the letter to you must have been lost--an unfortunate chance which I do not lament over much."

"Then for two years I was in Russia, lost to you. I had business that made me acquainted with sables and ermines. I exonerate you from blame for that time, nevertheless you thus became my debtor. However, if you leave the stage, you cannot redeem yourself now, you no longer have your own independent earnings and possessions. Therefore, from henceforth, you belong to me! Thank the Madonna that I have come to hold you back from a crime--follow me!"

"Never!" said Giulia, folding her hands.

"Do you then think that my pa.s.sion for you is extinguished? Even when far away it burned in my bosom with silent fervour, and this glow expands into bright flames since I have seen you once more, because you are the most beautiful woman whom I have met with upon my manifold journies in life, and I have seen women of every nation and of every cla.s.s. It is a proud sensation that of possessing you, not secretly, no, before all the world to display you, and it is a delight to fold you in my arms."

Giulia hid her face as she drew back.

"Yet do not believe that it is the same old love, as beneath Italy's orange and myrtle trees when you were my Madonna, when my heart beat for you, when I looked up to you as to a queen of heaven floating amid a bright halo. And even then, when you parted from me as from one unworthy who might not follow in the ascending paths of your life, even in the desolate existence that I led, still I always looked up as one looks up at a heavenly orb through a crevice in a grotto. Then came those days of Lago Maggiore, I watched and saw how you were faithless to me, you bought yourself free from my anger, because then I was in a desperate position, but since that time my feelings have been completely metamorphosed. My Madonna was one no longer, and though she may not repent, I have vowed to myself to make her do so."

"Oh, to be fettered to crime, and in addition by sacred bonds--is there a more unhappy fate? Is despair not justified, even when it clutches convulsively at transient felicity? Well, I may belong to you, but you do not belong to me, never so long as my spirit can move its wings in liberty, can appreciate the beautiful, believe in what is n.o.ble."

Giulia had risen proudly, she had recovered herself, overcame her fear and terror, courage of death shone on her brow.

"Any one who saw you now--truly a vestal, whose fire, alas, had often gone out. It looks like gold and is bra.s.s, it gleams like silver and is tin. And this, on the day on which a crime shall be consecrated. The c.o.c.ks have already crowed, midnight is past, your second wedding day will soon dawn, do not forget your first myrtles; its stars still s.h.i.+ne, the second can only consist of nightshade and fox-glove, it breathes the poison of a lie. _Corpo di bacco_--such a saint--it makes one laugh!"

"I know, I feel that I am committing an impious act, I am defying law, I am deceiving the best of men, but I only deceive him out of endless love, and so utterly unworthy is that which is protected by law, that I dare all because I believe in the pardon of Heaven."

"You need not have this sin pardoned, it will not be committed."

"Hear me Baluzzi!"

"Hear me first! I have not yet told you all. Since those days by the lake, love died in my heart, pa.s.sion remained, but it was a wild pa.s.sion that wavered between love and hatred; expiation I had hoped for from you, but you cast flaming anger into my heart. You shall be mine, your kisses shall give me rapture, my pulses shall throb louder, when I hold you in my arms, but only like the pirate's pulses, who rejoices over the captured beauty. Never shall I forget that you injured and betrayed me beyond expression, that you are my slave, over whom I exercise my proud right of master, whether I torture and chastise, or whether I love her. What are your laurel wreaths to me? Dried up straw which I burn, because no more gold glitters on its leaves, but as in mockery of your renown, the queen of the stage shall preside at my gaming-tables beside other painted harridans, and shall decoy victims into my net--the trade will flouris.h.!.+ The remains of a great name will suffice for it, that little candle end can still shed some light. You shall obey me, tremble before me! That is the expiation, the penance for an overbearing and faithless wife!"

"And to such degradation shall I follow you, give myself up to such disappointment? Death rather!"

"There is a still better means, Signora! Seize your dagger, kill me, let me be killed as a robber and housebreaker, then you will be free, and with a light heart can greet the first ray of the morning sun; but I am on my guard, my glances do not leave you, do not leave that door behind which Beate sleeps. I know that she has a pocket pistol under her pillow, and a crime more or less does not matter to her, but I am prepared to meet her also."

And Baluzzi pulled out a pistol.

"Beate sleeps in the second room," said Giulia, "she does not hear us!

We will not excite ourselves--one calm word! An unhappy fate has brought us together, it should never have happened. Our paths led far asunder, but the indissoluble bond remains; it is cruel to tie up my soul with it, it is indissoluble there, indissoluble also for me here, because I dare not venture forth with this life-long lie, without forfeiting my future happiness. But you would not be separated, although to do so lay in your power. I beg, I implore you, do not let your old right interfere in my life. I was always your friend, I will remain so, but upon my knees I implore you, grant me the bliss of this true love. I ask nothing but silence, do not make him miserable who hazarded his life for me. Is it then so great a sacrifice not to utter words which would plunge two people into calamity? Is it impossible to resign a dreamed-of possession, a right that is dead?"

"A dreamed-of possession?" shouted the Italian, "the real right will still find its protection in the world, and when I see you thus before me, in all the magic of your charms, I long to press you to my heart and to rejoice in my beautiful possession; my blood surges up within me, like the fire-spring of Salfatora. I am no Don Juan who breaks at night into the sanctuary of the house, I am no adulterer, no seducer; I am the husband, and that word is like a king's crown and sceptre, before which all the nation bows. The law would drive you into my arms with rods, if you refuse, because to me is given power over you."

"Away, do not touch me!"

"And if I do? I am safe from your cries for help!"

"That you are not," cried Giulia in supreme excitement, "not even if I must let my shame resound through the house with the alarm bell! Rather than rest in your arms, rather than follow you and obey that vile control which your right and will exercise, rather would I fall crushed upon my knees before every one, confess the incredible, pray for mercy, and then seek and find death. You know me! I dare do much, I dare do what is unheard of! With bold hand I will rob myself of my own happiness. He who dares that is prepared for all! Beside the summit there is an abyss and no other path--least of all no other path in common with you!"

Giulia's wild determination made an impression upon Baluzzi; he knew those convulsively closed lips, those knitted eyebrows, those rigid glances; he knew that at such moments she was capable of extremities.

What, then, was left to him? The sensation of gratified revenge, a mere shadow of recollection--but not the bliss of the rack, and what his pa.s.sion, his avarice, might perhaps still expect of the future, would then be buried for evermore.

He stopped, and hesitated.

Then, as Giulia rose from her knees in haughty anger, the light of the lamp swept across her head-dress, so that the diamonds flashed and quivered, and a dream-like firework of precious stones seemed to scintillate upon her head.

The Italian was suddenly dazzled and enraptured with the ornament which he had, indeed, perceived immediately upon his entrance, but which he had not estimated at its full value.

His eyes wandered from the coronet to the strings of pearls, down to the bracelets; they pa.s.sed on to the open jewel casket on the table whence a brilliancy betokening great promise shone in the dim light.

Giulia followed his gaze, his expression had entirely changed: the glow of pa.s.sion, the madness of revenge had given place to mute greed, to avarice, that sought gratification, not from the animate, but the inanimate objects. As if spell-bound his glance hung upon the brilliants. A considerable pause ensued, Giulia imbibed new courage.

"You are not poor," said Baluzzi, suddenly, "is that your own?"

"My wedding present," replied Giulia.

"All this--and those precious stones, too? Show me the coronet!"

Giulia removed it. Baluzzi seized a candle which stood upon the table beside him and illuminated the glittering stones. He drank in their radiance as he slowly examined them. Then, as if making some calculation, moved his lips; every one of these stones became changed into a sparkling number, and dazzling as if in a Bengal light, a n.o.ble sum flashed before him.

"You see," said Giulia, who had grasped the sudden change equally quickly, "Blanden is liberal, and although I may earn nothing more myself, his gifts will render it possible for me, even, if not to the same extent as formerly, still to remember you."

"Do you think so?" said Baluzzi, as he looked at her with widely opened eyes.

"And although I have retired from the stage, I will save for you just the same, only do not demand impossibilities, take the circ.u.mstances into consideration; less than formerly can I only call my own, dispose of less, but, otherwise, things shall be as they were."

"Less? You are very modest! When did you ever have such beautiful ornaments before?"

"They are the Blandens' family jewels, they do not belong to me! They are only lent to me."