Withered Leaves Volume Iii Part 24

"Do not ask how."

"Who brings you here?"

"Charity and longing for death, but now there is not a moment to lose."

She beckoned to two peasants, who stood close by with a little cart, and lifted Blanden into it, beside a wounded man who already lay there.

Giulia seated herself upon the hard straw sack. They went along back streets to the inn of a neighbouring village, where several surgeons were in full employment.

It was a long time before Blanden recovered from his wounds, which left him slightly lame for life. Giulia was once more his faithful nurse, she also followed him to the Danish captivity, into which he, with the other wounded men, had fallen.

The feeling of belonging wholly to one another became quickened in both. From every side Blanden heard with what heroic valour Giulia had hastened into the battle field, how amidst shot and sh.e.l.ls she had brought consolation, succour and relief to the wounded, an angel of mercy, whose memory would live for all ages in the hearts of the Schleswig-Holstein youth. For long both avoided speaking of their separation, its causes, of their later experiences. There would have been the risk of great agitation for Blanden, for both the danger of parting again, and yet both felt how painful an effect this would have upon their lives.

At last Blanden had sufficiently recovered to be allowed to go out into the fresh air, and he, with others, had been already exchanged for Danish prisoners.

They sat under a lofty avenue of beeches by the sea, lying so quietly and blue before them. Islands rose out of the waves and s.h.i.+ps pa.s.sed on the horizon.

"Where have you been, Giulia, since you left me?"

"Upon a little island near that of Sylt, in a lonely fisherman's cottage, there I deemed myself most effectually concealed. So quickly could the law not raise its accusation, not follow my track and find me yonder in my solitude, where, with Beate, I helped to mend fis.h.i.+ng nets, and obtained a little money by teaching children. For hours I sat upon the 'dunes,' I saw the tide rush in which for centuries has been was.h.i.+ng away these islands, ready to swallow them up, and which already has buried so much work of men's hands within its depths. Like a sea mew's flight over the foaming, das.h.i.+ng billows, my thoughts swept over the heights and abysses of my life, and my bruised heart did bitter penance, and as the roaring hurricane came and stirred the waves and tore them upwards until towering on high they dashed upon the sh.o.r.e, so was I now overwhelmed with the fire and wild pa.s.sion which had animated me, and with the recollection of all the tempests of my life.

"I could have retired to a convent in my own country, but my soul longed for the free breath of heaven, and an irrevocable bond would have crushed it to the ground.

"Beate left me, she had often been at Sylt during the season, and there had made the acquaintance of a well-to-do Hamburg merchant, whom her sparkling eyes and lively manner had fascinated. We parted amid tears, she was my most faithful friend, who for me had jeopardised her honour.

Then the feeling of being utterly forsaken came upon me, the never ceasing return of ebb and flow, the only event of which the 'dunes'

could tell, made my spirit weary and listless, all the fettered springs of life stirred within me. I could not have lived amid the ocean solitude another year, my talent for a Robinsonade was exhausted. Then the news of war, which was at that time only imminent, but of whose outbreak messengers brought premature intelligence, penetrated to our fishermen's cottages; I resolved to make atonement for my past as a nurse in the midst of the conflict, and hoped, perhaps, to meet death from a merciful bullet. When I came here I found nothing prepared, I wished to go upon the battle-field as a volunteer Samaritan, and beneath its terrible and yet elevating influences, I felt the pulses of my life beat higher once more--I forgot myself. I relieved pain, I earned thanks--the sin of my life seemed to be melting away as if tears and words of grat.i.tude washed it out. Thus I found you. Fate led those together again, whom it had parted, but still the gulf of guilt lies between them. You have recovered, my task is completed, let me go hence once more."

"No Giulia," cried Blanden with a burst of emotion, "now we part no more."

Giulia looked enquiringly at him; she could not believe his words.

"I part from my preserver no more. I am superst.i.tious, or believing enough to follow the signal of fate which re-united us upon the field of honour. You have nothing more to fear from justice. Baluzzi's messenger, wild Robert, did not reach his goal, he fell, lost in the swamp, the edges of which were thoroughly searched by the guards; doubtlessly he ventured too far in order to escape them. Baluzzi's accusation lies deep down in the mora.s.s where it ought to lie; he himself is dead, never did any messenger of justice trouble me. Thus there is but one human being in the world who can bring an accusation against you, and that one dare not, because you only sinned out of love for me, out of blind, but yet true ardent love, and with this kiss I absolve you."

He kissed Giulia's brow; sobbing, she sank into his arms.

"Fate has foiled my most glorious plans of life, we cannot return to the desolate Castle. Your sudden flight injured my name again, the people there will not a.s.sociate with us, but the world is large!

Although my life has been a failure, although I must stay far from my home, there yet remains to me the thinker's dream and the ecstasy of love."

"Not for my sake shall you fly from all," said Giulia imploringly.

"I, too, am dead to this portion of the world. I can do nothing more for my fatherland. This bullet has rendered me unfit for war, a chain of unfortunate circ.u.mstances for peace. I cannot stand before any electors, a political career is closed to me. Thus I fly for my sake also, and you, my fondly loved wife, I take with me as comforter. The registry at San Giulio still tells of your guilt, we must away, far away from here. I know a land, the cradle of the G.o.ds, perhaps the cradle of mankind, a wonder land. There beneath the giant mountain lies the Walar Lake, and the Behat winds through a paradise of rustling fruit trees and prolific plains upon which gaze down glaciers high as heaven. Beautiful beings wander there in the most blessed valley of the world, and there free from the constraint of law and the trammels of society, which here rule the world, we will build ourselves huts and I will introduce you to the profound wisdom of the land of the lotus-flowers. Follow me to Cashmere."

Giulia pressed him to her heart, "I have no will but yours."

Blanden wrote to Wegen and begged him to sell Kulmitten, Rositten, and Nehren. His friend, Olga's happy husband, doubly happy by her unexpected mastery of the art of cooking, executed Blanden's commission, and by means of a large inheritance, was enabled to buy Kulmitten, the princ.i.p.al estate, for himself.

To Kuhl, however, who really had invited no living creature excepting Caro, to his wedding dinner, Blanden wrote--

"I go far away, to the primeval home of mankind; I am a s.h.i.+pwrecked mariner, and, united to Giulia, shall build myself a hut in the desert.

Withered leaves--they fell upon the flowers of my heart, and twice have covered and crushed out their life. My friend! no man can overcome his past. Unforeseen it rises again like a spectre and stretches the destroyer's hand into our lives. Poor Eva was the victim of one of those fearful chains of events which, long invisible, suddenly seize us with a ghostly grasp. That I had loved the mother, was the daughter's death! Withered leaves--vainly my Giulia amid bitterest pain sought to wrench herself loose from her past, but it held her firmly as in an iron vice. Away into the kingdom of Buddha, into the dream-world of the East! I could not live as I would, therefore now I will live as I can."

Not long after a Hamburg steamboat bore the loving pair into the land of the lotus-flowers.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: The evening preceding the wedding day,--_Translator's note_.]

THE END.