Klingemann, however, seized her by the hand.
"Stop," he whispered, gazing at the ground.
Bertha opened her eyes wide; she could not understand.
Suddenly Klingemann looked up from the ground and fixed his eyes on Bertha"s.
"I love you, you see," he said.
Bertha uttered a low cry.
Klingemann let go her hand, and added in quite an easy conversational tone:
"Perhaps that strikes you as rather odd."
"It is unheard of!--unheard of!"
Once more she sought to go, and she called Fritz.
"Stop! If you leave me alone now, Bertha...." said Klingemann, now in a suppliant tone.
Bertha had recovered her senses again.
"Don"t call me Bertha!" she said, vehemently. "Who gave you the right to do so? I have no wish to say anything further to you ... and here, of all places!" she added, with a downward glance, which, as it were, besought the pardon of the dead.
Meanwhile Fritz had come back. Klingemann seemed very disappointed.
"My dear lady," he said, following Bertha, who, holding Fritz by the hand, was slowly walking away: "I recognize my mistake. I should have begun differently and not said that which seems now to have frightened you, until I had come to the end of a well-turned speech."
Bertha did not look at him, but said, as though she were speaking to herself:
"I would not have considered it possible; I thought you were a gentleman...."
They were at the cemetery gate. Klingemann looked back again, and in his glance there was something of regret at not having been able to play out his scene at the graveside to a finish. Hat in hand, and twisting the ribbon, by which it was fastened, round his finger, and still keeping by Bertha"s side, he went on to say:
"All I can do now is to repeat that I love you, that you pursue me in my dreams--in a word, you must be mine!"
Bertha came to a standstill again, as if she were terrified.
"You will, perhaps, consider my remarks insolent, but let us take things as they are. You"--he made a long pause--"are alone in the world. So am I--"
Bertha stared him full in the face.
"I know what you are thinking of," said Klingemann. "That is all of no consequence; that is all done with the moment you give the word. I have a dim presentiment that we two suit each other very well. Yes, unless I am very much deceived, the blood should be flowing in your veins, my dear lady, as warm...."
The glance which Bertha now gave him was so full of anger and loathing that Klingemann was unable to complete the sentence. He therefore began another.
"Ah, when you come to think of it, what sort of a life is it that I am now leading? It is even a long, long time since I was loved by a n.o.ble woman such as you are. I understand, of course, your hesitation, or rather, your refusal. Deuce take it, of course it needs a bit of courage--with such a disreputable fellow as I am, too ... although, perhaps, things are not quite so bad. Ah, if I could only find a human soul, a kind, womanly soul!"--He emphasized the "womanly soul"--"Yes, my dear lady, it was as little meant to be my fate as it was yours to pine away and grow crabbed in such a hole of a town as this. You must not be offended if I ... if I--"
The words began to fail him when he approached the truth. Bertha looked at him. He seemed to her at that moment to be rather ridiculous, almost pitiable, and very old, and she wondered how it was that he still had the courage, not so much as to propose to her, as even simply to court her favour.
And yet, to her own amazement and shame, there overflowed from these unseemly words of a man who appeared absurd to her, the surge, so to speak, of desire. And when his words had died away she heard them again in her mind--but as though from the lips of another who was waiting for her in Vienna--and she felt that she would not be able to withstand this other speaker. Klingemann continued to talk; he spoke of his life as being a failure, but yet a life worth saving. He said that women were to be blamed for bringing him so low, and that a woman could raise him up again. Away back in his student days he had run away with a woman, and that had been the beginning of his misfortunes. He talked of his unbridled pa.s.sions, and Bertha could not restrain a smile. At the same time she was ashamed of the knowledge which seemed to her to be implied by the smile....
"I will walk up and down in front of your window this evening," said Klingemann, when they reached the gate. "Will you play the piano?"
"I don"t know."
"I will take it as a sign."
With that he went away.
In the evening she supped, as she had so often done, at her brother-in-law"s house. At the table she sat between Elly and Richard.
Mention was made of her approaching journey to Vienna as though it was really nothing more than a matter of paying a visit to her cousin, trying on the new costume at the dressmaker"s, and executing a few commissions in the way of household necessities, which she had promised to undertake for her sister-in-law. Towards the end of supper, her brother-in-law smoked his pipe, Richard read the paper to him, her sister-in-law knitted, and Elly, who had nestled up close beside Bertha, leaned her childish head upon her aunt"s breast. And Bertha, as her glance took in the whole scene, felt herself to be a crafty liar. She, the widow of a good husband, was sitting there in a family circle which interested itself in her welfare so loyally; by her side was a young girl who looked up at her as on an older friend. Hitherto she had been a good woman, honest and industrious, living only for her son. And now, was she not about to cast aside all these things, to deceive and lie to these excellent people, and to plunge into an adventure, the end of which she could foresee? What was it, then, that had come over her these last few days, by what dreams was she pursued, how was it that her whole existence seemed only to aspire towards the one moment when she would again feel the arms of a man about her? She had but to think of it and she was seized with an indescribable sensation of horror, during which she seemed devoid of will, as if she had fallen under the influence of some strange power.
And while the words that Richard was reading beat monotonously upon her ear, and her fingers played with the locks of Elly"s hair--she resisted for the last time; she resolved that she would be steadfast--that she would do no more than see Emil once again, and that, like her own mother who had died long ago, and like all the other good women she knew--her cousin in Vienna, Frau Mahlmann, Frau Martin, her sister-in-law, and ... yes, certainly Frau Rupius as well--she would belong only to him who made her his wife. As soon, however, as she thought of that, the idea flashed through her mind, like lightning: if he himself...if Emil.... But she was afraid of the thought, and banished it from her. Not with such bold dreams as these would she go to meet Emil. He, the great artist, and she, a poor widow with a child...no, no!--she would see him once again ... in the Museum of course, at the Dutch gallery ... once only, and that for the last time, and she would tell him that she did not wish for anything else than to see him that once. With a smile of satisfaction she pictured to herself his somewhat disappointed face; and, as if practising beforehand for the scene, she knitted her brow and a.s.sumed a stern cast of countenance, and had the words ready on her lips to say to him: "Oh, no, Emil, if you think that...." But she must take care not to say it in quite too harsh a tone, in order that Emil might not, as on that previous occasion ... twelve years before! ... cease to plead after only the one attempt. She intended that he should beg a second time, a third time--ah, Heaven knew, she intended that he should continue to plead until she gave way.... For she felt, there in the midst of all those good, respectable, virtuous people, with whom, indeed, she would soon no longer be numbered, that she would give way the moment he first asked her. She was only going to Vienna to be _his_, and after that, if needs must be, to die.
On the afternoon of the following day Bertha set off. It was very hot, and the sun beat down upon the leather-covered seats of the railway carriage. Bertha had opened the window and drawn forward the yellow curtain, which, however, kept flapping in the breeze. She was alone. But she scarcely thought of the place towards which she was travelling; she scarcely thought of the man whom she was about to see again, or of what might be in store for her--she thought only of the strange words she had heard, an hour before her departure. She would gladly have forgotten them, at least for the next few days. Why was it that she had been unable to remain at home during those few short hours between dinner and her departure? What unrest had driven her on this glowing hot afternoon out from her room, on to the street, into the market, and bade her pa.s.s Herr Rupius" house? He was sitting there upon the balcony, his eyes fixed on the gleaming white pavement, and over his knees, as usual, was spread the great plaid rug, the ends of which were hanging down between the bars of the balcony railings; in front of him was the little table with a bottle of water and a gla.s.s. When he perceived Bertha his eyes became fixed upon her, as though he were making some request to her, and she observed that he beckoned her with a slight movement of the head.
Why had she obeyed him? Why had she not taken his nod simply as a greeting and thanked him and gone upon her way? When, however, in answer to his nod, she turned towards the door of the house, she saw a smile of thanks glide over his lips and she found it still on his countenance when she went out to him on the balcony, through the cool, darkened room, and, taking his outstretched hand, sat down opposite to him on the other side of the little table.
"How are you getting on?" she asked.
At first he made no answer; then she observed from the working of his face that he wanted to say something, but seemed as if he was unable to utter a word.
"She is going to ..." he broke out at length. These first words he uttered in an unnecessarily loud voice; then, as though alarmed at the almost shrieking tone, he added very softly: "My wife is going to leave me."
Bertha involuntarily looked around her.
Rupius raised his hands, as if to rea.s.sure her.
"She cannot hear us She is in her room; she is asleep."
Bertha was embarra.s.sed.
"How do you know?..." she stammered. "It is impossible--quite impossible!"
"She is going away--away, for a time, as she says ... for a time ... do you understand?" "Why, yes, to her brother, I suppose."
"She is going away for ever ... for ever! Naturally she does not like to say to me: Good-bye, you will never see me again! So she says: I should like to travel a little; I need a change; I will go to the lake for a few weeks; I should like to bathe; I need a change of air! Naturally she does not say to me: I can endure it no longer; I am young and in my prime and healthy; you are paralysed and will soon die; I have a horror of your affliction and of the loathsome state that must supervene before it is at an end. So she says: I will go away only for a few weeks, then I will come back again and stay with you."
Bertha"s painful agitation became merged in her embarra.s.sment.
"You are certainly mistaken," was all that she could answer.
Rupius hastily drew up the rug, which was on the point of slipping down off his knees. He seemed to find it chilly. As he continued to speak, he drew the rug higher and higher, until finally he held it with both hands pressed against her breast.
"I have seen it coming; for years I have seen this moment coming.
Imagine what sort of an existence it has been; waiting for such a moment, defenceless and forced to be silent!--Why are you looking at me like that?"