"Leave me this innocent pleasure. You are always in debt," says he, while he locks the notes in a drawer of her writing-desk.
Erwin never would acknowledge the equal rights of woman with regard to the cares of life. He was pleased that Elsa, who read the most abstract treatises on political economy, did not understand an iota of business.
He had purposely left her in this darkness, and she did not fight against it. He paid her the interest of her property, insisted that she should spend it exclusively upon her poor and her own fancies, and she never asked what he did with the capital.
"May I write here?" he asks over his shoulder, sitting down at her writing-desk then, without waiting for an answer. "A lady"s writing-desk without invitations and charitable circulars. The inspector has become confused about that farm business of your little _protege_ in Johannesthal." He writes quickly.
"The inspector is good for nothing," grumbles Elsa. "That is to say, he is newly married."
Erwin defends his bailiff.
"There, that is done. You can tell your little friend that it is all arranged. Hm! Elsa! Do you think that I would have been much more practical during our honeymoon than my inspector?"
"Ah, you," says Elsa, who evidently does not understand how her husband can compare himself to his overseer, Cibulka. He has laid aside his pen and now pushes his chair lazily up to hers.
"You will make marks in my carpet, you careless man," says she.
"Do not cry," he says, consolingly. "I will buy you a new one, as the banker said to his daughter when her husband died."
"I congratulate you on your fine comparison," says she, kissing his hair lightly. "Now I must dress for dinner."
"Already? Am I to be sentenced to read the paper?"
It was a little more than five years ago that Erwin Garzin had come to his estate of Steinbach adjoining the beautiful Lanzberg Traunberg in order to arrange his business after the death of his father. Elsa, with whom he had as boy played many a trick, he had found a grown girl. At that time nineteen years old, her mind, matured by pain, was far in advance of her years, her body far behind. She had the slender, undeveloped form of a child too quickly grown, and carried her head always bent forward, like a young tree over which a cold storm has pa.s.sed, and was always sad and depressed. At times, to be sure, she smiled suddenly like a true child, but only for a moment, and her eyes were almost always moist. She spoke little and had a hollow, almost too deep voice. And yet the first time that Erwin heard this hollow voice his heart beat strangely, and that night he lay awake and was angry at the sweet song of a nightingale which disturbed him in his efforts to remember that hollow voice.
It was spring-time then, a mixture of showers and rainbows, flowers heavy with dew, bright foliage and mild air. Erwin fell hopelessly in love with the pale daughter of old Mr. Lanzberg. She, however, avoided him, not with that pretty maidenly reserve behind which the coquetry of the future woman usually lurks, but with the shy despondency of a sick owl dreading the light. When he had at length accustomed her to his society he was still miles from his aim. She did not think of what most young girls do. She was wholly absorbed in consoling her bowed father, in pitying her unfortunate brother, at that time dwelling in a far distant land. Her heart was full, longed for no other feeling, suspected none, and yet slowly her whole being warmed; something like a cure was effected in her, and the day came when she laid her small hand firmly and confidingly in Erwin"s and for the first time he whisperingly called her his betrothed.
But he had not yet won. Soon she expressed her scruples at dragging the shadow which made her so sad under his roof, then at leaving her father. When they proved to her that nothing could so help the bowed man as the consolation of seeing at least one of his children happy, the wedding day was at length appointed. A strange turn suddenly seized her when Erwin one day asked her in what part of Vienna she would prefer to live.
"In Vienna?" cried she. "We are to live in the city?" Whereupon he replied: "My treasure, you know that I am not a rich man, and the rents of Steinbach only just suffice for the support of a very economical couple. Therefore I, and you with me are dependent upon my career. But I like to work. I have fine connections, and the times are favorable to ambitious people. You will yet be the wife of an Excellency, Elsa!"
From her pale face it could be read that she did not see the slightest pleasure in being the wife of a governor, amba.s.sador, or minister. Her hand grew limp and cold in his, she evaded his caresses, and every time that evening that his glance met hers, her eyes were filled with tears.
Her exaggerated aversion to the world disquieted him, without seeming to him other than a symptom of diseased nerves; he thought that his loving patience must vanquish it, and when the next morning his servant brought him a letter from Elsa, he admired the strange, energetic, large letters of the address, and played with it, firmly convinced that it could not contain anything important. It contained the following:
"Above all things, many, many thanks for the sympathizing friendship which you have always showed to us, my father and me. Never should I have allowed myself to be persuaded into an engagement with you. I should be a lamentable wife for you. I will not hinder you in your career, and I cannot live in the world even for your sake. Therefore I give you back your word. I wish you all joy and happiness in the world, and as to me, when you have become a great man, keep a little friendly remembrance of the spring of "70. Elsa."
What could he do but rush over to Traunberg, overwhelm her with tender reproaches, represent to her subtly and incontrovertibly that her shyness was morbid, her yielding to this mood fairly wrong.
"Am I then nothing to you?" he finally cried, vexedly.
Then she raised her large eyes, eyes such as Raphael has painted in the sweet face of the little John, as he kneels near the sleeping child Jesus, his G.o.d and his King.
"I believe you love a quite different person from me--you do not know me!" she whispered, shaking her head.
And Erwin flushed crimson and was ashamed of his brutal egoism. He kissed her hands, he would torment her no longer--but he could not give her up.
He gave her eight days to consider it--all that remained of his vacation.
But he did not gain a step during these eight days.
With a heavy heart and hoa.r.s.e voice he took leave. She smiled.
And yet he never felt more plainly that she loved him. Her love was that emotion which is above earthly considerations, which is capable of the most painful sacrifices, the most complete renunciation, although, or perhaps because she scarcely thought of marriage; in a word, it was the love of a very young girl.
It did not resemble his in the slightest. How shallow his life in Vienna and his career now seemed to him; how unattractive, how far away and vague his aim, and even if he did attain all for which he strove.
The justifications of a true, warm, longing love are always quite incontrovertible for him whom it guides.
Elsa stood before the park, under one of the black lindens. It was summer, the lindens bloomed, and a dreamy hum of bees pervaded their gnarled branches. Elsa looked through the clear summer air in the direction in which Castle Steinbach shone white above the wooded valley. Then she heard a step--she looked around. It was Erwin, thin, in spite of the flush of heat, looking very badly, but with sparkling eyes.
"Where do you come from?" cried she, trembling with surprise, with happiness.
"From the castle, where I sought you in vain. Your father did not know where you were."
"He was asleep--did you wake him?"
"Very possibly, but I had no time to reproach myself! Oh, Elsa, are you not in the least glad to see me? I have resigned--I cannot live without you!"
She stood there with loudly beating heart, and embarra.s.sed smile, like a surprised child before a Christmas tree.
"You pay a high price for a miserable little thing," murmured she, and fairly wept.
"Happiness desires to be paid dearly for--it seems to me a small one!"
whispered he.
Thereupon she was silent for a moment, looked at him anxiously, solemnly; was it possible that he clung to her, such a weak, insignificant creature? Then suddenly, with her lovely look of embarra.s.sment, she threw both arms around him. "Oh you----" she cried, and paused because she found no word that in her opinion was great and splendid enough for him. "How I will love you!"
It was a risky experiment, to tear himself away from his customary occupation and society, and wish to pa.s.s the rest of his life at the side of a nervous misanthropical wife.
How did it succeed?
He had feared having too little to do, had provided himself with books, quite like a diplomat sent to j.a.pan. To his astonished delight, he soon found not only how much there was to occupy him but how much he could accomplish with the income from Steinbach, which he had been accustomed to estimate at two or three per cent., and which now daily increased; for the many lives around him whose weal and woe he held in his hands, from the overseer and farmers to the day-laborers, and then Elsa!
How beautiful she grew after he had slowly kissed away the deep sadness from her face--and how lovely! The frivolous love of pleasure and gayety which is considered normal in young women never developed in her; she always remained quiet, but a dreamy happiness shone continually in her eyes, she was so blissfully happy.
What a charming companion! She rode with the endurance and indifferent courage of a man, read everything, was interested in everything, noticed everything, spoke of the most forgotten historical characters as if she had met them yesterday. She rather spurred him on than dragged him down.
Instead of, as he had feared, growing rusty in the country, he had time for making good much that he had neglected. She went on long journeys with him, but at home a.s.sociated as little as possible with her neighbors. In these years Elsa was apparently one of the happiest women in the world.
She was only sad when she thought of Felix.
Her father, shortly after her marriage, blessing her a thousandfold, had died in her arms. Felix had returned to his home.
III.