Then it seems as if a frost falls upon her loveliest recollections, even upon those which until now she has treasured in the most secret corner of her heart. The past is desecrated--she has nothing more.
She does not think of her children--in this moments he has forgotten that she has children.
Slowly she drags herself through the wood, the same path which she had taken with Erwin before. Over her head the trees sing in melancholy peace their old song. Elsa can scarcely proceed; now the wood lies behind her, before her the dew on the meadow sparkles in the gray twilight, the colors are all dead--she shudders--here is the spot where he had carried her over that evening when for the first time she had been apprehensive for her happiness. Here he had put his arms round her and clasped her tightly to him and called her his treasure. She trembles in her whole body, then she gives a short gasping cry and sinks to the ground. She sobs, she has forgotten everything, she exists only in the feeling of weeping, of wishing convulsively to throw off a weight which oppresses her chest, and behind her the primeval forest still sings its melancholy peaceful song.
How long she lies there she does not know; she does not notice either that the gray evening darkens to black night, does not notice that the dew falls heavier and heavier, that its cool dampness steals through her light gown to her weakened frame.
XXVI.
While Elsa lay so despairingly at the edge of the forest, two riders came slowly towards Steinbach--Sempaly and Erwin. They returned from a farm at some distance from, but belonging to Steinbach, which together with a part of the adjacent village had been burned this afternoon.
Before them the castle of Steinbach, with its windows shining peacefully in the moonlight, between the shady trees; around them sweet fragrance and peaceful stillness; behind them a village, for the greater part in ashes, deserted ruins blackened with soot, as if clad in deepest mourning, animated by a few bent figures which could no longer speak from pain and fright, yes, could scarcely even complain more, and anxiously, with trembling hands, sought in the soaked heaps of ashes, in which fire still smouldered, for some pitiful remnant of their annihilated possessions. They rode through the park gate, their clothes were drenched and smelled of smoke and soot.
When Sempaly heard of the breaking out of the fire, he had ridden from Iwanow to Billwitz, and had then joined Erwin honestly in the wildest confusion of the fire, and now accompanied him home.
They only seldom exchanged a word. They were both weary from the help they had rendered, and saddened by the thought of how little they had been able to help. When they reached the castle, Sempaly was about to turn off towards Iwanow, but Erwin held him back. "Take tea with us, Rudi," said he.
"In these clothes?" replied Sempaly, glancing at his soiled clothes; then he added, "Well, Snowdrop will be considerate," and dismounted.
He had really from the first intended to remain at Steinbach, and looked forward to relating to Elsa, while fresh, all the little heroic deeds by which Erwin had distinguished himself during the fire. He felt a kind of indebtedness to Erwin on account of the hateful suspicion which for a moment he had cherished against him, and which to-day, when he once more thoroughly recognized Erwin"s n.o.bility, seemed to him foolish and inexcusable.
Erwin asked for his wife; the servant informed him that she was not yet back from Traunberg.
"Has a second message come from Traunberg?" asked Erwin, surprised.
The valet glanced at the servant. "No!" It was certain that no second messenger came from Traunberg.
Erwin and Sempaly went out again in the black shadows of the mild August moonlight night. "What does she seek in Traunberg?" murmured Erwin, aloud, ponderingly.
"Did she know that you were at the fire?" asked Sempaly, with sudden inspiration.
"I think not. I expressly requested the servants not to tell her where I went," replied Erwin. "What in all the world did she go to Traunberg for?"
Then Scirocco looked at him peculiarly. "You," said he.
"Me?" Erwin did not yet comprehend the situation.
But Sempaly stamped his foot impatiently. "Are you stupid, Garzin?"
cried he. "Do you not see what everybody sees, that your wife is consumed with jealousy of her sister-in-law?"
"My wife jealous of my sister-in-law? Sempaly--you----" Erwin had burst out very violently at first, now he was suddenly silent. He called to mind Elsa"s strange manner of late, much that was enigmatical was explained. He did not understand that he had been so obtuse.
They had walked somewhat further into the park; then a low cry of pain vibrated through the painful stillness of the night. Erwin listened with beating heart. Once more it penetrated to him, somewhat louder. A cold shudder ran over him. He hurried toward the meadow from which the sound came. With sight sharpened by excitement he surveyed the gray dewy field. There at the edge of the wood he saw something white gleaming in the twilight, a misty spot which in the gloom he had almost taken for a thick cl.u.s.ter of immortelles. His anxiety drove him a few steps further. "Elsa!" cried he, and stretched his arms out to her.
Then she raised her head, and rested her large, feverish, shining eyes upon him. "I forgive you," cried she with failing voice, and starting back from him. "I forgive you, but go--go--leave me."
His eyes met hers.
"You have nothing to forgive me," said he gravely, almost sternly. "But if you promise solemnly, very solemnly, to be very much ashamed of yourself I will forgive you."
She stared at him without understanding, confused, stupefied; then he took hold of her dress; he was frightened to feel how cold and wet it was.
"For G.o.d"s sake!" cried he, violently, and with efficacious inconsiderateness, "before everything else see that you take off these wet things; there is time enough to speak of your mad freak later."
With that he picked her up and carried her across, as he had done on the day of Linda"s arrival.
She did not resist him. At first she did not even know what had happened to her; then, when near the castle, she suddenly heard a gentle voice, kindly and reprovingly, as one speaks to an imprudent child, "Why, Snowdrop!" she looked around; this sudden exclamation recalled her to reality, which had been far from her confused mind.
"How comes Sempaly here?" she asked, hastily.
"We were at the fire in Billwitz together," said Erwin, without standing still. "He returned with me."
"Fire--Billwitz----" murmured Elsa, then she trembled violently and burst into a flood of tears of relief.
A little later Elsa lay in her pretty white bed feverish and hoa.r.s.e, but with a light heart, and her soul full of a sweet mixture of remorse, happiness and shame. Erwin sat near her, and tried to be angry with her, and yet was only worried. But Scirocco had found that this was not the evening to take tea in Steinbach, and had gone away.
And while Elsa with touching conscientiousness now confessed all the particulars of her hideous mistrust and her obstinate jealousy, and upon Erwin"s lips, at first closed sternly, a smile had become more and more plain, Linda sat in her boudoir with scornfully curved lips and angry, staring eyes, which thirsted for spite. She wore a white gown, whose hem was slightly soiled, only as if it had perhaps brushed the dew from a flowerbed. On her breast rested a bunch of dark red roses.
Some of them were withered, and others began to fade, others still to fall, and the red petals strewed her gown. To her excited gaze they seemed like drops of blood. She shuddered at sight of them; she shuddered to-day at everything, even at herself. Her whole being rose against the huge wrong which had been done her--the wrong which forced her to be wicked. That there was another outlet for her she did not acknowledge; that it was beautiful to forgive, she did not understand; that one has duties even toward those who have sinned against one, she did not believe.
She railed against the system of the world, and her affairs in particular. The only man whom she had ever loved, so at least it seemed to her in her dramatic, gloomy excitement, this man had despised her.
After she had been enlightened as to Felix"s past, she had immediately written that letter to Erwin which had caused so much painful confusion in Steinbach.
She had wished to sink into his compa.s.sionate arms, and had relied upon the demoniac charm of her beauty. She fancied that after the disgrace which she had suffered from, she had a right to sin. As answer to her note, she had received the following lines:
Dear Linda:
I am very sorry that, on account of urgent business, I cannot come to-day. I hope it is a question of nothing important.
E. Garzin.
She loved him, and he wrote to her in this tone! She grew crimson for perhaps the first time in her life when she read the lines--but not with shame, with anger.
Pistach came during her wildest excitement. He had won the game.
Now he had gone; she was alone again!
She buried her face in her hands; she sobbed convulsively. The roses on her breast fell one after the other, and the blood-red petals slid down to the soiled hem of her white gown.
The next day Linda and Count Kamenz had disappeared!
The whole country round about was horrified and dismayed at the affair; only one laughed in his sleeve: Eugene von Rhoeden. The last obstacle to his plans had been removed. Countess Elli blushed crimson when he took leave of Iwanow. He found opportunity to press a kiss upon her hand. A white handkerchief waved after him from one of the castle windows, as he drove in an open phaeton from Iwanow to the railway station.