XXVII.
By her fantastic walk from Traunberg to Steinbach, Elsa had brought on inflammation of the lungs. She convalesced so slowly that the physician whom Erwin consulted advised a long sojourn in the south. At first she could not resolve to leave her unhappy brother, and only went after he had promised to follow her as soon as possible to San Remo, where she would pa.s.s the winter with Erwin and the children.
She left in the middle of September. Felix did not keep his promise.
"As soon as possible" was capable of such varied conceptions.
September, with its variegated foliage, and the long, tender farewell of the sunbeams vanished, and October came. The leaves withered, blood-red or pale-yellow they fell from the branches sadly and submissively, like all hopeless ones, and November followed October, and came in with an important bl.u.s.ter, like a lackey sent on before to make room for his master. He tore the last leaves from the branches, and sometimes tore away the branches with them, and he kissed the last roses dead and annihilated the unblossomed buds, covered the heavens with mournful clouds, blew so chill and poisonously in the face of the sun that he also sickened, and looked almost as pale as the moon.
And at length all was desolate, all ready--the earth strewn with dead leaves and withered flowers for the solemn reception of the new-comer.
Coldly and gravely winter entered his kingdom, the bare trees shivered a last time, and crackled one more sigh, and all is still--dead! The angels in heaven shook their wings, thicker and thicker fell the white down.
January was long past and Felix still in Traunberg. After the last fearful blow which had fallen upon him he never rallied. Since Linda"s flight he never left the park, seldom the castle, often scarcely left his room.
There were days on which he would not even allow his little son admission, and other days on which he would allow no servant to wait upon him, because it was unbearable for him to even meet the eyes of a servant. On all faces he thought he could discover mocking, criticising expressions.
When his overseers came to him to desire his signature or to ask his wishes concerning important business, with his hot, nervous hands he fumbled over the papers which were placed before him, read two or three lines, murmured something, and signed his name. The questions which were put to him he always answered with the same, "As you will," and then drummed impatiently upon the top of his writing-desk and glanced irritably at the door.
He neglected his attire, his beard grew long; he did not even care for cleanliness. Often for days he ate nothing, always very little; but, on the other hand, he was always thirsty, and--drank. But the strongest spirits had ceased to procure relief for him. He no longer forgot; never more!
He had a piano brought to his room, although he had almost never played before, and now strummed on it continually. Strange modulations sprang from beneath his stiff, unpractised fingers. He purposely sought the shrillest dissonances, which seemed to do him good. Again and again he struck the same piercing chord and never found a resolution for it.
He always began to play so as to drown the madrilena, which rang in his ears so often and so unbearably distinctly, and every time he ended by groping over the keys for the melody of this same madrilena. Each tone went through his heart like the stab of a dagger, his forehead was covered with sweat, and with a long sigh he closed the piano.
Intercourse with his child became of a strange nature. He indeed frequently overwhelmed the little one with pa.s.sionate tenderness, but the games, the caressing teasing, which had formerly occupied them when together, and which had so delighted the boy, had ceased. Gery grew shy, pale and nervous. More and more often the fear of injuring the child by his presence crept over Felix.
Erwin, who came from San Remo once during the winter, in order, as he said, to look after the house, was frightened at the confusion which, as he soon noticed, existed in Felix"s business matters, as well as the terrible change in his whole appearance.
Compa.s.sionately and kindly he urged his brother-in-law to accompany him to Italy, in order, as he had promised, to spend some time, together with Gery, with his sister.
But Felix trembled visibly when it was a question of his leaving Traunberg, and going to a place where he must meet other people, were it only in the most pa.s.sing way. Erwin promised him perfect quiet and seclusion from all intercourse with strangers--in vain.
"Leave me," Felix repeated again and again; "leave me, I must be alone."
Erwin ceased his pleadings, discouraged. Elsa"s health did not permit her stay in the south to be shortened, so that her presence might alleviate her brother"s painful condition.
For one moment Erwin suspected a positive mental derangement in his brother-in-law, but soon convinced himself of the falsity of this opinion.
The balance of his accounts was correct; as soon as his attention was excited he decided correctly, never made a mistake in a reckoning, and made no disconnected remarks. Only, exhausted as he was, everything concerning present affairs irritated him indescribably. The train of his thought flowed always backward. His mind rested continually upon that spot in the past where his happiness lay buried with his honor.
He pa.s.sed almost the whole of his time in living over again his life from the first meeting with Juanita to the signing of the fatal note.
His memory, strangely faithful, and sharpened by practice, revived again and again new particulars of the Juanita period, with the distinctness of hallucinations.
On a mild, sunny April day Elsa appeared in Traunberg, restored to health, more beautiful than ever, and with eyes radiant with happiness.
She was shocked when she perceived her brother; what she saw was so much worse than what Erwin had considerately prepared her for. But Felix"s misery only increased the tenderness of her sympathy. She spoke of the tender, intimate intercourse which should now exist between the two families, and said that Baby was now large enough for a playmate for her cousin; and Baby who, chubby-cheeked and gay, with great laughing eyes and tiny mouth with a drolly serious expression, sat on her mamma"s knee, stretched out her fat little arms and said, "Where Gery?"
Then the nurse--Gery"s French _bonne_ had not been able to endure the winter solitude of Traunberg, and had long since left--brought the child. She had smoothed down his curly hair with a horrible, strong-smelling pomade, and had hidden his pretty little form in a heavy cloth costume, suitable for much older children. He looked pale, was awkward, and clung anxiously to his father. When he gradually lost his shyness through Elsa"s soft voice and caressing manner, and approached her and answered her questions, she noticed that he had adopted the common broad accent of the nurse.
It did not escape Felix"s morbidly sharpened glance, that behind the pleasant smile with which Elsa met the child, surprise and compa.s.sion were hidden.
"You probably find that he has changed for the worse?" he asked suddenly, gazing sharply at her. "What will you? Everything about me goes to ruin."
When Elsa, after urgently and most tenderly begging Felix and his boy to come soon to Steinbach, had driven away, Felix took his boy on his knees, and kissed him pa.s.sionately, murmuring again and again, "Poor child, poor branded child!"
An unpleasant habit, common to most human beings living very much alone, he had adopted of late, that of talking to himself. The words which most frequently escaped him, which he probably repeated a dozen times, were, "The certain Lanzberg," and while he said that, his voice and his face expressed all the shades of bitterness, mockery and despair.
And one evening, three or four days after Elsa"s visit, Gery crept shyly up to him, and laying his little hand anxiously upon his father"s arm, he asked in his gentle, somewhat sad little voice, "What is that, "the certain Lanzberg"?"
Felix started; he gave a long-piercing gaze into the innocent eyes of the child, then he pushed him violently away and hurried out of the room.
The same night Felix heard sobs outside his door, and as he opened it and looked out into the corridor, he discovered Gery, who stood there clad only in his little embroidered night-shirt, and barefoot.
"Papa, you did not say good-night to me. Papa, was I naughty?" sobbed the child, with the morbid nervous excitement which proved his solitary life.
Then Felix took him in his arms. It was a fresh spring night, and the child, who had stood for a long time outside, clad only in the thin night-shirt, shivered. Felix rubbed his little hands and feet warm.
Then the nurse knocked at the door, seeking the child in anxious excitement.
But Gery would not hear of returning to the nursery. He clung to his father and pleaded, "Let me stay with you, papa." Then Felix sent the nurse away, and took him into his bed. The child fell asleep nestled tenderly against him, slept soundly and unbrokenly. Felix lay awake.
The opal-colored glow of the spring morning tinged the heavens, and Felix still was awake. He thought of old times, times which lay far back of the Juanita period; some jest over which he had laughed some twenty years ago occurred to him and pained him--he groaned; the child awoke; throwing his little arms around Felix"s neck, he begged, coaxingly, "Dear papa, I sleep so well with you, let me always sleep with you." Then suddenly it flashed through Felix"s mind, "Ah, if I could only die while he still loves me!" and suddenly the storm within him ceased--all became quiet within his heart, quiet as the grave.
XXVIII.
They pa.s.sed the day happily together, Felix and his son. Felix bathed and dressed the child himself, with a thousand jests and little teasing ways. Gery had not seen his papa so gay for a long time, and rubbed against him again and again, like a young dog or kitten.
The sky was blue, the earth white with blossoms, the first b.u.t.terflies floated around the bushes. After lunch Felix drove with the child to Steinbach for the first time, in spite of Elsa"s warm invitation.
How warm and bright everything was in Steinbach. It almost seemed to him that there was a different sun there from Traunberg. Litzi received a holiday, so she could play with her little cousin to her heart"s delight. Baby gave the little fellow her greatest treasure, a pot of ripe strawberries, which she had to clasp with both little arms when she carried it to him.
Felix remained to dinner; they overwhelmed him with attentions, but still at heart he felt that Erwin and Elsa would have been happier and less constrained without him, which they would not, indeed, have admitted.
As they did not wish to separate Felix from his boy during the meal, as a great exception they installed Baby in her high-chair at the table also, between Erwin and Litzi, an honor of which she proved herself wholly worthy, as she watched the others eating with great seriousness without desiring anything for herself. Only toward the end a little misfortune befell her: in a moment of extravagant tenderness, she tried to embrace her mother across the table, overturned a beer-gla.s.s, and showed herself so surprised and ashamed at this accident, that Erwin had to take her on his knee and console her. Felix felt plainly that Erwin"s calm, playful good-nature to the child did not in the least remind one of the stormy immoderate caresses with which he overwhelmed his own son sometimes.
After dessert, while the children played in the garden under Miss Sidney"s care, and Felix sat somewhat apart with Elsa on a garden bench and watched them, Felix started suddenly.
"What is the matter, Felix?" asked his sister, anxiously.
He could not explain himself; he had heard the child laugh, and it had occurred to him how seldom the little one laughed at home--almost never.
"Elsa," he asked after a while, "the child is growing very nervous and timid with me; will you do me the kindness to keep him with you for a while?"