"I will go and have the horses harnessed," said Freyer, and the countess entered the chamber.
She took an absent leave of the child. She did not notice how he trembled at the news that she was going home, she did not hear him plead: "Take me with you!" She comforted him as usual with the promise that she would soon come again, and beckoned Josepha out of the room.
The boy gazed after her with the expression of a dying roe, and a few large tears rolled down his pale cheeks. The mother saw it, but she could not remain, her stay here was over for that day. Outside she informed Josepha of the plan of sending her and the child to Italy, but the latter shook her head.
"The child needs nothing but its mother," she said, pitilessly, "it longs only for _you_, and if you send it still farther away, it will die."
The countess stood as if sentenced.
"When you are with him, he revives, and when you have gone, he droops like a flower without the sun!"
"Oh Heaven!" moaned the countess, pressing her clasped hands to her brow: "What is to be done!"
"If you could take the boy, it would be the best cure. The child need"s a mother"s love; that would be more beneficial to him than all the travelling in the world. You have no idea how he clings to his mother.
It really seems as if you had bewitched him. All day long he wears himself out listening and watching for the roll of the carriage, and when evening comes and the hour that you usually drive up arrives, his little hands are burning with fever from expectation. And then he sees how his father longs for you. A child like him notices everything and, when his father is sad, he is sorrowful, too. "She is not coming to-day!" he said a short time ago, stroking his father"s cheek; he knew perfectly well what troubled him. A delicate little body like his is soon worn out by constant yearning. Every kid, every fawn, cries for its mother. Here in the woods I often hear the young deer, whose mother has been shot, wail and cry all night long, and must not a child who has sense and affection long for its mother? You sit in your beautiful rooms at home and don"t hear how up here in this dreary house with us two melancholy people, the poor child asks for the mother who is his all."
"Josepha, you will kill me!"
The countess clung to the door-post for support, her brain fairly whirled.
"No, I shall not kill you, Countess, I only want to prevent your killing the child," said Josepha with flaming eyes. "Do you suppose that, if I could supply a mother"s place to the boy, I would beg you for what is every child"s right, and which every mother who has a mother"s heart in her breast would give of her own accord? Certainly not. I would _steal_ the child"s heart, which you are starving--ere I would give you one kind word, and you might beg in vain for your son"s love, as I now beseech his mother"s for him. But the poor little fellow knows very well who his mother is, and no matter what I do--he will not accept me! That is why I tell you just how matters are. Do what you choose with me--I no longer fear anything--if the child cannot be saved I am done with the world! You know me--and know that I set no value on life. You have made it no dearer to me than it was when we first met."
Just at that moment the door opened and a small white figure appeared.
The boy had heard Josepha"s pa.s.sionate tone and came to his mother"s a.s.sistance: "Mamma, my dear mamma in Heaven, what is she doing to you?
She shan"t hurt you. Wicked mamma Josepha, that"s why I don"t like you, you are always scolding the beautiful, kind lady."
He threw his little arm around his mother"s neck, as if to protect her.
"Oh, you angel!" cried the countess, lifting him in her arms to press him to her heart.
The rattle of wheels was heard outside--the countess" four horses were coming. To keep the fiery animals waiting was impossible. Freyer hastily announced the carriage, the horses were very unruly that day.
The countess gave the boy to Josepha"s care. Freyer silently helped her into the equipage, everything pa.s.sed like a flash of lightning for the horses were already starting--one gloomy glace was exchanged between the husband and wife--the farewell of strangers--and away dashed the light vehicle through the autumn mists. The mother fancied she heard her boy weeping as she drove off, and felt as if Josepha had convicted her of the murder of the child. But she would atone for it--some day--soon! It seemed as if a voice within was crying aloud: "My child, my child!" An icy moisture stood in drops upon her brow; was it the sweat of anxiety, or dew? She did not know, she could no longer think, she was sinking under all the anxieties which had pressed upon her that day. She closed her eyes and leaned back in the carriage as if fainting, while the horses rushed swiftly on with their light burden toward their goal.
The hours flew past. The equipage drove up to the Wildenau palace, but she was scarcely conscious of it. All sorts of plans and resolutions were whirling through her brain. She was a.s.sisted from the carriage and ascended the carpeted marble stairs. Two letters were lying on the table in her boudoir. The prince had been there and left one, a note, which contained only the words: "You will perceive that at the present time you _dare_ not refuse this position.
"_The friend who means most kindly_."
The other letter, in a large envelope, was an official doc.u.ment.
Countess Wildenau had been appointed mistress of ceremonies!
CHAPTER XXI.
UNACCOUNTABLE.
A moment--and a turning point in a life!
The countess was "herself" again, as she called it. "Thank G.o.d!"
The Ammergau episode--with all its tragic consequences--belonged to the past. To-day, under the emotional impressions and external circ.u.mstances at that luckless castle, where everything conspired against her, she had thought seriously of breaking with her traditions and the necessities of life, faced the thought of poverty and shame so boldly that this appointment to the highest position at court saved her from the gulf of ruin. Stopped at the last moment, tottering, giddy, the startled woman sought to find a firm footing once more. She felt like a suicide, who is not really in earnest, and rejoices when some one prevents his design.
She stood holding the doc.u.ment in her hand. This was truth, reality, the necessity for self-destruction was imagination. The disgrace whose brand she already felt upon her brow could no longer approach her!
She set her foot upon the s.h.a.ggy skin of a lion--the earth did not yet reel beneath her. She pressed her burning brow against a slender marble column--this, too, was still firm! She pa.s.sed her slender fingers over the silk plush of the divan on which she reclined and rejoiced that it was still hers. Her eye, intoxicated with beauty, wandered over the hundreds of art-treasures, pictures and statues from every land with which she had adorned her rooms--nothing was lacking. Upon a pedestal stood the Apollo Belvedere, whose pure marble glowed warmly in a sunbeam shining through red curtains, as if real blood were circulating in the stone. The wondrous face smiled in divine repose upon the motley array, which the art and industry of centuries had garnered here.
The past and the present here closed their bewitching chain. Yonder stood a Venus de Milo, revealing to the charming owner the majesty of her own beauty. In a corner filled with flowers, a bathing nymph, by a modern master, timidly concealed herself. In a Gothic niche a dying Christ closed his eyes to the splendor of the world and the senses.
It was a Christ after the manner of Gabriel Max, which opened and shut its eyes. Not far away the portrait of the countess, painted with the genius of Lenbach stood forth from the dark frame--the type of a drawing-room blossom. Clad in a soft white robe of Oriental stuff embroidered with gold, heavy enough to cling closely to the figure--flight enough to float away so far as to reveal all that fashion and propriety permitted to be seen of the beauty of a wonderful neck and arm. And, as Lenbach paints not only the outward form but the inward nature, a tinge of melancholy, of yearning and thoughtfulness rested upon the fair face, which made the beholder almost forget the beauty of the form in that of the soul, while gazing into the spiritual eyes which seemed to seek some other home than this prosaic earth. Just in the direction of her glance, Hermes, the messenger of death, bent his divine face from a group of palms and dried gra.s.ses. It seemed as if she beheld all these things for the first time--as if they had been newly given back to her that day after she had believed them lost. Her breath almost failed at the thought that she had been on the point of resigning it all--and for what? All these treasures of immortal beauty and art--for a weeping child and a surly man, who loved in her only the housewife, which any maid-servant can be, but understood what she really was, what really const.i.tuted her dignity and charm no more than he would comprehend Lenbach"s picture, which reflected to her her own person transfigured and enn.o.bled. She gazed at herself with proud satisfaction. Should such a woman sacrifice herself to a man who scarcely knew the meaning of beauty! Destroy herself for an illusion of the imagination? She rang the bell--she felt the necessity of ordering something, to be sure that she was still mistress of the house.
The lackey entered. "Your Highness?"
Thank Heaven! Her servants still obeyed her.
"Send over to the Barnheim Palace, and invite the Prince to dine with me at six. Then serve lunch."
"Very well. Has Your Highness any other orders?"
"The maid."
"Yes, Your Highness."
The man left the room with the noiseless, solemn step of a well-trained lackey.
"How can any one live without servants?" the countess asked herself, looking after him. "What should I have done, if I had dismissed mine?"
She shuddered. Now that regal luxury again surrounded her she was a different person from this morning. No doubt she still felt what she had suffered that day, but only as we dimly, after waking from a fevered dream, realize the tortures we have endured.
Some one knocked, and the maid entered.
"I will take a bath before lunch. I feel very ill. Pour a bottle of _vinaigre de Bouilli_ into the water. I will come directly."
The maid disappeared.
Everything still went on like clock-work. Nothing had changed--no one noticed what she had _almost_ done that day. The struggle was over. The royal order, which it would have been madness to oppose, had determined her course.
But her nerves were still quivering from the experiences of the day.
The child, if only she were not hampered by the child! That was the only thing which would not allow her to breathe freely--it was her own flesh and blood. That was the wound in her heart which could never be healed. She would always long for the boy--as he would for her. Yet, what did this avail, nothing could be changed, she must do what reason and necessity required. At least for the present; nay, there was even something beautiful in a sorrow borne with aristocratic dignity! By the depth of the wound, we proudly measure the depth of our own hearts.
She pleased herself with the idea of doing the honors as mistress of ceremonies to kings and emperors, while yearning in the depths of her soul for a poor orphaned child, the son of the proud Countess Wildenau--whose husband was a peasant. Only a nature of the elasticity of Madeleine von Wildenau"s could sink so low and yet soar so high, without losing its equilibrium.
These were the oscillations which Ludwig Gross once said were necessary to such natures--though their radii pa.s.sed through the lowest gulfs of human misery to the opposite heights. Coquetry is not only cruel to others, but to itself--in the physical tortures which it endures for the sake of an uncomfortable fashion, and the spiritual ones with which it pays for its triumphs.
This was the case with the countess. During her first unhappy marriage she had learned to control the most despairing moods and be "amusing"
with an aching heart. What marvel that she deemed it a matter of course that she must subdue the gnawing grief of her maternal love. So she coquetted even with suffering and found pleasure in bearing it gracefully.
She sat down at her writing-desk, crowned with Canova"s group of Cupid and Psyche, and wrote: