Not Freyer, but _she_ was too petty for this great love! "Yet wait--wait, my forsaken husband. Your wife is coming to-day with a love that is worthy of you, ardent enough to atone in a single hour for the neglect of years."
She breathed upon the frost-coated pane, melting an opening in the crust of ice. The castle already stood before her, the height was almost reached. Then--a sudden jolt--a cry from the coachman, and the carriage toppled toward the precipice. With ready nerve the countess sprang out on the opposite side.
"What is it?"
"Why, the horses shied at sight of Herr Freyer!" said the coachman, as Freyer, with an iron hand, curbed the rearing animals. The countess hastened toward him. Aided by the coachman, he quieted the trembling creatures.
"I beg your pardon, Your Highness," said Freyer, still panting from the exertion he had made. "I came out of the wood unexpectedly, and the dark figure frightened them. Fortunately I could seize their reins."
"Drive on, Martin," the countess ordered, "I will walk with Herr Freyer." The coachman obeyed. She put her hand through Freyer"s arm.
"No wonder that the horses shied, my husband, you look so strange. What were you doing in the woods in the middle of the night?"
"What I always do--wandering about."
"That is not right, you ought to sleep."
"Sleep?" Freyer repeated with a bitter laugh.
"Is this my reception, Joseph?"
"Pardon me--it makes me laugh when you talk of sleeping! Look"--he raised his hat: "Even in the starlight you can see the white hairs which have come since you were last here, sent my child away, and made me wholly a hermit. No sleep has come to my eyes and my hair has grown grey."
The countess perceived with horror the change which had taken place in him. Threads of silver mingled with his black locks, his eyes were sunken, his whole figure was emaciated, his chest narrowed--he was a sick man. She could not endure the sight--it was the most terrible reproach to her; she fixed her eyes on the ground: "I had made such a lovely plan--Martin has the key of the outside door--I was going to steal gently to the side of your couch and kiss your sleeping lips."
"I thank you for the kind intention. But do you imagine that I could have slept after receiving that letter which brought me the news that I was betrayed--betrayed once more and, after all the sacred promises made during your last visit, you had done exactly the opposite and accepted a position which separated you still farther from your husband and child, bound you still more firmly to the world? Do you imagine that the _days_ are enough to ponder over such thoughts? No, one must call in the nights to aid. You know that well, and I should be far better satisfied if you would say honestly: "I know that I am killing you, that your strength is being consumed with sorrow, but I have no wish to change this state of affairs!" instead of feigning that you cannot understand why I should not sleep quietly and wondering that I wander all night in the forest? But fear nothing, I am perfectly calm--I shall reproach you no farther," he added in a milder tone, "for I have closed accounts with myself--with you--with life. Do not weep, I promised that when you sought your husband you should find him--I will not be false to my pledge. Come, lay your little head upon my breast--you are trembling, are you cold? Lean on me, and let us walk faster that I may shelter you in the warm room. Wandering dove--how did you happen suddenly to return to your husband"s lonely nest in the cold night, in this bitter winter season? Why did not you stay in the warm cote with the others, where you had everything that you desire? Do you miss anything? Tell me, what do you seek with me, for what does your little heart long?" His voice again sank to the enthralling whisper which had formerly made all her pulses throb with a sensation of indescribable bliss. His great heart took all its pains and suffering and ceased to judge her. The faithless dove found the nest open, and his gentle hand scattered for her the crumbs of his lost happiness, as the starving man divides his last crust with those who are poorer still.
She could not speak--overpowered by emotion she leaned against him, allowing herself to be carried rather than led up the steep ascent. But she could not wait, even as they moved her lips sought his, her little hands clasped his, and a murmur tremulous with emotion: "_This_ is what I missed!"--answered the sweet question. The stars above sparkled with a thousand rays--the whole silent, glittering, icy winter night rejoiced.
At last the castle was reached and the "warm" room received them. It did not exactly deserve the name, for the fire in the stove had gone out, but neither felt it--the glow in their hearts sufficed.
"You must take what I can offer--I am all alone, you know."
"_All alone_!" she repeated with a happy smile which he could see by the starlight shining through the open window. Another kiss--a long silent embrace was exchanged.
"Now let me light a lamp, that I may take off your cloak and make you comfortable! Or, do you mean to spend the night so?" He was bewitching in his mournful jesting, his sad happiness.
"Ah, it is so long since I have seen you thus," Madeleine murmured.
"World, I can laugh at you now!" cried an exultant voice in her heart, for the old love, the old spell was hers once more. And as he again appeared before her in his mild greatness and beauty, she desired to show herself his peer--display herself to him in all the dazzling radiance of her beauty. As he turned to light the lamp she let the heavy cloak fall and stood in all her loveliness, her snowy neck framed by the dark velvet bodice, on which all the stars in the firmament outside seemed to have fallen and clung to rest there for a moment.
Freyer turned with the lamp in his hand--his eyes flashed--a faint cry escaped his lips! She waited smiling for an expression of delight--but he remained motionless, gazing at her as if he beheld a ghost, while the glance fixed upon the figure whose diamonds sparkled with a myriad rays constantly grew more gloomy, his bearing more rigid--a deep flush suffused his pallid face. "And this is my wife?" at last fell in a m.u.f.fled, expressionless tone from his lips. "No--it is not she."
The countess did not understand his meaning--she imagined that the superb costume so impressed him that he dared not approach her, and she must show him by redoubled tenderness that he was not too lowly for this superb woman. "It _is_ your wife, indeed it is, and all this splendor veils a heart which is yours, and yours alone!" she cried, throwing herself on his breast and clasping her white arms around him.
But with a violent gesture he released himself, drawing back a step.
"No--no--I cannot, I will not touch you in such a guise as this."
"Freyer!" the countess angrily exclaimed, gazing at him as if to detect some trace of insanity in his features. "What does this mean?"
"Have you--been in society--in _that_ dress?" he asked in a low tone, as if ashamed for her.
"Yes. And in my impatience to hasten to you I did not stop to change it. I thought you would be pleased."
Freyer again burst into the bitter laugh from which she always shrank.
"Pleased, when I see that you show yourself to others so--"
"How?" she asked, still failing to understand him.
"So naked!" he burst forth, unable to control himself longer. "You have uncovered your beauty thus before the eyes of the gentlemen of your world? And this is my wife--a creature so dest.i.tute of all shame?"
"Freyer!" shrieked the countess, tottering backward with her hand pressed upon her brow as if she had just received a blow on the head: "This to _me_--_to-day_!"
"To-day or to-morrow. On any day when you display the beauty at which I scarcely dare to glance, to the profane eyes of a motley throng of strangers, who gaze with the same satisfaction at the booths of a fair--on any day when you expose to greedy looks the bosom which conceals the heart that should be mine--on any such day you are unworthy the love of any honest man."
A low cry of indignation answered him, then all was still. At last Madeleine von Wildenau"s lips murmured with a violent effort: "This is the last!"
Freyer was striving to calm himself. He pressed his burning brow against the frosty window-panes with their glittering tangle of crystal flowers and stars. The sparkling firmament above gazed down in its eternal clearness upon the poor earthling, who in his childlike way was offering a sacrifice to the chaste G.o.d, whose cold home it was.
"Whenever I come--there is always some new torture for me--but you have never so insulted and outraged me as today," said the countess slowly, in a low tone, as if weighing every word. Her manner was terribly calm and cold.
"I understand that it may be strange to you to see a lady in full dress--you have never moved in a circle where this is a matter of course and no one thinks of it. To the pure all things are pure, and he who is not stands with us under the law of the etiquette of our society. Our village la.s.ses must m.u.f.fle themselves to the throat, for what could protect them from the coa.r.s.e jests and rudeness of the village lads?"
Freyer winced, he felt the lash.
"To add to the splendor of festal garments," she went on, "a little of the natural beauty of the divinely created human body is a tribute which even the purest woman can afford the eye, and whatever is kept within the limits of the artistic sense can never be shameless or unseemly. Woe betide any one who pa.s.ses these bounds and sees evil in it--he erases himself from the ranks of cultured people. So much, and no more, you are still worthy that I should say in my own justification!"
She turned and took up the cloak to wrap herself in it: "Will you be kind enough to have the horses harnessed?"
"Are you going?" asked Freyer, who meanwhile had regained his self-control.
"Yes."
"Alas, what have I done!" he said, wringing his hands. "I have not even asked you to sit down, have not let you rest, have offended and wounded you. Oh, I am a savage, a wretched man."
"You are what you can be!" she replied with the cutting coldness into which a proud woman"s slighted love is quickly transformed.
"What such an uncultivated person can be! That is what you wish to say!" replied Freyer. "But there lies my excuse. Aye, I am a native of the country, accustomed to break my fruit, wet with the morning-dew, from the tree ere any hand has touched it, or pluck from the th.o.r.n.y boughs in the dewy thicket the hidden berries which no human eye has beheld;--I cannot understand how people can enjoy fruits that have been uncovered for hours in the dust of the marketplace. The aroma is gone--the freshness and bloom have vanished, and if given me--no matter how costly it might be, I should not care for it--the wild berries in the wood which smiled at me from the leafy dusk with their glittering dewdrops, would please me a thousand times better! This is not meant for a comparison, only an instance of how people feel when they live in the country!"
"And to carry your simile further--if you believe that the fruit so greatly desired has been kept for you alone--will it not please you to possess what others long for in vain?"
"No," he said simply, "I am not envious enough to wish to deprive others of anything they covet--but I will not share, so I would rather resign!"
"Well, then--I have nothing more to say on that point--let us close the conversation."
Both were silent a long time, as if exhausted by some great exertion.
"How is our--the child? Have you any news from Josepha?" the countess asked at last.
"Yes, but unfortunately nothing good."