Reinhold had sprung up; anger and astonishment struggled in his countenance. "So you know already who Signora Erlau is? But why do I ask! The spy, this Gianelli, has just left you; he has traced it out and communicated it to you."
A dark look pa.s.sed over the singer"s features for a moment, as she remembered the distinct commission she had given to the spy, but in her inward excitement shame found no place.
"You knew it in Mirando," continued she violently, "and she occupies the Villa Fiorina close by. Will you try to make me believe you had not seen each other before, not spoken?"
"I do not wish to try and make you believe anything," said Reinhold coldly. "How I stand to Eleonore, our utterly estranged meeting must have shown you sufficiently. Calm yourself. You have nothing to dread from that side. What else has taken place between me and my _wife_ I shall not confess to _you_."
A slight, but yet perceptible tone of contempt lay on the two words, and it seemed to be understood.
"It appears you place me _below_ your wife," said Beatrice weeping.
"Below the woman whose only merit was and is that of being the mother of your child; who never----"
"Pray, leave that alone!" interrupted he, with decision. "You know I never permit you to touch upon that point, and now I shall endure it less than ever. If you must get up a scene for me, do it, but leave my wife and child out of the drama."
It was as if his words had let a storm loose, so raging, so unmeasured did the Italian"s pa.s.sion now break forth, dragging every trace of self-control along with it.
"Your wife and your child!" repeated she, beside herself. "Oh, I know what these words signify to me; I must experience it often enough. Have they not forced themselves between us from the first moment of our meeting until to-day? To them I owe every bitter hour, every strange emotion in your heart. They have lain upon you like a shadow, amidst the growth of your artist"s renown, amidst all your conquests and triumphs; as if they had cursed you there in the north, with the recollection of them, you could not tear your self away from them; and yet there was a time when they were the oppressive fetters which separated you from life and future--which you must break at last!"
"To exchange them for others," completed Reinhold, whose violence now burst forth, "and the question is, are these others lighter? There, it was only the outward circ.u.mstances which confined me; my thoughts, feelings and actions were at all events free. You would fain see these, also like myself, without a will, at your feet, and that you could not attain this, or at least not always, I have had to atone for by hours of endless excitement and bitterness. Your love would have made any other man into your slave. Me it forced to stand in constant opposition to your love of ruling, which tried to take possession of every innermost thought and feeling. But I should have thought, Beatrice, that you had hitherto found in me your master, who knew how to preserve his own independence, and would not allow his whole being and nature to be clasped in chains."
The storm had now been called up. Henceforth there was no restraint, no more moderation; at least not for Beatrice, whose pa.s.sion foamed out ever wilder.
"I must hear that, too, from the lips of the man who so often called me his muse? Have you forgotten who it was who first awoke you to the knowledge of your talents and of yourself; who alone led you up to the sun"s height of fame? Without me, the admired Rinaldo would have succ.u.mbed under the fetters which he did not dare to break."
She did not realise how deeply her reproach must wound his pride as a man. Reinhold was roused, but not with that haughtiness which, until now, too often darkened his character; this time it was a proud, energetic self-consciousness with which he drew himself up.
"That he _never_ would. Do you think so little of my talent, that you believe it could only force open its path with you, and through you? Do you think I should not have found my way alone, not alone have swung myself up to the present height? Ask my works about it! They will give you the reply. I should have gone sooner or later. That I went with you, became my doom, as that broke every bond between me and home, and also drew me upon paths which the man as well as the composer had better have avoided. For years you kept me in the intoxication of a life which never offered me even one hour"s real contentment or true happiness, because you knew that when once I awoke your power would be all at an end. You might postpone it, hinder it never--the awaking came late, too late, perhaps; but still it came at last."
Beatrice leaned upon the marble chimney-piece by which she stood; her whole body trembled as with fever; this hour showed her indeed what she had long felt, without wishing to acknowledge to herself--that her power was in truth at an end.
"And who do you think shall be the sacrifice to this "awaking?"" said she in a hollow voice. "Take care, Rinaldo! You forsook your wife, and she bore it patiently--_I_ shall not bear it. Beatrice Biancona does not allow herself to be sacrificed."
"No, she would rather sacrifice." Reinhold stepped before her and looked her firmly in the face. "You would plant the dagger--is it not true, Beatrice?--in yourself or me, all alike, if only your revenge were cooled? And if I seized the weapon from your hand, and returned repentant to you, you would open your arms to me again. You are right, Eleonore bore it more patiently; not a word, not a reproach restrained me, the cry of anguish was smothered in her heart. I did not hear even one sound of it; but at the moment in which I left her, I was the one rejected--my return was shut out for ever. And if I came to her now, in all the brilliancy of my fame and success--if I laid laurels, gold, honour, everything at her feet, and myself also--it would be in vain; she would not forgive me."
He broke off, as if he had said too much already. Beatrice did not reply one word; not a sound came from her lips; only her eyes spoke a gloomy, unnatural language; but Reinhold did not understand it this time, or would not understand it.
"You see this separation is irretrievable," said he, more quietly. "I repeat it, you have nothing to fear from that side. It was you, not I, who provoked this scene. It is not well to awaken the ghosts of the past--at least not between us. Let them rest."
He left her and went into the adjoining room, where he busied himself with the music lying on the piano, or seemed to busy himself with it, to escape further conversation.
"Let them rest!" that was said so gloomily, so quietly, and yet it sounded like scorn from his lips. Could he not even banish the ghosts of the past? And he demanded it of the woman who saw menaced by them what she deemed to be her highest good, her love for him, which, notwithstanding all that had pa.s.sed between Rinaldo and herself in the course of years, still clung to him with all the strength of her inward being; whose glowing, pa.s.sionate nature had in love as in hate never known any bounds. Whoever saw Beatrice now, as she raised herself slowly, and gazed after him, must have known that she would not let them rest, nor would she rest herself; and Reinhold should have considered, when he opposed her so defiantly, that he did not stand alone against her revenge any longer, and that in this hour he had betrayed, only too well, by which means she could strike a deadly blow.
The glances of evil token which flashed there did not menace him, but something else which he was unable to protect, because the right to do so was denied him--his wife and child!
CHAPTER IV.
"I wish, Eleonore, we had stayed in the Villa Fiorina, and not undertaken our migration here," said Consul Erlau, as he stood still before his adopted daughter, whom he had surprised in tears on his unlooked-for entrance into her room. "I see I have made you suffer far too much by it."
Ella had soon effaced the traces of weeping, and now smiled with a calmness which might well have deceived a stranger.
"Pray, uncle, do not be anxious on my account! We are here for your sake, and we will thank G.o.d if your recovery, which has begun so promisingly in the south, is completed here."
"Still I wish that Dr. Conti were at any other place in the world,"
replied the Consul, annoyed, "only not just in the town which we would avoid at all cost, and where I am obliged to put myself under his treatment. Poor child, I knew you were making a sacrifice for me in this journey; how great it is I only now am learning to see."
"It is no sacrifice, at least no longer now," said Ella, firmly. "I only dreaded the possibility of a first meeting. Now this is overcome, and all the rest with it."
Erlau examined her features enquiringly, and somewhat suspiciously.
"Indeed! then why have you wept?"
"Uncle, one cannot always control one"s mood. I was cast down just now."
"Eleonore!" The Consul seated himself beside her, and took her hand in his. "You know I have never been able to overcome the thought that this unhappy connection commenced in my house, and my only satisfaction was that this house could afford you a home afterwards. I hoped that now, when years lie between, when everything in and around you has so completely changed, the injury you once received would pain you no longer; and instead I must see that it continues to burn undiminished and unforgotten--that the old wounds are torn open afresh, that you--"
"You are mistaken," interrupted Ella, hastily, "you are quite mistaken, I--have long made an end of the past."
Erlau shook his head incredulously. "As if you would ever show that you suffered! I know best what reticence and self-control are hidden under these fair plaits. You have often displayed more of it than you could answer for to your second father, but his sight is keener and goes deeper than that of others; and I tell you, Eleonore, you cannot be recognised since the day when that Rinaldo, regardless of all refusals, at last forced an interview upon you. What exactly pa.s.sed between you I do not know to this day; it was trouble enough even to obtain the confession from you that he was with you. You are utterly inaccessible in such matters, but deny it as you may, you have become quite another person since that hour."
"Nothing took place at all," persisted Ella, "nothing of importance. He demanded to see the child, and I refused him."
"And who answers for it that he will not repeat the attempt?"
"Reinhold. You do not know him! I have dismissed him from my door; he will never pa.s.s it a second time. He understood everything, only not how to humble himself."
"At any rate he had tact enough to leave Mirando as soon as possible,"
said Erlau. "This vicinity would have been unbearable for any length of time. But his withdrawal was not of much use, as then Marchese Tortoni sprang up, who raved so uninterruptedly to you about his friend that I felt obliged at last to give him a hint that this subject did not receive the slightest sympathy from us."
"Perhaps you did it too plainly," suggested Ella, softly. "He had no conception of the wounds he touched, and your harsh repulse of it must have seemed remarkable to him."
"I do not care! Then he can obtain the commentary upon it from his much-admired friend. Were I to allow you to endure Signor Rinaldo"s glorification for hours, certainly we were not much better off here.
One cannot take up a newspaper, receive a visit, hold a conversation, without stumbling upon his name; every third word is Rinaldo. He seems to have infected the whole town with his tones and his new opera, which seems to be considered here as a sort of event of the world. Poor child! and you must be quiet under it all, must witness how this man regularly revels in victories and triumphs, how he has attained the zenith of success, and maintains it undisputed."
The young wife rested her head on her hand so that the latter shaded her face.
"Perhaps you deceive yourself after all. He may be celebrated and worshipped like no other--happy he is not."
"I am glad of it," said the Consul, violently, "I am extremely glad of it. There would be no more justice or right in the world if he were.
And that he has seen you, as you allow yourself to be seen now, does not conduce much to his happiness, I hope."
He had risen at the last words, and walked up and down the room with his old vivacity. A short silence followed, which Ella at last interrupted--
"I want to beg something of you, dear uncle. Will you grant it me?"
Erlau stopped. "Gladly, my child. You know I cannot easily refuse you anything. What do you wish?"
Ella had fixed her eyes on the ground, and did not look up while she spoke.