"Julia!" I cried, in an agony of anxiety--"Julia, do you not hear me?"
Still the same silence. She sat immovable before the mirror, and her lovely features were reflected in the gla.s.s; the trinket which I had won was round her neck, and a gentle expression was in her tender black eyes.
"Julia! Julia!" I cried, seizing her hand. It was cold, but not rigid.
G.o.d! my G.o.d! She was dead! I know not what further happened, but a fortnight later I was with you, Herr Pastor, to place the remains of my Julia in my family vault."
The count had risen, and strode up and down the room in great agitation. The clock struck eleven.
"Art thou there, Julia?" he cried, while his eyes roved wildly round.
"Come in! come in!" He opened the door leading to the adjoining room, and called out into the darkness, "Julia, I am here! here is thy husband!" A cold draught of air alone was wafted into the room, and a slight rustling noise was discernible. "She pa.s.ses on," said the count.
He slammed the door, and sank into an arm-chair. "She will not come to me! My G.o.d! my G.o.d! let me go to her!"
The count sat for awhile lost in deep thought; at length he sprang up, gazed at me with eyes beaming with joy, and exclaimed,
"Pastor Z., it is glorious to hope!"
When I left him I actually found myself trembling, and I was right glad that the servant lighted me along the deserted apartments, so powerful is the effect of the imagination when excited.
I continued to visit the count from time to time. His grief had, I fancied, calmed down, but his health was beginning to suffer, imperceptibly to himself perhaps, but not so to those who saw him now and then. I remarked that he was gradually becoming more strange; he often laughed at things which were not at all ludicrous; nevertheless, he was always the same amiable man I had ever known him, and his judgment was clear on every subject except when the mystic world was touched upon, then his thoughts used to wander, and Julia, his beloved Julia, was always the pivot round which his ideas turned.
In the middle of winter I suddenly received a message, to the effect that I was wanted immediately at the castle. The messenger could not tell the reason why I had been summoned, but said that the count"s valet had ordered him to saddle a horse and to ride as fast as he could to me. I suspected some misfortune, so set off instantly.
When I entered the count"s room he was seated at a table.
"Ah, is it you, Pastor Z.?" he said, when he perceived me. "Have you come to preach peace to my soul? Begin, sir; it will be amusing to listen--ha, ha, ha!--to hope in G.o.d? G.o.d? what is that? No, pastor, now I am wise--I believe in nothing, not even in myself, nor in you, priest, you black-skinned slug! You are one of those who wind themselves round mankind, and lie with a double tongue! Speak on, sir!"
His flashing eyes and uplifted arm, which threatened to strike, caused me to start back: he was evidently deranged. His pale lips trembled with rage, and his black hair hung in disorder about his brow, from which drops of perspiration rolled down his cheeks. I perceived that here I could be of no use; I therefore went to the bell to summon the servant. He made his appearance, pale, and with eyes red from weeping.
"Look!" cried the count, wildly laughing--"only look, Pastor Z.! The livelong night he has been borrowing from the fountain of tears, and talking no end of nonsense, merely because I told the fool the simple fact that neither he nor I possessed a soul, and that there is no such thing as right or wrong. Well? How comical you look--ha, ha, ha! You, and my man yonder, look like a couple of frightened sheep. You may rely on what I say, he would have come if it had been in his power; but all is over, he cannot come. Yes, look yonder, stare at your heaven: it is air, mere air, nothing but empty air. Do you understand? The earth is a solid lump, upon which cabbages, long-tailed monkeys, men, and other plants grow; and above is heaven, that is to say, sensibly speaking, air, atmosphere. Well? Are you not capable of comprehending this? it is as clear as the day. Just listen," he continued; "mankind is a sort of animal of prey, which, even when tamed, do not lose their natural propensities; they are worse than beasts of prey, for even the tiger loves its mate and its young, but look, man murders them--murders, do you hear?"
He hid his face in his hands, and wept aloud.
"I do not know what the letter could have contained," whispered the servant. "The count received it yesterday evening; he seemed overjoyed when he beheld the handwriting, and before I left the room; when I returned, however, he was just as you now see him. The poor count!" he continued; "he was such an excellent master!"
The count sprang to his feet as if he had been terrified by something.
"Ho!" he cried, and his wild eyes wandered round the room. "So much blood, so much poison were flowing over the earth; then a serpent stretched out its scaly head from the bottomless pit and seized the white dove. She fluttered her wings, the poor little thing, but first one part of her and then the other was crushed in the serpent"s throat.
It was her dead mother who devoured her: it was horrible! Look yonder--look, Herr Pastor! A thick darkness overspread the earth; not a single ray of hope could penetrate through the b.l.o.o.d.y vapour to her!
Nay, good pastor, it was merely a freak of fancy, but at the same time a picture of the truth. Her mother and her husband murdered her. Do you now understand?"
In this strain the unhappy man continued to rave for several days. I remained in the castle, for I hoped he might rally. A doctor was called in: he applied many remedies, none of which, however, seemed to afford the sufferer any relief. The count continued to be insane, and never for an instant did he close his eyes in sleep. At length, however, he became exhausted, and was obliged to be carried to his bed. I was then called to him. How much he had changed! his dark eyes had sunken greatly? and looked like flames half extinguished; his cheeks had fallen in, and his brow was full of wrinkles. He lay apparently in a state of complete exhaustion, and when I addressed him he did not answer.
His servant privately handed me the fatal letter. It was from Don Caldero, and ran as follows:
"DEAR COUNT,--When this letter reaches you, I shall be no more. It shall be laid in my desk, ready to be sent to you after my death. I owe you an explanation to divest you of your erroneous ideas respecting another world. For a long time past I have not believed in a future life, but it has been one of my favourite amus.e.m.e.nts to observe the faith of enthusiasts. It gave me pleasure when I perceived a man misled by his faith, and I laughed in my sleeve at such folly. I influenced your opinions, as I found you to be a fit subject for my experiments.
"I am a Catholic; from my youth upwards my eye has been accustomed to weeping Madonnas; I have heard the miracles respecting the saints narrated, and was expected to believe all I heard. The consequence is, that I have ended by believing nothing, The whole of religion rests upon the conviction of the present and eternal existence of the immortal soul; but there is no proof that man possesses a soul, any more than there is proof of the truth of the above-mentioned miracles.
Man is an animal like the other inhabitants of the globe, with this exception only, that he has a more perfectly-developed brain, and a greater number of intellectual organs. Life is quite independent of soul. I have studied these subjects, and have become convinced that the theory about the soul is a fabrication of the priesthood, invented to enable them the more easily to govern the body. There can be no Divine disposer of human events, else wickedness would not prosper in this world as it does, whilst uprightness suffers. There is a governing law in nature which dooms mankind to death, just as the trees are compelled annually to shed their leaves. I saw how oaths were broken with impunity; I shared with a maiden, whom I loved more than my life, a consecrated wafer, the most sacred thing I then knew: _she_ broke the oath and became happy, while _I_, who kept it, became miserable. Hence I began to believe in fate, and not in Providence, and learned to despise mankind to prevent myself from hating them.
"I met you and your Julia; she was _her_ daughter. She was beautiful, and as yet nothing had occurred to try her character. For awhile my old dreams of faithful love revived, and for the daughter"s sake I forgave the mother, who had so deeply wounded the most sacred of all feelings, if anything can be termed sacred. To be brief, count, I fancied myself once more in my enthusiastic youthful days; I forgot the sentiments experience had induced me to adopt, and faith in Maria"s love blossomed anew in my heart, like the flowers which take root in the loose ashes of a volcano. I fancied my innocent Maria would meet me in another world with a kind welcome, and joyfully traverse with me the regions of s.p.a.ce. You see, count, that the notion of eternity and G.o.d proceeds from our conceptions of love, and that, where there is no love, faith is also wanting.
"Your wife died suddenly on the anniversary of the day on which Maria and I had taken the oath. I considered this event as a sign from Heaven, from her who, yonder above the skies, still loved me. I thought the mother had called her daughter to herself, for she was the only being on earth who testified to her broken oath. I deceived myself.
"I had scarcely returned to Spain, when I received a visit from a monk.
""Pardon me, senor," said he, "if I take the liberty of putting a question to you. Have you a chain, which you once received from a distinguished lady whom you loved?"
"I gazed at the man in astonishment, and answered, "Yes; what can you know about it?"
""Senor, I prepared an old woman for death who had been engaged in some cases of poisoning, and she confessed the following, which she gave me permission to repeat, if by so doing any advantage might be gained: "One evening," these were her words, "I was summoned to a young and beautiful lady, she was called Maria Viso"--was that the name of your beloved?--"and she begged me to insert a powerful poison in the clasp of a chain."
""Although the wretched woman was accustomed to such commissions, she nevertheless asked who was to wear the chain? The lady answered that it had been given to her by an importunate suitor who was called Caldero, and she now wished to send back the chain to him. She also said that her feelings towards him were changed, and she now preferred another, but that her parents, who formerly opposed her marriage with him, had become anxious for it, and wished to force it on her, and she was determined to get rid of him.
""The woman thereupon inserted the poison into the clasp. The lady had afterwards married a heretic, and this act of hers it was which had roused the poisoner"s conscience, for notwithstanding her being so great a criminal, she was an orthodox Catholic. She sought to find you out, in the hope that the scheme had not succeeded according to the lady"s intentions. The Lord be praised and thanked that you did not wear that chain, you would undoubtedly have died if you had; the best thing you can do with it will be to present it to our poor monastery, for with the pure everything is pure, and the poison might be expunged by melting the gold."
"I stood like one turned into a statue of stone. It was, then, the decree of fate that the mother should be accessary to the daughter"s death, and the latter be sacrificed for the crime of the former!
"Picture to yourself now, if you can, count, blessed spirits: imagine to yourself, now, a heaven on earth with a woman you love; cling to a belief in another world; if you can do all this, then you are indeed a perfect fool. I have relapsed into my old views: the earth remains earth, and nothing more. When you are reading this I shall be dead, cold, and buried. If, however, I have an immortal soul, you will know the contents of this letter before it arrives, otherwise you must believe that nothing remains of him who once was your friend.
"CALDERO."
The much-to-be-pitied victim of Caldero"s cold atheism and contempt of mankind still sat in the same position, staring gloomily before him, without uttering a syllable, but now and then heaving a deep-drawn sigh. It was evident that he would soon be at rest, for every day he became weaker and weaker.
I scarcely ever left the bedside of the unfortunate young man, in the hope that he might, if only for a few minutes, regain his senses, when I could speak peace to his soul.
One evening, after this sad state of affairs had continued without interruption for a fortnight, I was sitting at a table reading, with my back turned to the count, when I heard a low whispering behind me; it was his voice. I listened--it was a fervent, humble prayer for peace in death, and pardon for all his sins. I let him finish his prayer undisturbed.
"Who is there?" asked the count, in a feeble tone.
I drew near to the bed.
"Is it you, Pastor Z.?" he said mildly. "Still up? It is late. I am happy now, my friend, for it will soon be day; I have had a long night.
I am dying, but I bear within me a strong voice crying, "Love is faith," and I pray, bowing myself in humility before the G.o.d of Love. I have wandered from the right path, I was misled, misfortune pursued me, and I became, through my thoughtlessness, Julia"s murderer. The crushing intelligence contained in Caldero"s letter shook my trust in everything, for it is a relief to a guilty soul not to believe in a Judge. But my presumptuous folly was punished, my understanding became obscured. A light has burst upon me now, and since I have prayed I feel at peace. I prayed--for many years I neglected to do so--yes, I prayed with clasped hands, as my mother used to teach me when I was an innocent child. Alas, I ought always to have prayed thus."
He ceased speaking, and leaning his head against his pillow, he looked steadfastly at me with a mild, glorified expression of countenance. I had sunk upon my knees at the side of his bed, and poured forth thanks to my G.o.d for the ray of light and hope which he had permitted to penetrate the darkened mind of the poor sufferer.
"Lord!" I entreated, "grant him light!"
"Light," he repeated, in a low whisper, "Lord! more light. G.o.d be praised! there _is_ light!"
He closed his eyes, heaved a long sigh, and in another world he received an explanation of that secret, the solution of which he had only grasped in his last hour.
He now reposes in the family vault by the side of his beloved Julia; the receptacle of the dead is full. The pieces of his shattered escutcheon lie scattered upon the floor around his coffin,[7] and the key of the vault will be needed no more!