Johanna had regained her self-possession. How well she knew these languishing glances, these veiled flute-like tones. Her eyes, sharpened by hate, saw through all the pretty wiles and artifices as through a gla.s.s case. Her gaze rested unmercifully on the cowering one, and only waited for her to reveal her hand, then woe to her.
Felicitas suspected all this. The lean sister of charity with the lofty bosom--Felicitas thought it must be padded with virtue--was more difficult to deal with than her brother, the dear, overgrown schoolboy.
But even she had her weak spot; even she! And with folded hands and softly breathed words, Felicitas went on with the history of her suffering and struggles. It was very much the same as what she had confided to Leo on the Isle of Friendship, only a little altered to suit the special case. A blend of self-accusation and self-justification, of declarations of ardent attachment to her husband and outbreaks of torturing fear of him; a tossing between consciousness of unworthiness and the impulse to lose this consciousness in new unworthy acts--all this poured out in a stream of humility and penitence, radiated by the magic reflection of a soul hungry for beauty and love.
How much she believed of it herself she scarcely knew. In her easily impressionable mind, which she could play with as one plays with a spoilt child, truth changed into lies and lies into truth as the emergency required. Now she had reached in her story the first meeting with Leo. She halted, for she had not had time to consider, in the excitement of the moment, which of the three motives she should make use of--that suggested by the world, that which made out it had been done for Ulrich"s sake, or that which was really the true one.
"Be large-minded; be n.o.ble, and not petty," a voice said within her.
And she told the truth. Of course it was not the truth by a long way, but only what she took for the truth.
At the mention of the first letter to Leo, Johanna gave a sigh of satisfaction. Then she froze again into her stony aspect, but watched her enemy with ravenous eyes. Felicitas had nearly finished.
"It seems as if it would all be in vain," she concluded, "what I have tried to do for Ulrich"s happiness, if I don"t succeed in bringing about a reconciliation between our families; that is to say, between you and me."
Johanna laughed shrilly.
"Ulrich must come in and out here," Felicitas said eagerly, "as he used to in old times, without any fears about injuring the honour of his wife. Now, Johanna, you know why I came. This is the "dangerous game" I am playing. I feel and see that I have lost it, for you only answer me with scoffing laughter. If you laugh again, I shall know there is no further hope."
And then suddenly she fell on her knees, and, seizing Johanna"s skirts, cried, sobbing--
"No, don"t laugh; don"t laugh! Forgive me! Don"t let me be ruined. Be my refuge and rock of strength. I am devoured by a longing for absolution.... You are pure.... A saint. Will you show me the right way--guide and help me to repent? Pray for me, and teach me to pray.
Let me come to you when my guilt is driving me to distraction and despair. Let me kneel and weep ... like this ... at your feet."
She made an attempt to embrace Johanna"s knees, but she who had been looking down on her with hard compressed lips, quickly drew herself away, and, picking up the train of her dress, stepped by her.
"Listen to my answer," she said. "You have laid your scheme very skilfully, that must be admitted; but you are in error if you imagine I don"t see through you. You and I understand each other, Felicitas; there can be no fencing between us. I take very little interest in you now. I say of you what the Apostle Paul said of the heathen--"What are they to me that I should judge them?" What are you to me that I should condemn or forgive you? You must make your own reckoning with what you call life. But if you think that I shall quietly stand by and look on while you draw my brother into your toils for a second time, and ruin him body and soul----"
"Oh, Jesus!" cried Felicitas. However much she might have planned and rehea.r.s.ed this interview, that bitter cry from the depths of her tormented soul had not been in the programme.
Even Johanna seemed for a moment impressed by it; then she quickly took up again the thread she had dropped.
"Naturally, you deny it. You are an adept at playing the innocent. To be quite open with you, I myself have been instrumental in my brother"s approaching you, as a means of putting an end to your insane conduct; for your husband"s house must be cleansed at any price. But it was not your place to make the first advance. For you to do it was shameless, if not something worse. The foundation of your soul is overgrown by rubbish and weeds. But they shall be dug up."
A gleam of secret terror flitted over the unhappy penitent"s tear-stained countenance. She rose slowly and threw herself into the armchair.
"This is the reward one gets for speaking the truth," she thought. "I might just as well have used the Ulrich pretext, and the rest would have been simple." Was she now to throw up the game as lost? No, not yet. She felt that the highest trump of all was up her sleeve. But she wasn"t quite sure how to play it. So, like one who was at the last gasp and resigned, she said--
"Very well, send for him. I am ready."
Johanna fixed her eyes on her piercingly, as if she expected a new trick. Then she caught hold of the bell-rope, but let it fall again.
"You still think that I am in joke?" she asked; while Felicitas, apparently calm, followed every movement of her hands with a pained smile.
"I think that you are bent on ruining me," she replied; "and that is enough."
"Why should I wish to do that?"
"Because you hate me, Johanna."
Johanna came nearer to her, and in a voice which seemed nearly to choke her, she hissed in her ear--
"I will be honest. Yes, I hate you, I never hated my husband as much as I hate you. But that is not here or there. It has nothing to do with the matter in hand. As far as I am concerned, you might lead as pleasure-loving and sinful a life as you pleased. I shouldn"t care. But you have laid hands on those who are dear to me. I could tear my own eyes out over it. Why should I spare you?"
"This is the right moment," thought Felicitas. And pressing her hand to her beating heart, she said, with the same martyr-like air--
"If that is the reason, Johanna, you and I are quits after all."
"What do you mean?"
"Don"t you see that to-day you yourself are laying hands on some one dear to you?"
Johanna shrank back a little, her eyes opened wide with a fixed expression, as if she beheld in front of her this approaching evil. And Felicitas continued--
"Don"t you see that it will hurt _him_? Aren"t you afraid that it may kill him? But you are strong, and you are so great, Johanna, that you would rather he died than remained the possession of one unworthy of him. All I say is, that you ought to have done sooner what you intend to do to-day. It should have been done before habit had made him used to the new conditions. I speak of "habit" because I daren"t mention love in your presence."
Johanna spread her trembling hands on the table, and Felicitas continued in a still humbler and more resigned tone.
"Perhaps my imagination paints things too black. Perhaps he may recover from the blow which is to be dealt him ... for it lies with you, Johanna, to repair this day"s work and to help him to forget it."
Johanna started up. Her eyes pierced the face of her opponent anxiously.
"What are you trying to convey to me?" she stammered.
Felicitas went on, with her plaintive smile. "I only know this, Johanna, that I--I shall not recover from it. Whether he shoots me, whether I throw myself into the river, I don"t care. Perhaps neither will happen. He is so kind and n.o.ble ... and I--I am so afraid of death. Maybe I shall perish in shame and misery somewhere, for I am rudderless, Johanna. I count for nothing. In any case, I shall be cleared out of the way; from henceforth I shall be as good as dead; as you said, Johanna, there can be no fencing between us, least of all to-day. Why, then, conceal anything?" She opened her arms, "We love him, both of us, I as much as you ... this is the ground of our hate."
Johanna cried aloud. She made a motion with her fingers as if she would spring on the defenceless woman, then collapsed on to the sofa and buried her face in the cushions.
Felicitas licked her lips with the point of her little red tongue, which was a habit she had. She was quite sure now that the bell-rope would be left untouched. She came closer to the prostrate form, and was going to lay her hand on her shoulder, when she recollected herself and cautiously withdrew a few steps.
"The only thing we have to consider," she began anew, "is his happiness. If you are certain, Johanna, that you can secure it better than I can, I will yield to you willingly. And even if I did not wish, I am bound to do so because I am in your power. But I am weary of all this anxiety and unrest, and I do it of my own free will. And now, you see, there is really no reason why we should hate each other any more.
It might be possible that together we may hit on a way which will spare him the worst pain, for don"t forget that when he loses me he loses his friend at the same time, whom he values more highly than anything on earth."
Johanna raised herself and cast her wildly rolling eyes up at the crucifix which, with its white arms, shone out of the twilight.
"Oh, my Saviour," she moaned, "how could I want to do it? How couldst Thou permit that I should want to do it?"
"Don"t distress yourself," Felicitas went on, and now she really did lay her hand on the heaving shoulder. "Nothing has actually happened yet, and therefore I will make another proposal to you. To-morrow I will leave his house and write to him from Munsterberg. "Forgive me. I see that I can"t make you happy. You have made a mistake. I set you free. Choose the woman who is worthy of you."
At this Johanna turned round abruptly, clung to her, and seemed as if she would have drawn her head down to hers and kissed her. But the moment she felt the cool, soft arms of the woman she had so long hated touch her throat, she tore herself away shuddering and rushed to the window, to put as much distance as possible between her and the fair, smiling sinner; from this coign of vantage she began speaking.
"I have allowed myself to be cajoled by you, Felicitas. I am now as defenceless as yourself. You say that I love--aye, I love him. Triumph over me, then, for you have him, and I can do nothing but pray for him.
But what do you know of how I love him? I might as well say to you I don"t love him, and in your sense it wouldn"t be a lie. My love is spiritual, and partakes of worship. I want nothing further from him. To worship him is the same to me as belonging to him. I love him as I love the risen Lord, the saint who will one day kneel with me before G.o.d"s throne. But what do you understand of love like this? You all jeer at me. No, but you don"t despise me. You have a slight inkling into what I feel, and you envy me. But, nevertheless, you have no idea of what it is--of what it is at night to see the Gates of Heaven open, and the glory of G.o.d flame down, and the white wounds of the Saviour begin to bleed. Such a miracle has happened here more than once."
And she contemplated the crucifix hanging over the praying-stool with great hungry eyes.
Felicitas cringed. She had begun to be afraid. It seemed to be true what people said, that Johanna"s fanaticism had driven her out of her mind. When the latter saw her shiver, she broke into a laugh.
"You are frightened," she said. "I can well believe it.... No lies, no mask have any avail with the naked, bleeding One.... Come, give me your hand."