"I, however, was so filled with the exuberance of my new happiness that I believed I could by force compel her too to be happy. "If we love each other, Olga," I cried, "and the deceased says "Yes" and "Amen" to our union, I should like to see who could object! Therefore be brave and cheerful, my child!" But she was anything but brave or cheerful.
And not till now--when she is dead--have I realised how utterly miserable and broken down she was as she lay there on the cushions--she who as a rule was so proud and severe in her behaviour to herself and others. It was as if some intense sorrow had cut the innermost nerve of her life in twain. That is all clear to me now, but then I did not see it--I would not see it; and I went on remonstrating with her, comforting her as I thought. She listened to me, but said nothing; only now and then she nodded her head, and a smile of unutterable sadness and weariness played about her lips.
"I put it all down to the excitement of the moment and to the sadness of the last few years, which must rise up once more all the mightier within her, now that, for her too, a new happiness was dawning to supplant it.
""And the first thing we do," said I, "Olga, shall be to visit the churchyard. When we have stood at Martha"s grave, my mother"s resistance and the ill-will of the whole world need no longer affect us."
"Then she let her hands drop from her face, looked at me with great terror-stricken eyes, and asked in a perfectly toneless voice: "You want to go to the churchyard with me?"
""Yes, with you," I answered; "and now, at once, if you are willing."
""Then a shudder ran through her frame, and in a strangely hoa.r.s.e tone she said: "Have patience till to-morrow; to-morrow I will do what you wish."
""Yes, my dear, good child," I then said; "put all foolish fancies out of your head by tomorrow, and think to yourself that _she_ is not angry with us. We shall certainly not forget her! And must not our mutual grief for her bind us all the more closely together for the whole of our lives? Her memory will always be with us; and do you not also believe that from her whole heart she would bless our union if she could look down upon us from heaven? Has she not left us her child as a legacy, that we might watch over it together, and not surrender it to any stranger?"
"Then she threw herself down in front of the little cot, in which the little creature lay blissfully dozing, and pressed her face against its little head.
"Thus she lay for a long time, and I let her lie.
"When she rose up, the rigid calm once more rested upon her face that we were wont to see there. She gave me her hand, and said: "Go, my friend; leave me alone." And I went, for I was ready in all things to do her bidding; I did not even embrace her.
"A quarter of an hour later I saw her cross the courtyard. I waited at the window; but she did not look back any more.
"Next morning--well, you know, uncle, how I found her then. And at that moment I was as if struck by lightning. Uncle, I may grow old and grey--that moment will destroy every pleasure, and every laugh will die away from my lips as its consequence. But at least I might live. I might drag on this miserable existence, so that my child should not be deprived of its modest share of happiness. Only that one thing I must know--I must be freed from that one horrible idea, else I cannot go on--I cannot, however hard I try. Else I shall rot away alive.... Some one must arise, even if it be from the other side of the grave, and must tell me wherefore she died!"
Once more there was silence in the dark room. Nothing was audible but the heavy breathing of the two men and the rustling of a rat, which had accompanied Robert"s story with the monotonous, hollow music of its gnawing.
The old man struggled hard within himself. Should he treacherously disclose the secret of her life as he had already betrayed the secret of her death? But was there not, in this case, a good deed to be done?
Did it not mean freeing him whom she had loved above all things, from the torments to which--either a mistaken idea or a secret consciousness of guilt--condemned him? It seemed like a miracle, like special heavenly grace, that the mouth which seemed closed for ever, should once more be permitted to open, to bring peace to the loved one.
The old man gave a deep sigh. He had taken his resolution. "And supposing she should have taken thought, Robert," he said, "to give an account to you from beyond the grave?"
Robert uttered a cry, and clutched his wrists.
"What do you mean by that, uncle?"
"If you had not burrowed in your grief like a mole, and taken flight before every human face, you would have known long ago what is in every one"s mouth, namely, that on the morning of her death I received a letter from her----"
"You--uncle--from her----?"
"Goodness, my boy, you are breaking the bones in my body. Do first listen to me patiently"--and he told him the contents of the letter.
Robert had started to his feet and was nervously running his fingers through his hair. His eyes, which were staring down upon the old man, gleamed through the darkness.
"And the book--give it to me--where is it?"
The old man informed him how great was the danger in which Olga"s secret was hovering, and what anxiety he had himself pa.s.sed through on its account.
"Wait, I will fetch it," cried Robert, and hurried towards the door.
The old man held him back. "Your mother has the key--take care that her suspicion is not aroused."
"The door is half broken, I will smash it entirely."
"They will hear you downstairs."
"They are enjoying themselves much too well!" answered Robert, and laughed grimly. "Come, we will go together."
And through a back door, along the dark corridor, up the creaking stairs, the two men crept like two thieves who have come to take advantage of some festive occasion.
Opening the door proved even easier than they had hoped. The loosened hinge of the lock moved out of its joints almost without pressure.
At the door both stopped, overcome with emotion, as the dark room, faintly illumined by the starry clearness of the night, lay before their eyes. All traces of death had been removed: the empty bedstead--whose supports stood out darkly against the grey wall--alone indicated that its occupant had sought another resting-place. The odour of her dresses, the faint scent of her soap, still filled the room with their fragrance. Even the towels on which she had dried herself were still hanging, in fantastic whiteness, near the black Dutch stove.
Robert, unable to keep himself upright, dropped down upon a chair, and in long, eager breaths, which resembled a sobbing, he drank in the fragrance of the room. It was as if he were trying to absorb into his being the very last trace of her life.
A short, dazzling gleam of light darted through the room, danced along the walls, strayed with a yellow flicker across the writing-desk, and made the white-draped dressing-table stand out from the darkness like some crouching phantom.
The old man had struck a match and was groping by its aid for the little green-shaded lamp which had lighted Olga"s sleepless nights. It stood on the pedestal, in the same place where Olga had extinguished it when about to plunge into eternal night. Its gla.s.s bowl was yet nearly full of petroleum. She had been in a hurry to get to rest.
Carefully he lifted down the globe and lighted the wick. With a peaceful twilight glow the veiled flame cast its light across the silent chamber. Then he stepped up to the bookshelf, where the gilded volumes were ranged in rows and gleamed in the light. His hand for a little while groped along the wall and then pulled out to the light some blue, rolled-up object.
"We have it, Robert," he cried, triumphantly; "come away!"
The latter shook his head in silence. The old man urged him again; then he said: "We will read here, uncle--here--where she wrote it."
"What if any one should surprise us?" cried the old man, fearfully.
Robert shrugged his shoulders and pointed to the floor.
The old man was satisfied; they softly drew up their chairs within light of the lamp. After this nothing was audible but the rushing of the winter wind as it swept through the leafless lime-tops, and the monotonously hoa.r.s.e voice of the reader, accompanied from time to time by the chorus of the funeral party--now swelling up loudly, now dying away to a whisper.
VI.
"Forgive me, sister, for invoking from the grave your transfigured shade. In remembrance of the deep love you bore me, of the warmth with which my heart beat for you, suffer it, if I attempt to expiate the guilt that weighs so heavily upon me, and whose yoke I must drag along with me to the end of my days! Let me once more live through all the love and kindness you bestowed upon me, and in the memory thereof forget the horrors of loneliness that, like the breath of your tomb, chill my very bones.
"What a fool, what a wicked creature I was, to feel lonely while you yet dwelt on earth! Your love was the very air that I breathed! Your smile was the sunshine that animated me, your comforting, exhorting words were like the voice of G.o.d within us, to which we hearken reverently without understanding. And how did I thank you, sister? I grew a stranger to you--in sorrow and misery I have to think of you, and the consciousness of guilt appals me when the soughing wind whispers your name in my ear. Between us there stands a wild phantom with flaming eyes--terrible and distorted, its hair encircled by snakes--stretching out its claw-like hands towards me, and separating me from you for ever. If it were no phantom, but flesh and blood, if what I committed were a sin, a crime, I would wrestle with it, I would overcome it with the last strength of my failing energy, or allow myself to be strangled in its b.l.o.o.d.y grip. But it is intangible, it melts away into empty air--a spectre that mocks me, a mist that clouds my reason, and by its poison is slowly destroying me. A wish!
"A wish--it is nothing more!
"I wonder if you recognised it? I wonder if it was reflected in your dying gaze? I wonder if at your bedside, when you, good, n.o.ble soul, gave up the last breath of a life that was all love, you saw this spectre--a spectre born of envy and ingrat.i.tude, which I--miserable creature--dragged into your pure habitation?
"If I had still my lisping childish beliefs, I would pour out the wretchedness of my soul before G.o.d, the Great and Merciful; but there is no one on earth or in heaven to take pity on me, none but your glorified image.
"Woe is me!--that, too, turns away from me. Weeping, it veils itself, when yonder demon approaches my soul! And yet, was it not human to feel as I did? Why are we not heavenly bodies, void of desire, pure and ethereal? Why are we born of dust, why do we cleave to dust, eat dust and return to dust when we have thrown off this great fraud of life?