Timea writes to him--the angelic creature, the spotless wife. A single tender word from her will exercise an influence on her husband like a cry of "danger" to a drunken man. These well-known characters will call up the saintly face before his mind"s eye, and lead him back to the right path.
In the letter is a small object; it must be a loving surprise, a little souvenir. Yes! to-morrow is her husband"s birthday. This will be a charming letter, a sweet remembrance. Michael opened the envelope very carefully, after cutting round the seal. The first thing that surprised him was a key which fell out--the key of his writing-table.
But in the letter were these words: "MY DEAR SIR,--You left the key of your writing-table in the lock. That you may not be uneasy about it, I send it to you. G.o.d keep you!--TIMeA."
Nothing further. Timar had forgotten to take out the key that night when he came home secretly, when the conversation with Athalie had so disturbed his mind.
Nothing but the key and a couple of frigid lines. Timar put down the letter in vexation.
Suddenly a dreadful idea flashed through his mind. If Timea found this key in his writing-table lock, perhaps she looked through the desk.
Women are curious, and do such things. But if she did search in it, she must have found something she would recognize. When Timar disposed of Ali Tchorbadschi"s treasures, he had been careful not to part with some objects, which, if they came into the trade, might have led to discovery, but had, for the most part, only sold the separate diamonds.
Among the precious objects was a medallion framed in brilliants, which contained a miniature portrait of a young lady, whose features bore a striking likeness to those of Timea. It must be the picture of her mother, who had been a Greek. If Timea found this medallion, she must know all; she would at once recognize her mother"s portrait, and conclude that this jewel had belonged to her father. This would lead her to the further conclusion that her mother"s valuables had fallen into Timar"s hands, and thus she would arrive at the knowledge of how he had become rich, and that he had married her at the price of her own money.
If Timea was curious, she now knows all, and then she must despise her husband.
And do not the words of the letter betray this? Does not the wife wish her husband to understand, by the forwarding of the key, that she had discovered his secrets?
This thought was decisive to Michael as to whether his path was to lead up or down! Down!
"It is all one," thought he. "I am unmasked before the woman. I can no longer play the honest man, the true-hearted, generous benefactor. I am found out. I can only sink lower still!"
He was determined to return to the island. But he would not retreat like a defeated foe. He wrote to Timea, and begged her to open all the letters which should come during his absence, to inform his agents of their contents, and, where a decision was necessary, to dispose, in the name of her husband, of all as she chose. At the same time he sent the key back, that it might be at hand if any doc.u.ments were wanted.
That was his trump card. With the feeling that his secret was near discovery he hastened to lead up to it, and possibly that very thing might prevent its revelation. He left orders to his agents that all letters concerning his affairs were to be directed to his wife. He was going away for a long time, but he did not say where to.
Late in the afternoon he started in a hired carriage. He hoped his track would be lost, and did not take his own horses. A couple of days ago he had been superst.i.tious, and awaited signs from Heaven, from the elements, to show him the way. Now he noticed them no longer. He was determined to return to the island. But the sky and the elements tried to frighten him by evil omens, and even to detain him by force. Toward evening, when the long lines of poplars on the Danube sh.o.r.e were already in sight, suddenly a reddish-brown cloud appeared in the sky, approaching with great rapidity. The peasant driver began to pray and sigh, but when the smoke-like cloud drew nigh, his prayers changed to curses. The Galambocz gnats are coming!
They are creations of the Evil One, trillions in number, and living in the holes of the Galambocz rocks: suddenly they come out in swarms, forming a thick cloud, and if they descend into the plain, woe to the cattle they find in the open!
The flight of gnats covered the plain through which Timar had to drive; the tiny stinging plague swarmed over the bodies of the horses, creeping into their eyes, ears, and nostrils. The terrified animals could no longer be controlled--they turned round suddenly with the carriage, and bolted in a north-westerly direction. Timar ventured on a jump from the carriage; he leaped cleverly and safely without injury; the horses flew off and away. If he had attended to omens, this might have been sufficient to turn him also aside. But he was now obstinate. He was going on a road where man no longer asks for help from G.o.d. He was going where Noemi drew him and Timea drove him. North pole and south pole, desire and his own will, pressed him on.
When he jumped from the carriage, he continued his journey on foot, keeping along the wooded river-bank. His gun had remained in the carriage, he had come with empty hands: he cut himself a walking-stick, and that was his only weapon: provided with this, he tried to make his way through the thicket. There he lost himself; night surprised him, and the more he wandered the less he found an outlet. At last he came on a hut built of osier-twigs, and decided to spend the night there.
He made a fire out of the dry branches lying near: fortunately he was carrying his game-bag when he jumped from the carriage, and in it were bread and ham; he broiled the ham over the fire and ate it with the bread.
He found also something else in the bag, the pistol with which Theodor had attacked him from the hut; perhaps from this very hut--quite possible that it was the same. He could make no use of the pistol, for he had left his powder-horn in the carriage; but it did him a service by strengthening him in his fatalism: a man who had escaped so many dangers must still have some work to do in the world. And indeed he required some encouragement, for after nightfall it began to be uncanny here in the desert. Not far away wolves were howling, and through the bushes Timar saw the shining green eyes: one and another old Sir Isegrim came up to the back wall of the hut and executed a fearful howl. Timar dared not let the fire out all night, for it alone kept away the wild beasts.
When he went inside, the uncomfortable hiss with which snakes receive human beings struck his ear, and a sluggish ma.s.s moved under his foot; perhaps he had trodden on a tortoise. Timar kept up the fire all night, and drew fantastic figures in the air with the glowing end of the fire-stick--perhaps the hieroglyphics of his own thoughts.
What a miserable night! He who has a home provided with every luxury, and a comfortable bed; in whose house rules a lovely young woman whom he can call his wife--spends a lonely night in a damp, fungus-grown hut: wolves howl round him, and over his head adders creep slowly through the rush-woven roof. And to-day is his birthday; a happy family festival indeed--in such surroundings! But they suit him--he wants nothing else.
Michael had a pious mind. From childhood he had been used night and morning to put up a silent prayer. He had never lost the habit, and in every danger or trouble of his eventful life, he had taken refuge in prayer. He believed in G.o.d; G.o.d was his deliverer, and whatever he undertook succeeded. But in this dreadful night he dared not pray; he would not speak with G.o.d.
"Do not Thou look where I go." From this birthday he gave up prayer. He defied fate.
When the day dawned, the nocturnal beasts of prey slunk back to their lairs. Timar left his inhospitable refuge, and soon found the path which led direct to the sh.o.r.e of the Danube: here a new horror awaited him.
The Danube was enormously swollen, and had overflowed its banks. It was the season of the spring floods after the melting of the snow; the foaming yellow stream was filled with uprooted reeds and tree-trunks.
The fisherman"s hut which he sought, and which stood on the point of a hill, was in the water up to the threshold, and the boat he had left there was tied to a tree close by.
He found not a creature there. It is impossible to fish in such a flood, and the people had removed all their nets. If he wanted a sign from heaven, a direction from G.o.d"s finger--here he had it. The swollen river barred his way with its whole majestic strength; at such times no one ventures on the river; the warning was there, the elements commanded him to return.
"Too late," said Timar. "I can not go back; I must go on."
The door of the hut was locked, and he broke it open to get his oars, as he saw through a c.h.i.n.k that they were kept there. Then he got into the boat, tied himself in, loosed the boat, and pushed off. The current seized him at once, and rushed on with him. The Danube was at that time a powerful master, and uprooted forests in its rage; a mortal venturing on its surface was like a worm floating on a straw, and yet this worm defied it. He alone managed the two oars, which also served to steer with. On the rapid waves his skiff danced like a nutsh.e.l.l, but the wind was contrary, and tried to drive him back to the sh.o.r.e he came from. But Timar succ.u.mbed neither to wind nor water.
He had thrown his hat to the bottom of the boat; his hair, wet with perspiration, fluttered in the wind, and the waves splashing over the side threw their icy spray in his face--but they did not cool him. The thought was hot within him that Noemi might be in danger on the island.
But the idea did not paralyze his arms. The Danube and the wind are two mighty powers--but stronger still are the pa.s.sions and the will of man.
Timar felt this. What activity in his mind, what muscle in his arm! It was a superhuman task in which he succeeded, to cross the current at the head of the Ostrova Island. Here he rested awhile.
The island of Ostrova was overflowed, the water was rushing among the trees. Here it was easier to get on by pushing his oars against the trunks; at the back of Ostrova he must let himself float down-stream to arrive at the ownerless island. When he had reached the right spot, and came out from among the trees, a new and surprising spectacle lay before him. The ownerless island was usually hidden behind a thick bed of osiers, over which only the tree-tops were visible; now none of the reeds was to be seen, and the island lay out in mid-stream. The flood had covered the reeds, the trees of the island stood in the water, and only at one place the rock raised its head above the surface.
With feverish impatience he let his boat float down. Every stroke brought him nearer to the erratic bowlder, whose crown was blue with lavender flowers, while the sides were shining gold with climbing nasturtium which clung to the stone; and the nearer he came the greater was his impatience. He could already see the orchard, whose trees stood in the water half-way up their trunk; but the rose-garden was dry, and there the lambs and kids had taken refuge. Now Almira"s joyful bark fell on his ear; the black creature came running to the sh.o.r.e, rushed back, came on again, leaped into the water, and swam toward the new arrival and back again.
Does Michael see that rosy face there at the base of a blooming jasmine-bush, hurrying toward him to the very edge of the rushing water?
One more stroke, and the boat has reached the sh.o.r.e. Michael springs out and the waves carry off the boat; he no longer wants it, and no one thinks of drawing it ash.o.r.e.
Each only saw the other. Around them the paradise of the first man!--fruit-laden trees, blossoming fields, tame animals, surrounded by a watery ring, and therein--Adam and Eve.
The maiden stands pale and trembling before the new-comer, and as he rushes toward her, when she sees him before her, she throws herself with a burst of pa.s.sion on his breast, and cries, in the self-forgetfulness of ecstasy, "Thou hast returned! Thou, thou!" and even when her lips are closed they still say, "Thou, thou!"
Around them is Eden. The jasmine-bush sends down on them its silvery flower-crown, and the choir of nightingales and blackbirds sing "Gospodi pomiluj."
CHAPTER VII.
SWEET HOME.
The waves carried off Michael"s boat. That of the islanders, which had brought them here, had long rotted away, and they had never had another.
The new-comer could not leave the island before the first fruit-dealers arrived. Before that time weeks and months must elapse.
Happy weeks, happy moons! Uncounted days of unbroken joy! The ownerless island was Timar"s home. There he found work and rest. After the flood had pa.s.sed away, the work of getting rid of the water left in the hollows gave him plenty to do. The whole day he was busy digging ca.n.a.ls to carry it away; his hands looked like a laborer"s from the blisters with which they were covered. When he threw spade and pick over his shoulder in the evening, and came back to the little cottage, he was met afar off, and lovingly welcomed. And when he had finished his ca.n.a.l and drawn off the marshy water, he looked upon his work as proudly as if it was the only one in all his life which could lay claim to be called a good action, and which he could confidently submit to his inward judge.
The day of the opening of this ca.n.a.l was a festival on the little island. They had no church festivals and did not count Sundays: their saints" days were those on which G.o.d gave them some special joy.
These islanders were sparing of words. What the holy David said in one hundred and fifty psalms, was by them expressed in a sign, and what the poets have sung of love in all their verses, one glance of the eye was sufficient to tell; they learned to read each other"s thoughts on the brow, they learned to think together.
Michael admired Noemi more every day. She was a faithful, grateful creature; she knew no care nor anxiety for the future; happy herself, she diffused happiness around. She never asked him, "What will become of me when you go? Will you leave me or take me? Is it good for me to love you? What church has given you its priestly blessing? Ought you to be mine? Has no other a right to you? What are you out there in the world?
What sort of world do you live in?" Even in her face, her eyes, he never read a disquieting doubt--ever and only the one question "Lovest thou me?"
Frau Therese reminded Michael one day that he was tarrying long here; but he a.s.sured her that Master Fabula was looking after everything, and when Therese looked at Noemi, whose soft blue eyes ever turned like the sunflowers to the sun of Michael"s face, she could only sigh, "Oh, how she loves him!"
Timar found it very necessary to dig all day, to drive piles, and bind fascines, in order by hard bodily labor to calm his even more heavily tasked mind. What is going on in the world? Thirty of his ships float on the Danube, and a fleet on the sea: his whole wealth, a property of more than a million, all lies in the hands of a woman. And if this woman in some giddy mood squanders the whole and scatters it to the winds, ruining her husband and his house, could he reproach any one? Was it not by his own will? He was happy here at home, and yet would have liked to know what was going on over there. His spirit lived in two places, was torn in two parts: there, his money, his honor, his position in the world; here, his love held him fast. In truth he could have got away.
The Danube is not a sea; he was a good swimmer, and could at any time have reached the opposite sh.o.r.e; no one would have detained him. They knew he had work to do out in the world. But when he was with Noemi he forgot again everything outside her arms; he was sunk in love, bliss, and wonder.
"Oh, do not love me so much!" whispered the girl to him.
And so day after day pa.s.sed by. The time of fruit-ripening drew near, and the branches were weighed down by their sweet burden. It was a pleasure to watch the daily progress of the fruit, how every day it developed more. Pears and apples began to put on their distinctive colors; the green is tanned to a leathery yellow, or receives gold and red streaks. The brown tone colors purple on the sunny side. In the golden tint mingle carmine splashes, and in the carmine greenish specks; the scented fruit smiles at one like a merry childish face. Timar helped the women to gather it. They filled great baskets with this blessing of heaven. He counted every apple he threw into the basket, how many hundreds, how many thousands. What a treasure! Real gold!
One afternoon, when he was helping Noemi to carry a full basket to the apple-room, he saw strangers arrive at the cottage: the fruit-buyers had come, the first visitors for many months past, bringing tidings from the outer world.