And when at last she went to bed, after finishing her day"s work with pretended gentleness and hidden fury, she required no one to help her.
She tore off her clothes, dragged the knotted strings asunder, ill-treated her hair with hands and comb as if it was some one"s else; then stamped on her clothes, blew out the candle, leaving a long wick to smolder and fill the room with its evil odor, and threw herself on her bed; there she bit the pillow, and tore at it with her teeth while she brooded over the torture she had to endure. Sleep only came to her after she had heard a door shut--the door of the lonely chamber of the master; then she was glad--then she could sleep.
It could be no secret to her that the young husband and wife were not happy. She waited with malicious joy to see what mischief could be developed from it.
Neither of them seemed to notice it. No quarrel ever took place; no complaint, not even an involuntary sigh, ever escaped either of them.
Timea remained unchanged, only the husband grew more gloomy every day.
He sat for hours by his wife, often holding her hands in his, but he did not look into her eyes, and rose to go away without a word. Men can not keep a secret as women can. Timar got into the habit of going away and fixing the day of his return, and then returning sooner than he was expected. Another time he surprised his wife at a moment when he was not looked for; he pretended a chance had brought him home, and would not say what he wanted. But suspicion was written on his brow. Jealousy left him no peace.
One day Michael said at home that he had to go to Levetinczy, and could hardly get back in less than a month. All his preparations were made for a long absence. When the married couple took leave of each other with a kiss--a cool, conventional kiss--Athalie was present.
Athalie smiled. Another would hardly have noticed the smile, or at any rate would not, like Michael, have marked the derision which lay in it--the malicious mockery at one who little knows what goes on behind his back. It was as if she said, "When you are once gone, you fool--!"
Michael took the sting of this spiteful smile with him on his journey.
He carried it on his heart half-way to Levetinczy; then he made his carriage turn round, and by midnight he was back in Komorn. In his house there were two extra entrances to his room, whose keys he always carried about with him, so that he could get in without any one knowing of his return. From his room he could reach Timea"s through the several anterooms. His wife was not in the habit of locking her bedroom door.
She was accustomed to read in bed, and the maid generally had to come and see whether she had not fallen asleep without putting out the light.
On the other side, the room in which Athalie and her mother slept adjoined his wife"s bedroom. Michael approached the door noiselessly and opened it cautiously. All was still; every one slept. The room was dimly lighted by the shaded light of a night-lamp.
Michael drew the curtain aside: the same statue of a sleeping saint lay before him which he had once aroused to life in the cabin of the "St.
Barbara." She seemed to be fast asleep; she did not feel his neighborhood; she did not see him through her downcast lashes. But a slumbering woman can see the man she loves even in her sleep, and with closed eyes. Michael bent over her breast and counted her heart-beats.
Her heart beat with its normal calm. No suspicious symptom to be found--nothing to feed the hungry monster which seeks a victim.
He stood long and gazed on the slumbering form. Then suddenly he started. Athalie stood before him, dressed, and with a candle in her hand. Again that insulting smile of mockery lay on her lips. "Have you forgotten something?" she asked in a whisper.
Michael trembled like a thief caught in the act.
"Hush!" said he, pointing to the sleeper, and hurried away from the bed.
"I forgot my papers."
"Shall I wake Timea that she may get them out?"
Timar was angry at being detected for the first time in his life in a direct lie.
His papers were not kept by Timea, but in his own room.
"No, do not wake my wife; the papers are in my room--I only wanted the key."
"And you have already found it?" asked Athalie, seriously, who then lighted the candles and officiously conducted Michael to his room.
Here she put down the candle and did not go away. Michael turned over his papers with confusion; he could not find what he sought--naturally--for he knew not what to look for. At last he shut his desk without taking anything out. Again he was met by the hateful smile which from time to time played round Athalie"s lips. "Do you wish for anything?" said Athalie, in answer to his inquiring looks.
Michael remained silent.
"Do you wish me to speak?"
Michael felt at these words as if the world was falling on him. He dared not answer.
"Shall I tell you of Timea?" whispered Athalie, bending nearer to him, and holding the stupefied man under the spell of her beautiful serpent-eyes.
"What do you know?" asked Michael, hotly.
"Everything--do you wish me to tell you?"
Michael was undecided.
"But I can tell you beforehand that you will be very unhappy when you learn what I know."
"Speak!"
"Very well--listen. I know as well as you do that Timea does not love you. But one thing I know which you do not--namely, that Timea is as true to you as an angel."
Timar started violently.
"You did not expect that from me? It would have been welcome news to hear from me that your wife deserved your contempt, so that you might be able to hate and reject her. No, sir; the marble statue you have taken to wife does not love you, but does not deceive you. This I only know, but with absolute certainty--oh, your honor is well guarded. If you had engaged the hundred-eyed Argus of the legend as a watchman, she could not be better guarded than by me. Nothing of what she does, says, thinks, escapes me: in the deepest recesses of her heart she can have no feeling hidden from me. You acted wisely in the interests of your honor when you took me into your house. You will not drive me out of it, though you hate me; for you know well that as long as I am here, the man whom you fear can never approach your sanctuary. I am the diamond lock of your house. You shall know all: when you leave town, your house is a cloister while you are absent; no visitors are received, neither man nor woman; the letters which come to your wife, you will find unopened on your writing-table; you can give them to her to read or throw them into the fire, just as you choose. Your wife never sets foot in the streets, she only drives out with me; her only walk is on the island, and I am always with her; I see her suffer, but I never hear her complain. How could she complain to me, who suffer the same torment, and on her account? For from the time when that ghostly face appeared in the house my misery began; till then I was happy and beloved. Do not be afraid of my bursting into tears; I love no longer--now I only hate, and with my whole soul. You can trust your house to me; you can ride through the world in peace; you leave me at home, and as long as you find your wife alive on your return you may be sure that she is faithful to you. For know, sir, that if she ever exchanges a friendly word with that man, or responds to his smile, or reads a letter from him, I would not wait for you, I would kill her myself, and you would only come home to her funeral. Now you know what you leave behind--the polished dagger which the madness of jealousy holds aimed at your wife"s heart; and under the shadow of that dagger you will daily lay your head down to sleep, and although I inspire you with loathing, you will be forced to cling to me with desperation."
Timar felt all his mental energy crippled under this outburst of demoniac pa.s.sion.
"I have told you all I know about Timea, about you and myself; I repeat once more, you have taken to wife a girl who loves another, and this other was once mine. It was you who took this house from me; under your hand my father and my property sunk into dust; and then you made Timea the mistress of this house. You see now what you did. Your wife is not a woman, but a martyr. It is not enough that you should suffer; you must also acquire the certainty that you have made her, for whose possession you strove, miserable, and that there can be no happiness for Timea as long as you live. With this sting in your breast you may leave your house, Herr Levetinczy, and you will nowhere find a balm for your smarting wound, and I rejoice at it with all my heart!"
With glowing cheeks, gnashing teeth, and glaring eyes, Athalie bowed to Timar, who sunk exhausted into a chair. But the girl clinched her fist as if to thrust an invisible dagger into his heart.
"And now--turn me out of your house if you dare!" All womanhood was quenched in the girl"s face. Instead of a hypocritical submission, it was dominated by the fury of unbridled pa.s.sion. "Drive me away from here if you dare!"
And proud as a triumphant demon she left Michael"s room. She had taken the lighted candle which was on the table away with her, and left the wretched husband in darkness. She had told him that she was not the humble servant, but the guardian devil of the house. As Timar saw the girl with the light in her hand go toward the door of Timea"s bedroom, something whispered to him to spring up, seize Athalie"s arm, and setting his foot before the threshold, to cry to her, "Remain then yourself in this accursed house, as I am bound by the promise I gave; but not with us!"
And then to rush into Timea"s room, as on the eventful night when the ship went down, to lift her in his arms from the bed, and with the cry, "This house is falling in, let us save ourselves!" to fly from it with her, and take her to some place where no one spies on her . . . this thought darted through his head . . . that was what he ought to have done.
The door of the bedroom opened, and Athalie looked back once more; then she went in, the door shut, and Michael remained alone in the darkness.
Oh, in what darkness!
Then he heard the key turn twice in the lock. His fate was sealed; he arose and felt round in the dark for his traveling-bag. He kindled no light, made no noise, so that no one should awake and report that he had been here. When he had collected all his things, he crept softly to the door, shut it gently behind him, and left his own house cautiously and noiselessly, like a thief, like a fugitive. That girl had driven him away from it.
Out in the street he was met by a snow shower. That is good weather for one who does not wish to be seen. The wind whistled through the streets, and drove the snowflakes into his face; Michael Timar, however, went on his way in an open carriage, in weather in which one would not turn a dog into the street.
CHAPTER III.
SPRING MEADOWS.
As far as the Lower Danube, the traveler took with him rough and wintery skies; here and there fresh snow covered the fields, and the woods stood bare. The stormy cold suited the thoughts with which Timar was occupied. That cruel girl was right--not only the husband but the wife was wretched. The man doubly so; for he was the author of their mutual misery.
These bitter, disconsolate thoughts followed Michael to Baja, where he had an office, and where, when he traveled into the flax districts of Hungary, he had his letters sent. A whole bundle awaited him; he opened one after another with indifference; what did he care whether the rape had been frost-bitten or not, that the duties in England were raised, or that exchange was higher? But among the letters he found two which were not uninteresting--one from his Viennese, the other from his Stamboul agent. The contents greatly rejoiced him. He put them both away, and from that moment the apathy began to disperse which had hitherto possessed him. He gave his orders to his agents with his usual quickness and energy, carefully noted their reports, and when he had finished with them, proceeded on his way in haste.
Now his journey had an object--no great or important one, but still an object. It was to give a pleasure to two poor people--but a real joy.
The weather had changed; the sky had cleared, and the sun shone warmly down below. In Hungary, where summer follows immediately on winter, these swift changes are common. Below Baja the face of the country, too, was changed. While Michael rushed southward with frequent changes of horses, it was as if nature had in one day advanced by many weeks. At Mohacs he was received by woods decked in new green; about Zambor the fields were spread with a verdant carpet; at Neusatz the meadows were already dressed with flowers; and in the plains of Pancsova golden stretches of rape smiled at him, and the hills looked as though covered with rosy snow--the almonds and cherry-trees were in blossom. The two days" journey was like a dream-picture. The day before yesterday snow-covered fields in Komorn, and to-day on the Lower Danube hedges in bloom!