Читать книгу The Breaking of the Storm - Spielhagen Friedrich - Страница 26

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The door was shut, the footsteps of the two men died away--Ferdinanda had not moved.

"Una principessa!" she murmured. "He is the only one who understands me. What use is it to be understood by him? If he were a prince, indeed! And yet it is delicious to know that one is loved like that--delicious and dangerous! He watches every step I take, nothing that I do escapes him; but really yesterday he does not seem to have been at home. He does not know yet that I dare not do anything when he is near."

She sank down upon a stool, and took the letter from her bosom which he had given her yesterday over the garden wall. She already knew it by heart, but she liked to see the trace of the loved hand.

"Why did you not try to let me know that you would be at the station? You could have written quite safely to Schönau; it was mere chance that I came by that train--mere chance that I made acquaintance with your cousin in the carriage. How can we ever get on, how can we even prolong our present miserable existence, if we leave everything to chance? If we do not struggle for our happiness by boldly meeting our cruel fate? As it was, I had to find some excuse for tumbling head over heels out of the carriage; and how easily I might have missed you, or found you with your father, and then there would have been another opportunity lost! I hope now things may be a little better. Your cousin is, so he told me, acquainted with my sister, and she herself explained how they had made acquaintance on the road, and he made himself extremely useful to the party. My sister speaks of him very highly, and assures me that my father is delighted with him. He will, of course, call upon my father; at all events I shall come and thank my 'comrade' for the service he has done my belongings, either commissioned by Elsa and my father, or without any commission at all--leave that to me. At all events it will give us an opening that will be very useful, as your cousin seems a pleasant fellow, with whom little ceremony will be necessary. Get on good terms with him, and make use of 'my cousin' to take you out walking and to concerts, theatres, and exhibitions. By the way, go to-morrow--splendid opportunity--to the Exhibition. I shall only be on duty till twelve o'clock, so perhaps at half-past twelve I may persuade Elsa to go, as she has already expressed a wish to do so. I can take the opportunity of introducing you to her all the more easily that we were formally introduced yesterday; so be prepared for it. I write these lines, as usual, in flying haste, during the few minutes that I dare steal away from the family circle; forgive such a scrawl. I kiss your lovely hand now in my thoughts as I did erewhile when you gave it me over the garden wall for the first time--not for the last, I swear!" …

She let the letter fall into her lap. And no word of his father! not a word that could show that he was in earnest, in real earnest; that he would at least make an attempt to free them from their present humiliating situation! And he knew nothing yet of last night's scene! She crumpled up the paper which lay under one hand, and seizing it the next moment with both hands covered it with kisses, smoothed it carefully out, and replacing it in her bosom, laid her hot forehead upon the marble slab of the little table.

"Una febbre che mi divora," she murmured; "il sangue mi abbrucia, il cervello mi si spezza--sono stanca di questa vita! Yes, yes!" she cried, starting up, "I am tired of this life, which is no life at all, but a hideous mockery of life, a death before death--worse--a living grave! I will force my way out of this ghastly tomb, or die by my own hand!"

She walked up and down the room, wringing her hands and sobbing, now throwing herself upon a chair and gazing wildly before her, now starting up and again wandering about with gestures of despair. The loud clang of the great bell caught her attention for a moment. She knew that it was something quite unusual--perhaps some great accident had happened: a boiler burst, the saws of one of the machines bent, and the wall to which it was fastened pulled down and in ruins, as had happened a few months ago; perhaps a fire--what did it signify to her whether people were crushed and killed, or all burnt together? Was not she broken and wounded in soul and body, wandering amongst the ruins of the happiness which had never existed except in her dreams! A despairing woman, to whom a hair shirt would be suitable and ashes on her head, that head that she had once carried so proudly--like her father! It was all his fault. He it was, who had declared war between them! And he did not know yet; but the hour was coming soon, even to-day if she were followed--and then?

She had lain awake the whole night thinking over that question; she had racked her mind over it the whole morning. And then? and then?

How could she alone find an answer without him? And he--he! When last night she described in a few hasty words the scene that had taken place at table, had he given the one only answer that she had expected--"Then we must try to settle it without our fathers' consent!" He had answered nothing, not a word! and his silence confirmed what she had most feared--the only thing that she had feared and dreaded--that he was not prepared to carry the matter out to the last, to its extreme end--that he did not love her as she loved him!

Of what use were her courage and determination? She was helpless! She--helpless!

She stood still before a looking-glass which she was just passing. She examined her face, her figure as though she were the model whom she had ordered for the next day, and wished to see whether the form thus reflected were really what it laid claim to be. Was she really as beautiful as they all said? Was the great French sculptor right who came to see Justus last year, and at sight of her stood thunderstruck, and then exclaimed that till he saw her he had never believed that nature could have produced so perfect a form.

But Antonio, too, was beautiful--beautiful as a dream, and yet she did not love him. And was he, who was not even an artist--was he to let beauty alone so fascinate him that he should give up family prejudice, rank, social position, all--for what? A woman never asks such questions if she loves; she makes no calculations, no bargains--she loves, and gives freely, joyfully, everything that she has to give--she gives herself.

She leaned back in her chair, buried her face in the cushions, and shut her eyes.

"He does not know how passionately I love him, how I would cover him with kisses," she murmured; and yet, how did it go? "The only charm which a man cannot withstand, and which he follows unresistingly … and his gratitude for which is, in fact, only recollection and longing----"

It was from a French novel that she had gathered this melancholy piece of knowledge--not a good book--and she had not read to the end. But this sentence, which she did not dare repeat entirely to herself, had fallen into her heart like a spark of fire, and smouldered and burnt there--in her heart, in her cheeks, in her closed eyes, in the beating pulses of her temples--air! air!

She started up and clutched at the empty air like a drowning man. "I am lost," she cried, "I am lost, lost!"

A knock at the door, which she had already heard once or twice, now sounded louder. She let her arms fall, glanced round the room, grasped the letter hidden in her bosom, and passed her hands over her hair and brow and eyes and cheeks. "Come in!"

"I was afraid of disturbing you," said Reinhold, standing in the open doorway.

"Oh, come in and shut the door."

It was the Ferdinanda of last night, with the half-careless, half-sullen, impenetrable manner, and the deep, monotonous, tired voice.

Reinhold did as he was desired. She replaced the modelling tool, which she had caught up at random, on the little table, and gave him her hand.

"I have been waiting a long time for you."

"I should have been here sooner," answered Reinhold, "but a handsome young fellow next door, whom I seemed to disturb in the act of dressing----"

"Antonio, an Italian--Herr Anders' assistant."

"He either could not or would not give me any information. So I have been through the yards and the machinery department in search of your father, and--did you not hear the noise?"

"No."

Reinhold stared with astonishment, his heart was still beating and his mind still full of what he had seen and heard. The clang of the bell had frightened Aunt Rikchen out of the house, where he had just led her back only half quieted; the servants had run and stood in the distance, staring anxiously; blind Cilli had come into the doorway and had said a few kind words to him as he passed by; and here, fifty yards off, his own daughter had heard nothing!

"Do you artists live in a world of your own?" he asked in astonishment, and then he explained what had happened. "I am afraid," he added, "that half the manufactory will have to be closed. My uncle will suffer immense loss, for he has heavy contracts to fulfil, so the men told me before. Heaven only knows how it will all end!"

"What will it signify to my father?" answered Ferdinanda, as a bitter smile played about her lips. "The world may come to an end if only he can have his own way! You do not know my father quite yet," she continued more quietly. "We, unhappily, are accustomed to this sort of thing; all we know is that we live over a volcano. If we left off work every time there was a storm we should have no peace, and should never finish anything."

She had taken off her great apron. Reinhold was standing looking at her work.

"How do you like it?" asked Ferdinanda.

"It is beautiful," answered Reinhold, with sincere admiration; "but I could wish it were less beautiful if it might be less sad. The expression of the mouth, the look of the eyes as they are shaded by the head--the whole effect of the otherwise lovely face seems to me not quite in keeping with the peaceful and rural occupation suggested by the sickle and wheatsheaf. As I came in I fancied a maiden looking out for her lover. She is looking out for him, but woe to him when he comes! He had better be careful of the sickle! Am I right?"

"Perfectly," answered Ferdinanda. "And now I am more glad than ever that I am going with you to the Exhibition. It must be a pleasure to look at the work of real artists with any one who can so closely criticise the work of an amateur."

She was standing at the end of the room, and let the water from a tap in the wall run over her hands into a washhand-basin. "Excuse me," said she, "but that is what we are obliged to do here. Now tell me how you slept."

"Perfectly as soon as I got to sleep. I was a little excited at first."

"So was I. I had to walk for a long time in the garden before I could calm myself. May I confess? I was so ashamed of my father's losing his temper before you, as you could not know what he was like in such matters, and that he can work himself up into a perfect fury over a mere nothing. Luckily, he only fights these battles in imagination; and, for example, if the son of the man whose very name--heaven only knows why--puts him into such a state, if Herr von Werben were to pay you a visit, and my father met him, he would be courtesy itself. I tell you that because I presume you will not be able to avoid some intercourse with the Werbens, and might think the situation more serious than it really is. Indeed, I am convinced that if I had not, in my extreme nervousness, cut short the introduction yesterday at the station, and my father could have seen that Herr von Werben is a man very much like other men, that scene never would have occurred. But one can't think of everything."

So said Ferdinanda as she slowly walked through the garden, which led, by a back door, from the studio to the house. The sun threw a shadow from the trees upon the garden wall, as the moon had done last night.

"It really was only a shadow on the wall," said Reinhold to himself.