"As usual!" she answered, hastily; "it is her principle to make us anxious. Such people take advantage of every opportunity to let us feel their power. I know that."

"I do not think so. I must defend my cousin. She was always honest, though blunt and impulsive," answered Freyer. "I fear she is writing the truth, and the boy is really worse."

"Go there then, if you are anxious, and send me word how you find him."

"I will not travel at your expense--except in your service, and my own means are not enough," replied Freyer in a cold, stern tone.

"Very well, this _is_ in my service. So--obey and go at my expense!"

Freyer gazed at her long and earnestly. "As your steward?" he asked in a peculiar tone.

"I should like to have a truthful report--not a bia.s.sed one, as is Josepha"s custom," she replied evasively. "There is nothing to be done on the estates now--I beg the "steward" to represent my interests in this matter. If you find the child really worse, I will get a leave of absence and go to him."

"Very well, I will do as you order."

"But have the horses harnessed now, or it will be morning before I return."

"Will it not be too fatiguing for you to return to-night? Shall I not wake the house-maid to prepare your room and wait on you!"

"No, I thank you."

"As you choose," he said, quietly going to order the horses, which had hardly been taken from the carriage, to be harnessed again. The coachman remonstrated, saying that the animals had not had time to rest, but Freyer replied that there must be no opposition to the countess" will.

The half-hour which the coachman required was spent by the husband and wife in separate rooms. Freyer was arranging on his desk a file of papers relating to his business as steward; bills and doc.u.ments for the countess to look over. He worked as quietly as if all emotion was dead within him. The countess sat alone in the dimly-lighted, comfortless sitting room, gazing at the spot where her son"s bed used to stand. Her blood was seething with shame and wrath; yet the sight of the empty wall where the boy no longer held out his arms to her from the little couch, was strangely sad--as if he were dead, and his corpse had already been borne out. Her heart was filled with grief, too bitter to find relief in tears, they are frozen at such a moment. She would fain have called his name amid loud sobs, but something seemed to stand beside her, closing her lips and clutching her heart with an iron hand, the _vengeance_ of the sorely insulted woman. Then she fancied she saw the child fluttering toward her in his little white shirt. At the same moment a door burst open, a draught of air swept through the room, making her start violently--and at the same moment a star shot from the sky, so close at hand, that it appeared as if it must dart through the panes and join its glittering fellows on the countess" breast.

What was that? A gust of wind so sudden, that it swept through the closed rooms, burst doors open, and appeared to hurl the stars from the sky? Yet outside all was still; only the wainscoting and beams of the room creaked slightly--popular superst.i.tion would have said: "Some death has been announced!" The excited woman thought of it with secret terror. Was it the whir of the spindle from which one of the Fates had just cut the thread of life? If it were the life-thread of her child--if at that very hour--her blood congealed to ice! She longed to shriek in her fright, but again the gloomy genius of vengeance sealed her lips and heart. _If_ it were--G.o.d"s will be done. Then the last bond between her and Freyer would be sundered. What could she do with _this_ man"s child? Nothing that fettered her to him had a right to exist--if the child was dead, then she would be free, there would be nothing more in common between them! He had slain her heart that day, and she was slaying the last feeling which lived within it, love for her child! Everything between them must be over, effaced from the earth, even the child. Let G.o.d take it!

Every pa.s.sionate woman who is scorned feels a touch of kinship with Medea, whose avenging steel strikes the husband whom it cannot reach through the children, whether her own heart is also pierced or not.

Greater far than the self-denial of _love_ is that of _hate_, for it extends to self-destruction! It fears no pain, spares neither itself nor its own flesh and blood, slays the object of its dearest love to give pain to others--even if only in _thought_, as in the modern realm of culture, where everything formerly expressed in deeds of violence now acts in the sphere of mental life.

It was a terrible hour! From every corner of the room, wherever she gazed, the boy"s large eyes shone upon her through the dusk, pleading: "Forgive my father, and do not thrust me from your heart!" But in vain, her wrath was too great, her heart was incapable at that moment of feeling anything else. Everything had happened as it must; she had entered an alien, inferior sphere, and abandoned and scorned her own, therefore the society to which she belonged now exiled her, while she reaped in the sphere she had chosen ingrat.i.tude and misunderstanding.

Now, too late, she was forced to realize what it meant to be chained for life to an uneducated man! "Oh, G.o.d, my punishment is just,"

murmured an angry voice in her soul, "in my childish defiance I despised all the benefits of culture by which I was surrounded, to make for myself an idol of clay which, animated by my glowing breath, dealt me a blow in the face and returned to its original element! I have thrown myself away on a man, to whom any peasant la.s.s would be dearer!

Why--why, oh G.o.d, hast Thou lured me with Thy deceitful mask into the mire? Dost Thou feel at ease amid base surroundings? I cannot follow Thee there! A religion which stands on so bad a footing with man"s highest blessings, culture and learning, can never be _mine_. Is it divine to steal a heart under the mask of Christ and then, as if in mockery, leave the deceived one in the lurch, after she has been caught in the snare and bound to a narrow-minded, brutal husband? Is this G.o.d-like? Nay, it is fiendish! Do not look at me so beseechingly, beautiful eyes of my child, I no longer believe even in you! Everything which has. .h.i.therto bound me to your father has been a lie; you, too, are an embodied falsehood. It is not true that Countess Wildenau has mingled her n.o.ble blood with that of a low-born man; that she has given birth to a b.a.s.t.a.r.d, wretched creature, which could be at home in no sphere save by treachery! No--no, I cannot have forgotten myself so far--it is but a dream, a phantasy of the imagination and when I awake it will be on the morning of that August day in Ammergau after the Pa.s.sion Play. Then I shall be free, can wed a n.o.ble man who is my peer, and give him legitimate heirs, whose mother I can be without a blush!"

What was that? Did her ears deceive her? The hoof-beats of a horse, rushing up the mountain with the speed of the wind. She hurried to the window. The clock was just striking two. Yes! A figure like the wild huntsman was flitting like a shadow through the night toward the castle. Now he turned the last curve and reached the height and the countess saw distinctly that he was her cornier. What news was he bringing--what had happened--at so late an hour?

Was the evil dream not yet over?

What new blow was about to strike her?

"What you desired--nothing else!" said the demon of her life.

The courier checked his foaming horse before the terrace. The countess tried to hurry toward him, but could not leave the spot. She clung shuddering to the cross-bars of the window, which cast its long black shadow far outside.

Freyer opened the door; Madeleine heard the horseman ask: "Is the Countess here?"

"Yes!" replied Freyer.

"I have a telegram which must be signed, the answer is prepaid."

Freyer tore off the envelope. "Take the horse round to the stable, I will attend to everything."

He entered and approached the door, through which the child had come to his mother"s aid the last time she was there, to protect her from Josepha. The countess fancied that the little head must be again thrust in! But it was only Freyer with the despatch. The countess mechanically signed her name to the receipt as if she feared she could not do so after having read the message. Then, with a trembling hand, she opened the telegram, which contained only the words:

"Our angel has just died, with his mother"s name on his lips. Please send directions for the funeral.

"Josepha."

A cry rang through the room like the breaking of a chord--a death-like silence followed. The countess was on her knees, with her face bowed on the table, her hand clasping the telegram, crushed before the G.o.d whose might she felt for the first time in her life, whom only a few moments before she had blasphemed and defied. He had taken her at her word, and her words had condemned her. The child, the loyal child who had died with her name on his lips, she had wished but a few minutes before that G.o.d would take out of the world--she could betray him for the sake of an aristocratic legitimate brother, who never had existed. She could think of his death as something necessary, as her means of deliverance?

Now the child _had_ released her. Sensitive and modest, he had removed the burden of his poor little life, which was too much for her to bear and vanished from the earth where he found no place--but his last word was the name of all love, the name "mother!" He had not asked "have you fulfilled a mother"s duties to me?--have you loved me?" He had loved his mother with that sweet child-love, which demands nothing--only gives.

And she, the avaricious mother, had been n.i.g.g.ardly with her love--till the child died of longing. She had let it die and did not bestow the last joy, press the last kiss upon the little mouth, permit the last look of the seeking eyes to rest upon the mother"s face!

Outraged nature, so long denied, now shrieked aloud, like an animal for its dead young! But the brute has at least done its duty, suckled its offspring, warmed and protected it with its own body, as long as it could. But she, the more highly organized creature--for only human beings are capable of such unnatural conduct--had sacrificed her child to so-called higher interests, had neither heeded Josepha"s warning, nor the voice of her own heart. Now came pity for the dead child, now she would fain have taken it in her arms, called it by every loving name, cradled the weary little head upon her breast. Too late! He had pa.s.sed away like a smiling good genius, whom she had repulsed--now she was alone and free, but free like the man who falls into a chasm because the rope which bound him to the guide broke. She had not known that she possessed a child, while he lived, now that he was dead she knew it. _Maternal joy_ could not teach her, for she had never experienced it--_maternal grief_ did--and she was forced to taste it to the dregs. Though she writhed in her torture, burying her nails in the carpet as if she would fain dig the child from the ground, she could find no consolation, and letting her head sink despairingly, she murmured: "My child--you have gone and left me with a guilt that can never be atoned!"

"You can be my mother in Heaven," he had once said. This, too, was forfeited; neither in Heaven nor on earth had she a mother"s rights, for she had denied her child, not only before the world but, during this last hour, to herself also.

Freyer bore the dispensation differently. To him it was no punishment, but a trial, the inevitable consequence of unhappy, unnatural relations. He could not reproach himself and uttered no reproaches to others. He was no novice in suffering and had one powerful consolation, which she lacked: the perception of the divinity of grief--this made him strong and calm! Freyer leaned against the window and gazed upward to the stars, which were so peacefully pursuing their course. "You were far away from me when you lived in a foreign land, my child--now you are near, my poor little boy! This cold earth had no home for you! But to your father you will still live, and your glorified spirit will brighten my path--the dark one I must still follow!" Tears flowed silently down his cheeks. No loud lamentations must profane his great, sacred anguish. With clasped hands he mutely battled it down and as of old on the cross his eyes appealed to those powers ever near the patient sufferer in the hour of conflict. However insignificant and inexperienced he might be in this world, he was proportionally lofty and superior in the knowledge of the things of another.

"Come, rise!" he said gently to the bewildered woman, bending to help her. She obeyed, but it was in the same way that two strangers, in a moment of common disaster, lend each other a.s.sistance. The tie had been severed that day, and the child"s death placed a grave between them.

"I fear your sobbing will be heard downstairs. Will you not pray with me?" said Freyer. "Do what we may, we are in G.o.d"s hands and must accept what He sends! I wish that you could feel how the saints aid a soul which suffers in silence. Loud outcries and unbridled lamentations drive them away! G.o.d does not punish us to render us impatient, but patient." He clasped his hands: "Come, let us pray for our child!" He repeated in a low tone the usual, familiar prayers for the dying--we cannot always command words to express our feelings. An old formula often stands us in good stead, when the agitation of our souls will not suffer us to find language, and our thoughts, swept to and fro by the tempest of feeling, gladly cling to a familiar form to which they give new life.

The countess did not understand this. She was annoyed by the commonplace phraseology, which was not hallowed to her by custom and piety--she was contemptuous of a point of view which could find consolation for _such_ a grief by babbling "trivialties." Freyer ended his prayer, and remained a moment with his hands clasped on his breast.

Then he dipped his fingers in the holy water basin beside the place where the child"s couch had formerly stood and made the sign of the cross over himself and the unresponsive woman. She submitted, but winced as if he had cut her face with a knife and destroyed its beauty.

It reminded her of the hour in Ammergau when he made the sign of the cross over her for the first time! Then she had felt enrolled by this symbol in a mysterious army of sufferers and there her misery began.

"We must now arrange where we will have the child buried," said Freyer; "I think we should bring him here, that we may still have our angel"s grave!"

"As you choose!" she said in an exhausted tone, wiping away her tears.

"It will be best for you to go and attend to everything yourself. Then you can bring the--body!" The word again destroyed her composure. She saw the child in his coffin with Josepha, the faithful servant who had nursed him, beside it, and an unspeakable jealousy seized her concerning the woman to whom she had so indifferently resigned all her rights. The child, always so ready to lavish its love, was lying cold and rigid, and she would give her life if it could rise once more, throw its little arms around her neck, and say "my dear mother." "Pearl of Heaven--I have cast you away for wretched tinsel and now, when the angels have taken you again, I recognize your value." She tore the jewels from her breast. "There, take these glittering stars of my frivolous life and put them in his coffin--I never want to see them again--let their rays be quenched in my child"s grave."

"The sacrifice comes too late!" said Freyer, pushing the stones away.

He did not wish to be harsh, but he could not be untruthful. What was a handful of diamonds flung away in a moment of impulse to the Countess Wildenau? Did she seek to buy with them pardon for her guilt toward her dead child? The father"s aching heart could not accept _that_ payment on account! Or was it meant for the symbol of a greater sacrifice--a sacrifice of her former life? Then it came too late, too late for the dead and for the living; it could not avail the former, and the latter no longer believed in it!

She had understood him and the terrible accusation which he unwittingly brought against her! Standing before him as if before a judge, she felt that G.o.d was with him at that moment--but she was deserted, her angel had left her, there was no pity for her in Heaven or on earth--save from one person! The thought illumined the darkness of her misery.

There was but one who would pour balm upon her wounds, one who had indulgence and love enough to raise the drooping head, pardon the criminal--her n.o.ble, generous-hearted friend, the Prince! She would fly to him, seek shelter from the gloomy spirit which had pursued her ever since she conjured up in Ammergau the cruel G.o.d who asked such impossible things and punished so terribly.

"Pray, order the carriage--I must leave here or I shall die."

Freyer glanced at the clock. "The half-hour Martin required is over, he will be here directly."

"Is it only half an hour? Oh! G.o.d--is it possible--so much misery in half an hour! It seems an eternity since the news came!"

"We can feel more grief in one moment than pleasure in a thousand years!" answered Freyer. "It is probably because a just Providence allots to each an equal measure of joy and pain--but the pain must be experienced in this brief existence, while we have an eternity for joy.

Woe betide him, who does the reverse--keeps the pain for eternity and squanders the joy in this world. He is like the foolish virgins who burned their oil before the coming of the "bridegroom.""