There lay the "infant Christ," a boy six or seven years old with silken curls and ma.s.sive brows, beneath whose shadow the closed eyes were concealed by dark-lashed lids. A single ray from the hanging lamp fell upon the forehead of the little Raphael, and showed the soft brows knit as if with unconscious pain.
The child was not happy--or not well--or both. He breathed heavily in his sleep, and there was a slight nervous twitching about the delicately moulded nostrils.
"He has evidently lost flesh since I was last here!" said the countess anxiously.
Freyer remained silent.
"What do you think?" asked the mother.
"What can I think? You have not seen the boy for so _long_ that you can judge whether he has altered far better than I."
"Joseph!" The beautiful woman drew herself up, and a look of genuine sorrow rested upon the pale, irritated countenance of her husband.
"Whenever I come, I find nothing save bitterness and cutting words--open and secret reproaches. This is too much. Not even to-day, when I find my child ill, do you spare the mother"s anxious heart. This is more than I can endure, it is ign.o.ble, unchivalrous."
"Pardon me," replied her husband in a low tone, "I could not suppose that a mother who deserts her child for months could possibly possess so tender a nature that she would instantly grow anxious over a slight illness or a change in his appearance. I am a plain man, and cannot understand such contradictions!"
"Yes, from your standpoint you are right--in your eyes I must seem a monster of heartlessness. I almost do in my own. Yet, precisely because the reproach appears merited it cuts me so deeply, that is why it would be generous and n.o.ble to spare me! Oh! Freyer, what has become of the great divine love which once forgave my every fault?"
"It is where you have banished it, buried in the depths of my heart, as I am buried among these lonely mountains, silent and forgotten."
The countess, shaking her head, gazed earnestly at him. "Joseph, you see that I am suffering. You must see that it would be a solace to rest in your love, and you are ungenerous enough to humble my bowed head still more."
"I have no wish to humble you. But we can be generous only to those who need it. I see in the haughty Countess Wildenau a person who can exercise generosity, but not require it."
"Because you do not look into the depths of my heart, tortured with agonies of unrest and self-accusation?" As she spoke tears sprang to her eyes, and she involuntarily thought of the faithful, shrewd friend at home whose delicate power of perception had that very day spared her the utterance of a single word, and at one glance perceived all the helplessness of her situation.
True, the _latter_ was a man of the world whom the tinsel and glitter which surrounded her no longer had power to dazzle, and who was therefore aware how poor and wretched one can be in the midst of external magnificence.
The _former_--a man of humble birth, with the childish idea of the value of material things current among the common people, could not imagine that a person might be surrounded by splendor and luxury, play a brilliant part in society, and yet be unhappy and need consideration.
But, however, she might apologize for him, the very excuses lowered him still more in her eyes! Each of these conflicts seemed to widen the gulf between them instead of bridging it.
Such scenes, which always reminded her afresh of his lowly origin, did him more injury in her eyes than either of them suspected at the moment. They were not mere ebullitions of anger, which yielded to equally sudden reactions--they were not phases of pa.s.sion, but the result of cool deliberation from the standpoint of the educated woman, which ended in hopeless disappointment.
The continual refrain: "You do not understand me!" with which the countess closed such discussions expressed the utter hopelessness of their mutual relations.
"You wonder that I come so rarely!" she said bitterly. "And yet it is you alone who are to blame--nay, you have even kept me from the bedside of my child."
"Indeed?" Freyer with difficulty suppressed his rising wrath. "This, too!"
"Yes, how can you expect me to come gladly, when I always encounter scenes like these? How often, when I could at last escape from the thousand demands of society, and hurried hither with a soul thirsting for love, have you repulsed me with your perpetual reproaches which you make only because you have no idea of my relations and the claims of the fashionable world. So, at last, when I longed to come here to my husband and my child, dread of the unpleasant scenes which shadow your image, held me back, and I preferred to conjure before me at home the Freyer whom I once loved and always should love, if you did not yourself destroy the n.o.ble image. With _that_ Freyer I have sweet intercourse by my lonely fireside--with _him_ I obtain comfort and peace, if I avoid _this_ Freyer with his petty sensitiveness, his constant readiness to take umbrage." A mournful smile illumined her face as she approached him; "You see that when I think of the Freyer of whom I have just spoken--the Freyer of my imagination--my heart overflows and my eyes grow dim! Do you no longer know that Freyer? Can you not tell me where I shall find him again if I seek him very, _very_ earnestly?"
Freyer opened his arms and pointed to his heart: "Here, here, you can find him, if you desire--come, my beloved, loved beyond all things earthly, come to the heart which is only sick and sensitive from longing for you."
In blissful forgetfulness she threw herself upon his breast, completely overwhelmed by another wave of the old illusion, losing herself entirely in his ardent embrace.
"Oh, my dear wife!" he murmured in her ear, "I know that I am irritable and unjust! But you do not suspect the torment to which you condemn me.
Banished from your presence, far from my home, torn from my native soil, and not yet rooted in yours. What life is this? My untrained reason is not capable of creating a philosophy which could solve this mystery. Why must these things be? I am married, yet not married. I am your husband, yet you are not my wife. I have committed no crime, yet am a prisoner, am not a dishonored man--yet am a despised one who must conceal himself in order not to bring shame upon his wife!
"So the years pa.s.sed and life flits by!" You come often, but--I might almost say only to make me taste once more the joys of the heaven from which I am banished.
"Ah, it is more cruel than all the tortures of bell, for the condemned souls are not occasionally transferred to Heaven only to be again thrust forth and suffer a thousandfold. Even the avenging G.o.d is not so pitiless."
The countess, overwhelmed by this heavy charge, let her head sink upon her husband"s breast.
"See, my wife," he continued in a gentle, subdued tone, whose magic filled her heart with that mournful pleasure with which we listen to a beautiful dirge even beside the corpse of the object of our dearest love. "In your circles people probably have sufficient self-control to suppress a great sorrow. I know that I only weary and annoy you by my constant complaints, and that you will at last prefer to avoid me entirely rather than expose yourself to them!
"I know this--yet I cannot do otherwise. I was not trained to dissimulation--self-control, as you call it--I cannot laugh when my heart is bleeding or utter sweet words when my soul is full of bitterness. I do not understand what compulsion could prevent you, a free, rich woman, from coming to the husband whom you love, and I cannot believe that you could not come if you longed to do so--that is why I so often doubt your love.
"What should you love in me? I warned you that I cannot always move about with the crown of thorns and sceptre of reeds as Ecce h.o.m.o, and you now perceive that you were deceived in me, that I am only a poor, ordinary man, your inferior in education and intellect! And so long as I am not a real Ecce h.o.m.o--though that perhaps might happen--so long I am not what you need. But however poor and insignificant I may be--I am not without honor--and when I think that you only come occasionally, out of compa.s.sion, to bring the beggar the crumbs which your fine gentlemen have left me--then, I will speak frankly--then my pride rebels and I would rather starve than accept alms."
"And therefore you thrust back the loving wife when, with an overflowing heart, she stole away from the glittering circles of society to hasten to your side, therefore you were cold and stern, disdaining what the others _sought in vain_!--For, however distant you may be, there has not been an hour of my life which you might not have witnessed--however free and independent of you I may stand, there is not a fibre in my heart which does not cling to you! Ah, if you could only understand this deep, sacred tie which binds the freest spirit to the husband, the father of my child. If I had wings to soar over every land and sea--I should ever be drawn back to you and would return as surely as "the bird bound by the silken cord." No one can part me from you except _you yourself_. That you are not my equal in education, as you a.s.sert, does not sever us, but inferiority of _character_ would do so, for nothing but _greatness_ attracts me--to find you base would be the death-knell of our love! Even the child would no longer be a bond between us, for to intellectual natures like mine the ties of blood are mere animal instincts, unless pervaded and transfigured by a loftier idea. The greatest peril which threatens our love is that your narrow views prevent your attaining the standpoint from which a woman like myself must be judged. I have great faults which need great indulgence and a superiority which is not alarmed by them. Unfortunately, my friend, you lack both. I have a great love for you--but you measure it by the contracted scales of your humdrum morality, and before this it vanishes because its dimensions far transcend it.--Where, where, my friend, is the grandeur, the freedom of the soul which I need?"
"Alas, your words are but too true," said Freyer, releasing her from his embrace. "Every word is a death sentence. You ask a grandeur which I do not possess and shall never obtain. I grew up in commonplace ideas, I have never seen any other life than that in which the husband and wife belonged together, the father and mother reared, tended, and watched their children together, and love in this close, tender companionship reached its highest goal. This idea of quiet domestic happiness embodied to me all the earthly bliss allotted by G.o.d to Christian husbands and wives. Of a love which is merely incidental, something in common with all the other interests of life, and which when it comes in conflict with them, must move aside and wait till it is permitted to a.s.sert itself again, of such a love I had no conception--at least, not in marriage! True, we know that in the dawn of love it is kept secret as something which must be hidden. But this is a state of restless torture, which we strive to end as soon as possible by a marriage. That such a condition of affairs would be possible in marriage would never have entered my mind, and say what you will, a--marriage like ours is little better than an illegal relation."
The countess started--she had had the same thought that very day.
"And I "--Freyer inexorably continued--"am little more than your lover!
If you choose to be faithful to me, I shall be grateful, but do not ask the "grandeur" as you call it, of my believing it. Whoever regards conjugal duties so lightly--whoever, like you, feels bound by no law "which was only made for poor, ordinary people" will keep faith only--so long as it is agreeable to do so."
The countess, gazing into vacancy, vainly strove to find a reply.
"This seems very narrow, very ridiculous from your lofty standpoint.
You see I shall always be rustic. It is a misfortune for you that you came to me. Why did you not remain in your own aristocratic circle--gentlemen of n.o.ble birth would have understood you far better than a poor, plain man like me. I tell myself so daily--it is the worm which gnaws at my life. Now you have the "greatness" you desire, the only "greatness" I can offer--that of the perception of our misery."
Madeleine nodded hopelessly. "Yes, we are in an evil strait. I despair more and more of restoring peace between us--for it would be possible only in case I could succeed in making you comprehend the necessity of the present certainly unnatural form of our marriage. Yet you cannot and will not see that a woman like me cannot live in poverty, that wealth, though it does not render me happy, is nevertheless indispensable, not on account of the money, but because with it honor, power, and distinction would be lost. You know that this would follow an acknowledgement of our marriage, and I would die rather than resign them. I was born to a station too lofty to be content in an humble sphere. Do you expect the eagle to descend to a linnet"s nest and dwell there? It would die, for it can breathe only in the regions for which it was created."
"But the eagle should never have stooped to the linnet," said Freyer, gloomily.
"I believed that I should find in you a consort, aspiring enough to follow me to my heights, for the wings of your genius rustled with mighty strokes above me when you hung upon the cross. Oh, can one who, like you, has reached the height of the cross, sink to the Philistine narrowness of the ideas of the lower cla.s.ses and thrust aside the foaming elixir of love, because it is not proffered in the usual wooden bowl of the daily performance of commonplace duties? It is incredible, but true. And lastly you threaten that I shall make you an Ecce h.o.m.o!
If you were, it would be no fault of mine but because, even in daily life, you could not cease to play the Christ."
The countess had spoken with cutting sharpness and bitterness; it seemed as if the knife she turned against the man she loved must be piercing her own heart.
Freyer"s breath came heavily, but no sound betrayed the anguish of the wound he had received. But the child, as if feeling, even in its sleep, that its mother was about to sunder, with a fatal blow, the chord of life uniting her to the father and itself, quivered in pain and flung its little hands into the air, as though to protect the mysterious bond whose filaments ran through its heart also.
"See, the child feels our strife and suffers from it!" said Freyer, and the unutterable pain in the words swept away all hardness, all defiance. The mother, with tearful eyes, sank down beside the bed of the suffering child--languishing under the discord between her and its father like a tender blossom beneath the warfare of the elements. "My child!" she said in a choking voice, "how thin your little hands have grown! What does this mean?"
She pressed the boy"s transparent little hands to her lips and when she looked up again two wonderful dark eyes were gazing at her from the child"s pale face. Yes, those were the eyes of the infant Redeemer of the World in the picture of the Sistine Madonna, the eyes which mirror the foreboding of the misery of a world. It was the expression of Freyer"s, but spiritualized, and as single sunbeams dance upon a dark flood, it seemed as if golden rays from his mother"s sparkling orbs had leaped into his.
What a marvellous child! The mother"s delicate beauty, blended with the deep earnestness of the father, steeped in the loveliness and transfiguration of Raphael. And she could wound the father of this boy with cruel words? She could scorn the wonderful soul of Freyer, which gazed at her in mute reproach from the eyes of the child, because the woe of the Redeemer had impressed upon it indelible traces; disdain it beside the bed of this boy, this pledge of a love whose supernatural power transformed the man into a G.o.d, to rest for a moment in a divine embrace? "Mother!" murmured the boy softly, as if in a waking dream; but Madeleine von Wildenau felt with rapture that he meant _her_, not Josepha. Then he closed his eyes again and slept on.
Kneeling at the son"s bedside, she held out her hand to the father; it seemed as if a trembling ray of light entered her soul, reflected from the moment when he had formerly approached her in all the radiance of his power and beauty.
"And _we_ should not love each other?" she said, while binning tears flowed down her cheeks. Freyer drew her from, the child"s couch, clasping her in a close embrace. "My dove!" He could say no more, grief and love stifled his voice.
She threw her arms around his neck, as she had done when she made her penitent confession with such irresistible grace that he would have pardoned every mortal sin. "Forgive me, Joseph," she said softly, in order not to wake the boy who, even in sleep, turned his little head toward his parents, as a flower sways toward the sun. "I am a poor, weak woman; I myself suffer unutterably under the separation from you and the child; if you knew how I often feel--a rock would pity me! It is a miserable condition--nothing is mine, neither you, my son, nor my wealth, unless I sacrifice one for the other, and that I cannot resolve to do. Ah, have compa.s.sion, on my weakness. It is woman"s way to bear the most unendurable condition rather than form an energetic resolve which might change it. I know that the right course would be for me to find courage to renounce the world and say: "I am married, I will resign, as my husband"s will requires, the Wildenau fortune; I will retire from the stage as a beggar--I will starve and work for my daily bread." I often think how beautiful and n.o.ble this would be, and that perhaps we might be happy so--happier than we are now--if it were only _done_! But when I seriously face the thought, I feel that I cannot do it."
"Yet you told me in Ammergau," cried Freyer, "that it was only on your father"s account that you could not acknowledge the marriage. Your father is now a paralytic, half-foolish old man, who cannot live long, then this reason will be removed."