"What is this?" said Oldenburg, seizing his head with both his hands.
"Am I dreaming? Is this my head? Are these my hands? Am I Oldenburg?
Are you Melitta? You, who are shedding tears, because I, Oldenburg, do not understand you, or will not understand you?"
"You shall understand me," said Melitta, drying her tears, with an impetuosity very unusual in her. "You have seen me so often weak and irresolute in our intercourse, that you do not think me any longer capable of forming a resolution. And yet I have the strength to do so; and that I have it, I owe to you, Adalbert. During the sickness of my child you have spoken to me, and I have not closed my heart to your voice. I have heard it very distinctly during the long, anxious night hours which I spent watching and weeping by the bedside of my child.
Then I have asked my child's pardon with silent, burning tears, that I could ever forget being a mother. Then I have vowed to myself that I would never, never forget it again. Then I have----"
She was silent; burning shame flooded her cheeks with deep glowing blushes; but she made a great effort and said,
"Then I have abjured a passion which humiliates me in my own eyes, in my child's eyes, and, Adalbert, in yours."
"Stop, Melitta! stop!" cried Oldenburg, rising suddenly. "You are beside yourself! You are not alone! You are in the presence of another person--of a man who loves you, Melitta. He does not want to hear what you ought to say to no one but to yourself."
"Let me finish, Adalbert! I trust in your goodness, as I trust in your strength. I have not told you all yet; not even all the vows I have made by the bedside of my sick child. I have often thought of your child, then, and that a most terrible fate has robbed you of the love of your child as well as of the love of her whom you love. And then I vowed that, if I cannot make you as happy as you deserve to be; if much, far too much, has happened which parts you and me forever; I can yet help you bear your fate, as far as in me lies. I will try to reconcile you to life, and live for you as far as I am able."
Melitta had, while she said these words, risen from the sofa. She stood before him with deep-red cheeks and beaming eyes.
Oldenburg had heard her with breathless excitement, with an emotion which grew stronger and deeper with every word. His eyes flashed, his bosom heaved, he pressed his hands upon his heart, which felt as if it would burst with unspeakable bliss.
When Melitta's last word had dropped from her lips he approached her, knelt down before her, and said, with a voice deep and firm, like the sound of an iron shield,
"And now hear my vow, Melitta! As surely as I have loved you ever since I can think, as surely as the night of my life has been lighted up but by a single star, as surely as I have wandered about restlessly and aimlessly in the vast desert of life, only because I despaired that that star could ever shine down upon me benignly--so surely will I, from this moment, strive to attain the highest aim of man with all the power I may possess. I will lay aside all little weaknesses and all my cowardice; I will try to make up for the time which I have lost in inactivity. And as sure as my heart is at this moment overflowing with a happiness which words cannot describe, so surely will I seek neither rest nor repose till you love me as I love you--till you are mine. Do you near, Melitta--till you are my wife!"
He had risen, too.
"And now, Melitta," he cried, and his words sounded like shouts of joy, "farewell! I cannot bear it any longer under this roof; the whole, wide world has become too narrow for me. Farewell! farewell! till we meet again!"
He embraced Melitta impetuously, and kissed her on her brow. Then he hastily left the room.
Melitta had remained standing in the middle of the room, as if she were petrified. She had not had the strength to keep Oldenburg back, nor to return his farewell. She placed her hand upon her beating temples.
"What have I done? What have I said?" she asked herself. And the voice of her heart answered: "Nothing you need be ashamed of, before yourself or before your child."
She hastened into the adjoining room. She bent over the sleeping boy; she kissed him amid burning tears.
Then she heard the rolling of a carriage, which rapidly drove away from the door of the hotel.
"That is he!" she said, listening; and then, pressing her face in the cushions, "Farewell! farewell! till we meet again!"
CHAPTER X.
While this interview between Melitta and Oldenburg was taking place at the Kurhaus, and, as by the blow of a charmed wand, the barriers fell which had seemed to be destined to part two good hearts forever, there had been sitting in the room on the right hand--which "was occupied by a traveller who would surely not stay beyond the next morning"--this very traveller quite near the door which led from one room to the other, supporting his feverish head with his hands, and suffering in his lacerated heart unspeakable anguish.
Oswald had returned, on his way from the asylum, along the river, almost as in a dream; for when he left Berger at the gate of the institution, the parting with him and the last terrible words of the unfortunate man had quite overwhelmed him, and kept him from every effort of thinking calmly.
His brains and his heart were a perfect chaos, filled with all that he had heard and seen since his arrival in Fichtenau on the preceding evening--with all the impressions which he had so suddenly received, all the thoughts that had been stirred up, all the passions that had been unchained. He had a dim presentiment that such a state of mind must in the end lead to insanity, if it were not already itself a kind of insanity.
Ought he not to turn back and knock at the gate behind which Berger had disappeared? Was not that house, with its high prison-walls, the best refuge for hearts that were as weary of the world as his was? Or still better, ought he not to throw himself over the railing into the river below, where it rushed, deep and silent, between the steep, high banks, gliding noiselessly along like a serpent? Would he not be sure thus to cool his heated brow forever, and to silence the hammering pulsations in his temples for all eternity? How could he hope ever to find an issue into rosy light from a labyrinth in which so noble, so lofty a mind as Berger's had lost its way irretrievably? Was not Berger far superior to him in strength of mind, as well as in nobility of soul?
And yet, and yet--"that I may fully measure the depth of this wretchedness, that I may touch with my own hands the incredible," the poor man had said, when he fell into the arms of the rope-dancer. Was that, then, the last conclusion of wisdom? The high-minded idealist saw himself excelled by the rude slave of sensuality in courage of life and joyousness of life! The pupil of Plato acknowledged a drunken clown as his master! The man who, like the youth of Sas, had striven all his life only after truth, fraternized with a coarse story-teller, a charlatan, who defied all rules, of probability even, and lived merrily and cheerfully on the credulity of others, as the swallow lives on midges. As old Lear in the tempestuous night on the heath tears the royal mantle from his shoulders, so as to have no advantage over poor Tom, the "poor bare-backed animal, whose belly cries for two red herrings," so Berger also had laid aside the philosopher's cloak, that did not warm him half as well as the rope-dancer's bare vulgarity.
Berger had learnt from this man that only he can hope to enjoy real happiness who gives up all pretentions to wealth, to honor, and splendor, and who sees neither a punishment nor a disgrace in the contempt of the world. Did those men of olden times think differently about it who fed on locusts, and exposed their bodies to the heat of the sun and the chill of rains--Indian penitents. Christian anchorites, Flagellants, pillar-saints, and ascetics of every kind? Is asceticism not the consistent pursuit of holiness? Is not contempt of the world, and of one's self, the consistent effect of asceticism? Can we reach the Holiest of Holies--the blissful original state, the sweet Nirvana--unless we first annihilate ourselves, as far as it can be done in life? And is such annihilation possible as long as we continually cling to life and to all that makes life dear to us? Is it an accident that saints appear odd in the eyes of the multitude, and the company of publicans and sinners is the best in the eyes of holy men? Yes, indeed!
Berger and Schmenckel, arm in arm! Was that the solution of the great mystery, the squaring of the circle?
Oswald could not get rid of the picture, and the terrible impression it had made upon him at last brought him back to calmer views. His sense, of the beautiful was shocked by the abhorrent garb which that ascetic wisdom had adopted. He agreed with all his heart to join the order of the threefold contempt, but he could not be reconciled to the costume of the order. He thought of himself in the dress in which he had seen Berger--a blue, faded blouse, a coarse slouched hat, a stick cut from a thorn-bush--and he shuddered all over. He thought of Doctor Braun, and what he would have said if he had met him in company with Berger--he who gainfully fastidious about his appearance, and considered it a fundamental principle, that if we wished to remain physically and psychically healthy, we must be careful not to come in contact with bodily or mental uncleanliness. Despise the world!--why not? Despise one's self! I have done that often enough; and, alas, generally for very good reasons. But despise being despised! Never!--rather die!--rather, a thousand times.
And why die? Why not rather live? Is life so very contemptible? Have I not found in Braun a friend of whom I have every reason to be proud?
Might I not succeed in finding my way out of this labyrinth, if I had such a friend by my side? May not much come right again, even if everything does not turn out well? Suppose I were to make up my mind to abandon this striving after exalted ideals which threaten to ruin my mind? If I were to turn back, even at this the eleventh hour, from the way which leads in the end to Doctor Birkenhain's insane asylum? If I were this very night to leave Fichtenau, where the air is filled with ill luck for me, as Doctor Braun anticipated.
Oswald was standing before the Kurhaus. A carriage which had just arrived was waiting at the door. In the dining-room, at the end of the long table, two gentlemen were sitting in close conversation. He thought one of them was Doctor Birkenhain. He did not desire in the least to meet the physician, whose wishes with regard to Berger he had so lamentably failed to fulful. He would drop him a few lines before leaving, and excuse himself on the score of pressing business and Berger's express desire, for his failure to say good-by in person.
He went to his room and rang the bell.
"Is there any mail leaving to-night?"
"In half-an-hour, sir."
"I shall leave by the mail, then. Secure me a seat in the coach, and bring the bill," said Oswald, already busy packing his things.
"Yes, sir, directly."
"Yes! yes! I must leave here," murmured Oswald, passionately, strengthening himself more and more in his resolution. "Away from here before more ill luck befalls me!"
"The bill, sir!" said the waiter, coming back again. "Much obliged to you, sir. Need not be in such a hurry, sir; you have twenty-five minutes left; the office is close by here. Thought you would stay over night, sir. Might have given this room to a lady, sir, if we had known, who has just arrived; she has taken the parlor next door, and two rooms on the other side. We had to give her those rooms, although they are not good enough for such a grand and beautiful lady."
The waiter uttered these words in a whisper, which made it clear that the doors of the Kurhaus were not exactly impenetrable to sound.
"Who is the lady?" asked Oswald, locking his trunk.
"A Frau von Berkow; old customer of ours. Told you this morning about her, sir. Will send the porter directly to carry your trunk to the office. Anything else, sir?"
The waiter left the room, waving his napkin in a most graceful manner.
Oswald rose. His face was deadly pale. He had to support himself on the table; his limbs trembled.
Had he heard right? Melitta here? In this house? Next door? How did she get here? What did she come for? To this place, which had such mournful associations for her? Was it an accident? Was it purpose? Could she have come for his sake? Could she have found out the purpose of his journey? Was she looking for him? Had she failed to receive the letter which he wrote to her after Bruno's death, and an hour before his duel with Felix--that letter in which he told her with unfeeling cruelty, though he thought it heroism then, that "his heart was no longer exclusively hers, that he did not intend to deceive her and himself, and that he was bidding her--and perhaps life itself--an eternal adieu?" Or had she received it, and read it with the incredulity of a loving heart, which does not comprehend faithlessness, because it knows itself no other love but true love? Had she come to tell him that she had forgiven him?--that she was still his Melitta? If he were to hasten to her and to fall at her feet, would she raise the repentant lover and tell him that all was forgiven and forgotten?--that she had never ceased to love him?
He listened to hear if anything was stirring in the adjoining room. He heard nothing--nothing but the beating of his violently-agitated heart.
She was alone. She waited for his coming. Were the blissful days of Berkow really to return once more? Was really everything to end well, after all?
He listened. A door opened.
Probably a waiter, who has executed an order.
A deep male voice. The soft notes of a woman's voice.
The soft voice was Melitta's! But the other?