He listened. The voices rose, became more distinct.
A convulsive spasm flew across the features of the listener; a hoarse, unpleasant laugh broke from his lips. The man who was speaking so warmly to Melitta was Baron Oldenburg.
The sofa on which the two speakers were sitting, stood close against the door which led from one room to the other. Oswald could not hear everything they said, but why was that necessary? The meeting of the two in this remote little town, which had already once before been the scene of their stealthy rendezvous, spoke eloquently enough. He had been right, after all! The two had after all but made a fool of him! He had done Melitta no wrong which she had not inflicted on him also. They were quits.
A knock at the door.
The porter came to carry the gentleman's trunk to the office.
"It is high time, sir. The postilion has blown his horn twice."
Oswald followed the man mechanically down the long passages, out of the house, across the dark street to the coach.
A minute later and the heavy coach was rumbling over the pavement. The postilion played a merry melody in the silent night-air, and Oswald furnished a text to the air: to despise one's self, despise the world, despise being despised.
CHAPTER XI.
It was an early hour of a murky day in autumn. Fogs were brewing in the mountains around Fichtenau, and hung so low that the traveller on the high road, which makes a steep ascent close behind the village and loses itself in thick woods, could scarcely distinguish the pine-trees on the edge of the forest.
By the wayside, at a place where two roads crossed each other, sat Xenobia and Czika. Their faithful companion in all their wanderings, the little donkey, with the red feathers on his head and the scarlet saddle-cloth on his back, was grazing peacefully in the ditch on the short, ill-flavored grass. He did not seem to relish it much; he shook his head indignantly, as if he wanted to say: I am frugal, but everything has its limits.
Nor did the gypsy woman and her child seem to enjoy the weather any more. They sat there, each wrapped in a large coarse shawl, silent and motionless, like a couple of Egyptian statues. This attitude, natural as it might be to the woman, had something very uncanny in so young a child as Czika.
And Xenobia herself was no longer the hearty woman whom Oswald had seen on that afternoon in October in the forest near Berkow. Was it the effect of the weather, or was it sickness and sorrow--but her features had little now of that haughty energy which formerly made them so remarkable. Her brow was furrowed with small lines; her eyes had sunk deep into their orbits and did not shine with the same brightness as of old, as she now glanced in the direction from which her sharp ear heard the noise of a carriage comings from Fichtenau.
"That is not theirs," she said, letting her head sink again. A few minutes later a well-closed travelling carriage, drawn by two horses, appeared rising out of the fog. On the box, by the side of the driver, sat an old man with a long, silver-gray moustache. He turned round continually, to cast a look at the inside of the carriage, and to smile respectfully and yet amicably at the occupants--a lady and a boy.
Thus he had failed to notice the gypsy woman, who had stepped forward as she saw the great lady in the carriage, and asked for alms. What was his amazement therefore, when he saw that the lady suddenly called to him to stop the horses, exhibiting all the signs of extreme consternation, and that she was standing in the road itself long before the horses could be checked.
"Isabel, it is you! and the Czika! My God, how fortunate!" cried Melitta, seizing both hands of the gypsy. "Now I shall not let you go again. My God, how very fortunate!" and the young lady embraced the gypsy woman with tears in her eyes.
But the latter freed herself almost violently, and stepping back some little distance she crossed her arms on her bosom and looked at Melitta with a suspicious, almost hostile glance.
"Do you not know me, Isabel?" said Melitta; "it is I! Have you forgotten the days at Berkow five years ago? That is my Julius, there!
And how tall and how beautiful the Czika has grown."
Julius had jumped out of the carriage; old Baumann also had climbed down from the box.
Melitta hastened up to Czika, embraced the child, and kissed and caressed her over and over again. The others spoke to Xenobia, who paid no attention to them, but looked with anxious eyes at Melitta, who now came back to her, holding Czika by the hand.
"Isabel!" said Melitta, "you must, really you must, give me the little one. I dare not, I cannot, continue my journey without her."
"Why will you not leave us as we are?" said the gypsy. "You are a great lady, fit for the house; the gypsy is fit only for the forest. You would die in the forest; the gypsy would die in the house. I cannot go with you."
"Then give me the Czika?"
"Will you give me your boy?"
Melitta did not know what to answer. She felt too deeply that the gypsy woman could not act differently, and that she, in her place, would have done the same. And yet could she let the two go out again into the wide world? To see Oldenburg's little daughter, whom he yearned after, whom he was searching for everywhere, disappear once more, after an accident such as might never happen again in all her life, had brought her right in her path--she could not bear the thought, and like a child that feels how helpless and friendless it is, she broke into tears.
The gypsy woman seemed to be touched. She took Melitta's hand and kissed it.
"You are very kind, I know," she said; "I know it well. I would rather give you the Czika than anybody else."
She reflected deeply. Suddenly she took Melitta's hand once more and led her aside.
"Do you know," she asked, "who Czika's father is?"
"Yes."
"And are you doing what you do for the father's sake, or for your own?"
Melitta's cheeks reddened.
"For the sake of both," she replied, after some hesitation.
"Where are you going to now?"
"Home--to Berkow."
"And are you going to stay there?"
"Yes; at least during the winter."
"Then listen to me. I swear to you by the Great Spirit, I will bring you the Czika as soon as I feel that I am to be gathered to my fathers.
That may be very soon. More I cannot promise; more I dare not say."
Melitta felt that she must be satisfied with this promise. She knew the character of the Brown Countess too well not to be aware that if she had once formed a resolution, all persuasion was in vain. She re-entered her carriage, therefore, sadly, after having embraced Xenobia and the child once more, and soon was out of sight.
The rattling of the wheels and the trot of the horses were no longer heard. The gypsies were still sitting by the wayside.
Another carriage came up in the direction of Fichtenau. One could hear from afar off the cries of the driver, and the clanking of chains which formed part of the harness.
A few minutes later the wagon appeared out of the mist. It was a huge box--a whole house on four wheels, stuffed up to the roof and high above the roof with chests and boxes, kettle drums and trombones, stage scenery, poles and ladders, and all kinds of kitchen utensils and stage property. The four horses who drew this Noah's Ark had hard work of it.
Before the wagon a number of men were walking on foot--Cotterby, the Egyptian; the artist of the gigantic cask, Mr. Stolsenberg; and the clown, Pierrot. All these gentlemen wore gay-colored shawls around the neck, and had short pipes in their mouths. From the open windows of the ark the crying of children was heard, and the scolding voice of Mamselle Adele. Behind the wagon followed, apparently in eager conversation, the director, Mr. Schmenckel (also with a bright shawl around the neck and a pipe in his mouth), and a man in a blue blouse, with a heavy stick in his hand, and an old slouched hat on his head.
Director Schmenckel had made his acquaintance a few nights before under very peculiar circumstances, in the drinking-hall of the Green Hat; he had met him since very frequently at the same tavern, and found him quite unexpectedly that morning, ready to join the rope-dancers, just as they were leaving the village.
When the wagon reached the cross-roads the driver stopped to let the horses breathe.
The gypsy woman with her child stepped up and was vociferously greeted by the rope-dancers.
Mr. Schmenckel shook hands with her, and patted the Czika paternally on her brown cheeks.