"Yes, Melitta, I must say it or it will crush my heart. You know how dearly, how unspeakably, I love you. The wish to possess you is all-powerful in me. I have nourished it so long that it fills my whole being, and all my life is concentrated in it. Without you I am nothing.
With you I defy a world in arms. I know very well that we ought to do right for the sake of the right, and that he who asks for reward has already his reward. But I am not a saint. I am a man, with all the weaknesses and passions of a man, which rise over him and threaten to drown him like a raging sea, if the dear, the beloved hand is not stretched out to save him. Melitta, say that you will be mine, and my deeds shall not fall below my words."
Oldenburg had remained standing at the same place, in the same position. As in his carriage, so in the tone of his voice there was rather a tone of command than of prayer. That man would not have knelt down before a dozen rifles, nor have suffered his eyes to be bandaged.
Melitta felt this; but his pride did not offend her this time as it had often done before. She answered in an almost humble tone:
"Do not let us act rashly, Adalbert! You know how dear you are to me, and that must for the present content you. See, Adalbert, this letter comes just in time to remind us of our duty. You must recover your child. I should not enjoy a single hour of my life if I were to fear that your love for myself had extinguished in your heart its most sacred sentiment. And, Adalbert, think also of this; I am willing to believe it: You do not love any longer the woman who once inflamed the passion of the inexperienced youth; but she is the mother of your child! What will you say to your Czika, if she asks you why another person than the poor woman whom she calls mother is the wife of her father?"
"Where did you meet Oswald Stein the last time since you saw him in Fichtenau?"
Oldenburg said these few words slowly and with withering scorn.
Melitta turned scarlet. A spark of the evil passion of offended pride which raged in Oldenburg's heart set her own on fire, and kindled the spirit of opposition which had already been so often fatal to both.
"Who tells you that I saw him at all in Fichtenau?
"I only thought so. Perhaps you kept this encounter from me as you did the others."
"And if I had seen him in Fichtenau?"
"That would be what I had expected."
"And if I had seen him since quite frequently?"
"That would only prove to me that my coming here is as improper for myself as it must be inconvenient to you."
Oldenburg went across the room and took his riding-whip and gloves from the console under the mirror. As he came back again to Melitta he stopped, and said: "Good-night, Melitta!" "Good-night!" replied the proud woman, without raising her eyes. He waited for a moment, and for another moment, hoping that she would look at him or say a word--but in vain. Not a word, not a sigh, rose from his crushed heart; he went to the door, opened it gently, and closed it as noiselessly again.
Melitta started. She hastened to the door; but instead of opening it she only leaned with uplifted arms against it and wept passionately. "I knew it would come thus," she murmured. "Poor, poor Adalbert!"
Suddenly she heard a horse's foot-fall close by the window. She ran from the door to the window and opened it, she leaned far out and cried "Adalbert! Adalbert!" but the storm that drove the icy snow-flakes in her face swept away her voice, and the black shadow of horse and rider, which was but just now gliding noiselessly over the white plain and through the gray night, was at the next moment no longer to be distinguished.
CHAPTER X.
Winter has come during the night to the island, and still the snow-storm rages; and the countless flakes, swept down by its swift wings from northern lands, fall thick upon roofs and trees, upon meadows and fields; and one who looked for a time into the darkling air, from which the white stars are dropping forever, felt as if he were rising upward with moderate rapidity--up and up, into the gray boundless space.
Oldenburg seemed to-day to enjoy the melancholy sight to his heart's content. He is standing by the window in his study at the Solitude, and looks fixedly at the sea, or rather at the snow-filled air, for of the sea little or nothing can be seen to-day. He has been standing there many hours to-day, and scarcely noticed Herrman, who comes and goes with mournful mien, and packs several large trunks which stand open about the room, filling them with clothes and linen and books. The good servant's good wife Thusnelda, the comfortable fat housekeeper, has repeatedly bustled into the room under some pretext or other, and once actually dared to ask her master if he would not come to dinner. But he had only replied,
"Very well, my good woman."
Since then several hours have elapsed. The baron had intended to leave directly after dinner, but he had not ordered the horses yet. He can hardly hope that the weather will clear up, for the store-houses of snow seem to be inexhaustible; and besides, it would be the first time that he allows the bad weather to keep him from carrying out his purpose. Moreover, if he had intended to reach the ferry before night, noon would have been the very latest hour at which to start. He is probably not very much pressed to go. Perhaps he is rather pleased to see the snow-storm, as it gives him an excuse from without; or it may be he expects some important news, for he has repeatedly asked during the day. "Has nobody been here?" And every time when his old Herrmann has been compelled to answer, according to the truth, "No, sir!" he has turned again to the window and continued to drum upon the panes with his fingers.
It does not look very probable now that anybody will come. The muddy-red streak far down on the horizon shows that the sun, which has been invisible all day long, is sinking into the sea. A fierce blow, shaking the windows and racing with a howl and a groan around the house and through the high tops of the pine-trees, tears the snow-filled air asunder, and the infinite waste of gray waters, with their foam-crested waves, spreads out in fearful solemnity before the glance of the solitary man. He opens the door and steps out on the balcony; he leans upon the railing through whose iron bars the wind is whistling in shrill notes. He does not cast a look at the tall chalk-cliffs which stretch far out to the right and the left, and which now, with the stern forests they bear on their rugged brow, shine in the setting sun for a moment in blood-red colors. He looks fixedly down, where, a hundred feet below him, the wild ocean lashes the huge blocks of rock on the shore with grim thunder. The white spray rises at times in eddies, driven up by the fierce wind between sharp edges of the steep walls, till it reaches him and fills his hair and beard with icy-cold drops. But he does not mind it. In his soul there rages a wilder and stormier tempest than without. He feels as if he were utterly alone in this desert of a world--as if upon this desert an eternal night were gradually sinking down, and as if he were condemned to live on in this eternal darkness.
It serves you right! he murmured. Why did you let yourself be led by the nose once more, when you ought to have known perfectly well how it would end? And yet! She was so sweet, so kind all these days; she has never been so before. Could I close my ear to the siren-song that never sounded nearer or dearer to me? Siren-song--that it is! What do women know of the true love which men feel in their hearts? All is caprice with them--idle play and vanity. A pair of blue eyes, a smooth tongue, and courteous ways, and you have the doll that pleases good little children. They do not ask whether the little doll has a heart in her bosom, or brains in her head. On the contrary, that might be inconvenient, tedious; that would not suit the nursery.
Well, let it be, then! Let me lay aside the fool's cap forever and for aye! As the evening twilight darkens yonder on the rocks, I will wipe off this rosy illusion from my soul and grow rough like the wintry sea; and as nobody loves me, I will love nobody in return. I will go through life lonely, as that snowbird is winging his way through the pathless air, and not even ask whether he has prepared for himself a sheltering nest under some overhanging cliff on the coast.
"That you will not do! You are a man; and a man is a great deal more than the birds under the heavens."
Oldenburg turned round in amazement, to see who it was that could have spoken these words in such a calm, firm tone. Close behind him stood old Baumann.
"I come," said the old man, answering Oldenburg's anxiously inquiring looks, "by order of Frau von Berkow."
"What is it?" said Oldenburg, his blood rushing madly to his heart; "speak out! Frau von Berkow is ill, is she?"
"Not Frau von Berkow," replied Baumann; "another woman, who came about an hour ago to our house, with a child, and who wishes to see the baron once more before her death, which seems not to be very far off."
"A woman--with a child!" It seemed as if a veil had fallen from the baron's eyes.
"Come!" he said.
Melitta's sleigh, with two powerful bays, was standing before the door of the Solitude. The men got in; Oldenburg took the reins and the whip from the hands of the servant, who sat behind, and off they went at full gallop through the dark pine-woods; out of the woods into the level land, which gradually falls off towards Fashwitz, and into the wide snow plain, with its distant gray horizon, and a few scarcely-perceptible trees and cottages here and there, thickly covered with snow. The road also was nearly hid, and even the track made by the sleigh in coming had long been effaced by the storm. It required all of Oldenburg's familiarity with the country, and all of his skill in driving, to be able to race as he did through this wilderness, up hill and down hill, between bottomless morasses on both sides. Not a word was spoken on the way, and half an hour later the sleigh with the steaming horses was standing before the door of the great house at Berkow. They went into the house.
"Will you please, sir, step into the garden-room?" said old Baumann.
He went in first. A lamp was lighted on the table, and in the grate a fire on the point of going out. The old man screwed up the lamp, kindled the fire afresh, and then disappeared through the door which led into the red-room.
Oldenburg was standing before the fire-place, warming his cold hands. A thousand confused thoughts filled, his mind at once; he walked up and down the room a few times, and then stood again before the fire.
"Melitta was right," he said to himself. "Before this wrong is atoned for, I cannot expect any happiness. And how can I make atonement? Is it not the curse of an evil deed that it brings forth more and more evil deeds? It was the shadow of to-day which fell upon our souls yesterday in anticipation. How stupid I was, how blinded by passion, that I did not understand the warning! Yes, she has an older, a holier right; and woe is me if I were to disregard this right! It would rise ever and again and testify against me! But it is terrible that the Furies should follow us even into the temple where we desire to purify ourselves of our guilt--even into the sacred shrine which holds our whole happiness!"
The rustling of a lady's dress behind him made him start. He turned round, and there stood Melitta, pale and serious, her sweet, fair eyes shining with the traces of recent tears.
"Melitta," said Oldenburg, offering her both hands, "can you forgive me?"
"I have nothing to forgive, Adalbert," she replied, placing her hands in his; "let us bear in patience what must be borne."
They looked silently into each other's eyes for a moment.
"There is still much between us," said Oldenburg, sadly. "I cannot see to the bottom of your heart."
"That is why we must bear in patience," said Melitta.
Oldenburg let go her hands.
"How is she?"
"She is very feeble: in a state between sleeping and waking, but she knows me; and she has asked for you several times."
"Is Czika with her?"
"Yes."
"May I see her?"