Kitabı oku: «The Lost Manuscript: A Novel», sayfa 51

"The lady can no longer drive me away," said the gipsy, cowering down, "for I am very weary, and my strength is at an end."

One could see that she spoke the truth.

"The troopers have hunted me from one boundary to another. If others have no compassion on me, the lady from the rock should not be so hard-hearted, for there is old fellowship between the beggar and her. I also once had intercourse with noble people, I have abandoned them, and yet my dreams ever hover over their golden palaces. Whoever has drunk of the magic cup will not lose the remembrance of it. It has again and again driven me into this country, I have led my people here-and they now lie in prison, the victims of the old memories that pursued me."

"Who is this woman?" asked the Prince.

The beggar raised her hands on high.

"In these arms I have held the Hereditary Prince when he was a child and knew nothing; I have sat with him on velvet in his mother's room. Now I lie in the churchyard on the high road, and the hands that I stretch out to him remain empty."

"It is the gipsy woman," said the Prince in a low tone, and turned away.

The beggar-woman looked at him scornfully, and said to Ilse:

"They trifle with us, and ruin us, but they hate the remembrance of old times and of their guilt. Be warned young woman, I know the secrets of this noble family, and I can tell you what they have tried to do to you, and what they have done to another who flourished before you on yonder height, and whom they placed, as they did you, in the gilded prison, over whose portal the black angel hovers."

Ilse stood bending over the beggar woman, the Prince approached her.

"Do not listen to the woman," he exclaimed.

"Speak on," said Ilse, with a faint voice.

"She was young and finely formed like you, and like you she was brought to that prison, and when the mother of this man removed me from her service because I pleased the Sovereign, I was appointed to serve the stranger. One morning I was made to ask for leave of absence from the imprisoned lady, because she was to be alone."

"I entreat of you not to listen to her," implored, the Prince.

"I listen," said Ilse, again bending down over the old woman, "speak low."

"When I came back the next morning I found a maniac in the house instead of the fair-haired lady, and I escaped from the place in terror. Do you wish to know through which door madness made its way to that woman?" she continued in a low murmur. Ilse put her ear to her mouth, but sprang suddenly back and uttered a piercing shriek, hiding her face with her hands. The Prince leaned against the wall and wrung his hands.

A loud call sounded from the carriage-road, and a man hastily approached; he held out a letter while still at a distance.

"Gabriel!" exclaimed Ilse, hastening towards him. She tore the letter from him, read it, and supported herself convulsively against one of the stones of the churchyard. The Prince sprang forward, but she held out the letter as if to stop him and exclaimed:

"The Sovereign is coming."

The Prince looked terrified at Gabriel.

"He is hardly a mile from here," announced the exhausted servant. "I overtook the princely carriage, and succeeded in getting ahead of it. The horses are struggling along the unfinished road, but the bridge between this and Rossau is now scarcely fit for horsemen or carriages; I was obliged to leave my horse behind; I do not believe they will be able to cross it, except on foot."

Without saying a word the Prince hastened down the road to Rossau. Ilse flew with her letter in her hand up the rock to her father, who came with Mr. von Weidegg to meet her.

"Go and pay your respects to your master," she called out wildly, to the Chamberlain. "My Felix comes!" she called to her father, and sank upon his breast.

People were collected near the temporary bridge between Rossau and Bielstein. Gabriel also hastened back to the water; he had met Mr. Hummel there, who was passing up and down along the bank looking across the stream.

"The world is wretchedly small," exclaimed Mr. Hummel, to his confidant, "people always meet again. One who has been galloping, like you, should take care of himself; you are exhausted, and look greatly changed. Sit down on this log and rest yourself like a sensible man."

He pushed Gabriel down, buttoned his coat, and patted him on the cheek with his large hand.

"You must be in great need of refreshment, but the best we have here is a water-perch, and I do not like to treat you like a despicable New Zealander, who in the booths at a fair consumes five cents-worth of raw whitings. Take the last restorative of a Parisian traveler."

He forced him to take a piece of chocolate.

A few steps from them, at the bridge, stood the Prince with folded arms, looking at the water, which on the side of Rossau had spread itself over the meadows and low fields about the town. Rapidly did the expanse of water increase; on the nearest part of the new road, which had not yet been paved, puddles of water gleamed between the heaps of sand and the wheelbarrows of the workmen; the road projected like a dark strip out of the muddy flood. A few individuals were coming from Rossau; they waded through the thick mud of the road and supported themselves timidly by the smooth poles which supplied the place of the bridge-rails. For the water rushed violently against the beams instead of flowing deep under the arches, and the spectators on the Bielstein side called aloud to them to make haste. The Chamberlain hastened down to his silent master and looked anxiously in his face. He was followed by the Proprietor.

"If I could do as I wished, I would break these tottering planks with my own hands," he said, indignantly, to Mr. Hummel.

"The carriages are coming," called the people. The Sovereign's carriage with four horses drove at a rapid trot through the gate of Rossau. Beside the Sovereign sat the Lord High Steward. The former had during the wearisome journey been in a state of gloomy stupor; an occasional wild word, and a look of intense hatred, was all his intercourse with his companion.

The courtier had in vain endeavored to draw the Sovereign into quiet conversation. Even the consideration of the two servants sitting at the back of the open carriage could not restrain the Sovereign's mood. Exhausted by the secret strain of this journey the old gentleman sat, the attendant by his invalid, and his sharp eye watched every movement of his companion. When they drove out of the town into the open country, the Sovereign began, musingly:

"Did you recognize the horseman that overtook us in such haste?"

"He was a stranger to me," said the High Steward.

"He conveyed information of our arrival; they are prepared to receive us."

"Then he has done your Highness a service, for they would hardly have had any anticipation at the hunting-lodge of your Highness's important resolution."

"We are not yet at the end of our drama. Lord High Steward," said the Sovereign, tauntingly; "the art of foreseeing the future is lost. Even your Excellency does not understand that."

"I have always been satisfied with observing cautiously what surrounds me in the present, and I have thereby sometimes guarded myself from being disagreeably surprised by the future. If by any accident I should myself be prevented from carrying out my rôle in the drama of which your Highness speaks, I have taken care that others shall act my part."

The Sovereign threw himself back in his seat. The carriage went on through the mire, the horses floundered, and the coachman looked back doubtfully.

"Forward!" called out the Sovereign, in a sharp voice.

"The Hereditary Prince awaits your Highness at the bridge on foot," said the High Steward.

They went on at a good pace, the coachman with difficulty restraining his horses, who were frightened at the glittering expanse of water and the roar of the flood.

"Forward!" again commanded the Sovereign.

"Permit the coachman to stop, your Highness; the carriage cannot go further without danger."

"Do you fear danger, old man?" exclaimed the Sovereign, his face distorted with hatred. "Here we are both in the water-the same fate for us both, Lord High Steward. He is a bad servant who abandons his master."

"But I wish to restrain your Highness also," replied the High Steward.

"Forward!" cried the Sovereign again.

The coachman stopped.

"It is impossible, most gracious master," he said; "we can no longer go over the bridge."

The Sovereign jumped up in the carriage, and raised his stick against the coachman. The man, frightened, whipped his horses; they reared and sprang off to one side.

"Stop!" cried the High Steward.

The frightened lackeys readily jumped down, and held the horses. The High Steward opened the carriage door, and scrambled out.

"I beseech your Highness to alight."

The Sovereign sprang out, and, casting a look of vindictive hatred at him, hastened forward on foot. He stepped on the bridge, and the flood roared around him.

"Stay back, father," entreated the Hereditary Prince.

The father laughed, and advanced over the tottering planks; he had passed over the middle of the bridge and the deepest part of the stream; only a few steps more and his foot would touch the shore of Bielstein. At that moment there rose up near the bridge a bent figure, that cried out wildly to him:

"Welcome to our country, Gracious Lord; mercy for the poor beggar-woman. I bring you greeting from the fair-haired lady of the rock."

"Away with the crazy creature," exclaimed the Chamberlain.

The Sovereign gazed-fixedly at the wild figure; he tottered, and supported himself by the rails. The Hereditary Prince flew towards him; the father drew back with a shudder, lost his footing, and rolled down the side of the slippery planks into the flood.

There was a loud scream from the bystanders; the son sprang after him. The next moment half-a-dozen men were in the water-among the first, Gabriel, cautiously followed by Mr. Hummel. The gigantic form of the Proprietor towered above the stream; he had grasped the Sovereign, while Gabriel and Hummel seized the Prince. "The Sovereign lives," called out the Proprietor to the son, laying the unconscious man on the shore. The Hereditary Prince threw himself down by his father on the ground. The latter lay on the gravel road, the beggar-woman holding his head; he looked with glazed eyes before him, and did not recognize his kneeling son, nor the furrowed countenance of the stranger who bent over him. "He lives," repeated the Proprietor, in a low tone; "but his limbs cannot perform their office." On the other side of the water stood the High Steward. He called out to the Chamberlain in French, then hastened back with the carriage to Rossau, in order to reach a safer crossing. It was with difficulty that the carriage was brought back. Meanwhile, on the Bielstein side, a plank was torn off the half-destroyed bridge and the Sovereign laid upon it and carried to the Manor. The children of the Proprietor ran ahead and opened the door of the old house. In the hall stood Ilse, white as marble. She had been told by her brother that the Sovereign was saved from the water; he was approaching the house, to two generations of which he had been a curse and a terror. She stood in the entrance-hall no longer the Ilse of former days, but a wild Saxon woman who would hurl the curses of her gods on the head of the enemy of her race; her eyes glowed, and her hands closed convulsively. They carried the exhausted man up the steps. Then Ilse came to the threshold, and cried:

"Not in here."

So shrill was the command, that the bearers halted.

"Not into our house," she cried the second time, raising her hand threateningly.

The Sovereign heard the voice; he smiled, and nodded his head graciously.

"It is a Christian duty. Ilse," exclaimed the Proprietor.

"I am the Professor's wife," cried Ilse, passionately. "Our roof will fall upon that man's head."

"Remove your daughter," said the Hereditary Prince, in a low tone. "I demand admittance for the Sovereign of this country."

The Proprietor approached the steps and seized Ilse's arm. She tore herself away from him.

"You drive your daughter from your house, father," she exclaimed, beside herself. "If you are the servant of this man, I am not. There is no room for him and my husband at the same time. He comes to ruin us, and his presence brings a curse!"

She tore open the gate into the garden and fled under the trees, burst through the hedge, and hastened down into the valley; there she sprang upon the wooden bridge, from which she had shortly before driven the village people; the flood roared wildly beneath her, and the woodwork bent and groaned. A rent, a crack, and with a powerful spring she alighted on the rock on the other side; behind her the ruins of the bridge whirled down to the valley. She stood on the rocky prominence in front of the grotto, and raised her hands with a wild look to heaven. Her eldest brother came running behind her from the garden, and screamed when he saw the ruins of the bridge.

"I am separated from you," exclaimed Ilse. "Tell father, he need not care for me; the air is pure here; I am under the protection of the Lord, whom I serve; and my heart is light."

CHAPTER XLI.
IN THE CAVE

The dark water gurgled and streamed through the valley; the reflection of the setting sun shone on the bay-windows of the old house; the wife of the Scholar stood alone beneath the rock overhanging the entrance to the cave. Where once the wives of the ancient Saxons listened to the rustling of the forest-trees, and where the wife of the hunted robber hurled stones on his pursuers, now stood the fugitive daughter of the Manor on the Rock, looking down on the wild surging of the water, and up to the house where her husband's foe was resting in the arm-chair of her father. Her breast still heaved convulsively, but she looked kindly on the brown rock which spread its protecting vault above her. Below her roared the wild, destructive flood, while around her the diminutive life of nature carelessly played. The dragon-flies chased one another over the water, the bees hummed about the herbs of the sloping hill, and the wood-birds chanted their evening-carols. She seated herself on the stone bench, and struggled for peaceful thoughts; she folded her hands and bent her head; and the storm within her bosom spent itself in the tears that flowed from her eyes.

"I will not think of myself, but only of those I love. The little ones will inquire after me when they go to bed; to-night they will not hear the stories of the city that I used to tell them, to put them to sleep. They were all wet after their fishing, and in the confusion no one will think of putting dry stockings on them. In thinking of other things I have forgotten to care for them. The youngest persists in wishing to become a professor. My child, you do not know what it is you wish. How much must you learn, and what a change will come over you! For the work which life accomplishes in us is immeasurable. When I formerly sat here near my father, I believed, in my simplicity, that the higher the office, the more noble were the men, and the most exalted of all the best, and that all that was important on earth was done by great and refined minds. And when the two scholars came, and I talked about books with Felix for the first time, I still imagined that everything in print must be indubitable truth, and every one who wrote, a thoroughly learned man. Many think thus childishly. But I have been an obstinate thing, and have vehemently opposed myself to others, even to my husband, who stood highest in my opinion."

She looked with a sad smile before her, but immediately afterwards bent her head, and again the tears poured from her eyes.

She heard the call of her brother from the garden.

"Holloa, Ilse! are you there? The strangers are still in the house; they are making a sedan chair for the invalid; he is to be taken to the ranger's lodge. Father is busy sending out messengers. The bridge at Rossau has also been carried away by the water; we cannot get to the town, and no one can come from the town to us. We feel very anxious about your getting back to us."

"Do not mind about me, Hans," said Ilse; "tell the girls they must not be so engrossed with the strangers as to forget our dear guest. Greet the children for me; they must not come to the edge of the water to bid me good night, for the bank is slippery."

Ilse placed herself at the entrance of the cave and looked all about. Early that morning she had seated herself here, and when the water began to rise high, she had hastened over the wooden bridge to warn her brothers and sisters. Her work still lay on the bench, together with a book that had been given her by the Pastor when she was a girl. It was the life of the holy Elizabeth, written by one of the most zealous ecclesiastics of her church.

"When I first read about you," she thought, "Saint Ilse of the Wartburg, my distinguished namesake, your life touched me, and all that you did and that was told of you appeared to me as an example for myself. You were a pious, sensible, and amiable woman, and united to a worthy husband. Then the longing for higher honor in his knightly order, and martial fame, made him blind to the nearest duty of his life, and he left you and the people of his home, and went to the wars in the far-off land of Italy. Two long years he wandered and fought, and finally returned, weary and worn. But he found not his beloved wife as he had left her. In the solitude that surrounded you, you had yearned for your husband, and your overpowering sorrow had brought you to ponder upon the great mysteries of life; your own life had been full of longing, and for this you had become a pious penitent. You wore a garment of hair, and scourged your back; you bowed your head and thoughts before an intolerant priest. You did what was not right nor seemly; to please your God, you laid the leper in the bed of your dear husband. In your over-strained piety you lost your warm heart and the modesty of womanhood; you were canonized by the clergy; but you, poor woman, in your striving for what they called the grace of God, had sacrificed human feelings and duties. It is not good, Ilse, that man and wife separate without great necessity."

"When people act harshly towards those they love, they do so because some wrong has been done them or because they fancy themselves offended. But why should you care for invalid strangers on the couch that your husband had forsaken? I fear me, blessed Elizabeth, that it was the spite of offended love, that it was secret revenge for having so hopelessly longed for your husband. Your history is no good teaching for us, but rather a warning. My sweet old friend Penelope, the poor heathen woman, was far more human than you and a far better wife than you. She wept night after night for her loved husband, and when he finally returned, she threw her arms about him for his having recognized the secret signs of the nuptial couch."

Again a voice sounded from the other side of the water.

"Do you hear me, Ilse?" cried her father, from the other bank.

"I hear you," answered Ilse, raising herself.

"The strangers are going away," said the father; "the invalid is so weak that he cannot injure others; you are, in truth, separated from us. It is becoming dark, and there is no prospect of being able to repair the bridge over the water before night. Go along the valley on your side over the hill to Rossau, and there remain with some one of our acquaintances until morning. It is a long way round, but you may reach it before night."

"I will remain here, father," Ilse called back; "the evening is mild, and it is only a few hours till morning."

"I cannot bear, Ilse, that my wilful child should sleep beneath the rocks in the very sight of her home."

"Do not mind about me. I have the moon and the stars over me; you know that I do not fear the dwarfs of the cave, nor on my mountain the power of man."

The twilight of evening fell on the deep valley, and the mist rose from the water; it floated slowly from tree to tree, it undulated and rolled its long, dusky veil between Ilse and her father's house. The trunks of the trees and the roof of the house disappeared, and the grotto seemed to hover in clouds of air separated from the earth amidst indistinct shadows, which hung round the entrance of the rock and fluttered at Ilse's feet, then collected together and dissolved.

Ilse sat on the bench at the entrance, her hands folded over her knees, appearing in her light dress, like a fairy woman of olden times, a ruler of the floating shadows. She gazed along her side of the shore on the mountain-path that led from Rossau.

The distant steps of a wanderer sounded through the damp fog. Ilse took hold of the moist stone. Something moved on the ground near her, and glided indistinctly forward-perhaps it was a night-swallow or owl.

"It is he," said Ilse, softly. She rose slowly, she trembled, and supported herself against the rock.

The figure of a man stepped out of the white mist; he stopped astonished when he saw a woman standing there.

"Ilse!" called out a clear voice.

"I await you here," she answered, in a low tone. "Stop there, Felix. You find not your wife as you left her. Another has coveted that which is yours; a poisonous breath has passed over me; words have been said to me which no honest woman ought to hear, and I have been looked upon as a bought slave."

"You have escaped from the enemy."

"I have, and therefore am here; but I am no longer in the eyes of others what I once was. You had a wife free from all taint; she who now stands before you is evilly talked of, both on account of father and son."

"The noise of tongues dies away like the surging of the water beneath your feet. It signifies little what others think when we have done what is satisfactory to our own consciences."

"I am glad that you do not care for the talk of others. But I am not quite so proud and independent as I was. I conceal my sorrow, but I feel it always. I am lowered in my own eyes, and, I fear, Felix, in yours also; for I have brought on my own misfortune-I have been too frank with strangers, and given them a right over me."

"You have been brought up to trust in those who hold high positions. Who can give up loyal trust without pain?"

"I have been awakened, Felix. Now answer me," she continued, with agitation, "how do you return to me?"

"As a weary, erring man, who seeks the heart of his wife and her forgiveness."

"What has your wife to forgive, Felix?" she again asked.

"That my eyes were blinded, and that I forgot my first duties to follow a vain chase."

"Is that all, Felix? Have you brought me back your heart, unchanged to me as it was before?"

"Dear Ilse," exclaimed her husband, embracing her.

"I hear your tones of love," she exclaimed, passionately, throwing her arms round his neck. She led him into the grotto, stroked the drops of water out of his damp hair, and kissed him. "I have you, my beloved one; I cling firmly to you, and no power shall ever again separate me from you. Sit here, you long-suffering man; I hold you fast. Let me hear all the trouble you have gone through."

The Scholar held his wife in his arms, and related all. He felt her tremble when he told her his adventures.

"Indignant anger and terror impelled me along the road to Rossau after the Sovereign," he said, concluding his account, "and the delay for change of horses seemed insupportable to me. In the town I found a crush of vehicles worse than on a market-day; before the inn a confused noise of wheels, and the cries of men, drovers, and court-lackeys, who could not cross the water. In the city I learned from strangers that the foe of our happiness had been overtaken by a fate which pursued him to the water. We have done with him, and are free. They called out to me that the bridge on the way to you was broken. I sprang out of the carriage in order to seek the footpath over the hills and the road behind the garden. Then the dog of our landlord ran past me, and a coachman from our city came up to me and stated that he had brought Fritz and Laura to the town, but that they had gone further down the stream in order to find a crossing. You may believe that I would not wait."

"I knew that you would seek this path," said Ilse. "To-day you are come to me-to me alone; you belong only to me; you are given to me anew, betrothed to me for the second time. The habitations of men around us have disappeared; we stand alone in the wild cave of the dwarfs. You, my Felix, to whom the whole world belongs, who understand all the secrets of life, who know the past and divine the future-you have nothing now for a shelter but this cleft of the rock, and no covering but the kerchief of poor Anna for your weary limbs. The rock is still warm, and I will strew the grass of our hills as a couch for you. You have nothing, my hero in the wilderness, but the rocks and herbs, and your Ilse by your side."

The stillness of night reigns about; the stream rushes gently around the roots of the brambles; and the white mists hang like a thick curtain over the cave. Dusky phantoms glide along the valley; they hover, in long white dresses, past the rocky entrance, down into the open country, where a fresh breath of air dissolves them. High above, the moon spreads its white, glimmering tent, woven of rays of light and watery vapors; and the old juggler laughs merrily over the valley and down upon the rocky grotto. As the delusive moonlight harasses mortals by its unreal halo, so do they harass themselves by the pictures of their own fancy, in love and hate, in good and bad humor; their life passes away whilst they are thinking of their duty and err in doing it, whilst they seek truth and dream in seeking it. The spirit flies high, and the heart beats warm, but the hobgoblin of fancy works incessantly amidst the reality of life; the cleverest deceive themself, and the best are disappointed by their own zeal. Sleep in peace, Ilse. Thou sittest upon thy low stone bench and boldest in thy lap the head of thy husband. Even in this hour of bliss, thou feelest the sorrow that came to him and thee, and a gentle sigh sounds through the cavern like the movement of a moth's wings against the walls of rock. Sleep in peace. For thou hast lived, in the weeks gone by, through that which for all future time will be a gain to thee. Thou hast learned to seek in the depths of thy own life judgment and firm resolve. It would not be fitting. Ilse, that the lightly-woven tale of that which thou hast suffered, should separately bring up the lofty questions of eternal moment that thou hast raised-thy doubts and thy fierce battles of conscience. That were a too heavy burden for our frail bark. Yet as the mariner at sea, his eye fixed upon things below, recognizes in the waters beneath the reflection of the clouds of heaven, so will thy attainment of freedom, Ilse, be seen in the reflection of thy thoughts, in thy countenance, thy manner, and thy conduct.

Slumber in peace, you children of light! Many of your hopes have been deceived, and much innocent trust has been destroyed by rough reality. The forms of a past time-forms that you have borne reverentially in your hearts-have laid a real hold on your life; for what a man thinks, and what a man dreams, becomes a power over him. What once has entered in the soul continues to work actively in it, exalting and impelling it onward, debasing and destroying it. About you, too, a game of fantastic dreams has played. If at times it has given you pain, it has still not impaired the power of your life, for the roots of your happiness lie as deep as it is granted man, that transitory flower, to rest in the soil of earth. Slumber in peace under the roof of the wild rock; the warm air of the grotto breathes round your couch, and the ancient vaulting of the roof spreads protectingly over your weary eyes! Around you the forest sleeps and dreams; the old inhabitants of the rock sit at the entrance of the cave. I know not whether they are the elves in whom Ilse does not believe, or the old friends of the scholar, the little goat-footed Pans, who blow their sylvan songs on their reed pipes. They hold their fingers to their mouth, and blow so gently in their pipe that it sounds sometimes like the rushing of the water or the soft sigh of a sleeping bird.