A Divided Heart and Other Stories Part 8

"The brute came to the stone where the old woman was crouching. It thrust its large head in her lap, and fell on its knees. The old woman helped it up again.

"'Come, Minka,' she repeated, 'it will do no harm, and perhaps may help you to eternal happiness. Hannah has gone before, with little Mary.

Mother Betsey will soon follow.'

"She drew the reluctant animal to the edge of the pond and tried to force it in. But entreaties and caresses were as vain as the pushes and blows to which she finally resorted. The poor victim, its whole body trembling, braced all four feet against the bank and gave a piteous cry. The old woman cast an imploring glance at me.

"'You have a gun at your back, sir. Will you not do my Minka this last kindness, and help her to her salvation? The Lord G.o.d will repay you the little powder and lead which you spend on a tortured creature; and if there is justice, and we meet again up yonder, Minka, too, will not be wanting, and then you shall see that, after the a.s.s that bore our Lord into Jerusalem, there will be none more beautiful than Minka in all Paradise.'

"How could I withstand such a touching request? I c.o.c.ked my gun, came close to the good creature, and shot a bullet through its head. It fell headlong into the water; the gray head appeared for an instant, then sank and left no trace.

"The old woman fell upon her knees; I saw her fold her withered hands and move her lips silently. Undoubtedly, she breathed a prayer for Minka's departed soul.

"Then she arose wearily. 'I thank you, sir,' she said. 'You have just done me a greater kindness than when you sent me the money. When you go home give my respects to the lady baroness. Tell her I need nothing more. Three are already at rest, and the fourth will not delay long.

And so may G.o.d preserve you. I am freezing. I shall go back to the house and warm myself a little. The night will be cold and the house is empty. May G.o.d reward you a thousandfold, sir! No; you shall not go with me! I have no one, and the cursed music will let me sleep very well if I stop my ears tightly enough. Good-night, sir! Rest well. And the Lord G.o.d above will understand and deal kindly with us. Amen!'

"She crossed herself and bowed quietly. Then she climbed the slope across the meadow, and I watched her until she reached her hut above and closed the door behind her.

"I myself returned to the path in a state of mind that baffles description. The universal misery of mankind was about the drift of it.

But other elements mingling with it gave the peculiar experience something at once grotesque and awful. A professional psychologist would have had difficulty in understanding it.

"Fortunately the weather took care that I did not lose myself in this bottomless pit of fruitless speculation. Just as I reached the first houses, the rain began to fall in such torrents that I was obliged to seek shelter and wait until the storm should abate before attempting to return to the estate. Naturally, I hastened to the inn. I had a certain curiosity to see the famous judge's son on this day, when his old sweetheart had quietly taken herself out of the world to make room for his new one.

"It was a middle-cla.s.s wedding of the usual sort. I looked through the open door into the hall, where the table had been removed to make room for the dancers. The wedding pair immediately struck my eyes, not unfavorably either; he was precisely such a man as I imagined, curly-headed, therefore popular among women, and with a frivolous, insolent face; on the whole, a good-looking rascal of the most common type. The young wife in her myrtle wreath, a provincial beauty, appeared much in love with her husband, but, from continual dancing with him, was too red and overheated to be lovely. Since she was rich, the husband had in fact obtained a better lot than his villainous deed warranted, and it was hardly to be expected that compensating justice would make him do penance for his sins through this marriage. He did not seem to be a man who would endure such penance calmly, much less pa.s.s even one sleepless night in useless thoughts upon the moral system of the world.

"The wretch disgusted me. Joining the peasants in the bar-room below, I drank my gla.s.s of beer in a very bitter mood, while the floor above creaked and trembled under the stamping and springing of the dancers, and the rain beat against the windows. This continued for more than an hour; then the rain ceased, the clouds moved towards the mountains, and the moon appeared. I decided to look about for a team, since the roads were now unfit for walking, and the wedding uproar made the prospect of a night here intolerable.

"Fortunately, just as I was going out to inquire for a teamster, I found my brother-in-law's coachman before the door with the hunting-wagon, my sister having sent him to bring me home. Both he and his horses needed a rest and a thorough drying. The homeward journey was so slow that I found everyone at the house asleep, and could not tell my horrible experience of the previous day till the following morning as we three sat at breakfast.

"We were still under the influence of the strange tragedy--my sister, who had visited the 'four females' once during the summer, being affected even to tears--when the door opened, and my brother-in-law's steward entered. 'I merely wish to announce, Herr Baron,' he said, 'that there has been a fire during the night. G.o.d be thanked, it has not spread, and was not on our estate. But Mother Betsey's house is burned.'

"We looked at one another confounded.

"'How did the fire start, and was any one injured?' asked my brother-in-law.

"The man shook his head.

"'They know nothing positively, Herr Baron,' he said. 'At midnight, as the last dance was being played down in the inn--the judge's son was holding his wedding feast--they suddenly heard the fire-bells ring from the towers, and, rushing out, they saw Mother Lamitz's old hut up on the forest edge in bright flames. The fire streamed as quietly into the sky as if from a wood-pile, and although half the village was on foot, and the fire engine was dragged up the mountain, they could do nothing whatever, the flames having already devoured the last corner of the old rookery. It was only when there was nothing left to save that they mastered the fire; the ground walls, about a man's height, alone remain standing, if they too have not fallen by this time. At first there seemed to be nothing left of the women and the child. At length some one discovered in the corner where the loom had stood a ghastly heap of ashes and blackened bones, undoubtedly the remains of old Betsey, who, as old women can never be warm enough, probably heated the oven so hot that the rotten thing burst and the flames reached the rafters of the loom. She must have been quickly suffocated by the smoke and have died without further pain. But what became of her daughter and the little one n.o.body knows, and as for the donkey, which she esteemed so highly, not the smallest piece of its hide or bones can be discovered!'"

ROTHENBURG ON THE TAUBER

ROTHENBURG ON THE TAUBER.

It was Easter Tuesday. The people who had celebrated this feast of resurrection by an open-air excursion in the gayly blossoming springtime were thronging back to their houses and the work-day troubles of the morrow. All the highroads swarmed with carriages and pedestrians, and the railroads were overcrowded in spite of the extra trains; for it was many years since there had been such continuously lovely Easter weather.

The evening express, standing in the Ansbach station ready to depart in the direction of Wurzburg, was twice as long as usual. Nevertheless, every seat appeared to be occupied, when a straggler of the second cla.s.s, trying to enter at the last moment, knocked in vain at every door, and peered into each _coupe_, meeting everywhere a more or less ungracious or mischievous shrug of the shoulders. Finally, the guard at his side made a sudden decision, opened a _coupe_ of the first cla.s.s, shoved the late-comer into the dim interior, and slammed the door just as the train began to move.

A woman who, curled up like a black lizard, had been slumbering in the opposite corner suddenly started up and cast an angry look at the unwelcome disturber of her solitude.

However, the blonde young man in plain Sunday clothing, with a portfolio under his arm and a worn-out travelling satchel with old-fashioned embroidery in his hand, seemed to strike her as nothing remarkable. She replied to his courteous greeting and awkward excuse with a haughty, scarcely perceptible inclination of her head; drew her wrap's black silk hood once more over her forehead, and prepared to continue her interrupted slumber as unconcernedly as if, instead of a new fellow-traveller, merely one more piece of luggage had been put in the compartment.

The young man, feeling that he was regarded as an intruder, took good care not to remind her of his presence by any unnecessary noise; indeed, for the first five minutes, although he had been running violently, he held his breath as long as he could, and remained steadily in the uncomfortable position which he had at first a.s.sumed.

He merely took off his hat, and wiped the perspiration from his brow with a handkerchief, looking discreetly out of the window the while, as if he could only atone for his appearance in a higher sphere by the most modest behavior. But since the sleeper did not stir, and the pa.s.sing landscape outside had no charm for him, he finally ventured to turn his eyes toward the interior of the _coupe_; and, after having sufficiently admired the broad, red plush cushions and the mirror on the wall, he even dared to look more closely at the stranger, slowly and cautiously surveying her from the tip of the tiny shoe peeping from beneath her gown, to her shoulders, and at length to the fine lines of the face turned towards him.

Undoubtedly a very high-born dame--that was instantly clear to him--and, furthermore, a Russian, Pole, or Spaniard. Everything she had on and about her bore the stamp of an aristocratic origin;--her gown; the fine red travelling satchel against which she placed her tiny feet so regardlessly; the elegant tan gloves whereon she was resting her cheek. Moreover, a peculiar fragrance, not of any aromatic essence, but of Russia leather and cigarettes, surrounded her, and on the carpet of the _coupe_ there actually lay several white half-smoked stumps, scattered about with their ashes and some Russian tobacco. A book had also fallen on the floor. Unable to content himself with letting it lie there, he picked it up carefully and saw that it was a French novel.

All this filled him with that secretly pleasing horror apt to seize young men who have been brought up in provincial circles, when they are unexpectedly brought into contact with a woman of the fashionable world. To the natural power of woman over man is then added the romantic charm which the unknown and independent customs, the imagined pa.s.sionate joys and sorrows of the upper cla.s.ses, exercise over a fledgeling of the lower. The gulf yawning between the two cla.s.ses merely increases this attraction; for, the opportunity sometime offering, the man probably feels a visionary, foolhardly desire to show his strength and cross the seemingly impa.s.sable abyss.

To be sure, the young traveller did not contemplate any such adventurous boldness. But when he was sufficiently convinced that the sleep of his strange neighbor was unfeigned, he quietly drew from his vest pocket a small book bound in gray linen, and furtively began to sketch the sleeper's fine and pale, though somewhat haughty, profile.

It was no light undertaking, although the rapid motion of the express helped him over several difficulties. He was obliged to keep himself half-poised on the seat and make each stroke with unerring certainty.

But the head was well worth the trouble; and as, peering through the dim light, he studied the quiet face lightly framed by the folds of the hood, he said to himself that he had never seen such cla.s.sic features on any living being. She seemed somewhat past her first youth, and the mouth with its delicate lips occasionally a.s.sumed, even in sleep, a peculiar expression of bitterness or disgust; but the brow, the shape of the eyes, and the rich ma.s.ses of soft, wavy hair were still remarkably beautiful.

He had drawn zealously for about ten minutes and had almost finished the sketch, when the sleeper roused herself calmly, and demanded in the best of German:

"Do you know, sir, that it is not allowable to rob travellers in their sleep?"

The poor offender, greatly confused, let the book sink upon his knee, and said, blushing furiously: "Pardon me, my lady, I did not think--I believed--it is merely a very hasty sketch--merely for remembrance."

"Who gave you the right to remember me, and to a.s.sist your memory so obviously?" replied the woman, measuring him somewhat coldly and scornfully with her keen blue eyes.

She gradually raised herself to an upright position; and as the hood fell upon her shoulders, he saw the fine contour of her head, and in spite of his embarra.s.sment, continued to study her with an artist's eye.

"In truth, I must confess that I have behaved like a veritable highwayman," he replied, trying to turn the matter into a jest; "but perhaps you will allow mercy to precede justice, when I return my booty, not with intent to propitiate justice, but to show you how little it is that I have appropriated."

He offered her the open sketch-book. She cast a hasty glance at her picture; then nodded kindly, though with a quick gesture of rejection.

"It is like," she said, "but idealized. You are a portrait painter, sir?"

"No, my lady; in that case I could have made the sketch really characteristic. I paint architectural pictures mainly. But just because my eyes are sharpened for beautiful proportions and graceful lines, and as they are not found in a human face every day--"

At a loss for a conclusion, he stared at the tip of his boot, attempted to smile, and blushed again.

Without noticing this, the stranger said, "Doubtless you have some of your sketches and paintings in that portfolio there. May I see them?"

"Certainly." He handed her the portfolio, and spread the contents sheet by sheet before her. They were mere aquarelles, representing in a versatile manner and with thoroughly artistic conception old buildings, Gothic turrets, and streets of gabled houses. The stranger allowed one after the other to pa.s.s, without addressing any questions to the artist. But she studied many pages for a long time, and returned them with a certain hesitation.

"The things are not perfectly finished yet," said he, excusing this and that hasty study, "but they all belong to the same cycle. I availed myself of Easter day to talk them over with an art-dealer in Nuremberg.

I wish to publish all these sketches in chromo-lithographic work. To be sure, I have many predecessors, but Rothenburg is not even yet as well known as it deserves to be."

"Rothenburg?"