Count Bruhl Part 23

'For I do not wish to bring evil on you,' said the girl. 'They would catch us to-morrow if we fly today, you would be sent to Konigstein, and they would marry me to the man whom they have selected for me.'

'I think I shall go to Konigstein in any case,' said Watzdorf. 'I cannot shut my mouth looking at this horrible life, at this despotism of a lackey. I say what I think, and that is, as you know, the way to get there, where one speaks only to four walls of the prison.'

'Listen, Christian, instead of talking, we ought to be silent,' said the girl, 'instead of wishing to improve them, we ought to despise them and rule them.'

'Giving in to their fancies, and lying for a lifetime, cheating them, and soiling oneself--' said Watzdorf. 'What a lovely life!'

'Then is it better to give up everything?' said the girl laughing. 'I, a woman, I am not so tragical, I take life as it is.'

'I despise it,' muttered Watzdorf.

The girl put out her hand to him.

'Poor enthusiast!' she sighed. 'Ah! how I pity you and myself; there is no hope for us--and if we could catch a moment of happiness, it is amidst falsehood and lying.'

She came near him, put one hand on his shoulder, and the other she put round his neck.

'Ah! this life!' she whispered, 'one must be drunk in order to bear it.'

'And be a cheat!' added Watzdorf, who seized her hand and kissed it pa.s.sionately. 'Frances, you don't love me; you love the life more than me; the world and the golden fetters.'

The girl was silent and sad.

'Who knows?' she said. 'I don't know myself. They brought me up, cradling me in falsehood and teaching me how to lie, in the meanwhile arousing in me a desire for sensation, distraction, luxury and enjoyment. I am not certain of my own heart, for I was corrupted before I began to live.'

'Love ought to make us both better,' said Watzdorf looking into her eyes pa.s.sionately. 'I was also a courtier before I loved you--by that love I became a man; I became purified in its flames.'

The girl laid her head on his shoulder and spoke to him in a whisper; they both seemed to forget about the whole world. Their eyes spoke more than their lips; their hands met and joined.

They forgot themselves to such a degree that they did not notice that the same door by which Watzdorf had entered opened, and the threatening, pale and angry face of the girl's mother appeared through it.

Seeing her daughter with a man whom she did not recognise at once, she was struck dumb. She made a step forward and pulled Watzdorf by his sleeve. Her lips trembled and her eyes were full of awful anger; the girl turned and perceived the thunder-bolt look of her mother. But she was not afraid. She retreated a step, while Watzdorf not knowing yet who had disturbed them, mechanically searched for his sword.

Only when he turned and saw the Countess did he become pale and stood silent like a criminal caught red-handed in the act.

The Countess could not speak, because of her great anger: she breathed heavily, pressing her bosom with one hand, with the other pointing imperiously to the door.

Watzdorf before obeying bent over the girl's hand and pressed it to his lips; the mother pulled it from him, and trembling continually pointed to the door.

Watzdorf looked at the pale girl and went out slowly. The Countess fell on the sofa--her daughter remained cold and indifferent like a statue.

The Countess cried from anger.

'Shame on you!' cried she, 'you dare to receive that man in your room!'

'Because I love him!' answered the girl calmly.

'And you dare to tell me that!'

'Why should I not say what I feel?'

The Countess sobbed.

'And you think that because of your stupid love for that good-for-nothing man, who is hardly tolerated in the court, I shall sacrifice your future? Never!'

'I did not expect that I could be happy and honest,' answered the girl coolly.

'You are mad!' cried the mother.

The girl sat in the chair opposite her mother, took a flower from the bouquet standing on the table, and raised it to her lips. Cold and ironical resignation was depicted on her face; the mother looked at her and was frightened.

'Happily, he could go out without being noticed,' she murmured to herself. 'To-morrow I shall order that door to be fastened, and I shall lock you in like a slave. Could I ever have expected to see such a thing?'

The girl, biting the flower, seemed to be ready to listen to any reproaches her mother might heap on her. The disdainful silence of her daughter made the Countess still more angry. She sprang from the sofa and walked rapidly across the room.

'If Watzdorf shall dare to speak, or look at you, woe betide him! I shall fall at the feet of the Princess, I shall pray Sulkowski, and they will lock him up for ever.'

'I don't think he would like to expose himself to that,' said the girl.

'To-day I took all hope from him. I told him that I may not dispose of myself; that they would treat me like a slave; that I shall marry the man they destine for me, but that I shall not love him--'

'You dare to tell me that!'

'I say what I think. The man who would marry me, will know what to expect from me.'

The Countess looked at her daughter threateningly but she was silent.

Suddenly she wrung her hands.

'Ungrateful!' she cried more tenderly. 'The moment I try to secure for you with our lady the most brilliant future, you--'

'I am quite aware that I shall be led like a sacrifice, dressed in brocade,' rejoined the girl laughing bitterly. 'Such a future is unavoidable.'

'Yes, for you know that you cannot resist the will of your mother and that of the Princess and the Prince.'

'Who has no will whatever,' said the girl ironically.

'Silence!' interrupted her mother threateningly. 'I came to tell you about happiness, and I found shame!'

'It was not necessary to tell me of that which I was aware. Sulkowski is married, consequently I must marry the other minister, Bruhl. I expected that. Indeed, it's a great happiness!'

'Greater than you deserve,' answered her mother. 'What could you have against the nicest man in the world?'

'Nothing whatever; I am as indifferent to him as if he were the most stupid and the most horrid. He or another is just the same to me, if I can not marry the one whom I love.'

'Don't dare to p.r.o.nounce his name: I hate him! If he dares to make one step he is lost!'

'I shall warn him: I don't wish him to come to nought: I wish him to avenge me.'

'Don't you dare to speak to him! I forbid you!'

The girl became silent. The Countess, having noticed that she was five minutes late for her duties at the court, said: