Countess Erika's Apprenticeship Part 50

CHAPTER XXVI.

Lozoncyi had gone to the station. He had delayed until the latest minute, intimidated by the difficulties of his undertaking, swayed by intense agitation. At last, pa.s.sion for Erika had gained the mastery, although it had shrunk to very small dimensions. All the poetry had faded out of it. The lofty conception of life and its duties which had lately raised him above himself had vanished like a fit of intoxication of which nothing is left save a torturing thirst. Will she come? he had asked himself, with quivering nerves, as he sprang from the gondola, and, after purchasing the tickets, looked around him anxiously.

He had in fact expected that she would be there before him: he was disappointed at not finding her. He went out upon the steps leading from the railway-station to the Ca.n.a.l, and looked abroad over the shining green water. As each gondola approached he said to himself, "Here she comes." But no; she did not come.

The first bell rang. He went on the platform, his pulses throbbing feverishly. While he had been sure that she would come he had been comparatively calm; now his longing for her knew no bounds. He eagerly scanned every woman whom he saw in the distance.

Fortunately, he saw no one whom he knew: the train was not very full.

The second bell rang; the pa.s.sengers hurried into their several compartments, porters ran to and fro with travelling-bags and trunks, farewells were waved from the windows of the train. The third bell rang, and the train steamed noisily out of the station. She had not come.

His disappointment was largely mingled with anger, and was so intense that it amounted to physical nervous pain. "At the last moment her courage has failed her," he told himself. But then her pale beautiful face, lit up with enthusiasm, arose before his mind's eye, and in the midst of his frenzy of pa.s.sion he was conscious of the yearning tenderness which had been a chief element in his feeling for her. "No,"

he said to himself, "even if her courage has failed her, she is not one to break her word. She must have been prevented at the last moment."

A burning desire for certainty in the matter mastered him. He went to the Hotel Britannia, under the pretext of calling upon the Lenzdorffs.

He was told that her Excellency had gone out early in the afternoon and had not yet returned. He hesitated for a moment, and then, in a tone the indifference of which surprised himself, he asked if he could see the Countess Erika, as he had a message for her. The porter, a presuming fellow who meddled in everybody's affairs, informed him that the young Countess had just gone out, but would probably return shortly.

"Why do you think so?" asked Lozoncyi.

"Because she was not in evening dress. She went out in a street suit, and carried a leather bag in her hand: that always means 'charity' with the young Countess. I know the bag: I have often carried it for her to the gondola. This time she walked, and carried it herself. She is a little----" he touched his forehead with his forefinger, "but a good lady: she is always giving."

Lozoncyi stayed no longer. He got into his gondola again, uncertain what to do. What could have kept her? After some reflection, he went again to the railway-station. "She has been detained by some acquaintance; she will be here for the next train," he thought. He waited until the next train left,--in vain. Then a fierce anger against her arose within him and transcended all bounds. He forgot that he himself had delayed for a moment. He could not find words bitter enough to express his contempt for her. He never should have taken such a step of his own accord: he had simply acquiesced in the inevitable. She had carried him away by her enthusiasm, which had levelled all barriers between them, and now--now her cowardice had left him in the lurch. It was hardly worth while to devise so fine a drama, when it was never to be played out! How stupid he had been ever to believe that it could possibly be played out! he ought to have known that at the last moment the censor would prohibit it. In the midst of his anger he experienced a sensation of dull indifference. What did anything matter? everything of importance in his life was at an end: what became of the rest he did not care. He had been lured on by a Fata Morgana; he laughed at the thought that he had taken it for reality,--a dull, joyless laugh,--and then--he could not spend the night at the station--he resolved to go home.

It was about ten o'clock when he pa.s.sed through the green door of his house and along the narrow corridor into the garden. The moon was high in the sky, and the trees and bushes cast pitchy shadows upon the bluish light lying upon the gra.s.s and gravel paths. The air was warm; rose-leaves lay scattered everywhere; Spring was laying aside her garments, and there was a dull weariness in the atmosphere.

Lozoncyi, with bowed head, walked towards the atelier, where was the portrait. On a sudden he heard a light foot-fall behind him. He turned, and stood as if rooted to the earth.

"Erika!"

She came towards him lovely as an angel. Her head was bare, and her golden hair gleamed in the moonlight.

"Erika!" he exclaimed, hoa.r.s.ely, without advancing a step towards her.

He took her for an illusion conjured up by his fancy. But as she drew near he felt the reality of her young life beside him. "Then it is really you?" he murmured. "I thought it a phantom to deceive me. Why are you here?"

"No wonder you ask," she said, and her voice expressed unutterable compa.s.sion. "I come to bid you farewell."

"Farewell!" he gasped. "Then I was right to doubt you. And yet how bitterly I have reproached myself because----"

"Because----?" she asked, sadly.

"Because I ventured to suppose you had lost courage. What could I think? I waited for you at the station from one train to the next: you did not come. Then I told myself that you had simply treated me to a farce. But I cannot believe that now: as I look into your dear face I can find there no cowardice, nothing paltry. You have been detained against your will, and you are here yourself to tell me so. It is n.o.ble of you, Erika! my Erika!"

He drew closer to her, and extended his arms towards her: she evaded them.

"All is over between us," she said, wearily. "It cannot be."

She saw him turn ashy pale in the moonlight.

"Over? It cannot be? Erika! What does this mean? Have you robbed me of all self-control only to desert me thus at the last moment? I cannot believe it of you, Erika!" There was pa.s.sionate entreaty in his voice.

Again he stretched out his arms towards her: gently, but firmly, she repulsed him.

"Do not touch me," she begged. "I can scarcely stand. Something horrible has happened; I must tell you of it as quickly as possible, but I cannot stand upright." She grasped the bough of the mulberry-tree around which the climbing roses were wreathed, and as she did so the bough shook, and a cloud of white rose-leaves fluttered to the ground.

All about her was fading! How sultry the night was!

She sat down on the bench beneath the mulberry, above her the moonlit sky with its hosts of stars, at her feet the fading garment of the spring.

Then she began her story: "I was on my way to the station. I should have been punctual: perhaps I should have been there before you. I was convinced that I was doing right, and so long as that was so I could not delay. The way to the station leads past this house. My gondola had not yet reached the bridge that spans this ca.n.a.l when I heard a loud splash in the water. A woman had thrown herself from the bridge. You can imagine my horror. In an instant the suspicion darted into my mind that it might be your wife. I implored my gondolier to save her, and he plunged into the water just in time. It was indeed your wife, whom I could not but feel I had thus hunted to death. She lay in the bottom of the gondola, covered with sea-weed and slime--oh, horrible! I brought her home. We carried her up-stairs, with Lucrezia's help, and then recalled her to life. That was comparatively easy; but scarcely had she opened her eyes when she was seized with frightful spasms of the chest, and I feared she would die."

Lozoncyi had listened breathlessly; now he nodded slowly. "I know she suffers from such attacks frequently," he said, bitterly, "but they are not dangerous: they are usually the result of a fit of fury."

"That I did not know," Erika murmured, in the same weary, self-accusing voice,--the voice of a criminal arraigning herself. "Her condition made a terrible impression upon me. We put her to bed, and I stayed with her while Lucrezia went for a physician. She returned without him, but the unfortunate woman seemed better and calmer, and I was about to leave her, when I heard your step in the corridor. I came hither to take leave of you. Forgive me, and farewell!" She had risen from the bench, and held out her hand to him; her eyes were full of tears.

He did not take her hand. "And for this you would desert me?" he exclaimed, angrily. "You have given me no reason,--not the slightest.

That devil up-stairs has simply played you a trick,--nothing more. Can you not see it? She knew what we were about to do, and watched for you: she had not the least idea of taking her own life."

"I do not know," replied Erika, pa.s.sing her hand across her brow: "it may be that she meant only to prevent me from arriving in time at the station. But it was frightful: the ca.n.a.l is very deep there; she would surely have been drowned; and how could I have lived after witnessing her death? No! as I sat beside her bed a veil seemed to fall from my eyes,--a veil which had blinded me to what I was doing. I saw that, with the best will in the world, I could do only harm. I was ready to give my life for you,--I am always ready for that,--but I must not sacrifice the lives of others who stand in close relation to you and to me; I cannot!--I cannot! I ought not to have robbed you of your peace, to have taken from you the power of self-renunciation; I acknowledge it. If you could but know how bitterly I reproach myself, how fearful it is for me to see you suffer! My poor friend, I entreat your forgiveness from my very soul!" She took his hand and humbly touched it with her lips.

The night grew more sultry and oppressive. A bewildering fragrance exhaled from the earth, from the plants, from the faded blossoms on the ground, and from the fresh buds opening to life. The moonlight fell full upon the statue of a dancing faun beneath an acacia-tree, and upon the scattered rose-leaves around it.

Hitherto Lozoncyi had stood still, with bowed head. But at the touch of her lips upon his hand he looked up. His veins ran fire.

"Farewell!" she murmured, gently.

He repeated "Farewell!" and then suddenly added, "Will you not take one more look at the studio before you go?"

She found nothing unusual in this request. He led the way; she followed him, her whole being filled with compa.s.sion: she would have been nailed to the cross to relieve his pain,--the pain for which she was to blame.

The moonlight flooded the studio, lending an unreal appearance to the room, and in the magic light stood forth the figure of 'Blind Love,'

athirst to reach its goal, staggering in the mire.

From the garden breathed a benumbing odour, and from the far distance floated towards the pair, like a yearning sigh, the song of the Venetian night-minstrels.

Erika looked about her sadly. "It was fair!" she murmured. "I thank you for it all. Adieu!"

She held out both her hands to him; she had wellnigh offered him her lips, in the desperation of her compa.s.sion.

He took her hands in his and bent over them. "It is, perhaps, better so," he said, and his voice had never been so tremulous and yet so tenderly beguiling. "The sacrifice you would have made for me was too great: I ought not to have accepted it at your hands. And you are right, we must spare those who are near to us; it must be. But for G.o.d's sake do not desert me quite! do not consign me to utter misery!"

She looked at him with eyes of wonder. She could not comprehend. What was there left for her to do for him?--what?

He kissed her hands alternately: she did not notice how he drew her towards him until she felt his hot breath upon her cheek. Then he said, softly, very softly, "You must return to your grandmother tonight, I know; you cannot devote your life to me; but--oh, Erika! our existence is made up of moments--grant me a moment's bliss now and then! you will not be the poorer, and I--I shall be richer than a king! The world shall never know; no shadow shall fall upon you, be sure----"

At last she understood. She tore her hands from his grasp; a hoa.r.s.e sobbing cry escaped her lips, and without a word she turned and fled past the faun gleaming in the moonlight, past the fading blossoms, across the garden, through the long cold corridor, without once taking breath until the green door with the lion's head had closed behind her.

A despairing cry pursued her: "Erika! Erika!" It was the voice of the man who had been suddenly aroused to the consciousness of what he had done.

But she never heeded it: she had a horror of him.