Erlach Court Part 32

Katrine and Rohritz sit opposite each other, each taking great pains to appear unconcerned. One quarter of an hour after another pa.s.ses without a word exchanged between them. Suddenly Katrine rises, goes to the window, opens first the inner shutter and then the peep-hole in the other.

"Listen how the wind roars!" she says, in a hoa.r.s.e, subdued voice, to Rohritz. "And the snow is falling as if a feather bed had been cut in two."

Rohritz is really unable to smile, as he would have been tempted to do at any other time, at the contrast between Katrine's deeply tragic air and her very commonplace comparison: he is rather anxious himself.

"Hark! just hark how the wind whistles! I hope Jack has not got wedged in a snow-drift."

Rohritz makes some reply which Katrine does not heed. In increasing agitation she paces the room to and fro.

"The worst place is the bit of road near the quarry," she murmurs to herself. "If he goes a hand's-breadth too far on one side, then----"

"Les has a remarkable sense of locality, and is the best whip I know,"

Rohritz remarks, soothingly.

She is silent, compresses her lips, listens at the window, hearkens to the raging wind, which drives the snow-flakes against the shutters and tears and rattles at the boughs of the giant linden until they shriek from out their long winter sleep.

How much we are able to forgive a man when we are anxious about him!

"I would rather send some one to meet him," she stammers. "I am exceedingly anxious."

She reaches out her hand for the bell-rope, when suddenly from the far distance, like mocking, elfin laughter, comes the tinkle of sleigh-bells. Katrine holds her breath, listens. The sleigh approaches, draws up before the door. Rohritz goes out into the hall. Katrine hears a man stamping the snow from his boots, hears the captain's fresh, cheery voice as he answers his friend's questions. Her anxiety is converted into a sensation of great bitterness. She cannot rally herself too much for her childish anxiety, cannot forgive herself for behaving so ridiculously before Rohritz. Whilst she has been fancying her husband lost in a snow-drift, he beyond all doubt has been admirably entertained with the gra.s.s-widow.

The door opens; the captain appears alone, without his comrade.

"Still up, Katrine?" he asks, in a gentle undertone, approaching his wife, and with an uncertain, half-embarra.s.sed smile he adds, "Rohritz told me you were anxious about--about me." As he speaks he tries to take his wife's hand to draw her towards him; but Katrine avoids him.

"Rohritz was mistaken," she rejoins, very dryly. "For a moment I thought you might have fallen into the quarry, because I could not see any apparent reason for your late return. But as for anxiety----"

Without finishing the sentence, she shrugs her shoulders.

The captain smiles bitterly, and pa.s.ses his hand across his forehead.

"Yes, he was evidently mistaken; it was an attempt to bring us together," he murmurs; "his sentimental representation did at first seem rather incredible to me. But what one wishes to believe one does believe so easily! I was foolish enough to delight in the hope of a kindly welcome from you; but, in fact, in comparison with the reception you have vouchsafed me the weather outside is genial."

He seats himself astride of a low chair, and begins to drum impatiently upon the back of it.

"It seems to me quite late enough to go to bed," says Katrine, taking a silver candlestick from the mantel-piece. "It is a quarter-past ten."

Suddenly the captain grasps her by the wrist. "Stay!" he says, sternly.

"You have come back in a very bad humour," Katrine remarks, with a contemptuous smile. "The gra.s.s-widow must have proved unkind. Your delay in returning led me to suppose the contrary."

The captain looks at his wife with an odd expression. Was it possible she could take sufficient interest in him to be jealous?

"I have not seen the gra.s.s-widow," he rejoins, after a short pause.

"That is, you did not find her at home? How very sad!"

"I did not go to Glockenstein."

"Ah, indeed! I thought----"

"You are quite right," he said, with an air of bravado. "After the very kind and choice words with which in the presence of an auditor you dismissed me, I certainly whipped up the horses in order to reach Glockenstein with all speed. When angels will have nothing to do with us, we are fain to go for consolation to the devil: he is sure to be at hand. Frau Ruprecht would have received me with open arms; I am by no means"--with a forced laugh--"so insignificant in her eyes; for her I am quite a hero, and what would you have? she is stupid, but she is pretty and young, and an amount of consideration from any woman flatters a poor fellow who is never without the consciousness of his inferiority in the eyes of his clever wife at home."

"Ah! really?" Katrine sneers. "May I beg you to make a little haste with your explanations?--the lamp is beginning to burn dimly."

"It burns quite well enough for what I have to say," replies the captain. "I whipped up my horses, as I said,--I was positively in a hurry to fall at the Ruprecht's feet; but, just at the last moment, so many different things occurred to me! Glockenstein was in sight, but I turned aside, and then drove over to Reitzenberg's to settle with him about the wood."

"Ah! It seems to have been a very protracted business discussion."

"I took supper with Reitzenberg, and played a game of cards afterwards."

"Hm! Since, then, you have perhaps sufficiently explained the reason of your delay, will you permit me to withdraw?" Katrine asks.

"Apparently you do not believe me. And yet you ought to know that falsehood is not to be reckoned among my bad qualities."

"True; but"--Katrine shrugs her shoulders--"no man hesitates to improvise a little when there's a lady in the case. I should like to know, however, why you take so much trouble in the present instance for me, who have so little interest in such things." And, taking the candlestick once more from the chimney-piece, she asks, "Can I go now?

Have you finished?"

"No," he exclaims, angrily, "I have not finished, and you will hearken to me. Matters are come to a worse pa.s.s than you fancy; our whole existence is at stake. You know how my sister Lina's marriage turned out, and you are in a fair way to plunge me into the same misery into which Franz Meineck was thrust by his wife."

"Your comparison of me to your sister seems to me rather forced,"

Katrine replies. "I know it is not pleasant to hear one's relatives criticised by another, however we may disapprove of them ourselves, but I must defend myself. Your sister neglected her household and her children, giving herself over to a ridiculous ambition; whilst I----"

She hesitates, deterred from proceeding by something in the captain's look:

"Whilst you----" he begins. "I know perfectly well what you would say.

Your household is perfectly attended to, you are an ideal mother, and daintily neat. In a word, you would have been for me the ideal wife if you had ever shown me a particle of affection."

"I have always done my duty by you."

"Your hard, prescribed, bounden duty."

"You could not expect anything more of me. When we married it was agreed between us that each should be satisfied with a sensible amount of friendship."

He has risen, and is gazing at her keenly, searchingly.

"That is true; you are right," he says, bitterly. "The sad thing about it is that I had forgotten it!"

"I cannot understand how you--I must say I never have observed--that you----"

"Indeed? You never have observed that I have long ceased to keep my part of our compact!" the captain exclaims. "Really? Women are fabulously blind when they do not choose to see. Do you suppose I should have allowed the reins to be taken from my hands, do you suppose I should have resigned my authority over you, have lost the right of disposing of my own child, and have abandoned my profession, if--if I had not fallen in love with you like a very school-boy! There! now despise me doubly for my confession, and until you see me stifling in the mire, like poor Franz Meineck, console yourself with the conviction that you have done your duty by me."

He makes her a profound bow, then turns and leaves the room.

CHAPTER x.x.x.

A SLEEPLESS NIGHT.