Four Phases of Love Part 11

"It may be so; and yet I can understand it by my own feelings. I was brought up amongst the mountains, and have only accustomed myself by slow degrees to the soft Roman air. Now it is winter; without there lies the fair pure snow. When we are seated this evening with my father and mother by the fire, and the kettle sings, and I see all that belong to my life around me, I could easily be _entirely_ happy. And yet I confess that it is just at that moment that the home-longing might seize me for the old country-house in England, where the old oak-trees stand before the window, and the snowy field lies behind the garden, far less beautiful than the campagna beyond them, and the English sky shrouded with heavy mist, so unlike this clear horizon, which should cheer and refresh me. Yet it is foreign, and something foreign like this might exist between people."

They had hitherto carried on the conversation in English. He now began to talk German, which she too spoke perfectly, with the exception of a slight accent.

"Permit me," he said, "to speak to you in my own language. You made me share your feelings of home-longing when you talked of your winter quietness. You put me in mind of my old German winters, which now lie so far behind me, and can never be to me again what they were. I heard again the light sound of the raven brushing through the bare branches, and breaking the dry twigs, till a fine cloud of snow fell past the window like crystal dust. My mother lay there ill on her bed for months together. She could not, and would not, longer endure the noise and bustle of the town. Before that time the old country-house had only seen summer visitors, cheerful hunters, and gay promenaders. Then it became the winter retreat where my mother recovered from her wearying journeys to the baths."

"You were with her then?"

"For the first year or two, only for a week at a time. The last winter, however, she would not let me leave her. I sat the whole day by her, worked, and talked now and then, or played her favourite airs, those simple old ballads which are now quite out of fashion. The little room opened into the garden by several tall windows. I can see my father now pacing up and down on the terrace before it, with his bear-skin cap and short pipe. He could not bear the close air of the room for long at a time. But he seldom left his post, and whoever had business with him must seek him there. Now and then he came in to us for a quarter of an hour at a time. I can never forget the look with which my poor mother used to greet him then. She had beautiful bright blue eyes."

"And she died then?"

"In the spring. My father soon afterwards. He met with an accident in riding. After my mother left us he had no rest, mounted the wildest horses, and often remained away half the day, much as I used to entreat him to spare himself I understood him. I could never free myself from a secret terror. I was in the right."

They had arrived at the foot of the path, and stood still to wait for their companion; Mary paused some steps from him, so that when he turned and looked round over the country, he had her full face towards him. The fair, bright features were clouded with sadness, and there was a moist gleaming under the drooping eyelids. When she raised them, he saw the blue eyes resting full and seriously on the landscape before her. He knew this look already. He had avoided it hitherto, for he knew the power that lay in it. Now he surrendered himself wholly to it for the first time. "Mary!" he said. She moved not nor looked towards him.

Then their meditative little friend rejoined them. The conversation was resumed as they mounted the ascent to Tivoli. But Mary took no part in it.

When they left Tivoli in the early twilight, gayer from the cheerful supper, and Theodore had helped the ladies into the carriage, the old man said confidentially to him, "I will not get in until I know when we are to meet you again, my dear sir. I have an affair to settle which interests me and mine deeply, and on which I wish much to consult you.

It concerns our poor Edward, and I know that you will come the sooner when you learn that we reckon on your a.s.sistance."

"Come this evening," said the mother. He promised it. When they brought him his horse, he saw an anxious expression on Mary's face. He sprang into the saddle, and gently humouring the spirited animal, rode beside the carriage for some way. Then he lagged behind, rode more slowly, and let the evening slip away without observing it. The night surprised him. He gave his horse the spur, and rode across the waste with the intention of making a short cut, and thus it was that he arrived so opportunely in Bianchi's neighbourhood.

He shook himself now, threw fresh wood upon the fire, and fixed his dark eyes thoughtfully upon it.

"What will they think," he said to himself, "at my strange absence?

What will _she_ think? It is too late now to send a messenger, and where, indeed, could I get one? She will sit at home, and never dream of what this day may mean! Or,

"Chi sa se mai!"

Then he attended to the sick man, walked up and down, and studied the Medusa head, on which the firelight shone warmly--strangely like the tints of ebbing life when the reluctant blood struggles with the death-terror. It affected him powerfully. At last he was obliged to turn away his eyes; and now, for the first time, observed some loose figures, some of them of corroded Pompeian bronze, and others by a newer hand, as life-like and reckless as they. Near them lay a torn and dusty copy of "Ariosto." He seized it, and read it eagerly. It was the only book he was able to discover.

So pa.s.sed the hours. Long after midnight the sleeping man groaned heavily, and struck out his arms in his dreams. As Theodore arranged his disordered couch, and spread the coverlid over him afresh, he awoke fully, and half arose. He felt around him, as if for a weapon, and asked, in a determined voice,--

"Who are you?"

"A friend!--do you not recognize me?" answered Theodore.

"It is false!--I have none." shouted the wounded man, striving to raise himself upon his feet. The pain of his wounds brought back recollection. He sank down again, and collected himself thoroughly. He lay still for awhile, and then said, more quietly,

"You _are_ one. Now I recollect you. What are you doing here at this hour? Why are you not gone home? Are _you_ different from the other sons of men, who only do good in order to sleep more soundly?

Go!--you have earned your rest. Why do you watch my dreams?"

"The doctor insists upon having your wounds kept cool during the night.

I could not trust to a stranger."

"Are _you_ not one?"

"No; not for a couple of pauls; but for your own sake I do this."

The other lay silent awhile. Then he said, with a strange excitement, "You would do me a kindness by going. It makes me feel ill to have a man moving about me. When it comes to thanking, I am more clumsy than an old man courting a young girl."

"Do not trouble yourself about thanks. I stay because you want me. If you could manage without me, you should not have to complain of my being in your way."

"I cannot sleep when I know that you are sitting; and freezing there."

Theodore stirred the fire. "I hope that you feel, even over there, how warm I must be here."

After a pause, during which the sick man had lain with closed eyes, he asked--

"You are a Lutheran, sir?"----"Yes."

"I knew it," said Bianchi to himself; "he wishes to rob the church of a soul--he does it all for that! They are no better than we are."

"The fever makes you rave." said Theodore emphatically; "say what you will."

They were both silent for a long time. Theodore placed fresh ice upon the wounds, as before; and Bianchi lay with his face turned towards the wall, motionless, as though he slept. Suddenly, as Theodore was again busied about him, he turned round, and raised himself half up. With the wounded arm he clutched towards Theodore's hand, and grasped it with his burning one, and said, low and slowly--"You are good! you are good!

you are a man!" His weakness overcame him; he fell back upon the straw, and burst into a convulsive fit of weeping. As the tears ceased to flow, he slept anew.

CHAPTER II.

When he awoke, the bright morning light was forcing its way through the crevices in the shutters, and making a sunny twilight around him. He saw the boy by his bedside, and the doctor, and heard that Theodore had gone into the town early in the morning, as soon as the boy came in, without saying anything about his return.

Thus he pa.s.sed half the day, restless, dreaming, listening towards the door. Two mice, which he had tamed, and for whom he had hitherto ever had a caress, even in his moments of deepest gloom and misery, now came into the middle of the room, blinked their bright little eyes at him, squeaked, and flourished about, without his casting a glance towards them. The boy, not knowing that they were permitted guests, frightened them away. Some one knocked. It was somebody who brought the artist an order for a pair of ear-rings, in red sh.e.l.l. Bianchi let him depart without speaking to him; nor did he say a word to a sculptor of his acquaintance, who had heard of the terrible adventure of the previous night, and was good-hearted enough to visit the solitary being.

Meanwhile, Theodore, already early in the day, had mounted the stone steps of the large house in which Mary's parents resided. The old servant opened the door. "They waited long for you last night," he said. "I was sent to your lodgings, but you had not returned. Miss Mary thought that you must have met with some accident, as you were on horseback. But, G.o.d be praised! you are safe."

Theodore did not answer; he heard music within--a sonata of Beethoven--suddenly it ceased; a stool was pushed back, a gown rustled.

As he entered, Mary stood before him; she seemed to have paused suddenly in the middle of the room on her way to the door; she tried to speak; her cheeks flushed. He seized her hand eagerly with both of his, and now saw that she had been weeping. "Mary!" he said, "I find that I have more to crave pardon for than I expected--you have been uneasy about me!"

She tried to smile. "I am delighted to find that there was no reason for it," she said. "Something prevented you; it was very foolish to think the worst at once. I will go and call my parents."

He held her back entreatingly. "You have been weeping, Mary!"

"It is nothing; I had a bad night, and the music just now agitated me."

He let her hand fall. She remained standing on the same spot, supporting herself against a chair. He took one turn up and down the room, and stood before her; he grasped her hand again, stammered out a word, and then pressed her pa.s.sionately to his breast. She rested weeping blissfully and silently in his arms.

"We will go to my parents," said Mary, when she had had a little recovered the emotion of that first embrace. "Come!"

She took him gently by the hand. He longed to remain alone with her; it seemed to him as though she would be separated from him again when they came into the presence of others; yet he permitted her to lead him.

They found her parents together in her mother's boudoir. As he entered he felt a longing to entreat his loved one to be silent on what had just pa.s.sed between them, he felt incapable of talking calmly over it, or of meeting any one but herself in his blissful intoxication. It had already pa.s.sed her lips. The mother, a stately, ceremonious woman, clasped him heartily in her arms; formal as she usually was, she could not hear the pleasant news without saying some heartfelt words of blessing, which, kindly as they were meant, still sounded foreign and strange to Theodore's state of feeling. Her father said nothing. He pressed his future son-in-law warmly by the hand, and kissed his daughter's forehead.

Theodore described the adventures of the previous evening. Mary leant her head on his breast, and when he told of the combat, threw her arm timidly around her lover, as if to a.s.sure herself that all was past, and that she really possessed him again in safety. Her mother made a sign to her, which, slight as it was, did not escape Theodore. She removed her arm, and sat near him without touching him. He felt pained; he felt, too, when after some hours he was obliged to leave, and kissed her again with his whole heart on the threshold, that she avoided him shily, and at first turned away her lips from his. He departed with a strange confusion of feeling--a weight upon his heart--and an obstinate deadened glow in every vein. He stood still for a moment before the door; the street was deserted, he pressed his feverish forehead against the cool stone pillars, and stretched forth his arms as if he would draw down a part of the heavens and press it to his breast, and then went somewhat more calmly on his way to the Tritone.