How Women Love Part 18

"I thought I was wearying you."

She held out her finger-tips, which he pressed so warmly that she hastily withdrew her hand. Going to one of the three large windows in the drawing-room, she opened it and stepped out upon the broad, projecting balcony, which on the second story extended along the whole front of the castle. Leaning against the bal.u.s.trade, both silently watched for a moment the scene before them. The July night was warm, and the air was stirless. Not a cloud appeared in the blackish-blue sky, the stars were sparkling brightly, and among them, almost at the zenith, sailed the full moon. At their feet lay the park, from which rose faint odours of unknown wild flowers and the more pungent fragrance of dewy gra.s.s and leaf.a.ge. Directly in front of the building extended a lawn, with beds of flowers, on which the moonlight poured a sort of filmy glimmering mist, which gave the green gra.s.s and the bright hues of the flower-beds a light, silvery veil. Beyond the lawn, on all sides, towered the trees of the park, intersected by broad paths, through which the moonbeams flowed like a gleaming white stream between steep black banks. At the end of the central avenue appeared the Main, flowing in a broad, calm stream, with here and there a noisy, troubled spot in the midst of its peacefully-gliding waves, where a rock or a sand-bar interrupted the mirror-like expanse, and caused a rushing, foam-sprinkled whirlpool. Beyond the river, amid the light, floating night-mists, were dimly seen the houses of a little village, on whose window-panes a moonbeam often flashed, and at the left of the park rose the indistinct ma.s.s of the city of Marktbreit, whose steep, narrow streets were filled with shadows, while above the steeples and higher roofs the moon-rays rippled, bringing them out in bright relief against the dark picture.

PART II.

The spell of this moonlight night mounted to the heads of the two silent watchers on the balcony like an intoxicating draught, and sent cold chills down their spines. Almost without being aware what he was doing, Bergmann offered Ada his arm, which she accepted, leaning against him with a gentle, clinging movement of her whole figure.

There they stood, letting their dreamy eyes wander over the woods, the river, and the city. They would have forgotten the castle and the entertainment had not the subdued notes of the dance music reached them from the ball-room, whose windows opened upon the balcony on the opposite side of the facade, filling the night with low harmonies which were continued in the vibrations of their own nerves.

At this moment the clock in the Marktbreit steeple struck twelve, directly after the sound of a night watchman's horn was heard, and a wailing voice, rising in the sleeping streets of the city, called a few unintelligible words.

"What was that?" Ada whispered.

"The night watchman, according to the custom of the country, called the hour with a verse," replied Bergmann. A few minutes later the call was repeated, this time nearer, and so distinctly that it could be understood. The night watchman, with mournful emphasis, sung:

"Twelve strokes Time's limit do teach thee, Man, think of thy mortality."

"Life in your Germany is like a fairy tale," said Ada, after repeating the verse to herself; "everything is so dreamy; so pervaded with poetry."

"Then stay in our Germany, stay with us," he pleaded, softly, his voice expressing far more than his words.

She shook her little head sorrowfully. "I came five years too late."

"Do not say that," replied Bergmann, pressing the bare arm which rested on his closely to his side. "How old are you now?"

It did not occur to her to smile at the question or to answer it, according to the ordinary custom of women, with an affected reply. She said, instead, as simply as a child:

"Twenty-three."

"And at twenty-three would it be too late to seek and strive for happiness in life? When sorrow has been experienced so young, it can surely be regarded as a childish disease and there is nothing to be done except to forget it as quickly as possible."

Ada gazed fixedly into vacancy, saying, as if lost in thought:

"No, no. That is not so. There are injuries which are incurable. The mother of two children is old at twenty-three. Since she can no longer offer a man the full happiness of love, she has no right to expect it from him."

He was about to answer, but with a hasty movement she placed her slender finger on her lip, saying:

"Hush! Not another word on this subject. Look"--and her hand pointed, down to the park.

From a bow window in the castle a powerful apparatus was sending a broad stream of electric light into the darkness. It often changed and moved, being thrown now here, then there. In its course it illumined the tops of the trees with a faint, livid phosph.o.r.escence, interwove the shrubbery with fantastic gliding spots of light, and gave the turf, wherever it was visible, the appearance of a strip of a glittering glacier. In the distance, where the light was lost in the dense groups of trees, it produced the illusion of indistinct shapes gleaming out there for a moment and then vanishing. It seemed as if one could see something mysterious moving or standing, perhaps a human form, wrapped in floating robes, perhaps a white marble statue hidden behind the foliage, perhaps a mist, gathering and scattering. Night moths and bats, fluttering across the bar of light out of the darkness into the darkness, shone brightly during the brief period of their pa.s.sage, then suddenly vanished again like moss blown through a flame. The electric light seemed to make a road through the park, spread a silver carpet over it, and invite the two who watched its course to walk along this shining road to the distance where the shadowy white shapes hovered in the shrubbery, appearing and disappearing.

The temptation was irresistible.

"Let us go down," said Ada, and a few minutes later, with a light mantilla over her shoulders, she was walking by his side over the creaking gravel of the avenue and then over the noiseless side paths.

How blissful is the wandering of a handsome young couple, with glowing hearts in their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, through a moonlit, fragrant summer night!

Their feet do not feel the earth on which they tread, but seem to be floating on clouds. Nothing is left of the world save these two and the night which maternally conceals them--he and she, naught else, like Adam and Eve, when they were the only human dwellers in Paradise.

A damp branch of the bushes often brushed Ada's shoulders like an affectionate, caressing hand, as she slowly pa.s.sed along. Now and then a bird whose nest was in the underbrush, disturbed in its sleep, fluttered up before them, and, stupid with slumber, flew to a neighboring bough. Ada sometimes plucked a flower, or cautiously touched with her finger one of the little glow worms, which in great numbers edged the path with their greenish light. They went down to the Main and back again to the park fence, facing Marktbreit. Just as they reached it the clock struck one, and the night watchman blew his horn, and again solemnly intoned his old-fashioned melody:

"One thing, Lord G.o.d of truth, we want; A happy death to us all grant."

The full magic of the moment held them both in its thrall. Bergmann pa.s.sionately clasped Ada's head between his hands, and pressed a long, ardent kiss on her golden hair and her white brow. Drawing a long breath, she submitted, not shrinking back until his burning lips sought hers. Their hearts beat audibly as they continued their walk, and long pauses interrupted their faltering speech.

What did they say to each other? Why repeat it? One who has never had such conversations will not understand them, and one who has experienced them, only needs to be reminded of them. They are always the same. Memories of childhood, rapture and extravagance, words of enthusiastic love, words which create the slight tremor of the skin like a cool breeze or the caress of toying fingers. So they walked a long, long time in the dark park, without heeding the flight of time, far from the world and unutterably happy.

"I am tired, Karl," Ada said at last, and leaned her head on his shoulder.

They were near a low, gra.s.sy bank, a few paces from the central avenue, and almost under the balcony of the castle, but completely concealed by the dense shadow of the over-arching trees. Karl spread his shawl over the bank and the ground, placed Ada on it, and reclined at her feet, resting his head in her lap. The balcony and the windows and lights of the drawing-room could all be seen from this spot. The window still stood open, the notes of a piano were heard, and a voice began the song:

"From out my tears will bloom Full many a flow'ret fair."

A pretty, but somewhat cold, female voice, with no special tenderness and feeling. Yet the combined poesy of Heine and Schumann triumphed gloriously over the inadequacy of the execution. The wonderful, choral-like melody soared like the flight of a swan over the rapt pair, and completely dissolved their souls in melody and love:

"Before thy windows shall ring The song of the nightingale,"

sang the woman's voice above, and the accompanying piano completed the air with an organ-like closing accord.

"Before thy windows shall ring The song of the nightingale,"

Karl softly repeated, in his beautiful baritone, thrilling with an approaching tempest of pa.s.sion, his arms clasped Ada's waist, and he gazed up at her with wild, flaming eyes. She bent down to him and her lips met his, which nearly scorched them. Leaning back, and gently pushing his head away, she whispered:

"Don't repeat verses by Heine; say something which is yours, and is composed for me."

"That I will, Ada," he cried, and, kneeling before her, clasping her in a close embrace and devouring her face with rapturous eyes, his whole being wrought up to the highest pitch of emotion, he said in a rapid improvisation, bursting from the inmost depths of his soul:

"In the shadowy hour when ghosts do flit, Thou art to me a beauteous dream; To thy lips I cling, yet while I love, My happiness scarce real doth seem."

"Thy mouth and thy fair hands I kiss, I kiss thine eyes and thy silken hair, And should our lives end at this hour, Still we should die a happy pair."

Her eyes were half closed, and her bosom heaved.

After a short pause, he continued slowly in a tremulous voice:

"Oh, G.o.d, that I should find thee here, Only to cause my woe, For thou wilt vanish from my gaze, Ere the first c.o.c.k doth crow."

"No, no," she murmured, almost inaudibly, sinking into his arms, which clasped her wildly and ardently, pressing her to his heart, while his lips showered kisses upon her and a sudden ecstasy began to cloud her senses.

Then, just at that moment, the clock in the Marktbreit church steeple struck two, the blast of the horn followed, and the mysterious voice rose in the invisible city and sang, this time close at hand and seemingly with significant emphasis:

"Two paths are to each mortal shown; Lord, guide me in the narrow one."

As if stung by a serpent, Ada started up, wrenched herself by a sudden movement from Karl's clasping arms, and hastened away as though pursued by all the fiends of h.e.l.l. A moment later, her white figure had vanished in the castle and Karl found himself alone before the gra.s.sy bank; he might have believed it a dream if the mantilla had not still lain there exhaling Ada's favourite perfume, a faint fragrance of carnations.