On the Cross Part 29

"Magdalene--Wife--Angel--what shall I call you?" cried Freyer, extending his arms. "Oh, if only we were not in the open fields, that I might press you to my heart and thank you for being so kind--so _generous_ and so kind."

"Does your heart at last yearn for me? Then let us come into the forest, where no one is watching us save holy nature. Take me up one of the mountains. Will you? Can you? Will not your hay spoil?"

"_Let_ it spoil, what does that matter? But first you must allow me to go home to put on garments more suitable for your society."

"No, that will be too late! Remain as you are--you are handsome in any clothes," she whispered, blushing faintly, like a girl, while she lowered her eyes from the kingly figure to the ground. A happy smile flitted over her face. Stooping, she picked up the jacket which he had removed while doing his work.

"And you--are you equipped for mountain climbing?"

"Oh, we will not go far. Not farther than we can go and return in time for dinner."

"Come, then. If matters come to the worst, I will take my dove on my shoulder and carry her when she can walk no farther."

"Oh, happy freedom!" cried the countess, joyously! "To wander through the woods, like two children in a fairy tale, enchanted by some wicked fairy and unable to appear again until after a thousand years! Oh, poetry of childhood--for the first time you smile upon me in all your radiance. Come, let us hasten--it is so beautiful that I can hardly believe it. I shall not, until we are there."

She flew rather than walked by his side. "My dove--suppose that we were enchanted and forced to remain in the forest together a thousand years?"

"Let us try it!" she whispered, fixing her eyes on his till he murmured, panting for breath: "I believe--the spell is beginning to work." And his eyes glowed with a gloomy fire as he murmured, watching her: "Who knows whether I am not harboring the Lorelei herself, who is luring me into her kingdom to destroy me!"

"What do you know of the Lorelei?"

Freyer stopped. "Do you suppose I read nothing? What else should I do during the long evenings, when wearied by my work, I am resting at home?"

"Really?" she asked absently, drawing him forward.

"Do you suppose I could understand a woman like you if I had not educated myself a little? Alas, we cannot accomplish much when the proper foundation is lacking. The untrained memory retains nothing firmly except what pa.s.ses instantly into flesh and blood, the perception of life as it is reflected to us from the mirror of art. But even this reflection is sometimes distorted and confuses our natural thoughts and feelings. Alas, dear one, a person who has learned nothing correctly, and yet knows the yearning for something higher, without being able to satisfy it--is like a lost soul that never attains the goal for which it longs."

"My poor friend, I do know that feeling--to a certain extent it is the same with us women. We, too, have the yearning for education, and finally attain only a defective amount of knowledge! But, by way of compensation, individuality, directness, intuitiveness are developed all the more fully. You did not need to know anything--your influence is exerted through your personality; as such you are great. All knowledge comes from man, and is attainable by him--the divine gift of individuality can neither be gained, nor bestowed, any more than intuition! What is all the logic of reflecting reason compared with the gift of intuition, which enabled you to a.s.sume the part of a G.o.d? Is not that a greater marvel than the hard-won result of systematic study at the desk?"

"You are a kind comforter!" said Freyer.

"Thinking makes people old!" she continued. "It has aged the human race, too.--Nature, simplicity, love must restore its youth! In them is _direct_ contact with the deity; in civilization only an indirect one.

Fortunately for me, I have put my lips to their spring. Oh, eternal fountain of human nature, I drink from you with eager draughts."

They had entered the forest--the tree-tops rustled high above their heads and at their feet rippled a mountain stream. Madeleine von Wildenau was silent--her heart rested on her friend's broad breast, heaving with the rapid throbbing of his heart, her supple figure had sunk wearily down by his side. "Say no more--not a word is needed here." The deep gloom of the woods surrounded them--a sacred stillness and solitude. "On every height there dwells repose!" echoed in soft melody above her head, the marvellous Rubinstein-Goethe song. There was no human voice, it seemed like a mere breath from the distance of a dream--like the wind sweeping over the chords of the cymbal hung by Lenau's gypsy on a tree, scarcely audible, already dying away again.

Her ear had caught the notes of that aeolian harp once before: she knew them again; on the cross--with the words: "Into _thy_ hands I commend my spirit." And sweet as the voice which spoke at that time was now the tenor that softly, softly hushed the restless spirit of the worldling to slumber. "Wait; soon, soon--" and then the notes gradually rose till the whole buzzing, singing woodland choir seemed to join in the words: "Thou, too, shalt soon rest."

The mysterious sound came from the depths of the great heart on which she rested, as if the soul had quitted the body a few moments and now, returning, was revealing with sweet lamentation what it had beheld in the invisible world.

"Are you weeping?" he asked tenderly, kissing the curls which cl.u.s.tered round her forehead: "_My child_."

"Oh, when you utter that word, I have a feeling which I never experienced before. Yes, I am, I wish to be a child in your hands. Only those who have ever tasted the delight of casting the burden of their own egoism upon any altar, whether it be religion or love--yielding themselves up, becoming absorbed in another, higher power--_only those_ can know my emotions when I lean on your breast and you call me your child! Thus released from ourselves, thus free and untrammelled must we feel when we have stripped off in death the fetters of the body and merged all which is personal to us in G.o.d."

"Heaven has destined you for itself, and you already feel how it is loosening your fibres and gradually drawing you up out of the soil in which you are rooted. That is why you wept when I sang that song to you here in the quiet woodland solitude. Such tears are like the drops the tree weeps, when a name is cut upon it. At such moments you feel the hand of G.o.d tearing open the bark which the world has formed around your heart, and the sap wells from the wounded spot. Is it not so?" He gently pa.s.sed his hand over her eyes, glittering with unshed tears.

"Ah, n.o.ble soul! How you penetrate the depths of my being! What is all the wit and wisdom of the educated mind, compared with the direct inspiration of your poetic nature. Freyer, Spring of the earth--Christ, Spring of humanity! My heart is putting forth its first blossom for you, take it." She threw herself with closed eyes upon his breast, as if blindly. He clasped her in a close embrace, holding her a long time silently in his arms. Then he said softly: "I will accept the beautiful blossom of your heart, my child, but not for myself." He raised his eyes fervently upward: "Oh, G.o.d, Thou hast opened Thy hand to the beggar, and made him rich that he may sacrifice to Thee what no king could offer. I thank Thee."

Something laughed above their heads--it was a pair of wild-doves, cooing in the green tent over them.

"Do you know why they are laughing?" asked the countess, in an altered tone. "They are laughing at us!"

"Magdalena!"

"Yes! They are laughing at the self-tormenting doubt of G.o.d's goodness.

Look around you, see the torrent foaming, and the blue gentians drinking its spray, see the fruit-laden hazel, the sacred tree which sheltered your childhood; see the bilberries at your feet, all the intoxicating growth and movement of nature, and then ask yourself whether the G.o.d who created all this warm, sunny life is a G.o.d who only _takes_--not _gives_. Do you believe He would have prepared for us this Spring of love, that we may let its blossoms wither on the cold altar of duty or of prejudice? No--take what He bestows--and do not question."

"Do not lead me into temptation, Magdalena!" he gently entreated. "I told you this morning that you do not know what you are unloosening."

He stood before her as if transfigured, his eyes glowed with the sombre fire which had flashed in them a moment early that morning, a rustling like eagle's pinions ran through the forest--Jupiter was approaching in human form.

The beautiful woman sat down on a log with her hands clasped in her lap.

"A man like me loves but once, but with his whole being. I _demand_ nothing--but what is given to me is given _wholly_, or not at all; for if I once have it, I will never give it up save with my life!

"Not long since a stranger came here, who sang the song of the a.s.sras, who die when they love. I believe I am of their race. Woman, do not toy, do not trifle with me! For know--I love you with the fatal love of those 'a.s.sras.'"

Madeleine von Wildenau trembled with delight.

"If I once touch your lips, the barrier between us will have fallen!

Will you forgive me if the flood-tide of feeling sweeps me away till I forget who you are and what a gulf divides the Countess Wildenau from the low-born peasant?"

"Oh, that you can remind me of it--in this hour--!" cried the countess, with sorrowful reproach.

He looked almost threateningly into her eyes. The dark locks around his head seemed to stir like the bristling mane of a lion: "Woman, you do not know me! If you deceive me, you will betray the most sacred emotion ever felt by mortal man--and it will be terribly avenged. Then the flame you are kindling will consume either you or me, or both. You see that I am now a different man. Formerly you have beheld me only when curbed by the victorious power of my holy task. You have conjured up the spirits, now they can no longer be held in thrall--will you not be terrified by the might of a pa.s.sion which is unknown to you people of the world, with your calm self-control?"

"_I_, terrified by you?" cried the proud woman in a tone of exultant rapture. "Oh, this is power, this is the very breath of the G.o.ds.

Should I fear amid the element for which I longed--which was revealed to me in my own breast? Does the flame fear the fire? The t.i.taness dread the t.i.tan? Ah, Zeus, hurl thy thunderbolt, and let the forest blaze as the victorious torch of nature at last released from her long bondage."

He sat down by her side, his fiery breath fanning her cheek. "Then you will try it, will give me the kiss I dared not take to-day?"

"Yes."

"But it will be a betrothal kiss."

"Yes."

He opened his arms, and as a black moth settles upon a fragrant tea-rose, hovering on its velvet wings above the dewy calyx, he bent his head to hers, shadowing her with his dark locks and pressed his first kiss upon Madeleine von Wildenau's quivering lips.

But such moments tempt the G.o.ds themselves, and Jupiter hovered over the pair, full of wrath, for he envied the Christian mortal the beautiful woman. He had heard her laughingly challenge him in the midst of the joy she had stolen from the G.o.ds, and the heavens darkened, the hurricane saddled the steeds of the storm, awaiting his beck, and down flashed the fire from the sky--a shrill cry rent the air, the highest tree in the forest was cleft asunder and the bridal torch lighted by Jupiter blazed aloft.

"The G.o.ds are averse to it," said Freyer, gloomily. "Defy them!" cried the countess, starting up; "they are powerless--we are in the hands of a Higher Ruler."

"Woman, you do not belong to this world, or you have no nerves which can tremble."

"Tremble?" She laughed happily. "Tremble, by _your_ side?" Then, nestling closer still, she murmured: "I am as cowardly as ever woman was, but where I love I have the courage to defy death. Even were I to fall now beneath a thunderbolt, could I have a fairer death than at _this_ moment? You would willingly die for your Christ--and I for mine."

"Well then, come, you n.o.ble woman, that I may shield you as well as I can! Now we shall see whether G.o.d is with us! I defy the elements!" He proudly clasped the object of his love in his arms and bore her firmly on through the chaos into which the whole forest had fallen. The tempest, howling fiercely, burst its way through the woods. The boughs snapped, the birds were hurled about helplessly. The destroying element seemed to come from both heights and depths at the same time, for it shook the earth and tore the roots of trees from the ground till the lofty trunks fell shattered and, rolling down the mountain, swept everything with them in the sudden ruin. With fiendish thirst for battle the fiery sword flamed from the sky amid the uproar, dealing thrust after thrust and blow after blow--while here and there scarlet tongues of flame shot hissing upward through the dry branches.

A torrent of rain now dashed from the clouds but without quenching the flames, whose smoke was pressed down into the tree-tops, closely interlaced by the tempest. Like a gigantic black serpent, it rolled its coils from every direction, stifling, suffocating with the glowing breath of the forest conflagration, and the undulating cloud body bore with it in glittering, flashing sparks, millions of burning pine needles.