The Eichhofs Part 28

With a smile she turned to him. "And why not?" she said, with a gentle dreamy expression in her eyes. "Do you think, because I have known more than most women of the stern realities of life, that I must have lost all sense of its poetry?"

"No, a.s.suredly not; but I thought you too much of a critic to enjoy the story, which, charming as it is, is so absolutely impossible that you must admit that it is thoroughly unreal and unnatural."

"But, good heavens! there are moods in which one longs for just that. A day like this in a lonely forest--for this park is really only a forest--makes one dream; and why should one not indulge in this charming midsummer dream, and for an hour believe that, even in this mortal life, everything may be delightful? Reality will teach us soon enough that it is not so."

Bernhard turned over the leaves of the book. Julutta seated herself upon the gnarled roots of a beech beside the waterfall, and gazed at the green lily-pads floating on the little lake, and at the dragon-flies hovering on gauzy wings above it.

"You have been dreaming, then, to-day?" Bernhard asked, seating himself beside her.

"Yes; shall you laugh at me for doing so?"

"On the contrary, I envy you. I have had to write such dreadfully long and tiresome letters at home."

"Do you never dream?"

"They say a man should never dream."

"Ah, 'they say' so much, 'they' are so wise; but folly is not to be easily banished from the world. I even maintain that every man of sensibility and imagination has often found himself dreaming of some foolish happiness."

"Why of a foolish happiness?"

"Because happiness can hardly ever stand the test of critical reason, but depends upon imagination, which is often folly. And what is happiness, after all? A moment, an intoxication, a dream,--and yet we all long for it."

A year before--a few months before--Bernhard would perhaps have contradicted her. Now he nodded a mute a.s.sent. She was right. Happiness was an intoxication, a dream.

"I sometimes think," Julutta continued, eagerly, "that mortals would be better and happier if there were somewhere an island where all could be happy in their own way for at least three weeks of every year."

Bernhard laughed. "There is method in your dreaming at least," he said.

"Laugh if you will," she said; "but do you not believe that many a one would bear his burden more easily and willingly if each year brought him so happy a memory and so glad a hope?"

"Possibly; but many would be miserably unhappy in longing for this blessed island all through the rest of the year."

"Oh, no. Children at school are not made unhappy by thoughts of their holidays; they are refreshed and strengthened for their studies by them."

Bernhard sat drawing hieroglyphics in the gravel with his cane. A clink of gla.s.ses was heard approaching, and Julutta arose.

"Here comes our 'Little table spread thee,'" she said, going to the rustic table, upon which the servant arranged decanters, wine-gla.s.ses, and fragrant fruit. "Come," said Julutta. "There are those who maintain that wine can conduct to the Island of the Blest." She handed him a sparkling gla.s.s and laughed. "Which only means that we are too sensible to be happy; for common sense must be thrown overboard before we can land upon my Island of the Blest."

Bernhard took the gla.s.s. "To the Island of the Blest!" he said, emptying it at a draught.

Julutta divided a fragrant peach with her snowy fingers, and offered half of it to Bernhard.

A dragon-fly hovered above the table, and settled for a moment upon the basket of fruit. "A greeting from the Island of the Blest!" Bernhard exclaimed.

But Julutta had suddenly grown grave and thoughtful. She brushed the dragon-fly away with her handkerchief, leaned her head upon her hand, and gazed at the little lake, that now looked gray and leaden.

"Of what are you thinking?" Bernhard asked.

"What folly I have been talking!" she said, hastily arising. "Come, let us go to the house. My husband will soon return, and we can receive him."

"Your husband? Oh, if Wronsky has gone to the circuit court at R----, he cannot be back again for two or three hours at least. It is so lovely here, why not stay?"

She looked at him almost angrily. "Why?" she repeated, and her eyes grew tender and yearning again. "Well, then let us stay," she added, in a low tone, and walked down to the water's edge.

Bernhard followed her. "You are strangely agitated to-day," he said, standing close beside her. "May I not, as your friend, know----?"

She seemed scarcely to hear him, but pointed towards the black canopy of clouds that hung above the forest on the other side of the water, and through which just then there shone a zigzag flash of flame.

"It is lightning!" she said.

He looked in her face; one might almost see the blood pulsing beneath the delicate transparent skin, and there was a gleam in her eyes akin to the lightning-flash in the clouds.

They stood thus silently side by side for some moments, until the servant had removed the fruit and wine and gone to the house.

"What is the matter?" Bernhard gently asked.

She shook her head, and a forced smile played about her mouth.

"Nothing," she said; "nothing at all." But her eyes suddenly filled with tears.

"What, tears!" he exclaimed, in alarm. "You have a sorrow that you are hiding from me! Am I no longer worthy of your confidence? What have I done?"

"Nothing, nothing!" she said again. "You are the best, the n.o.blest of men, and I--but I pray you, I entreat you, ask me nothing further!"

Bernhard's eyes fell before her, and he was silent. Every moment it grew darker around them; the evening shadows made the water show almost black, except that now and then the lurid glare of the lightning was reflected in its calm surface. The sultry breath of the storm, heavy with the fragrance of the pines and the perfume of roses, was wafted across forest and water. To Bernhard it seemed stifling. He sighed heavily.

"I wish I had _never_ returned from the ocean that night at Trouville,"

Julutta whispered; "then all suffering would be over, and I should be at peace!"

"Julutta!"

Again she shook her head sadly. "The waters have closed over our Island of the Blest forever," she whispered, scarce audibly.

But Bernhard heard and understood. He clasped her white hand in both his own, and she made no resistance. "Bernhard!" she breathed, as if carried away by the spell of the moment. And he, too, yielded to the spell.

"Julutta!" he cried, involuntarily opening his arms to her. But lithe and swift as some smooth serpent she glided past him. At the same instant a blast of wind ruffled the surface of the pond, and a few large drops of rain began to fall.

Through the rising tempest Julutta's laughing voice fell upon his ear: "The thunder-storm is upon us!" she called, and the next instant had vanished behind the rocks. At such a moment she could laugh and remember the storm! To him it seemed a matter of course that the tempest should come: the wind and storm suited his mood. He did not think of seeking shelter, but through the increasing hurly-burly the conviction flashed upon him, vivid as the glare of the lightning, "Your conduct and your love are alike disgraceful!"

He shuddered. Before him, among the tossing boughs and wind-swept bushes, fluttered a white robe,--Julutta was fleeing from the tempest.

In an instant the flashing rain hid all around and before him in a gray twilight. He slowly took his way towards the house. Julutta had reached it long before he entered the hall, from the walls of which the portraits of Marzell's parents looked down upon him, strangely endowed with a ghostly life by the repeated flashes of lightning. The memory of his childhood was suddenly present as in a vision to Bernhard. He saw Marzell and himself on the knees of that kindly old man, he seemed to hear the gentle voice of Marzell's mother, and he pa.s.sed his hand across his forehead with a sigh.

"I am a guest in Marzell Wronsky's house, and Julutta is his wife," he murmured, and again he shuddered. "Julutta is his wife," he repeated, and with sudden decision he turned and would have gone to order his carriage. What mattered the wind and storm? He must leave this house, and the sooner the better.

But at the door he encountered Marzell Wronsky himself, who had but just arrived, and whom the storm had overtaken at a short distance from his home. He shook himself like some wet dog, scolded at the weather, and would not hear of Bernhard's leaving Panienka. He declared it to be simply impossible, and Bernhard himself could not now see why he should refuse to spend an hour with his friend and await the abating of the wind and rain. With a sigh of resignation, and feeling like some penitent who suffers patiently a just punishment, he consented to remain.

"I am delighted to have come just in time to catch you," said Wronsky.

"Now we shall have a charming evening together. But where in the world is my wife?" Bernhard said that they had been overtaken in the garden by the rain, and that he supposed Frau von Wronsky had gone to change her dress.