The Romance of the Canoness Part 19

The worthy man, who felt the most sincere reverence for the poor mother, made every effort to conceal his alarm. When, after a few hours, during which he had watched the very trivial success of his remedies, he took his leave, promising to return early in the morning, and I lighted him down the stairs, he pressed my hand with a heavy sigh. "Poor woman!" he said. "The child does not suffer at all; it is not conscious. But how the mother is to bear--"

"So you have no hope--"

"There is inflammation of the brain, more severe than I have often witnessed. But nature is incalculable. Do you know how it happened that his condition changed for the worse so suddenly?"

I answered in the negative. It was not until long afterward that I learned what had occurred in the brief interval between the father's entrance and the mother's flight.

Spielberg had returned home with a clearer head than usual. When he entered his wife's room, she half arose from the sofa and laid her finger on her lips. By the light of the dim night-lamp he approached the child's bed, softly touched the little sleeping face, gazed at it a short time, and then turned to his wife, whispering: "He is doing admirably." She merely nodded, and when, in an impulse of his old tenderness and sympathy with her anxiety, he held out his hand, she kindly returned the clasp. He sat down on the edge of the bed and told her in a low tone that the play had been much applauded and the receipts large. When she asked him to go to rest, as talking might disturb the child, he answered that he was not tired, but felt inclined to have a short chat with his beloved wife. When she shook her head, he moved nearer, and, putting his arm around her, begged her to go into the next room with him for a little while. It was so long since they had had a confidential talk, and there was rarely time for one during the day. The more he urged, the more firmly she declined, till he finally threw both arms around her and whispered: "If you don't come voluntarily, I will use force! You are my wife!"

Then, as she resisted with desperate strength, he fairly lifted her up and was carrying her away, when a shriek from the child's bed suddenly made him loose his hold. The boy was sitting up, staring with dilated eyes at the nocturnal scene, and stretching out his little arms as if to aid his defenseless mother. The next instant he had sprung from the bed, climbed on the sofa by his mother's side, and, thrusting his father away with his little clinched hands, screamed: "You sha'n't kill my mother! Go away! You sha'n't hurt her!--" till, exhausted by terror, the chivalrous child succ.u.mbed to a severe attack of fever.

The boy lay in the same condition all night, without a single interval of consciousness. We had not removed him to his own little bed; my room, situated at the end of the corridor, was quieter than his mother's. Neither of us left him. His father had come in early in the morning, but, as he found the child apparently calm and received only curt answers from his wife, who did not vouchsafe him a single glance, he soon went away again. For the first time his unshadowed self-complacency had deserted him. He hung his head like an unjustly accused criminal before the judge, whom he can not hope to convince of his innocence.

The physician had returned very early. He uttered no word of discouragement, but his troubled face, after he had examined the child, so oppressed my heart that I could not even venture to ask a question.

But when I went out with him he pressed my hand, whispering: "If he survives the night--but we must be prepared for everything."

The actors, who were all very fond of the little fellow, stole to the door, tapped gently, and asked me for news of him. The only one who entered the room was Daniel. He bowed silently to Frau Luise, and then stood a long time at the foot of the bed; but, after a hasty glance at the little invalid, he fixed his glowing dark eyes on the mother, who, still robed just as she had fled to me yesterday, sat beside the child, now hovering between life and death. At first she took no more notice of the intruder than of anything else that was pa.s.sing around her.

Suddenly she seemed to feel his scorching gaze, and looked up; the blood crimsoned her pale cheeks, and she flashed a single glance at the man she so detested. His head sank, as if he had been struck by an arrow, and he glided on tiptoe out of the room.

Victorine alone did not appear. She had never showed any affection for the child, and, besides, was to have a benefit that night, for which she wished to freshen her costume by many little devices.

No one thought of dinner. Kunigunde brought Frau Luise some food, which she did not touch. I myself hastily swallowed a few mouthfuls in the kitchen. Spielberg, who after the rehearsal had again inquired for the child, went to the hotel with the others.

So the evening approached. The boy's condition remained unchanged, except that the fever increased, and every remedy used seemed powerless. After a bath, however, which the doctor himself helped to give, he seemed somewhat quieter, and lay still and pale in my large bed, the dear little face only occasionally distorted by a slight convulsive quiver.

The father entered in street dress. For the first time his wife looked at him, and her lips parted in a question--her voice sounded hoa.r.s.e and hollow after her long silence.

"Are you going to act to-night, Konstantin?"

He went up to the child and touched its pale forehead.

"He is better. His forehead is perfectly cool. I will come back as soon as the play is over."

"He is _not_ better. If, meanwhile--"

She could not finish the sentence.

He looked at me. I shrugged my shoulders and turned away to hide the tears the unhappy mother's voice brought into my eyes.

"If I could be of any a.s.sistance here," he said, hesitatingly; "it costs me a hard struggle to leave you, but you will find that the night will pa.s.s quietly, and to-morrow we shall be relieved of all anxiety."

"To-morrow!" she repeated, dully. "You are right; to-morrow we shall be relieved of all anxiety."

Turning abruptly away, she bowed her face on the pillow of the little boy, whose chest was beginning to heave painfully.

The artist had already gone to the door, but stopped, saying: "Since you prefer it, I will give up the performance. I am so agitated that it would be a poor piece of acting; and then--if he is really--no, it is better so. They must do as well as they can. Farewell!"

I felt how deeply each one of these careless words wounded her. But no sound or look betrayed that she was conscious of anything save her maternal anxiety.

Yet--when, half an hour later, a boy brought a note in which was scrawled in pencil, "I had entirely forgotten that it is Victorine's benefit. Unfortunately, it has been impossible for me to induce her to give me up, and, besides, we have a very crowded house. Let us bear the inevitable with dignity. Konstantin"--I saw by the gesture of loathing with which she crushed the sheet and flung it into the corner, that the wife possessed a vulnerable spot as well as the mother.

Still she uttered no word of comment, and the next moment seemed to have entirely forgotten it.

For the brief armistice produced by the bath had expired. The last struggle began. It lasted only a few hours, then all was over. The brave little heart had ceased to beat.

The mother sat like a statue of despair beside the bed, holding the little white hand, which no current of blood would ever again warm, and gazing fixedly at the closed eyelids and livid mouth distorted by pain that would never more utter any merry words. It was as still around us as though the night was holding its breath, in order not to rouse the mother's agonized heart from its beneficent stupor. I had thrown myself into a chair in a dark corner, and felt as though I were sinking deeper and deeper into the bottomless abyss of the vast enigma of the world.

From time to time I was forced to struggle with the temptation to rise, go to the poor woman, fall on my knees before her, and plead: "Keep your heart firm that it may not break. If you follow him into the grave, I shall perish too."

But I conquered this selfish impulse. What mattered what happened to me! What mattered anything, since this child no longer breathed!

The window stood open, the still night air--it was early in June--stole into the room, but, as the house stood in a quiet side street, rarely bore with it the sound of a human voice or a pa.s.sing footstep. The play must be over, and, with silent indignation, I expected to see the artist return home to-night in the same condition as yesterday. But I had done him injustice.

His footstep echoed from the street below as firm and full of stately majesty as when he trod the boards in his most exalted characters.

Beside it was another, which I should instantly have recognized as Daniel's elastic tread, even had not his voice been audible also. The words were unintelligible. But he must have been telling some amusing story, for his companion's resonant laugh interrupted him several times. They did not cease talking till they reached the door of the house.

His wife started at the sound of the laugh, and rose. The little lifeless hand slipped from her clasp. She pa.s.sed her other hand over her brow and her lips moved, but I did not understand what she was saying, and I only saw that her eyes were sullenly fixed on the floor.

Her husband entered softly. "O, G.o.d!" he exclaimed, as he glanced at the bed. "It is over!" He pondered a moment to find something to say to his wife, then with a deep groan went to the boy and was about to bend over him. But he started back as the mother suddenly stood before him, with her tall figure drawn up to its full height.

"You shall not touch him," she said, in a harsh, hollow tone. "Go, at once--we have nothing more in common with each other. May G.o.d forgive you for what you have done! Go, go!" she repeated, in a louder tone, as he made a gesture of entreaty--"I will not bear one word from you--here--by this bed--in this hour--"

"Luise!" he exclaimed wildly.

"Hush!" she replied sharply, "I pity us both, you as well as myself. I know you do what you cannot avoid. But go, go! Something is rising in my soul--something terrible. If I should see you before me longer, poor--comedian, I might utter words I should repent to-morrow."

Spielberg tottered out of the room. But, as soon as he had closed the door behind him, his wife sank down beside the couch of her dead child, and a convulsive sob burst from her sorrow-laden heart.

(Here in the ma.n.u.script follow several pages, in which a detailed account is given of everything that happened during the next few days.

After so many years, every little circ.u.mstance was still present to the narrator, and his grief for the boy, his sympathetic insight into the soul of the hapless mother, burst forth with such renewed strength that he felt a sorrowful relief in again conjuring up, incident by incident, these melancholy recollections. But we will not take up the thread again until after the earth has closed over the little coffin, which was wholly concealed under the garlands bestowed by the actors and some kind people among the inhabitants of the little town. The mother, who could not be prevented from walking in the funeral procession, had watched with tearless eyes, as if they were "burned out," her "entire happiness" placed in the grave--the father had displayed a pathetic emotion, whose extravagance touched no one. The next evening a comedy was again played, and the great artist did not miss a word of his part.)

The fortunate star of the renowned company of artists seemed to have vanished when the child's eyes closed.

The audiences at the theater daily diminished, two of the most useful and indispensable members broke their contract and left the manager in great embarra.s.sment, he himself, after having exerted some little self-control during the first period of mourning, plunged still more madly into his nocturnal carouses, and, when I earnestly remonstrated, a.s.serted with tragic affectation that he had no other means of drowning his grief. Recently he had even smuggled a bottle of strong liquor into the dressing-room, contrary to his own rule, prohibiting the use of wine or spirituous drinks of any kind during the performances. So it happened that he sometimes declaimed his lines with a stammering tongue, and lost the last remnant of his authority over his company and effect upon the public.

I watched the increasing trouble with deep anxiety; but the mute abstraction in which the unhappy wife pa.s.sed her days tortured me still more. At last I ventured to speak to her on the subject, and it seemed as though she had only been in an apparent death-trance, which was broken by the first tender word, the first touch of a friend's hand.