The Romance of the Canoness Part 20

"I thank you, Johannes," she said, and for the first time her dull eyes grew wet with tears. "You are right, I must try to control my grief. It is not death which has clutched me in his bony arms and stifled every breath. Life, dear friend, is far more cruel; I cannot break the chains and bonds in which it has fettered me. But even a convict who drags an iron ball by a chain must perform his task. It was cowardly and childish to neglect my daily duties. Only have a little patience with me; I will hold up my head again."

From that moment she resumed all her duties to the company, managed the money matters, kept an eye, with Kunigunde's a.s.sistance, on the wardrobe, sent the members word that she would again provide the dinner, and only shrank from one thing--occasionally attending a rehearsal as usual.

She again treated every one pleasantly, but never spoke a word to her husband except when he addressed her. Her misfortune had drawn the members of the company nearer to her; the women, especially, showed her many little attentions, except Victorine, who held aloof as before, and no longer even appeared at the Round Table.

But, when darkness came, she always went to the graveyard and remained there an hour alone, declining even my companionship with a silent shake of the head. But we met each other several other times when she was returning home, and walked silently side by side, absorbed in the same thoughts, which needed no utterance. I only remember that I once asked her how she could reconcile this pitiless blow with G.o.d's fatherly kindness. She stopped and, raising her tearful eyes to heaven, answered:

"Never for one moment have I doubted him. Spite of all the burdens that weighed upon me, I was the most blessed among women, and G.o.d is wise and just. He lets the tree of no earthly happiness grow into heaven.

But, for the very reason that he took the child from me, I know that he has not deserted me. If he had left him to me, and he had some day seen with his innocent eyes the ugly world around us as it really is, and been permitted only the choice between scorning it or becoming akin to it, who knows what he would have decided, and either course would have made both him and me wretched. Now I have buried him here in my heart, in all his purity and loveliness, and may love him forever, far better and more fervently than when I still clasped him in my arms. And, though this love is full of sorrow, neither time nor fate has any power over it, and for this I thank G.o.d, whom I always know near to me when I go down into the depths of my own heart and feel the dear child living on there."

What answer could I have made? My whole philosophy became pitiful and humble before the pious trust of this strong soul. She received the news calmly, when one day at table her husband said that they would be obliged to change their residence. The receipts were miserably poor, and he had had an invitation from the magistrates of the next town on the coast to give a series of plays, lasting several weeks.

As he spoke, he cast a side-glance at his wife, as though fearing she would object to leave the place where her child lay buried. He had long since fallen into the habit of discussing no subjects, when alone with her, except those required by absolute necessity.

To his surprise she simply a.s.sented. Even, when, three days after, we departed and I drove through the gate in the same carriage with her and the worthy lady whose young daughter played the _ingenues_, while Spielberg, with Daniel and Victorine, formed the rear-guard, she had strength enough to give no sign of the emotions which must have a.s.sailed her in parting from the little grave.

But the hopes with which we had struck our tents were not to be realized. Just at that time a panic occurred in commercial circles that made itself felt in the seaport no less than in the large North German commercial towns. People kept their pockets b.u.t.toned, and even the renowned artist could not open them.

He became so irritated by this state of affairs that, to punish the ingrat.i.tude of the age, he intentionally hid the light of his art under a bushel, and played his parts with such haughty negligence that even the few patrons of the theater, who had known his reputation, shook their heads, and transferred their favor to the less famous members of the company. Victorine was the admiration of the young merchants; the _ingenue_ previously mentioned turned the heads of the older school-boys; Daniel, whose acting, even when most negligent, always had its interesting moments, found favor with the critics in the two local papers--yet, nevertheless, the receipts were so small that the company would have been compelled to disband had not Frau Luise's wise economy provided a reserve fund for such contingencies. She paid the salaries as regularly as ever, and kept the wardrobes and other requisites in decent order, without receiving any special thanks from any one.

I myself was entirely out of funds. Two and a half years of this wandering life had devoured my savings, I could scarcely be seen in my shabby clothes, and, though protected from any anxiety about food, had not even the small amount of pocket money required for trifling wants, so that I was sometimes seized by a mood of despairing melancholy, and should undoubtedly have been up and away some day had I not known how indispensable I had become. If I left the company, everything must go to ruin. I could tell myself, without vanity, that the breach of my--unwritten--contract would be equivalent to fracturing an axle in the car of Thespis.

Moreover, was I not bound body and soul to this woman, considering myself transcendently rewarded if she held out her large, firm hand to me in the evening and said, "Good-night, dear friend!"

Still, these miserable circ.u.mstances oppressed me more and more, and one day, when I met in the street a college friend who meanwhile had had a prosperous career, and while on a business journey had come to our Pomeranian coast, I bore his look of compa.s.sionate surprise with a bitter laugh, and willingly accepted his invitation to share a bottle of wine with him that evening at his hotel and make a general confession.

I had made no confession for years, and it was months since a drop of wine had moistened my lips. So only a single gla.s.s was needed to lure from me an unreserved acknowledgment of my wretched plight.

There was but one thing I carefully concealed--the strongest chain that bound me to this miserable existence, my mad, hopeless love for this woman. Yet, had the hand of a G.o.d suddenly aided me to tear myself free, what could I have done with my liberty? To what occupation in civil life should I have found the door open, I, a runaway Candidate of theology, who had not disdained to play the part of factotum to a company of traveling actors for two years and a half.

So when, toward eleven o'clock, I took leave of my former comrade, we were no wiser concerning my future, and what I had to hope and fear from it, than in the beginning.

He had told me, with a shake of the head, that there must be some love affair in the matter, and correctly understood my shrug of the shoulders. But, as he had been to the theater the night before, he seemed undecided between Victorine and the young _ingenue_.

"Let me sleep over the affair," he said at last, as he went out into the hall with me--we had had our wine in his chamber, as there was much noise and confusion in the public room below--"I sha'n't see you to-morrow, because I must leave very early, but I will write as soon as a good idea occurs to me."

I pressed his hand and thoughtfully descended the stairs. In going up, two hours before, I had seen in the public room below Luise's husband and several actors, among them Daniel, who was inseparable from the manager. Meantime, eleven o'clock had come, but they had not yet separated, and I wished at any cost to avoid meeting them. But, just as I was stealing softly past the door, it was thrown open, and my friend, tall Herr Laban, staggered out, supported by one of the younger actors.

Both were in the gayest humor. "Look there, look there, Timotheus!" he shouted, laughing. "Where the deuce hast thou been hiding"--he always used 'thou' to me--"while we have been seeing the most capital farce played here? You have missed a great deal, I can tell you, Doctor; and, in not saying good-night to your traveling friend over our heads, you have stood very much in your own light. Isn't that so, Juvenil?"

The young man laughingly agreed that it had been a splendid joke--no comedy of errors had ever amused him so much.

I tried to pa.s.s on with some careless remark, but Laban seized my arm and, while we helped him down the last steps, began to tell me the story in his comical way.

They had drunk several gla.s.ses when Daniel began to boast of his talent for imitating living persons, and instantly gave several proofs of this ability by copying the voice and gestures of the landlord and some of the regular guests, to the delight of the whole company. Spielberg alone had sat in his heroic grandeur, looking on with an air of contemptuous dignity, and finally remarked that such monkey tricks, which dazzled the public, were easy, and besides found their limits in certain figures whose majesty rendered them, as it were, unapproachable for mimicry. Did he include himself among them? the insolent fellow asked, and, when the great man nodded silently, he laid a wager that he would personate him so exactly that he would hardly know whether it was himself or his double. They ordered a bottle of champagne, and then Daniel led the manager into the next room. After a short time the door opened again, and Spielberg strode in. Everybody asked whether Daniel was not ready or had given up his wager. "That young man promises much, and does nothing save to make fools of honest Thebans," was the reply, after which he approached the table with his stately walk, shook the bottle in the ice and exclaimed: "A plague on all cowardly poltroons!"

Then they first discovered that it was Daniel, and not the great actor himself, and even then it was only the little hand he owes to his Polish blood that betrayed him. But, just as there was a general burst of applause and laughter, the door again opened and a second Daniel appeared, in a gray summer suit and Polish cap, with his cat-like tread and feminine movement of the hips, so that the uproar and clapping of hands grew louder than ever--for n.o.body had ever imagined the manager possessed such a talent. This, however, was merely the beginning of the farce. Each continued to play the character of the other: Daniel in the belaced velvet coat, with straw hat pulled over his forehead, toasted his image, amid constant quotations uttered in his resonant voice, and Spielberg, with all the Harlequin tricks the other was in the habit of using on the stage, never let the laughers stop to take breath, so that each of the two had won and lost the wager. But, when they had broken the neck of the second bottle, Daniel suddenly became silent, went to Spielberg, and whispered something which made the manager look puzzled.

But his double seized his arm and led him out. When after a long time they did not return, we asked for them, and the waiter said that after whispering together for some time the two gentlemen had left the hotel arm in arm.

I do not know why I could not laugh at this amusing trick. But I hastily took leave of the two actors, whose room was on the top floor of the hotel, and, in a most uncomfortable mood, pa.s.sed out into the street just as the clock in the nearest church-steeple struck eleven.

Though I felt no inclination to sleep, a strange anxiety urged me homeward, as if I were expected there.

My way led through the street in which the other hotel stood. Here Victorine and Daniel lodged. And just as I glanced at the door of the house I saw the fellow--whom I easily recognized by his dress--ring the bell and, directly after, with a greeting from the porter, cross the threshold. But what thought occurred to me? Was that really Daniel--or was it his double in his clothes? And, if it were the latter, what was he doing in that house, where Victorine was now probably waiting for the _other_?

However, I had no time to ponder over this idea, for the question suddenly darted through my brain: What has become of that other, the false Spielberg?

Suspecting some deviltry, some base trick, I rushed through the deserted streets to the house where Frau Luise lived, and I, too, had my modest room in the upper story. She was in the habit of sitting up late with some piece of sewing or a book, usually alone, for faithful Kunigunde closed her eyes at nine o'clock. As I hastily drew out my night-key I noticed that the door, contrary to custom, stood half open.

I did not take time to shut it again, but, with trembling hands, lighted the little pocket-lantern, which must illumine my way up the dark stairs, and rushed on. But I had not yet reached the landing on the first story when I heard Frau Luise's deep tones, and then saw her facing her husband--no, his double, who, with his straw hat on his head and his coat flung open, slowly retreated before her, his ardent dark eyes fixed with an indescribable expression on her face.

Frau Luise was holding a little lamp in her left hand, and had raised her right threateningly against the scoundrel, her face, whose waxen pallor usually formed a striking contrast to her mourning dress, was flushed with the crimson hue of wrath, and her eyes shone with a strange, supernatural l.u.s.ter.

"You will leave this house at once and the city tomorrow," I heard her say. "You are the most contemptible of human beings, and what you have presumed to do merits a b.l.o.o.d.y chastis.e.m.e.nt. I am a woman, and must leave it to my husband to avenge this insult as he deems best. But, if you should ever have the effrontery to appear before my eyes again--"

"Pardon me, madame," he interrupted--and, though he endeavored to appear entirely nonchalant, I detected in his tremulous voice that he did not feel entirely at ease while confronting this haughty figure--"I beg a thousand pardons; I did not imagine you would take an innocent jest so tragically, especially as your husband saw no offense in it. We had laid a wager that I could personate him exactly. The final and hardest test, of course, was whether his own wife would recognize me.

Well, at first you certainly believed me to be Herr Spielberg, and were not undeceived until I took the liberty of embracing you--doubtless a husband's kisses are less ardent than those of a lover, who for two years has yearned to even once press his lips upon a mouth which never had aught for him save contemptuous silence. Though I have lost my wager, the kiss that betrayed me is abundant compensation, and so, fairest of women, I have the honor--"

He was not to have breath to finish the sentence. For, in a fury I had never experienced before, I rushed upon the miscreant, seized him by the chest, and, tearing off his hat with the other hand, shook him by the hair till his sneering face wore an expression of mortal terror, as I dragged him to the stairs and would have flung him down heels over head, had he not by a sudden movement, lithe as a young panther, escaped from my grasp, and, thrusting me aside, glided down the dark stair-case, muttering an imprecation between his set teeth.

We heard him shut the door of the house and, in the fear of pursuit, hurriedly lock it. Then, in the death-like stillness that again prevailed, we looked into each other's eyes to see if it were possible that we had actually experienced this, or whether some dream had conjured up the same vision before both. I saw her tremble as if some unclean beast had clutched her in its claws. A quiver of wrath and loathing contracted her brow and lips. "I thank you, Johannes," she said. "But excuse me, I must go in now and wash myself. O, Heaven! all the perfumes of Arabia--but no, we can only be sullied by our own evil thoughts. Do not you think so, too?"

She turned away and carried the lamp back to her room again. I followed her to the threshold.

"Frau Luise," I asked, "will you let me shoot the rascal down like a mad dog? Or do you consider him worthy to receive his punishment in an honest duel?"

"You must do nothing to him," she answered in a hollow tone. "If, as I still hope, it is false that another person knew of this knavish trick, it is that other's business to avenge the insult that was offered to him even more than to me. To-morrow will decide this. It is late now--you must leave me--I must wash my face and the hands that touched the scoundrel, even to push him away."

I shut the door, and sadly mounted the stairs to my room.

It was useless to think of sleeping. Not only because the detestable scene I had just witnessed still hovered before my eyes, but because I expected every moment that the other would return home, and wished to be ready in case his wife should need my a.s.sistance.

True, she was strong and brave enough to defend herself against any insult or injury. But who could tell in what state of recklessness, stung by his evil conscience, that "other" would confront her.

At any rate he delayed long enough. The _role_ of double, which he played so admirably, seemed to have found an appreciative audience in the depraved girl for whom he was enacting it, or perhaps she had entered into the deception with malicious satisfaction in order to wound the n.o.ble woman she hated.

I heard the clock strike the hours--midnight, one, two. Then, without undressing, I threw myself on the bed and shut my burning eyes, but my ears remained open and watchful. Scarcely half an hour had pa.s.sed when I heard a lagging step approach along the pavement below, and in an instant again stood at my window. Yes, it was he. By the gray light of the summer sky, I could distinguish the Polish cap, the loose coat, and the white hands which hastily rummaged his pockets for the key of the house door. But it was in the other suit of clothes, now worn by the double. The criminal who had shut himself out of the peace of his own home stood for a time gazing up at the windows, behind which he doubtless saw the glimmer of the night-lamp. Ought you to go down, open the door for him, and pour forth to his face all you think of him, all the wrath you have so long pent up concerning his sins against this woman, the tip of whose little finger he is unworthy to kiss? No, I thought. Let him suffer for his sin. It is only a pity that this isn't a winter night, and he is not obliged to stand barefoot in the snow until broad daylight.

He? He would have been likely to undertake such a penance! After twice calling, in a tone of a.s.sumed piteousness, "Luise!" he took off his cap, pa.s.sed his hand over his waving locks, then pressed the little fur cap low over his forehead, and turned defiantly to seek the place from which some pitiful remnant of remorse had driven him.

I uttered a sigh of relief, opened the window, and cooled my heated face. At last I sought my couch, and toward morning really fell asleep.