Timar's Two Worlds Part 48

Living at home made Michael yet more ill.

He never left his room all day, spoke to no one, and sat till evening in one place, without doing anything. At last Timea resorted to a physician. The result of the consultation was that Michael was ordered to the seaside, that the water might restore to him what the land had taken from him. To this advice he replied, "I will not go where there is company." Then they suggested that he should choose some place where the season was over and the visitors gone; there he would find solitude. The cold baths were the important point. He now remembered that in one of the valleys near the Platten See he had a summer villa, which he had bought years ago when he hired the fishing of the Balaton lake, and he had only been there two or three times since. There, said he, would he spend the end of the autumn.

The doctors approved his choice. The districts of Zala and Vessprimer on the banks of the lake are like the Vale of Tempe. Fourteen miles of unbroken garden-land form a charming chain of landscapes, with country-seats strewn here and there. The splendid lake is a sea in miniature, full of loveliness and romance; here is soft Italian air, the people are kind and cordial, the mineral springs curative; nothing could be better for a depressed invalid than to spend the autumn here. So the doctors sent Michael to the Platten See. But they had forgotten that toward the end of the summer hail-storms had laid waste the whole district; and nothing is more depressing than a place ruined by hail.

The vineyards, which usually resound during the vintage with joyous cries, now stand deserted: the leaves of the fruit-trees are coppery-green or rusty brown; they take their leave until the coming spring: all is silent and sad; even the roads are overgrown with moss, for no one uses them. In the cornfields, instead of the sheaves of grain, ineradicable weeds abound, and instead of the golden heads, thistles, burdock, and nightshade are rampant, for no one comes to cut them down.

At such a season Michael arrived at his villa on the Balaton. It was an ancient pile. Some n.o.ble family had built it as a summer residence, because the view had pleased them and they had money enough to afford themselves this luxury. It had but one low story within ma.s.sive walls, a veranda looking over the lake, and trellises with large fig-trees. The heirs of the first owners had got rid of the lonely chateau for a nominal price, as it had no value except to a person bitten with the misanthropic desire to live there in solitude.

No human dwelling is to be found within two miles of it, and even beyond that distance most of the houses are uninhabited. The presses and cellars are not open on account of the failure of the vintage. At Fured all the blinds are down and the last invalid has left; even the steamers no longer ply; the pump-room at the baths stands empty, and on the promenade the fallen leaves rustle round the feet of the pa.s.ser-by--no one thinks it worth while to sweep them away. Not a man nor even a stork is left in the place--only the majestic Balaton murmurs mysteriously as it tosses its waves, and no one knows why it is angry. In its midst rises a bare rock, on whose top stands a convent with two towers, in which live seven monks--a crypt full of princely bones from top to bottom.

And here Timar came to seek for health.

Michael only brought one servant with him, and after a few days sent him back under pretense that the people of the house sufficed for his service. But there was only one old man, and he quite deaf.

Round the villa no human voice was heard, not even the sound of a bell, only the haunting murmur of the great lake.

Timar sat all day on the sh.o.r.e, and listened to the voices of the water.

Often, when there was not a breath of air stirring, the lake began to roar, then the color of its surface changed to an emerald green as far as the eye could see: over the dark mirror of the waves not one sail, not a single ship, barge, or boat was visible; it might have been the Dead Sea.

This lake possesses the double quality of strengthening the body and depressing the mind. The chest expands, the appet.i.te increases, but the mind is inclined to a melancholy and sentimental state which carries one back to fairyland.

Timar floated for hours on the gently rocking waves; he wandered whole days on the sh.o.r.e, and could hardly tear himself away when night fell.

He sought no distraction from shooting or fishing. Once he took out his gun, and forgot it somewhere by the trunk of a tree: another time he caught a pike, but let it get away with his fly. He could fix his attention on nothing.

He had taken a powerful retracting telescope with him, through which he gazed at the starry heavens during the long nights; at the planets with their moons and rings, on which in winter white spots are visible, while in summer a red light surrounds them; and then at that great enigma of the firmament, the moon, which when looked at through the gla.s.s appears like a shining ball of lava, with its transparent ridges, its deep craters, bright plains and dark shadows. It is a world of emptiness.

Nothing is there except the souls of those who violently separated themselves from their body to get rid of its load. There they are at peace; they feel nothing, do nothing, know neither sorrow nor joy, gain nor loss; there is neither air nor water, winds nor storms, no flowers or living creatures, no war, no kisses, no heart-throbs--neither birth nor death; only "nothing," and perhaps memory.

That would be worse than h.e.l.l, to live in the moon as a disembodied soul in the realm of nothingness, and to remember the earth, where are green gra.s.s and red blood, where the air echoes with the roll of the thunder and the kisses of lovers, where life and death exist. And yet something whispered to Michael that he must take refuge among the exiles to that region of annihilation. There was no other way of escape from his miserable existence.

The nights of autumn grew longer and the days shorter, and with the waning daylight the water in the lake grew colder and colder. But Timar enjoyed bathing in it even more. His frame had regained its former elasticity, all traces of his illness had vanished, nerves and muscles were as steel; but his mental agony increased.

The nights were always clear and the skies thickly sown with stars: Timar sat by his open window and studied the shining points in boundless s.p.a.ce through his gla.s.s, but never until the moon had set. He detested the moon, as we grow to hate a place we know too well, and with whose inhabitants we have quarreled.

During his observations of the starry heavens he had the exceptional good fortune to witness one of those celestial phenomena which are all but unique in the annals of astronomy. A comet returning after centuries of absence appeared in the sky. Timar said to himself, "This is my star; it is as lost as my soul; its coming and going are as aimless as mine, and its whole existence as empty and vain a show as is my life." Jupiter and his four moons were moving in the same direction as the comet; their orbits must cross. When the comet approached the great planet, its tail seemed to divide; the attraction of Jupiter began to take effect. The great star was trying to rob its lord, the sun, of this vaporous body. The next night the comet's tail was split in two.

Then the largest and most distant of Jupiter's moons drew rapidly near.

"What has become of my star?" asked Timar.

The third night the nucleus of the comet had grown dull and began to disperse, and Jupiter's moon was close to it. The fourth night the comet had been divided into two parts; there were two heads and two tails, and both the starry phantoms began in separate parabolic curves their aimless flight through s.p.a.ce. So "this" occurs in the heavens as well as on earth?

Timar followed this marvelous phenomenon with his telescope till it was lost in impenetrable s.p.a.ce. This sight made the deepest impression on his mind; now he had done with the world. There are hundreds of motives for suicide, but the most urgent are to be found among those who give themselves up to scientific research.

Keep a watchful eye on those who seek to fathom the secrets of nature without a technical education. Hide away the knife and the pistol every night, and search their pockets lest they carry poison about them.

Yes, Timar was determined to kill himself. This idea does not come to strong characters all at once, but it ripens in them by degrees. They grow used to it as the years go by, and carefully provide for its execution. The thought had now ripened in Timar, and he went systematically to work.

When the severe weather set in, he left the Platten See and returned to Komorn. He made his will. His whole property he left to Timea and the poor, and with such careful foresight that he provided a separate fund out of which Timea, in case she married again, or her heirs if they stood in need of it, would receive a pension of a hundred thousand gulden.

The following was his plan. As soon as the season permitted he would go away, ostensibly to Egypt, but really to the ownerless island. There he would die.

If he could induce Noemi to die with him, then in death they would be united. Oh, Noemi would consent! What would she do in this world without Michael? What worth would the world have for such a one as she?

Both there by Dodi's side.

Timar spent the winter partly in Komorn, partly in Raab and Vienna; everywhere his life was a burden to him. He thought he read in every face, "This man is melancholy mad." He noticed people whispering and making signs when he appeared--women were shy of him, and men tried to look unconscious; and he fancied that in his distraction he did and said things which gave evidence of his mental disease, and wondered people did not laugh. Perhaps they were afraid of laughing.

But they had no reason to fear. He was not lively to throw pepper in the eyes of the people near him, though odd fancies did now and then occur to him; as, for instance, when Johann Fabula came to make him an oration as curator of the church, and stood as stiff before him as if he had swallowed the spit, an impulse seized Timar, almost irresistibly, to put both hands on the curator's shoulders and turn a somersault over his head.

Something lay in Michael's expression which made the blood run cold.

Athalie met this glance; often, as they sat at meals, Timar's eyes were fixed on her. She was a wonderfully beautiful woman; Michael's eyes rested on her lovely snowy neck, so that she felt uneasy at this silent homage to her charms.

Michael was thinking--"If only I had you in my power for once, you lovely white throat, so as to crush the life out of you with my iron hand!" This was what he longed for when he admired the splendid Bacchante form of Athalie.

Only Timea was not afraid of him--she had nothing to fear. At last it seemed impossible to Timar to wait for the tardy spring. What does he want with the springing flowers who will soon be at rest under the turf?

The day before his departure he gave a great banquet, and invited every one, including even slight acquaintances. The house was crowded with guests. Before sitting down he said to Fabula, "My brother, sit near me, and if I get drunk toward morning and lose my senses, see that I am carried into my traveling-chaise, and put me on the seat; then harness the horses and send me off." He wished to leave his house and home while unconscious.

But when the guests toward morning had sunk one here and another there under the table, our Herr Johann Fabula was snoring comfortably in his arm-chair, and only Timar had kept his head. Mad people are like King Mithridates and the poison--wine does not affect them. So he had to get his carriage himself and start on his journey. In his head reality and dreams, imagination, memory, and hallucination were in a whirl. It seemed to him as if he had stood by the couch of a sleeping saint with a marble face, and as if he had kissed the lips of the white statue, and it had not awoke under his kiss. Perhaps it was only a vision. Then he thought he remembered that behind the door of a dark recess, as he pa.s.sed, a lovely Maenad's head looked out, framed in rich tresses. She had sparkling eyes and red lips, between which shone two rows of pearls, as she held the candle and asked the sleep-walker, "Where are you going, sir?"

And he had whispered in the witch's ear, "I am going to make Timea happy."

Then the ideal face had turned to a Medusa head, and the curls to snakes. Perhaps this was hallucination too.

Timar awoke toward noon in his carriage, when the post-horses were changed. He was already far from Komorn, and his intention was unchanged. Late at night he arrived on the Danube sh.o.r.e, where the little boat he had ordered awaited him; he went over in the night to the island.

A thought came into his head. "How if Noemi were dead already?" Why should not this be possible? What a burden it would free him from--that of persuading her to the dreadful step. He who has one fixed idea expects of fate that everything should happen as he has planned.

Near the white rose-bush no doubt a second already stands, which will bloom red in spring--on Noemi's grave. Soon there will be a third with yellow blossoms, the flower of the man of gold.

Occupied with these thoughts, he landed on the island sh.o.r.e. It was still night and the moon shone. The unfinished house stood like a tomb on the gra.s.s-grown field; the windows and door-ways were hung with matting to keep out snow and rain. Michael hastened to the old dwelling.

Almira met him and licked his hand; she did not bark, but took a corner of his cloak in her teeth and drew him to the window. The moon shone through the lattice, and Michael looked into the little room, which was quite light.

He could clearly perceive that only one bed was in the room, the other was gone. On this bed slept Therese; it was as he had thought--Noemi was already at rest under the rose-bush. It is well.

He knocked at the window. "It is I, Therese." At this the woman came out on the veranda. "Are you sleeping alone, Therese?" said Timar.

"Yes."

"Has Noemi gone up to Dodi?"

"Not so. Dodi has come down to Noemi."

Timar looked inquiringly in her face. Then the woman grasped his hand, and led him with a smile to the back of the house, where the window of the other little room looked out. This room was light, for a night-lamp was burning there. Timar looked in and saw Noemi on the white bed, with her arm round a golden-haired cherub which lay on her breast. "What is this?" Timar faltered out.

Therese smiled gently. "Do you not see? Little Dodi longed to come back to us; it was better here, he thought, than up in heaven. He said to the dear Lord, 'Thou hast angels enough; let me return to those who had only me'--and the Lord allowed it."