Das landhaus am Rhein. English

by Berthold Auerbach

  CHAPTER XVI.

  AWAY UNDER FIERY RAIN!

  A damp, autumnal fog penetrated Clodwig's sick-room through the openwindows, and lay in drops on the brow of the statue of Victory.

  Still and desolate it was at Wolfsgarten: even Pranken had gone.

  Bella sat in her room enveloped in her mourning weeds. She had blackbracelets on her wrists, and had just been trying on her black gloves.She drew them off now, laid her hands together, and gazed with thatterrible Medusa look into vacancy, into the future, into the greatblank. "You are alone," said a voice within her; "you were always alonein yourself, in the world,--a solitary nature; lonely as wife, alwaysalone."

  Once more her cheeks flamed with sudden rage to think that any one, theveriest fool, could for an instant imagine that she had murdered herhusband. Was it for this that she had so long crushed every impulse ofher heart? Was the world after all not believe in her happiness? Shewent in imagination from house to house of the capital, and heard hername on all tongues.

  The ticking of the clock reminded her of what Clodwig had once said,"The pendulum of our life vibrates between recollections of the past,and desires for the future."--"That was true of him, but not of me: Ido not stand between recollection and desire: I want the present. Icrave life, ardent life."

  She rose, and was vexed that she could not resist going to her mirror;but once there she staid, and was still more vexed to see that herfigure was not as slender as it used to be; and yet black makes onelook slender. She seemed to have lost all her charms! Her thoughts wentfurther: since he had to die before you, why could he not have diedyears ago, while you were still beautiful? She shuddered at thethought, but the next moment commended her own sincerity. Further spokethe voice within her, and, proudly raising her head, she said almostaloud to herself,--

  "I care nothing for conventionality. What I may think a year hence, Iwill think now, to-day. What to me is the world's division of time?Thoughts that others would have a year hence, I permit myself to-day.Yes; you are a widow, who will be visited only from compassion,--awidow, with none to stand by her. And then this degrading suspicion! Ican go to the capital; I can take a house. Oh, what a god-like destiny!I am myself a house, and shall be made lady president of a soupestablishment, and shall have a select dozen of orphans in blue apronscome to my funeral. I have had enough of that sort of thing already.No! I cannot live alone. Shall I travel again, seek forgetfulness andfancied pleasure in landscapes, crowds, works of art, and then talk,laugh, play in society? I have proved it all vanity, emptiness. PrinceValerian could be won. Hut could I play the hypocrite again in astrange world, and charitably rejoice that the Russian peasants are,figuratively, to have their hair curled? The Wine-cavalier would bevery complaisant, always making his bows, and paying his devotions: itis only manner to be seen, but then the manner is good, agreeable,and--false, the whole of it!

  "No, no! I must away into conflict, into war, danger, distress; butlife, mighty, all-absorbing life, I must have. I scorn the whole world;I hurl back in its face its honors, its caprices of philanthropy."

  A horseman gallops into the court-yard, a tall figure in black. Is itnot Sonnenkamp? What can he want?

  Sonnenkamp was announced.

  "He is welcome," was her answer.

  Sonnenkamp entered.

  "Countess," he said, "I bring back to you what once I received fromyou,--the courage of a hero."

  "Ah, courage! I am in humiliation; deserted, broken, weak."

  "You humiliated deserted, weak? You kindled in me a strength greatenough to defy the world: I am young again, fresh again. Countess, inthis bitter and critical hour I come to you, only to you. You alone arenow the world to me; you alone make the world of value to me; I wouldgladly give you something, be to you something, that shall make theworld seem precious to you again."

  Bella stood motionless, and he continued:

  "Raise yourself above this hour, above this year, above this country,above all conventionalities. If it be possible for any human being todo this, you are that one.

  "Bella, I might tell you that I would escape into the wide world; wouldsacrifice, destroy every thing ruthlessly; put from me wife, children,all, only on condition that you would follow me, that you would dare toturn your back upon every thing, and be a free, independent nature: Imight tell you that, and it would be true. But it is not that whichshould decide you. It is not for me you should live, but for yourself.Bella, we read in old histories of men and women who bound themselvestogether by a crime: such unions seldom last. I see your soul openbefore me--no, I have it within me, and speak from it. You say as I do,'Here I am in conflict with the world. The world requires concern forothers, and I have the spirit of egoism; I am no philanthropist, I amno charitable institution.' You desire, as I do, to assert self; Idesire a thing for you, only because I desire it for myself. Otherswould decoy you, persuade you with honeyed phrases; I honor you toohighly: you have courage to be yourself."

  "I do not understand you. What do you mean? What do you desire foryourself; what do you desire for me?"

  "For myself, what have I left to desire? A bullet through my head. Butthere is one thing which can save me."

  "What is that?"

  "It is yourself. To show you what greatness is, to see you great--forthat I would still gladly live and fight. If there is such a thing asadmiration, as bowing before what is noble, before a world-subduinggenius, I"--

  He made a motion, a step forward. Bella regained composure, and saidquietly,--

  "Be seated."

  A singular expression passed over his face at the words; but he seatedhimself, and continued,--

  "Countess, I know not what plans you may have--yet no: I think I doknow your present plans. Do not interrupt me; let me speak. If I havebeen mistaken in you, then is my whole life, then are all my thoughts,my efforts, my conflicts, nothing but madness, and the patheticdeclaimers of lofty phrases are in the right. Countess Bella, you oncesaid a noble thing to me: 'A resolute nature knows no family, must haveno family.' That is my guiding star. I have no longer a family; I amnothing in the world but myself; and you--you should be nothing butyourself. You have never been yourself till now; but now you ought, youcan, you must be."

  "I will. You are a wonderful man; you clear away all the rubbish thatclogs my being. Speak further; what do you bring?"

  "I bring nothing but myself, Countess; I have put away from me all theties of this world; I say this to you, to none but you. This very day Idepart for the New World. Yes, there is a new world yonder!"

  Sonnenkamp suddenly rose, and seized her hand.

  "Countess, you are a great woman: yours is a nature born to rule. Comewith me, you have the courage for it. There is a throne to beestablished in the New World; and upon this throne will I set you asqueen. Come!"

  There was a tone of authority, of command, in Sonnenkamp's voice, as hegrasped her by the hand. She rose; her lips trembled, her eyessparkled.

  "I thank you," she said. "You are great, and you fancy greatness in me.That is it. I thank you. O my friend, we are weak, pitiful creatures.Too late, too late! Why does such a call come too late? Ten years ago,I should have had the strength for it; then it would have temptedme; I would have risked every thing then, and taken the chance ofshame and death; any thing had been better than this maimed, idle,good-for-nothing, musty, relic-hunting, sickly, sanctimonious--no, Idid not mean to say that--and yet--I thank you. You pay me a higherhonor than was ever paid me before: you recognize what I might havebeen; but I cannot be it now. Too late!"

  "Too late!" cried Sonnenkamp, seizing both her hands. "Bella, you say,that, if I had come in your youth, you would have gone with me into thewide world. Bella, Countess, we are young so long as we will to be. Youare young, and I will be young. When you came to me that time in thespring, I gave you a rose, a centifolium, and said to you, you are notlike this flower. And you are not like it; for your bloom is everfresh; your will, your
strength, blossoms. Be courageous; be yourself;be your own. What are seventy maimed, idle years? One year full of lifeis more than they all."

  Bella sank back in her chair, and covered her face with herhandkerchief.

  "Why did you appeal to the Court," she said at length, "if you meant toleave before sentence was pronounced?"

  "Why? I thank you for the question. I am free: henceforth I can speakthe honest truth, and to you above all others. For a while, I reallybelieved that this would offer me a way of escape. But I soon abandonedthat idea, and now"--

  He paused.

  "And now?" repeated Bella.

  "I wanted to show these puppets, these children who are always givingthemselves up to leading-strings which they call religion or moralityor politics,--I wanted to show them what a free human being was, anundisguised egoist. That tempted me. When the time came for putting myplan into execution, it was only for your sake that I carried out whatI had proposed; for you only I laid bare my whole life. I was resolvedyou should know who I am. I hardly spoke to the men who were before me;I spoke to you; behind myself, above myself, I spoke to you, Bella."

  "Were you then already decided not to wait for the sentence?"

  Sonnenkamp nodded with a smile of triumph. There was a long pause. Heheld her hand firmly. At last she asked hesitatingly,--

  "Would not my flight confirm the injurious suspicion, the suspicionthat Clodwig was"--

  "Fie!" interrupted Sonnenkamp; "as if it would not have been easier todesert a living husband than to murder him first!"

  Bella shuddered at the words, and Sonnenkamp exclaimed,--

  "O Bella! noble soul, alone great among women, cast away all theseEuropean casuistries; with a single step put this whole, old-maidishEurope behind you!"

  A still longer pause followed: there was no sound but the screaming ofthe parrot.

  "When do you start?" asked Bella.

  "To-night, by the railway."

  "No, by boat. Is no boat going?"

  "Certainly; one this very night."

  "I will go with you. But leave me now, leave me. Here is my hand, I gowith you."

  She sat motionless, her hands folded, her eyes closed. Sonnenkamp tookher hand firmly in his, touched her wedding-ring, and drew it gentlyfrom her finger.

  "What are you doing?" exclaimed Bella in sudden passion. Her eyes werefixed on Sonnenkamp; she saw the ring in his hand.

  "Let me keep it as a pledge," he urged.

  "What do you mean? We are not people to make a scene. Give it to me."

  He gave back the ring; but she did not return it to her finger.

  That night, a steamer stopped at the little town; there was a storm ofwind and rain, and the engine screeched and hissed. On the wharf stooda man wrapped in his cloak, and presently a tall veiled figure passedhim.

  "Leave me to myself!" the woman said as she hurried by.

  A plank was laid across from the steamer: the woman crossed it,followed by the man.

  The plank was drawn up, the boat turned, and steamed away into thedarkness and the storm. No one was on deck except those two figures:the sailors made haste into the cabin. The pilot, wrapped in his suitof India-rubber, whistled softly to himself as he turned the wheel.

  The tall figure of the woman, muffled in black, stood upon the deck ofthe steamer as it shot down the stream. Long she stood, abstractedlygazing at the water and the towns and villages on the shore, with hereand there a light flashing from the windowpanes, and casting aswiftly-vanishing gleam upon the river. A fiery shower, a stream, ofbright sparks from the chimney, swept over the figure. A hand appearedfrom under the folds of the cloak; it held a ring between its fingersfor a while, then dropped it into the stream below.

  BOOK XIV.