It is well known, that women, particularly the handsome, indulged, and self-willed, have humors, and consider it not unbecoming if they sometimes or always are a little inconsistent with themselves. But never in any mortal could more contradiction be found, than in the beautiful Hortensia. What she, waking, thought, said or did, she contradicted in the moments of her trance. She entreated the Count not to regard what she might advance against me. She asserted that an increase of her illness would be the infallible consequence of my leaving the house, and would end in her death. She entreated me not to regard her humors, but generously to pardon her foolish behavior, and to live under the conviction that she would certainly improve in her conduct towards me as her disease abated.
I was, in fact, as much astonished as the others at Hortensia’s extraordinary inclination to me during her transfigured state. She seemed, as it were, only through me, and in me, to live. She guessed, indeed she knew my thoughts—especially when they had any reference to her. It was unnecessary to express my little instructions; she executed them. However incredible it may be, it is not the less true, that she, with her hands, followed involuntarily all the movements of mine in every direction. She declared that it was scarcely any longer necessary to stretch out my hands towards her, as at the commencement; my presence, my breath, my mere will, sufficed to her well being. She refused, with scorn, to taste any wine or water, that I had not, as she said, consecrated by laying my hands on, and made healthful by the light streaming from the ends of my fingers. She went so far as to declare my slightest wishes to be irresistible commands.
“She has no longer any free will,” said she one day; “so soon as she knows thy will, Emanuel, she is constrained so to will. Thy thoughts govern her with a supernatural power. And precisely in this obedience she feels her good, her blessedness. She cannot act contrary. So soon as she ascertains thy thoughts, they become her thoughts and laws.”
“But how is this perception of my thoughts possible, dearest Countess?” said I. “I cannot deny, that you often discern the most secret depths of my soul. What a singular sickness—which seems to make you omniscient! who would not wish for himself, this state of perfection, though sickness is usually our greatest imperfection?”
“It is so, also with her,” said she. “Deceive not thyself, Emanuel, she is very imperfect since she has lost the greater part of her individuality; she has lost it in thee. She is nothing now except through thee. She has her life only in thee. Shouldst thou die today, thy last breath would also be her last. Thy serenity is her serenity—thy sorrow her sorrow.”
“Can you not explain to me the miracle, that causes in me the greatest astonishment, and, notwithstanding all my reflections, remains inexplicable?”
She was long silent. After about ten minutes she said: “No, she cannot explain it. Come not persons before thee in dreams, whose thoughts thou seemest to think at the same moment with themselves? So is it with her; and yet to the sick one it exists clearly; she is conscious that she is awake. Truly,” continued she, “her spiritual part is always the same; but that which united the spirit to the body is no longer the same. Her shell is wounded in that part with which the soul is first and most intimately connected: her life flows out and becomes weaker, and does not allow itself to be bound. Hadst thou not been found, Emanuel, the sick would already have been released. As an uprooted plant, whose powers evaporating, receives no sustenance, if its roots are again laid in fresh soil, will imbibe new life from the earth, put forth branches and become green—thus is it with the sick. Soul and life in the ALL flowing away, finds nourishment in thy life’s fulness; forces new roots in thy being, and is restored through thee. She is an extinguished light, in a broken vessel; but the dried wick of life nourishes itself again in tile oil of thy lamp. Thus the sick, now spiritually rooted in thee, exists from the same powers as thou; therefore has she pleasure and pain, feeling, will, and even thought, as thou hast. Thou art her life, Emanuel.”
Neither the women nor the Doctor could refrain from smiles, at this tender declaration of the petulant Countess. On the same day, the Count said to me:
“Will you not for a jest make the strongest essay of your power over Hortensia?”
“And how?” replied I.
“Desire, as a proof of her obedience, that Hortensia shall have you called, when she is awake, and voluntarily give you, as a present, the most beautiful of the roses which are blooming in her vases.”
“It is too much; it would be indiscreet. You know, Count, what an unconquerable aversion she has to the poor Faust, as much even as she appears to have regard for Emanuel.”
“Even for that reason, I entreat you to make the trial, were it only to discover whether your will is powerful enough to have effect out of the state of transfiguration and in the waking usual life? No one shall tell her what you have wished. Therefore it shall be arranged, that no person except you and myself shall be present when you express the wish.”
I promised to obey. Though, I confess, rather unwillingly.
THE ROSE.
When I went to her the following morning, as she lay in the slumber which usually preceded her transfiguration—and I never showed myself earlier—I found the Count there alone. He reminded me by a look, and with laughing eyes, of the agreement of the day before.
Hortensia passed into her transfigured waking state and immediately commenced a friendly conversation. She assured us that her sickness had almost reached the turning point, when it would gradually diminish; this would be known by her having less clear perceptions in her sleep. I became more embarrassed the more the Count motioned to me to bring forward my experiment.
In order to divert or to encourage myself, I went silently through the room to the window, where Hortensia’s flowers bloomed, and with my fingers, played with the branches of a rose bush. Inadvertently I stuck a thorn rather deep in the end of my middle finger.
Hortensia gave a loud cry. I hurried to her; the Count likewise. She complained of a violent prick in the point of the middle finger of her right hand. The appearance of her finger belonged to the witchcrafts, to which, since my intercourse with her, I had become accustomed. In fact, I thought I could remark a scarcely visible blue spot; the next day, however, a small sore developed itself, and likewise on my finger—only mine was sooner healed.
“It is thy fault, Emanuel,” said she, after the lapse of a few minutes; “thou hast wounded thyself with the rose bush. Take care of thyself—what befalls thee, happens also to her.”
She was silent. I also. My thoughts were how I should bring forward my proposition. The wounding appeared to offer the fittest occasion. The Count motioned me to take courage.
“Wherefore dost thou not speak out?” said Hortensia; “ask that she should have you called at twelve o’clock today, before she goes to eat, and present you with a new blown rose.”
With amazement, I heard my wish from her lips. “I feared to offend you by my boldness!” said I.
“O, Emanuel, she well knows that her father himself suggested the wish!” replied she, smiling.
“It is likewise, my ardent wish!” stammered I. “But will you at twelve, when awake, remember it?”
“Can she do otherwise?” she replied, with a good humored smile.
As the conversation on that subject ended, the Count went and brought in the women and the Doctor, who were waiting without. After about half an hour, I, as usual, so soon as the transfigured was lost into a real sleep, absented myself. It might have been about ten o’clock.
Upon waking, Hortensia showed the Doctor her painful finger. She believed that she had wounded herself by the point of a needle, and was astonished not to find some outward injury.
About eleven she became restless, walked up and down her room, sought out all sorts of things, began to speak of me to the women, or rather, after her usual habit, to pour on me the fulness of her anger, and to attack her father with reproaches, that he had not yet dismissed me.
“This obt
rusive man is not worth my spending so many tears and words about. I know not what forces me to think of him, and to embitter every hour with the hated thought. It is already too much that I know him to be under the same roof, and that I know how much you esteem him, dear father. I could swear the wicked man has bewitched me. Therefore, take care, dear father, I certainly do not deceive my self. You will have cause, one day, bitterly to repent your good nature. He will deceive you and all of us.”
“I entreat you, my child,” said the Count, “do not be forever vexing and fatiguing yourself with speaking of him. You do not know him; you have only seen him twice, and but transiently. How can you then pronounce a condemnatory judgment upon him? Wait till I surprise him in some false act. In the meanwhile do you be tranquil. It is sufficient that he dares not appear in your presence.”
Hortensia was silent. She spoke with the women on other subjects. Her disquiet increased. They asked her if she was not well. She knew not what to answer. She began to weep. They endeavored in vain to discover the cause of her grief or melancholy. She concealed her face in the cushions of the sofa, and begged her father as well as her women to leave her alone.
A quarter before twelve they heard her ring. She directed the woman who answered her summons, to say to me, that I should come there as soon as the clock struck twelve.
Notwithstanding I anxiously expected this invitation, it caused me great surprise. In part from the extraordinary fact itself and in part from fright, I was as much perplexed as embarrassed. I went many times before my glass, in order to see if I really had a face made to awaken horror. But—it struck twelve.
With a beating heart I went and heard myself announced to Hortensia. I was admitted.
She sat negligently on the sofa; her beautiful head, shaded with her raven locks, rested on her soft white arm. She reluctantly arose as I entered. With a weak, uncertain voice, and a look which implored her mercy, I declared myself there to hear her commands.
Hortensia did not answer. She came slowly and thoughtfully towards me, as if she sought for words.
At last she remained standing before me, threw a contemptuous side look on me, and said:
“Mr. Faust, it seems to me that it is I that should entreat, in order to induce you to leave the house and train of my father.”
“Countess,” said I, and the manly pride was a little roused in me, “I have forced myself neither on you nor the Count. You yourself know on what grounds your father entreated me to remain in his company. I did so unwillingly; but the heartfelt kindness of the Count, and the hope of being useful to you, prevents my obeying your expressed command, however it may distress me to displease you.”
She turned her back on me, and played with a little pair of scissors near a rose bush at the window. Suddenly she cut the last blown rose off—it was beautiful, although simple—she reached it to me and said, “Take the best which I have now at hand: I give it to you, as a reward for having hitherto avoided me. Never come again!”
She spoke this so quickly and with such visible embarrassment, that I scarcely understood it; she then threw herself again on the sofa, and as I wished to answer, she motioned to me hastily, with her face turned, to go away. I obeyed.
Even at the moment I left her I had already forgotten all injuries. I flew to my room. Not the angry, but only the suffering Hortensia in all her tender innocence swept before me. The rose came from her hand like a jewel, whose infinite worth all the crowns in the world could not outweigh. I pressed the flower to my lips—I lamented its perishable nature. I thought how I should most securely preserve it—to me the most precious of all my possessions. I opened it carefully and dried it between the leaves of a book, then had it enclosed between two round crystal glasses, surrounded with a gold band, so that I could wear it like an amulet to a gold chain round my neck.
THE BILL OF EXCHANGE.
In the meantime this event was the cause of much discomfort to me. Hortensia’s hate of me spoke out more decidedly than ever. Her father, entirely too gentle, made my defence in vain. His conviction that I was an honest man, as well as my usefulness in the common affairs of his house, and his firm belief that I was indispensable to the saving of his daughter, were sufficient to render him for a long time deaf to all the whisperings which aimed at my downfall. In a short time he was the only one in the house that honored me with a friendly word or look. I remarked, that gradually the women, Dr. Walter himself, and at last the lowest servant of the family, kept shyly at a distance and treated me with a marked coldness. I learnt from the true hearted Sebald, who remained devoted to me, that my expulsion was aimed at, and that the Countess had sworn to turn any one out of her service, who dared to have any kind of intercourse with me. Her command was so much the more effectual, as from the physician and steward, to the lowest servant in the house, each one considered himself lucky to be a domestic in so rich a house; and whilst they only considered me as one of their equals, they envied me my unlimited credit with the Count.
Such a situation must of course become unpleasing to me. I lived in Venice, in one of the most brilliant houses, more solitary than in a wilderness, without a friend or familiar acquaintance. I knew my steps and motions were watched; nevertheless I endured it with patience. The noble Count suffered no less than myself from Hortensia’s caprices. He often sought comfort near me. I was the most eloquent advocate for my beautiful persecutor, who treated me during her transfiguration with as much kindness, I might almost say tenderness, as she vexed me when out of this state, with the effects of her hatred and pride. It seemed as if she were governed alternately by two inimical demons: the one an angel of light, the other of darkness. At last, even the old Count began to watch me and became more reserved; the situation was insupportable to me. I had only lately perceived how he was tormented on all sides; how particularly Dr. Walter sought to shake his confidence in me, by many repeated little malicious remarks; and what a deep impression a reproach of Hortensia’s once made, when she said: “Have we all made ourselves dependant on this unknown man? They say my life is in his power; well, pay him for his trouble; more he does not merit. But he is also to be a participator in our family secrets. We are, in our most important affairs, in his charge, so that, were I even in health, we could scarcely, without disadvantage, send him away. Who is surety for his secrecy? His apparent disinterestedness, his honorable appearance, will one day cost us much. The Count Hormegg will be the slave of his servant, and a stranger, by his cunning, become the tyrant of us all. This common fellow is not only the confidant of a Count, whose race is related to princely houses, but the all-doer and head of the family.”
In order still more to revolt the pride of the Count, the subordinates appeared to have conspired together to fulfil his commands with a certain reluctance and doubt, as if they were afraid of displeasing me. Some carried this artful boldness so far as to express openly the question, whether the command he gave had also my consent. This acted upon the Count so much, little by little, that he became mistrustful of himself, and believed that he had overstepped the limits of prudence.
I remarked it, however much he endeavored to conceal his change of mind. This vexed me. I had never forced myself into a knowledge of his circumstances; he had imparted them to me by degrees, craved my council, followed it, and always gained by it. He had voluntarily charged me with the whole care of the receipts and expenditures of his income; it was by me, from the state of the greatest confusion, placed in such clearness, that he confessed he never had such an insight into his household affairs. He was now in a situation to make suitable arrangements both of his money and estates. By my advice he had terminated two old perplexed family lawsuits, whose end was not to be seen, by an amicable agreement, and by this compact gained more immediate advantage than he himself hoped to have won, if he had succeeded in his suit. Many times had he, in the excess of his gratitude or friendship, wished to force considerable presents on me, but I had always refused them.
For some weeks I endur
ed to be hated and mistaken by all. My pride at last revolted. I longed to get out of this unpleasant situation to which no one any longer troubled himself to reconcile me. Hortensia, even she, who was the author of all the mischief, was the only one, who, in her transfigurations, warned me incessantly not to regard any thing she might undertake against me in her waking hours. She would despise herself for it; she coaxed me with the most flattering speeches, as if she would in these moments requite me for all the torments which she immediately after, with redoubled eagerness, would cause me.
Count Hormegg had me called one afternoon to his cabinet. He desired me to give him the steward’s book, and also a bill of exchange lately received for two thousand louis d’ors, which sum, he said, he wished to place in the bank of Venice, since his residence in Italy would be continued for the year. I took the opportunity to beg him to confide to another the whole of the business with which he had charged me, since I was determined, so soon as the health of the Countess would permit, to leave his house and Venice. Notwithstanding he remarked the irritability with which I spoke, he said nothing, except requesting me not to neglect his daughter and her cure; but as to what regarded the other affairs, he would willingly disburden me from them.
The Second Macabre Megapack Page 19