VII.
Drawing a deep breath, the physician stopped short, and wiped theperspiration from his forehead.
Robert had jumped up, stared for a moment at the flaming orb of thelamp, as if dazzled by the light, and then rushed towards the old manas if to tear the paper out of his hands.
"That does indeed stand there?" he stammered.
"Read for yourself!" said the other.
A long silence ensued.
The lamp burnt with its quiet, cheery light as if it were illumining adeed of brightest gladsomeness, and softly, as if with velvety paws,the wind touched the windows. Downstairs everything seemed to begrowing quieter. The intervals between the bursts of laughter grewlonger and longer--the babel of voices changed to a steady, dull buzz.The people were getting tired--they were digesting.
The physician looked round for Robert. He had dropped down once moreupon the ledge of the empty bedstead, had buried his face in his hands,and was absolutely motionless.
Only his heaving breath, which escaped his breast in short, irregulargasps, testified to the turmoil that was raging within him.
"Come to yourself, my boy," said the physician, laying his hand onRobert's shoulder.
"Uncle, of course it goes without saying--she was not in her right mindwhen she wrote this?"
"She was never more in her right mind than at that moment!"
"How dare you affirm such a thing? Do not insult the dead!"
"Nothing is further from my thoughts, dear boy. Who shall presume tocast the first stone at her? But if you have been listeningattentively, you will certainly understand that her whole life wasnothing more than the maturing of this moment. Already in her girlishdreams the seeds of this criminal wish lay buried; they put forthsudden shoots on yonder stone in the wood, and came into blossom at thevery hour when she crept into your room to unite you with Martha."
"Why did she do that, if she herself wished to step into Martha'splace?"
"She was not conscious of what she wished. All her efforts to make youand Martha happy were nothing further than the secret struggle whichher pure honest nature was waging with the wish growing up within her,since that day of her girlhood when she had seen you again. But she didnot know it. Even her love for you did not become clear to her till sheentered your house. How much less then could she suspect what wasslumbering, as the fruit of this love, within her soul."
"And yet you say she fought against it and tried to exterminate it?"
"Not spiritually, not consciously. Her thought remained pure till thatterrible midnight hour. It was only her instinct which struggledagainst the poison. That drew new resources daily from the healthydepths of her strong nature, by which to secrete the putrid matter orat least to enclose it so that it became innocuous. For this reason shecondemned herself to exile, for this reason even in face of your houseshe contemplated a hasty retreat. How little she was, even later,conscious of the processes which for years had been developing withinher, you may see by the whole tone of her reminiscences. She absolutelyunconsciously dwells upon many unimportant incidents, which havenothing to do with the progress of the story and yet are valuable asshowing the gradual development of her wish. She knows not why she doesso: her feeling alone tells her: this has some connection with myguilt."
"I believe in no guilt!" exclaimed Robert, in greatest excitement. "Ifthat wish was not a mere hallucination, not the result of a momentarilymorbid, over-strung frame of mind, but had lain for a long whiledormant in her nature, how came it that, only six hours before utteringit, she expressed herself with such indignation about my mother becauseshe suspected her of harbouring it?"
"For my part," replied the old man, "nothing is more convincing for myview of the matter, than this very indignation. To free her ownconscience from the burden which she felt resting upon it, she castevery stone which she could take hold of, at your mother. It was terrorat her own sin which drove her to it."
"And the noble, self-sacrificing resolve which she formed only a fewdays before?"
Over the old man's weather-beaten features there flitted a smile fullof understanding and forgiveness.
Then he said, "The old proverb about the good intentions with which thepath to Hell is paved, may hold good here too; but it only touches thesurface of the matter. This resolve was a last abortive attempt tounite sisterly love with her longing for you, to make a pact betweenher powerful, burning desire for happiness and the impulse to keepfaith towards her sister. It was the most unnatural thing she could hitupon, for silent resignation was not in her line. It was a particularlycruel fate which doomed her, with her noble disposition and powerfulwill, to be forced into a sin which is the most common and mostcowardly on earth, a sin which I have found lurking on countless faces,when I stood at the bedside of people seriously ill. This, my boy, isone of the darkest spots in human nature, a remnant of bestiality whichhas managed to find its way into our tamed world; even such sensitivenatures as Olga may fall a prey to it, though of course they perishthrough it, while coarser souls simply conceal and suppress what isstruggling to appear from the darkest depths of their beings. Wait, Iwill speak more plainly. I once came to the bedside of a rich old man,a landowner, whose last breath was not far off. At the head of his bedstood his eldest son, a man of about forty, who for long years had heldthe post of inspector on strange estates, and whose intended bride wasbeginning to grow old and faded with waiting. The son was a good,honest fellow who would not have hurt a fly, who loved his father withall his heart, and would certainly have been ashamed to wish hisdeadliest enemy any ill; but in the stealthy, terrified glance withwhich he watched me, while I bent down my ear towards the old man'sbreast, I distinctly read the wish! 'Oh, that he might die!' Anothertime I was called in to a woman who was very happy in second marriage.Only one cloud troubled her new happiness. Her husband could notbefriend himself with the child of her first marriage. He knitted hisbrows at the mere mention of the little creature, and as she loved himpassionately, she feared he might come to hate her on the child'saccount, and hid it away from him as much as ever she could. The childgot scarlet fever. I found the mother kneeling at its bedside andweeping bitterly. She trembled in fear for the feeble little life.Had she not herself brought it forth! Then her husband entered theroom--she started--and in the restless, wavering glance which she casttowards the cradle, there stood clearly and legibly written: 'It wouldbe for my happiness, if you died.' I could give you innumerableexamples where jealousy, covetousness, desire for independence,restlessness, impulse for liberty, amorous longing, have matured thisterrible, criminal wish, which suddenly rises up dark and giganticwithin the human breast, in which hitherto only love and light havefound a place. Happily nowadays it does not do much harm. In olden,more barbarous times, when the passions were permitted to rageunfettered, the deed aided the thought. And if perchance in the familycircle any one happened to be in the other's way, poison and the daggersimply claimed their victims. History and literature abound withmurders of this kind, and that great student of mankind, Shakspeare,for example, knows hardly any other tragic motive besides murder ofkin. To-day people have grown calmer, and if a struggle for existencehappens nowadays to creep into the holy family circle, one is contentto wish the obnoxious one, in a dark hour, six feet under the earth.This wish is the ancient murder restrained by modern civilisation.There, my boy, now I have given you a long discourse, and if,meanwhile, your blood has cooled down, my object is fulfilled."
"So you absolutely condemn her?" Robert anxiously stammered forth.
"My dear boy, I condemn no one," replied the old man, with a serioussmile, "least of all such an honest nature as Olga was. The fact alonethat she had the courage to confess to herself and to him whom sheloved most, what she was guilty of, raises her above the others. Forthis wish, of which we are speaking, as it is the most hideousspiritual sin of which the human soul can become guilty, so it is alsothe most secret. No friend confides it to a friend, no husband whispersit in th
e darkness of the nocturnal couch to his wife, no penitentdares to confess it to his spiritual adviser, even the prayer thatstruggles upwards to heaven out of the depths of contrition, passes itover in hypocritical silence. God may have knowledge of everything,only not of this baseness. Let this perish in shame and silence, as itwas brought forth in night and horror. And more than this! This wish isthe only crime for which there is commonly no expiation, no punishmenteither before the tribunal of the outer world, or one's own conscience.This is a case in which even that merciless judge which a man carriesabout within him proves amenable to bribery. Thousands of people whohave once been guilty of this baseness go on living happily, put onflesh in perfect peace of soul, and rejoice in the fulfilment of theirwish, which they themselves forget as speedily as possible, as soon asever it is fulfilled. It becomes absorbed into the soul, just as a germof disease becomes absorbed as soon as the stimulant of disease hasdisappeared. It is lost without any trace, it is absolutely blotted outby an abundance of social and personal virtues. I on no account saythat I condemn these people. What would become of the world if everyone who on looking into the glass discovered a wart on his face, wereto cut his throat in despair at the fact? The people I have describedto you are the healthy every-day people, whose so-called goodconstitution can stand a blow, and who care not a rap if now and againsomething objectionable sticks to them. Olga was moulded of finer clay,her nervous system was sensible to lesser shocks, and what only causedothers a slight irritation, was to her already a lash of the whip. Suchnatures are often somewhat morbid, they incline towards melancholy andhysteria, and their soul-life is governed by imaginations, which, inthe eyes of others, are apt to assume the character of fixed ideas. Andyet everything about them is strictly normal, indeed their organismworks even more accurately than that of the ordinary, average humanbeing, and if one were to place them, like delicate chemical scalesunder a glass case, one might see them work wonders. As a rule acertain weakness of purpose cleaves to this class of sensitive people,which makes them shyly retreat into themselves at the slightestextraneous touch--and this is lucky for them; for thus they are savedall violent collision with the outer world, to which they would not,after all, prove equal. But woe to those among them who are driven bysome impetuous desire, some mighty passion, straight among rocks andthorns! Then it is very possible that an adhering thorn, which otherswould hardly have noticed, may become to them a poisoned arrow, andcorrode their body and soul till they perish in consequence. There,now, I have talked enough. Here lie two or three more sheets. Listen!Here we shall learn how one may be ruined by a wish."
VIII.
"Of that which now followed, I have only retained a vague recollection.I remember that I suddenly uttered a shriek, which made even Marthastart up, that I flung myself down at her bedside, clutched her burninghands, and continued to cry out, 'Save me! save me! wake up!'
"And then again I find myself in a different room, into which Roberthas taken me. I remember how, there, in the looking-glass, I recognisedmy distorted face, bathed in the perspiration of terror, how I burstinto a laugh, and, shuddering at my own laughter, sank all in a heap,and how all the while, chuckling and hissing with a thousand covetousvoices, there came sounding in my ears the wish: 'Oh, that she mightdie!' How shall I describe it all, without being hunted to death by thespectres of that night?
"The only clear remembrance that I still retain is that suddenly thedoctor's dear old face was bending over me, that I had to drinksomething that tasted bitter, and--then I know nothing more.
* * * * *
"When I awoke the pale light of dawn gleamed through the windows. Myhead ached, I looked around dazed, and then it seemed as if I sawwritten on the whitewashed wall opposite, the words: 'Oh, that shemight die!'
"I shuddered, and then the thought rose within me: 'Now, if she dies,it will be your wish which has murdered her.'
"I pulled myself together, and walked up to the looking-glass.
"'So this is what a woman looks like who wishes her sister might die!'said I, while my ashen-pale face stared back at me; and, seized with asudden loathing, I hit at the glass with my fist. My knuckles bled, butit did not break. Fool that I was, not to know that henceforth all theworld would only be there to hold up a mirror to my crime!
"'But perhaps she may not die!' it suddenly darted through my brain.Such radiance seemed to burst forth from this thought, that I closed myeyes as if dazzled.
"And then again it cried aloud within me: 'She will die; your wish hasmurdered her!' I ground my teeth, and groping along by the walls, Icrept into the sick room.
"When I stood at the door, and no longer heard any sound from within,the idea took possession of me:
"'You will find her as a corpse.'
"No, she still lived, but death had already set his mark upon her face.
"The bridge of the nose had become more prominent, her lips no longerclosed over her irregular teeth, her eyes seemed to have sunk rightdown into their dark sockets.
"At her feet stood Robert and the old doctor. Robert had pressed hishands to his face. Sobs shook his frame. The old man scrutinised mewith a penetrating glance. Again, for a moment, I felt as if he werelooking me through and through, as if my guilt were openly exposedbefore him. But then, as he hastened towards me, who was tottering, andheld me upright in his arms, I recognised that it was only thephysician's glance with which he had examined me.
"'How long will she live yet?' I asked, closing my eyes.
"'She is dying!'
"At that moment something within me grew rigid, turned to stone. Atthat moment hope died within me, and with it my faith in myself, inhappiness, in goodness. A great calm came over me. Death, which hoveredover this bed, had spread its dark pinions around my body too. With theclear vision of a prophetess, I saw what yet remained to me of life,spread out unveiled before my eyes. Like one dead I should henceforthhave to wander upon earth, like one dead I should have to cling tolife, like one dead see that happiness approach me, which was for everlost to me. Robert stepped up to me and embraced me. I calmly sufferedit, I felt nothing more.
"Then I sat down close to my sister's bedside, and looked at her,waiting for her death.
"Attentively I followed every symptom of her slow expiring. I felt asif my consciousness had separated itself from me, as if I could seemyself sitting there like a stone figure, staring into the dyingwoman's face.
"No feverish illusion, no morbid self-incrimination any longerdisturbed the course of my ideas. It was by this time clear to me thatmy wish could not in reality bring death upon her, and yet--for me andmy conscience it remained the wish alone which had killed her.
"Thus I sat, as her murderess, at her bedside, and waited for her deathwhich was also mine.
"It was a long time coming. The hours of the day passed and she stilllived. Her pulse had long ceased to beat, her heart seemed to standstill, and yet her breath continued to come and go in short feeblegasps. While I was lying in a morphia sleep, they had given her as alast resource an injection of musk to revive her strength once more.This was what she was existing on now. But the odour of musk, minglingwith the carbolic vapours, filled the room like some heavy, tangiblebody, weighed on my brow and seemed to crush my temples. I felt as ifwith every breath I were drinking in increasing burdens.
"In the afternoon Robert's parents came. I, who had yesterday shown myaunt only pride and contempt, to-day kissed her hand in humiliation.This was the beginning of the penance which I had inflicted upon myselfat Martha's death-bed, and which shall endure as long as I live.
"Evening came on. Marta still continued to breathe. With wide-openmouth, her dead eyes covered with a film, she stared at me. Her bodyseemed to get smaller and smaller, quite shrunk together she lay there.It almost looked as if in death she did not venture to take up even thesmall space which she had occupied during her lifetime.
"Aunt filled the house with her loathsome sobbing, a
nd the others, too,were weeping; I alone remained without tears.
"When towards eleven o'clock she had drawn her last breath, I fell intoa delirium.
* * * * *
"Just now I have returned from the manor.
"He was good and kind towards me, and in his eyes there gleamed ahalf-hidden, bashful tenderness, which my soul drank in eagerly. I feelas if a new spring-time must be coming, my heart is full of smiles andlaughter, and when I close my eyes golden sunlight rays seem to bedancing round about me. But now away with this enervating dream ofhappiness!
"If he should learn to love me, all the worse for him! I gave him nooccasion--no, indeed not! I should feel I must despise myself like avery prostitute if I had done so. Since my convalescence I have managedhis household for him truly and faithfully, for more than a year,without claiming his approval, without wishing to grow indispensable tohim. Even my dear aunt has had to recognise that, who almost forces herhospitality upon me, in spite of my being personally so hateful to her.She is much too good a housekeeper herself not to know that, but forme, the household would have gone to rack and ruin in those days, whenRobert forgot everything in gloomy mourning for his dead--not eventaking any interest in the child, which she had left him as a pledge.But for me, the poor little thing would be lying under the ground longago. I will not enumerate all I did and worked during this time. It issurely not meet for me to play the Pharisee.
"Nor will I speak of expiation. How pompous the word sounds, and whatmiserable self-deception generally hides behind it! How shall I washaway what defiles me? One may expiate some tragic guilt, one can evenexpiate some great crime, but a piece of baseness such as I committed,cleaves to the soul for ever! Ah, if I did not know what secret desirelurks in the depths of my heart!
"Why else should I require to stand there absolved before my ownconscience, if not in order that I might one day become his? As ifeverlasting fate itself had not reared up a wall between us, reachingup from the depths of _her_ grave as high as the stars.
"And if some demon should ever whisper into his ear, advising him tostretch out his hand for me, what else could I do but repulse him, asif for his audacity? But he will never do such a thing. I havesucceeded in keeping him at a distance. Let him believe that I have apoor opinion of him, let him believe that I am haughty and unfeelingthrough self-love. I shall know how to guard my heart's secret.
"If only one thing were not so!
"Sometimes, especially at night, when I am staring into the darkness, awild, mad longing comes over me with such power, that I feel as if Imust succumb to it. It seizes me like a feverish delirium; it dims mysenses, and makes my blood boil in my veins; it is the longing to liejust for once upon his breast, and there to weep my heart out. For inthose nights my tears were dried up. I have never been able to weepsince the day when I found Martha lying on her sick-bed.
* * * * *
"_A fortnight later_.
"It has come to pass. He loves me. He came to woo me. Now I know thatthere is an expiation! These tortures must indeed purify! Jesus,I have lost my childish faith in Thee, but Thou wast a man. Thou hastsuffered like me. Thee I implore--no, this is madness! Come to yoursenses, woman; pull yourself together. Is there not an everlastingresting-place, whither you may flee by your own free will, if yourstrength is no longer equal to the misery of this life? Who is toprevent you?
"He loves me. I have attained it. But in order that he might love me,Martha had first to perish, I myself had to sink down into an abyss ofguilt and shame from which no power in heaven or on earth can save me.
"I am dead. Dead shall be my desires and my hopes, and my rebelliousblood, which wells up seething at thought of him. I will soon compel itto be calm; and if not----.
"Oh, how he stood before me, timidly stammering forth word by word. Howshyly and imploringly his eye sought mine, and yet how he hardly daredto raise his glance from the ground. How, in his awkwardness, hetwisted the ends of his beard round his fingers, and stamped his footwhen he could not find the right word! Oh, my poor dear, big child, didyou not see how my every limb was trembling with the desire to rushtowards you and hold you tight for all eternity, did you not see how mylips were twitching with the temptation to press themselves upon yours,and to hang there till their last breath?
"Did you not see all this?
"Did you really believe the words, which half unconsciously I spoke toyou? My heart knows nothing of them, that I swear to you. I have lovedyou ever since I can remember. I know that my last breath will utteryour name.
"And shame on you, if you really had faith in my pretexts! I leave youfor a rich girl! You, for whom I would gladly beg in the streets, forwhom I would work till my eyes grew dim and my fingers sore, if youneeded it!
"Do you remember that night in our parents' house, when you were wooingMartha? Do you remember it and dare to insult me by putting faith in mymiserable excuses?
"And when at parting I gave you my hand, why did you look into my eyesso sadly and humbly? Did you not know that now that look will haunt meday and night like the reproach of some heavy crime I have committedtowards you?
"No, my friend, you are the only one on earth who have nothing toreproach me with. Towards you I have acted honestly--and most honestlyto-day, even though you were never so unutterably deceived as to-day!If only I might tell you how much I love you! How gladly would I die inthat self-same hour. Only once to lie upon your breast--only once tohide my head upon your shoulder and weep, weep--weep blood and tears!
"You must never again look at me like that, my giant, as if I had had aright to despise you, as if you were too simple and not good enough forme. I do not know what I might not do in that case! Heaven protect youfrom me and my love!
* * * * *
"_A week later_.
"And now I have done it _after all_! I have thrown myself upon hisneck; I have satiated myself with his kisses; I have wept my fill inhis arms!
"I am calm--quite calm. I have tasted whatever of happiness life hadleft to offer me, the sinner.
"But what now?
"Since hours I have been face to face with the last great question:'Shall I flee or die?'
"One or the other I must do this very night; for to-morrow he will cometo lead me to Martha's grave.
"Rather than follow him thither, I will die!
"But I will even assume that I could be enough of a hypocrite not todrop down beside the grave and confess all to him, I will assume that Ishould not be choked with loathing of myself, that I should really haveenough wretched courage to become his wife; what sort of a life shouldI lead at his side?
"What is the good of clinging to happiness when one has long sinceforfeited it? Should I not slink about like some poor criminal in herlast hours, everlastingly tortured by the fear of betraying myself tohim, and yet filled with the desire to proclaim my guilt to the wholeworld? How could I sleep in the bed out of which I wished her into hergrave! How could I wake between the walls on which there still standswritten in flaming letters: 'Oh, that she might die!'
"I will converse quite calmly and sensibly with myself, as is meet forone who is making up the account of her life. That I cannot become hiswife I know very well.
"Shall I flee?--What should I do among strangers? I know them. I knowthese people and despise them. They have wrought evil towards me; theywould torment me again in the future.
"All the faith, all the love, all the hope still remaining to me, havetheir foundation in him alone.
"So I must die! The bottles of morphia stand, well preserved, in thecorner of my cupboard. I had some suspicion that I might want them,when, in defiance of the old doctor, I secretly saved up theircontents. The few hours of sleep which I thereby lost, will now beamply compensated for.
"Only a letter yet to my uncle the doctor; he shall be my heir and myconfidan
t. Perhaps he can help me to wipe away all traces of my deed,so that Robert may suspect nothing. Not a greeting to him. That is thehardest of all, but it must be so.
* * * * *
"I have run out secretly and posted the letter. The watchman wassignalling midnight. How empty, how dark is the whole world! In thelime-trees the wind is soughing. Here and there a light is sadlygleaming as if to illumine hidden sorrows. A drunken fellow cameshouting along the road and made as if to attack me. Darkness, poverty,and brutality out there--in here guilt and unappeasable longing--thatwould be my future. Verily this life has nothing more to offer me.
"People talk and write so much about the terror of death. I feelnothing of it. I am content, for I have wept my fill. Those suppressedtears weighed heavily upon me; and weeping makes one weary, they say.Good-night!"
The End.
Der Wunsch. English Page 8