“Oh! Madame,” he cried, in a state of distraction, “we’ve been robbed!”
“Robbed, you say! My friend, no one has broken in here, and I can answer for the integrity of my own household.”
“Yet someone must have broken in, Madame . . . it could not be otherwise, since the money is gone! And you certainly are sure of me!”
“I used to be, Herman, but when love turns the head of a boy such as you, it opens the floodgates of his heart to every kind of vice. . . . You miserable young man, beware of what you may have done. I need my money forthwith. If you are guilty, confess your error to me . . . but if you have done wrong and persist in keeping it from me, ’tis not you alone I may implicate in this fatal affair. . . . Ernestine left for Stockholm at the same time that my money disappeared . . . who can say whether she has not fled the country? . . . She precedes you . . . ’tis a premeditated theft.”
“No, Madame, no, you do not for one moment believe what you are saying,” Herman replied firmly. “You do not believe your own words, Madame. No thief commences his career by stealing such an enormous sum, and the major crimes in the hearts of men are always preceded by a previous display of vice. What have you seen from me till now that would lead you to believe I am capable of such embezzlement? Had I committed the theft, would I still be here in Norrköping? Has it not been more than a week since you first informed me this money would have to be paid? If indeed I had stolen it, would I have the effrontery to wait peacefully for the day of reckoning when my shame would be revealed? Is such conduct imaginable, and do you suppose I am capable of it?”
“’Tis not for me to search out the reasons which might account for your actions when I am the party injured by your crime, Herman. I am certain of this much only, and that is that you are in charge of my safe, you alone are responsible for it, ’tis empty when I have need of the money presumed to be contained therein, the locks are in no wise tampered with, none of my people has run away. This theft, which reveals no signs of burglary from without, whereof there is not a single trace, could only be the handiwork of the person who possesses the keys. For the last time, Herman, examine your heart and conscience. I shall make up some excuse to keep the merchants here another twenty-four hours. Tomorrow my money . . . or I shall have to call upon the authorities to sort the matter out.”
Herman left the room in a state of despair easier felt than described. He burst into tears and charged Heaven with the responsibility for allowing him to live only to be beset by so many misfortunes. Two choices lay open to him: to flee, or to blow out his brains . . . but no sooner had he formulated the one and the other than he put both of them out of his mind with horror. . . . Die without vindicating himself? . . . without cleansing himself of suspicions which would greatly distress Ernestine? Would she ever recover from the blow of having given her heart to a man capable of such abject conduct? Her delicate soul would never sustain such a blow, the sorrow would bring her to her grave. . . . To flee would be tantamount to admitting one’s guilt; were it possible thus to provide grounds for accusing him of a crime he had never committed? Herman decided to leave the matter up to fate, and by letter to call upon the protection of the Senator and the friendship of the Colonel. He believed he could count upon the former, and felt absolutely certain of the latter. He wrote to them, recounting the terrible misfortune that had just befallen him, emphasized his innocence in a most convincing manner, and especially stressed to the Colonel how fatal such a situation might become for him, involving as it did a woman whose heart, filled with jealousy, would not pass up the opportunity to eliminate him. He urged them to advise him as to a course of action without any delay, then commended himself to the decrees of Heaven, daring to believe as a certainty that their impartiality would not allow his innocence to suffer unjustly.
You can easily imagine what a terrible night our young man spent. Early the following morning Madame Scholtz summoned him to her chambers.
“Well, my friend,” she said to him with an air of graciousness and candor, “are you ready to confess your errors, and are you now of a mind to tell me what impelled you to do such a singular thing?”
“I offer myself, and surrender myself for any justification,” the young man replied bravely. “I would not have remained under your roof had I been guilty of the crime whereof I am accused. You gave me the time to flee, I would have taken advantage of it.”
“Perhaps you would not have gotten very far without being followed, and such a flight would have been an admission of your crime. Your flight would have proved we were dealing with an inexperienced thief; your firmness leads me to believe ’tis with a hardened thief we are involved.”
“We can settle our accounts whenever you wish, Madame. Until such time as you find them in error, you have no right to treat me thus, and I have the right to request that you have more certain proof of my guilt before casting any slurs upon my integrity.”
“Herman, is this what I had the right to expect from the young man whom I raised as my own child and in whom I had placed my every hope?”
“’Tis not an answer to what I have said, Madame. That you resort to this subterfuge surprises me; in fact ’twould almost arouse certain doubts in my mind.”
“Do not provoke me, Herman, do not provoke me when you ought to be doing everything within your power to move me to pity,” she said, before adding warmly: “Are you not aware, cruel creature, of my sentiments toward you? Who then, this being the case, would be most inclined to conceal your misdeeds? . . . Would I try and uncover faults when I would gladly shed my own blood to extirpate those you already have? . . . Listen, Herman, I can repair the damage. I have deposited in various banks ten times more than is required to cover the missing sum. All I ask is that you confess to the theft . . . consent to marry me, and the whole affair will be forgotten.”
“And, as my reward for this horrible lie, I shall be given the greatest misfortune ever to befall me?”
“The greatest misfortune ever to befall you, false-hearted boy! What! ’Tis thus you conceive of the bonds I propose, when a single word from me will seal your doom forever?”
“You are not unaware, Madame, that my heart is no longer mine to offer. Ernestine possesses it entirely. Anything which threatens to interfere with the plans we have to join our destinies can only be regarded as hideous to me.”
“Ernestine? . . . Give her not another moment’s thought. She is already Oxtiern’s wife.”
“Ernestine? . . . ’Tis utterly impossible, Madame; I have her word, and her heart. She is incapable of deceiving me.”
“The whole matter was arranged in advance; the Colonel was a party to it.”
“Merciful Heaven! All right! I shall find out for myself. I shall fly immediately to Stockholm . . . there I shall see Ernestine and learn from her own lips whether what you are saying is true. . . . What am I saying? Ernestine capable of betraying her lover! No, never . . . you do not know the workings of her heart, since you are capable of believing such a story. No, Madame, the sun would cease to bless us with its light before so heinous a crime could ever besoil Ernestine’s heart.”
And upon these words the young man made as though to dash from the house. . . . Madame Scholtz, detaining him:
“Herman, you are running off to your own ruin. Listen to me, my friend, ’tis the last time I shall speak to you. . . . Must I say it? There are six witnesses who have signed depositions against you; you were seen taking my money from the house; the use whereto you put it is also known: you distrusted Count Oxtiern. Provided with these hundred thousand ducats, you planned to abduct Ernestine and take her with you to England. . . . Judicial proceedings are already under way, I must stress that fact to you. A single word from me will stop them. . . . Here is my hand, Herman; accept it, and the whole affair is forgotten.”
“A tissue of horrors and lies!” Herman cried out. “See how glaring are the lies and inconsistencies in what you say! If, as you pretend, Ernestine is already wed to the Senator,
there is no reason why I should have stolen for her sake the sums missing from your coffers; and if indeed I took that money for her, then ’tis false that she is the Count’s wife. The moment you are able to lie so rashly, this whole affair stands revealed as a pure fabrication, a trap wherein your wickedness would ensnare me. But I shall find the means—or so I dare at least believe—to regain for myself the honor whereof you would strip me, and those who will remain convinced of my innocence will at the same time prove you guilty of the crimes you have hatched in order to avenge yourself for my disdain.”
So saying, and thrusting aside the arm which Madame Scholtz again raised to restrain him, he immediately dashed out into the street, intending to flee to Stockholm. Poor Herman! . . . little did he realize that his chains were already forged and waiting. . . . On Madame Scholtz’s doorstep, ten men seized him and dragged him ignominiously through the streets to the prison reserved for hardened criminals, while that savage creature responsible for his ruin looked on, seeming to enjoy, as she watched him being dragged away, the spectacle of misfortune wherein her unbridled rage had just engulfed this wretched young man.
“Great God!” said Herman, seeing himself cast into the abode of crime . . . and all too often of injustice, “is’t possible for Heaven to invent any further sorrows wherewith to burden my heart even more? Oxtiern . . . false-hearted Oxtiern, you are the artful schemer responsible for this entire plot, and ’tis your jealousy that has brought me here; I am the victim of your own jealousy and that of your accomplices. . . . ’Tis thus that men can be plunged from one moment to the next into the utter depths of humiliation and despair! I fancied that ’twas crime alone could bring them to such a sorry pass. . . . No . . . all that is required to make them criminal is the mere shadow of suspicion; one needs but to have powerful enemies in order to be annihilated! But you, Ernestine, you whose solemn pledges still console my heart, is yours still wholly mine in this time of affliction? Is your innocence still as entire as mine? Or is’t possible you are somehow implicated in this affair? . . . O Merciful Heaven! What terrible suspicions! That I could have harbored such a thought, even for a moment, oppresses me more than all the other wrongs wherewith I am overwhelmed. Ernestine guilty! . . . Ernestine capable of having betrayed her lover! . . . Never could either fraud or deceit find any room in her sensitive soul! . . . And that tender kiss which I still cherish . . . this one, this tender kiss which I received from her, could it have been culled from lips sullied by lies? . . . No, never, beloved soul, no, it could not. . . . We are both the pawns of deceit. . . . How these monsters will try and take advantage of my situation to debase me in your eyes. . . . Heaven-sent angel, do not be deceived by the artful stratagems of evil men, and may your soul, as pure as the God by Whom it was given, be as shielded as its model from the iniquities of this world.”
A silent, somber sorrow seized hold of this miserable man. As he slowly began to realize the full horror of his situation, his grief became so overwhelming that he began to struggle and thrash about in the midst of his irons. At times ’twas the thought of proving his innocence that motivated his movements; at others, ’twas to the feet of Ernestine he would run. He writhed on the floor, the vaults above his head rang out with his piercing cries. . . . He got to his feet, he hurled himself against the walls around him, striving to break them with his weight. He battered himself mercilessly against them, he was covered with blood and, falling again near the barriers which he had not even shaken, the only signs of life in his beleaguered soul were the tears and sobs and moans of despair which issued from him.
There is no situation under the sun that can be compared to that of a prisoner whose heart is aflame with love. The impossibility of communicating, of reaching an understanding or dissolving one’s doubts straightway brings all the ills of this sentiment into focus in a most frightful manner; the benevolent features of a loving God are, for the prisoner, but so many vipers attacking his heart; a thousand fantasies becloud his vision; by turns anxious and calm, now credulous and the next moment filled with dread suspicion, both fearing and desiring the truth, detesting and adoring the object of his passion, believing her to be false and at the same time excusing her perfidious ways, his soul, like the waves of an angry sea, is naught but a spongelike mass which absorbs all passions and by them is consumed all the more quickly.
The authorities hastened to succor Herman. But what a baleful favor they were doing him by raising the cup of life to his grieving lips, when there remained for him within naught but the bitter lees!
Feeling the necessity to defend himself, and realizing that his overwhelming desire to see Ernestine could only be brought about by proving his innocence, he assumed his own defense. The judicial inquiry was opened, but the case was deemed too important to be heard before a lower tribunal such as that of Norrköping, and was transferred to a higher court in Stockholm. The prisoner was taken to Stockholm, where he was happy (if indeed the term is applicable to such a cruel situation) to be able to breathe the same air as his beloved Ernestine.
“I shall be in the same town as she,” he said to himself before he was moved to the capital. “Perhaps I may even be able to apprise her of my fate . . . which is doubtless being concealed from her! . . . Perhaps I may even manage to see her. But regardless of what may happen, I shall be there, less vulnerable to the plots directed against me. ’Tis impossible for whatever comes in contact with Ernestine not to be purified by the proximity of her beautiful soul; the brilliance of her virtues reflects upon everything around her. . . . They are the rays of the sun which give life to the earth. . . . I have nothing to fear so long as she is near.”
Poor credulous lovers, such are the fantasies which fill your hearts . . . they comfort you, ’tis a gift not lightly to be dismissed.
Let us now leave the unfortunate Herman, to see what is happening in Stockholm among those persons with whom we are concerned.
Ernestine, with her constant distractions and her continual round of festivities, had none the less not forgotten her beloved Herman; far from it. She surrendered naught but her eyes to the new spectacles with which they were trying to impress her, but her heart, still filled with her lover, had no room for anyone other than him. She would have preferred that he be present to share her pleasures, which were pale and insipid without him. She desired him, she saw him at every turn, and the loss of her illusion only made the truth of her situation all the more cruel. Poor Ernestine had not the slightest inkling of the dreadful state to which the man who occupied her thoughts with such despotic sway had been reduced. All she had received from him was one letter, written before the arrival of the merchants from Hamburg, and sure measures had been taken since then to make certain that she receive no further word from him. Whenever she expressed her concern about his silence, her father and the Senator simply blamed these delays upon the magnitude of the business affairs for which the young man was responsible, and sweet Ernestine, whose delicate soul feared the very thought of sorrow, let herself gently be lulled into believing whatever seemed to calm her troubled heart. Was she plagued by further reflections? Again they reassured her in the same manner, the Colonel in all good faith, the Senator out of sheer hypocrisy; but reassure her they did, and meanwhile, beneath her feet, the abyss was steadily being prepared.
Oxtiern was also making sure that Sanders was enjoying himself, and had arranged for him to be invited to the homes of several ministers. These marks of attention flattered the Colonel’s pride; they also made him more indulgent concerning the Count’s delay in keeping his word, and Oxtiern never tired of telling him that, all his efforts notwithstanding, the wheels of the Court were wont to grind slowly.
This dangerous suborner who, had he been able to attain his desired ends by some other manner than through the crimes he was contemplating, might have refrained from committing them, attempted upon occasion to revert to the language of love with her whom he was yearning to corrupt.
“There are times when I regret the effort
s I am exerting in your behalf,” he said one day to Ernestine. “I can feel that the power of your eyes is eroding my courage by slow degrees. My honesty compels me to keep my word and arrange for your marriage with Herman, but my heart resists. O Merciful Heaven! why does the hand of Nature both endow fair Ernestine with so many graces and implant such seeds of weakness in Oxtiern’s heart? I would serve you better were you less beautiful; or perhaps I would love you less were you not so unyielding.”
“Count Oxtiern,” said Ernestine, much alarmed by his words, “I thought these sentiments had long ago been put out of your mind, and I cannot conceive that you are still preoccupied with them!”
“’Tis to give but slight credit to either of the following possibilities, and that is to believe that the impressions you provoke are any less strong than they were before, or to imagine that, when ’tis my heart that has received them, they might be less than eternal.”
“Can they be reconciled with the question of honor? And did you not swear by all that is holy that you would bring me to Stockholm only in order to further my father’s career and to help arrange my marriage with Herman? Was this not what you solemnly promised?”
“Herman! always Herman, Ernestine. Tell me, is there no way to make you forget this baleful name?”
“Assuredly not, Senator, ’tis a name I shall utter so long as the cherished image of him who bears it shall remain graven in my soul, and I must forewarn you that death alone could alter this situation. But Count, why do you dally so in fulfilling your promised obligations? I should soon be seeing—’tis your own words I repeat—this beloved and unique object of my love; why, therefore, is he so slow in joining us here?”
“His accounting problems with Madame Scholtz, ’tis certainly the reason for this delay which so disturbs you.”
“Directly that is done, will he join us?”
“Yes . . . you will see him then, Ernestine. . . . I promise you that I shall arrange for you to see him, regardless of how much it may pain me . . . regardless of the place where you will be reunited . . . you will certainly see him. . . . And what will be my reward for these services rendered?”
The 120 Days of Sodom and Other Writings Page 81