Transcriber's Notes:
1. Page scan source:
http://www.archive.org/details/larrabiataandot00heysgoog
Contents
1. [L'Arrabiata],
2. [Count Ernest's Home],
3. [Blind],
4. [Walter's Little Mother];
5. [The Dead Lake and Other Tales]:
(a) A Fortnight at the Dead Lake,
(b) Doomed,
(c) Beatrice,
(d) Beginning and End.
L'ARRABIATA
AND
OTHER TALES
BY
PAUL HEYSE.
FROM THE GERMAN
BY
MARY WILSON.
Authorized Edition.
LEIPZIG 1867
BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ.
LONDON: SAMPSON LOW, SON, AND MARSTON.
MILTON HOUSE, LUDGATE HILL.
PARIS: C. REINWALD, 15, RUE DES SAINTS PÈRES.
NEW YORK: LEYPOLDT & HOLT, 451, BROOME STREET.
L'ARRABIATA.
[L'ARRABIATA.]
The day had scarcely dawned.--Over Vesuvius hung one broad grey stripe of mist; stretching across as far as Naples, and darkening all the small towns along the coast. The sea lay calm. But about the marina of the narrow creek, that lies beneath the Sorrento cliffs, fishermen and their wives were at work already, with giant cables drawing their boats to land, and the nets that had been cast the night before. Others were rigging their craft; trimming the sails, and fetching out oars and masts from the great grated vaults that have been built deep into the rocks for shelter to the tackle over night. Nowhere an idle hand; even the very aged, who had long given up going to sea, fell into the long chain of those who were hauling in the nets. Here and there, on some flat housetop, an old woman stood and span; or busied herself about her grandchildren, whom their mother had left to help her husband.
"Do you see, Rachela? yonder is our Padre Curato;" said one, to a little thing of ten, who brandished a small spindle by her side; "Antonio is to row him over to Capri. Madre Santissima! but the reverend signor's eyes are dull with sleep!" and she waved her hand to a benevolent looking little priest, who was settling himself in the boat, and spreading out upon the bench his carefully tucked-up skirts.
The men upon the quay had dropped their work, to see their pastor off, who bowed and nodded kindly, right and left.
"What for must he go to Capri, granny?" asked the child. "Have the people there no priest of their own, that they must borrow ours?"
"Silly thing!" returned the granny. "Priests they have, in plenty--and the most beautiful of churches, and a hermit too, which is more than we have. But there lives a great Signora, who once lived here; she was so very ill!--Many's the time our Padre had to go and take the Most Holy to her, when they thought she could not live the night. But with the Blessed Virgin's help, she did get strong and well--and was able to bathe every day in the sea. When she went away, she left a fine heap of ducats behind her, for our church, and for the poor; and she would not go, they say, until our Padre promised to go and see her over there, that she might confess to him as before. It is quite wonderful, the store she lays by him!--Indeed, and we have cause to bless ourselves for having a curato who has gifts enough for an archbishop; and is in such request with all the great folks. The Madonna be with him!" she cried, and waved her hand again, as the boat was about to put from shore.
"Are we to have fair weather, my son?" enquired the little priest, with an anxious look towards Naples.
"The sun is not yet up;" the young man answered: "When he comes, he will easily do for that small trifle of mist."
"Off with you, then! that we may arrive before the heat."
Antonio was just reaching for his long oar to shove away the boat, when suddenly he paused, and fixed his eyes upon the summit of the steep path that leads down from Sorrento to the water.
A tall and slender girlish figure had become visible upon the heights, and was now hastily stepping down the stones, waving her pocket handkerchief.
She had a small bundle under her arm, and her dress was mean and poor. Yet she had a distinguished, if somewhat savage way of throwing back her head; and the dark tress that wreathed it, on her, was like a diadem.
"What have we to wait for?" enquired the curato. "There is some one coming, who wants to go to Capri. With your permission. Padre. We shall not go a whit the slower. It is a slight young thing, but just eighteen."
At that moment the young girl appeared from behind the wall that bounds the winding path.
"Laurella!" cried the priest, "and what has she to do in Capri?"
Antonio shrugged his shoulders. She came up with hasty steps, her eyes fixed straight before her.
"Ha! l'Arrabiata! good morning!" shouted one or two of the young boatmen. But for the curato's presence, they might have added more; the look of mute defiance with which the young girl received their welcome, appeared to tempt the more mischievous among them.
"Good day, Laurella!" now said the priest; "how are you? Are you coming with us to Capri?"
"If I may. Padre."
"Ask Antonio there, the boat is his. Every man is master of his own, I say; as God is master of us all."
"There is half a carlin, if I may go for that?" said Laurella, without looking at the young boatman.
"You need it more than I;" he muttered, and pushed aside some orange-baskets to make room: he was to sell the oranges in Capri, which little isle of rocks, has never been able to grow enough for all its visitors.
"I do not choose to go for nothing;" said the young girl, with a slight frown of her dark eyebrows.
"Come, child," said the priest; "he is a good lad, and had rather not enrich himself with that little morsel of your poverty. Come now, and step in;" and he stretched out his hand to help her; "and sit you down by me. See now, he has spread his jacket for you, that you may sit the softer; young folks are all alike; for one little maiden of eighteen, they will do more than for ten of us reverend fathers. Nay, no excuse, Tonino. It is the Lord's own doing, that like and like should hold together."
Meantime Laurella had stepped in, and seated herself beside the Padre, first putting away Antonio's jacket, without a word. The young fellow let it lie, and muttering between his teeth, he gave one vigorous push against the pier, and the little boat flew out into the open bay.
"What are you carrying there in that little bundle?" enquired the Padre, as they were floating on over a calm sea, now just beginning to be lighted up with the earliest rays of the rising sun.
"Silk, thread, and a loaf, Padre. The silk is to be sold at Anacapri, to a woman who makes ribbons, and the thread to another."
"Self spun?"
"Yes, sir."
"You once learned to weave ribbons yourself, if I remember right?"
"I did, sir, only mother has been much worse, and I cannot stay so long from home; and a loom to ourselves, we are not rich enough to buy."
"Worse, is she? Ah! dear, dear! when I was with you last, at Easter, she was up."
"The spring is always her worst time, ever since those last great storms, and the earthquakes, she has been forced to keep her bed from pain."
"Pray, my child. Never grow slack of prayers and petitions, that the blessed Virgin may intercede for you; and be industrious and good, that your prayers may find a hearing."
After a pause; "When you were coming toward the shore, I heard them calling after you: 'Good morning, l'Arrabiata!' they said, what made them call you so? it is not a nice name for a young Christian maiden, who should be meek and mild."
The young girl's brown face glowed all over, while her eyes flashed fire.
"They always mock me so, because I do not dance and sing, and stand about to chatter, as other girls do. I might be left in peace, I think; I do them no harm."
"Nay, but you might be civil. Let others dance and sing, on whom this life sits lighter, but a kind word now and then, is seemly even from the most afflicted."
Her dark eyes fell, and she drew her eyebrows closer over them, as if she would have hidden them.
They went on a while in silence. The sun now stood resplendent above the mountain chain; only the tip of mount Vesuvius towered beyond the group of clouds that had gathered about its base. And on the Sorrento plains, the houses were gleaming white from the dark green of their orange-gardens.
"Have you heard no more of that painter, Laurella?" asked the curato; "that Neapolitan, who wished so much to marry you?" She shook her head. "He came to make a picture of you. Why would you not let him?"
"What did he want it for? there are handsomer girls than I;--who knows what he would have done with it?--he might have bewitched me with it, or hurt my soul, or even killed me, mother says."
"Never believe such sinful things!" said the little curato very earnestly; "Are not you ever in God's keeping, without Whose will not one hair of your head can fall; and is one poor mortal with an image in his hand, to prevail against the Lord? Besides, you might have seen that he was fond of you; else why should he want to marry you?"
She said nothing.
"And wherefore did you refuse him? he was an honest man they say; and a comely; and he would have kept you and your mother far better than you ever can yourself, for all your spinning and silk winding."
"We are so poor!" she said passionately; "and mother has been ill so long, we should have become a burthen to him;--and then I never should have done for a Signora. When his friends came to see him, he would only have been ashamed of me."
"How can you say so? I tell you the man was good and kind;--he would even have been willing to settle in Sorrento. It will not be so easy to find another, sent straight from Heaven to be the saving of you, as this man, indeed, appeared to be."
"I want no husband;--I never shall;" she said, very stubbornly, half to herself.
"Is this a vow? or do you mean to be a nun?"
She shook her head.
"The people are not so wrong, who call you wilful, although the name they give you is not kind. Have you ever considered that you stand alone in the world, and that your perverseness must make your sick mother's illness worse to bear, her life more bitter? And what sound reason can you have to give, for rejecting an honest hand, stretched out to help you and your mother? Answer me, Laurella."
"I have a reason;" she said, reluctantly, and speaking low; "but it is one I cannot give."
"Not give! not give to me? not to your confessor, whom you surely know to be your friend,--or is he not?"
Laurella nodded.
"Then, child, unburthen your heart. If your reason be a good one, I shall be the very first to uphold you in it. Only you are young, and know so little of the world. A time may come, when you may find cause to regret a chance of happiness, thrown away for some foolish fancy now."
Shyly she threw a furtive glance over to the other end of the boat, where the young boatman sat, rowing fast. His woollen cap was pulled deep down over his eyes; he was gazing far across the water, with averted head, sunk, as it appeared, in his own meditations.
The priest observed her look, and bent his ear down closer.
"You did not know my father?"--she whispered, while a dark look gathered in her eyes.
"Your father, child!--why, your father died when you were ten years old--what can your father, (Heaven rest his soul in Paradise!) have to do with this present perversity of yours?"
"You did not know him, Padre; you did not know that mother's illness was caused by him alone."
"And how?"
"By his ill treatment of her; he beat her, and trampled upon her. I well remember the nights when he came home in his fits of frenzy--she never said a word, and did everything he bid her. Yet he would beat her so, my heart felt like to break. I used to cover up my head, and pretend to be asleep, but I cried all night. And then when he saw her lying on the floor, quite suddenly he would change, and lift her up and kiss her, till she screamed, and said he smothered her. Mother forbade me ever to say a word of this; but it wore her out. And in all these long years since father died, she has never been able to get well again. And if she should soon die, which God forbid! I know who it was that killed her."
The little curate's head wagged slowly to and fro; he seemed uncertain how far to acquiesce in the young girl's reasons. At length he said: "Forgive him, as your mother has forgiven!--And turn your thoughts from such distressing pictures, Laurella; there may be better days in store for you, which will make you forget the past."
"Never shall I forget that!"--she said, and shuddered;--"and you must know, Padre, it is the reason why I have resolved to remain unmarried. I never will be subject to a man, who may beat and then caress me. Were a man now to want to beat or kiss me, I could defend myself; but mother could not:--neither from his blows or kisses, because she loved him. Now I will never so love a man as to be made ill and wretched by him."
"You are but a child; and you talk like one who knows nothing at all of life. Are all men like that poor father of yours? do all illtreat their wives, and give vent to every whim, and gust of passion? Have you never seen a good man yet? or known good wives, who live in peace and harmony with their husbands?"
"But nobody ever knew how father was to mother;--she would have died sooner than complained, or told of him--and all because she loved him. If this be love;--if love can close our lips when they should cry out for help; if it is to make us suffer without resistance, worse than even our worst enemy could make us suffer, then I say, I never will be fond of mortal man."
"I tell you you are childish; you know not what you are saying. When your time comes, you are not likely to be consulted whether you choose to fall in love or not." After a pause; "And that painter: did you think he could have been cruel?"
"He made those eyes I have seen my father make, when he begged my mother's pardon, and took her in his arms to make it up--I know those eyes. A man may make such eyes, and yet find it in his heart to beat a wife who never did a thing to vex him! It made my flesh creep to see those eyes again."
After this, she would not say another word.--Also the curato remained silent. He bethought himself of more than one wise saying, wherewith the maiden might have been admonished; but he refrained, in consideration of the young boatman, who had been growing rather restless towards the close of this confession.--
When, after two hours' rowing, they reached the little bay of Capri, Antonio took the padre in his arms, and carried him through the last few ripples of shallow water, to set him reverently down upon his legs on dry land. But Laurella did not wait for him to wade back and fetch her. Gathering up her little petticoat, holding in one hand her wooden shoes, and in the other her little bundle, with one splashing step or two, she had reached the shore. "I have some time to stay at Capri," said the priest. "You need not wait--I may not perhaps return before to-morrow. When you get home, Laurella, remember me to your mother;--I will come and see her within the week.--You mean to go back before it gets dark?"--
"If I find an opportunity," answered the young girl, turning all her attention to her skirts.
"I must return, you know;" said Antonio, in a tone which he believed to be of great indifference--"I shall wait here till the Ave Maria--if you should not come, it is the same to me."
"You must come;" interposed the little priest:--"you never can leave your mother all alone at night--Is it far you have to go?"
"To a vineyard by Anacapri."
"And I to Capri, so now God bless you, child--and you, my son."
Laurella kissed his hand, and let one farewell drop, for the Padre and Antonio to divide between them. Antonio, however, appropriated no part of it to himself, he pulled off his cap exclusively to the padre, without even looking at Laurella. But after they had turned their backs, he let his eyes travel but a short way with the padre, as he went toiling over the deep bed of small loose stones; he soon sent them after the maiden, who, turning to the right, had begun to climb the heights, holding one hand above her eyes to protect them from the scorching sun. Just before the path disappeared behind high walls, she stopped, as if to gather breath, and looked behind her. At her feet lay the marina; the rugged rocks rose high around her; the sea was shining in the rarest of its deep blue splendour. The scene was surely worth a moment's pause. But as chance would have it, her eye, in glancing past Antonio's boat, met with Antonio's own, which had been following her as she climbed.
Each made a slight movement, as persons do who would excuse themselves for some mistake; and then, with her darkest look, the maiden went her way.
Hardly one hour had passed since noon, and yet for the last two, Antonio had been sitting waiting on the bench before the fisher's tavern. He must have been very much preoccupied with something, for he jumped up every moment to step out into the sunshine, and look carefully up and down the roads, which, parting right and left, lead to the only two little towns upon the island. He did not altogether trust the weather, he then said to the hostess of the Osteria; to be sure, it was clear enough, but he did not quite like that tint of sea and sky. Just so it had looked, he said, before that last awful storm, when the English family had been so nearly lost; surely she must remember it?
No, indeed, she said, she didn't.
Well, if the weather should happen to change before the night, she was to think of him, he said.
"Have you many fine folk over there?" she asked him, after a while.
"They are only just beginning; as yet, the season has been bad enough; those who came to bathe, came late.
"The spring came late. Have you not been earning more than we at Capri?"
"Not enough to give me maccaroni twice a week, if I had had nothing but the boat;--only a letter now and then to take to Naples;--or a gentleman to row out into the open sea, that he might fish. But you know I have an uncle who is rich:--he owns more than one fine orange garden,--and; 'Tonino,' says he to me; 'while I live you shall not suffer want, and when I am gone you will find that I have taken care of you;' and so, with God's help, I got through the winter."
"Has he children, this uncle who is so rich?"
"No, he never married; he was long in foreign parts, and many a good piastre he has laid together. He is going to set up a great fishing business, and set me over it, to see the rights of it."
"Why, then you are a made man, Tonino!"
The young boatman shrugged his shoulders. "Every man has his own burthen;" he said, starting up again to have another look at the weather, turning his eyes right and left, although he must have known that there can be no weather side but one.
"Let me fetch you another bottle;" said the Hostess; "your uncle can well afford to pay for it."
"Not more than one glass, it is a fiery wine you have in Capri, and my head is hot already."
"It does not heat the blood; you may drink as much of it as you like. And here is my husband coming, so you must sit awhile, and talk to him."
And in fact, with his nets over his shoulder, and his red cap upon his curly head, down came the comely padrone of the Osteria. He had been taking a dish of fish to that great lady, to set before the little curato. As soon as he caught sight of the young boatman, he began waving him a most cordial welcome; and came to sit beside him on the bench, chattering and asking questions. Just as his wife was bringing her second bottle of pure unadulterated Capri, they heard the crisp sand crunch, and Laurella was seen approaching from the left hand road to Anacapri. She nodded slightly in salutation; then stopped, and hesitated.
Antonio sprang from his seat;--"I must go," he said; "It is a young Sorrento girl, who came over with the Signer curato in the morning. She has to get back to her sick mother before night."
"Well, well, time enough yet before night;" observed the fisherman; "time enough to take a glass of wine. Wife, I say, another glass!"
"I thank you; I had rather not;"--and Laurella kept her distance.
"Fill the glasses, wife; fill them both, I say; she only wants a little pressing."
"Don't," interposed the lad. "It is a wilful head of her own she has; a saint could not persuade her to what she does not choose." And taking a hasty leave, he ran down to the boat, loosened the rope and stood waiting for Laurella.--Again she bent her head to the hostess, and slowly approached the water, with lingering steps--she looked around on every side, as if in hopes of seeing some other passenger. But the marina was deserted. The fishermen were asleep, or rowing about the coast with rods or nets; a few women and children sat before their doors, spinning or sleeping--such strangers as had come over in the morning, were waiting for the cool of the evening to return. She had not time to look about her long; before she could prevent him, Antonio had seized her in his arms, and carried her to the boat, as if she had been an infant. He leapt in after her, and with a stroke or two of his oar, they were in deep water.
She had seated herself at the end of the boat, half turning her back to him, so that he could only see her profile. She wore a sterner look than ever, the low straight brow was shaded by her hair; the rounded lips were firmly closed; only the delicate nostril occasionally gave a wilful quiver. After they had gone on a while in silence, she began to feel the scorching of the sun; and unloosening her bundle, she threw the handkerchief over her head, and began to make her dinner of the bread; for in Capri she had eaten nothing.
Antonio did not stand this long; he fetched out a couple of the oranges, with which the baskets had been filled in the morning: "Here is something to eat to your bread, Laurella;" he said: "don't think I kept them for you; they had rolled out of the basket, and I only found them when I brought the baskets back to the boat."
"Eat them yourself; bread is enough for me."
"They are refreshing in this heat, and you have had to walk so far."
"They gave me a drink of water, and that refreshed me."
"As you please;" he said,--and let them drop into the basket
Silence again; the sea was smooth as glass. Not a ripple was heard against the prow. Even the white seabirds that roost among those caves, pursued their prey with soundless flight.
"You might take the oranges to your mother;" again commenced Tonino.
"We have oranges at home, and when they are done, I can go and buy some more."
"Nay, take these to her, and give them to her with my compliments."
"She does not know you."
"You could tell her who I am."
"I do not know you either."
It was not for the first time that she denied him thus. One Sunday of last year, when that painter had first come to Sorrento, Antonio had chanced to be playing Boccia with some other young fellows, in the little piazza by the chief street.
There, for the first time, had the painter caught sight of Laurella, who, with her pitcher on her head, had passed by without taking any notice of him. The Neapolitan, struck by her appearance, stood still and gazed after her, not heeding that he was standing in the very midst of the game, which, with two steps, he might have cleared. A very ungentle ball came knocking against his shins, as a reminder that this was not the spot to choose for meditation. He looked round, as if in expectation of some excuse. But the young boatman who had thrown the ball, stood silent among his friends, in an attitude of so much defiance, that the stranger had found it more advisable to go his ways, and avoid discussion. Still, this little encounter had been spoken of; particularly at the time when the painter had been pressing his suit to Laurella. "I do not even know him;" she had said, indignantly, when the painter asked her whether it was for the sake of that uncourteous lad, she now refused him? But she had heard that piece of gossip, and known Antonio well enough, when she had met him since.
And now they sat together in this boat, like two most deadly enemies, while their hearts were beating fit to kill them. Antonio's usually so good humoured face was heated scarlet; he struck the oars so sharply that the foam flew over to where Laurella sat; while his lips moved, as if muttering angry words. She pretended not to notice; wearing her most unconscious look, bending over the edge of the boat, and letting the cool water pass between her fingers. Then she threw off her handkerchief again, and began to smooth her hair, as though she had been alone. Only her eyebrows twitched, and she held up her wet hands in vain attempts to cool her burning cheeks.
Now they were well out into the open sea. The island was far behind, and the coast before them lay yet distant in the hot haze. Not a sail was within sight, far or near; not even a passing gull to break the stillness. Antonio looked all round; evidently ripening some hasty resolution. The colour faded suddenly from his cheek, and he dropped his oars. Laurella looked round involuntarily;--fearless,--but yet attentive.
"I must make an end of this;" the young fellow burst forth. "It has lasted too long already. I only wonder that it has not killed me!--you say you do not know me? And all this time, you must have seen me pass you like a madman, my whole heart full of what I had to tell you, and then you only made your crossest mouth, and turned your back upon me."
"What had I to say to you?" she curtly said. "I may have seen that you were inclined to meddle with me, but I do not choose to be on people's wicked tongues for nothing. I do not mean to have you for a husband. Neither you, nor any other."
"Nor any other? so will you not always say!--You say so now, because you would not have that painter. Bah! you were but a child! You will feel lonely enough yet, some day; and then, wild as you are, you will take the next best who comes to hand."
"Who knows? which of us can see the future? It may be that I change my mind. What is that to you?"
"What it is to me?" he flew out, starting to his feet, while the small boat leapt and danced; "what it is to me, you say? You know well enough! I tell you, that man shall perish miserably, to whom you shall prove kinder than you have been to me!"
"And to you, what did I ever promise?--Am I to blame, if you be mad?--What right have you to me?"
"Ah! I know," he cried, "my right is written nowhere. It has not been put in Latin by any lawyer, nor stamped with any seal. But this I feel; I have just the right to you, I have to Heaven, if I die an honest Christian. Do you think I could look on, and see you go to church with another man, and see the girls go by, and shrug their shoulders at me?"
"You can do as you please. I am not going to let myself be frightened by all those threats. I also mean to do as I please."
"You shall not say so long!" and his whole frame shook with passion. "I am not the man to let my whole life be spoiled by a stubborn wench like you! You are in my power here, remember, and may be made to do my bidding."
She could not repress a start, but her eyes flashed bravely on him.
"You may kill me, if you dare," she said slowly.
"I do nothing by halves," he said, and his voice sounded choked and hoarse. "There is room for us both in the sea; I cannot help thee, child,"--he spoke the last words dreamily, almost pitifully;--"but we must both go down together--both at once--and now!" he shouted, and snatched her in his arms. But at the same moment, he drew back his right hand; the blood gushed out;--she had bitten him fiercely.
"Ha! can I be made to do your bidding?" she cried, and thrust him from her, with one sudden movement; "am I here in your power?" and she leapt into the sea, and sank.
She rose again directly; her scanty skirts, clung close; her long hair, loosened by the waves, hung heavy about her neck, she struck out valiantly, and, without uttering a sound, she began to swim steadily from the boat towards the shore.
With senses maimed by sudden terror, he stood, with outstretched neck, looking after her; his eyes fixed, as though they had just been witness to a miracle. Then, giving himself a shake, he pounced upon his oars, and began rowing after her with all the strength he had, while all the time, the bottom of the boat was reddening fast, with the blood that kept streaming from his hand.
Rapidly as she swam, he was at her side in a moment. "For the love of our most Holy Virgin," he cried; "get into the boat!--I have been a madman! God alone can tell what so suddenly darkened my brain. It came upon me like a flash of lightning, and set me all on fire.--I knew not what I did or said. I do not even ask you to forgive me, Laurella, only to come into the boat again, and not to risk your life!"
She swam on, as though she had not heard him.
"You can never swim to land.--I tell you, it is two miles off.--Think upon your mother! If you should come to grief, I should die of horror."
She measured the distance with her eye, and then, without answering him one word, she swam up to the boat, and laid her hands upon the edge; he rose to help her in. As the boat tilted over to one side, with the young girl's weight, his jacket that was lying on the bench, slipped into the water. Agile as she was, she swung herself on board without assistance, and gained her former seat; as soon as he saw that she was safe, he took to his oars again, while she began quietly wringing out her dripping clothes, and shaking the water from her hair. As her eyes fell upon the bottom of the boat, and saw the blood, she gave a quick look at the hand, which held the oar as if it had been unhurt.
"Take this," she said; and held out her pocket-handkerchief. He shook his head, and went on rowing. After a time, she rose, and stepping up to him, she bound the handkerchief firmly round the wound, which was very deep. Then, heedless of his endeavours to prevent her, she took an oar, and seating herself opposite him, she began to row with steady strokes, keeping her eyes from looking towards him;--fixed upon the oar that was scarlet with his blood. Both were pale and silent; as they drew near land, such fishermen as they met began shouting after Antonio, and jibing at Laurella, but neither of them moved an eyelid, or spoke one word.
The sun stood yet high over Procida, when they, landed at the Marina. Laurella shook out her petticoat, now nearly dry, and jumped on shore. The old spinning woman, who, in the morning, had seen them start, was still upon her terrace. She called down: "what is that upon your hand, Tonino?--Jesus Christ!--the boat is full of blood!"
"It is nothing, Commare;" the young fellow replied. "I tore my hand against a nail that was sticking out too far, it will be well to-morrow. It is only this confounded ready blood of mine, that always makes a thing look worse than needful."
"Let me come and bind it up, Comparello; stop one moment, I will go and fetch the herbs, and come to you directly."
"Never trouble yourself, Commare. It has been dressed already, to-morrow morning it will be all over and forgotten. I have a healthy skin, that heals directly."
"Addio!" said Laurella, turning to the path that goes winding up the cliffs. "Good night!" he answered, without looking at her; and then taking his oars and baskets from the boat, and climbing up the small stone stairs, he went into his own hut.
He was alone in his two little rooms, and began to pace them up and down. Cooler than upon the dead calm sea, the breeze blew fresh through the small unglazed windows, which were only to be closed with wooden shutters. The solitude was soothing to him. He stopped before the little image of the Virgin, devoutly gazing upon the glory round the head (made of stars cut out in silver paper). But he did not want to pray. What reason had he to pray, now that he had lost all he had ever hoped for?
And this day appeared to last for ever. He did so long for night! for he was weary, and more exhausted by the loss of blood, than he would have cared to own. His hand was very sore: seating himself upon a little stool, he untied the handkerchief that bound it, the blood, so long repressed, gushed out again; all round the wound the hand was swollen high.
He washed it carefully; cooling it in the water; then he clearly saw the marks of Laurella's teeth.
"She was right," he said--"I was a brute and deserved no better. I will send her back the handkerchief by Giuseppe, to-morrow. Never shall she set eyes on me again."--And he washed the handkerchief with greatest care, and spread it out in the sun to dry.
And having bound up his hand again, as well as he could manage with his teeth and his left hand, he threw himself upon his bed, and closed his eyes.
He was soon waked up from a sort of slumber, by the rays of the bright moonlight, and also by the pain of his hand; he had just risen for more cold water to soothe its throbbings, when he heard the sound of some one at his door; "Who is there?" he cried, and went to open it: Laurella stood before him.
She came in without a question, took off the handkerchief she had tied over her head, and placed her little basket upon the table;--then she drew a deep breath.
"You are come to fetch your handkerchief," he said: "you need not have taken that trouble. In the morning, I would have asked Giuseppe to take it to you."
"It is not the handkerchief;" she said, quickly; "I have been up among the hills to gather herbs to stop the blood; see here." And she lifted the lid of her little basket.
"Too much trouble," he said not in bitterness;--"far too much trouble; I am better, much better; but if I were worse, it would be no more than I deserve. Why did you come at such a time? If anyone should see you?--You know how they talk! Even when they don't know what they are saying."
"I care for no one's talk;" she said, passionately: "I came to see your hand, and put the herbs upon it; you cannot do it with your left."
"It is not worth while, I tell you."
"Let me see it then, if I am to believe you."
She took his hand, that was not able to prevent her, and unbound the linen. When she saw the swelling, she shuddered, and gave a cry:--"Jesus Maria!"
"It is a little swollen," he said; "it will be over in four and twenty hours."
She shook her head. "It will certainly be a week, before you can go to sea."
"More likely a day or two, and if not, what matters?"
She had fetched a bason, and began carefully washing out the wound, which he suffered passively, like a child. She then laid on the healing leaves, which at once relieved the burning pain, and finally bound it up with the linen she had brought with her.
When it was done; "I thank you," he said; "and now, if you would do me one more kindness, forgive the madness that came over me; forget all I said, and did. I cannot tell how it came to pass, certainly it was not your fault; not yours. And never shall you hear from me again one word to vex you."
She interrupted him: "It is I who have to beg your pardon. I should have spoken differently. I might have explained it better, and not enraged you with my sullen ways. And now that bite!--"
"It was in self-defence--it was high time to bring me to my senses. As I said before, it is nothing at all to signify. Do not talk of being forgiven, you only did me good, and I thank you for it; and now,--here is your handkerchief; take it with you."
He held it to her, but yet she lingered; hesitated, and appeared to have some inward struggle--at length she said; "You have lost your jacket, and by my fault; and I know that all the money for the oranges was in it. I did not think of this till afterwards. I cannot replace it now, we have not so much at home;--or if we had, it would be mother's;--but this I have; this silver cross. That painter left it on the table, the day he came for the last time--I have never looked at it all this while, and do not care to keep it in my box; if you were to sell it? It must be worth a few piastres, mother says. It might make up the money you have lost; and if not quite, I could earn the rest by spinning at night, when mother is asleep."
"Nothing will make me take it;" he said shortly; pushing away the bright new cross, which she had taken from her pocket.
"You must," she said; "how can you tell how long your hand may keep you from your work? There it lies; and nothing can make me so much as look at it again."
"Drop it in the sea, then."
"It is no present I want to make you, it is no more than is your due, it is only fair."
"Nothing from you can be due to me, and hereafter when we chance to meet, if you would do me a kindness, I beg you not to look my way. It would make me feel you were thinking of what I have done. And now good night, and let this be the last word said."
She laid the handkerchief in the basket, and also the cross, and closed the lid. But when he looked into her face, he started;--great heavy drops were rolling down her cheeks; she let them flow unheeded.
"Maria Santissima!" he cried. "Are you ill?--You are trembling from head to foot!"
"It is nothing," she said; "I must go home;" and with unsteady steps she was moving to the door, when suddenly a passion of weeping overcame her, and leaning her brow against the wall, she fell into a fit of bitter sobbing. Before he could go to her, she turned upon him suddenly, and fell upon his neck.
"I cannot bear it," she cried, clinging to him as a dying thing to life--"I cannot bear it, I cannot let you speak so kindly, and bid me go, with all this on my conscience. Beat me! trample on me, curse me! Or if it can be that you love me still, after all I have done to you, take me and keep me, and do with me as you please; only do not send me so away!"--She could say no more for sobbing.
Speechless, he held her a while in his arms. "If I can love you still!" he cried at last. "Holy mother of God! Do you think that all my best heart's blood has gone from me, through that little wound? Don't you hear it hammering now, as though it would burst my breast, and go to you? But if you say this to try me, or because you pity me, I can forget it--you are not to think you owe me this, because you know what I have suffered for you."
"No!" she said very resolutely, looking up from his shoulder, into his face, with her tearful eyes; "it is because I love you;--and let me tell you, it was because I always feared to love you, that I was so cross. I will be so different now--I never could bear again to pass you in the street, without one look! And lest you should ever feel a doubt, I will kiss you, that you may say, 'she kissed me:' and Laurella kisses no man but her husband."
She kissed him thrice, and escaping from his arms: "And now good night, amor mio, cara vita mia!" she said. "Lie down to sleep, and let your hand get well. Do not come with me; I am afraid of no man, save of you alone."
And so she slipped out, and soon disappeared in the shadow of the wall.
He remained standing by the window; gazing far out over the calm sea, while all the stars in Heaven appeared to flit before his eyes.
The next time the little curato sat in his confessional, he sat smiling to himself: Laurella had just risen from her knees after a very long confession.
"Who would have thought it?" he said musingly; "that the Lord would so soon have taken pity upon that wayward little heart? And I had been reproaching myself, for not having adjured more sternly that ill demon of perversity. Our eyes are but shortsighted to see the ways of Heaven!"
"Well, may God bless her I say! and let me live to go to sea with Laurella's eldest born, rowing me in his father's place! Ah! well, indeed! L'Arrabiata!"
COUNT ERNEST'S HOME.
[COUNT ERNEST'S HOME.]
While I was at College, I chanced, one summer, to fall into habits of frequent and intimate intercourse with a young man, whose intellectual countenance and refinement of character never failed to exercise a winning influence, even upon the most cursory of his acquaintance.
I may call our connection intimate; for I was the only one of our student set, whom he ever asked to go and see him, or himself occasionally visited. But in our relations, there was nothing of that wild, exuberant, often obtrusive kind of fraternizing, affected by our studious youth. From that, we were as far, when we parted in the autumn, as we had been on our first walk by the Rhine; when the same road, and the same delight in the marvellous beauty of the spring scenery before us had first introduced us to each other's notice.
Even of his worldly circumstances, I had learned but little. I had heard that he came of an ancient and noble house;--that his boyhood had been passed at his father. Count ----'s castle, under the direction of a French tutor, with whom he had then been sent to travel; and finally, at his own express desire, to college. There, he had ascertained, what he had long suspected; viz.: that in each and every branch of regular instruction he was totally deficient--Upon which, straightway he shut himself up with books and private tutors;--suffered the tumult of loose Burschen-life to sweep by him, without once lifting his eyes from his task;--and by the time I knew him, he had got so far as to rise every morning with the Ethica of Aristotle, and to lie down, at night, with a chorus of Euripides.
Not a shade of pedantry;--not a taint of scholastic rust,--was left to clog the free play of his mind, at the close of all those years of sharp-set study.--Numbers of industrious people work, because they do not know how to live. But his life was in his work;--he took science in its plenitude, with all his faculties at once. He acknowledged no intellectual gain, that did not tend to elevate his character, or stood at variance with his mental instincts.
In this sense, his was, perhaps, the most ideal nature I ever knew; if the term be not abused, as it too often is, to mean a vapid kind of beauty worship, and a sentimental distaste for rough realities; but used in its loftier, and certainly far rarer sense: an ideal standard of human character, resolutely upheld, and steadily pursued; with undaunted spirit, if with moderate expectations; and at whatever sacrifice of present brilliance and success, a thorough contempt of cram, as well as of every other form of professional narrow mindedness.
It is quite conceivable therefore, that the coarser kind of student pleasures could not prove ensnaring to this young hermit, whose seclusion came to be interpreted as aristocratic prejudice, from which no man could be more free. Education may have done something to confirm his natural aversion to all that was coarse, excessive, or impure. But as his scrupulous personal cleanliness was innate, so also was his almost maidenly delicacy in matters of morality. Never have I met such firmness of resolve, never so much masculine energy of intellect, united to so girlish a reluctance to talk of love and love affairs. Consequently, he kept aloof from all those clamorous carouses, where, amidst the fumes of liquor and tobacco, liberty and patriotism, love and friendship, God and immortality, are in their turns, discussed on the same broad basis of easy joviality as the last ball, or the newest cut of College cap. Even in a tête à tête, where he could so eloquently hold forth on any scientific problem, he very rarely touched on questions dealing with the most private and personal interests of man. History, diplomacy, politics, or the classics, were subjects he would discuss with passionate eagerness. Then he could wax as warm and fluent in debate, as though he were addressing a listening nation he would have won to some great purpose. To things of common life, he rarely referred. Of his own family, I never heard him speak. His father, he mentioned only once.
One evening, when I went to ask him whether he would join me in a row upon the river;--in one of those excursions of which he was so fond, when we used to take a little boat to a tavern a mile or two below the town, and, after a frugal meal, to walk home by starlight;--I found him just as he had thrown aside his pen, and was struggling with the resolution necessary to dress for an evening party.
"Pity me!" he cried, as I came in; "only look at that magnificent sunset, and imagine that I am doomed to turn my back upon it, and to go where I shall see no other midnight splendour but that of the stars on dress-coats!"
And he mentioned one of the most distinguished houses in the town, where a party was to be given in honor of some passing diplomate.
"And must you?"--I asked, with sincerest sympathy. For all our intimacy, we had never come to saying thou.--
"I must," he sighed; "my father, who has set his heart on making a diplomate of me, whether I will or no, would be indignant if I were to go home without being able to inform him, whether the suppers at Baron N.'s are still such as to justify their European reputation. Hitherto, I have been so culpable as to ignore them, and now, at the last, I have to fill up these blanks in my course of study."
He saw me smile, and hastily added: "My father, you must know, has, if possible, a still more uncivil opinion than I have of the liveried nonentities that stop the way in that kind of society; only what he finds wanting in them, is not what I do.--He is of the old school; a diplomate of the Empire. He has seen the world in flames, and cannot forget the demoniac light by which he then saw all things, good and bad; fair and foul; high and low. Now the world is quiet, and regular enough; but sleepy, tame, and colorless. At least he thinks so. Still it is the world, and he who would rule in his generation, must make himself acquainted with his subjects. He gave me very few maxims to take away with me, when I came here; but this one, certainly with fifty variations, 'Read men more than books.'--'When I was at your age,' he used to say, 'books played a very subordinate part in the world. I have known many a clever man, who from the time he entered into society never read a line save the newest novel, or the latest war-bulletin, and never wrote a syllable, except in love-letters or dispatches. He had all the more time to act, or, if necessary, to think;--and when is it not necessary to think? But learning, book-learning! we never thought of such a thing, and yet, we knew everything, of course.--It was in the air; and where, now-a-days, you very soon get to the end of your Latin, our French took us a good way farther.'
"So I considered that as settled, and more than once I have girded up my loins, to go and read these men, and study them. But after the first few pages, I generally found out that their titles were the most important part about them. Either I am a stupid reader; (a 'kind reader', I know I am not!), or else the great world of the present day really is a most insipid study."
His carriage came to the door, and I went away, for I had often noticed that it embarrassed him, when any one was present while he was dressing.
At a later hour, as I chanced to pass the house where the aristocracy of ---- was to be assembled, I saw him getting out of the carriage; we exchanged a short look with a shade of irony; and then he went slowly up the carpetted steps, and I looked after him, while I felt proud of his knightly bearing, and of the grace of his stalwart figure.
He could be dangerous to womankind, as I had heard from several sources. They even told a story of a distinguished Englishwoman, who, after divers attempts to win him, attempts as fruitless as unequivocal, had at last gone off in rage and undisguised despair, after having wrung her parrot's neck, for screaming from the window, day and night, the name of the coy young count.
I was not able to learn more of this, nor of any other of his adventures; he carefully avoided any conversation about women; still, nothing he ever said could have led me to assume that he thought meanly of them, or that he was suffering from any hidden wound, of which he could not bear the probing.
Judging by the whole tenor of his conduct, I decided, that, striving as he did, at aims so serious, he found no time for trifling flirtations, and never had been touched by a deeper feeling. His mother had died very soon after the birth of her first-born son, but he would occasionally receive letters, addressed in a feminine hand, and he told me they came from an old nurse of his, who had been as a second mother to him. She was evidently very dear to him; but even of her he spoke but little; eager discussions upon his own studies, or on mine, were ever burning on his lips.
He was several years in advance of me, and when we parted in the autumn, he went to pass his diplomatic examination at Berlin. We bid each other a very affectionate farewell, without much hope of continuous intercourse;--we knew that what we had hitherto exchanged, no correspondence could have replaced. But we were young, and we parted in the confident hope that life and its chances must, in some way or other, bring us together again.
For many a long year, I heard nothing of him but his name; the last I learned was from a newspaper, which stated that Count Ernest ---- had been appointed secretary of Legation at Stockholm. Again a long time elapsed, without the smallest tidings of him, and I confess that his image had considerably faded in my memory, when it chanced, that, on a pedestrian tour, I suddenly lit upon his name, printed upon a road-post that pointed to a deep lane, all overgrown with brushwood, cutting at right angles the road which I had taken. I stopped, and, as if by a magician's wand, the country round me seemed metamorphosed.
Again the Rhine was rolling at my feet, and again I saw his straight lithe figure, as he walked along, holding his hat in his hand, and letting the fresh breeze from the current play among his luxuriant hair of reddish gold; and those fine eyes of his, so full of thought, gazing over the river towards the mountains, until my voice would rouse him from his musings. This visionary play of memory lasted but a moment, and then an incontrollable desire came over me to look upon that face once more, and abundantly to make up for what I had lost so long.
It was early in the afternoon; I hoped that I should not mistake the road, and never doubted but that at this autumn season, I should find my friend at home; he was an eager sportsman, and had spoken far oftener of the trees, than of the persons he had known from childhood.
I may have followed this ravine for about an hour, when it suddenly occurred to me as strange, that the road should be so neglected and overgrown; it was evident that no sort of carriage could possibly have passed this way for years. The foliage of past autumns lay mouldering in deep crevices;--here and there, a fragment of rock, or rotten branch, had been hurled from the edge by the winter storms; only in the firmest parts of the ground, were occasional tracks of human passage. I sent my doubts to sleep, with the supposition, that long before this, some other and more level road, must have been made between the castle and the plain. And yet, on entering the ravine, I had certainly ascertained that no nearer way was possible, from the little manufacturing town I had left behind. At the summit of the pass, where half a dozen neglected paths diverged, I stopped, in real perplexity. I climbed up a wide armed beech-tree, and looked all round me.
A deep circular hollow lay before me, almost like a lake, filled with lovely bright green waves of densest foliage. It was a vast forest of old beech-trees. Just in the centre rose the turrets of the castle, over which the wilderness seemed to close.
It was like a fairy tale, to see the spires and weather-cocks glittering in the bright autumn sun; as in those stories of sunken castles, which shew their pinnacles on some clear day, peeping from the hidden depths of water. There was not a sound of human life; the woodpecker tapped monotonously against the trees;--a careless deer ran past me, with more surprise than terror;--while swarms of audacious squirrels, among the branches, were aiming at the intruder, with the empty husks of beechnuts.
I was on the point of giving it up, when, with a sharper look at the enchanted castle, I saw a thin thread of smoke, to inform me that it could not exclusively be harbouring hobgoblins.
That the owner had not been here for ages, might, with some degree of certainty, be surmised; but some sort of castellan or game-keeper might be there, and from him, I hoped to hear some tidings of my friend and his welfare, and at least to spend a night in a home which he had loved with all his heart.
I took one of these downward paths at a venture, and soon plunged into the strangest, darkest night of wood that ever stirred above a wanderer's head.
And in the night come dreams;--and these soon wove a spell about me, and I quite forgot whence I had come, and whither I was going, and blindly left my legs to guide me, as they stepped uniformly on, until they came to an involuntary halt, at a broad stream, where not a trace of path could be discerned; the trees stood thick, interlacing their branches with the brushwood, and forming an impenetrable barrier. I immediately turned back, and walked steadily upwards, until a path to the right again seduced me; then I tried another downwards, went astray again, and so went wandering on for hours, making the whole round of the valley, without catching a single glimpse of the castle peeping through the thickets. The moon was already shining upon the tree tops, and I made up my mind to pass the night in the airiest of lodgings.
Suddenly, when I least expected it, the brushwood opened, and there, like an island in the midst of a lake of verdure, the old grey building stood square before me, with countless glassless windows, but without one trace of human habitation. A broad stone-bridge across the dried-up moat, reached right into the dark court, from which the three square wings of the building rose ponderous and unadorned. Not a balcony, nor jutting window, was there to relieve the stern monotony of the walls; nothing but a gigantic coat of arms hewn in stone above the gateway, in which I recognised the bearings of a well-remembered signet ring.
Nearer to the roof, the castle wore a gayer aspect the copper-plates about the gables shone mildly in the moonbeams, and the numerous chimney tops with weathercocks and flagstaffs, seemed all spangled over with silver. Nowhere a light; nor a window opened to the evening air; even the smoke I had seen upon the roof was gone.
As I stood upon the bridge, and looked upon the rank vegetation, which, struggling upwards, was choking up the moat; and then at the forest pressing onwards to the very threshold of the castle, the thought would force itself upon me, that in fifty years or so, all this vast work of human hands would be destroyed and overcome by the exuberance of nature; that these tall beeches would thrust their branches into the deserted halls; would take possession of the court, and sink their roots deep into the vaulted cellars; till, stone by stone, the whole fabric would give way, and again the forest reign alone.
I entered the court-yard; and where the long grass that grew in the chinks between the paving stones, muffled the echo of my steps, I began to be sensible of a strange sound, proceeding from a small building that had been patched on beside the bridge; at first, I took it for the jarring of a shutter shaken by the wind; and then I thought, that noise could only be produced by some vigorous deep-bass snoring. I saw a light at one small window, and stole up to it to peep in. In a low room, two men were seated at a table, with bottles and half emptied glasses before them, and a pack of cards. One of them, huddled into a corner, had fallen asleep. The other sat leaning on his elbows, staring into the light with sleepy swimming eyes, a short pipe between his teeth. Now and then, he caught a fly, and burned it at the candle, and hardly turned his head when he heard me at the window-pane.
"What's the matter now?"--he called, in a voice worn and hollowed out by drunkenness,--"bid the Mamsell[[1]] send our supper, the devil take her!"
Before I could speak, I heard another and a more gentle voice, calling to me across the court: "Who is there?--is a stranger there?" I turned, and at the chief entrance I saw a female figure standing, whom, by the huge bunch of keys she carried at her girdle, I could not err in taking for the housekeeper. She was dressed all in black; all but a tremendous cap, of which the broad bright ribbons fluttered oddly about her delicate faded face.
Taking off my hat to her, I enquired, as politely as I could, while I drew near, whether this really was the castle of Count Ernest ----, and despite the deserted look, whether he might not chance to be at home? I wished to be announced to him as an old friend, although, to be sure, we had not met for years.
The old lady stood looking at me for awhile, with a melancholy searching gaze, and then she said: "This certainly is the castle of the Counts of ----; but my master, whom you seek, you will not find. It is two years since Count Ernest took leave of this place for ever. Perhaps you are not aware that he is settled in Sweden? It is true," she added, after a pause, "the world is very different to these woods; things that will keep sounding in my ears all my lifetime, may be scarcely heard out there. But will you not come in? You cannot leave this place to-night, and you must be so kind as to put up with the little we have to offer. It used to be very different; in our hospitable days, guests used to be glad to stay a week. Since the castle has been kept in trust for the two little counts, all has gone to ruin. You have seen, yourself, Sir, the sinful way in which the Forester and Monsieur Pierre kill the time. They clean out nothing but the cellars; and when I say a word of what is needful to be done, the villains turn upon their heels, and I might as well have spoken to the walls. I myself am old, and my eyes get worse and worse, so that I can hardly see to cleanliness and order as I should do. But pray, come in, Sir, and take a bite of something, and talk to me of my dear Count Ernest, of whom now I can only talk to empty rooms and pictures. Your visit will be the greatest favor you can do me."
I still stood on the steps before the great arched door, and felt strangely moved. This old woman's thin quavering voice, and the weary blue eyes with which she looked so sadly on me, increased the dreariness of the place and sharpened the recollections that came crowding over me.
"You are Mamsell Flor," I said, at last; "from whom my friend used to get letters when he was at college; he appeared to be very much attached to you."
At these words her eyes overflowed at once. "Come," she said, and stretched out a slim withered hand; "I see you know me--we are old friends. I have been sadly wanting to see some kind and sympathizing face, once more before I die. It is a long while to have lived only among servants, for indeed I have been used to better company."
She led me across the dark entrance-hall, and through a vaulted passage to a great hall, dimly lighted by a few candles. Two farm-servants and a maid were seated at a heavy stone table, supping, who stared astonished, when they heard a strange voice wishing them good evening. My companion gave a few whispered orders to the maid, and turned to me again.
"The provisions we have in the house are but poor," she said; "everything we want has to be carried for miles through the woods; and I myself require so little. But for one night, Sir, you will not mind bad cookery. This hall, you see, was once a chapel, in old times, when the counts were Catholic; it was then left some time to dust and ruin, until at last Count Henry, our Count Ernest's father, had the altar, the benches, and the pictures taken away, and an eating room arranged. You can still see the niche for the choristers over there, where the floor is raised and boarded. That is the master's table, at which Count Henry used to sup all his life, with the officials about the place--the steward, the forester, and the castellan, (not Monsieur Pierre then), and the bailiff; and at this stone table I supped with the servants; we had crowds of them then. We never spoke a word, and the count seldom asked a question. When he had company staying with him, the table was laid upstairs in the great saloon, as it always was at dinner, when he dined with the countess. I will just light this candelabrum on the master's table; who knows whether I shall live to see it lighted again?"
She placed a heavy five-branched candelabrum of massive silver on the table, which she had laid with a snow-white damask cloth, and shortly after, a supper was served up, that might have been far more frugal still, to appear excellent after my long wanderings. Whilst I ate and drank, the old lady disappeared, and left me to my meditations. The men were already gone. I looked up into a twilight depth of desert space, broken by a few tall pointed windows, through which the moonbeams fell. The cross-vaults of the ceiling were supported by square pillars, fretted all over with antlers; and the same ornament was placed at regular intervals along the walls, with a small tablet under each, recording the date of the shot, and the name of the shooter. What changes had the world not seen, from the days when the first high mass was celebrated here, to the present evening, when a stranger sits alone at a deserted table, counting these dust-worn trophies! I took the candelabrum to light myself along while I went reading the names on the little tablets, reaching about two centuries back.
Counts, and princes, and princely prelates; even a few highborn dames had been pleased to immortalize their luck. Presently I came to a well-known name, beneath a stately antler of fourteen:
"On the 20th of September, Count Ernest shot this mighty stag, (who numbers as many antlers as the young count years,) in the glade by the deer's drought; Anno Domini 183--."
Heavy steps now came sounding along the passages, and two men made their boisterous entrance.
I immediately recognised the respectable pair of the watch-tower by the bridge. The farm-servants may have told them that there was a stranger in the house, and they had shaken themselves out of their drunken sleep, and come to assert their rights as guardians and watchmen. The castellan, Monsieur Pierre, blinking on me with his small yellow much inflamed eyes, measured me from head to foot, with a very comical combination of sleepiness and impudence. He stammered out a few words in a hoarse coarse voice, in very indifferent French, but he was soon talked down by his companion, who walked straight up to me, and in the most brutal tone of official zeal, enquired who I was, and what I wanted?
I drily answered, that I was a friend of Count Ernest's, and had come to see the castle. Upon which straightway a change came over the spirit of the pair. The castellan commenced a series of crouching cat-like obeisances, while the forester contrived to hit on the happiest transition from the most insolent aggressiveness to the respectful bluntness of the honest woodman. I perceived that I was taken for a far more important personage than I was--for an emissary--(no less!)--from the family, come to hold an impromptu inspection of the castle and its condition. The forester, officiously relieving me from the candlestick, forced me into a seat again, and sent a man to the cellar, for a bottle of the best and oldest; while, with a sly kick, or a smothered imprecation, he made an occasional attempt to awaken his drowsy colleague to the full gravity of the situation. However I did not care to be initiated into the details of the administration of woods and buildings, and I felt so much disgusted with the voluble servility of this precious pair of rogues, that I broke off suddenly, as soon as the old lady returned to the hall, and excusing myself with the natural fatigue of a pedestrian, I begged her to light me to my room.
She cast a look of meaning on the two, who were hardly to be prevented from following us upstairs.
"Did you see the face Monsieur Pierre made at me, sir? and how the forester took up his knife? Of course they are afraid that I should tell of them. Good Lord! as if one could not see with half an eye the state the place is in! I did once write about it to Sweden; but Sweden is a long way off; too long, it would appear, for things to be remedied in this castle. When one has seen it in better days, one feels the worm that eats through wood and silk, gnawing at one's very heart, Sir!"
"It is high to climb;" she apologised, as we came to the third steep flight of stairs, "but I thought I would put you here, as you might like to sleep in the rooms in which Count Ernest grew up to be the man he is, and which he always preferred to any others. And they are more comfortable too, for I look after them myself, and carefully dust out every corner. And to-morrow morning, when you awake, you can see his favorite tree by the window; it has grown up so high meanwhile, that by reaching out your hand you can lay hold of it. Ah, and well a day! when we live to be so old, we live to see many a young child, and many a young tree, grow up and reach to Heaven, and leave us wearily to climb after them!"
With these words, we came to the top, where a long low corridor ran past a range of garret rooms, hardly above man's height. A covey of newly fledged bats, scared by the light, were flapping about against the ceiling. "There must be a hole somewhere in the roof;" said the old lady looking up, with a shake of her head; "I have told the man to mend it ten times and more. But he always pretends he can find no hole, and thus it is with every thing."
She opened a door, and shewed me into a large low room, where a light was burning on a chiffonier, and where the atmosphere was purer and more lifelike than without.
"Here we are;" she said. "Here he lived until he went on his travels with Monsieur Leclerc, and then again before he went to college; and also the last time he was here. Everything is just as it used to be. That faded tapestry with the great hunting pieces may have faded a trifle more; and the writing-table there, with the brass mountings, by the window--the wood-worm is making sad havoc of it. Every time I come, I find above an inch of yellow dust to sweep away. That is his own pretty blue water-bottle; and the gilded glass was a present from his tutor. I worked that little rug before the bed, to give him when he was confirmed, and he never would allow it to be removed, long after the work was quite worn away. The bed is not his; I took his down stairs;" and, with a faint flush, that brought back a touching tint of youth to her refined old face, she added: "in that I sleep myself."
"Indeed, my dear Mamsell Flor," I said; "and he was worthy of being loved by a heart so faithful. He bore the stamp of his most ingenuous soul so clearly upon his noble brow, that even those who merely saw him pass, could not choose but believe all good of him. By the time I knew him he had become reserved; but what must he have been to you, who reared him from his birth, and were to him as a mother! What happened to make him give up this place, and leave a home for ever, that used to be so dear to him?"
She shook her head sadly, and sat down upon the sofa, as if the weight of all these rushing memories at once, were too heavy to be borne standing. She remained a while absorbed in thought; and then at last, taking an agate snuffbox from her pocket, she strengthened herself with a pinch, before she answered.
"It is a strange story, Sir, which nobody can tell so well as I can; and I may tell it now, that the grass is growing over many a younger head than this old foolish one of mine. It will be nine-and-forty years at Christmas, since I went up these stairs for the first time. I was the schoolmaster's daughter, a silly green young thing, and I thought I was being taken straight to Heaven, when our gracious Countess first took me into her service as a waiting maid. The young Count was not born then, nor ever likely to be: there was little love between my master and my mistress. To be sure my lady would always have been willing to worship him, for all he did to vex her. But they were an illmatched pair; and when Count Henry, who was almost always travelling about, came home in Autumn for the shooting-season, he managed to make his pretty patient wife still more unhappy than when he was away.
"I had not been two days in the castle, before I knew that my lady was suffering from some sore trouble; I used to find her pillow wet of mornings, and her eyes all swollen with crying.
"For you see, Sir, the count was a gentleman who had a quick temper and a wild way of his own, and the countess was meekness itself; she was too quiet for him, and he soon wearied of her.--I suppose he had only married her to please his father; some wilful, imperious, dark-eyed lady would have done better for him; some Frenchwoman, or Spaniard, such as often came to visit at the castle; who would have kept him at his wits' end, and made him hate her mortally to-day, and love her desperately to-morrow. He only loved what gave him trouble; he rode the wildest horses, and shot the biggest stags.
"Our countess loved him far too well, and that was her misfortune--and our young count was exactly like her, and that was his. Only she was small-made and delicate, and had a voice like the clearest bell. When at last, after many long years of waiting, she had hopes of being a mother, she looked like some fair angel; her joy was shining so peacefully in her eyes! And the count seemed kinder, and even stayed here all the summer, to be present at the baby's birth. When the nurse brought it to him, so small and weakly looking, with its little yellow down upon its head, he said nothing, but put it back into its cradle, and left the room without a word.
"I saw that my lady was deeply hurt, and I felt so angry, that I could not keep from saying, half to myself; 'Boys don't come into the world on horseback!' But I repented directly, for my lady heard me, and sent me out of the room. A week after this, she died.
"It was I who had to go and tell my master. He was sitting at the piano, which he played, oh, so beautifully! I could have listened to him for ever. It was early in the morning: he had watched through the night in my lady's ante-chamber, and as she seemed to be rather better, he had just gone upstairs; only instead of going to bed, he sat down to play, and, while he was playing, she died. He shut down the piano, without changing one feature of his face, and went down stairs to look at his dead wife with the same proud step he always had; and in the outer room, where our little master lay asleep in his cradle, he passed the poor babe as though it were only a dead image, as its poor mother was. When he came out again, he said to me:
"'A wet-nurse must be found,' he said; 'meantime, Flor, I give the child in charge to you. I hold you responsible for every proper care.--'
"And then he ordered his favorite horse, and rode away, and did not come home till evening.
"Three days after this, they buried our countess in the cemetery of the town. The count went with the funeral on horseback. And I could not help thinking--God forgive me!--there he goes, prancing away like any conqueror, with his poor victim carried after him for his triumph.
"When the ceremony was over, and all the servants were assembled, eating their funeral feast in silence, and I was alone upstairs, sitting by the little one's cradle, and crying while I was singing him to sleep, in comes my master, stares at the babe a while, and says:
"'They had to send the nurse away, I hear;--the child would not take to her at all?'--'No, Sir, he wouldn't.'
"'It will be hard to find another one to suit, in that little hole of a place. Do you think you could undertake to bring up the child yourself by hand, with milk and water, as they do in France? You are a person I can depend upon--I had rather leave the child to you, than to twenty wet-nurses.'
"I burst out crying, and took my master's hand and kissed it; for when he pleased, he had a way with him, and a voice, that could turn the heart of his bitterest enemies. 'It is well;' he said, and drew away his hand: 'I shall be some time away; you will write to me twice a year about the boy, and I shall give orders that no one shall interfere with you.' That same day he left the castle, and for many a long year we saw no more of him.
"I will not weary you, Sir, by telling everything--how my little master grew up to be a great boy;--although I remember it all as if it were only yesterday;--and many's the lonesome hour I spend thinking over the past, from the first tooth he cut, to the first bird he shot with his little gun. And when I watched him playing in the court with the dogs, or looked after him when he rode out on the bailiff's horse, every muscle as firm and supple as a steel spring, and then that sweet face of his, and that dear little voice--I used to wonder at his father, who could go wandering about in foreign parts, rather than see his child grow up. To be sure, the boy did not take after him at all, except in his love for horses, and field sports.--For the rest, he was just his mother over again, both in face and temper. And so, when his father came and saw him at ten years old, he frowned, and looked as coldly on him as on a stranger. At night my darling asked me: 'Is Papa always so grave-looking, Flor?' And of course, I could not tell him how it was.
"However, by-and-by, things began to mend. The Count came every autumn for the shooting season, and grew quite paternal with our boy;--kind or affectionate he never was. I cannot call to mind that he ever kissed him, or even so much as stroked his cheek.
"But he gave him, on his thirteenth birthday, a small dun pony, with a bushy mane like a thick clothes-brush, and a pretty saddle; and then Count Ernest was taken to ride out with his papa, away through the forests, for whole days, and often to pay visits in the neighbourhood, where the great folks were always pleased to see the boy. Nobody ever dared to say how like his mother he was, for that always vexed the count; in general the countess was never spoken of, and the full length picture of her was hung in a room that was never used. Only her son would go into it now and then; and loved it well!--He often made me talk about his mother. But do you know, Sir, even then he had the sense to see that it was wisest not to mention her to his father. He had found out that even Death had failed to make her dearer to him. And then, he may have seen that it was just the proudest and wildest among the beauties of the neighbourhood, (and there were several then) who attracted his father most. The count amused himself with them all, and was a very different man to what he was at home. And the boy could not make these doings suit with what he had heard of his mother.
"'Poor child!' I thought; 'Pray Heaven you may not get a stepmother who may suit your father better!'
"However, that did not seem to be so likely, and by-and-by, it came to be rumoured, that the count never intended to marry again at all. He had his loves in Paris, where he always spent the winter, and would not give them up. Of course, Count Ernest never heard a word of this; he was as innocent as any girl could be; and not even that horrid creature, Monsieur Pierre,--who was then the count's own man, and used to think it a good joke to make an honest woman blush by his loose talk,--even he would affect propriety before the boy.
"A sly fox he was, and knew how to accommodate himself to every one. For the rest, he was a country lad from these parts, and his name was Peter; but after he had been to Paris we never ventured to hint at that. He went every where with the count, and was indispensable to him--He was terribly afraid of him, and worshipped him as a god;--but he robbed him always.
"And now just fancy, Sir!--when our young master was about twelve years old, the count had almost determined on giving him this wretch as a sort of tutor, and asked me what I thought of it? The boy must first learn French, he said, before he began his other studies. I felt as shocked as though he had thought of poisoning the child; and so I took heart and spoke up, and told my master plainly what I thought of Monsieur Pierre, and I said I had rather lose my place than stay to see such disgraceful doings.
"The count let me have my say, and was not a bit angry. He only motioned me to go, and never said another word about the matter. But when he came home in the following September, he brought a stranger with him, whom he presented to us as our young master's tutor. We called him Mr. Leclerc, though that was not his real name; he was a nobleman in needy circumstances, who had been glad to find a decent living--otherwise a harmless gentleman enough, who, to the very last day of his life, never could learn one word of German, so that we, all of us, soon picked up enough French to speak it fairly.--
"He had some little talents, which he used to teach the young count; such as, dancing, fencing, and playing the flute; and then they read some books together; but Master Ernest once told me with a laugh, that before they had read three pages, Monsieur Leclerc would fall asleep, and leave him to read, on to himself till the great clock struck, when he would wake up with a start, and shake the powder from his sleeve, which he had sprinkled over with it while he was nodding, and say; 'Eh! bien, c'est ça!' and then he would fall asleep again. One thing he used to be very busy with; and that was a knack he had, of modelling little figures in pink wax; and he would paint them and varnish them so prettily that they really looked like life--little marquises and viscounts. He had a whole court of them, and would make them dance menuets, while a sweet little queen was sitting on a throne, looking on. Afterwards I heard from Count Ernest that he had taken into his head that Marie Antoinette had been in love with him; he was as old as that, although he used to go tripping about like any dancing master.
"But here I am, running on, sir, telling you all this nonsense, and you wanting to go to sleep!--Yes, when once I begin, I can find no end; and indeed there is not a chair in the castle but could tell ever so long a story of its own.
"Just there, where you are sitting now, sir, I stood one morning, and Master Ernest was sitting here on this very sofa; he had been at a ball for the first time. It had been given at X by the small officials and chief burghers. He was just sixteen--and quite grown up, although he was slighter than when you knew him. 'Well Count Ernest,' I said; 'and how did you like it? Were there any pretty girls? And whom did you dance with? And who got your posy at the cotillion?'
"'Flor;' he said; he always called me Flor, and I was also the only person, until he married, to whom he ever used the 'thou'--'Flor, it was all very pleasant; and one there was most pleasant--'
"His eyes were sparkling, and he looked at me in a kind of shy pretty way I had never seen in him before--he even blushed a little.
"'Come come;' I said, 'Master Ernest, you make me curious--was it one of the young ladies who had been invited, or one of the townspeople's daughters?'
"'I am not going to betray myself any farther, Flor;' he said; 'but she was very pretty and very wise, and talked so pleasantly, I only wish we were going to have another ball to-night!'
"'Why, that sounds quite alarming, Master Ernest,' I said, and laughed--'to stay up all night dancing and go riding all the morning, and then to want more dancing! Our gracious count will be quite pleased! And is this really to be your last word, and all your faithful Flor is to be allowed to hear?'
"'My very last word, Flor; it is my own secret, and I mean to keep it.'
"'I must get hold of Mr. Leclerc, then;' I said, he will be able to tell me who you danced with oftenest.'
"'Try him, Flor:' cried the naughty boy; and laughed; 'all my partners were the same to him; only--"jeunes Allemandes, jolies bourgeoises!"--he looked after my pas, and never minded where my eyes went; besides, he played écarté all the evening with the director of the saltworks. Ah! Flor, I never thought there could be such sweet eyes in the world; I used to think that your two were the sweetest!'
"You see, sir, this was what I got for all my pains and my anxiety!
"But this merry mood of his did not last. Next day he grew quiet and thoughtful, avoided all my questions, and shut himself up in his room at an unusually early hour; and then I heard him playing the flute for ever so long after. He could not get this girl out of his head--I saw that. At first he had felt no more than a pleasant smart, as it were, and could joke about it; but the fever followed. He could not hold out four-and-twenty hours, but he ordered his horse and rode out alone, returning at night quite cast down. It was plain that he had not seen his flame, and had been too shy to find her out and pay her a visit. And so he rode to X several times over, with more or less good luck. One night, when his heart was full, he could not refrain from telling me his adventure, as I was lighting him upstairs to bed. His face was radiant; but Good Lord! to any other man, it would not have been worth the telling; Count Henry would only have said, 'Pshaw!'--but to him it was a rare delight. Just at the gates he had met her, out walking with two of her young companions, and all three of them had roses in their hands. Just as he rode by, and bowed, his horse had given a jump, and the young lady had been so startled that she dropped a rose: 'I saw it,' said Master Ernest, 'and in a moment I was out of my saddle, and had picked it up and given it her; and she thanked me very kindly, and walked away towards the woods.'"
"'And you rode on, and the lady did not even give you a rose for your reward? Any other man would have picked up the flower, and stuck it in his buttonhole, and galloped off in triumph.'
"He looked at me, and seemed quite struck; 'Flor,' says he; 'I do believe you know more of these things than I, although you are a woman.'
"'More likely, because I am a woman. Master Ernest,' I said. 'Well, well, I see, the young lady is badly off for mother-wit, or else she can't abide you.'
"Of course I was only joking; for how could I think the girl existed who would not like him? But for all that, it made him silent, and I saw that he really thought she did dislike him.
"Only once again did he ride over to X, and after that he stayed at home, and was quite downhearted; he spoke to nobody, but sat in his room writing--verses, as I believe,--and played the flute, and pined away so, that when Count Henry came back, he was quite angry about his looks, and scolded him, and told him he did not take exercise enough, and he asked me if Count Ernest had been ailing? That he had a heartache I did not like to say--he never would have forgiven me, and Count Henry would have laughed. At last it was decided that our young count was to travel for a time with Mr. Leclerc, and both of them seemed to like the plan. 'Flor,' said my boy, 'it is well that I leave this place. Life is become wearisome to me.'
"'God bless you, my dearest boy,' I said; 'the world is so beautiful, they say, that I suppose one can't long be sad in travelling.'
"He looked at me with an unbelieving smile; but afterwards he wrote to me from Vienna, that he was well, and often thought of me. God knows! I thought of him, day and night.
"I did not get a sight of him again for three long years, and when he wrote to me from the great cities where he went to court, among all the fine folks--he will get properly spoiled, I thought, as befits his rank. I shall not know him again. But just the contrary; when he came back at last in his twentieth year, without Mr. Leclerc, who had died in Russia of the climate, the very first word he spoke: 'Flor,' says he, 'and how is Miss Mimi?'--That was a cat I had, Sir, of whom he used to be almost jealous, as a child.
"'Returns thanks for kind enquiries. Master Ernest,' I said; 'she has just kittened, and will be delighted, as we all are, to see your honour back again.'