Quisisana, or Rest at Last Part 31

Whilst the young man was relating this in his wonted vivacious style, and whilst Otto briefly explained how Bertram and he had been detained upon the road, they reached the end of the cutting, and had come to the place where Otto's carriage was waiting.

"How right we were to divide," said Herr von Busche. "The escort of the wounded man would have been really too numerous. As it is, it will cause a certain amount of sensation, although fortunately it will not have to leave the wood till it is close to Rinstedt."

"It might be as well to divide once more," said Alexandra. "I feel, to say the truth, somewhat shaken, and would like to await in town news about the sufferer; for his state inspires me with no alarm now, and I am expected to appear at Court to-night. I know you will very kindly let me use your carriage, and mount Lieutenant Ringberg's horse instead. You will be glad to get home as speedily as possible, although we sent word to your wife so as to prepare her."

"But," remonstrated Otto, "most gracious Princess, you cannot go alone...."

"I hope the Herr Doctor will be so good as to accompany me."

Alexandra turned, as she spoke, to Bertram who was standing silent, evidently in deep thought, and who had scarcely joined in the previous conversation. Now he looked up, and their eyes met.

"I was just going to request that honour," he said.

Otto looked amazed, but ventured upon no remonstrance. A shrug of the shoulder behind Alexandra's back, seemed to imply that he considered Bertram the lamentable victim of a lady's caprice. He instructed the coachman to regain as quickly as possible the high-road, which was now likely to be clear of troops, for this would enable the Princess to be driven with greater ease and quickness. He pointed out to her that there were plenty of wrappers in the carriage, and begged her to make use of them in the cool of the evening. The Princess thanked him for his attentions, and added that she would not fail to inquire personally at Rinstedt on the following day.

"And you too, of course, Charles," said Otto.

Bertram nodded--

"Then I will not detain you any longer."'

They shook hands; the gentlemen mounted their horses and galloped away, followed by the grooms, and the carriage set off more slowly in the opposite direction.

XXVI.

For a little while Alexandra and Bertram sat silently side by side; then Alexandra said--

"We are at one in the conviction that it will be in the interest of our _proteges_ if we vanish from the scene?"

"Absolutely," replied Bertram. "I suffer acutely already, and recognise the outrage that man is guilty of who would play Providence for others."

"In that case I should have been guilty too," said Alexandra, "but I am by no means dissatisfied with myself; on the contrary, I believe it is good that things have happened thus; it was necessary. And when you know all, you will admit that I am right. You must know it, for the sake of the future, which will still claim much from us. Listen in patience.

"I have rigidly adhered to your advice. I announced my departure for noon to-day; my maid was despatched with the luggage a little before ten; our host insisted upon escorting me in person to the town. Then I went to see Erna. We had a memorable conversation which I cannot reproduce to you in all its details, but the result was that Erna no longer doubted the sincerity of my desire for her happiness; but her pride revolted against receiving this happiness at my hands, or, if that be saying too much, she had the painful impression that her happiness could only be brought about at the cost of my own, in other words, that I was still in love with Kurt, and that my marriage to Herr von Waldor, which I announced to her as impending, was an act of resignation, if not of despair. Of course she did not give utterance to all this, nor did she even hint at it; these things one simply feels.

And there was another thing that came between her and the prospect of calm happiness by Kurt's side. Dear friend, do not deny it any longer--not to me, even if to all the world besides--you are in love with Erna! Thank you for this pressure of the hand. It does not reveal a secret to me, and yet I thank you for it with all my heart. You owed me this satisfaction, as I have told you Claudine's story; and even as Claudine's story is buried in your bosom, so the story of a n.o.ble human heart shall be buried in mine."

Alexandra withdrew her hand with a cordial pressure from Bertram's.

They were both too much moved to be able to speak for some time. At last Bertram said--

"And does Erna believe me to be in love with her, after all I have done to shake her conviction?"

"I should not a.s.sert that her faith has not been shaken," Alexandra replied, "but she was still under the sway of that intuitive feeling which guides us women wellnigh always aright, and which in her case betrayed itself in a hundred turns, every one of which had for its object your future welfare and happiness. And then, my friend, you did at last the very opposite of what you should have done to calm Erna, and to brighten her future. You may thank Heaven that Erna does not divine the real motive which influenced you; that between the two duels she sees a sort of mechanical connection of time and place, if I may say so, and not the real one. But for all that, if you had fallen in this duel, Erna would never have consented to an alliance with Kurt, and she would never in her heart have forgiven him for not being the first on the ground. Whether it was within the limits of possibility to have forestalled you, the woman's heart does not stop to inquire. The loved one must be not only the best and n.o.blest and bravest of men, but the cleverest too; how he sets about it is his own concern! Dozens of duels have been fought in my immediate neighbourhood, and, I am sorry to say, I have been the direct cause more than once, so I had no difficulty in understanding the whole business. That old chatterbox, the ranger, was relating the circ.u.mstances to us at breakfast; I then sent for your servant, and, examining him, found out that you had held a long conversation with Kurt, which had been preceded by negotiations between Kurt and Herr von Busche; and last of all came that crackbrained person Fraulein von Aschhof, and confessed her horribly indiscreet statement to the Baron, and your remark, my friend, that you would try to settle the matter. I saw it all as clearly as though it had been acted before me. Then I knew, too, what I should have to do.

Again I sought Erna, and told her that your life and Kurt's honour were both at stake; of course I took care to represent matters in such a way that the idea could not well occur to her of your having wished to sacrifice yourself directly for Kurt. She spurned with contumely the idea that Kurt had only pretended not to hear the Baron's insulting remarks; no need for me to tell her, she said, that Kurt must be instantly informed of it. I am convinced that she felt that her fate was about to be decided, that now once more she became fully and thoroughly conscious of her love for Kurt. The great, strong, energetic nature of the glorious girl shone forth in mighty radiance. I could have knelt at her feet and wors.h.i.+pped her! I may say that I forgot completely my own self, forgot that he for whom this pa.s.sion was flaming heaven-high had been the object of my own mad love. I even concealed what I knew--that I had distinctly recognised the Baron, when I saw him at the card-table last night, as the man who also, at a card-table, had cheated my mother out of a hundred thousand francs--that the Baron was not a fit man for an officer and a gentleman to fight. I dreaded lest that objection should destroy what I saw coming. How we hurried all over the ground in search of Kurt; how we came upon his regiment when he had just ridden off; how a surgeon's a.s.sistant who had been sent back to fetch some forgotten bandages or instruments helped us to find his track; how we followed up that track at the utmost speed of which our horses were capable; how we reached the goal just in time to see Kurt fall, whilst his miserable opponent flung the pistol to the ground and fled when he beheld me--all this you know, or may easily picture for yourself. But I picture to myself how Erna will now be leading her love to her parental abode, to keep and to hold him there for her very own;--for what is more, what becomes more a woman's very own than the man whom she loves, if she has to tend him and wrestle with death for his possession;--and I picture to myself how now only she recognises with a shudder what a lordly treasure she had all but forfeited through exaggerated pride and obstinacy; and I think of, all the wealth of love and bliss which is in store for them both!

And then I look at us both, at us who have opened for them the gates of their paradise driving away into darkness like two exiles; and I ask you, friend, have we really need to be ashamed of the part which we have played? Or, rather, are we not fully and fairly ent.i.tled to rejoice in our success and to be proud of it? Yes, friend, we must be glad, we must be proud. Where else shall we, who are sick unto death, gain the strength to get well again? For we must not, dare not die; but we must live and be happy, to prove to those two that they may be happy on our account. I, my friend, mean to live on; I will and shall recover. I shall appear at Court to-night, and be beautiful and witty if I can, or at least serene and in good-humour. And not to-day alone, but to-morrow too, and every day, and most so by Waldor's side, for he very surely does not marry the Princess Alexandra for the sake of getting a moody, melancholy wife. Some secret corner somewhere will surely be found where now and again one may weep in peace, and let the grievous wound bleed. And you, dear friend? What shall you do? How will you set about recovering? I should not have an hour's quiet if I had to think you could not. Give me your word that you will recover, give me your hand on it."

Bertram's answer did not come at once. He raised his eyes and saw the beacon-fees blazing on the mountain tops and far away in the plains. He heard the calls of the patrols, the neighing of many horses, the talk and laughter of the men round the bivouac-fires, the dull thud of marching columns. It was but a mimic warfare, but it spoke to him of a true and earnest fight in which he was called upon to take his place in the ranks as a good and true soldier, to do his duty as long as strength was granted him--it might be for years, or for a few days only. And he held out his hand to Alexandra, and said--

"Whether I shall recover, I know not. But I swear to you that I will try!"

XXVII.

"Then you insist upon joining in to-morrow's debate?" the doctor was saying.

"I flatter myself that it is necessary!" replied Bertram.

"As a political partisan I admit it; as your medical adviser I repeat, it is impossible."

"Come, my good friend, you said just now, it is undesirable; now, from that to impossible is rather a bold step. We had better stick to the first statement."

The doctor, who had taken up his hat and stick a few minutes before, laid both down again, pushed Bertram into the chair before his writing-table, sat down again facing him, and said--

"Judging from your momentary condition it is merely desirable that you should have at present absolute repose for at least a few days. But I very much fear that to-morrow's inevitable excitement will make you worse, and then the downright necessity for rest will arise, and that not only for a few days. Let me speak quite frankly, Bertram. I know that I shall not frighten you, although I should rather like to do so.

You are causing me real anxiety. I greatly regret that I kept you last autumn from your projected Italian trip, and that I pushed and urged you into the fatigues of an election campaign and into the hara.s.sing anxieties of parliamentary life. I a.s.sumed that this energetic activity would contribute to your complete restoration to health, and I find that I made a grievous mistake. And yet I am not aware where exactly the mistake was made. You mastered your parliamentary duties with such perfect ease, you entered the arena so well prepared and armed from top to toe, you used your weapons with all the skill of a past master, and you were borne along by such an ample measure of success--and that of course has its great value. Well, according to all human understanding and experience, the splendid and relatively easy discharge of duties for which you are so eminently fitted, should contribute to your well-being, and yet the very opposite is occurring. In spite of all my cogitations I can find but one theory to account for it. In spite of the admirable equanimity which you always preserve, in spite of the undimmed serenity of your disposition and appearance, by which you charm your friends, whilst you frequently disarm your foes, there must be a hidden something in your soul that gnaws away at your vitals, a deep, dark under-current of grief and pain. Am I right? You know that I am not asking the question from idle curiosity."

"I know it," replied Bertram; "and therefore I answer: you are right and yet not right, or right only if you hold me responsible for the effect of a cause I was guiltless of."

"You answer in enigmas, my friend."

"Let me try a metaphor. Say, somebody is compelled to live in a house, in which the architect made some grave mistake at the laying of the foundations, or at some important period or other of its erection. The tenant is a quiet, steady man, who keeps the house in good order; then comes a storm, and the ill-constructed building is terribly shaken and strained. The steady-going tenant repairs the damage as best he can, and things go on fairly enough for a time, a long time, until there comes another and a worse storm, which makes the whole house topple together over his head."

The doctor's dark eyes had been dwelling searchingly and sympathisingly upon the speaker. Now he said--

"I think I understand your metaphor. Of course, it only meets a portion of the case. I happen to know the house in question extremely well.

True there was one weak point in it from the beginning, in spite of its general excellent construction, but ..."

"But me no buts," interrupted Bertram eagerly. "Given the one weak point, and all the rest naturally follows. I surely need not point out to such a faithful disciple of Spinoza's, that thought and expansion are but attributes of one and the same substance, that there is no physiological case that does not, rightly viewed, turn to a psychological one; that so excitable a heart as mine must needs be impressed by things more than other hearts whose bands do not snap, happen what may, and notwithstanding all the storms of Fate. Or are you not sure that, if you had had to examine the hearts of Werther or of Eduard in the 'Elective Affinities,' you would have found things undreamed of by aeesthetic philosophers? I belong to the same race. I neither glory in this, nor do I blush for it; I simply state a fact, a fact which embodies my fate, before whose power I bow, or rather whose power bows me down in spite of my resistance. For, however much I may by disposition belong to the last century, yet I am also a citizen of our own time; nor can I be deaf to its bidding. I know full well that modern man can no longer live and die exclusively for his private joys and sorrows; I know full well that I have a fatherland whose fame, honour, and greatness I am bound to hold sacred, and to which I am indebted as long as a breath stirs within me. I know it, and I believe that I have proved it according to my strength, both formerly and again now, when ..."

He covered forehead and eyes with his hands, and so sat for a while in deep emotion, which his medical friend respected by keeping perfectly silent. Then, looking up again, Bertram went on in a hushed voice--

"My friend, that last storm was very, very strong. It shook the feeble building to its very foundation. What is now causing your anxiety is indeed but a consequence of that awful tempest. The terribly entrancing details no one as yet knows except one woman, whom an almost identical fate made my confidante, and who will keep my secret absolutely. So would you, I know. You have been before this my counsellor and my father-confessor. And so you will be another time, perhaps, if you desire it and deem it necessary.--To-day only this one remark more, for your own satisfaction; for I read in your grave countenance the same momentous question which my confidante put to me: Whether I am willing to recover? I answered to the best of my knowledge and belief: Yes! I consider it my duty to be willing. It is a duty simply towards my electors, who have not honoured me with their votes that I may lie me down and die of an unhappy and unrequited attachment. If the latter does happen--I mean my dying--you will bear witness that it was done against my will, solely in consequence of that mistake in the original construction which the architect was guilty of. But, in order that it may not happen, or may at least not happen so soon, you, my friend, must allow me to do the very thing which you have forbidden. The dream I dreamed was infinitely beautiful, and, to speak quite frankly, real life seems barren and dreary in comparison with it. The contrast is too great, and I can only efface it somewhat by mixing with the insipid food a strong spice of excitement, such as our parliamentary kitchen is just now supplying in the best quality, and of which our head-cook is sure to give us an extra dose to-morrow. And, therefore, I must be in my place at the table tomorrow and make my dinner-speech. _Quod erat demonstrandum_."

He held out his hand with a smile. His friend smiled too. It was a very melancholy smile, and vanished again forthwith.

"What a pity," he said, "that the cleverest patients are the most intractable. But I have vowed I will never have a clever one again, after you."

"In truth," replied Bertram, "I am giving you far too much trouble. In your great kindness and friends.h.i.+p you come to me almost in the middle of the night, when you ought to be resting from your day's heavy toil; you come of your own accord, simply impelled by a faithful care for my well-being; and, finally, you have to return with ingrat.i.tude and disobedience for your reward. Well, well--let us hope for better things, and let me have the pleasure of seeing you again to-morrow."

Konski came in with a candle to show the doctor the way down, for the lights in the house had long since been extinguished. The gentlemen were once more shaking hands, and the physician slipped his on to Bertram's wrist Then he shook his head.