The Undying Past Part 80

Again he had to struggle with a feeling of disgust; but with a quiet determination, characteristic of his methodical nature, he adhered to his purpose of giving her an account of Paul's last hours.

"Our feelings ought not to make cowards of us, Lizzie," he said. "I know you must have suffered much. I should have known it, even if you had not told me. But it is in vain to try and spare yourself this. Our thoughts will always be returning to it, and not till you have drunk your cup of sorrow to the dregs can you hope to get any truly refres.h.i.+ng rest."

"Very well, speak, then," she said, cowering together, as if resigning herself to her fate. "Tell me what you like."

But when he saw the terror with which she contemplated hearing his story, the words froze on his lips, and he felt as if he could never impart to her the painful and sacred impressions that were so fresh in his memory. He had expected that she would have drunk in all with pa.s.sionate eagerness, and would have questioned him about every minute that he had pa.s.sed by Paul's deathbed, till she was in complete possession of the whole scene. Instead, she shrank from it, in a vulgar fear of her nerves being upset.

Unmotherly, almost inhuman, did her conduct appear. Now, he felt that to speak of the child's quiet, pathetic death to the mother, would be profanation. Though there had been no tie of blood between them, he had belonged to him in life and in death. This woman from whose womb he had sprung, this smiling, frightened woman, who only thought of her own discomfort, and wished to be pitied for herself, had become a stranger--a stranger to her child, and a stranger to him. He saw, with horror, the gulf that she set between him and her, which no seductive charm, no flattering little speeches, could ever bridge again.

"Perhaps you are right, Felicitas," he said coldly. "We will leave it for the present; it may be too sad a subject and too exciting for you."

"Ah, how good you are!" she whispered gratefully; "you can feel for your poor, heart-broken wife."

And as she had often done when she wanted to bewitch him with a cheap endearment, she stretched over to him and pillowed her head against his arm, looking into his face with ecstatically uplifted eyes.

He submitted pa.s.sively, and glanced down in cold astonishment on the pale, pretty features on which an almost coquettish smile was now playing. In a flash he seemed to see through the thousand machinations with which, for years, she had chained him to her chariot-wheel: the allurements with which she had awakened desires within him without any intention of satisfying them, and the extravagant caprices, obeying which had weakened his will and degraded his intellect. The whole tissue, woven of laughing selfishness and self-seeking affability and mock _navete_, now fell away, showing the being he had humbly wors.h.i.+pped in her naked unreality and insincerity.

He could not guess that all she said and did at the moment was a kind of veiled apology, for in her mania to excuse her past faults she had revealed herself to him in her true colours. He saw all that was hollow and vain and false in her, without understanding why she prevaricated and lied. They sat on together for another hour. The table was cleared, but the spirit-lamp still hummed. The antique Dutch clock in the corner kept up its solemn and deliberate tick. Now and then a shower of snow-flakes whirled against the window and the sashes rattled gently. A profound, dreamful peace seemed to have descended on the apartment, a peace well ordained to bring healing to two wounded hearts.

Felicitas, all unsuspecting, yet inwardly anxious, continued to make herself charming and amiable. She spoke of the sympathy shown her by friends and neighbours, the countless letters of condolence which she had received, the many callers she had refused to see. She even made plans for the future, and promised all sorts of wonderful things to comfort and distract him. He listened with grave courteous attention; and in every word he found confirmation of his new reading of her character. His eyes wandered round the room. He saw the lights and shadows dancing on the walls; the dear old objects amidst which he had been brought up, which he would have bequeathed to his step-son; so soon as he could have legally adopted him. He listened to the ticking of the clock and all the familiar sounds which in peaceful evening hours are the music of happy homes.

But now everything seemed different, everything was strange, unreal, almost disquieting.

"Away!" a voice cried within him. "Flee from this house which is no longer yours." And when the watchmen whistled outside the hour of ten, he rose. His torture had lasted long enough. She offered her forehead to be kissed with a weary sigh, but he bowed low and kissed her hand instead.

"And you really aren't angry with me?" she asked in a whisper, her conscience stirring again.

He shook his head, smiling. The scorn which had taken possession of his soul made him composed and frigid. He left her, and as the door closed behind him she threw up her hands and exclaimed--

"Thank G.o.d!"

The next morning Ulrich explained to his wife that urgent business called him to Konigsberg, where the committee for the Agricultural Exhibition was holding its meetings, and it was uncertain whether he would return to Uhlenfelde before the opening of the Reichstag.

Felicitas was at first a little taken aback, then readily acquiesced.

The parting of husband and wife was friendly but undemonstrative.

Felicitas indeed regarded the separation so much in the light of a deliverance that she forgot to act a part.

When the sleigh reached the top of the d.y.k.e, Ulrich halted, and took a long look across at Halewitz, whose h.o.a.ry old castle seemed to nod a greeting at him amidst its snow-covered barns and out-buildings. Though his heart cried out for his friend, he was afraid to meet him, afraid that if he did the last precious thing left to him on earth might slip through his fingers.

x.x.xV

In these days Leo became an _habitue_ of the Prussian Crown. He was received there with open arms by a jovial company, according to whose standard he was a thoroughly "decent chap," being capable of drinking as hard as most.

The handful of Uhlan officers could talk big, but when it came to putting their prowess to the test by a genuine prolonged carousal, they could not be depended on, and dropped out of the ranks before the struggle had really half begun. The truth was that the colonel in command had strict orders to guard against any excesses, lest the demoralising civilian influence should bring the mixed garrison into disrepute.

The citizens were, on the whole, a famous crew, and as often in debt and in drink as befitted old corps students. One, it was true, held himself aloof, because he was a Jew and feared baiting. But his place was filled by a newspaper reporter, likewise a Jew, who adopted opposite tactics, and, with the plasticity of his race, had become the most convivial of the party and the wildest of a wild lot.

The circle was sometimes joined by a couple of landed proprietors, unable to put in a regular appearance owing to their wives and the distance of their homes, and whose presence, when they did come to drink away dull hours, added to the gaiety of the topers.

As beer and red wine were considered little stronger than innocent ditch-water, a particularly piquant kind of punch was the beverage chosen, by means of which the object desired was most quickly accomplished. This was an appalling mixture of cognac and port-wine, with sugar added, and it was carried to the table piping hot. The man had never been met with yet who could hold out against the peculiar effects of this devilish concoction. And every time that the punch was brewing on the kitchen fire, the waiters and ostlers received orders to hold themselves in readiness to act the part of good Samaritan to the guests.

Nevertheless, the milieu of the Prussian Crown was a little too steady and staid for some tastes. Certain respectable worthies came there to read the newspapers, have a game of cribbage or chess, and their request for quiet had perforce to be regarded.

Another drawback was the lack of female society. At other resorts in Munsterberg, where the more plebeian revellers sought their distractions with indifferent beer and good grog, were to be found ladies with whom one could chat behind the bar.

At Engelmann's, for instance, was the barmaid known as the fair Ida; and Gretchen, nicknamed the "Toad," ogled through the window of Gambrinus's which was generally empty; while, if one wanted variety, there was the Restaurant Koniggratz, where the young ladies came and went in rapid succession. Johann, the Halewitz coachman, had waited many an hour, of late, freezing on his box before the curtained windows of these hostels, and he and Christian had entered into a conspiracy together to screen their master and hide his ruin from the world; they invented a hundred excuses for his late home-coming, and lied to every one who questioned them on the subject. Yet, in spite of that, all the servants and tenants knew their master had become a drunkard, and spent his nights in debauchery. And there was no surprise after the scene of Christmas Eve, which had impressed itself so deeply on their memory. In the castle itself the evil was felt without the cause of it being clearly understood. Its inmates were in terror of Leo's sudden outbursts of temper, his growling and grumbling. When his behaviour was tolerable, the poor women would venture hopefully on drawing a smile or a kind word from him, but were generally roughly repulsed, and would retire from the attempt with tears of shame and indignation in their eyes.

Dear, sweet-tempered grandmamma suffered no less than Hertha, and Elly and her fat pug between them got well bullied.

But there was no one who suffered as much as himself. Despite his efforts to be a fiend, he remained nothing but a poor wretch, bleeding from the scourgings of self-contempt; a martyr to feverish longing and the craving of the senses, seeking mental and physical exhaustion by plunging into one soul-deadening dissipation after the other.

The idea of making an end of himself grew stronger day by day. He played with his despairing resolves as a child does with its toys.

Sometimes he felt as if he must commit murder, and a favourite occupation of his distorted mind was to picture himself laying hands on innocent people who had done, and never would do, him any harm, but whom in his suspicious irritability he chose to regard as enemies and slanderers. Yes, murder some one, and afterwards go to gaol and the gallows; that would be peace and salvation at last. He had seen no more of Felicitas since that memorable morning. She had twice written to him, but he had evaded answering her. The last remnants of his strength of will were used to keep up this cowardly att.i.tude. He had heard from Ulrich too, begging him to forgive him for not having looked him up the last time he was at home. This made him laugh his harshest laugh. If they had met, what a delightful meeting it would have been!

It was at this time that something happened to rouse him from the contemplation of his own degradation. His old friend, fat and honest Hans von Sembritzky, drew him cautiously one day at the Prussian Crown into a corner and said, puffing and short of breath--

"A word with you, old man. Although it is not a very serious matter in itself, and may not mean much, you ought to look after your little sister Elly a bit. She is just at the age, you know, when girls do silly things. At any rate, it would be wise to keep writing-materials out of her way; ink is rather a dangerous medium for flirtation."

Leo, half alarmed and half annoyed, demanded an explanation.

"You know Pastor Brenckenberg's cub, who has been loafing about at home for more than a year, doing no good? Swaggering corps student, boasts of his colours and his clubs; but to what purpose? The fellow gets more and more dissipated and dissolute, and he dare not show his nose now in any decent house; even the bailiffs are sick of him. And no wonder, as----"

Leo interrupted with a brusque suggestion that he should come to the point.

"Well, my bailiff Lawrence, a thoroughly honest and reliable person, told me yesterday that the Kandidate Brenckenberg had been pa.s.sing round his love-letters from little Elly Sellenthin in a beer cellar at Munsterberg, and had also read pa.s.sages from them aloud. Some of the company had been amused, others indignant. In short, the affair has caused a scandal."

Leo felt a sense of cruel triumph mingle with his rage. He had wanted some object that he could crush, pulverize, and annihilate, and here he had one to his hand. Hans was astonished at the loud laughter with which he greeted his information, and a little hurt.

"You don't seem to take the matter seriously," he remarked.

"Wait a bit, old fellow; only wait," said he, and clapped him on the shoulder.

Then he sat down and drank deeply, while his friend shook his head and privately deplored his rapid degeneration.

At first Leo intended to give his sister a scolding, but when on the following day he was face to face with her, he had lost the desire to humiliate her. Why draw forth tears and wailings from this child when the youth was in his power? Better reserve himself for that encounter.

He confined himself, therefore, to taking hold of her by the arm, and teazing her by a hundred taunts and gibes. He felt a kind of malicious sympathy with her. Had she, after all, done anything very bad? He, who was on the high-road to ruin and fully conscious of what he was doing, could not be hard on this little fool for stumbling in the blindness of her youthful pursuit of enjoyment. So when he had tormented her sufficiently, he kissed her and let her go. This had happened shortly after the dinner-hour was over. A little later, Hertha, pale from suppressed excitement, came to him with a letter from Johanna. His eldest sister wrote that she had things of urgent importance to speak to him about, and prayed that on the receipt of her note he would come to her immediately.

"She may congratulate herself that I can obey her summons," he thought.

But in spite of his feigned scorn and indifference, he knew that he was afraid of Johanna, or, if not of her, of the discomfort with which she always threatened him. For a reminder from Johanna that she existed meant nothing pleasant. A sudden current of vigorous life shot through his limbs and told him how much he could still hate. He hated her, and Felicitas, and every one. But her most of all.

He put on his fur coat and strode over the park. It was nearly four o'clock. The pale winter sun was sinking, and scarcely able to illumine the monotonous greyness of the snow-covered fields with its feeble parting rays, though here and there there trembled over the landscape a crystalline-blue reflection. The shrubberies seemed like black crouching figures on the ground, and between the highest straggling branches the light peeped like a thousand round eyes.