Louisa of Prussia and Her Times Part 54

"Ah, the Prince von Lichtenstein," said the baron, and he went with perfect calmness and politeness to meet the prince who, evidently in great surprise, remained standing in the door, and was staring gloomily at the strange and unexpected group.

"Come in, my dear sir," said the baron, quietly; "the baroness will be very grateful to you for coming here just at this moment and interrupting our conversation, for it referred to dry business matters.

I laid a few old accounts, that had been running for five years, before the baroness, and she gave me a receipt for them, that was all. Our interview, moreover, was at an end, and you need not fear to have disturbed us. Permit me, therefore, to withdraw, for you know very well that, in the forenoon, I am nothing but a banker, a business man, and have to attend to the affairs of our firm."

He bowed simultaneously to the prince and to his wife, and left the room, as smiling, calm, and unconcerned as ever. Only when the door had closed behind him, when he had satisfied himself by a rapid glance through the reception-room that n.o.body was there, the smile disappeared from his lips, and his features a.s.sumed an air of profound melancholy.

"She loves him," he muttered; "yes, she loves him! Her hand trembled in mine when I p.r.o.nounced his name, and oh! how radiant she looked when she heard him come! Yes, she loves him, and I?--I will go to my counting-house!" he said, with a smile that was to veil the tears in his eyes.

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII.

THE RIVALS.

The baron had no sooner closed the door of the boudoir when the young Prince von Lichtenstein hastened to f.a.n.n.y, and, impetuously seizing her hand, looked at her with a pa.s.sionate and angry air.

"You did that for the purpose of giving me pain, I suppose?" he asked, with quivering lips. "You wished to prove to me that you did not confer any special favor upon me; Yesterday you were kind enough to a.s.sure me that no man ever had set foot into this room, and that I should be the first to whom it would be opened today; and I was such a conceited fool as to believe your beatifying words, and I rush hither as early as is permitted by decency and respect, and yet I do not find you alone."

"It was my husband who was here," said f.a.n.n.y, almost deprecatingly.

"It was a man," he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, impetuously, "and you had given me the solemn a.s.surance that this door had never yet opened to any man. Oh, I had implored you on my knees, and with tearful eyes, to allow me to see you here to-day; it seemed to me as though the gates of paradise were to be at last opened to me; no sleep came into my eyes all night, the consciousness of my approaching bliss kept me awake; it was over me like a smiling cherub, and I was dreaming with open eyes. And now that the lazy, snail-like time has elapsed, now that I have arrived here, I find in my heaven, at the side of my cherub, a calculating machine, desecrating my paradise by vile accounts--"

"Pray do not go on in this manner," interrupted f.a.n.n.y, sternly. "You found my husband here, and that, of course, dissolves the whole poetry of your words into plain prose, for she, whom in your enthusiastic strain you styled your cherub, is simply the wife of this n.o.ble and excellent man, whom you were free to compare with a calculating machine."

"You are angry with me!" exclaimed the young prince, disconsolately.

"You make no allowance for my grief, my disappointment, yea, my confusion! You have punished me so rudely for my presumption, and will not even permit my heart to bridle up and give utterance to its wrath."

"I did not know that you were presumptuous toward me, and could not think, therefore, of inflicting punishment on you," said f.a.n.n.y; "but I know that you have no right to insult the man whose name I bear."

"You want to drive me to despair, then!" retorted the prince, wildly stamping on the floor. "It is not sufficient, then, that you let me find your husband here, you must even praise him before me! I will tell you why I was presumptuous. I was presumptuous inasmuch as I believed it to be a favor granted to me exclusively to enter this room, and you have punished me for this presumption by proving to me that this door opens to others, too, although you a.s.sured me yesterday that the contrary was the case."

"Then you question my word?" asked f.a.n.n.y.

"Oh," he said, impetuously, "you do not question what you see with your own eyes."

"And, inasmuch as you have satisfied yourself of my duplicity with your own eyes, as you have seen that every one is at liberty to enter this room, and as you consequently cannot take any interest in prolonging your stay here, I would advise you to leave immediately," said f.a.n.n.y, gravely.

"You show me the door? You turn me out!" exclaimed the prince, despairingly. "Oh, have mercy on me! No, do not turn away from me! Look at me, read in my face the despair filling my soul. What, you still avert your head? I beseech you just grant me one glance; only tell me by the faintest smile that you will forgive me, and I will obey your orders, I will go, even if it should be only for the purpose of dying, not here before your eyes, but outside, on the threshold of your door."

"Ah, as if it were so easy to die!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed f.a.n.n.y, turning her face toward the prince.

"You look at me--you have forgiven me, then!" exclaimed the young man, and impetuously kneeling down before her, he seized her hands and pressed them to his lips.

"Rise, sir, pray rise," said the baroness; "consider that somebody might come in. You know now that everybody is permitted to enter this room."

"No, no. I know that n.o.body is permitted to enter here!" he exclaimed, fervently; "I know that this room is a sanctuary which no uninitiated person ever entered; I know that this is the sacred cell in which your virgin heart exhaled its prayers and complaints, and which is only known to G.o.d; I know that no man's foot ever crossed this threshold, and I remain on my knees as if before a saint, to whom I confess my sins, and whom I implore to grant me absolution. Will you forgive me?"

"I will," she said, smilingly, bending over him; "I will, if it were only to induce you to rise from your knees. And as you now perceive and regret your mistake, I will tell you the truth. It was an accident that the baron entered this room to-day, and it was the first time, too, since we were married. Nor did he come here, as he said, in delicate self-derision, for the purpose of settling accounts with me, but in order to fulfil a promise which he gave me five years ago, and which, I confess to my shame, I had forgotten, so that, instead of expecting my husband, I permitted you to come to me."

"I thank you for your kind words, which heal all the wounds of my heart like a soothing balm," replied the prince. "Oh, now I feel well again, and strong enough to conquer you in spite of the resistance of the whole world."

"And do you know, then, whether you will be able to conquer me in spite of my resistance?" asked f.a.n.n.y, smiling.

"Yes!" he exclaimed, "I know it, for in true love there is a strength that will subdue and surmount all obstacles. And I love you truly; you know it, you are satisfied of it. You know that I love you; every breath, every look, every tremulous note of my voice tells you so. But you? do you love me? Oh, I implore you, at length have mercy on me.

Speak one word of pity, of sympathy I Let me read it at least in your eyes, if your lips are too austere to utter it. I have come to-day with the firm determination to receive at your hands my bliss or my doom. The torment of this incert.i.tude kills me. f.a.n.n.y, tell me, do you love me?"

f.a.n.n.y did not answer at once; she stood before him, her head lowered, a prey to conflicting emotions, but she felt the ardent looks which were resting on her, and her heart trembled with secret delight. She made an effort, however, to overcome her feelings, and, raising her head, she fixed her eyes with a gentle yet mournful expression upon the young man, who, breathless and pale with anxiety, was waiting for her reply.

"You ask me if I love you," she said, in a low but firm voice; "you put that question to me, and yet you are standing now on the same spot on which my husband stood fifteen minutes ago and also asked me a question.

I must not answer your question, for I am a married woman, and I have taken an oath at the altar to keep my faith to my husband, and I have to keep it, inasmuch as my heart has no love to give him. But I will, nevertheless, give you a proof of the great confidence I am reposing in you. I will tell you why my husband came to see me to-day, and what was the question which he addressed to me. Hush, do not interrupt me; do not tell me that my conversations with the baron have no interest for you.

Listen to me. The baron came to me because the five years, which we had ourselves fixed for that purpose, had elapsed to-day, and because he wanted to ask me whether I wished to remain his wife, or whether I wanted to be divorced from him."

"And what did you reply?" asked the prince, breathlessly.

"I replied to him as I replied to you a little while ago: 'I have taken an oath at the altar to keep my faith to my husband, and I have to keep it, inasmuch as my heart has no love to give to him.'"

"Ah, you told him that you did not love him?" asked the prince, drawing a deep breath. "And after this confession he felt that he ought no longer to oppose your divorce, for his heart is generous and delicate, and consequently he cannot desire to chain a wife to himself who tells him that during the five years of her married life she has not learned to love him. Oh, f.a.n.n.y, how indescribably happy you render me by this disclosure. Then you will be free, your hands will not be manacled any longer."

"I did not tell you the reply I made to my husband when he left it to me again to say whether I would be divorced from him or not," said f.a.n.n.y, with a mournful smile. "I replied to him that every thing should remain as heretofore; that I did not want to inflict the disgrace of a divorce upon him and upon myself, and that we would and ought to bear these shackles which, without mutual love, we had imposed upon each other in a dignified, faithful, and honest manner until our death."

"That is impossible!" exclaimed the prince. "You could not, you ought not to have been so cruel against yourself, against the baron, and also against me. And even though you may have uttered these words of doom on the spur of that exciting moment, you will take them back again after sober and mature reflection. Oh, say that you will do so, say that you will be free; free, so that I may kneel down before you and implore you to give to me this hand, no longer burdened by any fetters; to become my wife, and to permit me to try if my boundless, adoring love will succeed in conferring upon you that happiness of which none are worthier than you. Oh, speak, f.a.n.n.y, say that you will be free, and consent to become my wife!"

"Your wife!" said f.a.n.n.y, lugubriously. "You forget that what separates me from you is not only my husband, but also my religion. The Jewess can never become the wife of the Prince von Lichtenstein."

"You will cast off the semblance of a religion which in reality is yours no longer," said the prince. "You have ceased to be a Jewess, owing to your education, to your habits, and to your views of life. Leave, then, the halls of the temple in which your G.o.d is no longer dwelling, and enter the great church which has redeemed mankind, and which is now to redeem you. Become a convert to the Christian religion, which is the religion of love."

"Never!" exclaimed the baroness, firmly and decidedly--"never will I abandon my religion and prove recreant to my faith, to which my family and my tribe have faithfully adhered for thousands of years. The curse of my parents and ancestors would pursue the renegade daughter of our tribe and cling like a sinister night-bird to the roof of the house into which the faithless daughter of Judah, the baptized Jewess, would move in order to obtain that happiness she is yearning for. Never--But what is that?" interrupting herself all at once; "what is the matter in the adjoining room?"

Two voices, one of them angrily quarrelling with the other, which replied in a deprecating manner, were heard in the adjoining room.

"I tell you the baroness is at home, and receives visitors!" exclaimed the violent and threatening voice.

"And I a.s.sure you that the baroness is not at home, and cannot, therefore, receive any visitors," replied the deprecating voice.

"It is Baron Weichs, the proud prebendary, who wants to play the master here as he does everywhere else," said the prince, disdainfully.

"And my steward refuses to admit him, because I have given orders that no more visitors shall be received to-day," whispered f.a.n.n.y.

The face of the young prince became radiant with delight. He seized f.a.n.n.y's hands and pressed them impetuously to his lips, whispering, "I thank you, f.a.n.n.y, I thank you!"

Meantime the voice in the reception-room became more violent and threatening, "I know that the baroness is at home," it shouted, "and I ask you once more to announce my visit to her!"

"But you know, sir," said the gentle voice of the steward, "that the baroness, when she is at home, is always at this hour in the reception-room, and receives her visitors here without any previous announcement."

"That only proves that the baroness receives her visitors in another room to-day," shouted the voice of Baron Weichs. "I know positively that there is a visitor with the baroness at this very moment. Go, then, and announce my visit. It remains for the baroness to turn me away, and I shall know then that the baroness prefers to remain alone with the gentleman who is with her at the present time."