Felix Lanzberg's Expiation Part 33

"Certainly, I will gladly keep the child," replied Elsa, "only you must promise me to visit him every day."

Then Felix said, with a strange gaze, lost in the distance, and which she often later remembered, "Yes, I will visit him every day if I can."

A short time after he took leave of Gery, who at first would not remain without his father, but grew quiet when Felix promised to visit him the next morning.

The next morning!

The carriage rolled away, and several minutes later Felix returned once more.

"Have you forgotten something, Felix?" asked Erwin, who stood before the portal of the castle, talking in a low voice.

"Yes, my revolver," replied Felix, uneasily and absently.

When Erwin wished to go into the castle to help his brother-in-law find it, the latter held him back. "Oh, it is of no importance," he stammered. "I will get it--to-morrow. Where are the children?"

"There," said Elsa, and in the distance, between the feathery green foliage, he saw the children at their play. They flew about and shouted like little gnomes, Gery the merriest of them all.

"I will not disturb him," murmured Felix, after he had watched the children for a long time, without approaching them.

He went.

XXIX.

Returned to Traunberg, he wandered slowly through all the rooms of the castle. Then he had tea served in his room, drank a cupful, and ate a trifle. He laid his watch upon the table. At twelve o'clock all should be finished, he decided.

The cold calm of resolution gave way to the exciting feeling of expectation.

He seated himself at his writing-table, thoughtfully he rested his head in his hand, then he dipped the pen into ink, and wrote a long letter.

He read it through with a certain pedantry, added here and there a comma, or made a letter plainer, placed the letter in an envelope, and addressed it to Elsa.

His glance fell upon the watch--the hands pointed to quarter past eleven. He rose and walked up and down uneasily. He began to ask himself whether he had forgotten nothing, began to unconsciously seek reasons for postponing his act.

His brow was bathed with cold sweat. He looked for his revolver and Toledo dagger, which both had formerly lain upon his table. They were gone. Evidently his valet had removed them. The razors also were hidden.

Felix smiled bitterly. Then he drew a little English penknife from his pocket, sharpened it upon an ash-receiver, and laid it on the table beside his bed. Then, with folded hands, he crouched for a few minutes beside his bed. He thought of the promise not to kill himself which he had once given to his father. The promise could have no weight except during the life of the old man.

When he looked again, the hands of the watch pointed to quarter before twelve. His heart beat loudly. A moment of irresolution came. Then from without a little soft bird cry floated in to him. He suddenly heard again Gery's voice, "Who is 'the certain Lanzberg,' papa?"

Then he undressed himself, took the penknife, and with firm stroke cut through the veins and arteries in his left wrist and ankle.

He rose once more to extinguish the candles on the table beside his bed, then he sank back among the pillows.

He felt the warm blood flowing from him, and experienced a kind of disgust; then he murmured with a sigh, "Blood washes all things clean."

The triumphal fanfare of the madrilena vibrated around him; the excitement which had burned within him throughout the whole time was for a moment increased tenfold.

But the madrilena died away, and the fearful memories faded, the great painful weariness which had almost paralyzed him recently, preventing him from sleeping, vanished--he felt easier and easier.

A comfortable drowsiness overcame him, and a thousand pictures changed before his dreamy dim eyes.

He saw himself in the school-room, beside his tutor, and smiled at the expression with which the tutor drew his cuffs down over his knuckles when Elsa's French _bonne_ entered the room.

The present had vanished, his thoughts wandered further and further back into the past.

He sits beside his mother in the church, small and sleepy. Through an open window the fresh spring air blows in to the atmosphere of mould and incense of the sacred edifice.

From half-closed eyes he sees a crowd of red peasant women, sees the little school-boys who crowd as near as possible to the carved _prie-dieus_ of the gentry. One of them winks at him.

The priest elevates the host. Little Felix's tired eyes close, the peasants fade into a large red spot, the colored shadows of the church windows lie on the bare, gray stone pavement like a carpet. His head sinks upon his mother's arm. All is rosy vapor around him. Then his mother kisses him on the forehead and whispers, "It is over; wake up!"

x.x.x.

The next morning a messenger came breathlessly to Steinbach. With gloomy obstinacy he refused to gratify the domestic's urgent questions.

He desired to speak personally with the Baron.

Erwin came. He was fearfully startled at the messenger's communication.

Then as with distressed slowness he crossed the corridor to Elsa's room, she met him, pale as death, but calm. "A messenger has come from Traunberg. Felix has taken his life," she said in a hollow voice, with eyes fixed upon Erwin. She had guessed. With hand on her heart, her eyes closed, she remained for a moment speechless. Erwin feared a swoon, and with gentle force tried to lead her back to her room, but she resisted. "Order the carriage," she begged with almost inaudible voice; "I should like to go over there."

Erwin accompanied her.

An uneasy quiet, broken by the mysterious whispers of the domestics, pervaded Castle Traunberg. The servants all stood around in solemn idleness. Mrs. Stifler and the valet were busied with the corpse. They withdrew when Elsa entered the chamber of death.

Slowly she approached the bed. There he lay--Felix!--his corpse.

His head rested gently on the pillow; one saw that a lovely dream had helped the dying man across the threshold of eternity. The original beauty of his features, which life, with its shattering conflicts, had almost destroyed, death had restored again.

Elsa kissed the corpse; she wept quietly and bitterly; she reproached herself a thousand times with not having shown her brother love enough, with not having helped him bravely enough to bear the heavy burden of his life.

Then she noticed a letter, addressed to her, upon the table beside the bed.

A quarter of an hour later she joined Erwin, who waited for her in the adjoining room. There were still tears on her cheeks, but in her eyes shone a kind of solemn pride. She handed Erwin the open letter. He read:

Dear Elsa:

You will be startled at what I have done. Forgive me this, as you have already forgiven me so much. I die not as a cowardly suicide, but as a man who has sentenced himself to death.

The conviction has strengthened in my mind, that my life is of use and pleasure to no one. My own child begins to be saddened by the oppressive atmosphere which surrounds me. My shadow has long darkened your existence.

After my death you will reproach yourself, dear, good heart; will fancy that you could have been better and more considerate to me than you have already been. Do not torment yourself. I remember nothing of you but unwearied love and tender compa.s.sion. May G.o.d bless you a thousand times, you and yours.