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Countess Erika's Apprenticeship

<h2>CHAPTER XXVI.</h2> Lozoncyi had gone to the station. He had delayed until the latest minute, intimidated by the difficulties of his undertaking, swayed by intense agitation. At last, passion for Erika had gained the mastery, although it had shrunk to very small dimensions. All the poetry had faded out of it. The lofty conception of life and its duties which had lately raised him above himself had vanished like a fit of intoxication of which nothing is left save a torturing thirst. Will she come? he had asked himself, with quivering nerves, as he sprang from the gondola, and, after purchasing the tickets, looked around him anxiously. He had in fact expected that she would be there before him: he was disappointed at not finding her. He went out upon the steps leading from the railway-station to the Canal, and looked abroad over the shining green water. As each gondola approached he said to himself, "Here she comes." But no; she did not come. The first bell rang. He went on the platform, his pulses throbbing feverishly. While he had been sure that she would come he had been comparatively calm; now his longing for her knew no bounds. He eagerly scanned every woman whom he saw in the distance. Fortunately, he saw no one whom he knew: the train was not very full. The second bell rang; the passengers hurried into their several compartments, porters ran to and fro with travelling-bags and trunks, farewells were waved from the windows of the train. The third bell rang, and the train steamed noisily out of the station. She had not come. His disappointment was largely mingled with anger, and was so intense that it amounted to physical nervous pain. "At the last moment her courage has failed her," he told himself. But then her pale beautiful face, lit up with enthusiasm, arose before his mind's eye, and in the midst of his frenzy of passion he was conscious of the yearning tenderness which had been a chief element in his feeling for her. "No," he said to himself, "even if her courage has failed her, she is not one to break her word. She must have been prevented at the last moment." A burning desire for certainty in the matter mastered him. He went to the Hôtel Britannia, under the pretext of calling upon the Lenzdorffs. He was told that her Excellency had gone out early in the afternoon and had not yet returned. He hesitated for a moment, and then, in a tone the indifference of which surprised himself, he asked if he could see the Countess Erika, as he had a message for her. The porter, a presuming fellow who meddled in everybody's affairs, informed him that the young Countess had just gone out, but would probably return shortly. "Why do you think so?" asked Lozoncyi. "Because she was not in evening dress. She went out in a street suit, and carried a leather bag in her hand: that always means 'charity' with the young Countess. I know the bag: I have often carried it for her to the gondola. This time she walked, and carried it herself. She is a little----" he touched his forehead with his forefinger, "but a good lady: she is always giving." Lozoncyi stayed no longer. He got into his gondola again, uncertain what to do. What could have kept her? After some reflection, he went again to the railway-station. "She has been detained by some acquaintance; she will be here for the next train," he thought. He waited until the next train left,--in vain. Then a fierce anger against her arose within him and transcended all bounds. He forgot that he himself had delayed for a moment. He could not find words bitter enough to express his contempt for her. He never should have taken such a step of his own accord: he had simply acquiesced in the inevitable. She had carried him away by her enthusiasm, which had levelled all barriers between them, and now--now her cowardice had left him in the lurch. It was hardly worth while to devise so fine a drama, when it was never to be played out! How stupid he had been ever to believe that it could possibly be played out! he ought to have known that at the last moment the censor would prohibit it. In the midst of his anger he experienced a sensation of dull indifference. What did anything matter? everything of importance in his life was at an end: what became of the rest he did not care. He had been lured on by a Fata Morgana; he laughed at the thought that he had taken it for reality,--a dull, joyless laugh,--and then--he could not spend the night at the station--he resolved to go home. It was about ten o'clock when he passed through the green door of his house and along the narrow corridor into the garden. The moon was high in the sky, and the trees and bushes cast pitchy shadows upon the bluish light lying upon the grass and gravel paths. The air was warm; rose-leaves lay scattered everywhere; Spring was laying aside her garments, and there was a dull weariness in the atmosphere. Lozoncyi, with bowed head, walked towards the atelier, where was the portrait. On a sudden he heard a light foot-fall behind him. He turned, and stood as if rooted to the earth. "Erika!" She came towards him lovely as an angel. Her head was bare, and her golden hair gleamed in the moonlight. "Erika!" he exclaimed, hoarsely, without advancing a step towards her. He took her for an illusion conjured up by his fancy. But as she drew near he felt the reality of her young life beside him. "Then it is really you?" he murmured. "I thought it a phantom to deceive me. Why are you here?" "No wonder you ask," she said, and her voice expressed unutterable compassion. "I come to bid you farewell." "Farewell!" he gasped. "Then I was right to doubt you. And yet how bitterly I have reproached myself because----" "Because----?" she asked, sadly. "Because I ventured to suppose you had lost courage. What could I think? I waited for you at the station from one train to the next: you did not come. Then I told myself that you had simply treated me to a farce. But I cannot believe that now: as I look into your dear face I can find there no cowardice, nothing paltry. You have been detained against your will, and you are here yourself to tell me so. It is noble of you, Erika! my Erika!" He drew closer to her, and extended his arms towards her: she evaded them. "All is over between us," she said, wearily. "It cannot be." She saw him turn ashy pale in the moonlight. "Over? It cannot be? Erika! What does this mean? Have you robbed me of all self-control only to desert me thus at the last moment? I cannot believe it of you, Erika!" There was passionate entreaty in his voice. Again he stretched out his arms towards her: gently, but firmly, she repulsed him. "Do not touch me," she begged. "I can scarcely stand. Something horrible has happened; I must tell you of it as quickly as possible, but I cannot stand upright." She grasped the bough of the mulberry-tree around which the climbing roses were wreathed, and as she did so the bough shook, and a cloud of white rose-leaves fluttered to the ground. All about her was fading! How sultry the night was! She sat down on the bench beneath the mulberry, above her the moonlit sky with its hosts of stars, at her feet the fading garment of the spring. Then she began her story: "I was on my way to the station. I should have been punctual: perhaps I should have been there before you. I was convinced that I was doing right, and so long as that was so I could not delay. The way to the station leads past this house. My gondola had not yet reached the bridge that spans this canal when I heard a loud splash in the water. A woman had thrown herself from the bridge. You can imagine my horror. In an instant the suspicion darted into my mind that it might be your wife. I implored my gondolier to save her, and he plunged into the water just in time. It was indeed your wife, whom I could not but feel I had thus hunted to death. She lay in the bottom of the gondola, covered with sea-weed and slime--oh, horrible! I brought her home. We carried her up-stairs, with Lucrezia's help, and then recalled her to life. That was comparatively easy; but scarcely had she opened her eyes when she was seized with frightful spasms of the chest, and I feared she would die." Lozoncyi had listened breathlessly; now he nodded slowly. "I know she suffers from such attacks frequently," he said, bitterly, "but they are not dangerous: they are usually the result of a fit of fury." "That I did not know," Erika murmured, in the same weary, self-accusing voice,--the voice of a criminal arraigning herself. "Her condition made a terrible impression upon me. We put her to bed, and I stayed with her while Lucrezia went for a physician. She returned without him, but the unfortunate woman seemed better and calmer, and I was about to leave her, when I heard your step in the corridor. I came hither to take leave of you. Forgive me, and farewell!" She had risen from the bench, and held out her hand to him; her eyes were full of tears. He did not take her hand. "And for this you would desert me?" he exclaimed, angrily. "You have given me no reason,--not the slightest. That devil up-stairs has simply played you a trick,--nothing more. Can you not see it? She knew what we were about to do, and watched for you: she had not the least idea of taking her own life." "I do not know," replied Erika, passing her hand across her brow: "it may be that she meant only to prevent me from arriving in time at the station. But it was frightful: the canal is very deep there; she would surely have been drowned; and how could I have lived after witnessing her death? No! as I sat beside her bed a veil seemed to fall from my eyes,--a veil which had blinded me to what I was doing. I saw that, with the best will in the world, I could do only harm. I was ready to give my life for you,--I am always ready for that,--but I must not sacrifice the lives of others who stand in close relation to you and to me; I cannot!--I cannot! I ought not to have robbed you of your peace, to have taken from you the power of self-renunciation; I acknowledge it. If you could but know how bitterly I reproach myself, how fearful it is for me to see you suffer! My poor friend, I entreat your forgiveness from my very soul!" She took his hand and humbly touched it with her lips. The night grew more sultry and oppressive. A bewildering fragrance exhaled from the earth, from the plants, from the faded blossoms on the ground, and from the fresh buds opening to life. The moonlight fell full upon the statue of a dancing faun beneath an acacia-tree, and upon the scattered rose-leaves around it. Hitherto Lozoncyi had stood still, with bowed head. But at the touch of her lips upon his hand he looked up. His veins ran fire. "Farewell!" she murmured, gently. He repeated "Farewell!" and then suddenly added, "Will you not take one more look at the studio before you go?" She found nothing unusual in this request. He led the way; she followed him, her whole being filled with compassion: she would have been nailed to the cross to relieve his pain,--the pain for which she was to blame. The moonlight flooded the studio, lending an unreal appearance to the room, and in the magic light stood forth the figure of 'Blind Love,' athirst to reach its goal, staggering in the mire. From the garden breathed a benumbing odour, and from the far distance floated towards the pair, like a yearning sigh, the song of the Venetian night-minstrels. Erika looked about her sadly. "It was fair!" she murmured. "I thank you for it all. Adieu!" She held out both her hands to him; she had wellnigh offered him her lips, in the desperation of her compassion. He took her hands in his and bent over them. "It is, perhaps, better so," he said, and his voice had never been so tremulous and yet so tenderly beguiling. "The sacrifice you would have made for me was too great: I ought not to have accepted it at your hands. And you are right, we must spare those who are near to us; it must be. But for God's sake do not desert me quite! do not consign me to utter misery!" She looked at him with eyes of wonder. She could not comprehend. What was there left for her to do for him?--what? He kissed her hands alternately: she did not notice how he drew her towards him until she felt his hot breath upon her cheek. Then he said, softly, very softly, "You must return to your grandmother tonight, I know; you cannot devote your life to me; but--oh, Erika! our existence is made up of moments--grant me a moment's bliss now and then! you will not be the poorer, and I--I shall be richer than a king! The world shall never know; no shadow shall fall upon you, be sure----" At last she understood. She tore her hands from his grasp; a hoarse sobbing cry escaped her lips, and without a word she turned and fled past the faun gleaming in the moonlight, past the fading blossoms, across the garden, through the long cold corridor, without once taking breath until the green door with the lion's head had closed behind her. A despairing cry pursued her: "Erika! Erika!" It was the voice of the man who had been suddenly aroused to the consciousness of what he had done. But she never heeded it: she had a horror of him. For a moment she stood uncertain on the border of the canal. Her gondolier had departed, having judged it best to be rid as soon as possible of his wet clothes. It was late, and she was alone. Around her was the ghostly moonlight, before her the dark lapping water. She was not afraid: what was there to fear? But, with the world in ruins as it were about her, what should she do? What, except return to the Hôtel Britannia? She threaded her way through the zigzag narrow streets, across bridges and along the shores of the canals, her eyes bent on the ground. It never occurred to her that any one whom she knew could meet her wandering thus late at night with uncovered head; for she had left her hat in the sick woman's room. All through these last terrible hours she had had no thought for her reputation. She walked on and on. Suddenly there fell upon her ear,-- "Ninon, Ninon, que fais-tu de la vie, Toi, qui n'as pas d'amour? Comment vis-tu----" As she crossed a narrow canal by a small bridge, the singers' gondola came directly towards her. She saw it close at hand. The soprano was a faded, hollow-cheeked woman, the men were quite ragged. Was that the phantom that had lured her on all through the spring? The guttering candles in the gondola were burned almost into the sockets. One of the paper lanterns took fire. The boat glided beneath the bridge. When it emerged on the other side the lights were extinguished, the singers silent. The gondola floated drearily on, a black formless spot in the moonlight. Shortly afterwards Erika found a gondola in which she reached the hotel. In consequence of the arrival of a large number of fresh guests, the hotel was brilliantly lighted, all the doors were open, and Erika went up the staircase to her room without attracting special notice. "Perhaps," she thought, "my grandmother has not yet returned: I may be able to recover my letter before she has read it." She went instantly to her bedroom. Light issued from the chink of the door: she was too late. She opened the door. There, beside her bed, sat her grandmother in an arm-chair, erect and stiff, her eyes looking unnaturally large in her ashy-pale face, where the last few hours had graven deeper furrows than had been made by all the other experiences of her seventy years. A strange cry escaped the old Countess's lips when she perceived the wan, sad apparition in the door-way. Half rising from her seat, her hands grasping the arms of the chair, she gazed at the girl as if she had been a corpse newly risen from the tomb. Trembling in every limb, "Erika!" she stammered. She tried to walk towards her grandchild, and could not. Erika's strength barely sufficed to carry her to the bedside, where she sank at her grandmother's feet and laid her head in her lap. Neither could speak for a while. The old lady only stroked the girl's hair with her delicate hand, which grew warmer every minute. The girl sobbed. After some minutes the grandmother bent over her and murmured, "Erika, tell me how you have been rescued at the eleventh hour. Where have you been?" Erika lifted her head, and in a faint voice told all that had occurred until the moment when she had gone down into the garden to take leave of Lozoncyi. There she hesitated. Her grandmother listened breathlessly, and in an instant the girl began afresh: "I had forgotten myself. I would have done more for him than was ever done for man before; I would have borne him aloft to the stars. And he--the way was too hard; he had no heart for it; he would have dragged me down into the mire from which I would fain have rescued him. And when at last I understood, I fled----" A fit of convulsive sobbing interrupted her: she could not go on. Her grandmother understood it all. She said not a word, only gently stroked the poor head in her lap. After a while she persuaded Erika to lie down, helped her to undress, and smoothed the pillow in which the poor child hid her tear-stained face. She sat at the bedside until the dull weariness sure to follow upon intense nervous agitation produced its effect and the girl slept. The grandmother still sat there, motionless, until far into the morning. About nine o'clock Marianne softly opened the door of the room. Erika awoke. She had forgotten everything,--when her glance fell upon a small black travelling-bag in the maid's hand. "Please, your Excellency, a gondolier has just brought this bag," Marianne explained. "He says the Countess Erika left it in the gondola yesterday after the accident,--after the fright, I mean: he told me all about it. Poor Countess Erika! what a terrible thing for her! But it was fortunate, too, because she was able to save the poor woman. The gondolier has come for the hundred lire which the Countess promised him for getting the woman out of the water." The old Countess drew a deep breath. Everything was turning out more favourably for Erika than she had dared to hope. The adventure, which would of course be discussed freely by all the hotel servants, would explain Erika's long absence and strange return. "Is the Countess Erika ill?" asked the faithful Marianne, with an anxious glance at the young girl, whose cheeks were flushed with fever. "Only suffering from the effects of agitation," said Countess Lenzdorff, who had meanwhile brought the money and given it to the maid. "No wonder! Poor Countess Erika!" the servant murmured as she withdrew. Weary and wretched, Erika again closed her eyes. When she opened them she saw her grandmother at the writing-table, her head resting on her hand, and a blank sheet of paper before her. "To whom are you writing, grandmother?" "I want to write to Goswyn," the old Countess replied, in a low tone. "I must answer his letter; and--I am not sure----" She hesitated. Upon Erika's mind flashed the remembrance of the letter she had written the previous day to Goswyn. She had forgotten it. "Of course I must tell him not to come," said her grandmother. Erika sighed. Must she give her grandmother that pain too? At last she managed to say, in a voice that was scarce audible, "He will not come: he----" Startled by a terrible suspicion, her grandmother looked at her in dismay. Erika's face was turned away from her. "Well?" asked the old Countess. "I wrote to him yesterday," poor Erika stammered, "telling him what I was about to do. I thought he must hear of it sooner or later, and I wished that he should hear it in a way that would give him least pain." "Oh, Erika! Erika!" But Erika lay still, her head turned away from her grandmother. After a while she said, almost in a whisper, "Grandmother, please write to him that"--she buried her face in the pillow--"that---- Oh, grandmother, tell him--that--he need not despise me!" Her grandmother made no reply. For a while absolute silence reigned in the room. Then Erika suddenly heard a low sob. She looked round. The Countess had covered her face with her hands, and was weeping. It was the first time since Erika had known her that she had seen her shed tears. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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