The Eichhofs: A Romance

Alma on her part thought of the cool courtesy with which Hugo Hohenstein and his wife treated each other, and then her thoughts travelled to Thea and Bernhard. Would they at some future day treat each other thus, or even more coldly and stiffly? She longed to see Thea again; now when her first sharp pang for Lothar's death was past, and when her mother was so nearly well, the secret in which she was a sharer weighed heavily upon her youthful soul. The world was so fair and sunny, and people were so kind, and Dr. Nordstedt-no, he had nothing to do with it; but she felt so calmly happy that her heart was full of gratitude to God for this lovely world. But then, when she remembered Thea and Lothar, she felt that she was wrong to be happy and to enjoy. Oh, there was so much sorrow in the world after all!

And to-day, after the visit to Rollin, she felt in a particularly melancholy mood. Rollin had impressed her as so sadly changed, she missed Adela everywhere; she thought of how changed too Eichhof would be when Thea finally returned thither, and she remembered that their guests were to leave Schönthal on the morrow.

Occupied with these thoughts, she went out alone in the evening into the park, while the rest were sitting on the veranda. Frau von Rosen soon reentered the house, and asked her husband to come with her, as she wished to speak with him. Nordstedt and Walter were left alone. Nordstedt drummed with his fingers upon the garden-table, near which he sat, in a nervous way quite unlike him. He arose once or twice, then seated himself and drummed again, saying, at last, "I will go find Fräulein Alma; the evening is damp, she may take cold."

"Well, then, come," said Walter, evidently regarding his companionship as indispensable.

Nordstedt stood one moment in silence, then put both hands upon his young friend's shoulders, and said, gently, "Let me go alone; I have something to say to Fräulein Alma."

"Nordstedt, is it possible?" Walter ejaculated, having already during his visit at Schönthal made up his mind that it was not Adela who had wrought the change in Nordstedt which had so surprised and annoyed him in Berlin.

Nordstedt looked abroad into the moonlight. "Much is possible, my dear fellow; nothing is certain!" he said. And without another word he descended the steps of the veranda and walked alone: the moonlit path towards the park.

CHAPTER XXII.

A CRISIS

It was very lonely at Castle Eichhof. On lovely summer afternoons the servants would sit in the pleasantest nooks in the garden discussing old times and new ones, and the windows of the second story were closely curtained, and looked as if they had all kinds of secrets to keep. Thea had not yet returned, and Bernhard's visits to his home were very short, and when he did come he occupied his bachelor apartments. His railway scheme gave him a great deal to do, and even if this had not been the case he could not have borne to stay long in his lonely castle.

It was fortunate that the Wronskys were at home this summer! Although their estate, Paniênka, was more than two miles distant from Eichhof, Bernhard was their frequent guest.

Wronsky, who was much too undecided a character to insist upon his own way when it was not agreeable to his wife, was extremely glad that she had chosen to spend this summer at home, for he dearly loved his ease and good eating. He looked up to his wife much as he did to his old schoolfellow Bernhard, and if he thought it the great blessing of his life that he had won the hand of his beautiful, clever, and proud Julutta, none the less did he feel himself greatly honoured by Bernhard's frequent presence in his house. In his unpretending bonhommie he thought it but natural that his friend should prefer his wife's society to his own. Bernhard's influence over his good-natured friend dated from their school-days; he had always been first in his classes, while Wronsky had contentedly remained at their foot. And Julutta? She smiled when she perceived Bernhard approaching, but it was a strange, contemptuous smile, very different from the one with which she greeted him when he stood before her. Latterly she had not smiled when he appeared, but had bidden him welcome with eyes that were large and serious, and with a certain shy confusion in her manner. The more embarrassed she seemed, the warmer and the firmer was his clasp of her hand, the more frank and cordial did he become, until she, too, adopted his tone, and they talked together like good friends and comrades. At least so Bernhard would have said, and he forced himself to believe that so it was. Yes, Julutta's blush when he touched her hand, the liquid brilliancy of her eyes, the pathetic tone of her voice when she talked with him, all this was only friendship. True it was, however, that Julutta could not only talk and blush with a grace all her own, but could also observe and combine with a cleverness beyond that of other women.

Bernhard took a certain credit to himself for never mentioning Thea in his conversations with Julutta, for concealing the ruined sanctuary of his home from the eyes of his friend.

But Julutta heard and saw what he never told her. Why it was she did not indeed know, but she did know that he was not happy in his marriage, and from the moment when she first became aware of this she smiled no more upon Bernhard as formerly, but her earnest gaze told him, "I know that you suffer, and I suffer with you." And in spite of himself he understood this language, and the longer Thea remained away, and the wider the breach became that separated them, the better did he learn to comprehend what Frau Julutta's eyes said to him.

When he returned to his lonely home was it any wonder that Julutta's image pursued him thither? At first he had pitied her, then he had admired her intellect, and now he could no longer banish from his mind the expression of her eyes, the strange, bewildering charm of her beauty. He saw her before him as he rode slowly home on moonlit summer nights through the fragrant meadows; he saw her still when he entered his lonely house. He had felt so secure, so superior, with regard to this woman, and now? Bernhard would not analyze, would not even reflect upon, his present sentiments towards her. Why should he? Has not many a one, seeing his every hope in life wrecked, sought forgetfulness in the intoxicating bowl? And Bernhard sought to forget; and if he suspected that his senses were bewildered, he never dreamed of throwing aside the goblet. This bewilderment should never reach the point of intoxication; Bernhard never could forget that Julutta was the wife of the friend of his youth; no, beyond a certain point Bernhard was still sure of himself.

In this sense of security he drove over to Paniênka one sultry afternoon. The sun was near its setting as he reached the pine forest bordering on the park, but the air was still oppressively hot, and not a breath stirred the ferns that grew on the roadside. Not a bird twittered, not a squirrel was seen climbing the gray trunks, not a human being encountered the vehicle, and the crunching of its wheels on the road was the only sound that disturbed the breathless silence. The air was filled with the strong fragrance of the pines, and across the blue strips of sky visible among the tree-tops stretched isolated gray clouds like menacing fingers foreboding a storm. Bernhard did not see them. He leaned back in the carriage, gazing into the gray-green forest twilight without really seeing that either. The dreamy quiet of nature seemed to have infected him. Suddenly he sat upright. There was more light between the trunks of the trees, a gray wall draped with trailing hop-vines appeared, and then two red gateposts, – that was the little side-entrance to the park at Paniênka. The carriage was just about to turn into a broad avenue of chestnuts, which led to the castle court-yard, when he told the coachman to stop. He thought he heard himself called by name. He stood up, and thus could see over the wall. Across the green lawn stretching between the wall and a little pond came the slender figure of a woman, who beckoned to him. In her white trailing dress and her gold-gleaming hair she looked like the nymph of the cool forest pool whose waters glistened behind her.

"Where are you going, Count Eichhof?" exclaimed Julutta. "My husband is at R-, and it is so insufferably warm in-doors that I have taken refuge here by the pond. If you will come and drive away the gnats with a cigar I shall be grateful to you."

Bernhard sprang from the carriage and approached the little gate. Julutta leaned upon the wall, which just there was low and crumbling. "Tell them to bring us some fruit and wine from the castle," she called out to the coachman. Then she went to the gate and opened it to admit Bernhard. So soon as she was alone with him her self-possession vanished. She offered him her hand without looking at him, she spoke of the heat of the weather, of Bernhard's long drive, excused herself for thus detaining him, perhaps against his will, and then congratulated herself upon his visit, – all this so hastily spoken, and in such bewitching confusion, that Bernhard could not but see that she was embarrassed, and that she wished to conceal or overcome her embarrassment by talking quickly. They had reached a charming spot, a seat half surrounded by low rocks, and looking upon the little forest lake. A small waterfall plashed close by and diffused a refreshing coolness, so that Bernhard after his warm drive involuntarily drew a deep breath.

"It is charming here," he said; "and you come to me like a kind fairy who lives in an enchanted forest and who conducts weary wanderers into her fairy home, where it is always cool and delightful."

Julutta laughed. "Only favoured wanderers," she said.

"I thank you, gentle fairy," Bernhard said, earnestly. She blushed and looked away from him towards the water. For an instant he gazed at her admiringly, and then, as if forcing himself to look at something else, he took up a little book lying on a rustic table. He read the title-page, – "Pages from the Life of a Good-for-Nothing," by Eichendorff. "Ah, have you been reading this midsummer night's dream of Eichendorff's on this sultry summer day?" he asked.

With a smile she turned to him. "And why not?" she said, with a gentle dreamy expression in her eyes. "Do you think, because I have known more than most women of the stern realities of life, that I must have lost all sense of its poetry?"

"No, assuredly not; but I thought you too much of a critic to enjoy the story, which, charming as it is, is so absolutely impossible that you must admit that it is thoroughly unreal and unnatural."

"But, good heavens! there are moods in which one longs for just that. A day like this in a lonely forest-for this park is really only a forest-makes one dream; and why should one not indulge in this charming midsummer dream, and for an hour believe that, even in this mortal life, everything may be delightful? Reality will teach us soon enough that it is not so."

Bernhard turned over the leaves of the book. Julutta seated herself upon the gnarled roots of a beech beside the waterfall, and gazed at the green lily-pads floating on the little lake, and at the dragon-flies hovering on gauzy wings above it.

"You have been dreaming, then, to-day?" Bernhard asked, seating himself beside her.

"Yes; shall you laugh at me for doing so?"

"On the contrary, I envy you. I have had to write such dreadfully long and tiresome letters at home."

"Do you never dream?"

"They say a man should never dream."

"Ah, 'they say' so much, 'they' are so wise; but folly is not to be easily banished from the world. I even maintain that every man of sensibility and imagination has often found himself dreaming of some foolish happiness."

"Why of a foolish happiness?"

"Because happiness can hardly ever stand the test of critical reason, but depends upon imagination, which is often folly. And what is happiness, after all? A moment, an intoxication, a dream, – and yet we all long for it."

A year before-a few months before-Bernhard would perhaps have contradicted her. Now he nodded a mute assent. She was right. Happiness was an intoxication, a dream.

"I sometimes think," Julutta continued, eagerly, "that mortals would be better and happier if there were somewhere an island where all could be happy in their own way for at least three weeks of every year."

Bernhard laughed. "There is method in your dreaming at least," he said.

"Laugh if you will," she said; "but do you not believe that many a one would bear his burden more easily and willingly if each year brought him so happy a memory and so glad a hope?"

"Possibly; but many would be miserably unhappy in longing for this blessed island all through the rest of the year."

"Oh, no. Children at school are not made unhappy by thoughts of their holidays; they are refreshed and strengthened for their studies by them."

Bernhard sat drawing hieroglyphics in the gravel with his cane. A clink of glasses was heard approaching, and Julutta arose.

"Here comes our 'Little table spread thee,'" she said, going to the rustic table, upon which the servant arranged decanters, wine-glasses, and fragrant fruit. "Come," said Julutta. "There are those who maintain that wine can conduct to the Island of the Blest." She handed him a sparkling glass and laughed. "Which only means that we are too sensible to be happy; for common sense must be thrown overboard before we can land upon my Island of the Blest."

Bernhard took the glass. "To the Island of the Blest!" he said, emptying it at a draught.

Julutta divided a fragrant peach with her snowy fingers, and offered half of it to Bernhard.

A dragon-fly hovered above the table, and settled for a moment upon the basket of fruit. "A greeting from the Island of the Blest!" Bernhard exclaimed.

But Julutta had suddenly grown grave and thoughtful. She brushed the dragon-fly away with her handkerchief, leaned her head upon her hand, and gazed at the little lake, that now looked gray and leaden.

"Of what are you thinking?" Bernhard asked.

"What folly I have been talking!" she said, hastily arising. "Come, let us go to the house. My husband will soon return, and we can receive him."

"Your husband? Oh, if Wronsky has gone to the circuit court at R-, he cannot be back again for two or three hours at least. It is so lovely here, why not stay?"

She looked at him almost angrily. "Why?" she repeated, and her eyes grew tender and yearning again. "Well, then let us stay," she added, in a low tone, and walked down to the water's edge.

Bernhard followed her. "You are strangely agitated to-day," he said, standing close beside her. "May I not, as your friend, know-?"