THEY were in Paris. A half year had passed, and the bond of love so suddenly tied had loosened, and at last been broken. Marie and Sti H?gh were slowly slipping apart. Both knew it, though they had not put the fact into words. The confession hid so much pain and bitterness, so much abasement and self-scorn, that they shrank from uttering it.
In this they were one, but in their manner of bearing their distress they were widely different. Sti H?gh grieved ceaselessly in impotent misery, dulled by his very pain against the sharpest stings of that pain, despairing like a captured animal that paces back and forth, back and forth, in its narrow cage. Marie was more like a wild creature escaped from captivity, fleeing madly, without rest or pause, driven on and ever on by frantic fear of the chain that drags clanking in its track.
She wanted to forget, but forgetfulness is like the heather: it grows of its own free will, and not all the care and labor in the world can add an inch to its height. She poured out gold from overflowing hands and purchased luxury. She caught at every cup of pleasure that wealth could buy or wit and beauty and rank could procure, but all in vain. There was no end to her wretchedness, and nothing, nothing could take it from her. If the mere parting from Sti H?gh could have eased her pain or even shifted the burden, she would have left him long ago, but no, it was all the same, no spark of hope anywhere. As well be together as apart, since there was no relief either way.
Yet the parting came, and it was Sti H?gh who proposed it. They had not seen each other for several days, when Sti - 196 - came into the drawing-room of the magnificent apartment they had rented from Isabel Gilles, the landlady of La Croix de Fer. Marie was sitting there, in tears. Sti shook his head drearily and took a chair at the other end of the room. It was hard to see her weep and to know that every word of comfort from his lips, every sympathetic sigh or compassionate look, merely added bitterness to her grief and made her tears flow faster.
He went up to her.
“Marie,” he said in a low, husky voice, “let us have one more talk and then part.”
“What is the good of that?”
“Nay, Marie, there are yet happy days awaiting you, even now they are coming thick and fast.”
“Ay, days of mourning and nights of weeping in an endless, unbreakable chain.”
“Marie, Marie, have a care what you say, for I understand the meaning of your words as you never think to have me, and they wound me cruelly.”
“I reck but little of wounds that are stung with words for daggers. It was never in my mind to spare you them.”
“Then drive the weapon home, and do not pity me—not for one instant. Tell me that my love has besmirched you and humbled you in the dust! Tell me that you would give years of your life to tear from your heart every memory of me! And make a dog of me and call me cur. Call me by every shameful name you know, and I will answer to every one and say you are right; for I know you are right, you are, though it’s torture to say so! Hear me, Marie, hear me and believe if you can: though I know you loathe yourself because you have been mine, and sicken in your soul when you think of it, and frown with disgust and - 197 - remorse, yet do I love you still—I do indeed. I love you with all my might and soul, Marie.”
“Fie, shame on you, Sti H?gh! Shame on you! You know not what you are saying. And yet—God forgive me—but ’tis true, fearful as it seems! Oh, Sti, Sti, why are you such a varlet soul? Why are you such a miserable, cringing worm that doesn’t bite when it’s trodden underfoot? If you knew how great and proud and strong I believed you—you who are so weak! It was your sounding phrases that lied to me of a power you never owned; they spoke loud of everything your soul never was and never could be. Sti, Sti, was it right that I should find weakness instead of strength, abject doubt instead of brave faith, and pride—Sti, where was your pride?”
“Justice and right are but little mercy, but I deserve naught else, for I have been no better than a counterfeiter with you, Marie. I never believed in your love, no, even in the hour when you first vowed it to me, there was no faith in my soul. Oh! how I wanted to believe, but could not! I could not down the fear that lifted its dark head from the ground, staring at me with cold eyes, blowing away my rich, proud dreams with the breath from its bitterly smiling mouth. I could not believe in your love, and yet I grasped the treasure of it with both hands and with all my soul. I rejoiced in it with a timid, anxious happiness, as a thief might feel joy in his golden booty, though he knew the rightful owner would step in, the next moment, and tear the precious thing from his hands. For I know the man will come who will be worthy of you, or whom you will think worthy, and he will not doubt, not tremble and entreat. He will mould you like pure gold in his hands and set his foot on your will, and you will obey him, humbly and - 198 - gladly. Not that he will love you more than I, for that no one could, but that he will have more faith in himself and less sense of your priceless worth, Marie.”
“Why, this is a regular fortune-teller’s tale you’re giving me, Sti H?gh. You are ever the same, your thoughts roam far afield. You are like children with a new toy; instead of playing with it, they must needs pull it to pieces and find out how it was made, and so spoil it. You never have time to hold and enjoy, because you are ever reaching and seeking. You cut the timber of life all up into thought-shavings.”
“Farewell, Marie.”
“Farewell, Sti H?gh,—as well as may be.”
“Thanks—thanks—it must be so. Yet I would ask of you one thing.”
“Well?”
“When you depart from here, let none know the way you go, lest I should hear it, for if I do, I cannot answer for myself that I shall have strength to keep from following you.”
Marie shrugged her shoulders impatiently.
“God bless you, Marie, now and forever.”
With that he left her.
In a fair November gloaming, the bronze-brown light of the sun is slowly receding from the windows still gleaming singly in high gables; an instant it rests on the slender twin spires of the church, is caught up there by cross and golden wreath, then freed in luminous air, and fades, while the moon lifts a shining disc over the distant, long-flowing lines of the rounded hills.
Yellow, bluish, and purple, the fading tints of the sky are mirrored in the bright, silently running river. Leaves - 199 - of willow and maple and elder and rose drop from golden crowns and flutter down to the water in tremulous flight, rest on the glittering surface and glide along, under leaning walls and stone steps, into the darkness, beneath low, massive bridges, around palings black with moisture. They catch the glow from the red coal fire in the lighted smithy, are whirled round in the rust-brown eddies by the grinder’s house, then drift away among rushes and leaky boats, lost among sunken barrels and muddy, water-soaked fences.
Blue twilight is spreading a transparent dusk over squares and open markets. In the fountains the water gleams as through a delicate veil, as it runs from wet snake-snouts and drips from bearded dragon-mouths, among fantastic broken curves and slender, serrated vessels. It murmurs gently and trickles coldly; it bubbles softly and drips sharply, making rapidly widening rings on the dark surface of the brimming basin. A breath of wind soughs through the square, while round about the dusky space, a deeper darkness stares from shadowy portals, black window-panes, and dim alleys.
Now the moon is rising and throwing a silvery sheen over roofs and pinnacles, dividing light and shadow into sharp-cut planes. Every carved beam, every flaunting sign, every baluster in the low railing of the porches is etched on houses and walls. The stone lattice-work over the church-doors, St. George with his lance there at the corner, the plant with its leaves here in the window, all stand out like black figures. What a flood of light the moon pours through the wide street, and how it glitters on the water in the river! There are no clouds in the heavens, only a ring like a halo around the moon, and nothing else except myriads of stars.
It was such a night as this at Nürnberg, and in the steep - 200 - street leading up to the castle, in the house known as von Karndorf’s, a feast was held that same evening. The guests were sitting around the table, merry, and full of food and drink. All but one were men who had left youth behind, and this one was but eighteen years. He wore no periwig, but his own hair was luxuriant enough, long, golden, and curly. His face was fair as a girl’s, white and red, and his............