Oswald felt how a new evil spirit rose from the deepest bottom of his soul, which his eye had never yet fathomed. A wild pa.s.sion, a burning thirst for revenge, a mad desire to destroy seized upon him; it was the intense, frantic hatred of the n.o.bility which he had felt as a boy, while he loaded the pistols for his father behind the city wall, when the latter shot at the ace of spades and each time aimed at the heart of a n.o.ble man; when he read at school, in Livy, of the haughty arrogance of the Tarquins, or in his room, of the tearful story of Emilia Galotti. And they were no fictions! Here, in this castle, perhaps in these same rooms which he now occupied, a victim of the cruelty of a n.o.bleman had bled to death; here the poor, unhappy, and beautiful Marie had paid with a thousand burning tears for her folly in believing the word of a n.o.ble tempter.

She had been victimized because she was a frail woman, and because she had no weapons but tears--tears which found no pity. Those tears had never been atoned for. How if he should arise as her avenger--if he should avenge those tears of a low-born maid in the blood of a n.o.bleman?

Such thoughts pa.s.sed through Oswald's mind while he was making a few hasty preparations for the case of an unlucky event--little as he thought it likely to happen, for he saw himself only in the part of an avenger. He burnt a few letters which he did not wish to fall into strange hands; he arranged his other papers, and finally wrote a few lines to Professor Berger; but he soon tore them up again and threw them into the fire.

"_Tant de bruit pour une omelette_," he said, "the wretches do not deserve that I should give myself so much trouble for their sake."

He awaited the appointed hour with impatience.

At last the great clock struck ten. He heard the servants going to bed; even from Albert's room a light was shining down upon the dark garden.

It struck half-past ten. Oswald dressed himself carefully, took a rose from a bouquet which he had gathered in the garden, and put it in his b.u.t.ton-hole.

Then he slipped noiselessly down the narrow steps on which Marie, on that stormy night had escaped from the chateau into the garden, through the garden and out at the gate which led into the courtyard, and from which it was only a short distance to the little gate where he was told he would find the carriage.

The night sky was covered with clouds, through which a few scattered stars only pierced their way; it was so dark that Oswald had to walk very slowly, until his eye had become accustomed to the darkness, if he did not wish to risk falling into the ditch on either side of the road.

Suddenly a large dark object loomed up before him, and at the same moment a rough, deep voice cried out: "_Qui vive?_"

"_Moi!_" answered Oswald.

He saw the outlines of a tall form which opened the door of the carriage and let down the steps.

As soon as he had got in the door was closed after him, and the horses started; he could not see whether the person had jumped upon the box, or whether it was the coachman himself.

Coachman and horses must have known the road well, or be able to see as well at night as in open daylight, for the carriage drove with a swiftness to which even an impatient lover could have had no objection.

The road was in good order, and although now and then a stone was lying in the track, the carriage was so well hung on excellent springs that one hardly perceived the jolt.

Oswald leaned back in the swelling cushions. The soft velvet seemed to exhale a perfume, which filled the narrow compartment like the boudoir of a pretty woman. Oswald even fancied it was the same perfume which Melitta ordinarily used. And suddenly he felt as if Melitta were sitting by his side--as if her soft warm hand were touching his--as if he felt her breath on his brow--as if her lips were lying lightly like a zephyr on his own.

And this delicious dream effaced the reality. Oswald forgot what was before him; he did not think of the future; he knew not where he was--and only she, she herself filled his soul. The memory of her sweet grace, her goodness, her intoxicating beauty overcame him like a spring-tide of bliss. The precious images of those happy hours which he had spent by her side, at her feet, rose before his mind's eyes with marvellous clearness; he saw them all, from his first meeting on the lawn behind the chateau at Grenwitz, to the moment when she turned from him, tears in her eyes, in that night of hapless memory, when the demon of jealousy struck its sharp claws into his wounded heart.

"Forgive me, Melitta! forgive me!" he groaned, burying his head in the cushions.

Suddenly the carriage stopped. The door opened, the tall man who had let down the steps before helped him get out, gave him his hand, led him a few steps up to a large gla.s.s door, where, through the red curtains, a faint light was bidding him welcome. The door opened, and Oswald found himself in the garden-room in Melitta's chateau, and Melitta wound her arms around his neck, and Melitta's voice whispered: "Forgive me, Oswald! Forgive me!"

"You cruel man," said Melitta, after the first wild storm of delight, with its showers of joyous tears, had pa.s.sed away. "How could you shut up your heart for so many days when you knew I was standing outside knocking for admission? But I will not scold. You are here and all is right again."

She leaned her head on his breast and looked up at him smiling through her tears. "Is it not, darling? Is not all right again? Now Melitta is again what she was before to you, what she will ever be to you, in spite of all pretty girls of sixteen, be their name Emily or----"

"Melitta!"

"Or Melitta! For there is but one Melitta, if thousands bore that name, and that one am I! And how could you forget such a weighty matter! What trouble you have caused old Baumann! I will say nothing of myself, for joy follows grief and grief follows joy, and if two love each other honestly, a few tears more or less, a few sleepless nights, a few letters begun and torn to pieces again, matter, after all, very little--but poor Baumann! Just imagine! The first day I was very calm, for I thought: he will come soon enough, and fall down at your feet and ask your pardon! But when you did not come, nor on the second, nor on the third day, then my heart failed me, and I dare say I looked wretched enough, for as I was sitting here, resting my head in my hands, I suddenly felt a hand on my shoulder, and when I looked up, good old Baumann was standing before me, and said: Shall I go and see why he is staying away so long?--Ah do, dear Baumann, I said. Then the good soul went, without saying a word, and did not return till late at night. Did you see him?--Yes, ma'am! He is well and hearty; I have had a race with him."

"Then old Baumann was the mysterious horseman?"

"Of course, and he laughed in his quiet way when he told me that you had been after him, as if he meant to say: The children! They thought they could overtake me on Brownlock!"

"Then that was Brownlock, of whom Bruno has told me so much! Well, now I can explain it all."

"Can you? Then you will also explain it, I hope, why Baumann sat down and wrote that letter at my dictation. The old man refused, and said: A duel is no child's play, and that is carrying the joke too far. But I laughed and wept till he gave way; so he took Brownlock once more this morning and rode to town to mail the letter."

"And if I had not accepted the challenge?"

"Baumann asked me the same question, and I answered: Fie, are you not ashamed to say such a thing, Baumann?"

Oswald laughed. "Of course! we must always be ashamed when we say or do something that does not suit the world, as it exists in your little heads."

Melitta made no reply, and Oswald saw that a shadow flitted across her face. He knelt down before her and said, seizing her hand as it hung by her side:

"Have I offended you, Melitta?"

"No," she said, "but you would not have said so a week ago."

"How do you mean?"

"Come, get up! Let us go into the garden. It is hot in the house; I long to breathe the cool night air!"

They went down into the garden and walked up and down, arm in arm, till they came to the low terrace, where Oswald had found Melitta when he called upon her that Sunday afternoon. They sat down under the pine-tree, which spread its branches over them as if in protection. The night was marvellously silent. The trees stood quiet, not a leaf stirring, as if they were fast asleep; fragrant perfumes filled the warm, dry air, and glow-worms were wandering through the night like bright tiny stars.

"You did not answer my question, Melitta," said Oswald. "What is it the last eight days have changed in me? Am I not the same I was; only that the bitter regret at having hurt your feelings has made my love for you deeper and warmer?"

Melitta made no reply; suddenly she said, speaking low and quick:

"Have you seen much of him since that Sunday at Barnewitz?"

"Of whom, Melitta?"

"Well, of--of Baron Oldenburg. G.o.d be thanked, I have said it. It is so childish and foolish in me to have hesitated so long to speak of Oldenburg, and to tell you what our relations have been,--and yet I felt you had a right to know it, and I was bound to lift the veil from my past, wherever it might appear dark to you. This feeling grew so overwhelming in me, especially when I found that you had become intimate with the baron, that I wanted to see you at any price, and this suggested to me the foolish plan."

"I have no such right as you say," replied Oswald, "to be foolishly curious. I have to be grateful for the love which you grant me, and I am grateful for it, as for a sweet gift from on high. There was a time, I confess, when my love still knew what doubt was, but that was not yet true, genuine love. Now I cannot imagine that I could ever cease to love you, or that you could ever do so. I feel even as if this love was not only intended to be eternal, but had actually existed before, in all eternity. I do not know if you ever loved before; it may be, but I do not comprehend it, and would not comprehend it, even if you were to say so expressly."

"And I a.s.sure you," said Melitta tenderly, coming closer to Oswald, "I have never loved till I saw you; for what I before called love was only unsatisfied longing after an ideal which I bore in my heart, which I could find nowhere, and which I had long despaired of ever finding."

"And you fancy that I am this personified ideal? Poor Melitta! How soon you will awake from this dream! Awake, Melitta! awake--it is time yet!"

"No, Oswald, it is too late. There is a love which is as strong as death, and there is no awaking from it. No! No awaking. I feel it. I know it. And if you were to turn your face from me, and if you were to push me from you--with you I know not what offended love, what insulted pride are--nothing but immeasurable, unfathomable, inexhaustible love.

Till now I only knew that I could love; how much I could love, you first have taught me....

"And now also I can speak freely of the time when I did not yet know you--for then my life was only apparent life and all I felt and thought was only a vague dreaming without connection and sense. I know that now--now since I have opened my eyes in the sunlight of your love, and life lies clear and transparent before me, so that the deep night which surrounds us looks to me brighter than formerly the brightest day. Now I can speak of the Melitta of former days as of a strange person for whose doings and sayings I am no longer responsible; now I can and will tell you what that portrait in my alb.u.m means--that detached leaf which frightened you so, darling.--Yes, I saw it all; you changed color, and you did not comprehend how I could ask your opinion of a man whom you could not but think my lover. And yet Oldenburg never was my lover, or there must be strange degrees in love, of which the lowest is as far from the highest as the earth is from heaven.

"I knew Oldenburg from my childhood. My father's estate adjoined Cona, where you were yesterday. My aunt, who undertook my education after my mother's death, and Oldenburg's mother were warm friends, and met almost daily. So did we children. Oldenburg was several years older than I, but as girls are always ahead of boys in their development, we did not feel the difference in age much; we played and worked together; we were good comrades--ordinarily, for not unfrequently we fell out, and then we had sharp words and quarrels and tears. I rarely gave cause for them, for I was not obstinate, and always ready to give way, but Adalbert was excessively sensitive, stubborn, and self-willed. The double nature of his character, which he afterwards tried to harmonize and to conceal from all but the most sharp-sighted, was then very evident. It was impossible not to become interested in him, but I doubt if anybody really loved him. This he felt, and this feeling, which he bore about with him like a concealed wound, made him early a hypochondriac and a misanthrope. It was of little use to him that everybody admired his eminent talents, and that no one doubted his courage, his love of the truth--his stubborn, self-willed ways repelled all and offended all. Even his tall, ungraceful figure and his awkward motions contributed to turn the hearts of men away from him. At least it was so with me. I had from childhood up felt irresistibly attracted towards all that was beautiful and graceful, and had a real horror of what was ugly and ill-shapen. I could not love Adalbert, although he was sincerely attached to me with great tenderness, which he carefully hid under an appearance of coldness and rudeness. When his pa.s.sionate temper got the better of his attempted calmness, he would even reproach me bitterly on account of my heartlessness and my fickleness.

"Such were our relations till Adalbert, at sixteen, went to college, for he had persuaded his guardian--his mother had also died in the mean time--to let him go to the city. Now he came but rarely to Cona, and then only for a few days. Then I was for two years at boarding-school.

Thus it came about that we met only in pa.s.sing, till he went to the University at Heidelberg. When he returned from there, and from a long journey, I had been married two years.

"He did not come to Berkow till a considerable time afterwards. Our meeting was strange enough. He seemed to accept the changed state of things only as a _fait accompli_, which we submit to because we cannot help ourselves. He did not trouble me with questions; he asked for no confidential communication, which the sole friend of my childhood and early youth might well have demanded. He did not reproach me; he did not tell me that he had loved me, that he had hoped to obtain my hand, although I afterwards learned that that had been so, and that the news of my marriage, which he received at Heidelberg, had nearly driven him mad, and laid him for weeks and months upon the sick-bed. He tried by silent observation to obtain a clear idea of my situation. I saw that nothing escaped him, that not a word I uttered, not a gesture I made remained unnoticed. This consciousness of being continually watched by such sharp eyes was by no means agreeable, especially as there was much that ought to have been very different from what it actually was. Soon we were as we had been in childhood; only there occurred no violent scenes, as our pa.s.sions had subsided. As he then had brought me all the pretty sh.e.l.ls, and stones, and flowers which he found on the beach, among the rocks, and in the garden, so he now told me all his indefatigably active mind could discover in the field of science: now a fine poem and now a deep thought--and he felt it not less deeply now, if I treated his treasures as carelessly as I had done with the flowers which I allowed to perish, and the stones and sh.e.l.ls which I threw away. I knew I had no better friend than he, and he knew that in all I felt for him there was no love; all the more disinterested was his friendship, and all the more unwarrantable the fickleness with which I treated him.

"His friendship was soon to be proved. The melancholy into which Carlo had fallen, soon after Julius' birth, a.s.sumed a more and more dangerous form. Attacks of unexpected violence, the precursors of the last fearful catastrophe, became more frequent. He would now admit no one near him but Adalbert, although he, the _bon-vivant_ of former days, had been in the habit of laughing ruthlessly at the baron, who was his junior, and yet thoughtful and melancholy himself. How often had he ridiculed him, how often called him contemptuously the Youth of Sas!

Now he accompanied him everywhere; now Oldenburg's voice was the only one which could drive away the dark demons that fought for his mind, at least for the moment. And the self-sacrificing spirit with which Oldenburg performed this service of love cannot be sufficiently praised, and I ought to thank him for it all my life long. Then came the catastrophe. Oldenburg stood faithfully by me in those dark days, or rather, he took all the burden and the responsibility upon himself, and managed all and everything with such energy and sagacity that I had only to consent.