"Only _you_ dare ask me that," replied Ra.s.selwitz, starting up in his turn; "and to you only could I give a cool answer. I have never shunned the game of swords; but my knightly word binds me; I pledged it to the prince palatine on the settling of that awkward business the other day, and, if the monster does not begin again himself, he will have quiet for me as long as he lives."

"Does not then the wish of your beloved weigh more with you than this promise?" asked Bona in soul-melting tones; and, laying her hand upon his shoulder, she gazed on him with a look that glowed through his pulses and gave wings to them.

"You have not understood me, n.o.ble lady," replied Ra.s.selwitz earnestly.

"We are talking here of my knightly word, on which depends my honour, and consequently my earthly being. If this adamantine chain were to hold no longer, what tie in the world could be relied on?"

"A clever brain would know how to manage a quarrel, and yet throw the appearance of the first aggression upon his adversary. Rough and violent as this Friend appears to me, it must be easy to irritate him to unseemly language and vulgar action, and then you fight only in self-defence, which the bishop cannot take amiss."

"That would be bad work, lady, with which I cannot meddle. To evade a promise is to break a promise, and I am an honourable Silesian."

"Well answered," cried Bona with loud laughter, and reseated herself.

"Take your place again by my side, Herr von Ra.s.selwitz; it was not so evilly intended. I excuse you from the combat for life and death, to which you seem to have so little inclination, and do you, on the other hand, excuse me for the future from your love-protests which you cannot prove. You have stood the first trial badly; I spare you the others."

"How! Your strange instigation was no more than a trial?"

"And a very badly contrived one too. How could I expect that you would believe me, in this deadly hatred against a man whom I saw to-day for the first time in my life, and who could not have ever injured me?--me, a Netherlandress, who have lived but a few weeks at Schweidnitz? You would have caught me finely, and put me into an awkward plight, had you made as if you were willing to comply with my desire. I must then have prayed you, for G.o.d's sake, to let poor Friend live, and you would have had the pleasure of laughing at me soundly for my unsuccessful project."

"Fool that I am!--and yet I rejoice from my heart that it was only a joke. I could not, however, suspect you of such a trick."

"Did you have a long merry-making on Monday at the widow's?" asked Bona, with a careless transition of the subject.

"Unfortunately, no; the bridegroom, whom we expected, had an accident with his horse, and arrived late only to go to bed directly. This untuned us all, and we separated at an early hour."

"I have already heard much of this bridegroom; but tell me more about him; he is said to be a handsome man."

"A perfect model of manly beauty!"

"That is saying much; yet since a man of your appearance allows it, why it must needs be so.--Brave?--that is understood of itself;--but I suppose just as hot and violent, just as easy to be irritated, which you gentlemen often wish to pa.s.s upon us for courage?"

"Nothing less. He is coolness and reflection personified, and on that account seems as if born to be a general. If he had not been the leader of the n.o.bles on that decisive day which freed me from arrest, it had unavoidably come to a battle in the city; the upshot was uncertain, and in any case Bieler's murderers had escaped punishment."

A flash of anger quivered through Bona's beautiful features, and the little pearl-teeth within her rosy lips were ground together firmly.

But the external calm was soon regained, and she asked with her former indifference,--"Is this mirror of virtue and honour quite faithful to his Althea?"

"It is perilous to answer for any thing of this sort; but in his case I would almost venture it. He dwells on his bride with infinite affection."

"That proves nothing; you men may love warmly, and yet be false withal.

Will you do me a favour, Herr von Ra.s.selwitz?"

"Command me; I fly."

"Always supposing it is not for life and death," interposed Bona with light mockery. "But I have a desire to become personally acquainted with this Tausdorf, who is so much talked of. Besides I want to inquire of him after a relation, who lives at Prague. Bring him hither with the first opportunity."

"It is asking much," said Ra.s.selwitz jestingly, "to expect that I should myself introduce to you so dangerous a rival; but I build upon his fore-praised fidelity."

"If, however, you cannot, or like not, it is of no consequence. It was only a pa.s.sing whim, which I can just as lightly give up again."

"By no means; and it is precisely to-morrow morning that your wish can be most easily accomplished, for the lady Althea then goes to Bogendorf, whence she does not return till the day afterwards, and she leaves Tausdorf behind that he may have leisure to recover from his fall. The singular plant, which is shown in this garden, shall be the bait to bring him. He will come to admire a blooming aloe, and will be agreeably surprised when the floweret of beauty unfolds to him the splendour of its colours."

He imprinted a fiery kiss upon Bona's hand and departed. The maiden looked after him with a bitter smile, then rose up, and walked slowly into the green-house, where stood the aloe, which she considered for a long time, and at length said, "Yes, proud aloe, you are the image of my revenge. Your blossom requires years to break from the bud, but it does at last break forth in vigour that will not be restrained; and though you perish in the very moment of perfection, you have yet gained your object; he who has done that has lived long enough."

Beamless, yet with splendid glow, hung the evening sun, like a bright burning ruby in the horizon over the violet-coloured mountains. Purple clouds, edged with gold, shot a glory about it, while the whole western heavens shone in a sea of flame, and the blaze melted away farther on into a lovely sea-green, which again in the east was lost in the dark blue of night. Before the aloe, whose flowers seemed to burn in the evening red, stood Tausdorf, sunk in its contemplation.--"The plant is to be envied," he said to Ra.s.selwitz; "he dies well, who, like it, dies at the moment of reaching the pinnacle of strength and beauty; and I could almost wish that such a death might one day be to myself."

"How earnestly and gravely you take every thing," replied Ra.s.selwitz--"nay gloomily too! For my part, it is precisely when I got to the pinnacle that I should feel most eager to live on, because it is then that life is gayest. When one is gone, the best pleasure is over; and in good truth we shall always be dead long enough afterwards."

"In the ten years of experience, which I have beyond you, lies the difference of our views. Throughout nature nothing stands still. He who does not go forward goes backward. From the summit the road only leads down again, and every retracing of our steps has something disconsolate about it, which I would willingly buy off with a few years of existence."

He turned about to depart, but Ra.s.selwitz held him back:--"I cannot let you go thus; you may, perhaps, have got over your accident, but you still look pale, and the evening wind blows cursedly cool from the mountains. Let us first, therefore, if agreeable to you, empty a flask of tokay against the bad air, and then I will myself accompany you home again."

"You gentlemen can't do without the wine-cup," said Tausdorf jestingly.

"If, however, it is really to be but a single flask, I am contented."

They went accordingly into the larger greenhouse, where at the end, under an oleander-tree, a little table was neatly set out, covered with a crimson silk cloth. Upon this was a dish of foreign salad between two handsome flasks with handles, semi-transparent and edged with silver, and two gla.s.s goblets, ready filled, in which the tokay sparkled like blood in the last rays of the setting sun. By the table sat Bona in all the fulness of her charms, seeming to enjoy with silent transport the splendour of the evening heavens, whose crimson fire gave all the glory of a seraph to her head and face.

"We interrupt here," said Tausdorf to Ra.s.selwitz, struck by her appearance, "and must seek some other place."

"You do not interrupt me, gentlemen," said Bona, rising with graceful kindness. "A woman, who knows how to maintain her female dignity, has no occasion to be afraid of men. But perhaps you wish to have a private conversation with your companion, in which case I give way to you, although I should have willingly enjoyed this splendid evening for a quarter of an hour longer."

"You love then the charms of nature?" asked Tausdorf, whose sympathy had been won by the first words of the stranger, and who now thought no more of going.

"What being of head and heart but must love them?" replied Bona warmly.

"Nature ever reflects herself, and yet is ever new, nor has any mortal hitherto succeeded in imitating the least of her wonders: so has she gone on for centuries, silent and beautiful, clear and sublime, benevolent in creating and maintaining as in destroying."

"Nature," said Tausdorf with warmth, "has always seemed to me like a perfect woman in the arms of the all-powerful--in the arms of a beneficent master and loving husband."

"You are probably married, sir knight," observed Bona roguishly, "by this image in particular striking your fancy?"

"Not yet," replied Tausdorf, colouring.

"But already promised and bound by indissoluble chains," interrupted Ra.s.selwitz, to whom this brief conversation grew much too animated.

"You have become so rapidly acquainted with the knight, fair Bona, that I must hasten to inform you, you are talking with the Herr Sparrenberger von Tausdorf, the betrothed of the Frau von Netz; and now take your place, my old friend, that the n.o.ble wine may not grow vapid, and pledge me to the health of your fair intended."

"I regret to-day, for the first time, that I have for ever renounced wine," said Bona, while the knights touched their gla.s.ses. "A toast to the health of so n.o.ble a lady would be well in place now."

"You know my Althea?" asked Tausdorf.

"No," replied Bona with lovely frankness; "but I have heard so much good of you, sir knight, that I believe you could have chosen none but a n.o.ble being for the companion of your life."

"Pray, lady," said Ra.s.selwitz, breaking in upon them with vexation,--"did you not tell me to-day that you had a relation in Prague, of whom you had long heard nothing? Herr Tausdorf lived there a considerable time, and perhaps will be able to give you satisfaction."

"I thank you, dear Ra.s.selwitz, for reminding me of it," replied Bona; "but it has already grown dark," she continued, looking round; "we had better order a light at the gardener's."

"Admirable!" muttered Ra.s.selwitz; "she sends me away that she may be alone with him in the dark;"--and he hurried off with the speed of an arrow, to be back so much the sooner. In Tausdorf the same idea was stirring; but when he secretly asked himself the question, whether he did or did not like it, he could obtain no decided answer.

After all, the fears of the one and the imaginings of the other were alike idle. The fair Bona kept at her old distance from Tausdorf, and entered into the most indifferent talk in the world with him, inquiring after a mult.i.tude of Prague ladies, whom he, indeed, knew by name, but of whom he could give no farther information. In addition to this, as Tausdorf could hear, she was playing with the silver lids of the wine-flagons, as the hands are accustomed to do when the mind is absent. This was all but an annoyance to the knight, and if he had not found some pleasure in listening to the melodious voice of the questioner, he would have experienced a real tediousness even in the familiar darkness and in the neighbourhood of such a captivating creature.

At length Ra.s.selwitz appeared with the gardener, who hung a large mirror-lamp of Venetian gla.s.s upon a branch of the oleander, and again retired. The gla.s.ses were filled afresh, while Bona wound about the good Tausdorf with the finest arts of conversation, and contrived to flatter him so sweetly, and at the same time to inspire him with such respect, that he was unable to break from the magic circle, although his correctness of feeling warned him betimes to fly from the danger before he was lost in it.