The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 11
Ottomar started up and looked, dazed, about him. Where was he? At his feet roared and hissed a wide whirling stream; and now he heard a neighing quite clearly, very close to him – in the deep road on the edge of which he stood, a carriage, pushed backward against the side of the road by backing horses. With one leap he was in the rear of the carriage and at the coachman's side, up to the snorting horses, to help the man turn them about, there was just room.
"Where are the ladies?"
He saw that the carriage was empty.
"They got out – up above – were in such a hurry – over the path in the lowlands, toward the park – Good Heavens! Good Heavens! If only they got over! Good Lord!" A wave of the stream which had broken through between the hills and the castle, and into which the coachman had almost driven, broke into the deep road and leaped up under the feet of the horses, which would no longer stand still, and dashed up the road, with the coachman, who had fortunately caught the lines and was trying to stop the animals, at their side.
Ottomar had only understood this much from the coachman's words, which the storm had drowned for the most part, that Else was in dire peril. What sort of a path was it? Where was the path?
He ran after the coachman, calling and shouting. The man did not hear.
[Else and Valerie return from Wissow Hook and reach the terrace of Golmberg. Giraldi, who has wandered out to look for them, seizes Valerie by the hand and rescues her, leaving Else on the terrace at the mercy of the storm.]
Ferdinande sprang up as Ottomar's step was heard across the hall down the creaking stair, and paced to and fro in the little room a few times, wringing her hands; then she threw herself upon the sofa again, when she finally saw Ottomar, resting her head in her hands on the arm of the sofa. But she had not been weeping, and she was not weeping now; she had no tears. She no longer had any hope, any wish but to be allowed to die for him, as she could not live for him, and as her life would be another burden, another torture, for him.
If she had only believed the officer with the smooth brow and the wide sympathetic eyes, when he said: "You deceive yourself, young lady; your flight with Ottomar is not a solution, it is only another complication, and the worst one of all! The difficulty for Ottomar lies in his wretchedly compromised honor as an officer. The appearance of things here at least, must be saved, and that is in accordance with the preliminaries which I have arranged. His life will be at the best a life in death, and I don't know whether he will be able to endure it; indeed, I doubt it; but in cases like this it is permissible to silence one's better convictions. But there is no doubt that, if you fly with him now and the affair becomes known, as it must, for us his friends there remains no possibility of saving appearances. An officer who must resign his position because of debts, whose engagement is annulled in consequence, who, in this critical predicament, gives up also the right to call to account slanderers and tale-bearers – that can happen, unfortunately happens only too often. But thus – pardon the expression – free course is given to scandal. The man who, in such a moment, can think of anything but saving from shipwreck as much of his honor as he can, or, if nothing more is left to be saved, does not at least resign with dignity, perhaps – perhaps even to give up his life – who, instead of this, involves another being in this shipwreck, whom he declares he loves – an innocent girl, a respectable lady – that man has lost all claim to interest or sympathy. Ottomar himself must see that sooner or later. This journey of his to Warnow has, to my mind, absolutely no point. What will he do there? Call Giraldi to account? The Italian will answer him: You are not a child; you were not a child; you must have known what you were doing. – Challenge the Count? For what, when he accompanies you? Well, let him go; but alone – not with you! I entreat you, not with you! Believe me! – Love in whose omnipotence you so firmly believe, which is to help Ottomar over all difficulties as with a divine hand – it will prove itself absolutely impotent – yes, worse than that; it will completely shatter the little strength that Ottomar might have summoned. For his sake – if you will not think of yourself – do not go with him!"
Strange! While he was speaking to her with hurried yet clear words – drawing her aside even in the last moment while Ottomar and Bertalde were arranging a few things in the next room – it all passed over her like an empty sound – she scarcely knew what he was talking about. And now it all came back to her mind – word for word – it had all been fulfilled – word for word!
All-powerful Love! Great Heavens! It was a mockery! What else had he for the visions of the future, which she had painted to him in glowing terms fresh from her overflowing breast, than a melancholy, dismal smile, dispirited monosyllabic replies, which he only made in order to say something while his heart was weighed down by the thought of his angry father, his sympathetic or scoffing comrades, or the question whether he would be able after all to force von Wallbach to fight a duel. His caresses even, when she held him in her arms with her heart full of untold anxiety, as a mother who rescued her child from the flames – she shuddered when she thought of them: as if she were a girl in love whom one must humor – a mistress whom one takes along on a journey and whom one must not allow to feel that she is a burden at the first station.
She, she – who once had dreamed that her love was an inexhaustible fount, and had reproached herself for having been so niggardly with it, for having turned her lover from her door, for having left him out in the dreary waste of life, where he must perish in anguish and despair! She, who was so haughty because she knew that she had all the world to give; that her love was like the storm which surges on, overriding everything that is not stronger than itself – like a flood which rolls on, destroying everything that does not rise into the clouds.
That had been her fear all along; he too – even he would not understand her entirely; there would be a yawning breach between her ideal and the reality, and she must not on that account sacrifice her ideal, even though her heart throbbed with even greater longing and the blood coursed through her veins even more imperiously. She had only this one greatest thing to lose in order to be poorer when it was lost than the poorest beggar – she whose implacable mind destroyed once and forever the fair dream of many years of being a true artist!
How she had fought! How she had struggled through so many dreary days, so many wakeful nights, in gloomy brooding and racking despair to the horror of which, strong though she was, she would long ago have succumbed, had not his dear illusive image flitted through her morning dreams, luring her on to other dreary days, to other nights of torture.
Now it was no longer his image; it was he himself – illusive no longer, and yet still dear! Oh, how deeply she had loved – more than ever, infinitely more in his helpless misery, than in the days of his prosperity!
If she could help him! For herself she had no wish, no longer any desire. God was her witness! And if she rested tonight in his arms, he in hers – she could think of it without feeling her pulses quicken, and without feeling that the despair which depressed her heart had vanished even for a moment. He will not draw any new strength or fresh courage from your embraces, your kisses, she said to herself. He will arise from the couch of love – a broken man, weary of life. How should she keep her strength and courage to live – no longer for herself alone – now for both of them? If not strength and courage to live – then to die!
If she could die for him! Dying for him could say: "Behold, death is a joy and a feast for me if I may hope that you will despise life from this moment on, and, because you despise it, will live nobly and well, as one who lives only to die nobly and well!" But for his weak soul even that would be no spur, no support – only one dark shadow more to add to the other dark shadows which had fallen upon his path; and he would continue to waver upon the steady path, inactive, inglorious, to an early inglorious grave! —
Thus she lay there, deep in the abyss of her woe, not regarding the howling of the storm which shook the house continually from garret to cellar, not hearing the boisterous tumult of the drunken guests directly below her room, scarcely raising her head when the innkeeper's wife came into the room.
The latter had intended to ask the young lady, as the guests would now certainly remain for the night, how she wished to have the beds arranged in the room; but, at the strange expression of the beautiful pale face which rose from the arm of the sofa and gazed at her with strange looks, the question had died on her lips and she had only asked the other question – if she might not make the young lady a cup of tea. The young lady had not appeared to understand her; at least she made no reply, and the innkeeper's wife thought: She will doubtless ring if she wishes anything. So she went with the light in her hand into the adjoining room, and left the door, which was hard to close, slightly ajar, in order not to disturb the young lady further, and then turned with her candle to the windows to see if they were closed; the upper bolt had stuck, and as she loosened the lower one, the storm, coming through the narrow opening, blew out the candle which she had placed upon the window-sill.
"I can find my way," the landlady murmured, and turned toward the beds in the dusk, but stopped as she heard the door adjoining open and the young lady utter a slight scream. "Good Heavens!" thought she, "people of quality are almost worse off than we are" – for the gentleman who had returned had begun at once to speak in a tone not exactly loud, but evidently excited. What could be the trouble between the two young people? thought she, slipping on tiptoe to the door. But she could not understand anything of all the gentleman was saying, nor the few words which the lady interjected; and then it seemed to the landlady as if it was not the clear voice of the gentleman and as if the two were not speaking German. She peeped through the crack and saw, to her astonishment and terror, a wild strange man in the room with the young lady, from whose shoulders a brown coat fell to the floor as she looked in; but he did not pick it up, though continuing to gesticulate and to speak more rapidly and loudly in his unintelligible gibberish like a crazy man, as the terrified landlady thought.
"I will not go back again!" cried Antonio, "after having run half the way like a dog behind his mistress, whom a robber has kidnapped, and ridden the other half cramped up in straw in a wagon, like an animal taken to market by the butcher. I don't intend to be a dog, worse than a beast, any longer, and I will no longer endure it. I now know everything, everything, everything! – How he has betrayed you, the infamous coward, to run after another, and again from her to you, and has lain before your door whining for favor, while those inside have been making a match for him. His wench and that infernal Giraldi, whom I intend to throttle whenever and wherever I meet him, as truly as my name is Antonio Michele! I know everything, everything, everything – and that you will yield your person to him tonight, as you have already yielded your soul to him!"
The desperate man could not understand the half contemptuous, half melancholy smile which played about the proud lips of the beautiful girl.
"Don't laugh, or I'll kill you!"
And then as she arose – not from fear, but only to ward off the furious man —
"Pardon, oh! pardon me – I kill you, you – you, who are everything to me, the light and joy of my life, for whom I would let myself be torn in pieces, limb by limb! I will give every drop of my heart's blood if you will only let me kiss the hem of your garment – kiss the ground upon which you tread! How often, how often, have I done it without your knowing it – in your studio – the place where your beautiful feet have rested, the implements which your hand has touched! And I demand so little! I am willing to wait – for years – as I have already waited for years; I shall not grow tired of serving you, of worshiping you as the Holy Madonna, till the day comes when you will hear my prayers."
He dropped to his knees where he stood, lifting his wild eyes and twitching hands to her.
"Arise!" she said; "you do not know what you say, and do not know to whom you speak. I can give you nothing. I have nothing to give; I am so poor, so poor – much poorer than you!"
She went about the room, wringing her hands; passed him still kneeling, and, when her garments touched his glowing face, he sprang to his feet as though touched by an electric current.
"I am not poor," he cried; "I am the son of a prince – I am more than a prince; I am Michelangelo! I am more than Michelangelo! I see them coming in pilgrim troops, singing songs in praise of immortal Antonio, bearing flowers, waving wreaths to decorate the marvelous works of the divine Antonio! Do you hear! Do you hear? There, there!"
Up the broad village street came a confused cry of many voices, of people terrified by the news of the flood, which had broken through the dikes, and running down to the scene of the disaster. From the tower of the church nearby the tones of the bell resounded, now threateningly near, now quavering in the distance, as the storm surged to and fro.
"Do you hear?" cried the madman – "Do you hear?"
He stood with outstretched arms, smiling with his dazed eyes fixed as in blissful triumph on Ferdinande, who gazed at him with horror. Suddenly the smile changed to a terrible grimace; his eyes sparkled with deadly hate, his outstretched arm drew back abruptly, his hand clutched his breast, as now, directly under the window, a voice in commanding tone sounded clear above the cries of the multitude, through the raging storm – "A rope – a strong rope, the strongest rope you have, and small cords, as many as possible. – There are some below already! I shall be down there before you are!" A hasty step, then three or four steps at a time, came up the stairs. The madman laughed aloud.
The landlady likewise had heard the clear voice below, and the hastening step upon the stair. There would be trouble if the young gentleman should come in while the strange, uncanny man was with the young lady. She rushed into the room at the moment when the gentleman from the other side threw open the door.
Uttering a cry of rage, with lifted stiletto Antonio rushed toward him – but Ferdinande threw herself between them, before Ottomar could pass the threshold, covering her lover with her outstretched arms, offering her own breast to the impending blow, collapsing without a sound of complaint in Ottomar's arms, while the murderer, the assassin, at the sight of the deed which he had not intended, and which, like a gleaming flash of lightning, rent the darkness of his insanity, rushed past them in cowardly, confused flight, down the stairs, through the midst of the multitude, which the tolling of the storm-bell and the cries of those passing by had frightened from the bar-room and the houses and which shrank back in terror at the strange man with his black hair waving in the wind and a bloody dagger in his hand – up the village street, running, crying, screaming, over everything that came in his way, into the howling darkness.
And – "Murder! Murder! Seize him! Stop him! Stop the murderer!" they shouted from the house.
[The driver from Neuenfähr is trying to find stable room for his horses in Warnow. A man in great haste rushes up to him and asks to be driven to Neuenfähr, offering whatever he may ask, while the mob clamors for the murderer of Ferdinande. The driver starts in the face of the flood and the storm. He is terrified and wishes to turn back. The passenger offers him five thalers, twenty thalers, a hundred thalers – anything – and tells him to drive on – anywhere to get away from the place. The driver wonders who the raving man can be – a tramp! The murderer of Ferdinande, or the devil? The horses plunge on through the flood; the driver curses, and then prays. Instead of one passenger there are now two, grappling like fiends at each other's throats. The horses are swimming. The driver unhitches them, mounts one of them, and leaves his uncanny passengers to perish in the flood, reaching at last the little village of Faschwitz.]
"That won't do," cried the Burgess. "Take it in again!" "Ho! Ho, heave ho!" cried the thirty who held the cable – "Ho, heave ho!"
In their haste they had constructed a kind of raft by tying together a few boards and doors from the nearest houses, and had now tentatively let it into the stream. The flood carried it away instantly and turned it upon end! the thirty had all they could do to get it back on shore again.
For the brow of the hill had become a shore by the stream which in its fury had dashed over it! And upon the brow of the hill half the village had assembled, and people still came running in breathless haste. The village was in no danger; the nearest houses were ten to fifteen feet above water; it did not seem possible that the water could rise much more, especially as it had dropped a foot during the last few minutes. The storm had gone somewhat to the north; the inrushing flood must flow in the direction of the Hook. It had also grown a little brighter, although the storm still raged on with unabating force. Those who had arrived first did not need to show the others coming up the scene of the calamity; every one could discern the white terrace over there and the female figures in black – at one time two, and now again only one, as before, who continually signaled with a handkerchief, and sat crouching in a corner as if she had given up hope and expected and awaited her fate.
And yet it appeared as if the rescue must be accomplished. The space was so narrow; one could throw a stone across. The best throwers had tried it, foolishly – with a thin cord attached to a stone; but the stone did not go ten feet, and blew away with the line like a spider-web. And now the huge wave rolled on into the park, dashing over the terrace, spending its force in the stream, in spite of the fact that it had washed up to the edge of the shore. The women cried aloud; the men looked at one another with serious, troubled expressions.
"Nothing can be done, children," said the Burgess; "before we can bring the raft around, the building over there will be broken to pieces. One more such wave, and it will break into a thousand bits – I know it will; the pillars are not six inches thick, and the wood is worm-eaten."
"And if we can get the raft over and move up toward it, we shall break it in two and upset ourselves," said Jochen Becker, the smith.
"There are ten lying in the water instead of two!" exclaimed Carl Peters, the carpenter.
"That doesn't help any," said the Burgess; "we can't let them drown before our very eyes. We will try to get twenty feet further up with the raft, and put the people right on it; I'll go along myself. Take hold, children, take hold!"
"Ho, heave ho! Ho, heave ho!"
A hundred hands were ready to draw the raft up stream, but thirty paces would not accomplish it; it must be twice that far. The half hundred brave men had been found ready to make the attempt; the Burgess would stay by – who else should command them that held the rope? – That was the important thing!
They stood on the raft with long poles.
"Ready!"
The raft shot from the shore into the stream like an arrow.
"Hurrah!" cried those on the shore. They thought they had reached the goal; they were already afraid that the raft would drive over into the park and upset against the trees. But it did not go any farther – not a foot; it danced upon the stream so that the six on the raft had to throw themselves flat and hold fast, and so go down the stream again, like an arrow, toward the shore on this side to the place where they were before. Only with the greatest exertion were the fifty able to hold it; only with the greatest difficulty and evident peril had the six come down again from the raft to the steep shore.
"That won't do, children," said the Burgess. "If only the Lieutenant would come back – they are his near kinsmen! First he chases us down here, and now he won't come himself."
The faint brightness which had appeared when the foaming spray had withdrawn a little had again vanished. While hitherto only the leaden gray sky and the dense storm had turned the evening into night, the real night now came on. Only the sharpest eyes could still see the black form on the terrace, though the terrace itself could still be descried by every one, and at the same time the wind was evidently growing worse and had shifted again from northeast to southeast. The water was rising fast in consequence of the counter-current setting in the direction of Wissow Hook. That would have aided them as the swiftness of the current diminished; but no one any longer had the courage to renew the hopeless attempt. If there were no way of getting a rope over and fastening it there, so that some of them could slip over the swaying bridge from here to the terrace, no rescue was possible.
So the Burgess thought, so thought the others, and so they shouted it into one another's ears; but in the dreadful tumult no one could understand a word that was said.
Suddenly Ottomar stood in their midst. He had taken in the whole situation at a glance. – "Give me the line," he cried, "and make a light! – The willows there!"
They understood him instantly. – The four old, hollow willows, right there on the edge – they were to set fire to them! The village would be in danger, to be sure, if it could be done; but none thought of that. They hurried to the nearest houses, they brought back pieces of oakum and resinous wood by the armful and stuffed it all into the hollow trunks, which fortunately were turned toward the west. A few fruitless attempts – and then it flamed up – sparkling, flashing – now flaring and again subsiding – casting strange, shifting lights upon the hundreds of pale faces which were all directed toward the man with the line around his breast, struggling against the stream. – Would he hold out?
More than one pair of callous hands were clasped in prayer; women were on their knees, sobbing, moaning, pressing their nails into the flesh, tearing their hair, screaming as if mad, when another dreadful wave rolled up and on over him, and he vanished in the swell. – But there he was again! It had cast him back half the distance he had traversed; but a minute later he had retrieved the lost ground. He had been driven quite a distance down stream, but had chosen well his starting point; the terrace was still far below him. It seemed a miracle that he came through the stream!
And now he was in the middle of it! It was the worst place – they knew it from their previous experience! He seemed not to advance, but, instead, gradually to lose headway. – But the terrace was still below him; if he overcame the middle of the current, he could, he must succeed! – And now he was gaining ground perceptibly – nearer and nearer, foot by foot – in a diagonal curved line toward the terrace! —
Rough, quarrelsome fellows who had been enemies all their lives, had clasped hands; women fell sighing into each other's arms. A gentleman with short gray hair and heavy gray mustache, who had just run up from the village, taking his stand close by the burning willows, almost enveloped by their flames, had followed the swimmer with steady gaze and with fervent prayers and promises – that everything, everything, should be forgiven and forgotten, if only he should have him back again, his dear, heroic son! – He now cried out aloud – a terrible cry which the storm carried away and hurled down upon the shore where the men were standing who held the line, shouting to them to pull back – back – back! – It was too late!
Then down came the mighty fir-tree, at the foot of which the swimmer had sat an hour before – torn loose by the storm, hurled into the flood, rolling on in the whirlpool of the stream, like a giant emerging from the deep, now turning up its mighty roots which still held the rock in their grasp, and now the top; now rising erect as it had once stood in the light of the sun, and in the next moment crashing down upon the swimmer – then plunging with its top into the foaming currents and turning its roots upward as it hurried out of the light into the darker night.