Part 5

She began taking off her bonnet and arranging a refractory lock displaced by the wind, apparently very intent on so doing; but I could see very plainly that her thoughts were no wise occupied by the lovely, intellectual looking face reflected in the looking-glass. Suddenly she began:

“Tell me, child, what are you meaning by this Schwarzburg worship of yours?”

Her unexpected question took me by surprise, and I answered in a low voice:

“What can I mean?”

“That is what I want to know. I want to know what you are thinking, what dreams you are allowing yourself to indulge in! Do you know that for some time past you are quite altered?”

I felt myself growing more and more downhearted.

“How altered, Elizabeth?”

“Oh,” she said, “do not let us waste time in fencing. The manner in which you distinguish Schwarzburg is the subject of general remark. You make your almost veneration of him so ostentatiously apparent.”

“I do not make it ostentatiously apparent; I only do not conceal it.”

“And what is it to lead to?”

“It will lead to nothing,” I answered dejectedly. “In a few weeks he goes to Bosnia; and I to Trostburg.”

Shrugging her shoulders, she made a few steps forward, then sat down on the chair before my writing table. The volume with “My Memoirs” written large upon it attracted her attention; her face relaxed its grave expression, and she began to laugh.

“So the child has taken to writing her ‘Memoirs’; here are all the secrets--one need only to look in and find them all laid bare. Do not look so frightened. I am curious, but not indiscreet.”

While her words were sarcastic, her great blue eyes were so sincere, were looking at me with such a depth of love and sympathy, that, taking courage, I went up to her and said:

“You asked me what I want. I will confess to you what I do not want; I will not marry Count Taxen.”

“Bravo, that is good,” she answered phlegmatically. “And what about the count, who purposes either to-day or to-morrow to make formal proposal for your hand?”

In deadly fear, I cried:

“How do you know this?”

“From himself.”

“And does he not see how utterly indifferent he is to me?”

“No. That would be the last thing he would be likely to see.”

“And how much more, how unspeakably more, I prefer another to him?”

“That still less. A Count Taxen simply considers it an impossibility that a Baron Schwarzburg should be preferred before him.”

“And Dora, who is a thousand times better suited to him, and who promised me that she would make capture of him--Dora, on whom I have set my hopes--why is she not as good as her word?”

“Because she cannot, sweet Simplicity. Because she has done all in her power, but in vain. She is not to the count’s taste. He scents the egoist in her, and is too utterly the egoist himself not to avoid his duplicate.”

“Oh, what can I do, Elizabeth! what can I do? If I have to marry the count I shall die of despair.”

She threw her arms round me, and drew me down to her, and I laid my cheek upon her wavy hair.

“Do you really think so?” she asked. “I believe you might manage to be not so desperately unhappy with him. Only you need to be a little wise, my pet; do not go against him in little things, and you would soon find that you had your own way in more important ones. You would have to be very careful not to hurt his vanity, and where possible to sing his praises to him.”

“What, flatter him!” I cried, “praise what I do not approve! Flattery! oh, the shame and disgrace of it!”

“Do not give it such high-sounding names,” said she. “To be a bad wife is the only shame and disgrace to a woman. In comparison with that, any self-imposed humiliation weighs but lightly in the scale. And after all, it is but a case of weighing one evil against another, a compromise with the enemy, otherwise called the ills of life. Perfect happiness, cloudless, whose lot is it? Who even may indulge an unbroken dream of it?”

“Oh, were it only a matter of a dream, I should soon be in possession of it.”

“Indeed! Then trust me, and put your dream into words.”

“Dare I? May I?”

“You must.”

“Do not forget that it is only a dream.”

“Well--begin.”

“I should dream that I was his--you know whom I mean--and had no more ardent wish than to make life, hitherto so hard to him, sweet and beautiful. At his side I would grow wise, and clever, and better day by day. Every breath I drew would be a song of praise to him. Did, however, so strange a thing happen that he could ever do anything my conscience did not approve, I would tell it him, frankly, freely. I would shrink from no pain; for he would be there to bear it with me, and its burden would be lightened. What pain could come to me, so long as I was his, and his love mine?”

“Yes,” said Elizabeth, in a low, stifled voice; “yes.”

“That is what my dream is like--the purest bliss. But the reality is horror--horror, Elizabeth! You have utterly crushed me. That miserable compromise; that mean-spirited subjection in order to preserve the outward appearance of unity while hiding the inward disunion--I could not do it. And you----”

A horrible thought had flashed across me; I bent down and looked into her face; it was bathed in tears. “Can you do it, my darling?” I said, sinking on my knees, and embracing her.

She pressed me convulsively, and agonizing sobs shook her breast, as she answered:

“I have learned to do it!”

For a time we preserved deep silence. When at length I raised my eyes to her dear face, it wore its accustomed look of composure.

She rose.

“Come with me to our parents, child,” she said. “I cannot help you to the realization of your dream; but you shall not be sacrificed.”

* * * * *

Mamma was sitting in the corner of the sofa, knitting. Mme. Duphot was reading aloud to her, Ozanani’s “Poëtas Francis Caius.”

“May we come in, mamma? We want to speak to you.”

Without looking up, mamma answered:

“Please let us just finish the chapter. Sit down, girls.”

We sat down, and Mme. Duphot finished the beautiful legend of the Holy Francis and Wolf von Gubio. Then placing her book, over which she had several times hurriedly glanced at me, on the table, she rose.

I caught her hand.

“Stay!” I whispered to her; and Elizabeth hurriedly joined in.

“Stay, dear Duphot, we count upon your help. We want papa here, too, as well. May I send to ask him to come, mamma?”

“Yes, ask him to come.”

Dear mamma! so unsuspectingly and peacefully going on with her work, meditating over the sweet teaching of St. Francis. I felt so sorry for her. How gladly would I have spared her the pain I was about to cause her, but--how could I?

The door opened. Papa came in, but not alone; my brother was with him. The eyes of both were directed upon me as they came in.

“Oh, yes; there she is,” said papa, in a severe, menacing voice.

I wanted to rise, but my knees shook too violently, and I could only stretch out my hand to seize his as he passed me. He drew it hastily back, and going across to the sofa, sat down by mamma. My brother subsided on to a chair near them; and Mme. Duphot, who had been sitting by mamma, diffident as ever, pushed her tabouret a little further back. My sister and I sat at a little distance from them, like a criminal and his counsel before their judges.

“Dear papa, dear mamma,” began Elizabeth, “in Paula’s name I would pray you ask the count to cease paying his addresses to her. Paula cannot like him, and is determined that she will not marry him.”

I was dismayed and terrified at the abrupt manner in which she said this.

Mme. Duphot sighed.

Bernhard muttered “Oho!”

My father and mother were silent.

“It is Paula’s earnest hope,” resumes Elizabeth, “that you, dear father and mother, will give your sanction to her decision.”

“Oh, do!” I broke in; “be merciful. I will be forever grateful to you. I cannot marry Count Taxen. I do not feel the smallest particle of affection for him; rather the reverse.”

“Does that mean that you have a dislike to him?” exclaimed papa angrily. “Who has been putting such folly into your head? I suppose your elder sister?”

“For all I hold dearest in the world, do not think that! It is I who have implored her to intercede for me with you.”

“In the first place,” said mamma, “you need no one to intercede between you and your parents, but should have come in all confidence to them yourself. In the second place, your sister, instead of being so ready to take this office upon herself, should have pointed out to you how foolish it is to have allowed any such fancy not only to exist, but to be blurted out before us, and for which there is not the slightest reason.”

“She declares it--that is her reason!” returned Elizabeth.

Her voice, before somewhat veiled, was now as hard and sharp as when first she came to me. I drew nearer to her, and put my arm round her--her whole frame quivered.

“Folly--folly,” repeated papa. “We cannot listen to such trash.”

“The count is an upright, honorable man; well bred, good looking, and of unexceptionable manners; a man with whom you could not fail to be happy, Paula,” pronounced mamma, in severe and uncompromising tones. “You may not love him now, but you will certainly learn to do so when it has become your duty.”

A shudder ran through me, and I stammered out:

“No, mamma, no! I shall never learn to love him, because I----”

The confession I was about to make died away upon my lips. I turned a look of entreaty upon my sister. Her lovely face was aflame; with arms crossed upon her breast, she was looking unflinchingly, an expression of reproach and indignation in her eyes, at mamma.

“Do you remember,” she said, “some seventeen years ago addressing that same promise to me, and with about as much justification? My suitor, too, was upright, well bred, and good looking. Now, mother dear, as you have not seen or guessed how matters stand with me, hear once for all; your promise has _not_ brought its fulfillment.”

“Elizabeth!” cried my father and mother together.

Bernhard, who at first had listened with somewhat skeptical smile, suddenly sunk his head. Mme. Duphot had risen, and slipped out of the room like a shadow. With a calm that chilled me to the heart, Elizabeth continued:

“That love, which as a matter of course was to come with marriage, enveloping me in blessed blindness, in happy deception, came not. My heart remained cold, my eyes clear, and with those clear eyes of mine I saw my upright, well-bred husband through and through----” She gave a short hard laugh. “It was no edifying spectacle.”

I had been so shocked at Elizabeth’s words, above all by the decided manner in which she had said them, that I had not ventured to look at my parents. I cast a furtive glance at the chair previously occupied by Bernhard. It was empty; my brother had risen, and was standing by the window near to which Elizabeth was sitting, looking earnestly at her, but, to my relief, not angrily.

“What does this mean?” asked papa. “What accusation do you bring against your husband? He has never acted other than as a gentleman; never been guilty of a single reprehensible action.”

“Never! He has never wronged another in the matter of honor or property,” returned Elizabeth; “nor has he ever, of his own free will, stirred a finger to help another, let alone made any sacrifice for anyone; has never forgotten self for the sake of any living creature. He has no notion of generosity, or of the beautiful, save”--and a roguish look flashed across her face--“when he comes across it in the shape of some old oak chest or rusty spur, lost four centuries ago by some brave knight intent on plundering a traveling merchant.”

“My dear Elizabeth!” said Bernhard reproachfully, as, standing now behind her, he laid his hand on the back of her chair.

“I know I ought not to talk like this,” she answered. “It has never happened before, and would not to-day, were it not for the sake of saving this child from the fate which has befallen me.”

Dear mamma was in a state of greatest agitation and perplexity.

“You exaggerate cruelly, Elizabeth,” said she reproachfully. “You accuse your parents, and speak unbefittingly of your husband.”

Elizabeth nodded. “Yes, so I do! But then I have promised my sister to stand by her in her hard fight between the filial obedience she would so gladly show to you, and the aversion she feels for the count.”

“Aversion,” muttered my father; “absurd!”

“And keeping my word, I say to her in your presence. Do not yield! You are my own sister. Placed in circumstances similar to mine, your life would be as wretched as is mine,” continued Elizabeth, still speaking with that terrible calmness.

While papa cried: “Wretched! What an extraordinary expression to use!”

And she: “Did I know one stronger, I would adopt it! Nothing is too strong to express the humiliation of knowing the being one looks up to--or rather one should look up to--to be a nonentity; or the hypocrisy of seeming to defer to him one knows to be one’s inferior.”

“Pride! pride!” sighed mamma. Her work had fallen on to her lap, she was white as death; and my heart felt how she was suffering, as Elizabeth, merely acknowledging her interruption by a scornful curl of the lips, continued icily:

“The moral death it is, and how one despises one’s self for it--but only with penitent humiliation to crawl again under the sacred yoke--that, of course, is understood. Who would make a public scandal of their matrimonial troubles; who seek escape from them; who attempt to drown themselves? Such, I have heard, is done by the vulgar horde who are without religion, or are the poor-spirited descendants of some worthy shoemaker or candlestick-maker, without courage or endurance. We, of the upper ten, are religious, strong to endure, have the blood of heroes in our veins! We know no deserters from our posts! Therefore, Paula, weigh well before you undertake the post. It is a vilely loathsome one.”

She turned to our parents:

“Dear father and mother, when you say to your child ‘Accept So-and-so, he will give you a good position, splendid castles, a great establishment, well-appointed carriages,’ and the like, you are doubtless doing what is right in your own eyes. But do not say to her, ‘Do it because it will bring you happiness.’ That you have no right to say. Believe me, it is presumptuous.”

Only those who heard these words could form any idea of the effect, uttered as they were by Elizabeth, without raising her voice or accompanying them by the slightest gesture. Low and deliberately they dropped like heart’s blood from some deep wound; and as I hearkened to them, there arose in me the burning wish that there were anything on this earth, anything, however great and well-nigh impossible, that I might be privileged to do for my sister.

Mamma was petrified. Papa had sunk his arms upon his knees, and was looking down at his clenched fingers. His forehead was deeply furrowed, and for the first time the thought struck me how old he looked.

Bernhard broke the silence:

“My dear parents, I entreat you if things are thus--it would be my opinion--you understand what I mean----”

Oh, it was a blessing to us all, the warm-hearted manner in which he spoke!

Papa raising his head, thanked the dear fellow with an approving nod, then looking at mamma inquiringly: “What do you think?”

She, trying to answer, could not; could only sigh:

“O God! O God!”

“What do you think, Caroline?” repeated papa. “Are you not also----”

“I do not know,” said she painfully. “It is very difficult.”

“There is nothing difficult in it; it is all quite simple,” broke in Bernhard. “You have only to tell the count our daughter is fully sensible of the honor, etc., etc.; but she cannot yet make up her mind to marry; she does not want to leave us--and the thing is done!”

There ensued a long, painful silence. Papa brought it to an end by saying:

“Yes. If she really does want to stay with us----”

And mamma put in hesitatingly: “Paula is certainly still very young!”

“Much too young!” cried I. This solution had never occurred to me. “Oh, my darling parents!” I would have rushed to them, but mamma made a sign to Elizabeth, and my sister, rising, went and stood before her.

“You have given us much pain to-day, Elizabeth,” said papa. He held out his hand to her. She did not offer to kiss it. What must have been her feelings at that moment! Our dearest father had given her his hand in reconciliation, and Elizabeth had not kissed it.

* * * * *

At that moment the count was announced; and with him my brother-in-law, to fetch his wife for the usual drive. Both gentlemen seemed to be in a high state of annoyance at some blunder of their harness-maker; in each case their ideas had failed to be carried out.

Bernhard sympathized ironically in their grievances, but they took his malicious comments in sober earnest.

As Elizabeth and her husband left the room, running after them, I threw my arms vehemently round my sister, and thanked her, caring nothing for the disapproving looks of my brother-in-law.

“What is all this frantic excitement about?” he asked.

Bernhard, who, too, following my example, had left the room, answered:

“Ah, my dear fellow! If you only knew the vagaries of this small person!” and he winked at me. “Only think, this person refuses to have anything to say to Count Taxen. Count Taxen! the wittiest, noblest, and handsomest of men, and--she will have nothing to say to him!”

My brother-in-law, who evidently took it as a bad joke, answered: “Ah, well, it is a good thing that you are here to bring her to reason.” He turned toward the door, Elizabeth with him. We looked after her, walking so calmly by his side--my poor, poor sister.

“I have often shuddered to think what must come to light if ever the secrets of that prison house were unfolded,” said Bernhard.

“I, too, have often dreaded that she was unhappy,” I replied, unable longer to restrain my tears. “My only wonder was that she never complained.”

“No need to wonder at that!” he cried. “It is not suitable for general conversation. If circumstances force it from a true woman, she may speak of it once, but never again. Take example from her;” and he affectionately patted my cheek. “Our friend in the drawing room is getting his _congé_. Are you content, pussy?”

I was about to thank him for his goodness; but with an impatient movement he drew back, as he said:

“For Heaven’s sake, don’t come the sentimental!”

My parents said no more to me about the count; and it may be readily imagined that I never mentioned him to them. A few evenings before the soirée at which I made the resolve to write my Memoirs, his mother was present, and made a point of showing me the greatest kindness. This noble heartedness made me feel so small and ashamed that I had to exercise the greatest self-control to prevent myself from earnestly praying the countess to think kindly of me and forgive me. It would have been a fearful want of tact had I done so.

As she moved away, mischievous Pierre Coucy said, with a titter, “She is more _la crème_ to-night than ever--but sour.”

“No wonder,” rejoined his brother, with a side glance at me.

Then to Elizabeth: “Have you heard our paragon son is off on a cruise--to Bohemia?”

“No, no,” put in Pierre; “in an air balloon to recover his equilibrium.”

I was confused at their sallies. But Elizabeth, with her majestic calm, said: “You are romancing, now the secret is out! I have long suspected your silent proclivities.”

“You are wrong, countess! More than a writer of romance, I am a prophet!”

“Highly necessary, in order to see through a sphinx like our friend Count Taxen.”

So they went on cutting bad jests, until I felt quite sorry for the count, who looked upon the Coucys as his friends. They must have imparted their surmise to others besides ourselves, for when Baron Schwarzburg came up to me that evening, I read it on his brow, and it laughed in his eyes, as he heartily wished the count a pleasant journey.

* * * * *

Things are very strange at home now, and not altogether pleasant. Even my Duphot, for the first time in my life, bears a grudge against me--in her gentle way, be it understood, and quite as much to her sorrow as to mine.

My beloved father is out of sorts, and although he often says, “Do whatever you like,” the words over which I used to exult now make me sad. I always dread lest I should hear in them, “Our wishes, of course, are of no account to you.”

Mamma, too, seems depressed, and spends more time in church than ever.

She must be praying there for Elizabeth; for she has laid it upon me in my daily prayers to commend my poor sister to God, that he may turn her heart, and awaken in it a befitting and dutiful love to her husband. And I pray accordingly, though I must confess I doubt whether the Divine Power will see fit to be influenced in such a cause. The true love which can arouse that burning devotion in us, akin only to sacred adoration, is given us by our Heavenly Father, if to be given at all, from the very beginning. The miserable supplementary love, gathered together for us by joint prayers, what can that avail?

_May 25th._--Reading through these pages yesterday, I asked myself if these really are memoirs that I am writing? Memoirs treat of interesting people, and I am only writing about myself; they treat of interesting times, and I only occupy myself with the present, which, for the matter of that, is very interesting.

“A momentous period in the political world!” I heard an old gentleman say the other day.

My whole understanding for politics, however, is confined to a decided interest in all that concerns the governorship of our province. Opportunities of discussing it, ever so welcome to me, are not wanting, papa having interests at stake in it. His object is to prevent the inhabitants of one of the districts, against better judgment, from cutting down the trees and tilling the land of one of the forests belonging to him. Until quite lately he was forever complaining of the laxity of the local authorities. Suddenly, his invectives have ceased. I had long wanted to know why, but had not ventured to inquire into the subject on account of his not standing well with the authorities. At length to-day, taking courage, I said: