Part 29 (1/2)
”I thought we were out for a hunt, to-day,” said Adelheid evasively, ”and this is neither the time nor the place to discuss poetry.”
”We have both left the hunt for to-day; it's on its way now toward the Rodecker heights. Here is the true forest loneliness. Look at the perfect autumn landscape around us. It speaks to the heart of peace and forgiveness. Look at that placid sheet of water, a those heavy storm-laden clouds against the horizon--to me there is more poetry in this than in the crowded salons of Furstenstein.”
The aspect of the landscape had entirely changed since the morning hours, and a dull, gloomy light had taken the place of the bright, clear suns.h.i.+ne, beneath whose gleams the cavalcade had set forth so merrily.
The endless stretch of forest which lay before them was in its gayest autumn dress, but in the sombre light of the approaching storm, its brilliant leaves looked faded and faint. The deep reds and many tinted yellows of the foliage formed a beautiful picture, but these were the colors of decay and death, and told that the end of their life and bloom was not far distant.
Beneath them lay the little lake, dark and motionless, surrounded by high gra.s.ses and swamp reeds. It looked like another lonely sheet of water in the far northland--the Burgsdorf fish pond, and back from this little lake stretched a meadow green and marshy, from which, even now, a faint mist was rising, a mist, which as night came down, would change into a rain, while the will-o'-the-wisp in its endless sport and motion, would play in and out among the long green rushes, now gleaming, now disappearing--thus perfecting that far off picture of long ago.
The air was oppressive and sultry, and the distant clouds were forming deeper and darker heights against the horizon.
Adelheid had not answered Hartmut's question; she stood looking into the distance with face turned away from the man who was watching her, and yet she felt the dark consuming glance resting on her, as she had felt it so many times during the past few weeks.
”You are going away to-morrow, my dear baroness!” he began again. ”Who knows when you will return--when I shall see you again. May I not beg for your verdict now, may I not ask whether my words have found favor in Ada's eyes?”
Again her name upon his lips, again that soft, veiled, pa.s.sionate tone which she so feared, and which rang in her ear like the voice of an enchanter. She felt there was no escape, no chance for flight, she must look the danger in the eye. She turned to her questioner, and her face betrayed that she had decided to fight out the battle--the battle with herself.
”Are you interested in my verdict merely because I bear this name?” she said coldly and proudly. ”It stands at the beginning of your poem, which by the way was sent me the other day by some mysterious hand, without name.”
”And which you read notwithstanding?” he interrupted triumphantly.
”Yes, and burned.”
”Burned?” The old savage expression came over Hartmut's face, that intense angered look which had evoked from Egon's lips the expression, ”You look like a demon, Hartmut.” The demon of hate and revenge burned once again in his breast as he thought of his recent insults from this woman's husband, insults which must be resented to the full. And yet he loved the woman before him as only Zalika's son could love, with a wild, consuming pa.s.sion. But in this moment hate gained the mastery.
”My poor pages!” he said with unconcealed bitterness. ”They, too, suffered in the flame; they were, perhaps, worthy a better fate.”
”Then you should not have sent them to me. I will not and dare not accept such poems.”
”You dare not, my dear Baroness? It is the homage of a poet which he lays at a woman's feet, and poets have had that right for all time. It is inc.u.mbent on you to accept such an offering.”
The words were spoken in such a hot, pa.s.sionate whisper that Adelheid trembled.
”Perhaps you pay homage to the women of your country in such words.
German woman do not understand them.”
”But you understand them,” said Hartmut fiercely, ”and you understand the fire and pa.s.sion of my 'Arivana,' which rises above all laws and restrictions of this narrow, human life. I saw that on the evening when you turned your back on me, while the rest of the world applauded and came forward with their congratulations. Do not deceive yourself, Ada.
When the G.o.d-like spark enters two souls, it bursts into flame whether they be of the south or the cold north, and that spark has ignited and burns in us both. All strength and will dies in its fiery breath, it extinguishes all else, nothing remains but that holy, sacred fire which illumines and blesses, even while it consumes. You love me, Ada, I know it; do not try to deceive me, and I love you beyond all power of speech.”
He stood before her in the triumph of victory. Never before had his dark beauty shone forth so strongly, never before had his eyes glowed with such intensity, or his face expressed such pa.s.sion and longing.
And he had spoken the truth.
The woman who leaned against the tree, trembling and deadly pale, loved him; loved him as only a pure, exalted nature can love. This cold, haughty woman, whom the world had named heartless, was swayed and torn by this, the first love of her young life.
She felt within her a pa.s.sion to which she could no longer blind herself; the fiery breath, with all its fierceness, was blowing down upon her. Now came the crucial-test.
”Leave me at once, Herr Rojanow--this instant,” she said. The words had a choked, scarcely audible sound, and they were spoken to a man who was not accustomed to yield when he felt himself the victor. He would have gone closer to her--but something in the young wife's eye, in spite of all, kept him within bounds. But he spoke her name again, and in a tone whose power he best knew:
”Ada!”