The Breaking of the Storm, Vol. III.

Excerpt

Frau Feldner, Valerie's old lady's-maid, told Elsa that her lady was in a sound sleep, as was always the case with her after a violent attack of headache, and out of which she would hardly awake before evening. Elsa, who had herself suffered from the extraordinary sultriness of the day, and from the uncomfortable conversation at dinner, and was also put out and agitated by the scene with the Count, intended to employ the time in taking a walk; and thinking that Carla and the Count were already gone, was going, out of courtesy, to invite Frau von Wallbach to accompany her. Hat and shawl in hand, she was coming out of the Baroness's rooms, and innocently lifting the portiere of the anteroom, had become a very unwilling spectator of the little scene which took place between the Count and Carla. In her consternation she had let the curtain fall again, and without even thinking whether she had been observed or not, had hastily run downstairs, and now wandered round the garden trying to persuade herself that what she had seen was a mistake--her eyes had deceived her. It was not possible that Carla could have so far forgotten herself, that she could so shamefully deceive her brother. But the more determinately she tried to drive back and destroy the hateful picture, the more terribly distinctly it stood out in her mind.

It must be so! The link that should have united Ottomar and Carla was torn asunder for ever, even if what she had just seen were only the sudden delirium of the moment. But how could that be, when she thought of Carla's intense frivolity, which had often caused her such anxiety; and of the Count's audacity, from which she had from the first instinctively shrunk, and of which he had even now given such proof; when she remembered the confidential whispering, the coquettish flirting, the many, many things which had taken place between the two in her very presence, and which had been so displeasing and offensive, but, above all, so incomprehensible to her, and of which she now found so terrible an explanation! What would Ottomar say? He must hear of it! What would he do? Perhaps exult that the chain which fettered him was broken--in good time! But that would not be like Ottomar. No man would take it patiently--and he! so sensitive, passionate, and violent, who had so often risked his life in a duel on the slightest provocation--a disagreeable word, a look--which gave him offence! But, on the other hand, had he really a right to feel himself offended? Had he really tried to retain Carla's love, or even first to win it, as it was his duty to do, after he became engaged to her? Had he not neglected her in the eyes of the world? left her, unguarded and unsheltered, to throw herself into that roaring whirlpool of social life in which she had formerly moved with such fatal enjoyment, and in which she had gained such brilliant triumphs? If so, he would have no betrayed love, only wounded vanity to avenge--to risk his life for a thing in which he did not himself believe, only because in the eyes of society this sad comedy of errors needed a sanguinary end. Oh! this miserable slavery, in which she had once fancied herself happy and free, only because she had not learnt how a free heart beats, and for what a soul longs which that heart has set free, and which now spreads out its wings to soar away from all these wretched barriers of prejudice and illusion into the clear atmosphere of a noble and unselfish love! She could no longer bear to remain between the high, straight hedges and the interwoven branches of the beech-walk, in which here and there appeared stone gods and goddesses in odd and exaggerated attitudes, as if startled at the sight of one who could think and feel so differently to those who had their pride and joy in these quaint, old-fashioned splendours.

Away! away! to him she loved, if it might be, to seek shelter in his strong arms from this hollow, unreal world, to weep out upon his faithful breast her grief and indignation, to feel free in his presence from all this self-made sorrow, this foolish misery, and never, never again to leave him. And if this highest happiness were denied her, if she must return to the slavery of these intolerable circumstances--out into the open then, over the brown meadows, through the dark fields, to the white dunes which peeped out in the distance, to have one look at the sea--his beloved sea!...