Julius Zeyer

“ What souls? The millions that, like them, were perishing from misery and want. Archangelo would lie upon the stone steps like one dead; Phenicia, with dilated eyes and deadly pallor, looked like an angel upon some sarcophagus; and Venera, digging her nails into the ground, relapsed into a silence so woful that her worst cursing would have been a relief.
At sight of this great suffering, Nunziata—herself almost as poor as they—wept as though her blood had been changed to tears. Without ceasing, she prayed to the saints in Paradise, and daily looked for an answer to her prayers. ”

“ Now blood spurts from the trunk: what means that, pale moon? Speak from the sky! . . . Thou knowest much . . . we mortals go astray.
Radúz.—My tree, my sacred poplar, my comfort! (Embraces it.) Blood spurted from thee? Shed the blood on my brow and burn it; let me perish through that sorrow! Mother, now the blood has fallen on my head . . . What is this? A sudden joy is within me . . . My soul rejoices . . . What is this?
Mahulena (With a stronger voice) .—My Radúz, my sweet Radúz! My blood has healed thee . . . That curse has lost its power! Radúz!
Radúz (Crying in a loud voice) —Mahulena! ”

“ Mahulena.—What is happening? Where am I? . . . It is my Radúz! Now I know! Love is stronger than all hatred, and loving more powerful than cursing! Thou didst guess it then, Radúz, on the summit of the mountains!
Nyola.—Who is that marvellously charming maiden, veiled as with an enchantment of dreams?
Radúz.—That is she who loosed my fetters in the Tatra Mountains and led me back to thee, mother . . . O, I will tell thee all, and thou wilt weep, weep! Bless her! Gaze upon her, upon my white dove! . . . Mahulena . . . thou growest ghastly pale! ”

“ Archangelo often went to Messina to see his attorney, who was so generous with his promises, that his client's return always brought a ray of hope to the suffering family. But the wheels of time turned very slowly, and the burden of poverty seemed all the heavier the longer it was borne. A black cloud hung over the Corvejo palace; the occupants no longer ate nor slept, and were as silent as though preparing for death. The hum of the busy street penetrated into the house like the scornful laugh of life, bringing joy to all except to them. ”

“ He pictured the condition of the poor little orphans dying of hunger, whom Archangelo so magnanimously had taken as his own: the agony of the old mother, half crazed with want and despair: the energy of the young wife pursued by so dark a fate! . . . The vision of pale Phenicia with those large eyes, that calm voice, with her unbounded self denial, that did not hesitate to offer even her soul as a sacrifice to duty and love—that vision was before their eyes. That blessed lie of hers, so evident and yet so touching, saved Archangelo. ”

“ Thou knowest the steep footpath to the summit of the mountain? It is well concealed; only a dumb messenger knows it, he who each day brings to Radúz bread and water. However, dost thou not fear that if thou shouldst go there he would strangle thee? His arms are free.
Mahulena.—Radiz is good as the smiling sunshine of spring, which warms and gilds the whole world! His heart is like a meek dove which knows not what evil is! And that path I know; often have I sat at the foot of that peak: there quiet reigns; only the forests rustle below, and the birds which nest there sing as nowhere else! ”

“ Runa.—I hurl a curse on thee, a heavy curse, a terrible curse!
Mahulena.—Mother! Mother!
Runa.—I hurl upon thee a curse most powerful, which will follow thee and hound thee, hound thee until death as a pack of furious dogs pursues a timid fawn! By heaven I curse thee, I curse thee by earth! O earth, thou art a mother too; thou wilt hear me, thou must hear me: destruction to thee if thou remainest deaf! My curse is mighty as the wind, the fire, the sea! As a magic word, full of horror, which drags down the stars from heaven. Even fate itself will not overpower my curse! ”

“ Nanni will gladly lend you the mule . . . to testify!"
Phenicia thanked her, and, entering the house, said to Venera:
"To-morrow I go to Messina. Nanni is a good boy; he will lend me his mule again . . . I will testify." She sat down upon the edge of the bed.
Venera sprang up, and standing before her daughter-in-law, and piercing her pale face with her eyes, asked between closely set teeth: "What will you testify?"
"What else but the truth?" replied Phenicia, and her lips trembled like an aspen leaf. She raised her eyes to the crucifix, but instantly dropped them. ”

“ Radovid.—Thou speakest of enchantment, lady, and I think that thou art not mistaken. That poplar is not like other trees. Its sudden growth is as enigmatic as its whole existence. When I see it from afar, it arouses within me the picture of some veiled woman, mourning and waiting somewhere near the road for someone who long has failed to come; and if I glance at it from near by, I imagine that it longs desperately to extend its branches even up to the windows of the room in which Radúz strangely dreams: I have the fancy that the entire poplar is a single eye and continually gazes fervently. ”

“ The reliefs represented Eve in Paradise, her temptation and fall, and the subsequent punishment. "Sorrow and labor is our lot," he murmured, glancing at old Nunziata sitting beneath the fig tree spinning. Like him, she came from Mola, that white nest perched high above Taormin, on a rock near the clouds, and looking down on the town below, just as Taormin itself, from its airy height, overlooks Giardini, bathing itself white in the blue sea, and concealed among gardens, as if crouching there to hide from the Olympic majesty of towering Ætna. ”

“ Thou hast come in hatred, confess!
Radúz.—Having lost my way, I came here only unawares. Of great hatred for you I know little. I have always heard that we were enemies, we of Magura and you of Tatra, but I have never felt any malice in my heart. King Stojmír, we should really love each other, since in the wide world so much hatred rages round about us.
Stojmír.—Leave sweet words alone; thy gentleness is forced upon thee by thy misfortune.
Radúz.—That is true; for a man in fetters pride is the one thing becoming.
Runa.—I will humble thy pride, thou wilt soon see. O thou wilt know tortures! ”

“ Nevertheless, there was not so much happiness in the palace of Corvejo as had at first appeared. True, Venera held her head higher than ever before, and prosperity smiled upon them to such an extent that Archangelo was enabled to send the two orphans, Anibal and Ettor, to Messina to learn a trade, when once his neighbor, godfather Masi, went there to visit his brother, the carpenter. But the pallor that had settled upon the face of Phenicia during the days of their adversity never left it; day by day she grew thinner, and her eyes glowed like eternally burning lamps. ”

“ Radovid.—That is strange! Methinks some demon of the woods has perchance been making sport of thee. But what came to pass last night?
Radúz.—Ah, it came to pass that I overtook the stag . . . But alas, angered by the long, futile chase, I became the slave of my own blind passion! When at last I grasped it by the antlers, Radovid, I plunged my sword into its side! Its hot blood spurted on my face and hands and tears fell from its eyes. It fell and sighed like a human being! My heart sank; I fancied that I had committed murder! I could not endure the accusing look of the dying animal. ”

“ Now thou surely knowest that neither here nor elsewhere wilt thou see aught else than at home.
Radúz.—I am not yet so wise, dear friend. And thou thyself art somewhat to blame that I am not wiser. Didst thou not ever nourish my childish dreams with thy tales? Who was it told me of the sun, that he had a castle somewhere in Tatra, that twelve maidens of eternal youth serve him there? Who pictured to me those black forests full of mystery, which stand mutely around a meadow, a meadow blooming with all sorts of wondrous flowers, on which shimmers the sun’s house of clouds? ”

“ Sprinkled with blood and crazy with terror, Marie rushed screaming into the street, which was soon in an uproar. But a few moments and the noise reached the fountain where the women were dipping water into their earthen and wooden buckets. "Murder! murder!" resounded from every side, the news flying in every direction till it came to the fig tree where Nunziata sat spinning, and finally to the arched gateway of the palace of Corvejo, where Carmenio, weak with hunger, was feebly beating his copper kettles. ”

“ Runa.—May thy heart know all tortures and thy soul all anguish, Mahulena! Thou livest in him and he in thee? Then I curse your love! May Radúz forget thee, may he not even recognize thee, mayst thou become strange to him as thou art now strange to me! Mayst thou die of yearning, perish with sorrow; mayst thou so suffer that thy heart, heavy as a stone, may know but one longing, that it sink into the depths of oblivion! May thy life and all thy thoughts through mighty suffering be involved in one vague prayer; even in that terrible stupefaction may there remain to thee but one consciousness ”

“ The neighbor kept her word. Leaning upon her staff, in the scorching heat of the sun, she limped up the precipitous, rocky road leading to Taormin, and led the two boys, Anibal and Ettor, almost smothered with dust, into the gloomy shadow of Corvejo. They were received by their grandmother with a wail of despair. She tore her hair, as she complained to Nunziata: "To support children now, when there is no work! Does not God know any more justice? He has left us nothing but our eyes, that we may weep over our misery." ”

“ How cruel men are!
Runa.—Confess that thou didst that evil deed. Is this thy sword?
Radúz.—It is my sword. If I had held it when you came upon me I should have sold my life dearly. That I killed the poor beast I reckon as one of my sins. But I did not know that it was yours and that it was consecrated.
Runa.—But, believe me, thou wilt rue that sin bitterly. But thy greatest sin is that thou art the prince of Magura. Thou art silent? So thou wishest to deny that? Look, I will believe thee, that thou art not the son of Queen Nyola, if without delay thou wilt curse her! ”

“ Here in this bush lies my salvation; it is a large, heavy axe: it has long been lying in wait here like an executioner—Come, wouldst thou see it? It glitters in the moon light as if it laughed, anticipating its work! (She approaches the shrubbery beneath the birches.)
Radovid.—O, be not rash, my queen! I wring my hands! Some sudden terror seizes me, as it were a foreboding.
Nyola.—Silence! Behold! Radúz! He is wandering through the garden, carrying an armful of flowers. He walks as if in dreams. Let us step aside here and observe him! (They go behind a clump of birches.) ”