E. Werner

“ You, more than any other, required a husband who would work and strive from day to day in the quiet routine of daily life without even having a wish to step beyond it, and fate has chained you to a man whom it draws powerfully to another course. You are right; that is a misfortune for us both."
"That is to say, I am one for you," added the young wife, sadly. "She will, perhaps, know better how to bring you happiness."
Reinhold let her hand fall and stepped back. "You are mistaken," he replied, almost rudely, "and quite misconstrue the connection between Signora Biancona and myself. ”

“ A deep reproach sounded in her voice. Almbach made an impatient movement.
"I seek peace, Beatrice," said he, "and that I do not find at all near you. You can only breathe in constant heat and excitement, both are your conditions of life, and you drag your entire surroundings with you in the everlasting fire of your nature. I--am tired."
"Of society or of me?" asked Beatrice, with freshly rising fury.
"Can you not cease from seeking a stab in every word?" asked Reinhold, angrily. "I see we do not understand each other again to-day. ”

“ In those tones, which now rose as in stormy rejoicing, and again sank in sad complaint, there seemed to breathe the whole happiness and sorrow of a human life; a long-fettered yearning seemed at last to struggle forth. It was a language of affecting power and beauty, and if it was not quite understood by all, yet all felt that there was a sound of something powerful, everlasting in it; even the most indifferent superficial crowd cannot remain void of feeling when genius speaks to it. ”

“ Signora Biancona is one of those demonlike natures which can inspire such passions, and here she is connected with everything which makes up Reinhold's life--with music, art and imagination. Nor Church nor marriage can protect, if the wife cannot protect herself. You are wife, and mother of his child. Perhaps he will listen to your voice, when he will to nothing else."
The young wife's heavily-drawn breath showed how much she suffered, and two tears, the first, rolled slowly down her cheeks as she replied, almost inaudibly, "I will try it."
Hugo came close to her side. ”

“ Words and bearing were as assured and easy, as if coming from a perfect woman of the world receiving a visitor, but also distant and cool, as if she had no deeper concern in this visit. Hugo bowed, a slight colour tinged his cheeks, as he, following the invitation, sat down beside her.
"I begged for it. Herr Consul Erlau thought himself obliged to deny me this interview in your name, but I persisted in a direct appeal to you. I had more confidence in your goodness, my dear Madame." ”

“ I know my hearers; the whole house oppresses me almost, with its acts of sympathy."
"Excepting Ella," suggested Reinhold, "it is certainly remarkable that her shyness towards you is quite invincible."
"Yes, it is very remarkable," said Hugo with an offended air. "I cannot allow any one in the house to exist who is not entirely persuaded of my perfections, and have already set myself the task of presenting myself to my sister-in-law in all my utterly irresistible charms. I do not doubt at all that she will thereupon immediately join the majority--you are not jealous, I hope." ”

“ Reinhold himself had become quite different in these years--quite different. The young genius who had once fought so impatiently against the confining limits and prejudices of his surroundings, had raised himself to be a renowned composer, whose name extended beyond the boundaries of Italy and his home, whose works were familiar on the stages of all capitals; to whom fame and honour, money and triumph, flowed in richest abundance. ”

“ Signora Biancona is about to return to her home, and Reinhold explained to me just now that he must and will continue his studies in Italy. Do you comprehend the connection?"
Ella started. Now, for the first time, a desperate fear broke through the stolid calm of her nature.
"No, no!" she cried, as if beside herself, "He cannot! he dare not. We are married!"
"He dare not?" repeated Hugo. "You know men but little, and your own husband least of all. Do not trust too much to the right which the Church gave you; even this power has its limits, and I fear Reinhold already stands beyond them. ”

“ The young actress, after her evening's triumph in the theatre, was of course the centre of attraction for all the company. Besieged by the gentlemen with every species of homage, overwhelmed with compliments from the ladies, distinguished by the host and his wife with most flattering attentions, she was unable to escape from the stream of admiration which flowed towards her from all sides, and which, perhaps, was due as much to her beauty as her genius. ”

“ Or do you really not feel the irresponsible manner in which Reinhold neglects you and your child?"
"He is so fond of music," said Ella, softly.
"Do you excuse him also?" said her mother, excitedly. "That is just the misfortune, he cares for it more than for wife or child; he never asks for either of you if he can only sit at his piano and improvise. Have you no idea of what a wife can and must demand from her husband, and that, above all, it is her duty to bring him to reason? But to be sure, nothing is ever to be expected of you." ”

“ If you have not yet ascended the highest ladder of earthly happiness, as books express it--"
"Do not believe him, Cesario," broke in Reinhold. "Notwithstanding all his gallantry and knightliness, at heart he is of an icy nature, which nothing warms too easily. He plays with all--has no feeling for any; the ever-recurring romance, which he even sometimes calls passion, lasts just so long as he is on shore, and disappears with the first fresh breeze which wafts his 'Ellida' away on the sea. Nothing has ever yet stirred his heart." ”

“ We sailors are happy on the surface, and if now and then a storm should disturb the deep, it does not matter to us, we remain above."
"Quite true," said Reinhold, gloomily. "May you always, stay on your sunny, bright surface! Believe me, Hugo, it is only muddy below in the depths, where people seek for treasures; and an icy breath blows above in the height, where one dreamed of nothing but sunlight. ”

“ Reinhold had heard these words spoken a few hours since, and then such a glowing description followed of endless spring, which blossoms forth as by magic in the gardens of the south, those sunny days, with ever blue sky, and the thousandfold glorious colours of the earth; the moonlight nights full of orange perfume and notes of song. The young man must indeed have head and heart still full of this picture; he looked more contemptuously than usual on the poor bare surroundings, and impatiently pushed aside a branch of elderberry whose newly opening brown buds touched his forehead. ”

“ On all sides high walls and gables enclosed the small piece of ground, to which air and sunshine were sparingly given, and where a few trees and shrubs enjoyed but a miserable existence. The garden's boundary was one of those small canals, which traversed the town in all directions, and whose quick, dark stream formed a very melancholy background; beyond this, again, walls and gables were to be seen; the same prison-like appearance, which clung to Almbach's whole house seemed to reign over the only free space belonging to it. ”

“ Ella looked up. There was again the darkly lowering brow she was always accustomed to in her husband, the look of gloomy melancholy, the expression of defiant, suppressed suffering, no longer a breath of that beaming triumph which had lighted up his features a few hours before--that was when away, far from his own people; only the shadow remained for home.
"Why do you not answer?" he began afresh. "Do you think I should be coward enough to deny the truth? ”

“ I did not believe that those gentlemen, after their jubilee, would have time or inclination left for observations. To be sure for spying they are always ready enough."
"My father thinks--" began Ella, again.
"What does he think?" shouted Reinhold. "Is it not enough for him that from morning to evening I am bound to this office; does he even grudge me the refreshment I seek at night in music? I thought that I and my piano had been banished far enough; that the garden house lay so distant and so isolated, that I could run no risk of disturbing the sleep of the righteous in the house. ”

“ She was one of those women, who, wherever they appear, know how to attract, and, oft to a dangerous degree, retain eye and senses; whose entrancing charms do not lie only in their beauty, but far more in the singular, almost witch-like magic, which certain natures exercise, without any one being able to account for its cause.
It seemed as if a breath of the glowing South, full of colour, lay upon this apparition, who, with her dark hair and complexion, her large, deep, black eyes, out of which shone such an ardent, full life, contrasted go strangely with these Northern surroundings. ”

“ Let me thank you, not for the triumph, which was more yours than mine, but that I was also permitted to hear my song from your lips. I composed it in the recollection of you--for you alone, Beatrice. You have understood what it says to you, otherwise you could not have sung it in such a manner."
Signora Biancona may have understood it only too well, but in the glance with which she looked down at him there lay still more than the mere triumph of a beautiful woman, who has again proved the irresistibility of her power. "Do you say that to the woman, or the actress?" asked she, half-playfully. ”

“ No!" replied Hugo, with a touch of his old mocking humour. "Fortunately I am very unimpressionable as regards such-like romantic dangers, besides being sufficiently used to them. Call it frivolity--inconstancy--what you will--but a woman cannot fascinate me long or deeply; the passionate element is wanting in me. You have it only too strongly, and when you encounter anything of the sort, the danger lies close by. Take care of yourself, Reinhold!"
"Do you wish to remind me of the fetters I bear?" asked Reinhold, bitterly. ”

“ When, half-an-hour later, Reinhold returned from the office, he saw the bouquet of roses lying on the writing-table in his own room, and took it up under the firm impression that Jonas had put it there. In the meanwhile Ella sat in her child's room and waited, not for a farewell from her husband, she had not been used to such tendernesses ever since her marriage; but she knew he never left the house without first going to see his boy. The wife felt only too well that she herself was nothing to her husband, that her only value for him lay in the child ”

“ At eight and twenty, she was an apparition, fitted to compete with any one. How heavily must the burden and chains of her parents' house have rested upon the young wife, when only a few years in freer, nobler surroundings had sufficed to remove the former shroud, to the very last morsel, and to loose the wings of the butterfly. The almost incredible alteration proved of what her youthful education was guilty.
"You wished an interview with me, Herr Captain Almbach?" began Ella, as she seated herself upon an ottoman, "May I offer you a seat." ”

“ By this evening I will bring you and Reinhold information as to whether the Signora be beautiful or no."
"You may find it difficult," laughed the Marchese. "Do you not hear, all entrance is forbidden?"
"Bah! as if that would prevent me!" cried Hugo, confidently. "The affair only now begins to be interesting. An unapproachable villa, an invisible lady, who is, besides, fair and a German. I will enquire into it, thoroughly examine into it. My duty as a countryman requires it."
"Thank God that you put him upon this scent, Cesario," said Reinhold. ”

“ Ella shook her head in inconsolable resignation. "No one listens to me, and Reinhold less than any one. He thinks I understand nothing about it all--he would repulse me roughly."
Hugo looked sorrowfully at the young wife, who confessed openly that she was quite wanting in power and influence over her husband, and that she was not permitted to share his longings and strivings in the least.
"And yet something must be done," said he decidedly. "Reinhold irritates himself in this struggle; he suffers tremendously under it, and makes others suffer too. ”

“ The director is quite prepared; we have practised the performance together, but I should prefer seeing you at the piano when I appear before the audience with your music. May I count upon you?"
"You will trust yourself to my accompaniment?" asked Reinhold, with trembling voice. "Trust yourself entirely without first trying it? That is a risk for us both."
"Only if your courage fail, not otherwise," explained Beatrice. "With your power over the piano I have already made acquaintance, and there is certainly no question as to whether you are sure of the accompaniment to your work. ”

“ He persisted in seeing in all artistic efforts an idling as useless as it was dangerous--the real ground of all incapacity for practical business life, and the root of all evil. Knowing as little as most people that it had been almost an act of compulsion by which Signora Biancona had forced Reinhold to appear publicly, he regarded the whole as a pre-arranged affair, which had been undertaken without his knowledge and against his will, and which made him almost beside himself. ”

“ Reinhold had seated himself at the piano, and let his hands glide mechanically over the notes, while he answered with perfect indifference--
"I never trouble myself about Ella's toilet, and I believe it would be useless to try and enforce any alterations there. What does it matter to me?"
"What it matters to you how your wife looks?" repeated the Captain, as he seized some sheets of music on the table, and turned them over lightly, "a charming question from a young husband! You used to have a sense of beauty, too easily aroused, and I could almost fear--what is this then? ”

“ A slight frown was perceptible between Hugo's eyes--
"That sounds very hard, Reinhold," he answered.
"Is it my fault, that I am at last conscious of the truth?" growled Reinhold. "My wife cannot raise herself above the sphere of cooking and household management. It is not her fault, I know, but it is not therefore any less the misfortune of my life."
"Ella's incapacity, certainly seems settled as a sort of dogma in the family," remarked the Captain quietly. "You believe in it blindly, like the rest. ”