E. Werner

“ Do you neither of you heed a mother's anguish?"
"Your sons!" repeated Waldemar. "If a mother's anguish, a mother's fondness here come in question, the words can only apply to one son. You cannot forgive me for disturbing your darling's happiness, and I know a solution of the problem which would cost you but few tears. Make your mind easy. What I can do to prevent a catastrophe, I will do. Take care that Leo does not make it impossible for me to think of him as a brother. Your influence over him is unlimited, he will listen to you. ”

“ The young Countess had had an interview with her aunt on the evening of her arrival, but since then had not left her room. The Princess herself was but rarely visible; but when she appeared, her countenance was such that the domestics thought fit to keep as much as possible out of her way. They knew that frowning brow and those tightly set lips augured nothing good. Even Waldemar did not show his accustomed cold composure, the unruffled calm which he was wont to oppose to the outer world at the very time when the fiercest emotions were raging within him. ”

“ A man who, like myself, has never in his life known what love is, and who suddenly sees such felicity before him, does not forego and put it from him so easily. The prize is too high for me to yield it up without a struggle. Where I have all to win, I may stake all, and, were the obstacles between us tenfold more formidable, Wanda should still be mine!"
There was an indomitable energy in the words. The red firelight from the hearth shone up into Waldemar's face, which at this moment looked as though cast in bronze. ”

“ Wanda is young, she loves you--perhaps she may learn to forget, which to us would be impossible. Life is before you, the future belongs to you--we have only the past."
"Hedwiga is right," spoke Count Morynski. "I cannot remain, and she will not. The marriage with your father brought nothing but evil to her, Waldemar, and it seems to me, as though no union between a Nordeck and a Morynska could be productive of happiness. The disastrous cause of discord, which proved so fatal to your parents, exists in your case also. Wanda, too, is a child of our people. ”

“ All Wilicza has learned to fear, but not a single creature to love him; and in spite of the friendliness and the consideration he has shown us, he is just as great a stranger even to my father as on the day of his arrival. I am convinced he has never loved any human being--certainly no woman. He is perfectly heartless."
"Pardon me, Fräulein,"--Fabian grew quite hot as he answered her--"you do him great injustice there. He has heart enough, more than you fancy; more perhaps than that fiery, passionate young Prince Baratowski. But Waldemar does not know how, perhaps does not wish, to show it. ”

“ I knew that I should have a hard fight with you--how hard it would be I am only learning now. Spare me, Waldemar, I have not much strength left."
"No, not for me," said Waldemar, bitterly. "All the strength and love in you are given to your father. What shall become of me, how I am to endure the misery of separation, you do not stay to enquire. I was a fool when I believed in that impulse which threw you into my arms in a moment of danger. You were 'Wanda' to me but for an instant. When I saw you next day, you spoke to me as Countess Morynska, and are so speaking to me to-day. ”

“ Waldemar stood by, deeply moved at this outbreak of grief. "I will call Wanda," he said at last. "She will ..."
"She will do the same. You do not know the women of our people. But, for that very reason"--a sort of gloomy triumph gleamed through the young Prince's despair--"for that very reason, you need hope nothing from them. Wanda will never be yours, never, even though she could step over my dead body to you, though she may love you, and die of her love. You are the enemy of her people. You help in the work of oppression--that will decide your sentence with her. ”

“ Waldemar's voice was full of that strange gentleness which but one human being on earth had had power to win from that cold, inflexible man. "Those eyes could teach the wild, headstrong boy docility--they will be able to hold the man in curb. I know that the shadow will often fall between us, that it will cost you many tears, and me many a struggle; but I know too that at any critical moment my Wanda will stand where she stood once before, when danger was threatening me, and where henceforth her place will be--at my, at her husband's side." ”

“ With the instinctive docility of lower natures they yielded to the force of a superior mind. They recoiled timidly before those flashing eyes which they had long learned to fear, before that threatening brow with its strange swollen blue vein. And Waldemar stood before them unscathed! Osiecki's ball, which had never before been known to miss its aim, had glanced harmlessly by him, while the forester lay dead on the ground, shot to the heart! ”

“ Waldemar quickly lifted his companion into the sledge, and got in himself.
"Drive off," he said, briefly and hastily. "At a foot-pace as far as the trees yonder, then give the horses the rein, and into the forest for your life."
The coachman obeyed. He was probably not without apprehensions on his own account. In a few minutes they had reached the friendly trees, and now they dashed onward in mad haste. Waldemar still held his revolver ready cocked in his right hand; but with his left he clasped Wanda's slender fingers tightly, as though he would never again relax his hold. ”

“ Can you not understand that I will combat it as long as breath is left in me? 'We will die together!'--easily said and easily done when bullets are flying thick and fast, when, like Leo, one may be shot to the heart in a moment. But have you reflected what death in exile really may be? A slow wasting away; a long protracted struggle against privations which break the spirit before they destroy the body; far from one's country, cut off from the world and its interests, from all that intellectual life which to you is as necessary as the air you breathe ”

“ Waldemar was silent. He had not courage to recall to Wanda the words she had spoken at their last meeting. The sight of the Count's bowed frame forbade any touch of anger, and pleaded powerfully in favour of the daughter's prayer, but all the egotism of love rose up in revolt against it. The young man had braved so much to earn for himself the hand of the woman he loved, he could not bear that the reward should longer be denied him. With contracted brow and lips tightly pressed together, he stood, looking to the ground, when all at once the Princess interfered. ”

“ Waldemar had put his arm round his betrothed, and was looking searchingly into her eyes.
"Do you think now that a Nordeck and a Morynska may be happy together?" he asked. "We will dispel the shadow which has lain on their union hitherto."
Wanda leaned her head against his shoulder. "You will have much to bear with, and much to overcome. Your wife will not be able to renounce all that has so long been dear and sacred to her. Do not sever me altogether from my people, Waldemar. Part of my life is rooted there." ”

“ If I did not know that we are wanted here, we should all have been over yonder with our own people long ago. Prince Baratowski is only a couple of hours from the frontier; it would not be hard to find the way to him."
"You will stop here!" replied Wanda, with decision. "You know my father's orders. The station is to be held, come what may, and for that reason you are more necessary to us here than out yonder at the seat of war. Prince Baratowski has men enough at his disposal. But now to the main point. Herr Nordeck is coming here to-day." ”

“ Waldemar, standing by her side, was mastered by no emotion, but his face was very grave, saddened by the pain of that parting hour.
"Wanda," he said, laying his hand on hers. "This separation is not to be a lasting one. If your father may not again set foot on his native soil, nothing will hinder us from going to him. In a year you shall see him again--I promise you."
Wanda shook her head sadly. "If I may yet find him! He has suffered too much and too bitterly ever to regain health and an interest in life. ”

“ I have given you a mother's love tardily but completely, and it will ever be yours, though we part, though I go to a distance, and we only see each other from time to time--but to stay here at your side, to look on day by day while you overturn all that I have laboured to build up, to give the lie to my whole past life by associating with your German friends--on each occasion when our opposite opinions come into collision to bow to your word of authority, that, my son, I cannot do, that would be more than, strive as I might, I could accomplish. ”

“ The same apprehension had forced itself on his mind in that hour of parting. Count Morynski might rally from the effects of his wounds and long confinement, but the defeat of that cause, to which he had dedicated his life, was a blow but too likely to prove mortal. When, years before, he had gone out into banishment, he could oppose to his fate the mental and physical strength of a man in his prime; but now that strength was sapped and failing--who could tell how long the last remnants of it might hold good!
"Your father will not be alone," returned Waldemar, at last. ”

“ Mortal anxiety as to the decision of this twofold destiny, constant vacillation between hope and fear, the agitating suspense of each fresh attempt at rescue--these all had left most evident traces. Wanda's was one of those natures which will face the heaviest misfortunes with desperate energy so long as a glimmer of hope is left, but which, when once this glimmer is extinguished, break down utterly. ”

“ Osiecki's men joined me yesterday. They brought me word of what they had seen. Perhaps you understand now why I came over to Wilicza at any risk?"
"This was what I feared!" said the Princess, under her breath.
Leo sprang up, and stood before her with flashing eyes. "And you have suffered this, mother; you have stood by looking on while my love, my rights, were being trampled under foot--you who can control, can command obedience from every one! Has this Waldemar subdued you too? Is there no one left who dares oppose him? ”

“ He was told to go; he could not 'come between' his mother and brother, whether they met in love or hate. A great bitterness took possession of Nordeck's soul, and yet he felt that in this hour he was avenged--that his mother, who had ever denied to him her love, was punished now in her tenderest point, punished through her darling, the child she had idolised.
Waldemar closed the curtains behind him. He remained in the next room, so as to guard the entrance, come what might, for he was fully sensible of the danger to which Leo was exposed. ”

“ It made your parents miserable."
"Because they had no love for each other," replied Waldemar, "because cold calculation on either side had bound them together by the closest tie which can connect two human beings. How could peace come of such a union? The old strife was sure to blaze out anew, more hotly than ever. But we can bring other forces into the field. I have won my bride in the teeth of this national hostility, and I shall be able to defend my happiness from its influence. If our marriage is really a venture, it is a venture we may fearlessly make." ”

“ Pawlick has paid for his fidelity with his life."
"Pawlick was an old man," replied Waldemar, "and an anxious, timorous nature to boot. He had devotion enough for any task, but he had not the requisite prudence, not the requisite audacity at a critical moment. Such an enterprise demands youth and a bold spirit; above all, it is essential that the principal should act in person, trusting to no one but himself."
"And himself incur all the terrible danger. We have learned, to our cost, how they guard their frontiers and their prisoners out yonder. Waldemar, am I to lose you too?" ”

“ Indeed, at every fresh promotion, Hubert was passed over in so pointed a fashion that his colleagues began to laugh at and to taunt him with his nonsuccess. Then a dark resolve shaped itself in the mind of this deeply injured man. Schwarz's legacy had made him quite independent; why should he longer endure to be so overlooked and neglected? why continue to serve this ungrateful State, which persistently refused to recognise his brilliant abilities, while insignificant men like Dr. Fabian were called to fill important posts and had distinctions heaped on them? ”