CHAPTER XXX

A SUMMER STORM, AND LOVE

The foregoing conversations with Ottilia and her teacher, hard as they

were for passion to digest, grew luminous on a relapsing heart. Without

apprehending either their exact purport or the characters of the

speakers, I was transformed by them from a state of craving to one of

intense quietude. I thought neither of winning her, nor of aiming to win

her, but of a foothold on the heights she gazed at reverently. And if,

sometimes, seeing and hearing her, I thought, Oh, rarest soul! the wish

was, that brother and sisterhood of spirit might be ours. My other eager

thirstful self I shook off like a thing worn out. Men in my confidence

would have supposed me more rational: I was simply possessed.

My desire was to go into harness, buried in books, and for recreation to

chase visions of original ideas for benefiting mankind. A clear-wined

friend at my elbow, my dear Temple, perhaps, could have hit on the track

of all this mental vagueness, but it is doubtful that he would have

pushed me out of the strange mood, half stupor, half the folding-in of

passion; it was such magical happiness. Not to be awake, yet vividly

sensible; to lie calm and reflect, and only to reflect; be satisfied with

each succeeding hour and the privations of the hour, and, as if in the

depths of a smooth water, to gather fold over patient fold of the

submerged self, safe from wounds; the happiness was not noble, but it

breathed and was harmless, and it gave me rest when the alternative was

folly and bitterness.

Visitors were coming to the palace to meet the prince, on his return with

my father from England. I went back to the University, jealous of the

invasion of my ecstatic calm by new faces, and jealous when there of the

privileges those new faces would enjoy; and then, how my recent deadness

of life cried out against me as worse than a spendthrift, a destroyer! a

nerveless absorbent of the bliss showered on me--the light of her morning

presence when, just before embracing, she made her obeisance to the

margravine, and kindly saluted me, and stooped her forehead for the

baroness to kiss it; her gestures and her voice; her figure on horseback,

with old Warhead following, and I meeting her but once!--her walk with

the Professor, listening to his instructions; I used to see them walking

up and down the cypress path of the villa garden, her ear given to him

wholly as she continued her grave step, and he shuffling and treading out

of his line across hers, or on the path-borders, and never apologizing,

nor she noticing it. At night she sang, sometimes mountain ditties to the

accompaniment of the zither, leaning on the table and sweeping the wires

between snatches of talk. Nothing haunted me so much as those tones of,

her zither, which were little louder than summer gnats when fireflies are

at their brightest and storm impends.

My father brought horses from England, and a couple of English grooms,

and so busy an air of cheerfulness, that I had, like a sick invalid, to

beg him to keep away from me and prolong unlimitedly his visit to

Sarkeld; the rather so, as he said he had now become indispensable to the

prince besides the margravine. 'Only no more bronze statues!' I adjured

him. He nodded. He had hired Count Fretzel's chateau, in the immediate

neighbourhood, and was absolutely independent, he said. His lawyers were

busy procuring evidence. He had impressed Prince Ernest with a due

appreciation of the wealth of a young English gentleman, by taking him

over my grandfather's mine.

'And, Richie, we have advanced him a trifle of thousands for the working

of this coal discovery of his. In six weeks our schooner yacht will be in

the Elbe to offer him entertainment. He graciously deigns to accept a

couple of English hunters at our hands; we shall improve his breed of

horses, I suspect. Now, Richie, have I done well? I flatter myself I have

been attentive to your interests, have I not?'

He hung waiting for confidential communications on my part, but did not

press for them; he preserved an unvarying delicacy in that respect.

'You have nothing to tell?' he asked.

'Nothing,' I said. 'I have only to thank you.'

He left me. At no other period of our lives were we so disunited. I felt

in myself the reverse of everything I perceived in him, and such letters

as I wrote to the squire consequently had a homelier tone. It seems that

I wrote of the pleasures of simple living--of living for learning's sake.

Mr. Peterborough at the same time despatched praises of my sobriety of

behaviour and diligent studiousness, confessing that I began to outstrip

him in some of the higher branches. The squire's brief reply breathed

satisfaction, but too evidently on the point where he had been led to

misconceive the state of affairs. 'He wanted to have me near him, as did

another person, whom I appeared to be forgetting; he granted me another

year's leave of absence, bidding me bluffly not to be a bookworm and

forget I was an Englishman.' The idea that I was deceiving him never

entered my mind.

I was deceiving everybody, myself in the bargain, as a man must do when

in chase of a woman above him in rank. The chase necessitates deceit--who

knows? chicanery of a sort as well; it brings inevitable humiliations;

such that ever since the commencement of it at speed I could barely think

of my father with comfort, and rarely met him with pleasure. With what

manner of face could I go before the prince or the margravine, and say, I

am an English commoner, the son of a man of doubtful birth, and I claim

the hand of the princess? What contortions were not in store for these

features of mine! Even as affairs stood now, could I make a confidant of

Temple and let him see me through the stages of the adventure? My

jingling of verses, my fretting about the signification of flowers, and

trifling with symbols, haunted me excrutiatingly, taunting me with I know

not what abject vileness of spirit.

In the midst of these tortures an arrow struck me, in the shape of an

anonymous letter, containing one brief line: 'The princess is in need of

help.'

I threw my books aside, and repaired to Count Fretzel's chateau, from

which, happily, my father was absent; but the countenance of the princess

gave me no encouragement to dream I could be of help to her; yet a second

unsigned note worded in a quaint blunt manner, insisted that it was to me

she looked. I chanced to hear the margravine, addressing Baroness

Turckems, say: 'The princess's betrothal,' what further, escaped me. Soon

after, I heard that Prince Otto was a visitor at the lake-palace. My

unknown correspondent plied me a third time.

I pasted the scrap in my neglected book of notes and reflections, where

it had ample space and about equal lucidity. It drew me to the book,

nearly driving me desperate; I was now credulous of anything, except that

the princess cared for help from me. I resolved to go home; I had no

longer any zeal for study. The desolation of the picture of England in my

mind grew congenial. It became imperative that I should go somewhere, for

news arrived of my father's approach with a French company of actors, and

deafening entertainments were at hand. On the whole, I thought it decent

to finish my course at the University, if I had not quite lost the power

of getting into the heart of books. One who studies is not being a fool:

that is an established truth. I thanked Dr. Julius for planting it among

my recollections. The bone and marrow of study form the surest antidote

to the madness of that light gambler, the heart, and distasteful as books

were, I had gained the habit of sitting down to them, which was as good

as an instinct toward the right medicine, if it would but work.

On an afternoon of great heat I rode out for a gaze at the lake-palace,

that I chose to fancy might be the last, foreseeing the possibility of

one of my fits of movement coming on me before sunset. My very pulses

throbbed 'away!' Transferring the sense of overwhelming heat to my moral

condition, I thought it the despair of silliness to stay baking in that

stagnant place, where the sky did nothing but shine, gave nothing forth.

The sky was bronze, a vast furnace dome. The folds of light and shadow

everywhere were satin-rich; shadows perforce of blackness had light in

them, and the light a sword-like sharpness over their edges. It was

inanimate radiance. The laurels sparkled as with frost-points; the denser

foliage dropped burning brown: a sickly saint's-ring was round the heads

of the pines. That afternoon the bee hummed of thunder, and refreshed the

ear.

I pitied the horse I rode, and the dog at his heels, but for me the

intensity was inspiriting. Nothing lay in the light, I had the land to

myself. 'What hurts me?' I thought. My physical pride was up, and I

looked on the cattle in black corners of the fields, and here and there a

man tumbled anyhow, a wreck of limbs, out of the insupportable glare,

with an even glance. Not an eye was lifted on me.

I saw nothing that moved until a boat shot out of the bight of sultry

lake-water, lying close below the dark promontory where I had drawn rein.

The rower was old Schwartz Warhead. How my gorge rose at the impartial

brute! He was rowing the princess and a young man in uniform across the

lake.

That they should cross from unsheltered paths to close covert was

reasonable conduct at a time when the vertical rays of the sun were fiery

arrow-heads. As soon as they were swallowed in the gloom I sprang in my

saddle with torture, transfixed by one of the coarsest shafts of hideous

jealousy. Off I flew, tearing through dry underwood, and round the bend

of the lake, determined to confront her, wave the man aside, and have my

last word with the false woman. Of the real Ottilia I had lost

conception. Blood was inflamed, brain bare of vision: 'He takes her hand,

she jumps from the boat; he keeps her hand, she feigns to withdraw it,

all woman to him in her eyes: they pass out of sight.' A groan burst from

me. I strained my crazy imagination to catch a view of them under cover

of the wood and torture myself trebly, but it was now blank, shut fast.

Sitting bolt upright, panting on horseback in the yellow green of one of

the open woodways, I saw the young officer raise a branch of chestnut and

come out. He walked moodily up to within a yard of my horse, looked up at

me, and with an angry stare that grew to be one of astonishment, said,

'Ah? I think I have had the pleasure--somewhere? in Wurtemberg, if I

recollect.'

It was Prince Otto. I dismounted. He stood alone. The spontaneous

question on my lips would have been 'Where is she?' but I was unable to

speak a word.

'English?' he said, patting the horse's neck.

'Yes--the horse? an English hunter. How are you, Prince Otto? Do you like

the look of him?'

'Immensely. You know we have a passion for English thoroughbreds. Pardon

me, you look as if you had been close on a sunstroke. Do you generally

take rides in this weather?'

'I was out by chance. If you like him, pray take him; take him. Mount him

and try him. He is yours if you care to have him; if he doesn't suit you

send him up to Count Fretzel's. I've had riding enough in the light.'

'Perhaps you have,' said he, and hesitated. 'It's difficult to resist the

offer of such a horse. If you want to dispose of him, mention it when we

meet again. Shall I try him? I have a slight inclination to go as hard as

you have been going, but he shall have good grooming in the prince's

stables, and that 's less than half as near again as Count Pretzel's

place; and a horse like this ought not to be out in this weather, if you

will permit me the remark.'

'No: I'm ashamed of bringing him out, and shan't look on him with

satisfaction,' said I. 'Take him and try him, and then take him from me,

if you don't mind.'

'Do you know, I would advise your lying down in the shade awhile?' he

observed solicitously. 'I have seen men on the march in Hungary and

Italy. An hour's rest under cover would have saved them.'

I thanked him.

'Ice is the thing!' he ejaculated. 'I 'll ride and have some fetched to

you. Rest here.'

With visible pleasure he swung to the saddle. I saw him fix his cavalry

thighs and bound off as if he meant to take a gate. Had he glanced behind

him he would have fancied that the sun had done its worst. I ran at full

speed down the footpath, mad to think she might have returned homeward by

the lake. The two had parted--why? He this way, she that. They would not

have parted but for a division of the will. I came on the empty boat.

Schwartz lay near it beneath heavy boughs, smoking and perspiring in

peace. Neither of us spoke. And it was now tempered by a fit of alarm

that I renewed my search. So when I beheld her, intense gratitude broke

my passion; when I touched her hand it was trembling for absolute

assurance of her safety. She was leaning against a tree, gazing on the

ground, a white figure in that iron-moted gloom.

'Otto!' she cried, shrinking from the touch; but at sight of me, all

softly as a light in the heavens, her face melted in a suffusion of

wavering smiles, and deep colour shot over them, heavenly to see. She

pressed her bosom while I spoke: a lover's speech, breathless.

'You love me?' she said.

'You have known it!'

'Yes, yes!'

'Forgiven me? Speak, princess.'

'Call me by my name.'

'My own soul! Ottilia!'

She disengaged her arms tenderly.

'I have known it by my knowledge of myself,' she said, breathing with her

lips dissevered. 'My weakness has come upon me. Yes, I love you. It is

spoken. It is too true. Is it a fate that brings us together when I have

just lost my little remaining strength--all power? You hear me! I pretend

to wisdom, and talk of fate!'

She tried to laugh in scorn of herself, and looked at me with almost a

bitter smile on her features, made beautiful by her soft eyes. I feared

from the helpless hanging of her underlip that she would swoon; a shudder

convulsed her; and at the same time I became aware of the blotting out of

sunlight, and a strange bowing and shore-like noising of the forest.

'Do not heed me,' she said in happy undertones. 'I think I am going to

cry like a girl. One cannot see one's pride die like this, without but it

is not anguish of any kind. Since we are here together, I would have no

other change.'

She spoke till the tears came thick.

I told her of the letters I had received, warning me of a trouble

besetting her. They were, perhaps, the excuse for my conduct, if I had

any.

Schwartz burst on us with his drill-sergeant's shout for the princess.

Standing grey in big rain-drops he was an object of curiosity to us both.

He came to take her orders.

'The thunder,' he announced, raising a telegraphic arm, 'rolls. It rains.

We have a storm. Command me, princess! your highness!'

Ottilia's eyelids were set blinking by one look aloft. Rain and lightning

filled heaven and earth.

'Direct us, you!' she said to me gently.

The natural proposal was to despatch her giant by the direct way down the

lake to fetch a carriage from the stables, or matting from the boathouse.

I mentioned it, but did not press it.

She meditated an instant. 'I believe I may stay with my beloved?'

Schwartz and I ran to the boat, hauled it on land, and set it keel upward

against a low leafy dripping branch. To this place of shelter, protecting

her as securely as I could, I led the princess, while Schwartz happed a

rough trench around it with one of the sculls. We started him on foot to

do the best thing possible; for the storm gave no promise that it was a

passing one. In truth, I knew that I should have been the emissary and he

the guard; but the storm overhead was not fuller of its mighty burden

than I of mine. I looked on her as mine for the hour, and well won.