With very mixed feelings, however. He had only joined in paying this visit because Elsa seemed to wish it so much, and the Wallbachs had asked him so pressingly. But that he who, after his father, represented the family, should be the first to seek out the man whose name his father would never pronounce; the man who, if he might believe his father, had brought such sorrow and shame upon the family—this was too much for his pride. And yet in this very circumstance lay a demoniac charm which Ottomar, as he crossed the anteroom, with grim satisfaction allowed to take effect upon him. Had not his father just now forcibly interfered in his life, robbed him by his imperious proceedings of the woman he loved—now more than ever, made that life miserable, and brought her to the edge of the grave, perhaps to the grave, itself? Should he bow here again before the mere threatening shadow of paternal authority, or not rather rejoice that an opportunity was given him to set it at defiance?
And this defiance had curled his lips in an ironical smile as he met the much-abused man.
It seemed like an evil omen that instead of the Councillor whom he expected to find here, he should meet the Count, the last man he would have wished for as witness to a step which was almost a crime against the family honour, and was at least very hazardous. The words he would have spoken died on his lips, and the dark look with which he followed the retreating figure could hardly have been misinterpreted by a less shrewd observer.
“You have no love for that gentleman,” said Giraldi, waving his hand after the Count.
“I have no cause to love him,” answered Ottomar.
“No, indeed,” said Giraldi; “for two more opposite natures could hardly be brought together. In the one, openly expressed, supreme satisfaction with noble qualities which exist only in his imagination; in the other, perpetual gnawing doubt of the admirable gifts which Nature has so freely lavished upon him; in one, the miserable narrowness of a hard heart divided between vanity and frivolity; in the other, an overflow of love, falling into despair because all its blossoms do not ripen.”
Ottomar looked up, startled. Who was this man whom he now saw for the first time, and who read his inmost heart as if it had been an open book; who at the first moment of meeting not only could, but dared to say this, as quietly as if it were a matter of course, as if it were not worth while to respect the miserable fetters of social conventionalism even for a moment; as if he could wave them away with a single movement of the slender, white hand?
He looked into the black eyes as if asking for an explanation, and as he did so there crossed his mind the recollection, of a woodland pool by which he had often played as a boy, and which was said to be unfathomable.
“I have surprised you,” said Giraldi. “I might perhaps make use of your astonishment to appear to you—if only for a short time—in a mysterious light, and steal into your confidence by pretending to be in possession of heaven knows what secrets of yours. But I am no charlatan; I am not even the adventurer to whom you have come half-unwillingly, half-curiously; I am only a man whose dearest hopes and warmest wishes have been so long crushed and broken that he has forgotten how to hope or wish, and that only one feeling is left to him, that of pity for all sorrows wherever he may meet them, and especially when the sorrow is so plainly expressed on a young man’s face, at a moment when other faces are beaming with joy and gladness. And now, son of the man who is my enemy because he does not know me, give me your hand and tell me that you are not offended at my freedom!”
He extended both hands with a fascinating gesture half of entreaty, half of command, and Ottomar seized them with passionate eagerness. He had suffered so much in the last few days, and had had no one whose hand he could grasp, no one to whom he could unburden his overfull heart! And now from the eloquent lips of this handsome, strong, singular man came the first words of comfort! Were miracles possible then—or, as the man himself said, did the miracle only consist in the fact that one must be unhappy oneself to understand those who suffer?
His heart overflowed; his beautiful eager eyes filled with tears, of which he was ashamed, but which he could not check. Giraldi released his hands and turned away, passing his hand across his eyes. When after a brief pause he turned back, there was a look of humble joy upon his expressive countenance, and his voice sounded softer than before as he said: “And now, my dear young friend, you will not forget this hour, nor what I now say; I am a poor man in spite of what people say; but anything in my power shall be done for you, for a glance of the eyes so wonderfully like those for which I would go to meet death this day as cheerfully as I would go to a feast. Come!”
He put his arm familiarly within Ottomar’s, and led him to the door which he opened and let his guest precede him. Ottomar did not turn; if he had he would have been appalled at the convulsively distorted face of the man who was holding the handle of the door in his left hand, while he raised the outstretched fingers of the right hand like a vulture’s claws as he strikes down his victim from behind.
The
