If not strength and courage to live, then at least to die!
If she could die for him! could say to him with her dying lips: “See, death is bliss and joy to me, if I can hope that from this hour you will despise life, and because you despise it, will live a noble and beautiful life, like one who lives only that he may die nobly and gloriously!”
But to his weak soul even this would be no spur, no check, only one more dark shadow amongst all the dark shadows that had fallen upon his path; and upon that gloomy path he would wander feebly on, inactive, inglorious, to an early and an inglorious grave! Thus she lay, sunk in the depth of her grief, heedless of the howling of the storm, which perpetually shook the house from roof to cellar; deaf to the noisy uproar of the drunken guests just under her room, hardly raising her head as her landlady now came in. The landlady came to ask her ladyship—as the gentlefolks must mean to spend the night here now—how she would like to have the beds arranged in the next room; but at the strange expression of the beautiful pale face, which raised itself from the sofa and looked at her so oddly, the question died away on the tip of her tongue, and she only succeeded in bringing out her second question: whether she should make a cup of tea for her ladyship? Her ladyship did not seem to understand the question; at any rate she did not answer, and the landlady thought to herself, “She will ring if she wants anything,” and went into the bedroom with the candle which she had in her hand, half closing the door—which always took several efforts to shut it—so as not to disturb her ladyship, and then took the candle to the windows, to see if they were properly fastened. One of them was not, the upper bolt had stuck fast, and as she pulled up the lower one, the wind blowing through the narrow opening put the candle out, which she had set upon the windowsill. “I can find my way, however,” thought the landlady, and turned in the dim light towards the beds, but stopped as she came near the door, and heard the lady give a faint cry. “Good gracious!” thought the landlady, “it is almost worse with these fine people than it is with us.” For the gentleman, who had come in again, had begun to speak at once, not loudly but evidently warmly. “What could be the matter between the two young people?” thought the landlady, and glided on tiptoe to the door. But she could understand nothing, whether of the many words spoken by the gentleman, or the few interposed by the lady; and then it struck the landlady that it was not the gentleman’s clear voice, and that they were neither of them speaking German; and she put her eye to the keyhole, and to her astonishment and terror saw an absolutely strange man standing by the lady in the next room, who as she looked let his brown cloak fall from his shoulders without noticing it, while he violently gesticulated with both arms, and talked faster, and louder and louder, in his incomprehensible jargon—like a madman, thought the terrified landlady.
“I will not turn back,” cried Antonio, “after I have run almost all the way like a dog after his owner who has been carried away by robbers, and the rest of the way have been lying crouched in the straw in a cart like a beast led to slaughter. I will no longer be a dog, I will no longer suffer worse than a beast. I know all now—all—all! how he was faithless to you, the dishonourable coward, that he might go to another, and again from her to you, and lay at your door whimpering for mercy while they settled it for him—his mistress and that accursed Giraldi, whose neck I will wring when and wherever I meet him again, so surely as my name is Antonio Michele! I know all—all—all! And that you will give your fair self to him, as you have given him your soul already!”
The miserable man could not understand the half-scornful, half-melancholy smile which curled the beautiful girl’s proud lips.
“Do not laugh!” he shrieked, “or I will kill you!” And then, as she half rose, not from fear, but to repel the maniac: “Forgive me! oh, forgive me! I kill you!—you who are my all, the light and joy of my life; for whom I would let myself be torn in pieces, limb from limb! for whom I would give every drop of my heart’s blood, if you would only allow me to kiss the hem of your garment, to kiss the ground upon which you have trod! How often—how often have I done it without your knowledge—in your studio, the spot where your fair foot has stood, the tool which your dear hand has touched! I ask for so little; I will wait for years—as I have waited for years—and will never weary of serving you, of worshipping you, like the blessed Madonna, till the day comes when you will listen to my prayers!”
He had fallen on his knees in the place where he stood, his wild eyes, his quivering hands raised to her.
“Rise!” said she. “You do not know what you say, nor to whom you say it. I can give you nothing; I have nothing to give. I am so poor, so poor—far poorer than you!”
She was wandering about the little room and wringing
