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Not far from the shore of the Baltic Sea is situated the ancestral
castle of the noble family Von R——, called R—sitten. It is a wild
and desolate neighbourhood, hardly anything more than a single blade of
grass shooting up here and there from the bottomless drift-sand; and
instead of the garden that generally ornaments a baronial residence,
the bare walls are approached on the landward side by a thin forest of
firs, that with their never-changing vesture of gloom despise the
bright garniture of Spring, and where, instead of the joyous carolling
of little birds awakened anew to gladness, nothing is heard but the
ominous croak of the raven and the whirring scream of the storm-boding
sea-gull. A quarter of a mile distant Nature suddenly changes. As if by
the wave of a magician's wand you are transported into the midst of
thriving fields, fertile arable land, and meadows. You see, too, the
large and prosperous village, with the land-steward's spacious
dwelling-house; and at the angle of a pleasant thicket of alders you
may observe the foundations of a large castle, which one of the former
proprietors had intended to erect. His successors, however, living on
their property in Courland, left the building in its unfinished state;
nor would Freiherr1 Roderick von
R—— proceed with the structure
when he again took up his residence on the ancestral estate, since the
lonely old castle was more suitable to his temperament, which was
morose and averse to human society. He had its ruinous walls repaired
as well as circumstances would admit, and then shut himself up
within them along with a cross-grained house-steward and a slender
establishment of servants.
He was seldom seen in the village, but on the other hand he often
walked and rode along the sea-beach; and people claimed to have heard
him from a distance, talking to the waves and listening to the rolling
and hissing of the surf, as though he could hear the answering voice of
the spirit of the sea. Upon the topmost summit of the watch-tower he
had a sort of study fitted up and supplied with telescopes—with a
complete set of astronomical apparatus, in fact. Thence during the
daytime he frequently watched the ships sailing past on the distant
horizon like white-winged sea-gulls; and there he spent the starlight
nights engaged in astronomical, or, as some professed to know, with
astrological labours, in which the old house-steward assisted him. At
any rate the rumour was current during his own lifetime that he was
devoted to the occult sciences or the so-called Black Art, and that he
had been driven out of Courland in consequence of the failure of an
experiment by which an august princely house had been most seriously
offended. The slightest allusion to his residence in Courland filled
him with horror; but for all the troubles which had there unhinged the
tenor of his life he held his predecessors entirely to blame, in that
they had wickedly deserted the home of their ancestors. In order to
fetter, for the future, at least the head of the family to the
ancestral castle, he converted it into a property of entail. The
sovereign was the more willing to ratify this arrangement since by its
means he would secure for his country a family distinguished for all
chivalrous virtues, and which had already begun to ramify into foreign
countries.
Neither Roderick's son Hubert, nor the next Roderick, who was so called
after his grandfather, would live in their ancestral castle; both
preferred Courland. It is conceivable, too, that, being more cheerful
and fond of life than the gloomy astrologer, they were repelled by the
grim loneliness of the place. Freiherr Roderick had granted shelter and
subsistence on the property to two old maids, sisters of his father,
who were living in indigence, having been but niggardly provided for.
They, together with an aged serving-woman, occupied the small warm
rooms of one of the wings; besides them and the cook, who had a large
apartment on the ground floor adjoining the kitchen, the only other
person was a worn-out chasseur, who tottered about through the lofty
rooms and halls of the main building, and discharged the duties of
castellan. The rest of the servants lived in the village with the
land-steward. The only time at which the desolated and deserted castle
became the scene of life and activity was late in autumn, when the snow
first began to fall and the season for wolf-hunting and boar-hunting
arrived. Then came Freiherr Roderick with his wife, attended by
relatives and friends and a numerous retinue, from Courland. The
neighbouring nobility, and even amateur lovers of the chase who lived
in the town hard by, came down in such numbers that the main building,
together with the wings, barely sufficed to hold the crowd of guests.
Well-served fires roared in all the stoves and fireplaces, while the
spits were creaking from early dawn until late at night, and hundreds
of light-hearted people, masters and servants, were running up and down
stairs; here was heard the jingling and rattling of drinking glasses
and jovial hunting choruses, there the footsteps of those dancing to
the sound of the shrill music,—everywhere loud mirth and jollity;
so that for four or five weeks together the castle was more like a
first-rate hostelry situated on a main highroad than the abode of a
country gentleman. This time Freiherr Roderick devoted, as well as he
was able, to serious business, for, withdrawing from the revelry of his
guests, he discharged the duties attached to his position as lord of
the entail. He not only had a complete statement of the revenues laid
before him, but he listened to every proposal for improvement and to
every the least complaint of his tenants, endeavouring to establish
order in everything, and check all wrongdoing and injustice as far as
lay in his power.
In these matters of business he was honestly assisted by the old
advocate V——, who had been law agent of the R—— family and
Justitiarius2 of their estates in P—— from father to son for many
years; accordingly, V—— was wont to set out for the estate at least a
week before the day fixed for the arrival of the Freiherr. In the year
179- the time came round again when old V—— was to start on his
journey for R—sitten. However strong and healthy the old man, now
seventy years of age, might feel, he was yet quite assured that a
helping hand would prove beneficial to him in his business. So he said
to me one day as if in jest, "Cousin!" (I was his great-nephew, but he
called me "cousin," owing to the fact that his own Christian name and
mine were both the same)—"Cousin, I was thinking it would not be amiss
if you went along with me to R—sitten and felt the sea-breezes blow
about your ears a bit. Besides giving me good help in my often
laborious work, you may for once in a while see how you like the
rollicking life of a hunter, and how, after drawing up a neatly-written
protocol one morning, you will frame the next when you come to look in
the glaring eyes of such a sturdy brute as a grim shaggy wolf or a wild
boar gnashing his teeth, and whether you know how to bring him down
with a well-aimed shot." Of course I could not have heard such strange
accounts of the merry hunting parties at R—sitten, or entertain such a
true heartfelt affection for my excellent old great-uncle as I did,
without being highly delighted that he wanted to take me with him this
time. As I was already pretty well skilled in the sort of business he
had to transact, I promised to work with unwearied industry, so as to
relieve him of all care and trouble.
Next day we sat in the carriage on our way to R—sitten, well wrapped
up in good fur coats, driving through a thick snowstorm, the first
harbinger of the coming winter. On the journey the old gentleman told
me many remarkable stories about the Freiherr Roderick, who had
established the estate-tail and appointed him (V——), in spite of his
youth, to be his Justitiarius and executor. He spoke of the harsh and
violent character of the old nobleman, which seemed to be inherited by
all the family, since even the present master of the estate, whom he
had known as a mild-tempered and almost effeminate youth, acquired more
and more as the years went by the same disposition. He therefore
recommended me strongly to behave with as much resolute self-reliance
and as little embarrassment as possible, if I desired to possess any
consideration in the Freiherr's eyes; and at length he began to
describe the apartments in the castle which he had selected to be his
own once for all, since they were warm and comfortable, and so
conveniently retired that we could withdraw from the noisy
convivialities of the hilarious company whenever we pleased. The rooms,
namely, which were on every visit reserved for him, were two small
ones, hung with warm tapestry, close beside the large hall of justice,
in the wing opposite that in which the two old maids resided.
At last, after a rapid but wearying journey, we arrived at
R—sitten,
late at night. We drove through the village; it was Sunday, and from
the alehouse proceeded the sounds of music, and dancing, and
merrymaking; the steward's house was lit up from basement to garret,
and music and song were there too. All the more striking therefore was
the inhospitable desolation into which we now drove. The sea-wind
howled in sharp cutting dirges as it were about us, whilst the sombre
firs, as if they had been roused by the wind from a deep magic trance,
groaned hoarsely in a responsive chorus. The bare black walls of the
castle towered above the snow-covered ground; we drew up at the gates,
which were fast locked. But no shouting or cracking of whips, no
knocking or hammering, was of any avail; the whole castle seemed to be
dead; not a single light was visible at any of the windows. The old
gentleman shouted in his strong stentorian voice, "Francis, Francis,
where the deuce are you? In the devil's name rouse yourself; we are all
freezing here outside the gates. The snow is cutting our faces till
they bleed. Why the devil don't you stir yourself?" Then the watch-dog
began to whine, and a wandering light was visible on the ground floor.
There was a rattling of keys, and soon the ponderous wings of the gate
creaked back on their hinges. "Ha! a hearty welcome, a hearty welcome,
Herr Justitiarius. Ugh! it's rough weather!" cried old Francis, holding
the lantern above his head, so that the light fell full upon his
withered face, which was drawn up into a curious grimace, that was
meant for a friendly smile. The carriage drove into the court, and we
got out; then I obtained a full view of the old servant's extraordinary
figure, almost hidden in his wide old-fashioned chasseur livery, with
its many extraordinary lace decorations. Whilst there were only a few
grey locks on his broad white forehead, the lower part of his face wore
the ruddy hue of health; and, notwithstanding that the cramped muscles
of his face gave it something of the appearance of a whimsical mask,
yet the rather stupid good-nature which beamed from his eyes and played
about his mouth compensated for all the rest.
"Now, old Francis," began my great-uncle, knocking the snow from his
fur coat in the entrance hall, "now, old man, is everything prepared?
Have you had the hangings in my room well dusted, and the beds carried
in? and have you had a big roaring fire both yesterday and to-day?"
"No," replied Francis, quite calmly, "no, my worshipful Herr
Justitiarius, we've got none of that done." "Good Heavens!" burst out
my great-uncle, "I wrote to you in proper time; you know that I always
come at the time I fix. Here's a fine piece of stupid carelessness! I
shall have to sleep in rooms as cold as ice." "But you see, worshipful
Herr Justitiarius," continued Francis, most carefully clipping a
burning thief from the wick of the candle with the snuffers and
stamping it out with his foot, "but, you see, sir, all that would not
have been of much good, especially the fires, for the wind and the snow
have taken up their quarters too much in the rooms, driving in through
the broken windows, and then"—— "What!" cried my uncle, interrupting
him as he spread out his fur coat and placing his arms akimbo, "do you
mean to tell me the windows are broken, and you, the castellan of the
house, have done nothing to get them mended?" "But, worshipful Herr
Justitiarius," resumed the old servant calmly and composedly, "but we
can't very well get at them owing to the great masses of stones and
rubbish lying all over the room." "Damn it all, how come there to be
stones and rubbish in my room?" cried my uncle. "Your lasting health
and good luck, young gentleman!" said the old man, bowing politely to
me, as I happened to sneeze;3 but he immediately added, "They are the
stones and plaster of the partition wall which fell in at the great
shock." "Have you had an earthquake?" blazed up my uncle, now fairly in
a rage. "No, not an earthquake, worshipful Herr Justitiarius," replied
the old man, grinning all over his face, "but three days ago the heavy
wainscot ceiling of the justice-hall fell in with a tremendous crash."
"Then may the"—— My uncle was about to rip out a terrific oath in his
violent passionate manner, but jerking up his right arm above his head
and taking off his fox-skin cap with his left, he suddenly checked
himself; and turning to me, he said with a hearty laugh, "By my troth,
cousin, we must hold our tongues; we mustn't ask any more questions, or
else we shall hear of some still worse misfortune, or have the whole
castle tumbling to pieces about our ears." "But," he continued,
wheeling round again to the old servant, "but, bless me, Francis, could
you not have had the common sense to get me another room cleaned and
warmed? Could you not have quickly fitted up a room in the main
building for the court-day?" "All that has been already done," said the
old man, pointing to the staircase with a gesture that invited us to
follow him, and at once beginning to ascend them. "Now there's a most
curious noodle for you!" exclaimed my uncle as we followed old Francis.
The way led through long lofty vaulted corridors, in the dense darkness
of which Francis's flickering light threw a strange reflection. The
pillars, capitals, and vari-coloured arches seemed as if they were
floating before us in the air; our own shadows stalked along beside us
in gigantic shape, and the grotesque paintings on the walls over which
they glided seemed all of a tremble and shake; whilst their voices, we
could imagine, were whispering in the sound of our echoing footsteps,
"Wake us not, oh! wake us not—us whimsical spirits who sleep here in
these old stones." At last, after we had traversed a long suite of cold
and gloomy apartments, Francis opened the door of a hall in which a
fire blazing brightly in the grate offered us as it were a home-like
welcome with its pleasant crackling. I felt quite comfortable the
moment I entered, but my uncle, standing still in the middle of the
hall, looked round him and said in a tone which was so very grave as to
be almost solemn, "And so this is to be the justice-hall!" Francis held
his candle above his head, so that my eye fell upon a light spot in the
wide dark wall about the size of a door; then he said in a pained and
muffled voice, "Justice has been already dealt out here." "What
possesses you, old man?" asked my uncle, quickly throwing aside his fur
coat and drawing near to the fire. "It slipped over my lips, I couldn't
help it," said Francis; then he lit the great candles and opened the
door of the adjoining room, which was very snugly fitted up for our
reception. In a short time a table was spread for us before the fire,
and the old man served us with several well-dressed dishes, which
were followed by a brimming bowl of punch, prepared in true Northern
style,—a very acceptable sight to two weary travellers like my uncle
and myself. My uncle then, tired with his journey, went to bed as soon
as he had finished supper; but my spirits were too much excited by the
novelty and strangeness of the place, as well as by the punch, for me
to think of sleep. Meanwhile, Francis cleared the table, stirred up the
fire, and bowing and scraping politely, left me to myself.
Now I sat alone in the lofty spacious
Rittersaal or Knight's Hall.
The snow-flakes had ceased to beat against the lattice, and the storm
had ceased to whistle; the sky was clear, and the bright full moon
shone in through the wide oriel-windows, illuminating with magical
effect all the dark corners of the curious room into which the dim
light of my candles and the fire could not penetrate. As one often
finds in old castles, the walls and ceiling of the hall were ornamented
in a peculiar antique fashion, the former with fantastic paintings and
carvings, gilded and coloured in gorgeous tints, the latter with heavy
wainscoting. Standing out conspicuously from the great pictures, which
represented for the most part wild bloody scenes in bear-hunts and
wolf-hunts, were the heads of men and animals carved in wood and joined
on to the painted bodies, so that the whole, especially in the
flickering light of the fire and the soft beams of the moon, had an
effect as if all were alive and instinct with terrible reality. Between
these pictures reliefs of knights had been inserted, of life size,
walking along in hunting costume; probably they were the ancestors of
the family who had delighted in the chase. Everything, both in the
paintings and in the carved work, bore the dingy hue of extreme old
age; so much the more conspicuous therefore was the bright bare place
on that one of the walls through which were two doors leading into
adjoining apartments. I soon concluded that there too there must have
been a door, that had been bricked up later; and hence it was that this
new part of the wall, which had neither been painted like the rest, nor
yet ornamented with carvings, formed such a striking contrast with the
others. Who does not know with what mysterious power the mind is
enthralled in the midst of unusual and singularly strange
circumstances? Even the dullest imagination is aroused when it comes
into a valley girt around by fantastic rocks, or within the gloomy
walls of a church or an abbey, and it begins to have glimpses of things
it has never yet experienced. When I add that I was twenty years of
age, and had drunk several glasses of strong punch, it will easily be
conceived that as I sat thus in the Rittersaal I was in a more
exceptional frame of mind than I had ever been before. Let the reader
picture to himself the stillness of the night within, and without the
rumbling roar of the sea—the peculiar piping of the wind, which rang
upon my ears like the tones of a mighty organ played upon by spectral
hands—the passing scudding clouds which, shining bright and white,
often seemed to peep in through the rattling oriel-windows like giants
sailings past—in very truth, I felt, from the slight shudder which
shook me, that possibly a new sphere of existences might now be
revealed to me visibly and perceptibly. But this feeling was like the
shivery sensations that one has on hearing a graphically narrated ghost
story, such as we all like. At this moment it occurred to me that I
should never be in a more seasonable mood for reading the book which,
in common with every one who had the least leaning towards the
romantic, I at that time carried about in my pocket,—I mean Schiller's
"Ghost-seer." I read and read, and my imagination grew ever more and
more excited. I came to the marvellously enthralling description of the
wedding feast at Count Von V——'s.
Just as I was reading of the entrance of Jeronimo's bloody figure,4
the door leading from the gallery into the antechamber flew open with a
tremendous bang. I started to my feet in terror; the book fell from my
hands. In the very same moment, however, all was still again, and I
began to be ashamed of my childish fears. The door must have been burst
open by a strong gust of wind or in some other natural manner. It is
nothing; my over-strained fancy converts every ordinary occurrence into
the supernatural. Having thus calmed my fears, I picked up my book from
the ground, and again threw myself in the arm-chair; but there came a
sound of soft, slow, measured footsteps moving diagonally across the
hall, whilst there was a sighing and moaning at intervals, and in this
sighing and moaning there was expressed the deepest trouble, the most
hopeless grief, that a human being can know. "Ha! it must be some sick
animal locked up somewhere in the basement storey. Such acoustic
deceptions at night time, making distant sounds appear close at hand,
are well known to everybody. Who will suffer himself to be terrified at
such a thing as that?" Thus I calmed my fears again. But now there was
a scratching at the new portion of the wall, whilst louder and deeper
sighs were audible, as if gasped out by some one in the last throes of
mortal anguish. "Yes, yes; it is some poor animal locked up somewhere;
I will shout as loudly as I can, I will stamp violently on the floor,
then all will be still, or else the animal below will make itself heard
more distinctly, and in its natural cries," I thought. But the blood
ran cold in my veins; the cold sweat, too, stood upon my forehead, and
I remained sitting in my chair as if transfixed, quite unable to rise,
still less to cry out. At length the abominable scratching ceased, and
I again heard the footsteps. Life and motion seemed to be awakened in
me; I leapt to my feet, and went two or three steps forward. But then
there came an ice-cold draught of wind through the hall, whilst at the
same moment the moon cast her bright light upon the statue of a grave
if not almost terrible-looking man; and then, as though his warning
voice rang through the louder thunders of the waves and the shriller
piping of the wind, I heard distinctly, "No further, no further! or you
will sink beneath all the fearful horrors of the world of spectres."
Then the door was slammed too with the same violent bang as before, and
I plainly heard the footsteps in the anteroom, then going down the
stairs. The main door of the castle was opened with a creaking noise,
and afterwards closed again. Then it seemed as if a horse were brought
out of the stable, and after a while taken back again, and finally all
was still.
At that same moment my attention was attracted to my old uncle in the
adjoining room; he was groaning and moaning painfully. This brought me
fully to consciousness again; I seized the candles and hurried into the
room to him. He appeared to be struggling with an ugly, unpleasant
dream. "Wake up, wake up!" I cried loudly, taking him gently by the
hand, and letting the full glare of the light fall upon his face. He
started up with a stifled shout, and then, looking kindly at me, said,
"Ay, you have done quite right—that you have, cousin, to wake me. I
have had a very ugly dream, and it's all solely owing to this room and
that hall, for they made me think of past times and many wonderful
things that have happened here. But now let us turn to and have a
good sound sleep." Therewith the old gentleman rolled himself in the
bed-covering and appeared to fall asleep at once. But when I had
extinguished the candles and likewise crept into bed, I heard him
praying in a low tone to himself.
Next morning we began work in earnest; the land-steward brought his
account-books, and various other people came, some to get a dispute
settled, some to get arrangements made about other matters. At noon my
uncle took me with him to the wing where the two old Baronesses lived,
that we might pay our respects to them with all due form. Francis
having announced us, we had to wait some time before a little old dame,
bent with the weight of her sixty years, and attired in gay-coloured
silks, who styled herself the noble ladies' lady-in-waiting, appeared
and led us into the sanctuary. There we were received with comical
ceremony by the old ladies, whose curious style of dress had gone out
of fashion years and years before. I especially was an object of
astonishment to them when my uncle, with considerable humour,
introduced me as a young lawyer who had come to assist him in his
business. Their countenances plainly indicated their belief that, owing
to my youth, the welfare of the tenants of R—sitten was placed in
jeopardy. Although there was a good deal that was truly ridiculous
during the whole of this interview with the old ladies, I was
nevertheless still shivering from the terror of the preceding night; I
felt as if I had come in contact with an unknown power, or rather as if
I had grazed against the outer edge of a circle, one step across which
would be enough to plunge me irretrievably into destruction, as though
it were only by the exertion of all the power of my will that I should
be able to guard myself against that awful dread which never slackens
its hold upon you until it ends in incurable insanity. Hence it was
that the old Baronesses, with their remarkable towering head-dresses,
and their peculiar stuff gowns, tricked off with gay flowers and
ribbons, instead of striking me as merely ridiculous, had an appearance
that was both ghostly and awe-inspiring. My fancy seemed to glean from
their yellow withered faces and blinking eyes, ocular proof of the fact
that they had succeeded in establishing themselves on at least a good
footing with the ghosts who haunted the castle, as it derived auricular
confirmation of the same fact from the wretched French which they
croaked, partly between their tightly-closed blue lips and partly
through their long thin noses, and also that they themselves possessed
the power of setting trouble and dire mischief at work. My uncle, who
always had a keen eye for a bit of fun, entangled the old dames in his
ironical way in such a mish-mash of nonsensical rubbish that, had I
been in any other mood, I should not have known how to swallow down my
immoderate laughter; but, as I have just said, the Baronesses and their
twaddle were, and continued to be, in my regard, ghostly, so that my
old uncle, who was aiming at affording me an especial diversion,
glanced across at me time after time utterly astonished. So after
dinner, when we were alone together in our room, he burst out, "But in
Heaven's name, cousin, tell me what is the matter with you? You don't
laugh; you don't talk; you don't eat; and you don't drink. Are you ill,
or is anything else the matter with you?" I now hesitated not a moment
to tell him circumstantially all my terrible, awful experiences of the
previous night I did not conceal anything, and above all I did not
conceal that I had drunk a good deal of punch, and had been reading
Schiller's "Ghostseer." "This I must confess to," I add, "for only so
can I credibly explain how it was that my over-strained and active
imagination could create all those ghostly spirits, which only exist
within the sphere of my own brain." I fully expected that my uncle
would now pepper me well with the stinging pellets of his wit for this
my fanciful ghost-seeing; but, on the contrary, he grew very grave, and
his eyes became riveted in a set stare upon the floor, until he jerked
up his head and said, fixing me with his keen fiery eyes, "Your book I
am not acquainted with, cousin; but your ghostly visitants were due
neither to it nor to the fumes of the punch. I must tell you that I
dreamt exactly the same things that you saw and heard. Like you, I sat
in the easy-chair beside the fire (at least I dreamt so); but what was
only revealed to you as slight noises I saw and distinctly comprehended
with the eye of my mind. Yes, I beheld that foul fiend come in,
stealthily and feebly step across to the bricked-up door, and scratch
at the wall in hopeless despair until the blood gushed out from beneath
his torn finger-nails; then he went downstairs, took a horse out of the
stable, and finally put him back again. Did you also hear the cock
crowing in a distant farmyard up at the village? You came and awoke me,
and I soon resisted the baneful ghost of that terrible man, who is
still able to disturb in this fearful way the quiet lives of the
living." The old gentleman stopped; and I did not like to ask him
further questions, being well aware that he would explain everything to
me when he deemed that the proper time was come for doing so. After
sitting for a while, deeply absorbed in his own thoughts, he went on,
"Cousin, do you think you have courage enough to encounter the ghost
again now that you know all that happens,—that is to say, along with
me?" Of course I declared that I now felt quite strong enough, and
ready for what he wished. "Then let us watch together during the coming
night," the old gentleman went on to say. "There is a voice within me
telling me that this evil spirit must fly, not so much before the power
of my will as before my courage, which rests upon a basis of firm
conviction. I feel that it is not at all presumption in me, but rather
a good and pious deed, if I venture life and limb to exorcise this foul
fiend that is banishing the sons from the old castle of their
ancestors. But what am I thinking about? There can be no risk in the
case at all, for with such a firm, honest mind and pious trust that I
feel I possess, I and everybody cannot fail to be, now and always,
victorious over such ghostly antagonists. And yet if, after all, it
should be God's will that this evil power be enabled to work me
mischief, then you must bear witness, cousin, that I fell in honest
Christian fight against the spirit of hell which was here busy about
its fiendish work. As for yourself, keep at a distance; no harm will
happen to you then."
Our attention was busily engaged with divers kinds of business until
evening came. As on the day before, Francis had cleared away the
remains of the supper, and brought us our punch. The full moon shone
brightly through the gleaming clouds, the sea-waves roared, and the
night-wind howled and shook the oriel window till the panes rattled.
Although inwardly excited, we forced ourselves to converse on
indifferent topics. The old gentleman had placed his striking watch on
the table; it struck twelve. Then the door flew open with a terrific
bang, and, just as on the preceding night, soft slow footsteps moved
stealthily across the hall in a diagonal direction, whilst there were
the same sounds of sighing and moaning. My uncle turned pale, but his
eyes shone with an unusual brilliance. He rose from his arm-chair,
stretching his tall figure up to its full height, so that as he stood
there with his left arm propped against his side and with his right
stretched out towards the middle of the hall, he had the appearance of
a hero issuing his commands. But the sighing and moaning were growing
every moment louder and more perceptible, and then the scratching at
the wall began more horribly even than on the previous night. My uncle
strode forwards straight towards the walled-up door, and his steps were
so firm that they echoed along the floor. He stopped immediately in
front of the place, where the scratching noise continued to grow worse
and worse, and said in a strong solemn voice, such as I had never
before heard from his lips, "Daniel, Daniel! what are you doing here at
this hour?" Then there was a horrible unearthly scream, followed by a
dull thud as if a heavy weight had fallen to the ground. "Seek for
pardon and mercy at the throne of the Almighty; that is your place.
Away with you from the scenes of this life, in which you can nevermore
have part." And as the old gentleman uttered these words in a tone
still stronger than before, a feeble wail seemed to pass through the
air and die away in the blustering of the storm, which was just
beginning to rage. Crossing over to the door, the old gentleman slammed
it to, so that the echo rang loudly through the empty anteroom. There
was something so supernatural almost in both his language and his
gestures that I was deeply struck with awe. On resuming his seat in his
arm-chair his face was as if transfigured; he folded his hands and
prayed inwardly. In this way several minutes passed, when he asked me
in that gentle tone which always went right to my heart, and which he
always had so completely at his command, "Well, cousin?" Agitated and
shaken by awe, terror, fear, and pious respect and love, I threw myself
upon my knees and rained down my warm tears upon the hand he offered
me. He clasped me in his arms, and pressing me fervently to his heart
said very tenderly, "Now we will go and have a good quiet sleep, good
cousin;" and we did so. And as nothing of an unusual nature occurred on
the following night, we soon recovered our former cheerfulness, to the
prejudice of the old Baronesses; for though there did still continue to
be something ghostly about them and their odd manners, yet it emanated
from a diverting ghost which the old gentleman knew how to call up in a
droll fashion.
At length, after the lapse of several days, the Baron put in his
appearance, along with his wife and a numerous train of servants for
the hunting; the guests who had been invited also arrived, and the
castle, now suddenly awakened to animation, became the scene of the
noisy life and revelry which have been before described. When the Baron
came into our hall soon after his arrival, he seemed to be disagreeably
surprised at the change in our quarters. Casting an ill-tempered glance
towards the bricked-up door, he turned abruptly round and passed his
hand across his forehead, as if desirous of banishing some disagreeable
recollection. My great-uncle mentioned the damage done to the
justice-hall and the adjoining apartments; but the Baron found fault
with Francis for not accommodating us with better lodgings, and he
good-naturedly requested the old gentleman to order anything he might
want to make his new room comfortable; for it was much less
satisfactory in this respect than that which he had usually occupied.
On the whole, the Baron's bearing towards my old uncle was not merely
cordial, but largely coloured by a certain deferential respect, as if
the relation in which he stood towards him was that of a younger
relative. But this was the sole trait that could in any way reconcile
me to his harsh, imperious character, which was now developed more and
more every day. As for me, he seemed to notice me but little; if he did
notice me at all, he saw in me nothing more than the usual secretary or
clerk. On the occasion of the very first important memorandum that I
drew up, he began to point out mistakes, as he conceived, in the
wording. My blood boiled, and I was about to make a caustic reply, when
my uncle interposed, informing him briefly that I did my work exactly
in the way he wished, and that in legal matters of this kind he alone
was responsible. When we were left alone, I complained bitterly of the
Baron, who would, I said, always inspire me with growing aversion. "I
assure you, cousin," replied the old gentleman, "that the Baron,
notwithstanding his unpleasant manner, is really one of the most
excellent and kind-hearted men in the world. As I have already told
you, he did not assume these manners until the time he became lord of
the entail; previous to then he was a modest, gentle youth. Besides, he
is not, after all, so bad as you make him out to be; and further, I
should like to know why you are so averse to him." As my uncle said
these words he smiled mockingly, and the blood rushed hotly and
furiously into my face. I could not pretend to hide from myself—I saw
it only too clearly, and felt it too unmistakably—that my peculiar
antipathy to the Baron sprang out of the fact that I loved, even to
madness, a being who appeared to me to be the loveliest and most
fascinating of her sex who had ever trod the earth. This lady was none
other than the Baroness herself. Her appearance exercised a powerful
and irresistible charm upon me at the very moment of her arrival, when
I saw her traversing the apartments in her Russian sable cloak, which
fitted close to the exquisite symmetry of her shape, and with a rich
veil wrapped about her head. Moreover, the circumstance that the
two old aunts, with still more extraordinary gowns and be-ribboned
head-dresses than I had yet seen them wear, were sweeping along one on
each side of her and cackling their welcomes in French, whilst the
Baroness was looking about her in a way so gentle as to baffle all
description, nodding graciously first to one and then to another, and
then adding in her flute-like voice a few German words in the pure
sonorous dialect of Courland—all this formed a truly remarkable and
unusual picture, and my imagination involuntarily connected it with the
ghostly midnight visitant,—the Baroness being the angel of light who
was to break the ban of the spectral powers of evil. This wondrously
lovely lady stood forth in startling reality before my mind's eye. At
that time she could hardly be nineteen years of age, and her face, as
delicately beautiful as her form, bore the impression of the most
angelic good-nature; but what I especially noticed was the
indescribable fascination of her dark eyes, for a soft melancholy gleam
of aspiration shone in them like dewy moonshine, whilst a perfect
elysium of rapture and delight was revealed in her sweet and beautiful
smile. She often seemed completely lost in her own thoughts, and at
such moments her lovely face was swept by dark and fleeting shadows.
Many observers would have concluded that she was affected by some
distressing pain; but it rather seemed to me that she was struggling
with gloomy apprehensions of a future pregnant with dark misfortunes;
and with these, strangely enough, I connected the apparition of the
castle, though I could not give the least explanation of why I did so.
On the morning following the Baron's arrival, when the company
assembled to breakfast, my old uncle introduced me to the Baroness;
and, as usually happens with people in the frame of mind in which I
then was, I behaved with indescribable absurdity. In answer to the
beautiful lady's simple inquiries how I liked the castle, &c., I
entangled myself in the most extraordinary and nonsensical phrases, so
that the old aunts ascribed my embarrassment simply and solely to my
profound respect for the noble lady, and thought they were called
upon condescendingly to take my part, which they did by praising
me in French as a very nice and clever young man, as a garçon très
joli (handsome lad). This vexed me; so suddenly recovering my
self-possession, I threw out a bonmot in better French than the old
dames were mistresses of; whereupon they opened their eyes wide in
astonishment, and pampered their long thin noses with a liberal supply
of snuff. From the Baroness's turning from me with a more serious air
to talk to some other lady, I perceived that my bonmot bordered
closely upon folly; this vexed me still more, and I wished the two old
ladies to the devil. My old uncle's irony had long before brought me
through the stage of the languishing love-sick swain, who in childish
infatuation coddles his love-troubles; but I knew very well that the
Baroness had made a deeper and more powerful impression upon my heart
than any other woman had hitherto done. I saw and heard nothing but
her; nevertheless I had a most explicit and unequivocal consciousness
that it would be not only absurd, but even utter madness to dream of an
amour, albeit I perceived no less clearly the impossibility of gazing
and adoring at a distance like a love-lorn boy. Of such conduct I
should have been perfectly ashamed. But what I could do, and what I
resolved to do, was to become more intimate with this beautiful girl
without allowing her to get any glimpse of my real feelings, to drink
the sweet poison of her looks and words, and then, when far away from
her, to bear her image in my heart for many, many days, perhaps for
ever. I was excited by this romantic and chivalric attachment to such a
degree, that, as I pondered over it during sleepless nights, I was
childish enough to address myself in pathetic monologues, and even to
sigh lugubriously, "Seraphina! O Seraphina!" till at last my old uncle
woke up and cried, "Cousin, cousin! I believe you are dreaming aloud.
Do it by daytime, if you can possibly contrive it, but at night have
the goodness to let me sleep." I was very much afraid that the old
gentleman, who had not failed to remark my excitement on the Baroness's
arrival, had heard the name, and would overwhelm me with his sarcastic
wit. But next morning all he said, as we went into the justice-hall,
was, "God grant every man the proper amount of common sense, and
sufficient watchfulness to keep it well under hand. It's a bad look-out
when a man becomes converted into a fantastic coxcomb without so much
as a word of warning." Then he took his seat at the great table and
added, "Write neatly and distinctly, good cousin, that I may be able to
read it without any trouble."
The respect, nay, the almost filial veneration which the Baron
entertained towards my uncle, was manifested on all occasions.
Thus, at the dinner-table he had to occupy the seat—which many envied
him—beside the Baroness; as for me, chance threw me first in one place
and then in another; but for the most part, two or three officers from
the neighbouring capital were wont to attach me to them, in order that
they might empty to their own satisfaction their budget of news and
amusing anecdotes, whilst diligently passing the wine about. Thus it
happened that for several days in succession I sat at the bottom of the
table at a great distance from the Baroness. At length, however, chance
brought me nearer to her. Just as the doors of the dining-hall were
thrown open for the assembled company, I happened to be in the midst of
a conversation with the Baroness's companion and confidante,—a lady no
longer in the bloom of youth, but by no means ill-looking, and not
without intelligence,—and she seemed to take some interest in my
remarks. According to etiquette, it was my duty to offer her my arm,
and I was not a little pleased when she took her place quite close to
the Baroness, who gave her a friendly nod. It may be readily imagined
that all that I now said was intended not only for my fair neighbour,
but also mainly for the Baroness. Whether it was that the inward
tension of my feelings imparted an especial animation to all I said, at
any rate my companion's attention became more riveted with every
succeeding moment; in fact, she was at last entirely absorbed in the
visions of the kaleidoscopic world which I unfolded to her gaze. As
remarked, she was not without intelligence, and it soon came to pass
that our conversation, completely independent of the multitude of words
spoken by the other guests (which rambled about first to this subject
and then to that), maintained its own free course, launching an
effective word now and again whither I wanted it. For I did not fail to
observe that my companion shot a significant glance or two across to
the Baroness, and that the latter took pains to listen to us. And this
was particularly the case when the conversation turned upon music and I
began to speak with enthusiasm of this glorious and sacred art; nor did
I conceal that, despite the fact of my having devoted myself to the dry
tedious study of the law, I possessed tolerable skill on the
harpsichord, could sing, and had even set several songs to music.
The majority of the company had gone into another room to take coffee
and liqueurs; but, unawares, without knowing how it came about, I found
myself near the Baroness, who was talking with her confidante. She at
once addressed me, repeating in a still more cordial manner and in the
tone in which one talks to an acquaintance, her inquiries as to how I
liked living in the castle, &c. I assured her that for the first few
days, not only the dreary desolation of the situation, but the ancient
castle itself had affected me strangely, but even in this mood I had
found much of deep interest, and that now my only wish was to be
excused from the stirring scenes of the hunt, for I had not been
accustomed to them. The Baroness smiled and said, "I can readily
believe that this wild life in our fir forests cannot be very congenial
to you. You are a musician, and, unless I am utterly mistaken, a poet
as well. I am passionately fond of both arts. I can also play the harp
a little, but I have to do without it here in R—sitten, for my husband
does not like me to bring it with me. Its soft strains would harmonize
but ill with the wild shouts of the hunters and the ringing blare of
their bugles, which are the only sounds that ought to be heard here.
And O heaven! how I should like to hear a little music!" I protested
that I would exert all the skill I had at my command to fulfil her
wish, for there must surely without doubt be an instrument of some kind
in the castle, even though it were only an old harpsichord. Then the
Lady Adelheid (the Baroness's confidante) burst out into a silvery
laugh and asked, did I not know that within the memory of man no other
instrument had ever been heard in the castle except cracked trumpets,
and hunting-horns which in the midst of joy would only sound lugubrious
notes, and the twanging fiddles, untuned violoncellos, and braying
oboes of itinerant musicians. The Baroness reiterated her wish that she
should like to have some music, and especially should like to hear me;
and both she and Adelheid racked their brains all to no purpose to
devise some scheme by which they could get a decent pianoforte brought
to the Castle. At this moment old Francis crossed the room. "Here's the
man who always can give the best advice, and can procure everything,
even things before unheard of and unseen." With these words the Lady
Adelheid called him to her, and as she endeavoured to make him
comprehend what it was that was wanted, the Baroness listened with her
hands clasped and her head bent forward, looking upon the old man's
face with a gentle smile. She made a most attractive picture, like some
lovely, winsome child that is all eagerness to have a wished-for toy in
its hands. Francis, after having adduced in his prolix manner several
reasons why it would be downright impossible to procure such a
wonderful instrument in such a big hurry, finally stroked his beard
with an air of self-flattery and said, "But the land-steward's lady up
at the village performs on the manichord, or whatever is the outlandish
name they now call it, with uncommon skill, and sings to it so fine and
mournful-like that it makes your eyes red, just like onions do, and
makes you feel as if you would like to dance with both legs at once."
"And you say she has a pianoforte?" interposed Lady Adelheid. "Aye,
to be sure," continued the old man; "it comed straight from Dresden;
a"—("Oh, that's fine!" interrupted the Baroness)—"a beautiful
instrument," went on the old man, "but a little weakly; for not long
ago, when the organist began to play on it the hymn 'In all Thy
works,'5 he broke it all to pieces, so that"—("Good gracious!"
exclaimed both the Baroness and Lady Adelheid)—"so that," went on the
old man again, "it had to be taken to R—— to be mended, and cost a
lot of money." "But has it come back again?" asked Lady Adelheid
impatiently. "Aye, to be sure, my lady, and the steward's lady will
reckon it a high honouR——" At this moment the Baron chanced to pass.
He looked across at our group rather astonished, and whispered with a
sarcastic smile to the Baroness, "So you have to take counsel of
Francis again, I see?" The Baroness cast down her eyes blushing, whilst
old Francis breaking off terrified, suddenly threw himself into
military posture, his head erect, and his arms close and straight down
his side. The old aunts came sailing down upon us in their stuff gowns
and carried off the Baroness. Lady Adelheid followed her, and I was
left alone as if spell-bound. A struggle began to rage within me
between my rapturous anticipations of now being able to be near her
whom I adored, who completely swayed all my thoughts and feelings, and
my sulky ill-humour and annoyance at the Baron, whom I regarded as a
barbarous tyrant. If he were not, would the grey-haired old servant
have assumed such a slavish attitude?
"Do you hear? Can you see, I say?" cried my great-uncle, tapping me on
the shoulder;—we were going upstairs to our own apartments. "Don't
force yourself so on the Baroness's attention," he said when we reached
the room. "What good can come of it? Leave that to the young fops who
like to pay court to ladies; there are plenty of them to do it." I
related how it had all come about, and challenged him to say if I had
deserved his reproof. His only reply to this, however, was, "Humph!
humph!" as he drew on his dressing-gown. Then, having lit his pipe, he
took his seat in his easy-chair and began to talk about the adventures
of the hunt on the preceding day, bantering me on my bad shots. All was
quiet in the castle; all the visitors, both gentlemen and ladies, were
busy in their own rooms dressing for the evening. For the musicians
with the twanging fiddles, untuned violoncellos, and braying oboes, of
whom Lady Adelheid had spoken, were come, and a merrymaking of no less
importance than a ball, to be given in the best possible style, was in
anticipation. My old uncle, preferring a quiet sleep to such foolish
pastimes, stayed in his chamber. I, however, had just finished dressing
when there came a light tap at our door, and Francis entered. Smiling
in his self-satisfied way, he announced to me that the manichord had
just arrived from the land-steward's lady in a sledge, and had been
carried into the Baroness's apartments. Lady Adelheid sent her
compliments and would I go over at once. It may be conceived how my
pulse beat, and also with what a delicious tremor at heart I opened the
door of the room in which I was to find her. Lady Adelheid came to
meet me with a joyful smile. The Baroness, already in full dress for
the ball, was sitting in a meditative attitude beside the mysterious
case or box, in which slumbered the music that I was called upon to
awaken. When she rose, her beauty shone upon me with such glorious
splendour that I stood staring at her unable to utter a word. "Come,
Theodore"—(for, according to the kindly custom of the North, which is
found again farther south, she addressed everybody by his or her
Christian name)—"Come, Theodore," she said pleasantly, "here's the
instrument come. Heaven grant it be not altogether unworthy of your
skill!" As I opened the lid I was greeted by the rattling of a score of
broken strings, and when I attempted to strike a chord, the effect was
hideous and abominable, for all the strings which were not broken were
completely out of tune. "I doubt not our friend the organist has been
putting his delicate little hands upon it again," said Lady Adelheid
laughing; but the Baroness was very much annoyed and said, "Oh, it
really is a slice of bad luck! I am doomed, I see, never to have any
pleasure here." I searched in the case of the instrument, and
fortunately found some coils of strings, but no tuning-key anywhere.
Hence fresh laments. "Any key will do if the ward will fit on the
pegs," I explained; then both Lady Adelheid and the Baroness ran
backwards and forwards in gay spirits, and before long a whole magazine
of bright keys lay before me on the sounding-board.
Then I set to work diligently, and both the ladies assisted me all they
could, trying first one peg and then another. At length one of the
tiresome keys fitted, and they exclaimed joyfully, "This will do! it
will do!" But when I had drawn the first creaking string up to just
proper pitch, it suddenly snapped, and the ladies recoiled in alarm.
The Baroness, handling the brittle wires with her delicate little
fingers, gave me the numbers as I wanted them, and carefully held the
coil whilst I unrolled it. Suddenly one of them coiled itself up again
with a whirr, making the Baroness utter an impatient "Oh!" Lady
Adelheid enjoyed a hearty laugh, whilst I pursued the tangled coil to
the corner of the room. After we had all united our efforts to extract
a perfectly straight string from it, and had tried it again, to our
mortification it again broke; but at last—at last we found some good
coils; the strings began to hold, and gradually the discordant jangling
gave place to pure melodious chords. "Ha! it will go! it will go! The
instrument is getting in tune!" exclaimed the Baroness, looking at me
with her lovely smile. How quickly did this common interest banish all
the strangeness and shyness which the artificial manners of social
intercourse impose. A kind of confidential familiarity arose between
us, which, burning through me like an electric current, consumed the
timorous nervousness and constraint which had lain like ice upon my
heart. That peculiar mood of diffused melting sadness which is
engendered of such love as mine was had quite left me; and accordingly,
when the pianoforte was brought into something like tune, instead of
interpreting my deeper feelings in dreamy improvisations, as I had
intended, I began with those sweet and charming canzonets which have
reached us from the South. During this or the other Senza di te
(Without thee), or Sentimi idol mio (Hear me, my darling), or
Almen
se nonpos'io (At least if I cannot), with numberless
Morir mi sentos
(I feel I am dying), and Addios (Farewell), and
O dios! (O
Heaven!), a brighter and brighter brilliancy shone in Seraphina's
eyes. She had seated herself close beside me at the instrument; I felt
her breath fanning my cheek; and as she placed her arm behind me
on the chair-back, a white ribbon, getting disengaged from her
beautiful ball-dress, fell across my shoulder, where by my singing and
Seraphina's soft sighs it was kept in a continual flutter backwards and
forwards, like a true love-messenger. It is a wonder how I kept from
losing my head.
As I was running my fingers aimlessly over the keys, thinking of a new
song, Lady Adelheid, who had been sitting in one of the corners of the
room, ran across to us, and, kneeling down before the Baroness, begged
her, as she took both her hands and clasped them to her bosom, "Oh,
dear Baroness! darling Seraphina! now you must sing too." To this she
replied, "Whatever are you thinking about, Adelheid? How could I dream
of letting our virtuoso friend hear such poor singing as mine?" And she
looked so lovely, as, like a shy good child, she cast down her eyes and
blushed, timidly contending with the desire to sing. That I too added
my entreaties can easily be imagined; nor, upon her making mention of
some little Courland Volkslieder or popular songs, did I desist from
my entreaties until she stretched out her left hand towards the
instrument and tried a few notes by way of introduction. I rose to make
way for her at the piano, but she would not permit me to do so,
asserting that she could not play a single chord, and for that reason,
since she would have to sing without accompaniment, her performance
would be poor and uncertain. She began in a sweet voice, pure as a
bell, that came straight from her heart, and sang a song whose simple
melody bore all the characteristics of those Volkslieder which
proceed from the lips with such a lustrous brightness, so to speak,
that we cannot help perceiving in the glad light which surrounds us our
own higher poetic nature. There lies a mysterious charm in the
insignificant words of the text which converts them into a hieroglyphic
scroll representative of the unutterable emotions which throng our
hearts. Who does not know that Spanish canzonet the substance of which
is in words little more than, "With my maiden I embarked on the sea; a
storm came on, and my timid maiden was tossed up and down: nay, I will
never again embark on the sea with my maiden?" And the Baroness's
little song contained nothing more than, "Lately I was dancing with my
sweetheart at a wedding; a flower fell out of my hair; he picked it up
and gave it me, and said, 'When, sweetheart mine, shall we go to a
wedding again?'" When, on her beginning the second verse of the song, I
played an arpeggio accompaniment, and further when, in the
inspiration which now took possession of me, I at once stole from the
Baroness's own lips the melodies of the other songs she sang, I
doubtless appeared in her eyes, and in those of the Lady Adelheid, to
be one of the greatest of masters in the art of music, for they
overwhelmed me with enthusiastic praise. The lights and illuminations
from the ball-room, situated in one of the wings of the castle, now
shone across into the Baroness's chamber, whilst a discordant bleating
of trumpets and French horns announced that it was time to gather for
the ball. "Oh, now I must go," said the Baroness. I started up from the
pianoforte. "You have afforded me a delightful hour; these have been
the pleasantest moments I have ever spent in R—sitten," she added,
offering me her hand; and as in the extreme intoxication of delight I
pressed it to my lips, I felt her fingers close upon my hand with a
sudden convulsive tremor. I do not know how I managed to reach my
uncle's chamber, and still less how I got into the ball-room. There was
a certain Gascon who was afraid to go into battle since he was all
heart, and every wound would be fatal to him. I might be compared to
him; and so might everybody else who is in the same mood that I
was in; every touch was then fatal. The Baroness's hand—her tremulous
fingers—had affected me like a poisoned arrow; my blood was burning in
my veins.
On the following morning my old uncle, without asking any direct
questions, had soon drawn from me a full account of the hour I had
spent in the Baroness's society, and I was not a little abashed when
the smile vanished from his lips and the jocular note from his words,
and he grew serious all at once, saying, "Cousin, I beg you will resist
this folly which is taking such a powerful hold upon you. Let me tell
you that your present conduct, as harmless as it now appears, may lead
to the most terrible consequences. In your thoughtless fatuity you are
standing on a thin crust of ice, which may break under you ere you are
aware of it, and let you in with a plunge. I shall take good care not
to hold you fast by the coat-tails, for I know you will scramble out
again pretty quick, and then, when you are lying sick unto death, you
will say, 'I got this little bit of a cold in a dream.' But I warn you
that a malignant fever will gnaw at your vitals, and years will pass
before you recover yourself, and are a man again. The deuce take your
music if you can put it to no better use than to cozen sentimental
young women out of their quiet peace of mind." "But," I began,
interrupting the old gentleman, "but have I ever thought of insinuating
myself as the Baroness's lover?" "You puppy!" cried the old gentleman,
"if I thought so I would pitch you out of this window." At this
juncture the Baron entered, and put an end to the painful conversation;
and the business to which I now had to turn my attention brought me
back from my love-sick reveries, in which I saw and thought of nothing
but Seraphina.
In general society the Baroness only occasionally interchanged a few
friendly words with me; but hardly an evening passed in which a secret
message was not brought to me from Lady Adelheid, summoning me to
Seraphina. It soon came to pass that our music alternated with
conversations on divers topics. Whenever I and Seraphina began to get
too absorbed in sentimental dreams and vague aspirations, the Lady
Adelheid, though now hardly young enough to be so naïve and droll as
she once was, yet intervened with all sorts of merry and somewhat
chaotic nonsense. From several hints she let fall, I soon discovered
that the Baroness really had something preying upon her mind, even as I
thought I had read in her eyes the very first moment I saw her; and I
clearly discerned the hostile influence of the apparition of the
castle. Something terrible had happened or was to happen. Although I
was often strongly impelled to tell Seraphina in what way I had come in
contact with the invisible enemy, and how my old uncle had banished
him, undoubtedly for ever, I yet felt my tongue fettered by a
hesitation which was inexplicable to myself even, whenever I opened my
mouth to speak.
One day the Baroness failed to appear at the dinner table; it was said
that she was a little unwell, and could not leave her room. Sympathetic
inquiries were addressed to the Baron as to whether her illness was of
a grave nature. He smiled in a very disagreeable way, in fact, it was
almost like bitter irony, and said, "Nothing more than a slight
catarrh, which she has got from our blustering sea-breezes. They can't
tolerate any sweet voices; the only sounds they will endure are the
hoarse 'Halloos' of the chase." At these words the Baron hurled a keen
searching look at me across the table, for I sat obliquely opposite to
him. He had not spoken to his neighbour, but to me. Lady Adelheid, who
sat beside me, blushed a scarlet red. Fixing her eyes upon the plate in
front of her, and scribbling about on it with her fork, she whispered,
"And yet you must see Seraphina to-day; your sweet songs shall to-day
also bring soothing and comfort to her poor heart." Adelheid addressed
these words to me; but at this moment it struck me that I was almost
apparently entangled in a base and forbidden intrigue with the
Baroness, which could only end in some terrible crime. My old uncle's
warning fell heavily upon my heart. What should I do? Not see her
again? That was impossible so long as I remained in the castle; and
even if I might leave the castle and return to K——, I had not the
will to do it Oh! I felt only too deeply that I was not strong enough
to shake myself out of this dream, which was mocking one with delusive
hopes of happiness. Adelheid I almost regarded in the light of a common
go-between; I would despise her, and yet, upon second thoughts, I could
not help being ashamed of my folly. Had anything ever happened during
those blissful evening hours which could in the least degree lead to
any nearer relation with Seraphina than was permissible by propriety
and morality? How dare I let the thought enter my mind that the
Baroness would ever entertain any warm feeling for me? And yet I was
convinced of the danger of my situation.
We broke up from dinner earlier than usual, in order to go again after
some wolves which had been seen in the fir-wood close by the castle. A
little hunting was just the thing I wanted in the excited frame of mind
in which I then was. I expressed to my uncle my resolve to accompany
the party; he gave me an approving smile and said, "That's right; I am
glad you are going out with them for once. I shall stay at home, so you
can take my firelock with you, and buckle my whinger round your waist;
in case of need it is a good and trusty weapon, if you only keep your
presence of mind." That part of the wood in which the wolves were
supposed to lie was surrounded by the huntsmen. It was bitterly cold;
the wind howled through the firs, and drove the light snow-flakes right
in my face, so that when at length it came on to be dusk I could
scarcely see six paces before me. Quite benumbed by the cold, I left
the place that had been assigned to me and sought shelter deeper in the
wood. There, leaning against a tree, with my firelock under my arm, I
forgot the wolf-hunt entirely; my thoughts had travelled back to
Seraphina's cosy room. After a time shots were heard in the far
distance; but at the same moment there was a rustling in the reed-bank,
and I saw not ten paces from me a huge wolf about to run past me. I
took aim, and fired, but missed. The brute sprang towards me with
glaring eyes; I should have been lost had I not had sufficient presence
of mind to draw my hunting-knife, and, just as the brute was flying at
me, to drive it deep into his throat, so that the blood spurted out
over my hand and arm. One of the Baron's keepers, who had stood not far
from me, came running up with a loud shout, and at his repeated
"Halloo!" all the rest soon gathered round us. The Baron hastened up to
me, saying, "For God's sake, you are bleeding—you are bleeding. Are
you wounded?" I assured him that I was not Then he turned to the keeper
who had stood nearest to me, and overwhelmed him with reproaches for
not having shot after me when I missed. And notwithstanding that the
man maintained this to have been perfectly impossible, since in the
very same moment the wolf had rushed upon me, and any shot would have
been at the risk of hitting me, the Baron persisted in saying that he
ought to have taken especial care of me as a less experienced hunter.
Meanwhile the keepers had lifted up the dead animal; it was one of the
largest that had been seen for a long time; and everybody admired my
courage and resolution, although to myself what I had done appeared
quite natural I had not for a moment thought of the danger I had run.
The Baron in particular seemed to take very great interest in the
matter; I thought he would never be done asking me whether, though I
was not wounded by the brute, I did not fear the ill effects that would
follow from the fright As we went back to the castle, the Baron took me
by the arm like a friend, and I had to give my firelock to a keeper to
carry. He still continued to talk about my heroic deed, so that
eventually I came to believe in my own heroism, and lost all my
constraint and embarrassment, and felt that I had established myself
in the Baron's eyes as a man of courage and uncommon resolution. The
schoolboy had passed his examination successfully, was now no longer a
schoolboy, and all the submissive nervousness of the schoolboy had left
him. I now conceived I had earned a right to try and gain Seraphina's
favour. Everybody knows of course what ridiculous combinations the
fancy of a love-sick youth is capable of. In the castle, over the
smoking punchbowl, by the fireside, I was the hero of the hour. Besides
myself the Baron was the only one of the party who had killed a
wolf—also a formidable one; the rest had to be content with ascribing
their bad shots to the weather and the darkness, and with relating
thrilling stories of their former exploits in hunting and the dangers
they had escaped. I thought, too, that I might reap an especial share
of praise and admiration from my old uncle as well; and so, with a view
to this end, I related to him my adventure at pretty considerable
length, nor did I forget to paint the savage brute's wild and
bloodthirsty appearance in very startling colours. The old gentleman,
however, only laughed in my face and said, "God is powerful even in the
weak."
Tired of drinking and of the company, I was going quietly along the
corridor towards the justice-hall when I saw a figure with a light slip
in before me. On entering the hall I saw it was Lady Adelheid. "This is
the way we have to wander about like ghosts or night-walkers in order
to catch you, my brave slayer of wolves," she whispered, taking my arm.
The words "ghosts" and "sleep-walkers," pronounced in the place where
we were, fell like lead upon my heart; they immediately brought to my
recollection the ghostly apparitions of those two awful nights. As
then, so now, the wind came howling in from the sea in deep organ-like
cadences, rattling the oriel windows again and again and whistling
fearfully through them, whilst the moon cast her pale gleams exactly
upon the mysterious part of the wall where the scratching had been
heard. I fancied I discerned stains of blood upon it. Doubtless Lady
Adelheid, who still had hold of my hand, must have felt the cold icy
shiver which ran through me. "What's the matter with you?" she
whispered softly; "what's the matter with you? You are as cold as
marble. Come, I will call you back into life. Do you know how very
impatient the Baroness is to see you? And until she does see you she
will not believe that the ugly wolf has not really bitten you. She is
in a terrible state of anxiety about you. Why, my friend,—oh! how have
you awakened this interest in the little Seraphina? I have never seen
her like this. Ah!—so now the pulse is beginning to prickle; see how
quickly the dead man comes to life! Well, come along—but softly,
still! Come, we must go to the little Baroness." I suffered myself to
be led away in silence. The way in which Adelheid spoke of the Baroness
seemed to me undignified, and the innuendo of an understanding between
us positively shameful. When I entered the room along with Adelheid,
Seraphina, with a low-breathed "Oh!" advanced three or four paces
quickly to meet me; but then, as if recollecting herself, she stood
still in the middle of the room. I ventured to take her hand and press
it to my lips. Allowing it to rest in mine, she asked, "But, for
Heaven's sake! is it your business to meddle with wolves? Don't you
know that the fabulous days of Orpheus and Amphion are long past, and
that wild beasts have quite lost all respect for even the most
admirable of singers?" But this gleeful turn, by which the Baroness at
once effectually guarded against all misinterpretation of her warm
interest in me, I was put immediately into the proper key and the
proper mood. Why I did not take my usual place at the pianoforte I
cannot explain, even to myself, nor why I sat down beside the Baroness
on the sofa. Her question, "And what were you doing then to get into
danger?" was an indication of our tacit agreement that conversation,
not music, was to engage our attention for that evening. After I had
narrated my adventure in the wood, and mentioned the warm interest
which the Baron had taken in it, delicately hinting that I had not
thought him capable of so much feeling, the Baroness began in a tender
and almost melancholy tone, "Oh! how violent and rude you must think
the Baron; but I assure you it is only whilst we are living within
these gloomy, ghostly walls, and during the time there is hunting going
on in the dismal fir-forests, that his character completely changes, at
least his outward behaviour does. What principally disquiets him in
this unpleasant way is the thought, which constantly haunts him, that
something terrible will happen here. And that undoubtedly accounts for
the fact of his being so greatly agitated by your adventure, which
fortunately has had no ill consequences. He won't have the meanest of
his servants exposed to danger, if he knows it, still less a new-won
friend whom he has come to like; and I am perfectly certain that
Gottlieb, whom he blames for having left you in the lurch, will be
punished; even if he escapes being locked up in a dungeon, he will yet
have to suffer the punishment, so mortifying to a hunter, of going out
the next time there is a hunt with only a club in his hand instead of a
rifle. The circumstance that hunts like those which are held here are
always attended with danger, and the fact that the Baron, though always
fearing some sad accident, is yet so fond of hunting that he cannot
desist from provoking the demon of mischief, make his existence here a
kind of conflict, the ill effects of which I also have to feel. Many
queer stories are current about his ancestor who established the
entail; and I know myself that there is some dark family secret locked
within these walls like a horrible ghost which drives away the
owners, and makes it impossible for them to bear with it longer than a
few weeks at a time—and that only amid a tumult of jovial guests. But
I—Oh! how lonely I am in the midst of this noisy, merry company! And
how the ghostly influences which breathe upon me from the walls stir
and excite my very heart! You, my dear friend, have given me, through
your musical skill, the first cheerful moments I have spent here. How
can I thank you sufficiently for your kindness!" I kissed the hand she
offered to me, saying, that even on the very first day, or rather
during the very first night, I had experienced the ghostliness of the
place in all its horrors. The Baroness fixed her staring eyes upon my
face, as I went on to describe the ghostly character of the building,
discernible everywhere throughout the castle, particularly in the
decorations of the justice-hall, and to speak of the roaring of the
wind from the sea, &c. Possibly my voice and my expressions indicated
that I had something more in my mind than what I said; at any rate when
I concluded, the Baroness cried vehemently, "No, no; something dreadful
has happened to you in that hall, which I never enter without
shuddering. I beg you—pray, pray, tell me all."
Seraphina's face had grown deadly pale; and I saw plainly that it would
be more advisable to give her a faithful account of all that I had
experienced than to leave her excited imagination to conjure up some
apparition that might perhaps, in a way I could not foresee, be far
more horrible than what I had actually encountered. As she listened to
me her fear and strained anxiety increased from moment to moment; and
when I mentioned the scratching on the wall she screamed, "It's
horrible! Yes, yes, it's in that wall that the awful secret is
concealed!" But as I went on to describe with what spiritual power and
superiority of will my old uncle had banished the ghost, she sighed
deeply, as though she had shaken off a heavy burden that had weighed
oppressively upon her. She leaned back in the sofa and held her hands
before her face. Now I first noticed that Adelheid had left us. A
considerable pause ensued, and as Seraphina still continued silent, I
softly rose, and going to the pianoforte, endeavoured in swelling
chords to invoke the bright spirits of consolation to come and deliver
Seraphina from the dark influence to which my narration had subjected
her. Then I soon began to sing as softly as I was able one of the Abbé
Steffani's6 canzonas. The melancholy strains of the
Ochi, perchè
piangete (O eyes, why weep you?) roused Seraphina out of her reverie,
and she listened to me with a gentle smile upon her face, and bright
pearl-like tears in her eyes. How am I to account for it that I kneeled
down before her, that she bent over towards me, that I threw my arms
about her, that a long ardent kiss was imprinted on my lips? How am I
to account for it that I did not lose my senses when she drew me softly
towards her, how that I tore myself from her arms, and, quickly rising
to my feet, hurried to the pianoforte? Turning from me, the Baroness
took a few steps towards the window, then she turned round again and
approached me with an air of almost proud dignity, which was not at all
usual with her. Looking me straight in the face, she said, "Your uncle
is the most worthy old man I know; he is the guardian-angel of our
family. May he include me in his pious prayers!" I was unable to utter
a word; the subtle poison that I had imbibed with her kiss burned and
boiled in every pulse and nerve. Lady Adelheid came in. The violence of
my inward conflict burst out at length in a passionate flood of tears,
which I was unable to repress. Adelheid looked at me with wonder and
smiled dubiously;—I could have murdered her. The Baroness gave me her
hand, and said with inexpressible gentleness, "Farewell, my dear
friend. Fare you right well; and remember that nobody perhaps has ever
understood your music better than I have. Oh! these notes! they will
echo long, long in my heart." I forced myself to utter a few stupid,
disconnected words, and hurried up to my uncle's room. The old
gentleman had already gone to bed. I stayed in the hall, and falling
upon my knees, I wept aloud; I called upon my beloved by name, I gave
myself up completely and regardlessly to all the absurd folly of a
love-sick lunatic, until at last the extravagant noise I made awoke my
uncle. But his loud call, "Cousin, I believe you have gone cranky, or
else you're having another tussle with a wolf. Be off to bed with you
if you will be so very kind"—these words compelled me to enter his
room, where I got into bed with the fixed resolve to dream only of
Seraphina.
It would be somewhere past midnight when I thought I heard distant
voices, a running backwards and forwards, and an opening and banging of
doors—for I had not yet fallen asleep. I listened attentively; I heard
footsteps approaching the corridor; the hall door was opened, and soon
there came a knock at our door. "Who is there?" I cried. A voice from
without answered, "Herr Justitiarius, Herr Justitiarius, wake up, wake
up!" I recognised Francis's voice, and as I asked, "Is the castle on
fire?" the old gentleman woke up in his turn and asked, "Where—where
is there a fire? Is it that cursed apparition again? where is it?" "Oh!
please get up, Herr Justitiarius," said Francis, "Please get up; the
Baron wants you." "What does the Baron want me for?" inquired my uncle
further; "what does he want me for at this time of night? does he not
know that all law business goes to bed along with the lawyer, and
sleeps as soundly as he does?" "Oh!" cried Francis, now anxiously;
"please, Herr Justitiarius, good sir, please get up. My lady the
Baroness is dying." I started up with a cry of dismay. "Open the door
for Francis," said the old gentleman to me. I stumbled about the room
almost distracted, and could find neither door nor lock; my uncle had
to come and help me. Francis came in, his face pale and troubled, and
lit the candles. We had scarcely thrown on our clothes when we heard
the Baron calling in the hall, "Can I speak to you, good V——?" "But
what have you dressed for, cousin? the Baron only wanted me," asked the
old gentleman, on the point of going out. "I must go down—I must see
her and then die," I replied tragically, and as if my heart were rent
by hopeless grief. "Ay, just so; you are right, cousin," he said,
banging the door to in my face, so that the hinges creaked, and locking
it on the outside. At the first moment, deeply incensed at this
restraint, I thought of bursting the door open; but quickly reflecting
that this would entail the disagreeable consequences of a piece of
outrageous insanity, I resolved to await the old gentleman's return;
then however, let the cost be what it might, I would escape his
watchfulness. I heard him talking vehemently with the Baron, and
several times distinguished my own name, but could not make out
anything further. Every moment my position grew more intolerable. At
length I heard that some one brought a message to the Baron, who
immediately hurried off. My old uncle entered the room again. "She is
dead!" I cried, running towards him, "And you are a stupid fool," he
interrupted coolly; then he laid hold upon me and forced me into a
chair. "I must go down," I cried, "I must go down and see her, even
though it cost me my life." "Do so, good cousin," said he, locking the
door, taking out the key, and putting it in his pocket. I now flew into
a perfectly frantic rage; stretching out my hand towards the rifle, I
screamed, "If you don't instantly open the door I will send this bullet
through my brains." Then the old gentleman planted himself immediately
in front of me, and fixing his keen piercing eyes upon me said, "Boy,
do you think you can frighten me with your idle threats? Do you think I
should set much value on your life if you can go and throw it away in
childish folly like a broken plaything? What have you to do with the
Baron's wife? who has given you the right to insinuate yourself, like a
tiresome puppy, where you have no claim to be, and where you are not
wanted? do you wish to go and act the love-sick swain at the solemn
hour of death?" I sank back in my chair utterly confounded After a
while the old gentleman went on more gently, "And now let me tell you
that this pretended illness of the Baroness is in all probability
nothing. Lady Adelheid always loses her head at the least little thing.
If a rain-drop falls upon her nose, she screams, 'What fearful weather
it is!' Unfortunately the noise penetrated to the old aunts, and they,
in the midst of unseasonable floods of tears, put in an appearance
armed with an entire arsenal of strengthening drops, elixirs of life,
and the deuce knows what. A sharp fainting-fit"—— The old gentleman
checked himself; doubtless he observed the struggle that was going on
within me. He took a few turns through the room; then again planting
himself in front of me, he had a good hearty laugh and said, "Cousin,
cousin, what nonsensical folly have you now got in your head? Ah well!
I suppose it can't be helped; the devil is to play his pretty games
here in divers sorts of ways. You have tumbled very nicely into his
clutches, and now he's making you dance to a sweet tune," He again took
a few turns up and down, and again went on, "It's no use to think of
sleep now; and it occurred to me that we might have a pipe, and so
spend the few hours that are left of the darkness and the night." With
these words he took a clay pipe from the cupboard, and proceeded to
fill it slowly and carefully, humming a song to himself; then he
rummaged about amongst a heap of papers, until he found a sheet,
which he picked out and rolled into a spill and lighted. Blowing the
tobacco-smoke from him in thick clouds, he said, speaking between his
teeth, "Well, cousin, what was that story about the wolf?"
I know not how it was, but this calm, quiet behaviour of the old
gentleman operated strangely upon me. I seemed to be no longer in
R—sitten, and the Baroness was so far, far distant from me that I
could only reach her on the wings of thought. The old gentleman's last
question, however, annoyed me. "But do you find my hunting exploit so
amusing?" I broke in,—"so well fitted for banter?" "By no means," he
rejoined, "by no means, cousin mine; but you've no idea what a comical
face such a whipper-snapper as you cuts, and how ludicrously he acts as
well, when Providence for once in a while honours him by putting him in
the way to meet with something out of the usual run of things. I once
had a college friend who was a quiet, sober fellow, and always on good
terms with himself. By accident he became entangled in an affair of
honour,—I say by accident, because he himself was never in any way
aggressive; and although most of the fellows looked upon him as a poor
thing, as a poltroon, he yet showed so much firm and resolute courage
in this affair as greatly to excite everybody's admiration. But from
that time onwards he was also completely changed. The sober and
industrious youth became a bragging, insufferable bully. He was always
drinking and rioting, and fighting about all sorts of childish trifles,
until he was run through in a duel by the Senior7 of an exclusive
corps. I merely tell you the story, cousin; you are at liberty to think
what you please about it But to return to the Baroness and her
illness"—— At this moment light footsteps were heard in the hall; I
fancied, too, there was an unearthly moaning in the air. "She is dead!"
the thought shot through me like a fatal flash of lightning. The old
gentleman quickly rose to his feet and called out, "Francis, Francis!"
"Yes, my good Herr Justitiarius," he replied from without. "Francis,"
went on my uncle, "rake the fire together a bit in the grate, and if
you can manage it, you had better make us a good cup or two of tea."
"It is devilish cold," and he turned to me, "and I think we had better
go and sit round the fire and talk a little." He opened the door, and I
followed him mechanically. "How are things going on below?" he asked.
"Oh!" replied Francis; "there was not much the matter. The Lady
Baroness is all right again, and ascribes her bit of a fainting-fit to
a bad dream." I was going to break out into an extravagant
manifestation of joy and gladness, but a stern glance from my uncle
kept me quiet "And yet, after all, I think it would be better if we lay
down for an hour or two. You need not mind about the tea, Francis." "As
you think well, Herr Justitiarius," replied Francis, and he left the
room with the wish that we might have a good night's rest, albeit the
cocks were already crowing. "See here, cousin," said the old gentleman,
knocking the ashes out of his pipe on the grate, "I think, cousin, that
it's a very good thing no harm has happened to you either from wolves
or from loaded rifles." I now saw things in the right light, and was
ashamed at myself to have thus given the old gentleman good grounds for
treating me like a spoiled child.
Next morning he said to me, "Be so good as to step down, good cousin,
and inquire how the Baroness is. You need only ask for Lady Adelheid;
she will supply you with a full budget, I have no doubt" You may
imagine how eagerly I hastened downstairs. But just as I was about to
give a gentle knock at the door of the Baroness's anteroom, the Baron
came hurriedly out of the same. He stood still in astonishment, and
scrutinised me with a gloomy searching look. "What do you want here?"
burst from his lips. Notwithstanding that my heart beat, I controlled
myself and replied in a firm tone, "To inquire on my uncle's behalf how
my lady, the Baroness, is?" "Oh! it was nothing—one of her usual
nervous attacks. She is now having a quiet sleep, and will, I am sure,
make her appearance at the dinner-table quite well and cheerful. Tell
him that—tell him that." This the Baron said with a certain degree of
passionate vehemence, which seemed to me to imply that he was more
concerned about the Baroness than he was willing to show. I turned to
go back to my uncle, when the Baron suddenly seized my arm and said,
whilst his eyes flashed fire, "I have a word or two to say to you,
young man." Here I saw the deeply injured husband before me, and feared
there would be a scene which would perhaps end ignominiously for me. I
was unarmed; but at that moment I remembered I had in my pocket the
ingeniously-made hunting-knife which my uncle had presented to me after
we got to R—sitten. I now followed the Baron, who led the way rapidly,
with the determination not even to spare his life if I ran any risk of
being treated dishonourably.
We entered the Baron's own room, the door of which he locked behind
him. Now he began to pace restlessly backwards and forwards, with his
arms folded one over the other; then he stopped in front of me and
repeated, "I have a word or two to say to you, young man." I had wound
myself up to a pitch of most daring courage, and I replied, raising my
voice, "I hope they will be words which I may hear without resentment."
He stared hard at me in astonishment, as though he had failed to
understand me. Then, fixing his eyes gloomily upon the floor, he threw
his arms behind his back, and again began to stride up and down the
room. He took down a rifle and put the ramrod down the barrel to see
whether it were loaded or not. My blood boiled in my veins; grasping my
knife, I stepped close up to him, so as to make it impossible for him
to take aim at me. "That's a handsome weapon," he said, replacing the
rifle in the corner. I retired a few paces, the Baron following me.
Slapping me on the shoulder, perhaps a little more violently than was
necessary, he said, "I daresay I seem to you, Theodore, to be excited
and irritable; and I really am so, owing to the anxieties of a
sleepless night. My wife's nervous attack was not in the least
dangerous; that I now see plainly. But here—here in this castle, which
is haunted by an evil spirit, I always dread something terrible
happening; and then it's the first time she has been ill here. And
you—you alone were to blame for it." "How that can possibly be I have
not the slightest conception," I replied calmly. "I wish," continued
the Baron, "I wish that damned piece of mischief, my steward's wife's
instrument, were chopped up into a thousand pieces, and that you—but
no, no; it was to be so, it was inevitably to be so, and I alone am to
blame for all. I ought to have told you, the moment you began to play
music in my wife's room, of the whole state of the case, and to have
informed you of my wife's temper of mind." I was about to speak; "Let
me go on," said the Baron, "I must prevent your forming any rash
judgment. You probably regard me as an uncultivated fellow, averse to
the arts; but I am not so by any means. There is a particular
consideration, however, based upon deep conviction, which constrains me
to forbid the introduction here as far as possible of such music as can
powerfully affect any person's mind, and to this I of course am no
exception. Know that my wife suffers from a morbid excitability, which
will finally destroy all the happiness of her life. Within these
strange walls she is never quit of that strained over-excited
condition, which at other times occurs but temporarily, and then
generally as the forerunner of a serious illness. You will ask me, and
quite reasonably too, why I do not spare my delicate wife the necessity
of coming to live in this weird castle, and mix amongst the wild
confusion of a hunting-party. Well, call it weakness—be it so; in a
word, I cannot bring myself to leave her behind. I should be tortured
by a thousand fears, and quite incapable of any serious business,
for I am perfectly sure that I should be haunted everywhere, in the
justice-hall as well as in the forest, by the most horrid ideas of all
kinds of fatal mischief happening to her. And, on the other hand, I
believe that the sort of life led here cannot fail to operate upon the
weakly woman like strengthening chalybeate waters. By my soul, the
sea-breezes, sweeping keenly after their peculiar fashion through the
fir-trees, and the deep baying of the hounds, and the merry ringing
notes of our hunting-horns must get the better of all your sickly
languishing sentimentalisings at the piano, which no man ought play in
that way. I tell you, you are deliberately torturing my wife to
death." These words he uttered with great emphasis, whilst his eyes
flashed with a restless fire. The blood mounted to my head; I made a
violent gesture against the Baron with my hand; I was about to speak,
but he cut me short "I know what you are going to say," he began, "I
know what you are going to say, and I repeat that you are going the
right road to kill my wife. But that you intended this I cannot of
course for a moment maintain; and yet you will understand that I must
put a stop to the thing. In short, by your playing and singing you work
her up to a high pitch of excitement, and then, when she drifts without
anchor and rudder on the boundless sea of dreams and visions and vague
aspirations which your music, like some vile charm, has summoned into
existence, you plunge her down into the depths of horror with a tale
about a fearful apparition which you say came and played pranks with
you up in the justice-hall. Your great-uncle has told me everything;
but, pray, repeat to me all you saw, or did not see, heard, felt,
divined by instinct."
I braced myself up and narrated calmly how everything had happened from
beginning to end, the Baron merely interposing at intervals a few words
expressive of his astonishment. When I came to the part where my old
uncle had met the ghost with trustful courage and had exorcised him
with a few powerful words, the Baron clasped his hands, raised them
folded towards Heaven, and said with deep emotion, "Yes, he is the
guardian-angel of the family. His mortal remains shall rest in the
vault of my ancestors." When I finished my narration, the Baron
murmured to himself, "Daniel, Daniel, what are you doing here at this
hour?" as he folded his arms and strode up and down the room. "And was
that all, Herr Baron?" I asked, making a movement as though I would
retire. Starting up as if out of a dream, the Baron took me kindly by
the hand and said, "Yes, my good friend, my wife, whom you have dealt
so hardly by without intending it—you must cure her again; you alone
can do so." I felt I was blushing, and had I stood opposite a mirror
should undoubtedly have seen in it a very blank and absurd face. The
Baron seemed to exult in my embarrassment; he kept his eyes fixed
intently upon my face, smiling with perfectly galling irony. "How in
the world can I cure her?" I managed to stammer out at length with an
effort "Well," he said, interrupting me, "you have no dangerous patient
to deal with at any rate. I now make an express claim upon your skill.
Since the Baroness has been drawn into the enchanted circle of your
music, it would be both foolish and cruel to drag her out of it all of
a sudden. Go on with your music therefore. You will always be welcome
during the evening hours in my wife's apartments. But gradually select
a more energetic kind of music, and effect a clever alternation of the
cheerful sort with the serious; and above all things, repeat your story
of the fearful ghost very very often. The Baroness will grow familiar
with it; she will forget that a ghost haunts this castle; and the story
will have no stronger effect upon her than any other tale of
enchantment which is put before her in a romance or a ghost-story book.
Pray, do this, my good friend." With these words the Baron left me. I
went away. I felt as if I were annihilated, to be thus humiliated to
the level of a foolish and insignificant child. Fool that I was to
suppose that jealousy was stirring his heart! He himself sends me to
Seraphina; he sees in me only the blind instrument which, after he has
made use of it, he can throw away if he thinks well. A few minutes
previously I had really feared the Baron; deep down within my heart
lurked the consciousness of guilt; but it was a consciousness which
allowed me to feel distinctly the beauty of the higher life for which I
was ripe. Now all had disappeared in the blackness of night; and I saw
only the stupid boy who in childish obstinacy had persisted in taking
the paper crown which he had put on his hot temples for a real golden
one. I hurried away to my uncle, who was waiting for me. "Well, cousin,
why have you been so long? Where have you been staying?" he cried as
soon as he saw me. "I have been having some words with the Baron!" I
quickly replied, carelessly and in a low voice, without being able to
look at the old gentleman. "God damn it all," said he, feigning
astonishment "Good gracious, boy! that's just what I thought. I suppose
the Baron has challenged you, cousin?" The ringing peal of laughter
which the old gentleman immediately afterwards broke out into taught me
that this time too, as always, he had seen me through and through. I
bit my lip, and durst not speak a word, for I knew very well that it
would only be the signal for the old gentleman to overwhelm me beneath
the torrent of teasing which was already hovering on the tip of his
tongue.
The Baroness appeared at the dinner-table in an elegant morning-robe,
the dazzling whiteness of which exceeded that of fresh-fallen snow. She
looked worn and low-spirited; but she began to speak in her soft and
melodious accents, and on raising her dark eyes there shone a sweet and
yearning look full of aspiration in their voluptuous glow, and a
fugitive blush flitted across her lily-white cheeks. She was more
beautiful than ever. But who can fathom the follies of a young man who
has got too hot blood in his head and heart? The bitter pique which the
Baron had stirred up within me I transferred to the Baroness. The
entire business seemed to me like a foul mystification; and I would now
show that I was possessed of alarmingly good common-sense and also of
extraordinary sagacity. Like a petulant child, I shunned the Baroness
and escaped Adelheid when she pursued me, and found a place where I
wished, right at the bottom end of the table between the two officers,
with whom I began to carouse right merrily. We kept our glasses going
gaily during dessert, and I was, as so frequently is the case in moods
like mine, extremely noisy and loud in my joviality. A servant brought
me a plate with some bonbons on it, with the words, "From Lady
Adelheid." I took them; and observed on one of them, scribbled in
pencil, "and Seraphina." My blood coursed tumultuously in my veins. I
sent a glance in Adelheid's direction, which she met with a most sly
and archly cunning look; and taking her glass in her hand, she gave me
a slight nod. Almost mechanically I murmured to myself, "Seraphina!"
then taking up my glass in my turn, I drained it at a single draught.
My glance fell across in her direction; I perceived that she also had
drunk at the very same moment and was setting down her glass. Our eyes
met, and a malignant demon whispered in my ear, "Unhappy wretch, she
does love you!" One of the guests now rose, and, in conformity with the
custom of the North, proposed the health of the lady of the house. Our
glasses rang in the midst of a tumult of joy. My heart was torn with
rapture and despair; the wine burned like fire within me; everything
spun round in circles; I felt as if I must hasten and throw myself at
her feet and there sigh out my life. "What's the matter with you, my
friend?" asked my neighbour, thus recalling me to myself; but Seraphina
had left the hall. We rose from the table. I was making for the door,
but Adelheid held me fast, and began to talk about divers matters; I
neither heard nor understood a single word. She grasped both my hands
and, laughing, shouted something in my ear. I remained dumb and
motionless, as though affected by catalepsy. All I remember is that I
finally took a glass of liqueur out of Adelheid's hand in a mechanical
way and drank it off, and then I recollect being alone in a window, and
after that I rushed out of the hall, down the stairs, and ran out into
the wood. The snow was falling in thick flakes; the fir-trees were
moaning as they waved to and fro in the wind. Like a maniac I ran round
and round in wide circles, laughing and screaming loudly, "Look, look
and see. Aha! Aha! The devil is having a fine dance with the boy who
thought he would taste of strictly forbidden fruit!" Who can tell what
would have been the end of my mad prank if I had not heard my name
called loudly from the outside of the wood? The storm had abated; the
moon shone out brightly through the broken clouds; I heard dogs
barking, and perceived a dark figure approaching me. It was the old man
Francis. "Why, why, my good Herr Theodore," he began, "you have quite
lost your way in the rough snow-storm. The Herr Justitiarius is
awaiting you with much impatience." I followed the old man in silence.
I found my great-uncle working in the justice-hall. "You have done
well," he cried, on seeing me, "you have done a very wise thing to go
out in the open air a little and get cool. But don't drink quite so
much wine; you are far too young, and it's not good for you." I did not
utter a word in reply, and also took my place at the table in silence.
"But now tell me, good cousin, what it was the Baron really wanted you
for?" I told him all, and concluded by stating that I would not lend
myself for the doubtful cure which the Baron had proposed. "And
it would not be practicable," the old gentleman interrupted, "for
to-morrow morning early we set off home, cousin." And so it was that I
never saw Seraphina again.
As soon as we arrived in K—— my old uncle complained that he felt
the effects of the wearying journey this time more than ever. His
moody silence, broken only by violent outbreaks of the worst possible
ill-humour, announced the return of his attacks of gout. One day I was
suddenly called in; I found the old gentleman confined to his bed and
unable to speak, suffering from a paralytic stroke. He held a letter in
his hand, which he had crumpled up tightly in a spasmodic fit. I
recognised the hand-writing of the land-steward of R—sitten; but,
quite upset by my trouble, I did not venture to take the letter out of
the old gentleman's hand. I did not doubt that his end was near. But
his pulse began to beat again, even before the physician arrived; the
old gentleman's remarkably tough constitution resisted the mortal
attack, although he was in his seventieth year. That selfsame day the
doctor pronounced him out of danger.
We had a more severe winter than usual; this was followed by a rough
and stormy spring; and hence it was more the gout—a consequence of the
inclemency of the season—than his previous accident which kept him for
a long time confined to his bed. During this period he made up his mind
to retire altogether from all kinds of business. He transferred his
office of Justitiarius to others; and so I was cut off from all hope of
ever again going to R—sitten. The old gentleman would allow no one to
attend him but me; and it was to me alone that he looked for all
amusement and every cheerful diversion. And though, in the hours when
he was free from pain, his good spirits returned, and he had no lack of
broad jests, even making mention of hunting exploits, so that I fully
expected every minute to hear him make a butt of my heroic deed, when I
had killed the wolf with my whinger, yet never once did he allude to
our visit to R—sitten, and as may well be imagined, I was very
careful, from natural shyness, not to lead him directly up to the
subject. My harassing anxiety and continual attendance upon the old
gentleman had thrust Seraphina's image into the background. But as soon
as his sickness abated somewhat, my thoughts returned with more
liveliness to that moment in the Baroness's room, which I now looked
upon as a star—a bright star—that had set, for me at least, for ever.
An occurrence which now happened, by making me shudder with an ice-cold
thrill as at sight of a visitant from the world of spirits, revived
all the pain I had formerly felt. One evening, as I was opening the
pocket-book which I had carried whilst at R—sitten, there fell out of
the papers I was unfolding a dark curl, wrapped about with a white
ribbon; I immediately recognised it as Seraphina's hair. But, on
examining the ribbon more closely, I distinctly perceived the mark of a
spot of blood on it! Perhaps Adelheid had skilfully contrived to
secrete it about me during the moments of conscious insanity by which I
had been affected during the last days of our visit; but why was the
spot of blood there? It excited forebodings of something terrible in my
mind, and almost converted this too pastoral love-token into an awful
admonition, pointing to a passion which might entail the expenditure of
precious blood. It was the same white ribbon that had fluttered about
me in light wanton sportiveness as it were the first time I sat near
Seraphina, and which Mysterious Night had stamped as an emblem of
mortal injury. Boys ought not to play with weapons with the dangerous
properties of which they are not familiar.
At last the storms of spring had ceased to bluster, and summer asserted
her rights; and if the cold had formerly been unbearable, so now too
was the heat when July came in. The old gentleman visibly gathered
strength, and following his usual custom, went out to a garden in the
suburbs. One still, warm evening, as we sat in the sweet-smelling
jasmine arbour, he was in unusually good spirits, and not, as was
generally the case, overflowing with sarcasm and irony, but in a gentle
and almost soft and melting mood. "Cousin," he began, "I don't know how
it is, but I feel so nice and warm and comfortable all over to-day; I
have not felt like it for many years. I believe it is an augury that I
shall die soon." I exerted myself to drive these gloomy thoughts from
his mind. "Never mind, cousin," he said, "in any case I'm not long for
this world; and so I will now discharge a debt I owe you. Do you still
remember our autumn in R—sitten?" This question thrilled through me
like a lightning-flash, so before I was able to make any reply he
continued, "It was Heaven's will that your entrance into that castle
should be signalised by memorable circumstances, and that you should
become involved against your own will in the deepest secrets of the
house. The time has now come when you must learn all. We have often
enough talked about things which you, cousin, rather dimly guessed at
than really understood. In the alternation of the seasons nature
represents symbolically the cycle of human life. That is a trite
remark; but I interpret it differently from everybody else. The dews of
spring fall, summer's vapours fade away, and it is the pure atmosphere
of autumn which clearly reveals the distant landscape, and then finally
earthly existence is swallowed in the night of winter. I mean that the
government of the Power Inscrutable is more plainly revealed in the
clear-sightedness of old age. It is granted glimpses of the promised
land, the pilgrimage to which begins with the death on earth. How
clearly do I see at this moment the dark destiny of that house, to
which I am knit by firmer ties than blood relationship can weave!
Everything lies disclosed to the eyes of my spirit. And yet the things
which I now see, in the form in which I see them—the essential
substance of them, that is—this I cannot tell you in words; for no
man's tongue is able to do so. But listen, my son, I will tell you
as well as I am able, and do you think it is some remarkable story
that might really happen; and lay up carefully in your soul the
knowledge that the mysterious relations into which you ventured to
enter, not perhaps without being summoned, might have ended in your
destruction—but—that's all over now."
The history of the R—— entail, which my old uncle told me, I retain
so faithfully in my memory even now that I can almost repeat it in his
own words (he spoke of himself in the third person).
One stormy night in the autumn of 1760 the servants of
R—sitten were
startled out of the midst of their sleep by a terrific crash, as if the
whole of the spacious castle had tumbled into a thousand pieces. In a
moment everybody was on his legs; lights were lit; the house-steward,
his face deadly pale with fright and terror, came up panting with his
keys; but as they proceeded through the passages and halls and rooms,
suite after suite, and found all safe, and heard in the appalling
silence nothing except the creaking rattle of the locks, which
occasioned some difficulty in opening, and the ghost-like echo of their
own footsteps, they began one and all to be utterly astounded. Nowhere
was there the least trace of damage. The old house-steward was
impressed by an ominous feeling of apprehension. He went up into the
great Knight's Hall, which had a small cabinet adjoining where Freiherr
Roderick von R—— used to sleep when engaged in making his
astronomical observations. Between the door of this cabinet and
that of a second was a postern, leading through a narrow passage
immediately into the astronomical tower. But directly Daniel (that was
the house-steward's name) opened this postern, the storm, blustering
and howling terrifically, drove a heap of rubbish and broken pieces of
stones all over him, which made him recoil in terror; and, dropping
the candles, which went out with a hiss on the floor, he screamed, "O
God! O God! The Baron! he's miserably dashed to pieces!" At the same
moment he heard sounds of lamentation proceeding from the Freiherr's
sleeping-cabinet, and on entering it he saw the servants gathered
around their master's corpse. They had found him fully dressed and more
magnificently than on any previous occasion, and with a calm earnest
look upon his unchanged countenance, sitting in his large and richly
decorated arm-chair as though resting after severe study. But his rest
was the rest of death. When day dawned it was seen that the crowning
turret of the tower had fallen in. The huge square stones had broken
through the ceiling and floor of the observatory-room, and then,
carrying down in front of them a powerful beam that ran across the
tower, they had dashed in with redoubled impetus the lower vaulted
roof, and dragged down a portion of the castle walls and of the narrow
connecting-passage. Not a single step could be taken beyond the postern
threshold without risk of falling at least eighty feet into a deep
chasm.
The old Freiherr had foreseen the very hour of his death, and had sent
intelligence of it to his sons. Hence it happened that the very next
day saw the arrival of Wolfgang, Freiherr von R——, eldest son of the
deceased, and now lord of the entail. Relying confidently upon the
probable truth of the old man's foreboding, he had left Vienna, which
city he chanced to have reached in his travels, immediately he received
the ominous letter, and hastened to R—sitten as fast as he could
travel. The house-steward had draped the great hall in black, and had
had the old Freiherr laid out in the clothes in which he had been
found, on a magnificent state-bed, and this he had surrounded with tall
silver candlesticks with burning wax-candles. Wolfgang ascended the
stairs, entered the hall, and approached close to his father's corpse,
without speaking a word. There he stood with his arms folded on his
chest, gazing with a fixed and gloomy look and with knitted brows, into
his father's pale countenance. He was like a statue; not a tear came
from his eyes. At length, with an almost convulsive movement of the
right arm towards the corpse, he murmured hoarsely, "Did the stars
compel you to make the son whom you loved miserable?" Throwing his
hands behind his back and stepping a short pace backwards, the Baron
raised his eyes upwards and said in a low and well-nigh broken voice,
"Poor, infatuated old man! Your carnival farce with its shallow
delusions is now over. Now you no doubt see that the possessions which
are so niggardly dealt out to us here on earth have nothing in common
with Hereafter beyond the stars. What will—what power can reach over
beyond the grave?" The Baron was silent again for some seconds, then he
cried passionately, "No, your perversity shall not rob me of a grain of
my earthly happiness, which you strove so hard to destroy," and
therewith he took a folded paper out of his pocket and held it up
between two fingers to one of the burning candles that stood close
beside the corpse. The paper was caught by the flame and blazed up
high; and as the reflection flickered and played upon the face of the
corpse, it was as though its muscles moved and as though the old man
uttered toneless words, so that the servants who stood some distance
off were filled with great horror and awe. The Baron calmly finished
what he was doing by carefully stamping out with his foot the last
fragment of paper that fell on the floor blazing. Then, casting yet
another moody glance upon his father, he hurriedly left the hall.
On the following day Daniel reported to the Freiherr the damage that
had been done to the tower, and described at great length all that had
taken place on the night when their dear dead master died; and he
concluded by saying that it would be a very wise thing to have the
tower repaired at once, for, if a further fall were to take place,
there would be some danger of the whole castle—well, if not tumbling
down, at any rate suffering serious damage.
"Repair the tower?" the Freiherr interrupted the old servant curtly,
whilst his eyes flashed with anger, "Repair the tower? Never, never!
Don't you see, old man," he went on more calmly, "don't you see that
the tower could not fall in this way without some special cause? How if
it was my father's own wish that the place where he carried on his
unhallowed astrological labours should be destroyed—how if he had
himself made certain preparations by which he was enabled to bring down
the turret whenever he pleased and so occasion the ruin of the interior
of the tower! But be that as it may. And if the whole castle tumbles
down, I shan't care; I shall be glad. Do you imagine I am going to
dwell in this weird owls' nest? No; my wise ancestor who had the
foundations of a new castle laid in the beautiful valley yonder—he has
begun a work which I intend to finish." Daniel said crestfallen, "Then
will all your faithful old servants have to take up their bundles and
go?" "That I am not going to be waited upon by helpless, weak-kneed old
fellows like you is quite certain; but for all that I shall turn none
away. You may all enjoy the bread of charity without working for it."
"And am I," cried the old man, greatly hurt, "am I, the house-steward,
to be forced to lead such a life of inactivity?" Then the Freiherr, who
had turned his back upon the old man and was about to leave the room,
wheeled suddenly round, his face perfectly ablaze with passion, strode
up to the old man as he stretched out his doubled fist towards him, and
shouted in a thundering voice, "You, you hypocritical old villain, it's
you who helped my old father in his unearthly practices up yonder; you
lay upon his heart like a vampire; and perhaps it was you who basely
took advantage of the old man's mad folly to plant in his mind those
diabolical ideas which brought me to the brink of ruin. I ought, I tell
you, to kick you out like a mangy cur." The old man was so terrified at
these harsh terrible words that he threw himself upon his knees beside
the Freiherr; but the Baron, as he spoke these last words, threw
forward his right foot, perhaps quite unintentionally (as is frequently
the case in anger, when the body mechanically obeys the mind, and what
is in the thought is imitatively realised in action) and hit the old
man so hard on the chest that he rolled over with a stifled scream.
Rising painfully to his feet and uttering a most singular sound, like
the howling whimper of an animal wounded to death, he looked the
Freiherr through and through with a look that glared with mingled rage
and despair. The purse of money which the Freiherr threw down as he
went out of the room, the old man left lying on the floor where it
fell.
Meanwhile all the nearest relatives of the family who lived in the
neighbourhood had arrived, and the old Freiherr was interred with much pomp in
the family vault in the church at R—sitten; and now, after the
invited guests had departed, the new lord of the entail appeared to
shake off his gloomy mood, and to be prepared to duly enjoy the
property that had fallen to him. Along with V——, the old Freiherr's
Justitiarius, who won his full confidence in the very first interview
they had, and who was at once confirmed in his office, the Baron made
an exact calculation of his sources of income, and considered how large
a part he could devote to making improvements and how large a part to
building a new castle. V—— was of opinion that the old Freiherr could
not possibly have spent all his income every year, and that there must
certainly be money concealed somewhere, since he had found nothing
amongst his papers except one or two bank-notes for insignificant
sums, and the ready-money in the iron safe was but very little more
than a thousand thalers, or about £150. Who would be so likely to know anything
about it as Daniel, who in his obstinate self-willed way was perhaps only
waiting to be asked about it? The Baron was now not a little concerned at the
thought that Daniel, whom he had so grossly insulted, might let large sums
moulder somewhere sooner than discover them to him, not so much, of course, from
any motives of self-interest,—for of what use could even the largest sum of
money be to him, a childless old man, whose only wish was to end his days in the
castle of R—sitten?—as from a desire to take vengeance for the
affront put upon him. He gave V—— a circumstantial account of the
entire scene with Daniel, and concluded by saying that from several
items of information communicated to him he had learned that it was
Daniel alone who had contrived to nourish in the old Freiherr's mind such an
inexplicable aversion to ever seeing his sons in R—sitten. The
Justitiarius declared that this information was perfectly false, since
there was not a human creature on the face of the earth who would have
been able to guide the Freiherr's thoughts in any way, far less
determine them for him; and he undertook finally to draw from Daniel
the secret, if he had one, as to the place in which they would be
likely to find money concealed. His task proved far easier than he had
anticipated, for no sooner did he begin, "But how comes it, Daniel,
that your old master has left so little ready-money?" than Daniel
replied, with a repulsive smile, "Do you mean the few trifling
thalers, Herr Justitiarius, which you found in the little strong box?
Oh! the rest is lying in the vault beside our gracious master's
sleeping-cabinet. But the best," he went on to say, whilst his
smile passed over into an abominable grin, and his eyes flashed
with malicious fire, "but the best of all—several thousand gold
pieces—lies buried at the bottom of the chasm beneath the ruins." The Justitiarius at once summoned the Freiherr; they proceeded there, and
then into the sleeping-cabinet, where Daniel pushed aside the wainscot
in one of the corners, and a small lock became visible. Whilst the
Freiherr was regarding the polished lock with covetous eyes, and making
preparations to try and unlock it with the keys of the great bunch
which he dragged with some difficulty out of his pocket, Daniel drew
himself up to his full height, and looked down with almost malignant
pride upon his master, who had now stooped down in order to see the
lock better. Daniel's face was deadly pale, and he said, his voice
trembling, "If I am a dog, my lord Freiherr, I have also at least a
dog's fidelity." Therewith he held out a bright steel key to his
master, who greedily snatched it out of his hand, and with it he
easily succeeded in opening the door. They stepped into a small and
low-vaulted apartment, in which stood a large iron coffer with the
lid open, containing many money-bags, upon which lay a strip of
parchment, written in the old Freiherr's familiar handwriting, large
and old-fashioned.
One hundred and fifty thousand Imperial thalers in old
Fredericks
d'or,8 money
saved from the revenues of the estate-tail of R—sitten; this sum has been set
aside for the building of the castle. Further, the lord of the entail who
succeeds me in the possession of this money shall, upon the highest hill
situated eastward from the old tower of the castle (which he will find in
ruins), erect a high beacon tower for the benefit of mariners, and cause a fire
to be kindled on it every night. R—sitten, on
Michaelmas Eve of the year 1760.
Roderick, Freiherr von R.
The Freiherr lifted up the bags one after the other and let them fall
again into the coffer, delighted at the ringing clink of so much gold
coin; then he turned round abruptly to the old house-steward, thanked
him for the fidelity he had shown, and assured him that they were only
vile tattling calumnies which had induced him to treat him so harshly
in the first instance. He should not only remain in the castle, but
should also continue to discharge his duties, uncurtailed in any way,
as house-steward, and at double the wages he was then having. "I owe
you a large compensation; if you will take money, help yourself to one
of these bags." As he concluded with these words, the Baron stood
before the old man, with his eyes bent upon the ground, and pointed to
the coffer; then, approaching it again, he once more ran his eyes over
the bags. A burning flush suddenly mounted into the old house-steward's
cheeks, and he uttered that awful howling whimper—a noise as of an
animal wounded to death, according to the Freiherr's previous
description of it to the Justitiarius. The latter shuddered, for the
words which the old man murmured between his teeth sounded like, "Blood
for gold." Of all this the Freiherr, absorbed in the contemplation of
the treasure before him, had heard not the least. Daniel tottered in
every limb, as if shaken by an ague fit; approaching the Freiherr with
bowed head in a humble attitude, he kissed his hand, and drawing his
handkerchief across his eyes under the pretence of wiping away his
tears, said in a whining voice, "Alas! my good and gracious master,
what am I, a poor childless old man, to do with money? But the doubled
wages I accept with gladness, and will continue to do my duty
faithfully and zealously."
The Freiherr, who had paid no particular heed to the old man's words,
now let the heavy lid of the coffer fall to with a bang, so that the
whole room shook and cracked, and then, locking the coffer and
carefully withdrawing the key, he said carelessly, "Very well, very
well, old man." But after they entered the hall he went on talking to
Daniel, "But you said something about a quantity of gold pieces buried
underneath the ruins of the tower?" Silently the old man stepped
towards the postern, and after some difficulty unlocked it. But so soon
as he threw it open the storm drove a thick mass of snow-flakes into
the hall; a raven was disturbed and flew in croaking and screaming and
dashed with its black wings against the window, but regaining the open
postern it disappeared downwards into the chasm. The Freiherr stepped
out into the corridor; but one single glance downwards, and he started
back trembling. "A fearful sight!—I'm giddy!" he stammered as he sank
almost fainting into the Justitiarius' arms. But quickly recovering
himself by an effort, he fixed a sharp look upon the old man and asked,
"Down there, you say?" Meanwhile the old man had been locking the
postern, and was now leaning against it with all his bodily strength,
and was gasping and grunting to get the great key out of the rusty
lock. This at last accomplished, he turned round to the Baron,
and, changing the huge key about backwards and forwards in his
hands, replied with a peculiar smile, "Yes, there are thousands
and thousands down there—all my dear dead master's beautiful
instruments—telescopes, quadrants, globes, dark mirrors, they all lie
smashed to atoms underneath the ruins between the stones and the big
balk." "But money—coined money," interrupted the Baron, "you spoke of
gold pieces, old man?" "I only meant things which had cost several
thousand gold pieces," he replied; and not another word could be got
out of him.
The Baron appeared highly delighted to have all at once come into
possession of all the means requisite for carrying out his favourite
plan, namely, that of building a new and magnificent castle. The
Justitiarius indeed stated it as his opinion that, according to the
will of the deceased, the money could only be applied to the repair and
complete finishing of the interior of the old castle, and further, any
new erection would hardly succeed in equalling the commanding size and
the severe and simple character of the old ancestral castle. The
Freiherr, however, persisted in his intention, and maintained that in
the disposal of property respecting which nothing was stated in the
deeds of the entail the irregular will of the deceased could have no
validity. He at the same time led V—— to understand that he should
conceive it to be his duty to embellish R—sitten as far as the
climate, soil, and environs would permit, for it was his intention to
bring home shortly as his dearly loved wife a lady who was in every
respect worthy of the greatest sacrifices.
The air of mystery with which the Freiherr spoke of this alliance,
which possibly had been already consummated in secret, cut short all
further questions from the side of the Justitiarius. Nevertheless he
found in it to some extent a redeeming feature, for the Freiherr's
eager grasping after riches now appeared to be due not so much to
avarice strictly speaking as to the desire to make one dear to him
forget the more beautiful country she was relinquishing for his sake.
Otherwise he could not acquit the Baron of being avaricious, or at any
rate insufferably close-fisted, seeing that, even though rolling in
money and even when gloating over the old Fredericks d'or, he could
not help bursting out with the peevish grumble, "I know the old rascal
has concealed from us the greatest part of his wealth, but next spring
I will have the ruins of the tower turned over under my own eyes."
The Freiherr had architects come, and discussed with them at great
length what would be the most convenient way to proceed with his
castle-building. He rejected one drawing after another; in none of them
was the style of architecture sufficiently rich and grandiose. He now
began to draw plans himself, and, inspirited by this employment, which
constantly placed before his eyes a sunny picture of the happiest
future, brought himself into such a genial humour that it often
bordered on wild exuberance of spirits, and even communicated itself to
all about him. His generosity and profuse hospitality belied all
imputations of avarice at any rate. Daniel also seemed to have now
forgotten the insult that had been put upon him. Towards the Freiherr,
although often followed by him with mistrustful eyes on account of the
treasure buried in the chasm, his bearing was both quiet and humble.
But what struck everybody as extraordinary was that the old man
appeared to grow younger from day to day. Possibly this might be,
because he had begun to forget his grief for his old master, which had
stricken him sore, and possibly also because he had not now, as he once
had, to spend the cold nights in the tower without sleep, and got
better food and good wine such as he liked; but whatever the cause
might be, the old greybeard seemed to be growing into a vigorous man
with red cheeks and well-nourished body, who could walk firmly and
laugh loudly whenever he heard a jest to laugh at.
The pleasant tenor of life at R—sitten was disturbed by the arrival of
a man whom one would have judged to be quite in his element there. This
was Wolfgang's younger brother Hubert, at the sight of whom Wolfgang
had screamed out, with his face as pale as a corpse's, "Unhappy wretch,
what do you want here?" Hubert threw himself into his brother's arms,
but Wolfgang took him and led him away up to a retired room, where he
locked himself in with him. They remained closeted several hours, at
the end of which time Hubert came down, greatly agitated, and called
for his horses. The Justitiarius intercepted him; Hubert tried to pass
him; but V——, inspired by the hope that he might perhaps stifle in
the bud what might else end in a bitter life-long quarrel between the
brothers, besought him to stay, at least a few hours, and at the same
moment the Freiherr came down calling, "Stay here, Hubert! you will
think better of it." Hubert's countenance cleared up; he assumed an air
of composure, and quickly pulling off his costly fur coat, and throwing
it to a servant behind him, he grasped V——'s hand and went with him
into the room, saying with a scornful smile, "So the lord of the entail
will tolerate my presence here, it seems." V—— thought that the
unfortunate misunderstanding would assuredly be smoothed away now, for
it was only separation and existence apart from each other that would,
he conceived, be able to foster it. Hubert took up the steel tongs
which stood near the fire-grate, and as he proceeded to break up a
knotty piece of wood that would only sweal, not burn, and to rake the
fire together better, he said to V——, "You see what a good-natured
fellow I am, Herr Justitiarius, and that I am skilful in all domestic
matters. But Wolfgang is full of the most extraordinary prejudices,
and—a bit of a miser." V—— did not deem it advisable to attempt to
fathom further the relations between the brothers, especially as
Wolfgang's face and conduct and voice plainly showed that he was shaken
to the very depths of his nature by diverse violent passions.
Late in the evening V—— had occasion to go up to the Freiherr's room
in order to learn his decision about some matter or other connected
with the estate-tail. He found him pacing up and down the room with
long strides, his arms crossed on his back, and much perturbation in
his manner. On perceiving the Justitiarius he stood still, and then,
taking him by both hands and looking him gloomily in the face, he said
in a broken voice, "My brother is come. I know what you are going to
say," he proceeded almost before V—— had opened his mouth to put a
question. "Unfortunately you know nothing. You don't know that my
unfortunate brother—yes, I will not call him anything worse than
unfortunate—that, like a spirit of evil, he crosses my path
everywhere, ruining my peace of mind. It is not his fault that I have
not been made unspeakably miserable; he did his best to make me so, but
Heaven willed it otherwise. Ever since he has known of the conversion
of the property into an entail, he has persecuted me with deadly
hatred. He envies me this property, which in his hands would only be
scattered like chaff. He is the wildest spendthrift I ever heard of.
His load of debt exceeds by a long way the half of the unentailed
property in Courland that fell to him, and now, pursued by his
creditors, who fail not to worry him for payment, he hurries here to me
to beg for money." "And you, his brother, refuse to give him any?"
V—— was about to interrupt him; but the Freiherr, letting V——'s
hands fall, and taking a long step backwards, went on in a loud and
vehement tone. "Stop! yes; I refuse. I neither can nor will give away a
single thaler of the revenues of the entail. But listen, and I will
tell you what was the proposal which I made the insane fellow a few
hours ago, and made in vain, and then pass judgment upon the feelings
of duty by which I am actuated. Our unentailed possessions in Courland
are, as you are aware, considerable; the half that falls to me I am
willing to renounce, but in favour of his family. For Hubert has
married, in Courland, a beautiful lady, but poor. She and the children
she has borne him are starving. The estates should be put under trust;
sufficient should be set aside out of the revenues to support him, and
his creditors be paid by arrangement. But what does he care for a quiet
life—a life free of anxiety?—what does he care for wife and child?
Money, ready-money, and large quantities, is what he will have, that he
may squander it in infamous folly. Some demon has made him acquainted
with the secret of the hundred and fifty thousand thalers, half of
which he in his mad way demands, maintaining that this money is movable
property and quite apart from the entailed portion. This, however, I
must and will refuse him, but the feeling haunts me that he is plotting
my destruction in his heart."
No matter how great the efforts which V—— made to persuade the
Freiherr out of this suspicion against his brother, in which, of
course, not being initiated into the more circumstantial details of the
disagreement, he could only appeal to broad and somewhat superficial
moral principles, he yet could not boast of the smallest success. The
Freiherr commissioned him to treat with his hostile and avaricious
brother Hubert. V—— proceeded to do so with all the circumspection he
was master of, and was not a little gratified when Hubert at length
declared, "Be it so then; I will accept my brother's proposals, but
upon condition that he will now, since I am on the point of losing both
my honour and my good name for ever through the severity of my
creditors, make me an advance of a thousand Fredericks d'or in hard
cash, and further grant that in time to come I may take up my
residence, at least for a short time occasionally, in our beautiful
R—sitten, along with my good brother." "Never, never!" exclaimed
the Freiherr violently, when V—— laid his brother's amended
counter-proposals before him. "I will never consent that Hubert stay
in my house even a single minute after I have brought home my wife. Go,
my good friend, tell this mar-peace that he shall have two thousand
Fredericks d'or, not as an advance, but as a gift—only, bid him go,
bid him go." V—— now learned at one and the same time that the ground
of the quarrel between the two brothers must be sought for in this
marriage. Hubert listened to the Justitiarius proudly and calmly, and
when he finished speaking replied in a hoarse and hollow tone, "I will
think it over; but for the present I shall stay a few days in the
castle." V—— exerted himself to prove to the discontented Hubert that
the Freiherr, by making over his share of their unentailed property,
was really doing all he possibly could do to indemnify him, and that on
the whole he had no cause for complaint against his brother, although
at the same time he admitted that all institutions of the nature
of primogeniture, which vested such preponderant advantages in the
eldest-born to the prejudice of the remaining children, were in many
respects hateful. Hubert tore his waistcoat open from top to bottom
like a man whose breast was cramped and he wanted to relieve it by
fresh air. Thrusting one hand into his open shirt-frill and planting
the other in his side, he spun round on one foot in a quick pirouette
and cried in a sharp voice, "Pshaw! What is hateful is born of hatred."
Then bursting out into a shrill fit of laughter, he said, "What
condescension my lord of the entail shows in being thus willing to
throw his gold pieces to the poor beggar!" V—— saw plainly that all
idea of a complete reconciliation between the brothers was quite out of
the question.
To the Freiherr's annoyance, Hubert established himself in the rooms
that had been appointed for him in one of the side wings of the castle
as if with the view to a very long stay. He was observed to hold
frequent and long conversations with the house-steward; nay, the latter
was sometimes even seen to accompany him when he went out wolf-hunting.
Otherwise he was very little seen, and studiously avoided meeting his
brother alone, at which the latter was very glad. V—— felt how
strained and unpleasant this state of things was, and was obliged to
confess to himself that the peculiar uneasiness which marked all that
Hubert both said and did was such as to destroy intentionally and
effectually all the pleasure of the place. He now perfectly understood
why the Freiherr had manifested so much alarm on seeing his brother.
One day as V—— was sitting by himself in the justice-room amongst his
law-papers, Hubert came in with a grave and more composed manner than
usual, and said in a voice that bordered upon melancholy, "I will
accept my brother's last proposals. If you will contrive that I have
the two thousand Fredericks d'or today, I will leave the castle this
very night—on horseback—alone." "With the money?" asked V——. "You
are right," replied Hubert; "I know what you would say—the weight!
Give it me in bills on Isaac Lazarus of K——. For to K—— I am going
this very night. Something is driving me away from this place. The old
fellow has bewitched it with evil spirits." "Do you mean your father,
Herr Baron?" asked V—— sternly. Hubert's lips trembled; he had to
cling to the chair to keep from falling; but then suddenly recovering
himself, he cried, "To-day then, please, Herr Justitiarius," and
staggered to the door, not, however, without some exertion. "He now
sees that no deceptions are any longer of avail, that he can do nothing
against my firm will," said the Freiherr whilst drawing up the bills on
Isaac Lazarus in K——. A burden was lifted off his heart by the
departure of his inimical brother; and for a long time he had not been
in such cheerful spirits as he was at supper. Hubert had sent his
excuses; and there was not one who regretted his absence.
The room which V—— occupied was somewhat retired, and its windows
looked upon the castle-yard. In the night he was suddenly startled up
out of his sleep, and was under the impression that he had been
awakened by a distant and pitiable moan. But listen as he would, all
remained still as the grave, and so he was obliged to conclude that the
sound which had fallen upon his ears was the delusion of a dream. But
at the same time he was seized with such a peculiar feeling of
breathless anxiety and terror that he could not stay in bed. He got up
and approached the window. It was not long, however, before the castle
door was opened, and a figure with a blazing torch came out of the
castle and went across the court-yard. V—— recognised the figure as
that of old Daniel, and saw him open the stable-door and go in, and
soon afterwards bring out a saddle horse. Now a second figure came into
view out of the darkness, well wrapped in furs, and with a fox-skin cap
on his head. V—— perceived that it was Hubert; but after he had
spoken excitedly with Daniel for some minutes, he returned into the
castle. Daniel led back the horse into the stable and locked the
door, and also that of the castle, after he had returned across the
court-yard in the same way in which he crossed it before. It was
evident Hubert had intended to go away on horseback, but had suddenly
changed his mind; and no less evident was it that there was a dangerous
understanding of some sort between Hubert and the old house-steward.
V—— looked forward to the morning with burning impatience; he would
acquaint the Freiherr with the occurrences of the night. Really it was
now time to take precautionary measures against the attacks of Hubert's
malice, which V—— was now convinced, had been betrayed in his
agitated behaviour of the day before.
Next morning, at the hour when the Freiherr was in the habit of rising,
V—— heard people running backwards and forwards, doors opened and
slammed to, and a tumultuous confusion of voices talking and shouting.
On going out of his room he met servants everywhere, who, without
heeding him, ran past him with ghastly pale faces, upstairs,
downstairs, in and out the rooms. At length he ascertained that the
Freiherr was missing, and that they had been looking for him for hours
in vain. As he had gone to bed in the presence of his personal
attendant, he must have afterwards got up and gone away somewhere in
his dressing-gown and slippers, taking the large candlestick with him,
for these articles were also missed. V——, his mind agitated with dark
forebodings, ran up to the ill-fated hall, the cabinet adjoining which
Wolfgang had chosen, like his father, for his own bedroom. The postern
leading to the tower stood wide open, with a cry of horror V——
shouted, "There—he lies dashed to pieces at the bottom of the ravine."
And it was so. There had been a fall of snow, so that all they could
distinctly make out from above was the rigid arm of the unfortunate man
protruding from between the stones. Many hours passed before the
workmen succeeded, at great risk of life, in descending by means of
ladders bound together, and drawing up the corpse by the aid of ropes.
In the last agonies of death the Baron had kept a tight hold upon the
silver candlestick; the hand in which it was clenched was the only
uninjured part of his whole body, which had been shattered in the most
hideous way by rebounding on the sharp stones.
Just as the corpse was drawn up and carried into the hall, and laid
upon the very same spot on the large table where a few weeks before old
Roderick had lain dead, Hubert burst in, his face distorted by the
frenzy of despair. Quite overpowered by the fearful sight he wailed,
"Brother! O my poor brother! No; this I never prayed for from the
demons who had entered into me." This suspicious self-exculpation made
V—— tremble; he felt impelled to proceed against Hubert as the
murderer of his brother. Hubert, however, had fallen on the floor
senseless; they carried him to bed; but on taking strong restoratives
he soon recovered. Then he appeared in V——'s room, pale and
sorrow-stricken, and with his eyes half clouded with grief; and unable
to stand owing to his weakness, he slowly sank down into an easy-chair,
saying, "I have wished for my brother's death, because my father had
made over to him the best part of the property through the foolish
conversion of it into an entail. He has now found a fearful death. I am
now lord of the estate-tail, but my heart is rent with pain—I can—I
shall never be happy. I confirm you in your office; you shall be
invested with the most extensive powers in respect to the management of
the estate, upon which I cannot bear to live." Hubert left the room,
and in two or three hours was on his way to K——.
It appeared that the unfortunate Wolfgang had got up in the night,
probably with the intention of going into the other cabinet where there
was a library. In the stupor of sleep he had mistaken the door, and had
opened the postern, taken a step out, and plunged headlong down. But
after all had been said, there was nevertheless a good deal that was
strained and unlikely in this explanation. If the Baron was unable to
sleep and wanted to get a book out of the library, this of itself
excluded all idea of sleep-stupor; but this condition alone could
account for any mistaking of the postern for the door of the cabinet.
Then again, the former was fast locked, and required a good deal of
exertion to unlock it. These improbabilities V—— accordingly put
before the domestics, who had gathered round him, and at length the
Freiherr's body-servant, Francis by name, said, "Nay, nay, my good Herr
Justitiarius; it couldn't have happened in that way." "Well, how then?"
asked V—— abruptly and sharply. But Francis, a faithful, honest
fellow, who would have followed his master into his grave, was
unwilling to speak out before the rest; he stipulated that what he had
to say about the event should be confided to the Justitiarius alone in
private. V—— now learned that the Freiherr used often to talk to
Francis about the vast treasure which he believed lay buried beneath
the ruins of the tower, and also that frequently at night, as if goaded
by some malicious fiend, he would open the postern, the key of which
Daniel had been obliged to give him, and would gaze with longing eyes
down into the chasm where the supposed riches lay. There was now no
doubt about it; on that ill-omened night the Freiherr, after his
servant had left him, must have taken one of his usual walks to the
postern, where he had been most likely suddenly seized with dizziness,
and had fallen over. Daniel, who also seemed much upset by the
Freiherr's terrible end, thought it would be a good thing to have the
dangerous postern walled up; and this was at once done.
Freiherr Hubert von R——, who had then succeeded to the entail, went
back to Courland without once showing himself at R—sitten again.
V—— was invested with full powers for the absolute management of the
property. The building of the new castle was not proceeded with; but
on the other hand the old structure was put in as good a state of
repair as possible. Several years passed before Hubert came again to R—sitten, late in the autumn, but after he had remained shut up in his
room with V—— for several days, he went back to Courland. Passing on
his way through K——, he deposited his will with the government
authorities there.
The Freiherr, whose character appeared to have undergone a complete
revolution, spoke more than once during his stay at R—sitten of
presentiments of his approaching death. And these apprehensions were
really not unfounded, for he died in the very next year. His son,
named, like the deceased Baron, Hubert, soon came over from Courland to
take possession of the rich inheritance; and was followed by his mother
and his sister. The youth seemed to unite in his own person all the bad
qualities of his ancestors: he proved himself to be proud, arrogant,
impetuous, avaricious, in the very first moments after his arrival at
R—sitten. He wanted to have several things which did not suit his
notions of what was right and proper altered there and then: the cook
he kicked out of doors; and he attempted to thrash the coachman, in
which, however, he did not succeed, for the big brawny fellow had the
impudence not to submit to it. In fact, he was on the high road to
assuming the rôle of a harsh and severe lord of the entail, when
V—— interposed in his firm earnest manner, declaring most explicitly
that not a single chair should be moved, that not even a cat should
leave the house if she liked to stay in it, until after the will had
been opened. "You have the presumption to tell me, the lord of the
entail," began the Baron. V——, however, cut short the young man, who
was foaming with rage, and said, whilst he measured him with a keen
searching glance, "Don't be in too great a hurry, Herr Baron. At all
events, you have no right to exercise authority here until after the
opening of your father's will. It is I—I alone—who am now master
here; and I shall know how to meet violence with violent measures.
Please to recollect that by virtue of my powers as executor of your
father's will, as well as by virtue of the arrangements which have been
made by the court, I am empowered to forbid your remaining in R—sitten
if I think fit to do so; and so, if you wish to spare me this
disagreeable step, I would advise you to go away quietly to K——." The
lawyer's earnestness, and the resolute tone in which he spoke, lent the
proper emphasis to his words. Hence the young Baron, who was charging
with far two sharp-pointed horns, felt the weakness of his weapons
against the firm bulwark, and found it convenient to cover the shame of
his retreat with a burst of scornful laughter.
Three months passed and the day was come on which, in accordance with
the expressed wish of the deceased, his will was to be opened at K——,
where it had been deposited. In the chambers there was, besides the
officers of the court, the Baron, and V——, a young man of noble
appearance, whom V—— had brought with him, and who was taken to be
V——'s clerk, since he had a parchment deed sticking out from the
breast of his buttoned-up coat. Him the Baron treated as he did nearly
all the rest, with scornful contempt; and he demanded with noisy
impetuosity that they should make haste and get done with all their
tiresome needless ceremonies as quickly as possible and without over
many words and scribblings. He couldn't for the life of him make out
why any will should be wanted at all with respect to the inheritance,
and especially in the case of entailed property; and no matter what
provisions were made in the will, it would depend entirely upon his
decision as to whether they should be observed or not. After casting a
hasty and surly glance at the handwriting and the seal, the Baron
acknowledged them to be those of his dead father. Upon the clerk of the
court preparing to read the will aloud, the young Baron, throwing his
right arm carelessly over the back of his chair and leaning his left on
the table, whilst he drummed with his fingers on its green cover, sat
staring with an air of indifference out of the window. After a short
preamble the deceased Freiherr Hubert von R—— declared that he had
never possessed the estate-tail as its lawful owner, but that he had
only managed it in the name of the deceased Freiherr Wolfgang von
R——'s only son, called Roderick after his grandfather; and he it was
to whom, according to the rights of family priority, the estate had
fallen on his father's death. Amongst Hubert's papers would be found an
exact account of all revenues and expenditure, as well as of existing
movable property, &c. The will went on to relate that Wolfgang von
R—— had, during his travels, made the acquaintance of Mdlle. Julia de
St. Val in Geneva, and had fallen so deeply in love with her that he
resolved never to leave her side again. She was very poor; and her
family, although noble and of good repute, did not, however, rank
amongst the most illustrious, for which reason Wolfgang dared not
expect to receive the consent of old Roderick to a union with her, for
the old Freiherr's aim and ambition was to promote by all possible
means the establishment of a powerful family. Nevertheless he ventured
to write from Paris to his father, acquainting him with the fact that
his affections were engaged. But what he had foreseen was actually
realised; the old Baron declared categorically that he had himself
chosen the future mistress of the entail, and therefore there could
never be any mention made of any other. Wolfgang, instead of crossing
the Channel into England, as he was to have done, returned into Geneva
under the assumed name of Born, and married Julia, who after the lapse
of a year bore him a son, and this son became on Wolfgang's death the
real lord of the entail. In explanation of the facts why Hubert, though
acquainted with all this, had kept silent so long and had represented
himself as lord of the entail, various reasons were assigned, based
upon agreements formerly made with Wolfgang, but they seemed for the
most part insufficient and devoid of real foundation.
The Baron sat staring at the clerk of the court as if thunderstruck,
whilst the latter went on proclaiming all this bad news in a
provokingly monotonous and jarring tone. When he finished, V—— rose,
and taking the young man whom he had brought with him by the hand,
said, as he bowed to the assembled company, "Here I have the honour to
present to you, gentlemen, Freiherr Roderick von R——, lord of the
entail of R—sitten." Baron Hubert looked at the youth, who had, as it
were, fallen from the clouds to deprive him of the rich inheritance
together with half the unentailed Courland estates, with suppressed
fury in his gleaming eyes; then, threatening him with his doubled fist,
he ran out of the court without uttering a word. Baron Roderick, on
being challenged by the court-officers, produced the documents by which
he was to establish his identity as the person whom he represented
himself to be. He handed in an attested extract from the register of
the church where his father was married, which certified that on such
and such a day Wolfgang Born, merchant, born in K——, had been united
in marriage with the blessing of the Church to Mdlle. Julia de St. Val,
in the presence of certain witnesses, who were named. Further, he
produced his own baptismal certificate (he had been baptized in Geneva
as the son of the merchant Born and his wife Julia, née De St. Val,
begotten in lawful wedlock), and various letters from his father to his
mother, who was long since dead, but they none of them had any other
signature than W.
V—— looked through all these papers with a cloud upon his face; and
as he put them together again, he said, somewhat troubled, "Ah well!
God will help us!"
The very next morning Freiherr Hubert von R—— presented, through an
advocate whose services he had succeeded in enlisting in his cause, a
statement of protest to the government authorities in K——, actually
calling upon them to effectuate the immediate surrender to him of the
entail of R—sitten. It was incontestable, maintained the advocate,
that the deceased Freiherr Hubert Von R—— had not had the power to
dispose of entailed property either by testament or in any other way.
The testament in question, therefore, was nothing more than an
evidential statement, written down and deposited with the court, to the
effect that Freiherr Wolfgang von R—— had bequeathed the estate-tail
to a son who was at that time still living; and accordingly it had as
evidence no greater weight than that of any other witness, and so could
not by any possibility legitimately establish the claims of the person
who had announced himself to be Freiherr Roderick von R——. Hence it
was rather the duty of this new claimant to prove by action at law his
alleged rights of inheritance, which were hereby expressly disputed and
denied, and so also to take proper steps to maintain his claim to the
estate-tail, which now, according to the laws of succession, fell to
Baron Hubert von R——. By the father's death the property came at once
immediately into the hands of the son. There was no need for any
formal declaration to be made of his entering into possession of the
inheritance, since the succession could not be alienated; at any rate,
the present owner of the estate was not going to be disturbed in his
possession by claims which were perfectly groundless. Whatever reasons
the deceased might have had for bringing forward another heir of entail
were quite irrelevant. And it might be remarked that he had himself had
an intrigue in Switzerland, as could be proved if necessary from the
papers he had left behind him; and it was quite possible that the
person whom he alleged to be his brother's son was his own son, the
fruit of an unlawful love, for whom in a momentary fit of remorse he
had wished to secure the entail.
However great was the balance of probability in favour of the truth of
the circumstances as stated in the will, and however revolted the
judges were, particularly by the last clauses of the protest, in which
the son felt no compunction at accusing his dead father of a crime, yet
the views of the case there stated were after all the right ones; and
it was only due to V——'s restless exertions, and his explicit and
solemn assurance that the proofs which were necessary to establish
legitimately the identity of Freiherr Roderick von R—— should be
produced in a very short time, that the surrender of the estate to the
young Baron was deferred, and the contrivance of the administration of
it in trust agreed to, until after the case should be settled.
V—— was only too well aware how difficult it would be for him to keep
his promise. He had turned over all old Roderick's papers without
finding the slightest trace of a letter or any kind of a statement
bearing upon Wolfgang's relation to Mdlle. de St. Val. He was sitting
wrapt in thought in old Roderick's sleeping-cabinet, every hole and
comer of which he had searched, and was working at a long statement of
the case that he intended despatching to a certain notary in Geneva,
who had been recommended to him as a shrewd and energetic man, to
request him to procure and forward certain documents which would
establish the young Freiherr's cause on firm ground. It was midnight;
the full moon shone in through the windows of the adjoining hall, the
door of which stood open. Then V—— fancied he heard a noise as of
some one coming slowly and heavily up the stairs, and also at the same
time a jingling and rattling of keys. His attention was arrested; he
rose to his feet and went into the hall, where he plainly made out that
there was some one crossing the ante-room and approaching the door of
the hall where he was. Soon afterwards the door was opened and a man
came slowly in, dressed in night-clothes, his face ghastly pale and
distorted; in the one hand he bore a candle-stick with the candles
burning, and in the other a huge bunch of keys. V—— at once
recognised the house-steward, and was on the point of addressing him
and inquiring what he wanted so late at night, when he was arrested by
an icy shiver; there was something so unearthly and ghost-like in the
old man's manner and bearing as well as in his set, pallid face. He
perceived that he was in presence of a somnambulist. Crossing the hall
obliquely with measured strides, the old man went straight to the
walled-up postern that had formerly led to the tower. He came to a halt
immediately in front of it, and uttered a wailing sound that seemed to
come from the bottom of his heart, and was so awful and so loud that
the whole apartment rang again, making V—— tremble with dread. Then,
setting the candlestick down on the floor and hanging the keys on his
belt, Daniel began to scratch at the wall with both hands, so that the
blood soon burst out from beneath his finger-nails, and all the while
he was moaning and groaning as if tortured by nameless agony. After
placing his ear against the wall in a listening attitude, he waved his
hand as if hushing some one, stooped down and picked up the
candlestick, and finally stole back to the door with soft measured
footsteps. V—— took his own candle in his hand and cautiously
followed him. They both went downstairs; the old man unlocked the great
main door of the castle, V—— slipped cleverly through. Then they went
to the stable, where old Daniel, to V——'s perfect astonishment,
placed his candlestick so skilfully that the entire interior of the
building was sufficiently lighted without the least danger. Having
fetched a saddle and bridle, he put them on one of the horses which he
had loosed from the manger, carefully tightening the girth and taking
up the stirrup-straps. Pulling the tuft of hair on the horse's forehead
outside the front strap, he took him by the bridle and led him out of
the stable, clicking with his tongue and patting his neck with one
hand. On getting outside in the courtyard he stood several seconds in
the attitude of one receiving commands, which he promised by sundry
nods to carry out. Then he led the horse back into the stable,
unsaddled him, and tied him to the manger. This done, he took his
candlestick, locked the stable, and returned to the castle, finally
disappearing in his own room, the door of which he carefully bolted.
V—— was deeply agitated by this scene; the presentiment of some
fearful deed rose up before him like a black and fiendish spectre, and
refused to leave him. Being so keenly alive as he was to the precarious
position of his protégé, he felt that it would at least be his duty
to turn what he had seen to his account.
Next day, just as it was beginning to be dusk, Daniel came into the
Justitiarius's room to receive some instructions relating to his
department of the household. V—— took him by the arms, and forcing
him into a chair, in a confidential way began, "See you here, my old
friend Daniel, I have long been wishing to ask you what you think of
all this confused mess into which Hubert's peculiar will has tumbled
us. Do you really think that the young man is Wolfgang's son, begotten
in lawful marriage?" The old man, leaning over the arm of his chair,
and avoiding V——'s eyes, for V—— was watching him most intently,
replied doggedly, "Bah! Maybe he is; maybe he is not. What does it
matter to me? It's all the same to me who's master here now." "But I
believe," went on V——, moving nearer to the old man and placing his
hand on his shoulder, "but I believed you possessed the old Freiherr's
full confidence, and in that case he assuredly would not conceal from
you the real state of affairs with regard to his sons. He told you, I
dare say, about the marriage which Wolfgang had made against his will,
did he not?" "I don't remember to have ever heard him say anything of
that sort," replied the old man, yawning with the most ill-mannered
loudness. "You are sleepy, old man," said V——; "perhaps you have had
a restless night?" "Not that I am aware," he rejoined coldly; "but I
must go and order supper." Whereupon he rose heavily from his chair and
rubbed his bent back, yawning again, and that still more loudly than
before. "Stay a little while, old man," cried V——, taking hold of his
hand and endeavouring to force him to resume his seat; but Daniel
preferred to stand in front of the study-table; propping himself upon
it with both hands, and leaning across towards V——, he asked
sullenly, "Well, what do you want? What have I to do with the will?
What do I care about the quarrel over the estate?" "Well, well,"
interposed V——, "we'll say no more about that now. Let us turn to
some other topic, Daniel. You are out of humour and yawning, and all
that is a sign of great weariness, and I am almost inclined to believe
that it really was you last night, who"—— "Well, what did I do last
night?" asked the old man without changing his position. V—— went
on, "Last night, when I was sitting up above in your old master's
sleeping-cabinet next the great hall, you came in at the door, your
face pale and rigid; and you went across to the bricked-up postern and
scratched at the wall with both your hands, groaning as if in very
great pain. Do you walk in your sleep, Daniel?" The old man dropped
back into the chair which V—— quickly managed to place for him; but
not a sound escaped his lips. His face could not be seen, owing to the
gathering dusk of the evening; V—— only noticed that he took his
breath short and that his teeth were rattling together. "Yes,"
continued V—— after a short pause, "there is one thing that is very
strange about sleep-walkers. On the day after they have been in this
peculiar state in which they have acted as if they were perfectly wide
awake, they don't remember the least thing, that they did." Daniel did
not move. "I have come across something like what your condition was
yesterday once before in the course of my experience," proceeded V——.
"I had a friend who regularly began to wander about at night as you do
whenever it was full moon,—nay, he often sat down and wrote letters.
But what was most extraordinary was that if I began to whisper softly
in his ear I could soon manage to make him speak; and he would answer
correctly all the questions I put to him; and even things that he would
most jealously have concealed when awake now fell from his lips
unbidden, as though he were unable to offer any resistance to the power
that was exerting its influence over him. Deuce take it! I really
believe that, if a man who's given to walking in his sleep had ever
committed any crime, and hoarded it up as a secret ever so long, it
could be extracted from him by questioning when he was in this peculiar
state. Happy are they who have a clean conscience like you and me,
Daniel! We may walk as much as we like in our sleep; there's no fear of
anybody extorting the confession of a crime from us. But come now,
Daniel! when you scratch so hideously at the bricked-up postern, you
want, I dare say, to go up the astronomical tower, don't you? I suppose
you want to go and experiment like old Roderick—eh? Well, next time
you come, I shall ask you what you want to do." Whilst V—— was
speaking, the old man was shaken with continually increasing agitation;
but now his whole frame seemed to heave and rock convulsively past all
hope of cure, and in a shrill voice he began to utter a string of
unmeaning gibberish. V—— rang for the servants. They brought lights;
but as the old man's fit did not abate, they lifted him up as though he
had been a mere automaton, not possessed of the power of voluntary
movement, and carried him to bed. After continuing in this frightful
state for about an hour, he fell into a profound sleep resembling a
dead faint When he awoke he asked for wine; and, after he had got what
he wanted, he sent away the man who was going to sit with him, and
locked himself in his room as usual.
V—— had indeed really resolved to make the attempt he spoke of to
Daniel, although at the same time he could not forget two facts. In the
first place, Daniel, having now been made aware of his propensity to
walk in his sleep, would probably adopt every measure of precaution to
avoid him; and on the other hand, confessions made whilst in this
condition would not be exactly fitted to serve as a basis for further
proceedings. In spite of this, however, he repaired to the hall on the
approach of midnight, hoping that Daniel, as frequently happens to
those afflicted in this way, would be constrained to act involuntarily.
About midnight there arose a great noise in the courtyard. V——
plainly heard a window broken in; then he went downstairs, and as he
traversed the passages he was met by rolling clouds of suffocating
smoke, which, he soon perceived were pouring out of the open door of
the house-steward's room. The steward himself was just being carried
out, to all appearance dead, in order to be taken and put to bed in
another room. The servants related that about midnight one of the
under-grooms had been awakened by a strange hollow knocking; he thought
something had befallen the old man, and was preparing to get up and go
and see if he could help him, when the night watchman in the court
shouted, "Fire! Fire! The Herr House-Steward's room is all of a bright
blaze!" At this outcry several servants at once appeared on the scene;
but all their efforts to burst open the room door were unavailing.
Whereupon they hurried out into the court, but the resolute watchman
had already broken in the window, for the room was low and on the
basement story, had torn down the burning curtains, and by pouring a
few buckets of water on them had at once extinguished the fire. The
house-steward they found lying on the floor in the middle of the room
in a swoon. In his hand he still held the candlestick tightly clenched,
the burning candles of which had caught the curtains, and so occasioned
the fire. Some of the blazing rags had fallen upon the old man, burning
his eyebrows and a large portion of the hair of his head. If the
watchman had not seen the fire the old man must have been helplessly
burned to death. The servants, moreover, to their no little
astonishment found the room door secured on the inside by two quite new
bolts, which had been fastened on since the previous evening, for they
had not been there then. V—— perceived that the old man had wished to
make it impossible for him to get out of his room; for the blind
impulse which urged him to wander in his sleep he could not resist. The
old man became seriously ill; he did not speak; he took but little
nourishment; and lay staring before him with the reflection of death in
his set eyes, just as if he were clasped in the vice-like grip of some
hideous thought. V—— believed he would never rise from his bed again.
V—— had done all that could be done for his client; and he could now
only await the result in patience; and so he resolved to return to
K——. His departure was fixed for the following morning. As he was
packing his papers together late at night, he happened to lay his hand
upon a little sealed packet which Freiherr Hubert von R—— had given
him, bearing the inscription, "To be read after my will has been
opened," and which by some unaccountable means had hitherto escaped his
notice. He was on the point of breaking the seal when the door opened
and Daniel came in with still, ghostlike step. Placing upon the table a
black portfolio which he carried under his arm, he sank upon his knees
with a deep groan, and grasping V——'s hands with a convulsive clutch
he said, in a voice so hollow and hoarse that it seemed to come from
the bottom of a grave, "I should not like to die on the scaffold! There
is One above who judges!" Then, rising with some trouble and with many
painful gasps, he left the room as he had come.
V—— spent the whole of the night in reading what the black portfolio
and Hubert's packet contained. Both agreed in all circumstantial
particulars, and suggested naturally what further steps were to be
taken. On arriving at K——, V—— immediately repaired to Freiherr
Hubert von R——, who received him with ill-mannered pride. But the
remarkable result of the interview, which began at noon and lasted on
without interruption until late at night, was that the next day the
Freiherr made a declaration before the court to the effect that he
acknowledged the claimant to be, agreeably to his father's will, the
son of Wolfgang von R——, eldest son of Freiherr Roderick von R——,
and begotten in lawful wedlock with Mdlle. Julia de St. Val, and
furthermore acknowledged him as rightful and legitimate heir to the
entail. On leaving the court he found his carriage, with post-horses,
standing before the door; he stepped in and was driven off at a rapid
rate, leaving his mother and his sister behind him. They would perhaps
never see him again, he wrote, along with other perplexing statements.
Roderick's astonishment at this unexpected turn which the case had
taken was very great; he pressed V—— to explain to him how this
wonder had been brought about, what mysterious power was at work in the
matter. V——, however, evaded his questions by giving him hopes of
telling him all at some future time, and when he should have come into
possession of the estate. For the surrender of the entail to him could
not be effected immediately, since the court, not content with Hubert's
declaration, required that Roderick should also first prove his own
identity to their satisfaction. V—— proposed to the Baron that he
should go and live at R—sitten, adding that Hubert's mother and
sister, momentarily embarrassed by his sudden departure, would prefer
to go and live quietly on the ancestral property rather than stay in
the dear and noisy town. The glad delight with which Roderick welcomed
the prospect of dwelling, at least for a time, under the same roof with
the Baroness and her daughter, betrayed the deep impression which the
lovely and graceful Seraphina had made upon him. In fact, the Freiherr
made such good use of his time in R—sitten that, at the end of a few
weeks, he had won Seraphina's love as well as her mother's cordial
approval of her marriage with him. All this was for V—— rather too
quick work, since Roderick's claims to be lord of the entail still
continued to be rather doubtful. The life of idyllic happiness at the
castle was interrupted by letters from Courland. Hubert had not shown
himself at all at the estates, but had travelled direct to St
Petersburg, where he had taken military service and was now in the
field against the Persians, with whom Russia happened to be just then
waging war. This obliged the Baroness and her daughter to set off
immediately for their Courland estates, where everything was in
confusion and disorder. Roderick, who regarded himself in the light of
an accepted son-in-law, insisted upon accompanying his beloved; and
hence, since V—— likewise returned to K——, the castle was left in
its previous loneliness. The house-steward's malignant complaint grew
worse and worse, so that he gave up all hopes of ever getting about
again; and his office was conferred upon an old chasseur, Francis by
name, Wolfgang's faithful servant.
At last, after long waiting, V—— received from Switzerland
information of the most favourable character. The priest who had
married Roderick was long since dead; but there was found in the church
register a memorandum in his hand writing, to the effect that the man
of the name of Born, whom he had joined in the bonds of wedlock with
Mdlle. Julia de St. Val, had established completely to his satisfaction
his identity as Freiherr Wolfgang von R——, eldest son of Freiherr
Roderick von R—— of R—sitten. Besides this, two witnesses of the
marriage had been discovered, a merchant of Geneva and an old French
captain, who had moved to Lyons; to them also Wolfgang had in
confidence stated his real name; and their affidavits confirmed the
priest's notice in the church register. With these memoranda in his
hands, drawn up with proper legal formalities, V—— now succeeded in
securing his client in the complete possession of his rights; and as
there was now no longer any hindrance to the surrender to him of the
entail, it was to be put into his hands in the ensuing autumn. Hubert
had fallen in his very first engagement, thus sharing the fate of his
younger brother, who had likewise been slain in battle a year before
his father's death. Thus the Courland estates fell to Baroness
Seraphina von R——, and made a handsome dowry for her to take to the
too happy Roderick.
November had already come in when the Baroness, along with Roderick and
his betrothed, arrived at R—sitten. The formal surrender of the
estate-tail to the young Baron took place, and then his marriage with
Seraphina was solemnised. Many weeks passed amid a continual whirl of
pleasure; but at length the wearied guests began gradually to depart
from the castle, to V——'s great satisfaction, for he had made up his
mind not to take his leave of R—sitten until he had initiated the
young lord of the entail in all the relations and duties connected with
his new position down to the minutest particulars. Roderick's uncle had
kept an account of all revenues and disbursements with the most
detailed accuracy; hence, since Hubert had only retained a small sum
annually for his own support, the surplus revenues had all gone to
swell the capital left by the old Freiherr, till the total now amounted
to a considerable sum. Hubert had only employed the income of the
entail for his own purposes during the first three years, but to cover
this he had given a mortgage on the security of his share of the
Courland property.
From the time when old Daniel had revealed himself to V—— as a
somnambulist, V—— had chosen old Roderick's bed-room for his own
sitting-room, in order that he might the more securely gather from the
old man what he afterwards voluntarily disclosed. Hence it was in this
room and in the adjoining great hall that the Freiherr transacted
business with V——. Once they were both sitting at the great table by
the bright blazing fire; V—— had his pen in his hand, and was noting
down various totals and calculating the riches of the lord of the
entail, whilst the latter, leaning his head on his hand, was blinking
at the open account-books and formidable-looking documents. Neither of
them heard the hollow roar of the sea, nor the anxious cries of the
sea-gulls as they dashed against the windowpanes, flapping their wings
and flying backwards and forwards, announcing the oncoming storm.
Neither of them heeded the storm, which arose about midnight, and was
now roaring and raging with wild fury round the castle walls, so that
all the sounds of ill omen in the fire-grates and narrow passages
awoke, and began to whistle and shriek in a weird, unearthly way. At
length, after a terrific blast, which made the whole castle shake, the
hall was completely lit up by the murky glare of the full moon, and
V—— exclaimed, "Awful weather!" The Freiherr, quite absorbed in the
consideration of the wealth which had fallen to him, replied
indifferently, as he turned over a page of the receipt-book with a
satisfied smile, "It is indeed; very stormy!" But, as if clutched by
the icy hand of Dread, he started to his feet as the door of the hall
flew open and a pale spectral figure became visible, striding in with
the stamp of death upon its face. It was Daniel, who, lying helpless
under the power of disease, was deemed in the opinion of V—— as of
everybody else incapable of the ability to move a single limb; but,
again coming under the influence of his propensity to wander in his
sleep at full moon, he had, it appeared, been unable to resist it. The
Freiherr stared at the old man without uttering a sound; and when
Daniel began to scratch at the wall, and moan as though in the painful
agonies of death, Roderick's heart was filled with horrible dread. With
his face ashy pale and his hair standing straight on end, he leapt to
his feet and strode towards the old man in a threatening attitude and
cried in a loud firm voice, so that the hall rang again, "Daniel,
Daniel, what are you doing here at this hour?" Then the old man uttered
that same unearthly howling whimper, like the death-cry of a wounded
animal, which he had uttered when Wolfgang had offered to reward his
fidelity with gold; and he fell down on the floor. V—— summoned the
servants; they raised the old man up; but all attempts to restore
animation proved fruitless. Then the Freiherr cried, almost beside
himself, "Good God! Good God! Now I remember to have heard that a
sleepwalker may die on the spot if anybody calls him by his name. Oh!
oh! unfortunate wretch that I am! I have killed the poor old man! I
shall never more have a peaceful moment so long as I live." When the
servants had carried the corpse away and the hall was again empty,
V—— took the Freiherr, who was still continuing his self-reproaches,
by the hand and led him in impressive silence to the walled-up postern,
and said, "The man who fell down dead at your feet, Freiherr Roderick,
was the atrocious murderer of your father." The Freiherr fixed his
staring eyes upon V—— as though he saw the foul fiends of hell. But
V—— went on, "The time has come now for me to reveal to you the
hideous secret which, weighing upon the conscience of this monster and
burthening him with curses, compelled him to roam abroad in his sleep.
The Eternal Power has seen fit to make the son take vengeance upon the
murderer of his father. The words which you thundered in the ears of
that fearful night-walker were the last words which your unhappy father
spoke." V—— sat down in front of the fire, and the Freiherr,
trembling and unable to utter a word, took his seat beside him.
V—— began to tell him the contents of the document which Hubert had
left behind him, and the seal of which he (V——) was not to break
until after the opening of the will Hubert lamented, in expressions
testifying to the deepest remorse, the implacable hatred against his
elder brother which took root in him from the moment that old Roderick
established the entail. He was deprived of all weapons; for, even if he
succeeded in maliciously setting the son at variance with the father,
it would serve no purpose, since even Roderick himself had not the
power to deprive his eldest son of his birth-right, nor would he on
principle have ever done so, no matter how his affections had been
alienated from him. It was only when Wolfgang formed his connection
with Julia de St. Val in Geneva that Hubert saw his way to effecting
his brother's ruin. And that was the time when he came to an
understanding with Daniel, to provoke the old man by villainous devices
to take measures which should drive his son to despair.
He was well aware of old Roderick's opinion that the only way to ensure
an illustrious future for the family to all subsequent time was by
means of an alliance with one of the oldest families in the country.
The old man had read this alliance in the stars, and any pernicious
derangement of the constellation would only entail destruction upon the
family he had founded. In this way it was that Wolfgang's union with
Julia seemed to the old man like a sinful crime, committed against the
ordinances of the Power which had stood by him in all his worldly
undertakings; and any means that might be employed for Julia's ruin he
would have regarded as justified for the same reason, for Julia had, he
conceived, ranged herself against him like some demoniacal principle.
Hubert knew that his brother loved Julia passionately, almost to
madness in fact, and that the loss of her would infallibly make him
miserable, perhaps kill him. And Hubert was all the more ready to
assist the old man in his plans as he had himself conceived an unlawful
affection for Julia, and hoped to win her for himself. It was, however,
determined by a special dispensation of Providence that all attacks,
even the most virulent, were to be thwarted by Wolfgang's resoluteness;
nay, that he should contrive to deceive his brother: the fact that his
marriage was actually solemnised and that of the birth of a son were
kept secret from Hubert In Roderick's mind also there occurred, along
with the presentiment of his approaching death, the idea that Wolfgang
had really married the Julia who was so hostile to him. In the letter
which commanded his son to appear at R—sitten on a given day to take
possession of the entail, he cursed him if he did not sever his
connection with her. This was the letter that Wolfgang burnt beside his
father's corpse. To Hubert the old man wrote, saying that Wolfgang had
married Julia, but that he would part from her. This Hubert took to be
a fancy of his visionary father's; accordingly he was not a little
dismayed when on reaching R—sitten Wolfgang with perfect frankness not
only confirmed the old man's supposition, but also went on to add that
Julia had borne him a son, and that he hoped in a short time to
surprise her with the pleasant intelligence of his high rank and great
wealth, for she had hitherto taken him for Born, a merchant from M——.
He intended going to Geneva himself to fetch his beloved wife. But
before he could carry out this plan he was overtaken by death. Hubert
carefully concealed what he knew about the existence of a son born to
Wolfgang in lawful wedlock with Julia, and so usurped the property that
really belonged to his nephew. But only a few years passed before he
became a prey to bitter remorse. He was reminded of his guilt in
terrible wise by destiny, in the hatred which grew up and developed
more and more between his two sons. "You are a poor starving beggar!"
said the elder, a boy of twelve, to the younger, "but I shall be lord
of R—sitten when father dies, and then you will have to be humble and
kiss my hand when you want me to give you money to buy a new coat." The
younger, goaded to ungovernable fury by his brother's proud and
scornful words, threw the knife at him which he happened to have in his
hand, and almost killed him. Hubert, for fear of some dire misfortune,
sent the younger away to St. Petersburg; and he served afterwards as
officer under Suwaroff, and fell fighting against the French. Hubert
was prevented revealing to the world the dishonest and deceitful way in
which he had acquired possession of the estate-tail by the shame and
disgrace which would have come upon him; but he would not rob the
rightful owner of a single penny more. He caused inquiries to be set on
foot in Geneva, and learned that Madame Born had died of grief at the
incomprehensible disappearance of her husband, but that young Roderick
Born was being brought up by a worthy man who had adopted him. Hubert
then caused himself to be introduced under an assumed name as a
relative of Born the merchant, who had perished at sea, and he
forwarded at given times sufficient sums of money to give the young
heir of entail a good and respectable education. How he carefully
treasured up the surplus revenues from the estate, and how he drew up
the terms of his will, we already know. Respecting his brother's death,
Hubert spoke in strangely obscure terms, but they allowed this much to
be inferred, that there must be some mystery about it, and that he had
taken part, indirectly, at least, in some heinous crime.
The contents of the black portfolio made everything clear. Along with
Hubert's traitorous correspondence with Daniel was a sheet of paper
written and signed by Daniel. V—— read a confession at which his very
soul trembled, appalled. It was at Daniel's instigation that Hubert had
come to R—sitten; and it was Daniel again who had written and told him
about the one hundred and fifty thousand thalers that had been found.
It has been already described how Hubert was received by his brother,
and how, deceived in all his hopes and wishes, he was about to go off
when he was prevented by V——, Daniel's heart was tortured by an
insatiable thirst for vengeance, which he was determined to take on the
young man who had proposed to kick him out like a mangy cur. He it was
who relentlessly and incessantly fanned the flame of passion by which
Hubert's desperate heart was consumed. Whilst in the fir forests
hunting wolves, out in the midst of a blinding snowstorm, they agreed
to effect his destruction. "Make away with him!" murmured Hubert,
looking askance and taking aim with his rifle. "Yes, make away with
him," snarled Daniel, "but not in that way, not in
that way!" And
he made the most solemn asseverations that he would murder the Freiherr
and not a soul in the world should be the wiser. When, however, Hubert
had got his money, he repented of the plot; he determined to go away in
order to shun all further temptation. Daniel himself saddled his horse
and brought it out of the stable; but as the Baron was about to mount,
Daniel said to him in a sharp, strained voice, "I thought you would
stay on the entail, Freiherr Hubert, now that it has just fallen to
you, for the proud lord of the entail lies dashed to pieces at the
bottom of the ravine, below the tower." The steward had observed that
Wolfgang, tormented by his thirst for gold, often used to rise in the
night, go to the postern which formerly led to the tower, and stand
gazing with longing eyes down into the chasm, where, according to his
(Daniel's) testimony, vast treasures lay buried. Relying upon this
habit, Daniel waited near the hall-door on that ill-omened night; and
as soon as he heard the Freiherr open the postern leading to the tower,
he entered the hall and proceeded to where the Freiherr was standing,
close by the brink of the chasm. On becoming aware of the presence of
his villainous servant, in whose eyes the gleam of murder shone, the
Freiherr turned round and said with a cry of terror, "Daniel, Daniel,
what are you doing here at this hour?" But then Daniel shrieked wildly,
"Down with you, you mangy cur!" and with a powerful push of his foot he
hurled the unhappy man over into the deep chasm.
Terribly agitated by this awful deed, Freiherr Roderick found no peace
in the castle where his father had been murdered. He went to his
Courland estates, and only visited R—sitten once a year, in autumn.
Francis—old Francis—who had strong suspicions as to Daniel's guilt,
maintained that he often haunted the place at full moon, and described
the nature of the apparition much as V—- afterwards experienced it for
himself when he exorcised it. It was the disclosure of these
circumstances, also, which stamped his father's memory with dishonour,
that had driven young Freiherr Hubert out into the world.
This was my old great-uncle's story. Now he took my hand, and whilst
his eyes filled with tears, he said, in a broken voice, "Cousin,
cousin! And she too—the beautiful lady—has fallen a victim to the
dark destiny, the grim, mysterious power which has established itself
in that old ancestral castle. Two days after we left R—sitten the
Freiherr arranged an excursion on sledges as the concluding event of
the visit. He drove his wife himself; but as they were going down the
valley the horses, for some unexplained reason, suddenly taking fright,
began to snort and kick and plunge most savagely. 'The old man! The old
man is after us!' screamed the Baroness in a shrill, terrified voice.
At this same moment the sledge was overturned with a violent jerk, and
the Baroness was hurled to a considerable distance. They picked her up
lifeless—she was quite dead. The Freiherr is perfectly inconsolable,
and has settled down into a state of passivity that will kill him. We
shall never go to R—sitten again, cousin!"
Here my uncle paused. As I left him my heart was rent by emotion; and
nothing but the all-soothing hand of Time could assuage the deep pain
which I feared would cost me my life.
Years passed. V—— was resting in his grave, and I had left my native
country. Then I was driven northwards, as far as St. Petersburg, by the
devastating war which was sweeping over all Germany. On my return
journey, not far from K——, I was driving one dark summer night along
the shore of the Baltic, when I perceived in the sky before me a
remarkably large bright star. On coming nearer I saw by the red
flickering flame that what I had taken for a star must be a large fire,
but could not understand how it could be so high up in the air.
"Postilion, what fire is that before us yonder?" I asked the man
who was driving me. "Oh! why, that's not a fire; it's the beacon
tower of R—sitten." "R—sitten!" Directly the postilion mentioned
the name all the experiences of the eventful autumn days which I had
spent there recurred to my mind with lifelike reality. I saw the
Baron—Seraphina—and also the remarkably eccentric old aunts—myself
as well, with my bare milk-white face, my hair elegantly curled and
powdered, and wearing a delicate sky-blue coat—nay, I saw myself in my
love-sick folly, sighing like a furnace, and making lugubrious odes on
my mistress's eyebrows. The sombre, melancholy mood into which these
memories plunged me was relieved by the bright recollection of V——'s
genial jokes, shooting up like flashes of coloured light, and I found
them now still more entertaining than they had been so long ago.
Thus agitated by pain mingled with much peculiar pleasure, I reached R—sitten early in the morning and got out of the coach in front of the
post-house, where it had stopped I recognised the house as that of the
land-steward; I inquired after him. "Begging your pardon," said the
clerk of the post-house, taking his pipe from his mouth and giving his
night-cap a tilt, "begging your pardon; there is no land-steward here;
this is a Royal Government office, and the Herr Administrator is still
asleep." On making further inquiries I learnt that Freiherr Roderick
von R——, the last lord of the entail, had died sixteen years before
without descendants, and that the entail in accordance with the terms
of the original deeds had now escheated to the state. I went up to the
castle; it was a mere heap of ruins. I was informed by an old peasant,
who came out of the fir-forest, and with whom I entered into
conversation, that a large portion of the stones had been employed in
the construction of the beacon-tower. He also could tell the story of
the ghost which was said to have haunted the castle, and he affirmed
that people often heard unearthly cries and lamentations amongst the
stones, especially at full moon.
Poor short-sighted old Roderick! What a malignant destiny did you
conjure up to destroy with the breath of poison, in the first moments
of its growth, that race which you intended to plant with firm roots to
last on till eternity!
* * * * * * *
FOOTNOTES TO "THE ENTAIL":
Footnote 1 Freiherr = Baron, though not exactly in the present
significance of the term in Germany. A Freiherr belongs to the
"superior nobility," and is a Baron of the older nobility of the Middle
Ages; and he ranks immediately after a Count (Graf). The title Baron is
now restricted to comparatively newer creations, and its bearer belongs
to the "lower nobility." In this tale "Freiherr" and "Baron" are used
indifferently.
Footnote 2 The Justitiarius acted as justiciary in the seignorial
courts of justice, which were amongst the privileges accorded to the
nobility of certain ranks, in certain cases, by the feudal institutions
of the Middle Ages. This privilege the R—— family is represented as
exercising.
Footnote 3 At the present time the Germans say
Prosit! under like
circumstances. This of coarse reminds one of the Greek custom of
regarding sneezing as an auspicious omen.
Footnote 4 This refers to an episode in Schiller's work, related by a
Sicilian. The story is of a familiar type. Two brothers, Jeronymo and
Lorenzo, fall in love with the same Lady Antonia; the elder brother is
secretly killed by the younger. But on the marriage day of the murderer
the murdered man appears in the disguise of a monk, and proceeds to
reveal himself in his bloody habiliments and show his ghastly wounds.
Footnote 5 By Paul Fleming (1609-1640); one of the pious but gloomy
religious songs of this leading spirit of the "first Silesian school."
Footnote 6 See note, p. 40.
Footnote 7 The reference is to a
Landsmannschaft. These were
associations, at a university, of students from the same state or
country, bound to the observance of certain traditional customs, &c,
and under the control of certain self-elected officers (the
Senior
being one).
Footnote 8 Imperial thalers varied in value at different times, but
estimating their value at three shillings, the sum here mentioned would
be equivalent to about £22,500. A Frederick d'or was a gold coin
worth five thalers.
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