There were various things to be bought, and money for the purpose was in a moderate degree forthcoming. Madame Staubach possessed10 a small hoard11, which was now to be spent, and something she raised on her own little property. A portion of this was intrusted wholly to Linda, and she exercised care and discretion12 in its disposition13. Linen14 for the house she purchased, and things needed for the rooms and the kitchen. But she would expend15 nothing in clothes for herself. When pressed on the subject by her aunt, she declared that her marriage would be one that required no finery. Her own condition and that of her proposed husband, she said, made it quite unnecessary. When she was told that Steinmarc would be offended by such exaggerated simplicity16, she turned upon her aunt with such a look of scorn that Madame Staubach did not dare to say another word. Indeed at this time Madame Staubach had become almost afraid of her niece, and would sit watching the silent stern industry of the younger woman with something of awe17. Could it be that there ever came over her heart a shock of regret for the thing she was doing? Was it possible that she should already be feeling remorse18? If it was so with her, she turned herself to prayer, and believed that the Lord told her that she was right.
But there were others who watched, and spoke among themselves, and felt that the silent solemnity of Linda's mode of life was a cause for trembling. Max Bogen's wife had come to her father's house, and had seen Linda, and had talked to Tetchen, and had said at home that Linda was—mad. Her father had become frightened, and had refused to take any part in the matter. He acknowledged that he had given his advice in favour of the marriage, but he had done this merely as a matter of course,—to oblige his neighbour, Madame Staubach. He would have nothing more to do with it. When Fanny told him that she feared that Linda would lose her senses, he went into his workshop and busied himself with a great chair. But Tetchen was not so reticent19. Tetchen said much to Madame Staubach;—so much that the unfortunate widow was nearly always on her knees, asking for help, asking in very truth for new gifts of obstinate20 persistency21; and Tetchen also said much to Fanny Bogen.
"But what can we do, Tetchen?" asked Fanny.
"If I had my will," said Tetchen, "I would so handle him that he would be glad enough to be off his bargain. But you'll see they'll never live together as man and wife,—never for a day."
They who said that Linda was mad at this time were probably half-right; but if so, her madness had shown itself in none of those forms which are held to justify22 interference by authority. There was no one in Nuremberg who could lock a woman up because she was silent; or could declare her to be unfit for marriage because she refused to buy wedding clothes. The marriage must go on. Linda herself felt that it must be accomplished23. Her silence and her sternness were not now consciously used by her as means of opposing or delaying the coming ceremony, but simply betrayed the state of mind to which she was reduced. She counted the days and she counted the hours as a criminal counts them who sits in his cell and waits for the executioner. She knew, she thought she knew, that she would stand in the church and have her hand put into that of Peter Steinmarc; but what might happen after that she did not know.
She would stand at the altar and have her hand put into that of Peter Steinmarc, and she would be called his wife in sight of God and man. She spent hours in solitude24 attempting to realise the position with all its horrors. She never devoted25 a minute to the task of reconciling herself to it. She did not make one slightest endeavour towards teaching herself that after all it might be possible for her to live with the man as his companion in peace and quietness. She hated him with all the vigour26 of her heart, and she would hate him to the end. On that subject no advice, no prayer, no grace from heaven, could be of service to her. Satan, with all the horrors of hell, as they had been described to her, was preferable to the companionship of Peter Steinmarc. And yet she went on without flinching27.
She went on without flinching till the night of the tenth of March. Up to that time, from the day on which she had last consented to her martyrdom, no idea of escape had occurred to her. As she left her aunt on that evening, Madame Staubach spoke to her. "You should at any rate pray for him," said Madame Staubach. "I hope that you pray that this marriage may be for his welfare." How could she pray for him? And how could she utter such a prayer as that? But she tried; and as she tried, she reflected that the curse to him would be as great as it was to her. Not only was she to be sacrificed, but the miserable28 man was bringing himself also to utter wretchedness. Unless she could die, there would be no escape for him, as also there would be none for her. That she should speak to him, touch him, hold intercourse29 with him, was, she now told herself, out of the question. She might be his servant, if he would allow her to be so at a distance, but nothing more. Or it might be possible that she should be his murderess! A woman who has been taught by her religion that she is and must be a child of the Evil One, may become guilty of what most terrible crime you please without much increase of damage to her own cause,—without much damage according to her own views of life and death. Linda, as she thought of it in her own chamber30, with her eyes wide open, looking into the dark night from out of her window, declared to herself that in certain circumstances she would certainly attempt to kill him. She shuddered31 and shook till she almost fell from her chair. Come what might, she would not endure the pressure of his caress32.
Then she got up and resolved that she would even yet make one other struggle to escape. It would not be true of her to say that at this moment she was mad, but the mixed excitement and terror of her position as she was waiting her doom, joined to her fears, her doubts, and, worse than all, her certainties as to her condition in the sight of God, had almost unstrung her mind. She had almost come to believe that the world was at its end, and that the punishment of which she had heard so much was already upon her. "If this is to be a doom for ever," she said to herself, "the God I have striven to love is very cruel." But then there came an exercise of reason which told her that it could not be a doom for ever. It was clear to her that there was much as yet within her own power which could certainly not be so in that abode33 of the unblessed to which she was to be summoned. There was the window before her, with the silent river running below; and she knew that she could throw herself from it if she chose to put forth9 the power which she still possessed. She felt that "she herself might her quietus make with a bare bodkin." Why should she
"Fardels bear,
To grunt34 and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread35 of something after life,
The undiscovered country from whose bourne
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of."
Linda knew nothing of Hamlet, but the thought was there, exact; and the knowledge that some sort of choice was still open to her, if it were only the choice of sending herself at once to a world different from this, a world in which Peter Steinmarc would not be the avenger36 of her life's wickedness, made her aware that even yet something might be done.
On the following morning she was in the kitchen, as was usual with her now, at an early hour, and made the coffee for her aunt's breakfast, and for Peter's. Tetchen was there also, and to Tetchen she spoke a word or two in good humour. Tetchen said afterwards that she knew that something was to happen, because Linda's manner to her had been completely changed that morning. She sat down with her aunt at eight, and ate a morsel37 of bread, and endeavoured to swallow her coffee. She was thinking at the time that it might be the case that she would never see her aunt again. All the suffering that she had endured at Madame Staubach's hands had never quenched38 her love. Miserable as she had been made by the manner in which this woman had executed the trust which circumstances had placed in her hands, Linda had hardly blamed her aunt even within her own bosom39. When with a frenzy40 of agony Madame Staubach would repeat prayer after prayer, extending her hands towards heaven, and seeking to obtain that which she desired by the painful intensity41 of her own faith, it had never occurred to Linda that in such proceedings42 she was ill-treated by her aunt. Her aunt, she thought, had ever shown to her all that love which a mother has for her child, and Linda in her misery43 was never ungrateful. As soon as the meal was finished she put on her hat and cloak, which she had brought down from her room, and then kissed her aunt.
"God bless you, my child," said Madame Staubach, "and enable you to be an affectionate and dutiful wife to your husband." Then Linda went forth from the room and from the house, and as she went she cast her eyes around, thinking that it might be possible that she should never see them again.
Linda told no lie as she left her aunt, but she felt that she was acting44 a lie. It had been arranged between them, before she had entertained this thought of escaping from Nuremberg, that she should on this morning go out by herself and make certain purchases. In spite of the things that had been done, of Valcarm's visit to the upper storeys of the house, of the flight to Augsburg, of Linda's long protracted45 obstinacy46 and persistently47 expressed hatred48 for the man who was to be her husband, Madame Staubach still trusted her niece. She trusted Linda perhaps the more at this time from a feeling that she had exacted so much from the girl. When, therefore, Linda kissed her and went out, she had no suspicion on her mind; nor was any aroused till the usual dinner-hour was passed, and Linda was still absent. When Tetchen at one o'clock said something of her wonder that the fraulein had not returned, Madame Staubach had suggested that she might be with her friend Herr Molk. Tetchen knew what was the warmth of that friendship, and thought that such a visit was not probable. At three o'clock the postman brought a letter which Linda herself had dropped into the box of the post-office that morning, soon after leaving the house. She had known when, in ordinary course, it would be delivered. Should it lead by any misfortune to her discovery before she could escape, that she could not help. Even that, accompanied by her capture, would be as good a mode as any other of telling her aunt the truth. The letter was as follows:—
Thursday Night.
Dearest Aunt,—I think you hardly know what are my sufferings. I truly believe that I have deserved them, but nevertheless they are insupportable. I cannot marry Peter Steinmarc. I have tried it, and cannot. The day is very near now; but were it to come nearer, I should go mad, or I should kill myself. I think that you do not know what the feeling is that has made me the most wretched of women since this marriage was first proposed to me. I shall go away to-morrow, and shall try to get to my uncle's house in Cologne. It is a long way off, and perhaps I shall never get there: but if I am to die on the road, oh, how much better will that be! I do not want to live. I have made you unhappy, and everybody unhappy, but I do not think that anybody has been so unhappy as I am. I shall give you a kiss as I go out, and you will think that it was the kiss of Judas; but I am not a Judas in my heart. Dear aunt Charlotte, I would have borne it if I could,—Your affectionate, but undutiful niece,
Linda Tressel.
Undutiful! So she called herself; but had she not, in truth, paid duty to her aunt beyond that which one human being can in any case owe to another? Are we to believe that the very soul of the offspring is to be at the disposition of the parent? Poor Linda! Madame Staubach, when the letter was handed to her by Tetchen, sat aghast for a while, motionless, with her hands before her. "She is off again, I suppose," said Tetchen.
"Yes; she has gone."
"It serves you right. I say it now, and I will say it. Why was she so driven?" Madame Staubach said never a word. Could she have had Linda back at the instant, just now, at this very moment, she would have yielded. It was beginning to become apparent to her that God did not intend that her prayers should be successful. Doubtless the fault was with herself. She had lacked faith. Then as she sat there she began to reflect that it might be that she herself was not of the elect. What if, after all, she had been wrong throughout! "Is anything to be done?" said Tetchen, who was still standing5 by her side.
"What ought I to do, Tetchen?"
"Wring49 Peter Steinmarc's neck," said Tetchen. "That would be the best thing." Even this did not bring forth an angry retort from Madame Staubach. About an hour after that Peter came in. He had already heard that the bird had flown. Some messenger from Jacob Heisse's house had brought him the tidings to the town-hall.
"What is this?" said he. "What is this? She has gone again."
"Yes," said Tetchen, "she has gone again. What did you expect?"
"And Ludovic Valcarm is with her?"
"Ludovic Valcarm is not with her!" said Madame Staubach, with an expression of wrath50 which made him start a foot back from where he stood.
"Ah!" he exclaimed, when he had recovered himself, and reflected that he had no cause for fear, "she is no better than she should be."
"She is ten times too good for you. That is all that is the matter with her," said Tetchen.
"I have done with her,—have done with her altogether," said Peter, rubbing his hands together.
"I should think you have," said Tetchen.
"Tell him to leave me," said Madame Staubach, waving Peter away with her hand. Then Tetchen took the town-clerk by his arm, and led him somewhat roughly out of the room. So he shall disappear from our sight. No reader will now require to be told that he did not become the husband of Linda Tressel.
Madame Staubach did nothing and said nothing further on the matter that night. Tetchen indeed went up to the railway station, and found that Linda had taken a ticket through to Mannheim, and had asked questions there, openly, in reference to the boats from thence down the Rhine. She had with her money sufficient to take her to Cologne, and her aunt endeavoured to comfort herself with thinking that no further evil would come of this journey than the cost, and the rumours51 it would furnish. As to Peter Steinmarc, that was now all over. If Linda would return, no further attempt should be made. Tetchen said nothing on the subject, but she herself was by no means sure that Linda had no partner in her escape. To Tetchen's mind it was so natural that there should be a partner.
Early on the following morning Madame Staubach was closeted with Herr Molk in the panelled chamber of the house in the Egidien Platz, seeking advice. "Gone again, is she?" said Herr Molk, holding up his hand. "And that fellow is with her of course?"
"No, no, no!" exclaimed Madame Staubach.
"Are you sure of that! At any rate she must marry him now, for nobody else will take her. Peter won't bite again at that bait." Then Madame Staubach was compelled to explain that all ideas of matrimony in respect to her niece must be laid aside, and she was driven also to confess that she had persevered52 too long in regard to Peter Steinmarc. "He certainly is a little rusty53 for such a young woman as Linda," said Herr Molk, confessing also his part of the fault. At last he counselled Madame Staubach that she could do nothing but follow her niece to Cologne, as she had before followed her to Augsburg. Such a journey would be very terrible to her. She had not been in Cologne for years, and did not wish to see again those who were there. But she felt that she had no alternative, and she went.
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1
flinched
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| v.（因危险和痛苦）退缩，畏惧( flinch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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2
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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3
sedulously
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| ad.孜孜不倦地 | |
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attentive
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| adj.注意的，专心的；关心(别人)的，殷勤的 | |
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5
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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6
eloquence
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| n.雄辩；口才，修辞 | |
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7
retract
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| vt.缩回，撤回收回，取消 | |
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8
doom
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| n.厄运，劫数；v.注定，命定 | |
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9
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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10
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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11
hoard
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| n./v.窖藏，贮存，囤积 | |
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12
discretion
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| n.谨慎；随意处理 | |
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13
disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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14
linen
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| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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15
expend
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| vt.花费，消费，消耗 | |
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16
simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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17
awe
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| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
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18
remorse
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| n.痛恨，悔恨，自责 | |
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19
reticent
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| adj.沉默寡言的；言不如意的 | |
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20
obstinate
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| adj.顽固的，倔强的，不易屈服的，较难治愈的 | |
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21
persistency
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| n. 坚持(余辉, 时间常数) | |
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22
justify
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| vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护 | |
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23
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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24
solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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25
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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26
vigour
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| （=vigor）n.智力，体力，精力 | |
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27
flinching
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| v.（因危险和痛苦）退缩，畏惧( flinch的现在分词 ) | |
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28
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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29
intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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30
chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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31
shuddered
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| v.战栗( shudder的过去式和过去分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动 | |
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32
caress
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| vt./n.爱抚，抚摸 | |
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33
abode
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| n.住处，住所 | |
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34
grunt
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| v.嘟哝；作呼噜声；n.呼噜声，嘟哝 | |
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35
dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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36
avenger
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| n. 复仇者 | |
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morsel
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| n.一口，一点点 | |
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38
quenched
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| 解（渴）( quench的过去式和过去分词 )； 终止（某事物）； （用水）扑灭（火焰等）； 将（热物体）放入水中急速冷却 | |
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39
bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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40
frenzy
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| n.疯狂，狂热，极度的激动 | |
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41
intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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42
proceedings
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| n.进程，过程，议程；诉讼(程序)；公报 | |
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43
misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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44
acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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45
protracted
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| adj.拖延的；延长的v.拖延“protract”的过去式和过去分词 | |
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46
obstinacy
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| n.顽固；（病痛等）难治 | |
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47
persistently
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| ad.坚持地；固执地 | |
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48
hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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49
wring
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| n.扭绞；v.拧，绞出，扭 | |
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50
wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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51
rumours
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| n.传闻( rumour的名词复数 )；风闻；谣言；谣传 | |
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52
persevered
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| v.坚忍，坚持( persevere的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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53
rusty
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| adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的 | |
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