The Bride of the Nile. Complete

CHAPTER XIX

When Paula had eaten with Rufinus and his family after the funeral ceremonies, she went into the garden with Pul and the old man—it had been impossible to induce Perpetua to sit at the same table with her mistress. The sun was now low, and its level beams gave added lustre to the colors of the flowers and to the sheen of the thick, metallic foliage of the south, which the drought and scorching heat had still spared. A bright-hued humped ox and an ass were turning the wheel which raised cooling waters from the Nile and poured them into a large tank from which they flowed through narrow rivulets to irrigate the beds. This toil was now very laborious, for the river had fallen to so low a level as to give cause for anxiety, even at this season of extreme ebb. Numbers of birds with ruffled feathers, with little splints on their legs, or with sadly drooping heads, were going to roost in small cages hung from the branches to protect them from cats and other beasts of prey; to each, as he went by, Rufinus spoke a kindly word, or chirruped to encourage and cheer it. Aromatic odors filled the garden, and rural silence; every object shone in golden glory, even the black back of the negro working at the water-wheel, and the white and yellow skin of the ox; while the clear voices of the choir of nuns thrilled through the convent-grove. Pul listened, turning her face to meet it, and crossing her arms over her heart. Her father pointed to her as he said to Paula:

“That is where her heart is. May she ever have her God before her eyes! That cannot but be the best thing for a woman. Still, among such as we are, we must hold to the rule: Every man for his fellowman on earth, in the name of the merciful Lord!—Can our wise and reasonable Father in Heaven desire that brother should neglect brother, or—as in our case—a child forsake its parents?”

“Certainly not,” replied Paula. “For my own part, nothing keeps me from taking the veil but my hope of finding my long-lost father; I, like your Pulcheria, have often longed for the peace of the cloister. How piously rapt your daughter stands there! What a sweet and touching sight!—In my heart all was dark and desolate; but here, among you all, it is already beginning to feel lighter, and here, if anywhere, I shall recover what I lost in my other home.—Happy child! Could you not fancy, as she stands there in the evening light, that the pure devotion which fills her soul, radiated from her? If I were not afraid of disturbing her, and if I were worthy, how gladly would I join my prayers to hers!”

“You have a part in them as it is,” replied the old man with a smile. “At this moment St. Cecilia appears to her under the guise of your features. We will ask her—you will see.”

“No, leave her alone!” entreated Paula with a blush, and she led Rufinus away to the other end of the garden.

They soon reached a spot where a high hedge of thorny shrubs parted the old man’s plot from that of Susannah. Rufinus here pricked up his ears and then angrily exclaimed:

“As sure as I long to be quit of this lumber, they are cutting my hedge again! Only last evening I caught one of the slaves just as he was going to work on the branches; but how could I get at the black rascal through the thorns? It was to make a peep-hole for curious eyes, or for spies, for the Patriarch knows how to make use of a petticoat; but I will be even with them! Do you go on, pray, as if you had seen and heard nothing; I will fetch my whip.”

The old man hurried away, and Paula was about to obey him; but scarcely had he disappeared when she heard herself called in a shrill girl’s voice through a gap in the hedge, and looking round, she spied a pretty face between the boughs which had yesterday been forced asunder by a man’s hands—like a picture wreathed with greenery.

Even in the twilight she recognized it at once, and when Katharina put her curly head forward, and said in a beseeching tone: “May I get through, and will you listen to me?” she gladly signified her consent.

The water-wagtail, heedless of Paula’s hand held out to help her, slipped through the gap so nimbly that it was evident that she had not long ceased surmounting such obstacles in her games with Mary. As swift as the wind she came down on her feet, holding out her arms to rush at Paula; but she suddenly let them fall in visible hesitancy, and drew back a step. Paula, however, saw her embarrassment; she drew the girl to her, kissed her forehead, and gaily exclaimed:

“Trespassing! And why could you not come in by the gate? Here comes my host with his hippopotamus thong.—Stop, stop, good Rufinus, for the breach effected in your flowery wall was intended against me and not against you. There stands the hostile power, and I should be greatly surprised if you did not recognize her as a neighbor?”

“Recognize her?” said the old man, whose wrath was quickly appeased. “Do we know each other, fair damsel—yes or no? It is an open question.”

“Of course!” cried Katharina, “I have seen you a hundred times from the gnat-tower.”

“You have had less pleasure than I should have had, if I had been so happy as to see you.—We came across each other about a year ago. I was then so happy as to find you in my large peach-tree, which to this day takes the liberty of growing over your garden-plot.”

“I was but a child then,” laughed Katharina, who very well remembered how the old man, whose handsome white head she had always particularly admired, had spied her out among the boughs of his peach-tree and had advised her, with a good-natured nod, to enjoy herself there.

“A child!” repeated Rufinus. “And now we are quite grown up and do not care to climb so high, but creep humbly through our neighbor’s hedge.”

“Then you really are strangers?” cried Paula in surprise. “And have you never met Pulcheria, Katharina?”

“Pul?—oh, how glad I should have been to call her!” said Katharina. “I have been on the point of it a hundred times; for her mere appearance makes one fall in love with her,—but my mother....”

“Well, and what has your mother got to say against her neighbors?” asked Rufinus. “I believe we are peaceable folks who do no one any harm.”

“No, no, God forbid! But my mother has her own way of viewing things; you and she are strangers still, and as you are so rarely to be seen in church....”

“She naturally takes us for the ungodly. Tell her that she is mistaken, and if you are Paula’s friend and you come to see her—but prettily, through the gate, and not through the hedge, for it will be closely twined again by to-morrow morning—if you come here, I say, you will find that we have a great deal to do and a great many creatures to nurse and care for—poor human creatures some of them, and some with fur or feathers, just as it comes; and man serves his Maker if he only makes life easier to the beings that come in his way; for He loves them all. Tell that to your mother, little wagtail, and come again very often.”

“Thank you very much. But let me ask you, if I may, where you heard that odious nickname? I hate it.”

“From the same person who told you the secret that my Pulcheria is called Pul!” said Rufinus; he laughed and bowed and left the two girls together.

“What a dear old man!” cried Katharina. “Oh, I know quite well how he spends his Days! And his pretty wife and Pul—I know them all. How often I have watched them—I will show you the place one day! I can see over the whole garden, only not what goes on near the convent on the other side of the house, or beyond those trees. You know my mother; if she once dislikes any one.... But Pul, you understand, would be such a friend for me!”

“Of course she would,” replied Paula. “And a girl of your age must chose older companions than little Mary.”

“Oh, you shall not say a word against her!” cried Katharina eagerly. “She is only ten years old, but many a grown-up person is not so upright or so capable as I have found her during these last few miserable days.”

“Poor child!” said Paula stroking her hair.

At this a bitter sob broke suddenly and passionately from Katharina; she tried with all her might to suppress it, but could not succeed. Her fit of weeping was so violent that she could not utter a word, till Paula had led her to a bench under a spreading sycamore, had induced her with gentle force to sit down by her side, clasping her in her arms like a suffering child, and speaking to her words of comfort and encouragement.

Birds without number were going to rest in the dense branches overhead, owls and bats had begun their nocturnal raids, the sky put on its spangled glory of gold and silver stars, from the western end of the town came the jackals’ bark as they left their lurking-places among the ruined houses and stole out in search of prey, the heavy dew, falling through the mild air silently covered the leaves, the grass, and the flowers; the garden was more powerfully fragrant now than during the day-time, and Paula felt that it was high time to take refuge from the mists that came up from the shallow stream. But still she lingered while the little maiden poured out all that weighed upon her, all she repented of, believing she could never atone for it; and then all she had gone through, thinking it must break her heart, and all she still had to live down and drive out of her mind.

She told Paula how Orion had wooed her, how much she loved him, how her heart had been tortured by jealousy of her, Paula, and how she had allowed herself to be led away into bearing false witness before the judges. And then she went on to say it was Mary who had first opened her eyes to the abyss by which she was standing. In the afternoon after the death of the Mukaukas she had gone with her mother to the governor’s house to join in her friends’ lamentations. She had at once asked after Mary, but had not been allowed to see her, for she was still in bed and very feverish. She was then on her way to the cool hall when she heard her mother’s voice—not in grief, but angry and vehement—so, thinking it would be more becoming to keep out of the way, she wandered off into the pillared vestibule opening towards the Nile. She would not for worlds have met Orion, and was terribly afraid she might do so, but as she went out, for it was still quite light, there she found him—and in what a state! He was sitting all in a heap, dressed in black, with his head buried in his hands. He had not observed her presence; but she pitied him deeply, for though it was very hot he was trembling in every limb, and his strong frame shuddered repeatedly. She had therefore spoken to him, begging him to be comforted, at which he had started to his feet in dismay, and had pushed his unkempt hair back from his face, looking so pale, so desperate, that she had been quite terrified and could not manage to bring out the consoling words she had ready. For some time neither of them had uttered a syllable, but at length he had pulled himself together as if for some great deed, he came slowly towards her and laid his hands on her shoulders with a solemn dignity which no one certainly had ever before seen in him. He stood gazing into her face—his eyes were red with much weeping—and he sighed from his very heart the two words: “Unhappy Child!”—She could hear them still sounding in her ears.

And he was altered: from head to foot quite different, like a stranger. His voice, even, sounded changed and deeper than usual as he went on:

“Child, child! Perhaps I have given much pain in my life without knowing it; but you have certainly suffered most through me, for I have made you, an innocent, trusting creature, my accomplice in crime. The great sin we both committed has been visited on me alone, but the punishment is a hundred—a thousand times too heavy!”

“And with this,” Katharina went on, “he covered his face with his hands, threw himself on the couch again, and groaned and sighed. Then he sprang up once more, crying out so loud and passionately that I felt as if I must die of grief and pity: ‘Forgive me if you can! Forgive me, wholly, freely. I want it—you must, you must! I was going to run up to him and throw my arms round him and forgive him everything, his trouble distressed me so much; but he gravely pushed me away—not roughly or sternly, and he said that there was an end of all love-making and betrothal between us—that I was young, and that I should be able to forget him. He would still be a true friend to me and to my mother, and the more we required of him the more gladly would he serve us.

“I was about to answer him, but he hastily interrupted me and said firmly and decisively: ‘Lovable as you are, I cannot love you as you deserve; for it is my duty to tell you, I have another and a greater love in my heart—my first and my last; and though once in my life I have proved myself a wretch, still, it was but once; and I would rather endure your anger, and hurt both you and myself now, than continue this unrighteous tie and cheat you and others.’—At this I was greatly startled, and asked: ‘Paula?’ However, he did not answer, but bent over me and touched my forehead with his lips, just as my father often kissed me, and then went quickly out into the garden.

“Just then my mother came up, as red as a poppy and panting for breath: she took me by the hand without a word, dragged me into the chariot after her, and then cried out quite beside herself—she could not even shed a tear for rage: ‘What insolence! what unheard-of behavior—How can I find the heart to tell you, poor sacrificed lamb…’”

“And she would have gone on, but that I would not let her finish; I told her at once that I knew all, and happily I was able to keep quite calm. I had some bad hours at home; and when Nilus came to us yesterday, after the opening of the will, and brought me the pretty little gold box with turquoises and pearls that I have always admired, and told me that the good Mukaukas had written with his own hand, in his last will, that it was to be given to me I his bright little ‘Katharina,’ my mother insisted on my not taking it and sent it back to Neforis, though I begged and prayed to keep it. And of course I shall never go to that house again; indeed my mother talks of quitting Memphis altogether and settling in Constantinople or some other city under Christian rule. ‘Then our nice, pretty house must be given up, and our dear, lovely garden be sold to the peasant folk, my mother says. It was just the same a year and a half ago with Memnon’s palace. His garden was turned into a corn-field, and the splendid ground-floor rooms, with their mosaics and pictures, are now dirty stables for cows and sheep, and pigs are fed in the rooms that belonged to Hathor and Dorothea. Good Heavens! And they were my clearest friends! And I am never to play with Mary any more; and mother has not a kind word for any living soul, hardly even for me, and my old nurse is as deaf as a mole! Am I not a really miserable, lonely creature? And if you, even you, will have nothing to say to me, who is there in all Memphis whom I can trust in? But you will not be so cruel, will you? And it will not be for long, for my mother really means to go away. You are older than I am, of course, and much graver and wiser....”

“I will be kind to you, child; but try to make friends with Pulcheria!”

“Gladly, gladly. But then my mother! I should get on very well by myself if it were not… Well, you yourself heard what Orion said to me, that time in the avenue. He surely loved me a little! What sweet, tender names he gave me then. Oh God! no man can speak like that to any one he is not fond of!—And he is rich himself; it cannot have been only my fortune that bewitched him. And does he look like a man who would allow himself to be parted from a girl by his mother, whether he would or no?”

“He was always fond of me I think; but then, afterwards, he remembered what a high position he had to fill and regarded me as too little and too childish. Oh, how many tears I have shed over being so absurdly little! A Water-wagtail—that is what I shall always be. Your old host called me so; and if a man like Orion feels that he must have a stately wife I can hardly blame him. That other one whom he thinks he loves better than he does me is tall and beautiful and majestic—like you; and I have always told myself that his future wife ought to look like you. It is all over between him and me, and I will submit humbly; but at the same time I cannot help thinking that when he came home he thought me pretty and attractive, and had a real fancy and liking for me. Yes, it was so, it certainly was so!—But then he saw that other one, and I cannot compare with her. She is indeed the woman he wants,—and that other, Paula, is yourself. Yes, indeed, you yourself; an inner voice tells me so. And I tell you truly, you may quite believe me: it is a pain no doubt, but I can be glad of it too. I should hate any mere girl to whom he held out his hand—but, if you are that other—and if you are his wife…”

“Nonsense,” exclaimed Paula decidedly. “Consider what you are saying. When Orion tempted you to perjure yourself, did he behave as my friend or as my foe, my bitterest and most implacable enemy?”

“Before the judges, to be sure…” replied the girl looking down thoughtfully. But she soon looked up again, fixed her eyes on Paula’s face with a sparkling, determined glance, and frankly and unhesitatingly exclaimed: “And you?—In spite of it all he is so handsome, so clever, so manly. You can hardly help it—you love him!”

Paula withdrew her arm, which had been round Katharina, and answered candidly.

“Until to-day, at the funeral, I hated and abominated him; but there, by his father’s tomb, he struck me as a new man, and I found it easy to forgive him in my heart.”

“Then you mean to say that you do not love him?” urged Katharina, clasping her friend’s round arm with her slender fingers.

Paula started to feel how icy cold her hand was. The moon was up, the stars rose higher and higher, so, simply saying: “Come away,” she rose. “It must be within an hour of midnight,” she added. “Your mother will be anxious about you.”

“Only an hour of midnight!” repeated the girl in alarm. “Good Heavens, I shall have a scolding! She is still playing draughts with the Bishop, no doubt, as she does every evening. Good-bye then for the present. The shortest way is through the hedge again.”

“No,” said Paula firmly, “you are no longer a child; you are grown up, and must feel it and show it. You are not to creep through the bushes, but to go home by the gate. Rufinus and I will go with you and explain to your mother…”

“No, no!” cried Katharina in terror. “She is as angry with you as she is with them. Only yesterday she forbid…”

“Forbid you to come to me?” asked Paula. “Does she believe…”

“That it was for your sake that Orion.... Yes, she is only too glad to lay all the blame on you. But now that I have talked to you I.... Look, do you see that light? It is in her sitting-room.”

And, before Paula could prevent her, she ran to the hedge and slipped through the gap as nimbly as a weasel.

Paula looked after her with mingled feelings, and then went back to the house, and to bed. Katharina’s story kept her awake for a long time, and the suspicion—nay almost the conviction—that it was herself, indeed, who had aroused that “great love” in Orion’s heart gave her no rest. If it were she? There, under her hand was the instrument of revenge on the miscreant; she could make him taste of all the bitterness he had brewed for her aching spirit. But which of them would the punishment hurt most sorely: him or herself? Had not the little girl’s confidences revealed a world of rapture to her and her longing heart? No, no. It would be too humiliating to allow the same hand that had smitten her so ruthlessly to uplift her to heaven; it would be treason against herself.

Slumber overtook her in the midst of these conflicting feelings and thoughts, and towards morning she had a dream which, even by daylight, haunted her and made her shudder.

She saw Orion coming towards her, as pale as death, robed in mourning, pacing slowly on a coal-black horse; she had not the strength to fly, and without speaking to her or looking at her, he lifted her high in the air like a child, and placed her in front of him on the horse. She put forth all her strength to get free and dismount, but he clasped her with both arms like iron clamps and quelled her efforts. Life itself would not have seemed too great a price for escape from this constraint; but, the more wildly she fought, the more closely she was held by the silent and pitiless horseman. At their feet flowed the swirling river, but Orion did not seem to notice it, and without moving his lips, he coolly guided the steed towards the water. Beside herself now with horror and dread, she implored him to turn away; but he did not heed her, and went on unmoved into the midst of the stream. Her terror increased to an agonizing pitch as the horse bore her deeper and deeper into the water; of her own free will she threw her arms round the rider’s neck; his paleness vanished, his cheeks gained a ruddy hue, his lips sought hers in a kiss; and, in the midst of the very anguish of death, she felt a thrill of rapture that she had never known before. She could have gone on thus for ever, even to destruction; and, in fact, they were still sinking—she felt the water rising breast high, but she cared not. Not a word had either of them spoken. Suddenly she felt urged to break the silence, and as if she could not help it she asked: “Am I the other?” At this the waves surged down on them from all sides; a whirlpool dragged away the horse, spinning him round, and with him Orion and herself, a shrill blast swept past them, and then the current and the waves, the roaring of the whirlpool, the howling of the storm—all at once and together, as with one voice, louder than all else and filling her ears, shouted: “Thou!”—Only Orion remained speechless. An eddy caught the horse and sucked him under, a wave carried her away from him, she was sinking, sinking, and stretched out her arms with longing.—A cold dew stood on her brow as she slept, and the nurse, waking her from her uneasy dream, shook her head as she said:

“Why, child? What ails you? You have been calling Orion again and again, at first in terror and then so tenderly.—Yes, believe me, tenderly.”

CHAPTER XX

In the neat rooms which Rufinus’ wife had made ready for her sick guests perfect peace reigned, and it was noon. A soft twilight fell through the thick green curtains which mitigated the sunshine, and the nurses had lately cleared away after the morning meal. Paula was moistening the bandage on the Masdakite’s head, and Pulcheria was busy in the adjoining room with Mandane, who obeyed the physician’s instructions with intelligent submission and showed no signs of insanity.