In Paradise. Paul Heyse
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have such a triumphant mien, and such faultless white cravats, and who, with the most condescending superiority, allow themselves to be enticed into the share by all these timid, blushing, demure, sweet creatures, who are all the while secretly laughing in their sleeves."
Julie paused for a while with downcast eyes. "It is strange," said she, with a sigh, "how we happened to come upon these old stories! You must know, my dear, they are really very old--older than you think. I shall soon be thirty-one years old! When I first began to make these observations I was eighteen--now you can subtract for yourself. If I had married then, I might now have had a daughter twelve years old. Instead of that I am a well-preserved old maid, and my only admirer is a silly painter, who has fallen in love with me merely out of a whim for color."
"No," said Angelica, who, in the mean time, had zealously gone on with her painting, "I won't be put aside in that way. I always did consider the men pretty stupid, because, as you very rightly said, they allow themselves to be caught by such clumsy tricks and artifices. But that they should not have recognized your worth, that they should not have cut each others' throats about you--as they did before Troy for that Grecian witch--that is really incomprehensible to me! They cannot all be so conceited and foolish; and, after all, there must be a few--I, myself, have known one or two--. But please lower your chin just a trifle."
"Yes, it is true," continued Julie, "there are a few. I have even come across one for whose sake I myself might finally have been induced to take part in the comedy, had not all talent for that kind of thing been denied me. What his name was, how he came to know me, cannot matter to you. He long ago married another, and has probably forgotten all of me but my name--if not that. I--one of us never forgets such an experience, even when it lies dead and buried in some corner of our hearts; for that I had a heart, as well as other people, I discovered at that time only too plainly--I pleased him exceedingly--he took care to let me see this on every occasion--and then he really was better by far, and much less infected by conceit and selfishness than most of the others; and my straight-forward way of showing myself just as I was, without affecting any coquettish sensibility, seemed to be attractive to him because of its very rarity. As he was rich, and my parents were well off, there was, on the other hand, no outward hinderance in our way. And so, although no binding words had been exchanged, we were tacitly looked upon as a match--I think the men relinquished me to him much more honestly than my female friends gave up this much-sought man to me. To be sure I myself was, even in this case, at least outwardly much cooler and more reserved than happy lovers generally. I was, at heart, deeply attached to the man of my choice; but there was always mixed with it a silent fear, a sort of lack of sympathy--perhaps a prophetic impulse of my heart that warned me not to give myself up absolutely and entirely to this love. And, one day, during a conversation about an accident in a Brazilian mine, where fifty men had suddenly been killed by an explosion of fire-damp, the storm burst upon me, and I had to suffer with those distant victims. All were deeply lamenting over the occurrence, as is the fashion. I remained silent; and when my betrothed asked me whether the terrible accident had absolutely petrified me, I said I could not help it, but it affected me very little more than if I had read in some history that in some battle, a thousand years ago, ten thousand men had perished. The misery of this world was so near us daily and hourly, and we were, for the most part, so culpably indifferent to it, that I could not understand why I should all of a sudden be expected to feel so much sympathy for a misfortune which only attracted attention because it was in the latest newspaper; and which was, moreover, a very common one and not even accompanied by especially horrible circumstances. I had scarcely said this when they all fell upon me--at first, of course, in a joking way, and my old nickname--'the heartless girl'--was raked up again; but, as I kept quiet and rather sharply repelled the accusations of these delicate souls, their tempers became more and more aroused, and the most zealous sermons on philanthropy were launched at me by the very ones who would not have given a drink of water to a sick dog, and who would only succor a poor man if it didn't make them too much trouble. My friend, too, had grown silent, after having at first attempted to take my part. But, like a thorough man--for such he always remained--he could not conceal from himself the frightful truth that I was by no means sufficiently soft and womanly in my feelings. My combative spirit began to trouble him more and more--I could see this clearly--but now all my pride was enlisted against any smoothing over or suppression of my true nature. Although I was very near bursting into tears, I kept up my bravery, fought out my case, and had the miserable satisfaction of appearing to bear off the victory. A dearly-purchased victory! From this evening my lover perceptibly began to draw back, my 'best friend' took it upon herself to enlighten him more and more concerning my character; and since she herself possessed those very traits which were lacking in me, and which alone, it is said, can guarantee the happiness of marriage, nothing could be more natural than that before three weeks were up he should become engaged to this sympathetic being, who for thirteen years now has--. But I will say nothing bad of her. She has certainly done me a great service, for, perhaps, I might not have made this man much happier. And, at the time, she spared me a hard spiritual struggle. Had I been actually engaged, I might, perhaps, have hesitated to fulfill the duties that my poor mother had a right to demand of me. For you must know that my father died very suddenly, and then it appeared that the mother of the heartless girl--who also passed for a cold character--concealed a much more passionate love under an austere exterior than most old women are accustomed to retain beyond their silver-wedding. The death of her old husband first threw my mother into a serious illness, and then into a half-wandering state, in which she lived on for many years, to her torture and to mine!"
She paused; then she suddenly stood up and stepped to the artist's side behind the easel.
"Pardon me, dear," she said, "but I think you ought to stop. Every additional stroke of the brush that tones down or paints away anything will make it look less like me. Look at me more carefully--am I really that blooming creature that beams upon the world from out that canvas? Twelve years of denial, loneliness, and living entombment, have they left no trace upon my face? That is the way I might have looked, perhaps, had I known happiness. They say, you know, happiness preserves youth. But I--I am horribly old! And yet, in reality, I have not begun to live!"
She turned hastily away and walked to the window.
Angelica laid aside her palette, went softly up to her, and threw her arm about her agitated friend.
"Julie," said she, "when you speak that way--you, who by a mere smile could tame wild animals and drive tame men mad!"
She turned to her comforter, and the tears stood in her eyes.
"Oh, my dear," she said, "what nonsense you are talking! How often I have envied a young peasant girl, with an ugly, stupid face, who brought us eggs and milk, simply because she could come and go as she liked, and moved among living beings! But I--can you conceive what it means to have constantly at your side a being whom you cannot but love, and yet whom you are forced to look upon as one dead, as a living ghost; to hear the voice that once caressed you utter senseless sounds, to see the eye that once beamed on you so warmly, strange and dimmed--the eye, the voice, of your own mother? And this, year in and year out--and this half-dead being only waked into anxiety and agitation whenever I made an attempt to leave her. For, truly, when I had borne it a year, I thought I was being crushed by it, without feeling the satisfaction that the sacrifice of my life could be of any possible service to this most miserable being. Yet as often as she missed me for a longer time than the few hours daily to which she had become accustomed, she lapsed into the most violent uneasiness, and only became quiet again when she saw me once more. I had to reconcile myself to the idea that I was necessary to her existence--to an existence that I could by no possibility make happy, or enliven, or even lighten. For so long as I was at her side she scarcely noticed me; indeed, she often appeared not even to recognize me. And still she could not exist without me; and in the asylum, to which she was once carried for the sake of an experiment, she lapsed into a state so pitiable that even 'a girl without a heart' could not but be moved by it."
"Horrible! And you lived with her in this way for twelve long years?"
"For twelve long years! Does it still seem to you so incomprehensible, so 'stupid' of the men that they did not positively force themselves upon a girl who would have brought, with a little bit of beauty and property, this face into their