The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 11. Francke Kuno
are crazy!"
It was not a tone of irritation in which she said this; there was something like acquiescence in it, which did not escape the ear of the Italian.
"And now you know it," he added.
She made no reply, and kept on with her work, but only mechanically. "She called you to tell you something," said Antonio to himself.
"Where were you last evening, Antonio?" she asked after a pause.
"In my club, Signora."
"When did you come home?"
"Late."
"But when?"
"At one o'clock, ma perchè?"
She had turned around to her little table on which lay her tools, which she was fingering.
"I only asked the question. We did not go to bed till late at night. We had a visitor – a cousin of mine – there was much talking and smoking – I got a fearful headache, and spent an hour in the garden. Will you pose again? Or shall we give it up? It is hard for you; I think you look tired."
"No, no!" he muttered.
He took the pose again, but less gracefully than before. Strange thoughts whirled through his brain, and made his heart throb. – "When did you come home?" – "I was in the garden for an hour." – Was it possible – but no, no, it was impossible, it was chance! But if he had met her alone in the garden, alone, late at night – what would he have said, what would he have done?
His eyes swam – he pressed his hands, which he should have held to his brow, to his eyes.
"What is the matter?" exclaimed Ferdinande.
His hand dropped; his eyes, which were fixed upon her, were aflame.
"What is the matter with me?" he muttered. "What is the matter with me? —Ho – non lo so neppur io: una febbre che mi divora, ho, che il sangue mi abbrucia, che il cervello mi si spezza; ho in fine, che non ne posso più, che sono stanco di questa vita!"
Ferdinande had tried to resist the outbreak, but without success. She shook from head to foot; from his flaming eyes a spark had shot into her own heart, and her voice trembled as she now replied with as much composure as she could command, "You know I do not understand you when you speak so wildly and fast."
"You did understand me," muttered the youth.
"I understood nothing but what I could see without all that – that 'a fever consumes you, that your blood chokes you, that your brain is about to burst, that you are tired of this life' – in German; that 'you sat too late at your club last night, and raved too much about fair Italy, and drank too much fiery Italian wine.'"
The blue veins appeared on his fine white brow; a hoarse sound like the cry of a wild beast came from his throat. He reached toward his breast, where he usually carried his stiletto – the side pocket was empty – his eyes glanced about as if he were looking for a weapon.
"Do you mean to murder me?"
His right hand, which was still clutching his breast, relaxed and sank; his left also dropped, his fingers were interlocked, a stream of tears burst from his eyes, extinguishing their glow; he fell on his knees and sobbed: "Pardonatemi! Ferdinanda, l'ho amata dal primo giorno che l'ho veduta, ed adesso – ah! adesso —"
"I know it, poor Antonio," said Ferdinande, "and that is why I pardon you – once more – for the last time! If this scene is repeated I shall tell my father, and you will have to go. And now, Signor Antonio, stand up!"
She extended her hand, which he, still kneeling, pressed to his lips and his forehead.
"Antonio! Antonio!" echoed the voice of Justus outside; immediately there was a rap upon the door which led to the court. Antonio sprang to his feet.
"Is Antonio here, Miss Ferdinande?"
Ferdinande went herself to open the door.
"Are you still at work?" inquired Justus, coming in. – "But I thought we were going with your cousin to the Exhibition?"
"I am waiting for him; he has not yet appeared; just go on ahead with Antonio; we shall meet in the sculpture gallery."
"As you say! – What you have done today on the eyes is not worth anything – an entirely false expression! You have been working without your model again; when will you come to see that we are helpless without a model! —Andiamo, Antonio! If you are not ashamed to cross the street with me!"
He had taken a position by the side of the Italian as if he wished to give Ferdinande the pleasure he found in contrasting his short stout figure, in the worn velvet coat and light trousers of doubtful newness, with the elegant, slender, handsome youth, his assistant. But Ferdinande had already turned away, and only said once more, "in the sculpture gallery, then!"
"Dunque – andiamo!" cried Justus; "a rivederci!"
[Ferdinande says Antonio is the only one, after all, who understands her. She then reads a letter which she has received from Ottomar over the garden wall. Ottomar speaks only of meeting her, but says nothing of seeing her father, or of more serious purposes. Reinhold knocks on her studio door, enters, and sees how the artists live in a world of their own. Ferdinande says her father does not care what she does so long as she can have her own way. Reinhold inspects her work and the studio.]
"But now I am afraid you will spoil me so thoroughly that I shall find it difficult to get back into my simple life," said Reinhold, as he sped on at the side of Ferdinande in his uncle's equipage through the Thiergartenstrasse to the Brandenburgerthor.
"Why do we have horses and a carriage if we are not to use them?" inquired Ferdinande.
She had leaned back against the cushions, just touching the front seat with the point of one of her shoes. Reinhold's glance glided almost shyly along the beautiful figure, whose splendid lines were brought out advantageously by an elegant autumn costume. He thought he had just discovered for the first time how beautiful his cousin was, and he considered it very natural that she should attract the attention of the motley throng with which the promenade teemed, and that many a cavalier who dashed by them turned in his saddle to look back at her. Ferdinande seemed not to take any notice of it; her large eyes looked down, or straight ahead, or glanced up with a dreamy, languid expression to the tops of the trees, which, likewise dreamy and languid, appeared to drink in the mild warmth of the autumn sun without stirring. Perhaps it was this association of ideas that caused Reinhold to ask himself how old the beautiful girl was; and he was a little astonished when he calculated that she could not be far from twenty-four. In his recollection she had always appeared as a tall, somewhat lank young thing, that was just about to unfold into a flower – but, to be sure, ten years had gone since that. Cousin Philip – at that time likewise a tall, thin young fellow – must already be in the beginning of his thirties.
A two-wheeled cabriolet came up behind them and passed them. On the high front seat sat a tall, stately, broad-shouldered gentleman, clad with most precise and somewhat studied elegance, as it appeared to Reinhold, who, with hands encased in light kid gloves, drove a fine high-stepping black steed, while the small groom with folded arms sat in the low rear seat. The gentleman had just been obliged to turn out for a carriage coming from the opposite direction, and his attention had been directed to the other side; now – at the distance of some carriage lengths – he turned upon his seat and waved a cordial greeting with his hand and whip, while Ferdinande, in her careless way, answered with a nod of her head.
"Who was that gentleman?" asked Reinhold.
"My brother Philip."
"How strange!"
"Why so?"
"I was just thinking of him."
"That happens so often – and particularly in a large city, and at an hour when everybody is on the go. I shall not be surprised if we meet him again at the Exhibition. Philip is a great lover of pictures, and is not bad himself at drawing and painting. There, he is stopping – I thought he would – Philip understands the proprieties."
At the