第44章

While the rest of the world retained a dim sentiment of awe toward Mr.Wyndham, Margaret Liebenheim only heard of such a feeling to wonder that it could exist toward HIM.Never was there so victorious a conquest interchanged between two youthful hearts--never before such a rapture of instantaneous sympathy.I did not witness the first meeting of this mysterious Maximilian and this magnificent Margaret, and do not know whether Margaret manifested that trepidation and embarrassment which distressed so many of her youthful co-rivals; but, if she did, it must have fled before the first glance of the young man's eye, which would interpret, past all misunderstanding, the homage of his soul and the surrender of his heart.Their third meeting I DID see; and there all shadow of embarrassment had vanished, except, indeed, of that delicate embarrassment which clings to impassioned admiration.On the part of Margaret, it seemed as if a new world had dawned upon her that she had not so much as suspected among the capacities of human experience.Like some bird she seemed, with powers unexercised for soaring and flying, not understood even as yet, and that never until now had found an element of air capable of sustaining her wings, or tempting her to put forth her buoyant instincts.He, on the other hand, now first found the realization of his dreams, and for a mere possibility which he had long too deeply contemplated, fearing, however, that in his own case it might prove a chimera, or that he might never meet a woman answering the demands of his heart, he now found a corresponding reality that left nothing to seek.

Here, then, and thus far, nothing but happiness had resulted from the new arrangement.But, if this had been little anticipated by many, far less had I, for my part, anticipated the unhappy revolution which was wrought in the whole nature of Ferdinand von Harrelstein.He was the son of a German baron; a man of good family, but of small estate who had been pretty nearly a soldier of fortune in the Prussian service, and had, late in life, won sufficient favor with the king and other military superiors, to have an early prospect of obtaining a commission, under flattering auspices, for this only son--a son endeared to him as the companion of unprosperous years, and as a dutifully affectionate child.

Ferdinand had yet another hold upon his father's affections: his features preserved to the baron's unclouded remembrance a most faithful and living memorial of that angelic wife who had died in giving birth to this third child--the only one who had long survived her.Anxious that his son should go through a regular course of mathematical instruction, now becoming annually more important in all the artillery services throughout Europe, and that he should receive a tincture of other liberal studies which he had painfully missed in his own military career, the baron chose to keep his son for the last seven years at our college, until he was now entering upon his twenty-third year.For the four last he had lived with me as the sole pupil whom I had, or meant to have, had not the brilliant proposals of the young Russian guardsman persuaded me to break my resolution.Ferdinand von Harrelstein had good talents, not dazzling but respectable; and so amiable were his temper and manners that I had introduced him everywhere, and everywhere he was a favorite; and everywhere, indeed, except exactly there where only in this world he cared for favor.

Margaret Liebenheim, she it was whom he loved, and had loved for years, with the whole ardor of his ardent soul; she it was for whom, or at whose command, he would willingly have died.Early he had felt that in her hands lay his destiny; that she it was who must be his good or his evil genius.

At first, and perhaps to the last, I pitied him exceedingly.But my pity soon ceased to be mingled with respect.Before the arrival of Mr.Wyndham he had shown himself generous, indeed magnanimous.

But never was there so painful an overthrow of a noble nature as manifested itself in him.I believe that he had not himself suspected the strength of his passion; and the sole resource for him, as I said often, was to quit the city--to engage in active pursuits of enterprise, of ambition, or of science.But he heard me as a somnambulist might have heard me--dreaming with his eyes open.Sometimes he had fits of reverie, starting, fearful, agitated; sometimes he broke out into maniacal movements of wrath, invoking some absent person, praying, beseeching, menacing some air-wove phantom; sometimes he slunk into solitary corners, muttering to himself, and with gestures sorrowfully significant, or with tones and fragments of expostulation that moved the most callous to compassion.Still he turned a deaf ear to the only practical counsel that had a chance for reaching his ears.Like a bird under the fascination of a rattlesnake, he would not summon up the energies of his nature to make an effort at flying away.

"Begone, while it is time!" said others, as well as myself; for more than I saw enough to fear some fearful catastrophe."Lead us not into temptation!" said his confessor to him in my hearing (for, though Prussians, the Von Harrelsteins were Roman Catholics), "lead us not into temptation!--that is our daily prayer to God.Then, my son, being led into temptation, do not you persist in courting, nay, almost tempting temptation.Try the effects of absence, though but for a month." The good father even made an overture toward imposing a penance upon him, that would have involved an absence of some duration.But he was obliged to desist; for he saw that, without effecting any good, he would merely add spiritual disobedience to the other offenses of the young man.Ferdinand himself drew his attention to THIS; for he said: "Reverend father!