In Paradise (Musaicum Must Classics). Paul Heyse

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СКАЧАТЬ was then in the first rough stage of development, had assumed a firm, carefully-executed form, and the face, sweetly bowed forward, with which she gazed at the man just awakening from sleep, resembled, feature for feature, the beautiful girl who now, sinking down into her chair in an indescribable state of confusion, shame, and anger, looked up at her own image.

      And then it would have been most edifying for a third person to have overheard how the painter, as soon as she had overcome the first shock, now strove to enter into the spirit of her friend and storm over the robbery of her beauty; now strove to make it clear to her that there was nothing wrong or improper in the whole matter. Then, when she had run on for a while in the most enraptured terms about this magnificent work, the majesty and the charm of these forms, she suddenly became woman enough again to find the undeniable resemblance of the features of this beautiful Eve, in her paradisaical innocence, a very serious thing after all. To be sure, she strove to defend the artist; no one could help his inspirations, and the more than life-size scale removed the work from all realistic consideration. But her burning cheeks told her better than anything else that she was not made to be a good devil's-advocate; and when she had played her trump card, always keeping her back turned to the silent girl, and had declared that no one ought to think herself too good to be so immortalized--that this was entirely different from the case of the sister of Napoleon, whom Canova had portrayed in marble, or that of the so-called "Venus" of Titian, whose lover was playing the lute by her side--she suddenly turned to Julie, threw her arms round her neck and besought her with humble appeals and caresses not to be angry with her, that she was as innocent of this evil deed as Rosebud's white mice; and that if she had a suspicion that this wicked Jansen would have dared to do such a thing, she would certainly never have invited him to her studio at the last sitting. And, as a proof of this, she would at once hunt him up and firmly insist--though what a pity it would be for the wonderful work's sake--that every trace of resemblance, even the most remote, in this airily-clad Eve to her deeply offended descendant should be removed.

      "Do so--I shall rely upon it!" said Julie, suddenly, with great earnestness, as she rose in all her dignity and womanly majesty. "That I must never be thrown in contact with him again, that I can never enter this house again, you will easily understand!" And as she said this, turning toward the door, she cast a last angry look at her counterfeit.

      She understood it perfectly, replied the painter, meekly. She would not have it otherwise; Jansen had acted altogether too inconsiderately, and toward her, too, who as an old fellow-inmate of the same house was, to a certain extent, responsible for the good behavior of the rest. But of one thing Julie might be sure: Jansen had not been guilty of any bad intention, or of one of those pieces of presumption that artists often indulge in, but merely of thoughtlessness and indiscretion, and he would undoubtedly take it very much to heart; and if she should really remain firm in the intention of never seeing him again, a punishment which, it is true, he had richly deserved--

      While these speeches were being poured out, to all of which Julie listened with an expression of face that it was not easy to understand, the two friends--for Julie helped, too, with trembling hands--had carefully wrapped up the group again, and had added to the pins from their own stock. When they went out into the yard after having done this, they earnestly cautioned the janitor not to open the studio again for any one, until Herr Jansen himself had gone in again. Then they left the house, not, as on the day before, walking familiarly arm-in-arm, but silent and dejected, and taking leave of one another at the very first street-corner.

      Angelica determined to make an attempt to see if she could not meet the offender in the Pinakothek, in spite of the festival of the preceding day. Julie, who had lowered her veil as if, after this experience, she no longer dared to look any one in the face, hastened by the shortest way toward home, where she could, in complete solitude, collect herself and compose her excited mind.

CHAPTER VI.

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      Buy scarcely was she alone when the excitement within her, although not at once stilled, lost, singularly enough, all that it had had of pain and bitterness, and such an unmistakable feeling of pleasure and happiness filled her soul that she herself, as she was forced to admit, felt frightened at it.

      Do what she would, she could no longer feel as angry at the secret insult that had been offered to her maiden dignity as she ought properly to have felt. It seemed indeed as if, the moment the witness of the misdeed was removed from her sight, all the bad aspect had disappeared from the matter, which, after all, had only become wrong and unpardonable when strange eyes had spied into the well-guarded secret of a pure artist-soul. Now, when she thought about the work, how it stood there in the deserted studio, carefully wrapped, with only the sparrows flying about it, and guarded from every betraying ray of light, what was there so sinful in the fact that the head of this beautiful kneeling woman bore her own features?

      This figure constantly floated before her, no matter how hard she might try to turn her attention upon other things. And although in the work of the artist nothing was finished but the head, her fancy saw the finished statue, and, for the first time in her life, she looked upon her own beauty, in her thoughts, with other eyes than her own, which could find nothing new or especial in it. The cruel lot that had held her apart from life in her girlish years, and the early experiences that had given her a contemptuous, if not a hostile opinion of men, had kept her mind isolated from all those feelings that usually agitate a girl's soul in its spring-time. It had never occurred to her to look at herself, as it were, through the eyes of a man, for she had never known one for whose sake she would have thought it worth while to give herself so much trouble. When she observed her face in the mirror, and could not help finding it beautiful, it afforded her just as little pleasure as if--like a female Robinson Crusoe on some island in the ocean--she had seen her reflection in clear water, and had known by it that she was queen of the wilderness. In the next room sat the poor madwoman, in her arm-chair, and nodded at the beautiful daughter, whom she was robbing of life, with an idiotic smile. Of what avail was her beauty against this inexorable fate?

      Sometimes indeed, in the spring nights, between dreaming and waking, or when she read some beautiful moving story, it seemed to her as if the frost that had settled about her heart were bursting, as if a secret longing for something sweet and precious swelled her bosom, a trembling desire for some unknown, unattainable happiness. But this feeling never took the shape of a being who should strive to gain her love, and whom she might love in return. At such times she dreamed of nothing better than to have the liberty of belonging to herself, of being freed from that horrible duty which, to be sure, had grown less hard through custom, and which no longer awakened even a shudder, but which held her a prisoner daily and hourly. If these chains only fell from her--would she then be so unwise as to voluntarily submit herself to a new form of restraint?

      But by this time she had enjoyed her freedom long enough to have been sometimes forced to admit, with a quiet sigh, that the longed-for happiness was not so overpowering that it relieved the soul of all other desires. What she really did want she did not know. She fancied that, if she only had a talent of some sort, it would fill this yearning emptiness within her. Since she believed it to be too late for her to take up music or drawing, she hit upon the idea of writing down her thoughts and moods in free rhythmic forms of her own invention. These were by no means the usual imitations of well-known lyric poets, in the conventional and occasionally much-abused metres and stanzas. What she wrote in her secret diary bore about the same relation to this conventional poetry that the play of the wind upon an Æolian harp does to a sonnet. But for all that it was an unspeakable comfort to her, when she felt that she was striking melodious chords within her lonely soul, to listen to the rise and fall of this melody of thoughts, and to transcribe it as well as she was able. The secrecy with which she pursued this art lent it an additional charm; and many a lonely evening hour was thus whiled away, as quickly and happily as if it had been spent in the company of an intimate friend, to whom she could have poured out her innermost heart.

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