The Marquise of O and Other Stories (32 page)

At a nod from the Emperor the herald then sounded the signal for the fight to begin, and the two knights advanced upon each other with sword and shield. Herr Friedrich wounded the Count with his very first blow; the point of his not particularly long sword slashed him on the wrist just where the joints of the armour overlapped. But the Count, leaping back in alarm as he felt the pain and examining the wound, found that although it bled quite copiously the skin was only superficially grazed; consequently, as a murmur of disapproval at this unseemly behaviour arose from the assembled knights on the terrace, he advanced again and resumed the fight with renewed energy as if he had not been hurt at all. Now the struggle raged between the two combatants like a conflict of two tempestuous winds, or as
when two high-piled storm clouds meet and hover about each other without mingling, while darts of lightning are hurled between them amid the crash of repeated thunder. Herr Friedrich, his shield and sword outheld, stood as firm as if he were taking root in the ground, for the flagstones had been removed and the soil deliberately loosened, and so he dug himself in up to his spurs, indeed to his ankles and calves, fending off from his breast and head the cunning thrusts of the small and nimble Count, who seemed to be attacking him from all sides at once. The fight, counting the intervals in which both adversaries had to pause and take breath, had already lasted nearly an hour when the spectators on the benches began murmuring again. This time their dissatisfaction seemed to be not with Count Jakob, who was showing himself eager enough to bring the struggle to an end, but with Herr Friedrich's policy of remaining planted like a post on one and the same spot and his strange, seemingly timid or at least obstinate refusal to attack in his turn. Although there may have been reasons for his tactics, Herr Friedrich was nevertheless too sensitive not to abandon them immediately in response to the wishes of those who at this moment were sitting in judgement over his honour; he stepped boldly forth from the spot initially chosen, on which he had built up a kind of natural fortification round his feet, and smashed down several fresh and doughty blows aimed at the head of his opponent, who already seemed to be weakening, though with skilful side-stepping he still managed to parry them with his shield. Yet not more than a few moments after the fight had thus changed its character, Herr Friedrich suffered a mishap, which scarcely seemed to indicate the presence of higher powers presiding over the issue: catching his foot in his spurs, he stumbled, fell forward, and as he knelt there in the dust supporting himself with one hand, his body weighed down by his helmet and armour, Count Jakob Rotbart seized a rather ignoble and unchivalrous advantage and thrust his
sword into his exposed side. With a momentary cry of pain, Herr Friedrich leapt to his feet. Indeed, closing his visor and swiftly turning to face his opponent, he prepared to resume the fight: but as he leant on his sword, bent double with pain and with darkness swimming before his eyes, the Count struck again with his two-handed sword, twice thrusting it home into his breast, just under the heart, whereupon Herr Friedrich crashed with a clatter of armour to the ground, dropping his sword and shield beside him. The Count, after tossing his weapons aside, and as the trumpets sounded a threefold flourish, set his foot on the fallen knight's breast. The Emperor himself and all the spectators rose from their seats with muted exclamations of dismay and compassion, while Frau Helena, following her two daughters, rushed to the side of her beloved son where he lay in the dust, weltering in blood. ‘Oh, my dear Friedrich!' she cried, kneeling down by his head in anguish, while the lady Littegarde, who had swooned and was lying senseless on the floor of the platform, was lifted by two constables and carried off to prison. ‘Oh vile brazen wretch that she is,' added Frau Helena, ‘to come here knowing herself guilty and to dare to arm her most faithful and chivalrous friend for an ordeal by duel, and seek God's judgement on her behalf in an unrighteous combat!' So saying she raised her dear son from the ground, while her daughters took off his armour, and with loud lamentations tried to stanch the blood that flowed from his noble heart. But on the Emperor's orders constables approached and took him into their charge, as having also incurred the penalties of the law; with the help of some doctors he was put on a stretcher and, with a large crowd following, likewise committed to prison: Frau Helena and her daughters, however, were given permission to stay with him there until his death, which no one doubted would occur before long.

Yet it presently became evident that Herr Friedrich's wounds, although dangerously affecting vital parts, were
by some strange providence not mortal; on the contrary not many days passed before the doctors who had been assigned to him were able to assure his family with certainty not only that his life would be saved but also that given his natural strength he would make a complete recovery within a few weeks without any permanent injury to his body. As soon as he regained consciousness, of which pain had deprived him for a long time, he repeatedly asked his mother what had become of Littegarde. He could not help weeping when he heard that she was in a dismal prison and a prey to the most terrible despair, and, caressing his sisters' faces, begged them to visit her and comfort her. Frau Helena, amazed at his words, urged him to forget so shameless and contemptible a woman; in her view the crime which Count Jakob had mentioned to the court, and which the outcome of the duel had now fully brought to light, was pardonable, but not the ruthless cynicism of appealing to the sacred judgement of God as if she were innocent, although knowing herself to be guilty, and without any consideration for the noble-hearted friend whom she thereby brought to ruin. ‘Oh, mother,' said the Chamberlain, ‘what mortal man, even if he were possessed of the wisdom of the ages, could presume to interpret the mysterious verdict that God has given in this duel?' ‘What!' cried Frau Helena, ‘is the meaning of this divine judgement not clear to you? Were you not defeated in the fight by the sword of your adversary, in a manner all too plain and unequivocal?' ‘Perhaps so!' replied Herr Friedrich. ‘For a moment he had the advantage of me; but did the Count really defeat me? Am I not alive? Have I not returned miraculously to flourishing health, as if God had breathed new life into me? Perhaps in no more than a few days I shall have strength enough again, indeed be doubly and triply strengthened, to continue the fight which a trifling accident obliged me to interrupt.' ‘Foolish man!' cried his mother, ‘do you not know that according to the law a duel which has been
declared by the judges to be concluded cannot be resumed in order to invoke the divine verdict a second time in one and the same case?' ‘That is of no consequence!' retorted the Chamberlain. ‘What do I care for these arbitrary human laws? Can a fight that has not been continued until the death of one of the two opponents be held to have been concluded, if one considers the matter at all rationally? If I were permitted to resume it, have I not cause for hope that I should make good the mishap that befell me, and win from God with my sword a verdict quite contrary to that which, on a limited and short-sighted view, He is at present assumed to have delivered?' ‘Nevertheless,' replied his mother with misgivings, ‘these laws which you claim to disregard are the established and prevailing laws; whether rational or not, they have the authority of divine commandments, and by them you and she, as a pair of abominable criminals, are consigned to the utmost rigour of penal jurisdiction!' ‘Alas!' cried Herr Friedrich, ‘wretch that I am, that is the very thing that plunges me into despair! She is judged to be guilty and her life is forfeit; and I, who sought to prove her virtue and innocence to the world, I myself have brought this misery upon her, because for one fatal moment I tripped in the fastenings of my spurs. Perhaps God intended, quite independently of her cause, to punish the sins of my own heart – and now her lovely limbs must be given to the flames and her memory be ignominious for ever!' At these words bitter tears of manly grief rose to his eyes; seizing his handkerchief he turned to the wall, and Frau Helena and her daughters knelt at his bed in silent emotion, mingling their tears with his and kissing his hand. Meanwhile the gaoler had entered the room with food for him and his family, and Herr Friedrich, on asking him how the lady Littegarde was faring, gathered from his curt and indifferent replies that she was lying on a bundle of straw and had not yet spoken a word since the day of her imprisonment. This news filled Herr Friedrich with the utmost
alarm; he commissioned the gaoler to tell the lady, for her reassurance, that by a strange dispensation of Providence he was making a complete recovery, and that he begged leave, as soon as his health should be restored and with the permission of the castle warden, to visit her in her prison. But according to the gaoler's report – and he said he had had to shake her several times by the arm, for she was lying on the straw like a madwoman neither hearing nor seeing anything – her reply was a refusal: for the rest of her days on earth she desired to see no one. It was even learnt that on the very same day she had written to the warden in her own hand bidding him admit no one to her presence, whoever it might be, and Chamberlain von Trota least of all. In consequence, Herr Friedrich, impelled by the most acute anxiety as to her state of mind, chose a day on which he felt an exceptional revival of his strength, and with the warden's permission went with his mother and sisters to the room in which she was confined, unannounced yet sure that she would forgive him.

But it was with indescribable horror that the wretched Littegarde, hearing the noise at the door and rising from the scattered straw on which she lay, with her breast half exposed and her hair all undone, saw instead of the expected gaoler her noble and excellent friend the Chamberlain, entering with the assistance of Bertha and Kunigunde; a sad and moving spectacle, for he bore many signs of the sufferings he had endured. ‘Leave me!' she cried, falling back on her couch with an expression of despair and covering her face with her hands: ‘leave me, if there is any pity in your heart!' ‘Dearest Littegarde, what does this mean?' answered Herr Friedrich. Supported by his mother he stood at her side and stooped down with inexpressible emotion to take her hand. ‘Let me alone!' she cried, crawling on her knees over the straw until she had retreated several paces from him. ‘Do not touch me or I shall go mad! You fill me with horror; the crackling of flames is less terrible to me than the
sight of you!' ‘I fill you with horror?' answered Herr Friedrich in amazement. ‘Sweet, generous Littegarde, I am Friedrich, your friend: how have I deserved such a reception from you?' As he spoke, his mother motioned to Kunigunde to place a chair for him and make him sit down on it, weak as he was. ‘Oh God!' cried Littegarde, throwing herself at his feet and burying her face in the ground in the most terrible anguish, ‘oh my beloved, leave this room and leave me to myself! I clasp your knees with all the ardour of my heart, I wash your feet with my tears, I writhe before you like a worm in the dust and beg you for one act of mercy: oh my lord and master, leave the room, leave it at once and leave me to my fate!' Herr Friedrich stood there before her in utter consternation. ‘Is it so painful for you to see me, Littegarde?' he asked, looking gravely down at her. ‘It is horrifying, it is unbearable, it breaks my heart!' answered Littegarde, leaning on her outstretched hands and desperately hiding her face between the very soles of his feet. ‘Hell with all its ghastly terrors is sweeter to me, and I can better bear to contemplate it than to see your face turned towards me in grace and love and shining on me like the spring!' ‘Oh God in heaven!' cried the Chamberlain, ‘why is your soul in such contrition? What am I to think? Unhappy woman, did the ordeal speak true, and are you guilty of that crime of which the Count accused you before the court, are you guilty of it?' ‘Guilty, convicted and cast out, judged and condemned in time and for eternity!' cried Littegarde, frenziedly beating her breast. ‘God speaks the truth and is infallible; go, I am at my wits' end, I have no strength left. Leave me alone with my grief and my despair!' At these words Herr Friedrich fainted; and as Littegarde, covering her head with a veil, lay back on her pallet as if to take final leave of the world, Bertha and Kunigunde rushed weeping to the side of their senseless brother to try to revive him. ‘Oh, may God's curse be upon you!' cried Frau Helena, as the Chamberlain opened his eyes again. ‘May you be cursed to everlasting
remorse on this side of the grave and beyond it to everlasting damnation, not for the sin which you now confess but for your merciless inhumanity in not confessing it until you had dragged my innocent son down with you into destruction! Fool that I am!' she continued, turning her back on Littegarde in contempt, ‘if only I had believed what I was told just before the duel began by the Prior of the Augustinian monastery here! He told me in confidence that the Count had made his confession to him, in pious preparation for the decisive hour that awaited him, and had sworn to him on the sacred Host that the statement he made to the court about this wretched woman was the truth! He told the Prior about the garden gate at which, as they had agreed, she waited for him at nightfall and let him in; he described to him the room, a remote one in the uninhabited castle tower, to which she led him, unnoticed by the guards; and the bed, piled high with comfortable and luxurious cushions under a canopy, in which she secretly lay with him in shameless debauchery! An oath taken at such a moment cannot be a lie; and had I, blind as I was, reported this to my son, even as the duel was just about to begin, it would have opened his eyes, and he would have shrunk back from the edge of the abyss by which he stood. But come!' Frau Helena exclaimed, gently embracing Friedrich and kissing his brow. ‘Indignation that deigns to speak to her does her too much honour; let her see our backs turned on her, and be crushed by the reproaches we refrain from uttering, and so may she despair!' ‘The infamous wretch!' retorted Littegarde, stung by these words and sitting upright. She bowed her head to her knees in misery, and, weeping hot tears into her handkerchief, she continued: ‘I remember that my brothers and I, three days before that night of St Remigius, were at his castle; he was giving a feast in my honour as he often did, and my father, who liked to see homage paid to my youthful charms, had persuaded me to accept his invitation, accompanied by my brothers. Late that evening, when the dance
was over and I went to my bedroom, I found on my table there a note, in unknown handwriting and unsigned, which contained a declaration of love in clear terms. As it happened, both my brothers were in my room to discuss arrangements for our departure, which we had agreed should be on the following day; and since I was not accustomed to having any kind of secrets from them I showed them the strange find I had just made and about which I was speechless with astonishment. They at once recognized the Count's handwriting and were wild with fury, indeed my elder brother wanted to take the paper and go at once to the Count's room; but my younger brother persuaded him that this would be unwise, since the Count had prudently not signed the note; and so, deeply outraged by his insulting behaviour, they both left with me in the carriage that very same night and returned home, vowing never again to honour his castle with their presence. And this,' she added, ‘is the one and only association I have ever had with that vicious and contemptible man!' ‘What?' said the Chamberlain, turning his tear-stained face towards her. ‘These words were music to my ears! – speak them again!' he went on after a pause, kneeling down in front of her and folding his hands. ‘Did you then not betray me for that scoundrel, and are you pure of the sin with which he charged you before the court?' ‘Beloved!' whispered Littegarde, pressing his hand to her lips. ‘Are you?' cried the Chamberlain, ‘are you?' ‘As pure as the heart of a newborn child, as the conscience of an absolved penitent, as the body of a nun who has died in the sacristy while taking the veil!' ‘Oh almighty God!' cried Herr Friedrich, clasping her knees, ‘thank you for saying that! Your words restore me to life, death holds no further terrors for me, and eternity, which only just now I saw extending before me like an ocean of limitless misery, rises again in my sight like a realm filled with a thousand radiant suns!' ‘Unhappy man,' said Littegarde, drawing back from him,
‘how can you have any faith in my words?' ‘Why not?' asked Herr Friedrich ardently. ‘You are mad, you are deluded!' exclaimed Littegarde. ‘Did God not give his judgement against me in the sacred ordeal? Were you not defeated by the Count in that fateful duel, and did he not prove by combat the truth of what he alleged against me to the court?' ‘Oh my dearest Littegarde,' cried the Chamberlain, ‘preserve your senses from despair! Build up, firm as a rock, the feeling that lives in your heart – hold fast to it and do not waver, even if earth and heaven should perish under your feet and over your head! Between two thoughts that confuse our senses, let us choose the more intelligible, the more comprehensible one, and before you believe yourself guilty, rather believe that I won the duel I fought for you! – Oh God, lord of my life,' he added, burying his face in his hands, ‘save my soul too from confusion! As surely as I hope to be saved, I believe that the sword of my adversary did not defeat me, for though he cast me down in the dust and trod me under foot, I have risen to life again. When in faith we invoke the supreme wisdom of God, what obligation lies upon Him to reveal and pronounce the truth at that very same instant? Oh Littegarde,' he concluded, pressing her hand between his, ‘in life let us look ahead to death, and in death to eternity, and hold fast and unshakeably to the conviction that your innocence will be brought to light; by means of the duel I fought for you it will be brought to the bright radiant light of the sun!' As he said this the castle warden entered, and reminded Frau Helena, who sat weeping at a table, that so much emotion could be harmful to her son; Herr Friedrich therefore let himself be persuaded by his family to return to his prison, but he carried with him the sense of having given and received some comfort.