Макс Нордау - How Women Love

The full magic of the moment held them both in its thrall. Bergmann passionately clasped Ada’s head between his hands, and pressed a long, ardent kiss on her golden hair and her white brow. Drawing a long breath, she submitted, not shrinking back until his burning lips sought hers. Their hearts beat audibly as they continued their walk, and long pauses interrupted their faltering speech.

What did they say to each other? Why repeat it? One who has never had such conversations will not understand them, and one who has experienced them, only needs to be reminded of them. They are always the same. Memories of childhood, rapture and extravagance, words of enthusiastic love, words which create the slight tremor of the skin like a cool breeze or the caress of toying fingers. So they walked a long, long time in the dark park, without heeding the flight of time, far from the world and unutterably happy.

"I am tired, Karl," Ada said at last, and leaned her head on his shoulder.

They were near a low, grassy bank, a few paces from the central avenue, and almost under the balcony of the castle, but completely concealed by the dense shadow of the over-arching trees. Karl spread his shawl over the bank and the ground, placed Ada on it, and reclined at her feet, resting his head in her lap. The balcony and the windows and lights of the drawing-room could all be seen from this spot. The window still stood open, the notes of a piano were heard, and a voice began the song:

A pretty, but somewhat cold, female voice, with no special tenderness and feeling. Yet the combined poesy of Heine and Schumann triumphed gloriously over the inadequacy of the execution. The wonderful, choral-like melody soared like the flight of a swan over the rapt pair, and completely dissolved their souls in melody and love:

sang the woman’s voice above, and the accompanying piano completed the air with an organ-like closing accord.

Karl softly repeated, in his beautiful baritone, thrilling with an approaching tempest of passion, his arms clasped Ada’s waist, and he gazed up at her with wild, flaming eyes. She bent down to him and her lips met his, which nearly scorched them. Leaning back, and gently pushing his head away, she whispered:

"Don’t repeat verses by Heine; say something which is yours, and is composed for me."

"That I will, Ada," he cried, and, kneeling before her, clasping her in a close embrace and devouring her face with rapturous eyes, his whole being wrought up to the highest pitch of emotion, he said in a rapid improvisation, bursting from the inmost depths of his soul:

Her eyes were half closed, and her bosom heaved.

After a short pause, he continued slowly in a tremulous voice:

"No, no," she murmured, almost inaudibly, sinking into his arms, which clasped her wildly and ardently, pressing her to his heart, while his lips showered kisses upon her and a sudden ecstasy began to cloud her senses.

Then, just at that moment, the clock in the Marktbreit church steeple struck two, the blast of the horn followed, and the mysterious voice rose in the invisible city and sang, this time close at hand and seemingly with significant emphasis:

As if stung by a serpent, Ada started up, wrenched herself by a sudden movement from Karl’s clasping arms, and hastened away as though pursued by all the fiends of hell. A moment later, her white figure had vanished in the castle and Karl found himself alone before the grassy bank; he might have believed it a dream if the mantilla had not still lain there exhaling Ada’s favourite perfume, a faint fragrance of carnations.

With heavy, dulled brain, aching limbs, and a strange sense of pain in his heart, Karl staggered back to the castle and to his room. For a long time sleep fled from him. A thousand scenes hovered in a confused throng before his fancy, blending into a witch-dance in whose mazes his own brain seemed to whirl also, until the giddiness became intolerable. He saw Ada in various transformations—now seated opposite to him at the table—then in the drawing-room—anon clasped in his arms—sometimes brightly illuminated as the queen of the ball-room—sometimes a faint, dark vision against the sombre background of the woodland—he inhaled her favourite perfume, felt the touch of her arms and her lips—he heard her voice and the melancholy music of the night watchman and the notes of the dancing tune from the ballroom, and amid these exciting delusions of the senses a restless, dream-haunted slumber at last overtook him.

It was almost noon when he awoke. At first his head felt confused and empty, but gradually he collected his thoughts, and now the experience of the previous night again stood clearly before his eyes. He suddenly recalled all his feelings during the walk through the woods, and, while dressing with the utmost haste, he exultingly repeated in a low tone again and again: "I love her! And she returns my love! And we will never part."

His first thought was to seek Ada. The mantilla, which he must return, afforded the pretext. After several inquiries he found her apartments, which were next to those occupied by the mistress of the house. Ada’s maid opened the door and looked at him in surprise when he gave her the package and asked if he could see Mrs. Burgess.

"She has a headache, and probably won’t be up to-day," was the curt answer, with which the door was closed in his face. This was a disappointment, and he felt very unhappy and forsaken. Yet he endeavoured to combat these feelings and mingled with the other guests. At noon he exchanged a hurried greeting with Frau Von Jagerfeld, who looked at him intently, but said nothing when he avoided her glance. In the afternoon he walked to Marktbreit and through the villages on the neighbouring hills, but the longing of his heart soon drove him back to the castle, where for hours he paced patiently up and down the pillared hall upon which most of the rooms occupied by the visitors opened. In the evening the guests again assembled at a banquet. Bergmann hoped that Ada would be present, and he was not disappointed. The summons to the meal had been given for the third time, nearly all the other members of the house-party were in the drawing-room when Ada’s door at last opened. Karl rushed forward and held out his hand to her. She started, paused an instant on the threshold, then hurried past him without turning her head, and swiftly vanished.

Karl stood as if he were turned to stone, gazing after her retreating figure; then forgetting the banquet and everything else, he hastened to his room and wrote Ada a letter, in which he repeated all the expressions of love lavished upon her during the preceding night, and begged for an explanation of her recent conduct. This missive he gave to Ada’s maid, with the urgent request to deliver it to her mistress that very evening before she retired. Then he went out to try to conquer his agitation by a walk in the park, and when he thought that he had regained his composure, he returned to the drawing-room to see and to talk with Ada. The meal was over, gaiety reigned throughout the various groups, and a storm of reproaches for his absence from the table assailed him on all sides. But he looked in vain for Ada. She had retired immediately after dinner.