SANTA; OR, A WOMAN’S TRAGEDY.
BY THE AUTHOR OF “AGNES TREMORNE,” &c.
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CHAPTER V.
“For ten years I lived with the Chanoinesse Landsberg. My life was as monotonous as could well be conceived. The Chanoinesse was infirm in health, and was obliged for weeks to be alone. Hers was a melancholy page in the history of woman. Here, however, is not the place to relate it.
“Both pride and inclination prevented me from making any steps to return to my husband. I was immoveable in my resolution. I would not return to Vienna without him, and I told him I considered our separation a final one. After a while he ceased to urge my return. My face was forgotten at court, and he remained in Rome. I gave myself up entirely to study; I read, I wrote, I improved myself in every way. I did not repine at my lot—but I felt there was a want—I passionately thirsted for happiness. I used to wake at night and find the tears rolling down my cheeks; some sweet, seductive dream had beguiled me in sleep. I had not found out that, after all, my sorrow, my joy, my life itself, was a selfish one.
“Matured in mind and body, I was still as inexperienced as a child. I could have discussed the deepest questions on the most recondite subjects, yet a peasant of twenty, who had loved and held a child on her knee, was more versed in the mysteries of the soul, and had more really developed her being than I, whom Rupert Rabenfels called a Muse.
“As I approach the most painful event of my life, a dread comes over me. I fear to disturb the memories of the past, lest I should come upon the calcined heart among the ashes. My greatest error and my greatest sorrow are here.
“Rupert Rabenfels was a great nephew of the Chanoinesse Landsberg, and a nephew of my husband’s. The son of a brother who had died young. In the event of Count Rabenfels leaving no heirs, Rupert was his heir. An entire difference of education, tastes and opinions had divided uncle and nephew. I had never seen him at Vienna; but, during the first years of my residence at Schlos-stein, he came occasionally to visit us. He had married very young, and had lost his wife.