University of Virginia Library

15. XV.

Anastasia could bear this no longer, particularly
when, turning to the side of the couch where
Albert lay, his body was cold, corpse-like, and immoveable.
Conviction forced itself upon her—
the secret was discovered, and the burden was insupportable.
She shrieked aloud in her agony;
she clasped the lifeless body in her arms, while her
eyes, addressing the star-fronted shadows that stood
at the foot of the bed, seemed to appeal to them
once more for the restoration of the inanimate form

beside her. With the first accents of that wild
and fearful shriek, indicating, as it did, the sudden
and startling intelligence which her mind had received,
a visible effect was produced upon the
strange aspects before her. While she looked,
she beheld one of the stars rise slowly, and sail
away without obstruction through the spacious
windows, while the other wavered and flickered
about as if in the gusts of an uprising storm. A
storm, indeed, seemed to rage through the apartment.
The shadowy figure appeared to expand
into a rolling and tossing cloud, in the midst of
which, as if it were the centre of its action, the
bright star now grew more bright, and of a deeper
red, and shot forth the most angry fires on every
side. Nothing could exceed the terrors of Anastasia.
The star seemed now to approach her, and
gust after gust, like the rushing of so many heavy
wings, passed and repassed over the couch where
she lay, lifting and rending its silken drapery.
She cried aloud once more in her apprehension.

“Forgive, forgive me, dearest Albert — forgive
me that I have offended. Come to me — be as
thou wert — I will obey thee — I will never offend
thee more.”

“Too late — too late,” cried a voice of sorrow
rather than of anger from the bosom of the cloud,

which now hung, like a dense wreath of vapour,
just above the couch where she lay.

“It is too late, dearest Anastasia — I can return
to thee no more.”

“Wherefore — wherefore?” was the interrogation
of the terrified woman.

“It is the doom!” was the hollow answer from
the cloud; and the star that still shone from the
vague form before her seemed to shed drops of
blood, that fell even upon the garments of her
couch, as the mournful voice thus responded to
her inquiry.

“Alas! alas! wherefore is this doom!” she
cried once more to the shadow and the star.

“Thou hast already asked too much. I warned
thee, my Anastasia. Was it not enough to know
that thou wert happy? Why wast thou not satisfied
with thy condition? Thou hast destroyed the
hope and the happiness of both by thy impatient
thirst after the why and the wherefore.”

“Alas! and for this are we to be disunited, my
Albert — for so slight a cause as this are we to
lose the blessing we have lived for?”

He replied to her in an allegory.

“Does the flower please thee? — wherefore destroy
it to know whence come the scent and the
beauty? The odor flies when thou dost so — and

the beauty fades. This is life — this, always, the
happiness of the mortal. But thou art mortal no
longer, my Anastasia — thou art now destined to
share, even as thou desiredst it, the terrible doom
which is mine!”

“What meanest thou, Albert?” she inquired,
tremblingly, as these fearful words reached her
ears.

“Albert no longer,” cried the star. “Thy
lover was a god!”

She sank from the couch where she had lain as
she heard these words, and she now lay extended
along the floor.

“Rise, Anastasia, still beloved, though mine no
longer — rise,” said the star, “and I will tell thee
what is given to thee to know.”

She rose — she stood tremblingly in the presence
of that fiery eye that looked down upon her, while
the cloud in which it was imbedded hung over her
like a protecting and mighty shield. How glorious,
how fearful, were the words which followed.