Part 52

She felt ashamed to ask about him, but shortly after a gentleman who knew her said:

"It is evident that you have a surprising degree of intellectual kinship with Ferdinand Lassalle."

This so excited her curiosity that she asked her grandmother:

"Who is this person of whom they talk so much--this Ferdinand Lassalle?"

"Do not speak of him," replied her grandmother. "He is a shameless demagogue!"

A little questioning brought to Helene all sorts of stories about Lassalle--the Countess von Hatzfeldt, the stolen casket, the mysterious pamphlet, the long battle in the courts--all of which excited her still more. A friend offered to introduce her to the "shameless demagogue." This introduction happened at a party, and it must have been an extraordinary meeting. Seldom, it seemed, was there a better instance of love at first sight, or of the true affinity of which Baron Korff had spoken. In the midst of the public gathering they almost rushed into each other's arms; they talked the free talk of acknowledged lovers; and when she left, he called her love-names as he offered her his arm.

"Somehow it did not appear at all remarkable," she afterward declared. "We seemed to be perfectly fitted to each other."

Nevertheless, nine months passed before they met again at a soiree. At this time Lassaller gazing upon her, said:

"What would you do if I were sentenced to death?"

"I should wait until your head was severed," was her answer, "in order that you might look upon your beloved to the last, and then--I should take poison!"

Her answer delighted him, but he said that there was no danger. He was greeted on every hand with great consideration; and it seemed not unlikely that, in recognition of his influence with the people, he might rise to some high position. The King of Prussia sympathized with him. Heine called him the Messiah of the nineteenth century. When he passed from city to city, the whole population turned out to do him honor. Houses were wreathed; flowers were thrown in masses upon him, while the streets were spanned with triumphal arches.

Worn out with the work and excitement attending the birth of the Deutscher Arbeiterverein, or workmen's union, which he founded in 1863, Lassalle fled for a time to Switzerland for rest. Helene heard of his whereabouts, and hurried to him, with several friends. They met again on July 25,1864, and discussed long and intensely the possibilities of their marriage and the opposition of her parents, who would never permit her to marry a man who was at once a Socialist and a Jew.

Then comes a pitiful story of the strife between Lassalle and the Donniges family. Helene's father and mother indulged in vulgar words; they spoke of Lassalle with contempt; they recalled all the scandals that had been current ten years before, and forbade Helene ever to mention the man's name again.

The next scene in the drama took place in Geneva, where the family of Herr von Donniges had arrived, and where Helene's sister had been betrothed to Count von Keyserling--a match which filled her mother with intense joy. Her momentary friendliness tempted Helene to speak of her unalterable love for Lassalle. Scarcely had the words been spoken when her father and mother burst into abuse and denounced Lassalle as well as herself.

She sent word of this to Lassalle, who was in a hotel near by. Scarcely had he received her letter, when Helene herself appeared upon the scene, and with all the intensity of which she was possessed, she begged him to take her wherever he chose. She would go with him to France, to Italy--to the ends of the earth!

What a situation, and yet how simple a one for a man of spirit! It is strange to have to record that to Lassalle it seemed most difficult. He felt that he or she, or both of them, had been compromised. Had she a lady with her? Did she know any one in the neighborhood?

What an extraordinary answer! If she were compromised, all the more ought he to have taken her in his arms and married her at once, instead of quibbling and showing himself a prig.

Presently, her maid came in to tell them that a carriage was ready to take them to the station, whence a train would start for Paris in a quarter of an hour. Helene begged him with a feeling that was beginning to be one of shame. Lassalle repelled her in words that were to stamp him with a peculiar kind of cowardice.

Why should he have stopped to think of anything except the beautiful woman who was at his feet, and to whom he had pledged his love? What did he care for the petty diplomat who was her father, or the vulgar-tongued woman who was her mother? He should have hurried her and the maid into the train for Paris, and have forgotten everything in the world but his Helene, glorious among women, who had left everything for him.

What was the sudden failure, the curious weakness, the paltriness of spirit that came at the supreme moment into the heart of this hitherto strong man? Here was the girl whom he loved, driven from her parents, putting aside all question of appearances, and clinging to him with a wild and glorious desire to give herself to him and to be all his own! That was a thing worthy of a true woman. And he? He shrinks from her and cowers and acts like a simpleton. His courage seems to have dribbled through his finger-tips; he is no longer a man--he is a thing.

Out of all the multitude of Lassalle's former admirers, there is scarcely one who has ventured to defend him, much less to laud him; and when they have done so, their voices have had a sound of mockery that dies away in their own throats.

Helene, on her side, had compromised herself, and even from the view-point of her parents it was obvious that she ought to be married immediately. Her father, however, confined her to her room until it was understood that Lassalle had left Geneva. Then her family's supplications, the statement that her sister's marriage and even her father's position were in danger, led her to say that she would give up Lassalle.

It mattered very little, in one way, for whatever he might have done, Lassalle had killed, or at least had chilled, her love. His failure at the moment of her great self-sacrifice had shown him to her as he really was--no bold and gallant spirit, but a cringing, spiritless self-seeker. She wrote him a formal letter to the effect that she had become reconciled to her "betrothed bridegroom"; and they never met again.

Too late, Lassalle gave himself up to a great regret. He went about trying to explain his action to his friends, but he could say nothing that would ease his feeling and reinstate him in the eyes of the romantic girl. In a frenzy, he sought out the Wallachian student, Yanko von Racowitza, and challenged him to a mortal duel. He also challenged Helene's father. Years before, he had on principle declined to fight a duel; but now he went raving about as if he sought the death of every one who knew him.

The duel was fought on August 28, 1864. There was some trouble about pistols, and also about seconds; but finally the combatants left a small hotel in a village near Geneva, and reached the dueling-grounds. Lassalle was almost joyous in his manner. His old confidence had come back to him; he meant to kill his man.

They took their stations high up among the hills. A few spectators saw their figures outlined against the sky. The command to fire rang out, and from both pistols gushed the flame and smoke.

A moment later, Lassalle was seen to sway and fall. A chance shot, glancing from a wall, had struck him to the ground. He suffered terribly, and nothing but opium in great doses could relieve his pain. His wound was mortal, and three days later he died.

Long after, Helene admitted that she still loved Lassalle, and believed that he would win the duel; but after the tragedy, the tenderness and patience of Racowitza won her heart. She married him, but within a year he died of consumption. Helene, being disowned by her relations, prepared herself for the stage. She married a third husband named Shevitch, who was then living in the United States, but who has since made his home in Russia.