Transcriber's Note:
1. Page scan source:http://www.archive.org/details/breakingstormtr02spiegoog
Frau Feldner, Valerie's old lady's-maid, told Elsa that her lady was ina sound sleep, as was always the case with her after a violent attackof headache, and out of which she would hardly awake before evening.Elsa, who had herself suffered from the extraordinary sultriness of theday, and from the uncomfortable conversation at dinner, and was alsoput out and agitated by the scene with the Count, intended to employthe time in taking a walk; and thinking that Carla and the Count werealready gone, was going, out of courtesy, to invite Frau von Wallbachto accompany her. Hat and shawl in hand, she was coming out of theBaroness's rooms, and innocently lifting the portière of the anteroom,had become a very unwilling spectator of the little scene which tookplace between the Count and Carla. In her consternation she had let thecurtain fall again, and without even thinking whether she had beenobserved or not, had hastily run downstairs, and now wandered roundthe garden trying to persuade herself that what she had seen was amistake--her eyes had deceived her. It was not possible that Carlacould have so far forgotten herself, that she could so shamefullydeceive her brother. But the more determinately she tried to drive backand destroy the hateful picture, the more terribly distinctly it stoodout in her mind.
It must be so! The link that should have united Ottomar and Carla wastorn asunder for ever, even if what she had just seen were only thesudden delirium of the moment. But how could that be, when she thoughtof Carla's intense frivolity, which had often caused her such anxiety;and of the Count's audacity, from which she had from the firstinstinctively shrunk, and of which he had even now given such proof;when she remembered the confidential whispering, the coquettishflirting, the many, many things which had taken place between the twoin her very presence, and which had been so displeasing and offensive,but, above all, so incomprehensible to her, and of which she now foundso terrible an explanation! What would Ottomar say? He must hear of it!What would he do? Perhaps exult that the chain which fettered him wasbroken--in good time! But that would not be like Ottomar. No man wouldtake it patiently--and he! so sensitive, passionate, and violent, whohad so often risked his life in a duel on the slightest provocation--adisagreeable word, a look--which gave him offence! But, on the otherhand, had he really a right to feel himself offended? Had he reallytried to retain Carla's love, or even first to win it, as it was hisduty to do, after he became engaged to her? Had he not neglected her inthe eyes of the world? left her, unguarded and unsheltered, to throwherself into that roaring whirlpool of social life in which she hadformerly moved with such fatal enjoyment, and in which she had gainedsuch brilliant triumph