The Breaking of the Storm quotes

“What do you know about it?” cried the General. “The sea is not a thing to be trifled with.”

“I am not trifling, papa,” said Elsa.

The hasty movements and shouts and cries that suddenly surrounded them on all sides, and the singular and uncomfortable position of the ship, all sufficiently proved that the prediction of the “Indefatigable” had come true, and that the steamer was aground.

She gave her two hands to the farmer. There was a strange quiver in the man’s sunburnt face.

“You are a good young lady,” he murmured, as he tightly pressed the little hands that lay in his.

The President had already taken a leaf from his pocketbook, and sat down at the farmer’s little desk to write his announcement.

“Why did you not apply to my valet?” asked the Count, with mild reproach.

“I think the costume is very becoming,” said Elsa, with a desperate effort to recover her gravity, and a severe look at Meta, who had indeed come out of her corner, but without venturing yet to remove her handkerchief from her face.

“That is much more than I could have possibly hoped,” said Reinhold.

“And you do not wear it?”

“I have dressed so hastily today,” answered Reinhold.

Meta broke into a laugh, in which Reinhold joined heartily; the others smiled too; a civil, approving, flattering smile, as it seemed to the Count.

Only, as at a turn of the path the forest suddenly opened out, and the sea, his beloved sea, appeared in the bright morning sunshine between the trees that sloped down to the shore, he spread out his arms and cried:

“I will be always true to you⁠—always!”

Then he laughed at the double meaning of his words, laughed like a schoolboy, and ran down the steep path as if he had wings to his feet.

“Because I have vowed to serve my country by land and sea,” replied Reinhold, smiling. “My duty by land I have performed, now I must seek it by sea.”

“It seems to me that service has become necessary to you,” said Uncle Ernst, with a grim smile.

Reinhold could see that he was trying to joke, but he was determined, as far as it concerned himself and his own ideas and convictions, not to give in to his inexorable opponent in the smallest degree.

And now he was asking Uncle Ernst for a bit of sugar!

It seemed rather like asking a lion to dance!

But the lion did what he was asked, and did it amiably, with a kindly smile such as was seldom seen on that stern face.

“Will you take my arm, Fräulein Cilli, and allow me to see you home? I suppose you live in the house that is just in front of us?”

“I walk safer alone; but give me your hand. May I feel it for a moment?”

She put out a small, soft white hand to him, which Reinhold touched with a feeling of awe.

A couple of swallows flitted chirping through the air. The blind girl raised her sightless eyes.

“They come over the sea, but I cannot, I never can get beyond the shore, never beyond the shore!”

For the first time a shadow came over the charming face that was uplifted to Reinhold, but the next moment it was once more lighted up by the bright, childlike smile.

“You are no workman,” said Ferdinanda; “but as you well know, an artist.”

“I am an artist as you are a princess.”

“I was born to be an artist, but am not one, as you were born to be a princess and yet are not one.”

“I am an artist as you are a princess.”

“I was born to be an artist, but am not one, as you were born to be a princess and yet are not one.”

She did not say it angrily, but rather in a tone as if she agreed with him, which did not escape the sharp ear of the Italian.

But Antonio, too, was beautiful—beautiful as a dream, and yet she did not love him. And was he, who was not even an artist—was he to let beauty alone so fascinate him that he should give up family prejudice, rank, social position, all—for what?

A woman never asks such questions if she loves; she makes no calculations, no bargains⁠—she loves, and gives freely, joyfully, everything that she has to give⁠—she gives herself.

She leaned back in her chair, buried her face in the cushions, and shut her eyes.

“I have laid by a small sum, which I should like to keep.”

“Prudence is the mother of wisdom⁠—and the grandmother of poverty.”

“Then I am her legitimate grandson.”

“Prudence is the mother of wisdom—and the grandmother of poverty.”

“Then I am her legitimate grandson.”

Philip suddenly drew his arm out of Reinhold’s, who thought he had annoyed him by his last remark; but it was only to stand erect and take off his hat to the Princess, who, with her suite, was passing by.

“Only that nine o’clock in the evening is perhaps not the best hour for such a purpose,” said the Count, looking at the clock.

“For what purpose were reflectors invented?” answered the Councillor, smiling.

“I will go with you!” exclaimed the Count, springing up.

He had never before experienced the sensation of physical fear, but now he started and his eyes peered anxiously into the darkness, as he heard behind him a slight rustle—probably a twig that had broken in its fall.

“I feel as if I had committed a murder, or as if in another moment I should be murdered,” he said to himself, as almost running he continued on his way.

He did not suspect that to the breaking of that twig he owed his life.

“I feel as if I had committed a murder, or as if in another moment I should be murdered,” he said to himself, as almost running he continued on his way.

He did not suspect that to the breaking of that twig he owed his life.

Antonio had lingered, as if under the influence of a spell, at the entrance of the avenue, now sitting on the iron railing which separated the ride from the footpath, now pacing up and down, now leaning against the trunk of a tree, always revolving …

Or was it only her fancy? She asked herself this while she moved a few candlesticks and put them back again, and altered the arrangement of some knickknacks without being any better pleased with their appearance.

“I do not know what is the matter with me today,” said Elsa.

She stepped before the looking-glass and contemplated her reflection with the greatest attention: she did not think herself looking the least pretty today. She was disappointed in her new blue dress;

“I want you to sit down by me here, on my left side, you faithless butterfly!”

“Is there such a thing as a faithful butterfly, Baroness?”

“Now none of your jokes; I am a serious, practical old woman, and want you both—why what has become of Carla?”

“And you, Ottomar?” exclaimed the Baroness, turning in her chair with almost girlish activity, and fixing her pince-nez like a double-barrelled pistol on him.

“I consider Wagnerism, from beginning to end, to be an abominable humbug!” answered Ottomar defiantly.

The company were horror-struck. “Good heavens!” “Unheard of!” “Abominable!” “Positive blasphemy!” was heard on all sides.

The two men stood opposite one another, each measuring the other’s strength, like two athletes who are about to fight to the death, and yet cannot resist admiring each other’s noble appearance, and thinking that whichever falls will have succumbed to a worthy adversary.

And yet the General had all the time the sensation that, strong and powerful as was the man who stood before him, he himself was in that moment the more composed, the calmer, and therefore the stronger.

… to forgive my son, if on this matter, from a false, culpable, but not unnatural regard to the circumstances in which he is born, he has allowed himself to deviate from the straight road that led him to the father of the woman he loved.

I ask you not to let the children suffer because the fathers have stood face to face with weapons in their hands

; I ask you, in the name of my son, for your daughter’s hand for my son.”

She had told her woes to that great French artist, on whom her beauty had made such an overpowering expression. He had for some time only put her off with courteous and smiling words; at last he had said seriously:

“Mademoiselle, there is only one highest happiness for woman, and that is love; and there is only one talent in which no man can equal her⁠—that is again love.”

The words had crushed her; her artistic talent was then only a childish dream, and love! Yes, she knew that she could love—unspeakably, boundlessly! But the man was still to be found who could awaken that love to its heavenward soaring flame;

He put his arm familiarly within Ottomar’s, and led him to the door which he opened and let his guest precede him.

Ottomar did not turn; if he had he would have been appalled at the convulsively distorted face of the man who was holding the handle of the door in his left hand, while he raised the outstretched fingers of the right hand like a vulture’s claws as he strikes down his victim from behind.

The Count’s entrance into the drawing-room had greatly surprised the Baroness;

and you do not know that side of my character yet—neither do I myself. We must make acquaintance with me together, that will be awfully amusing. Good gracious! what nonsense I am talking just from sheer happiness!”

Meta’s presence was for the house in the Springbrunnenstrasse like a sunbeam penetrating a chink in the shutters of a dark room.

It is not broad daylight, there are heavy shadows enough still; anyone who happens to pass a looking-glass starts at the dim reflection of his own sad face;

“I am in a great hurry,” answered Reinhold, breathless from his quick run, as he tried to pass the horse. The Count turned it round so that he now faced Reinhold.

“I am on my own land,” answered the Count.

“And you are for freedom in all things!”

The old Baroness was of course there. She was everywhere, it was said, where anything was to be seen.

She had been present at the creation of the world, and would assist at its end.

She had first intended to let Ottomar get her an invitation, but eventually entrusted the honour to Herr von Wallbach. The dissension between the Werbens and the Wallbachs was no longer a secret, at least from her.

Through the comparative silence of these downstairs rooms sounded from above the wild strains of a furious waltz, and the dumb rush and sweep of the dancers, whose whirling steps made the magnificent building tremble as if with ague.

“They are dancing over a volcano,” said the Councillor in a low voice.

“Believe me, he cannot hold out; it is impossible. We have been obliged to pay him with shares, of course, like all the world. How he is to meet his engagements now that our shares have fallen to twenty—heaven only knows.

How he is to meet his engagements now that our shares have fallen to twenty—heaven only knows. I calculate that the man will be ruined in three weeks at the latest, and we with him.”

“I regret it extremely, but if the world were coming to an end in half an hour, I should go to bed now.”

The Councillor let go the button almost terrified. Such a wicked look had shot out of Giraldi’s great black eyes, although he had spoken with the tired smile of a completely worn-out man.

It might all be over then; for the day so passionately hoped for through the long, terrible years—the day when your father would say to me, ‘Valerie, I have forgiven you,’ will never come now.”

“What if it were today?” said Elsa, taking her aunt’s hand in hers.

“Forgive me for what I have done without consulting you!

With one spring he was behind the carriage and helping the coachman to turn the snorting horses; there was just room left.

He had seen that the carriage was empty.

“They got out—above—in such a hurry, by the causeway in the meadows to the park. Oh, Lord! oh, Lord! if only they can get across it! Lord have mercy upon us!”

And oh, how dearly loved! more than ever! immeasurably more in his helpless misery than in his brighter days.

If she could only help him!

For herself she had no wish, no desires; God was her witness!