As Arwed was still sitting in his chamber, his arms convulsively folded
upon his breast, as if he would stifle his inward grief by the outward
pressure, with large tear-drops occasionally rolling down his pallid
cheeks, a stranger suddenly entered the room. He was enveloped in a
gray traveling cloak, and his hat was drawn down over his eyes.
Stepping directly in front of Arwed, he threw off his cloak and cap.
'Swedenborg!' exclaimed Arwed, in a languid tone.
'The old _Fatum_,' spoke the seer, 'has again most unhappily kept troth
with my presentiments. I see you again in the heaviest hour of your
life, as I expected. But what I could not have expected is, to see you
sinking under your sorrow. It becomes a man to struggle manfully
against this evil fiend, and gloriously to vanquish; not to lay down
his arms before him, like a wounded and disabled combatant.'
'You have never loved!' ejaculated Arwed; 'you cannot know the anguish
which rends my heart.'
'I have loved!' exclaimed Swedenborg, with radiant eyes; 'I yet love,
and with a passion which shall be eternal! Not, indeed, a perishable
woman, but the celestial _Sophiam_! Would to God that you also would
choose her for your bride. How vain and trifling would all the earthly
sorrows which now afflict you, then appear.'
'Do you know the stroke I have received?' asked Arwed, passionately.
'I know it,' answered Swedenborg mysteriously, 'as well as most things
which concern you. Your image has often floated before my inward
vision, and the spirits have often conversed with me of you.'
'All my misery,' rejoined Arwed, 'comes from the cold, malicious
Ulrika. Her barbarity has torn from my brows the garland with which
true love would have crowned me.'
'Sweden's vassal,' cried Swedenborg with solemn earnestness; 'blaspheme
not Sweden's queen!'
'How!' cried Arwed, with astonishment, '_You_ take her part? You, who
prophecied wo to Sweden under her reign?'
'That is still my opinion,' rejoined Swedenborg. 'But since Ulrika, by
the unanimous voice of the people, sits upon her father's throne, she
must be to us an object of veneration only. If she has done evil, she
will not escape its punishment; and as the Lord oftentimes takes care
to punish the sinner directly in that wherein he sinned, so perhaps
will the man for whom she has done every thing, at some time become an
instrument of divine wrath and take the crown from her head to place it
on his own, repaying her with the basest treachery.'
'Alas, her crimes had wings,' complained Arwed; 'and this requital
creeps snail-like after them.'
'Know then, you, who are so eager for vengeance,' indignantly rejoined
Swedenborg, 'that the fate of Sweden aids you. Your country is at this
moment the prey of her two bitterest enemies, and Ulrika may soon be a
queen without a realm.'
'I had already heard of the threatened invasions of the Danes and
Russians,' answered Arwed; 'but I did not apprehend such disastrous
results.'
'They have already entered,' rejoined Swedenborg. 'Bahuslehn is as good
as conquered. Stroemstadt and Marstrand have already surrendered to the
Danes; Carlsten has by this time fallen; and the Russians are raging
like wild beasts in the eastern part of the kingdom. Norrkoeping,
Nykoeping, and many other cities, hundreds of noblemen's seats, and
thousands of hamlets, are already in ashes. Heaps of slaughtered
animals infect the atmosphere; the youths of our land are borne by
Russian ships to ignominious slavery; and, while we are speaking,
general Lascy is moving with a strong army directly upon Stockholm.'
Arwed's blue eyes flashed. His heroic form became more erect. He
involuntarily grasped the hilt of his sword, and moved towards the
door.
'Whither would you go?' Swedendorg asked, in a kindly tone.
'To the garden, into the free air!' quickly answered Arwed. 'It is
becoming too warm for me here. Besides, I need solitude, that I may be
able to form a proper determination.'
'I know it,' said Swedenborg. 'You will resolve as becomes you, and so,
farewell. The Lord be with your sword!'
'We shall see each other again before I go,' said Arwed.
'I must travel still further to-day,' answered Swedenborg. 'I am now
going to the Nasaalpe lead mines. I must afterwards visit the iron and
copper mines in Tornea-Lappmark, and in a month I must be on my way
back.'
'Possibly we may meet in Stockholm,' said Arwed, forgetting his
banishment, 'and heaven grant it may be under better auspices!'
'_Quo fata trahunt, retrahuntque sequamur!_' cried Swedenborg with
unction, and the youth hastened out.
'A noble spirit!' said Swedenborg, looking with complacency at his
retreating form. 'It lay prostrate, sickened with love's pain and
bitter hate; and behold, with only two drops of that steel-tincture,
and his country's need, its strength revives, and labors, and throws
off the _materiam peccantem_, and his heart is as pure, and fresh, and
strong, as ever it was. Hail to the physician of the soul, who finds
the seat of the disease; but thrice hail to the patient whose good
disposition aids the cure.'