SCIENCE AND FAITH.
The dawning day strove in vain to lift the misty veil that a rainy
night had spread over hill and dale. It was one of those mornings when
the waning summer--like a belle whose charms are of the past in her
morning dishabille--showed plainly that its glories were fading. The
rising sun crept behind the cold, misty clouds, and the bushes were
dripping with tears of regret. The faithful watcher, who had stood on
guard all night near the castle, shook the wet from his cloak and
shivered as he looked in the direction of the school-house, whence
relief was to arrive.
He did not wait long. The powerful figure of a young man appeared
briskly advancing through the mist. Slowly and sleepily the clock in
the tower of the village church tolled half-past four.
"To a moment!" cried the watcher to the new arrival. "This is
punctuality indeed!"
"Good-morning!" said Walter. "Brr! the air is cold. You must be almost
frozen."
"Not more so than the huntsman on the watch," replied Johannes. "Ardour
for the chase makes him warm. I burn and long to clutch that beast of
prey up there. Oh, Walter, I am not easily roused,--my nature is a
quiet one,--but if that man had tried to slip away in the night, and
had fallen into my hands, I could not have answered for the
consequences."
"I do not wonder at you," laughed Walter. "Nothing would gratify me
more than a chance at the fellow. How did you spend the night? Could
you not sit down?"
"No, I was not calm enough to do anything but pace to and fro, and now
it is beginning to tell upon my wearied limbs."
"Make haste, then, and get dry and warm. My father is impatiently
expecting you. He is up and dressed, and my mother has a good cup of
coffee waiting for you."
"How kind you all are!" said Johannes. "But I am very anxious, Walter.
Gleissert was with Ernestine until midnight. From the hill yonder I
could see their heads through the window. They appeared to be in eager
conversation, and moved about, as if they were packing. Oh, if she can
possibly intend----"
"Do not be in the least alarmed,--she cannot, after what you have told
her."
"But how, after what I have told her, can she endure that man about her
for hours? How can she breathe the air of the room where he is, for
even ten minutes?"
"Hm--it does seem incredible. But, whatever happens, we have nothing to
do but to watch and be ready. I will do my duty in this respect. Go,
now, and rest for a couple of hours, that you may relieve me at
school-time. Had you only allowed me to watch in your place, he would
have found me as difficult as you to deal with."
"You help me enough by assisting me during the day. Good-by, then. I
shall be back at eight o'clock." And Johannes walked slowly and wearily
towards the school-house. When he entered the low, dimly-lighted room,
he found the steaming coffee-pot already upon the table. Frau Leonhardt
had seen him coming, and all was in readiness for him.
Herr Leonhardt sat in his place by the stove, and held out his hand
with a kind but anxious "Good-morning! How are you after your unwonted
duty through the night?"
"Tolerably, old friend," replied Johannes, "but I cannot deny that my
respect has considerably increased since yesterday for the honourable
guild of watchmen.--No, thank you, Frau Leonhardt, I cannot eat
anything."
"Oh, do not drink your coffee without a morsel of something solid.
Well, if you do not wish it--but, you see, here it is!"
"Yes, my dear Frau Leonhardt, I see it," Johannes assured her, with a
smiling glance at the great basketful of biscuits.
"You must know that my Brigitta was up half the night to prepare her
most tempting biscuits for your breakfast,--it is all she could do for
you. Yes, Brigitta, the Herr Professor can appreciate your good will."
"Indeed I can," said Johannes. "Such womanly kindness is dear to me
wherever I meet with it. Your labour shall not be in vain." And he
forced himself to eat.
"Oh," said Brigitta, "if the Fraeulein had known that you were walking
up and down beneath her windows in the cold night, she would have been
grieved enough, and filled with pity!"
"The Fraeulein knows no pity, my dear Frau Leonhardt," said Johannes
bitterly.
The old man laid his hand kindly upon Johannes' shoulder. "You do not
mean what you say. You cannot think so meanly of her--your impatience
speaks now, not you. If you could only understand her noble nature as I
do, who am not blinded by passion!"
"But, Father Leonhardt, I do not deny Ernestine's noble nature. Should
I devote myself to her as I am now doing after her rejection of me, if
I did not know her to be more than worthy of all that I can do? But if
you could have seen her rigid, marble face yesterday, you would have
questioned, as I did, whether that young girl really possessed a
heart."
"Indeed, indeed she does possess one," affirmed the old man. "But
remember, Herr Professor, her heart has hitherto been fed solely
through her understanding. She has had nothing to love but ideas. Human
beings she has known nothing of. What wonder, then, if she imagines
that she should love only where her intellect can say Amen? That Amen
cannot be said in your case, for you have opposed all that has hitherto
had the warrant of her intellect, which must needs be in arms against
you, and the oppressed young heart must mutely acquiesce. Ernestine's
intellect is that of a full-grown man, while her sensibilities are as
undeveloped as those of a girl of fifteen. The consequence is that
incessant contradictions appear in her conduct. Give these undeveloped
sensibilities time, do not stunt them by coldness, and you will see
them assert their rights in opposition to the intellect. She might
almost be called a kind of Caspar Hauser in the world of sentiment. She
is not at home there. She needs a patient teacher, and such a one she
will find in you, I am sure. Do all that you can to prevent her from
going to America; if she goes, she is as good as dead for us."
"Rely upon me, faithful and wise old friend," cried Johannes, and fresh
resolution was depicted on his face. "I will do all that I can for
her,--not for my own sake, but for hers."
"If you have finished your breakfast, you must take some rest," said
Leonhardt. "My wife has arranged a bed for you."
"I accept your kindness gratefully," replied Johannes, "for I am
exhausted, and have a fatiguing day before me."
"Then let me show you to your room. That service even a blind man can
render you," said the old man with a smile.
And the two ascended to the upper story, where Herr Leonhardt opened a
door and showed his guest into a scrupulously neat little apartment,
containing a most inviting bed. Then he groped about, assuring himself
that all was as it should be, and returned to the room below, saying,
as he closed the door, "Take a good sleep,--you may need the strength
it will give you."
"Thanks, a thousand thanks, Father Leonhardt!" Johannes cried after
him, and he listened to the careful tread of his kind host upon the
narrow stairway. Then his eyes closed. Frau Brigitta's words sounded in
his ears, "If the Fraeulein had known that you were walking up and down
beneath her windows in the cold night----"
She must have known it. He had told her plainly enough that he should
do so, and she had not even opened a window or looked out at him. But
stay,--stay! She would come out to him herself. See! see! The gate
opened softly. Was her uncle with her? No! She was alone,--quite alone!
"Come," she whispered, "you are cold. Come in." And she took his hands
and breathed upon them and rubbed them. "Will you not come into the
house?" she asked. "There you can watch for my uncle and be out of the
rain, and I will stay with you and never, never leave you."
"Ernestine," cried Johannes, stretching out his arms to embrace her.
The sudden motion awoke him, and he found himself alone. He could not
have slept more than a quarter of an hour, and yet he could not go to
sleep again. He lay quietly resting for a time, and then arose,
prepared to go through with the decisive day that awaited him.
Evening had come. As on the previous day, Ernestine was sitting at her
writing-table, but it was empty now. Its contents were packed up in the
chests which were standing in the room, locked and ready for the
voyage. Ernestine sat idly, with her hands in her lap, listening to her
uncle's directions to the weeping housekeeper in reference to the price
at which she was to dispose of the furniture of the house.
"The scientific works and the apparatus I shall leave to Walter
Leonhardt," she said.
"What!" cried Leuthold. "Are you going to give away at least a thousand
thalers?" He paused, with a glance at Frau Willmers, who had the tact
to leave the room. "Why throw money out of the window, now that we are
beggared?"
"The thousand thalers that the things would bring would not keep me
from starving, while they will secure the young man's future. He has
talents that must not run to waste, and which I can foster by giving
him the means of pursuing his studies."
"Is it possible? You think it your duty, then, to foster all neglected
genius?"
"Uncle," said Ernestine with cold severity, "I pray you spare me your
opinion of my conduct. The habit of submission, it appears, is more
easily discarded than that of ruling. I have cast aside the former,
since yesterday, like a garment. It would be well for you to do the
same with the latter."
"But I thought I might at least be suffered to advise," observed
Leuthold.
"I will ask your advice when I think it necessary. In this matter it is
enough that I choose to do as I have said."
Leuthold regarded her immovable features with a mixture of fear and
hatred, and thought to himself, "Once let me get you on the other side
of the water, and in my power, and you shall atone bitterly for all the
trouble that you give me now."
And his restless fancy painted vividly before his mind's eye the
revenge that awaited him in that new world, and an ugly smile was upon
his lips as he thought of all that his niece's proud nature would have
to endure.
Ernestine arose. "There are only a few hours left before our
departure," she said. "I must be sure that my intentions will be
carried out."
She went into her laboratory, and packed up, as well as she could, the
apparatus that she designed for Walter. Then she reopened the letter
that she was to leave with Willmers for Leonhardt, and added these
words, "Come what may, I pray you preserve these books and instruments
for me as relics. Say they are yours, or they will be snatched from you
and from me."
Thus she made her gift secure from the clutches of the law. She knew
Leuthold well enough to feel sure that he would not seek to prevent its
removal from the house if he could not keep it for his niece. Then she
sent off the chests from the laboratory, and went into the library to
select the books that Walter was to have. Leuthold hurried in, and said
to her, "Moellner is coming! Now, Ernestine, summon up all your
resolution!" His teeth fairly chattered with agitation. "Be strong,
Ernestine. A human life is at stake! If you do not save me from
Moellner's revenge and from the law, I am a dead man! By the life of my
child,--dearer to me than aught else on earth,--I swear to you that I
will commit suicide sooner than put on a convict's jacket! Now act
accordingly."
Ernestine gazed at him with horror. At last he was speaking the truth!
Sheer, blank despair was painted on his features.
"Uncle," she cried, "be calm! I will not drive you to suicide! My
resolve is firm. Will you not be present?"
"No, that would make mischief. I will get everything ready for our
departure, that nothing may detain us. Do not forget. We are
reconciled,--do you hear? Will you tell him so?"
"I promise you."
"I will go. I will not meet him. Bless you for every kind word, and
curses upon you if you should betray me."
He hurried away, and Ernestine looked after him with a shudder. A human
life hung upon her lips! A curse awaited every thoughtless word that
she might utter! She stood alone and helpless, burdened thus heavily, a
young, inexperienced creature, scarcely able to bear the responsibility
of her own actions. She spurred on her fainting energies to accomplish
the almost superhuman task allotted to her.
Her dreaded visitor entered.
"Forgive me, Ernestine," he said, "for thus intruding unannounced. Your
housekeeper directed me hither. This is no time for empty formalities.
It is time for action, and, if need be, for a life-and-death struggle.
I have just seen the chests sent off to Herr Leonhardt. I learn from
Frau Willmers that you are going,--really going,--with your uncle.
Ernestine, I have no words for the anguish that I am now enduring! I
could submit to your rejection of my suit, for I might still love you,
but to find you unworthy of my love, Ernestine, would be more than I
can bear."
"And what could so degrade me in your eyes?" asked Ernestine with
offended pride.
"Your not fleeing from such a villain, as from the Evil One
himself,--your harbouring the intention of going forth into the world
with one abhorred alike of God and man, not feeling sufficient
detestation of the crime to induce you to avoid the criminal who must
be shunned by every honest man. Oh, Ernestine, I cannot believe it now!
I would rather die than believe it!"
"He has excused himself in my eyes," said Ernestine, deeply wounded.
"He has convinced me that no human being should condemn another
unheard. I am not conscious of such perfection and infallibility in
myself as would permit me to dare to judge and denounce. That must be
left for those better and stronger than I. The tie that bound me to him
is, it is true, broken, but I must tread the same path that he treads.
I cannot refuse to share his wanderings."
"Do you not fear the disgrace that will attach to you by thus joining
your lot with that of a criminal, amenable to the law?"
"The law has no power over him. He has satisfied me with regard to my
property, and, if I am content, it is enough."
"Good heavens! What security has he offered you? You are so
inexperienced in such matters, he will deceive you again. Tell me, at
least, what he has told you."
Ernestine stood more erect. Agitation almost choked her utterance, and,
to conceal it, she put on a colder, sterner manner than usual. "When I
tell you I am satisfied, it seems to me that should content you."
"Ernestine," cried Johannes, "why do you adopt this tone with me? I am
acting and thinking only for you and your interest, and you treat me
like a foe."
"For all that you have done and are doing for me, I am grateful to you,
as also for your kind intentions. But now, I pray you, leave to me all
care for my future fate. I feel fully competent to direct it."
"I tell you, Ernestine, that, whether you will it or not, I must snatch
you from the abyss upon whose brink you are tottering. And first I will
make sure of your companion. He has not given me the securities for
your property that I required, the respite that I allowed him is past,
the twenty-four hours for reflection have gone." He turned towards the
door.
"Dr. Moellner, what are you about to do?" cried Ernestine.
"Give him up to justice."
Ernestine placed herself in his way. "You must not do that!"
"And why not?"
"You will not attempt to avenge what I have forgiven. You will not so
intrude into my life as to make it impossible for me to decide whether
I will punish or forgive a crime that affects me alone. You are about
to publish abroad my affairs, and I demand for myself the right to
regulate my own private affairs as it may seem to me best. I cannot
allow a stranger--yes, I say, a stranger--to meddle thus with the
concerns of two human beings, as if he were an emissary of the Holy
Vehm!"
"Ernestine!" gasped Johannes.
"I repeat it," she continued, "I am grateful for your kind intentions.
But the best intentions result in unwelcome violence when they would
rob a human being, of the right of free choice. I insist upon this most
sacred of all rights, and forbid you any further interference with my
fate, and, as my uncle's lot is so closely allied to mine that in
striking him you would harm me, I hope you are sufficiently chivalric
to desist from further persecution of him." Almost fainting, she leaned
against the door.
"Fraeulein von Hartwich," replied Johannes, controlling himself with
difficulty, "you propose a hard trial for my patience. But I can
forgive you, for you are a true woman." Ernestine started at these
words, but he entreated silence by a gesture. "You are a woman, and, as
such, easily aroused, easily deceived. Your uncle has taken advantage
of this fact. You do not dream what you are doing in following the
fortunes of this bad man. I thought I had opened your eyes yesterday,
but I was mistaken. You saw, but I did not teach you to understand what
you saw. I will retrieve my error. I will explain to you the motives
for your uncle's course of action."
"I have already told you," replied Ernestine, "that I know them. I need
no further explanation. He has sinned, grievously sinned,--who can deny
it? Not he himself. But his life has been dedicated to me with a
devotion rare enough in our selfish world. He has lived for me ever
since I was a child, and all his errors sprang from the dread of losing
me. This is, perhaps, incredible to you, because from your point of
view it is inconceivable that a man should entirely give himself up to
the training of a woman's mind. To you a life spent solely in
intellectual association with a woman seems impossible, and of course
you would accuse of falsehood a man who professes to prefer such a life
to all others. Therefore I know beforehand all you would say, and would
be spared the listening to it now."
"Ernestine," cried Johannes, fairly roused, "you must hear me, or, by
Heaven, I do not know you!"
He paused for one moment. Ernestine looked down, and apparently awaited
what he had to say.
"Yes, then, yes,--you are perfectly right. It does seem to me an
impossibility that a man should make it the sole aim of his existence
to develop the intellect of a woman. I can love as deeply as man can
love. You know that I love you, and, were you mine, I would adore you,
and you only, with my whole heart and soul, truly and unchangeably,
until death separated us. But, in my love for you, to forego all other
interests and duties in life, to idle away in delicious intercourse
with you all opportunities for true manly exertion,--that I could
not do, truly and warmly as I love you. It would be the part of a
woman,--not of a man, who has public as well as private duties to
fulfil. I have no confidence in a man who pretends to lead such a life
out of simple affection for a relative. He must have some other purpose
in view, and I believe that your uncle's purpose in this matter was a
detestable one, leading him to sin against you in a way that God alone
can justly punish. He would sacrifice everything for money--he would
murder alike body and soul. Stay--be calm for a few moments. I will
justify these terrible accusations. The theft of your fortune has been
the purpose that he has kept steadily in view ever since he was your
guardian. The possession of this property seems to have been the fixed
idea of his life, for he induced your father at one time to bequeath it
to him, leaving you, notwithstanding his boasted affection for you,
only what the law accords to you. Heim prevailed upon your father to
destroy this will and to reinstate you in your rights. But he was not
sufficiently prudent, for the will that your father then dictated left
too much margin for your uncle's administration. He longed to recover
what he had lost, and circumstances favoured his desire. Your father,
in his will, as you can see from this copy of it, stated that in case
of your dying unmarried your entire fortune should go to Gleissert or
his children. When your father died, matters looked propitious for
Leuthold, for little Ernestine was such a frail, sickly child that he
cherished a hope almost amounting to a certainty that the delicate cord
of life that kept him from his inheritance would soon break, and give
him all that he coveted. But the pale, quiet child confounded his plans
by recovering her health Und strength. Hers was a rare nature, and
recuperated quickly, both physically and mentally. The hope that she
would die grew fainter and fainter, but he could not so easily
relinquish the prospect of possessing her fortune. If he might not
secure the inheritance, he could at least secure the person of the
heir, and contrive to keep you, Ernestine, from marrying, since the
money could be his only in the event of your dying single. To this end,
you must be secluded from the world, and, that you might not miss
its amusements, your restless spirit must be introduced to a new
realm,--the realm of the intellect. Therefore he studiously concealed
from you your coming of age, lest it should occur to you to break the
bonds of the strict control to which you were subjected, and mingle
with your kind. This was the plan of your education, this the reason of
your uncle's tender solicitude for you. The time and trouble expended
upon you were all in the way of business, a fair exchange for the
ninety thousand thalers and the contingent advantages that he trusted
to obtain thereby. He could never have attained such a competency as a
German professor. This is criminal legacy-hunting. And now for my
accusation of murder. I do not mean by it a murder with poison or
dagger,--he is too cowardly and too prudent for that,--but he made use
of a poison which, if it were not as quick in its effects as arsenic,
at least possessed this advantage over it--no chemist could detect it,
and no law punish its use. The body was to be destroyed through the
mind. He knew how to foster in your passionate heart an ambition that
dreaded no labour, that, in its burning desire to attain its ends,
pursued them with a feverish haste that never heeded whether the
physical frame were equal or not to such unceasing exertion. Oh, the
plan was ingenious, but there were eyes, thank God! that saw through
it. It is true he did not stand at your back with a rod, like a severe
schoolmaster, to urge you on,---he did not compel you to work all night
long, denying yourself the only refreshment that could strengthen your
shattered nerves,--sleep,--but he contrived that you should do all this
voluntarily. He saw you droop, and took no notice of it. He would not
kill you with his own hand, but he put into yours the poison with which
you should do it yourself, and, when the natural love of life in you
spoke out and entreated aid, he forbade you to summon a physician, lest
he should save you by an antidote! Thus, consciously and voluntarily,
he has let you sicken and languish, and now he would carry you to
America to bury you there. So much for the grounds of my accusation of
physical murder. And now as to his murder of your soul. I said before
that your uncle had secluded you from the world to make sure of your
never marrying. How could he do this? By making you an object of
aversion to society at large--by hardening your heart, so that you
might never feel the desire for loving intercourse and companionship
stirring within you. He accomplished these ends by making you a
skeptic. And were this the only crime that he is guilty of towards you,
it would justify any punishment, however severe,--any contempt, however
profound."
"If this is all that you have to say, I can only reply that you talk
like a theologian, not like a physiologist," said Ernestine, vainly
endeavouring to conceal her horror. "It is possible that there is some
foundation for your other accusations of Doctor Gleissert,--I will not
decide upon them at present,--but for this last there is none, or, at
least, none in the degree that you mean. Yes, he did take from me my
faith, but in its place he gave me that philosophy which is the
resting-place of all thought, and wherein alone the doubting spirit can
find peace."
"Oh, what a miserable mistake!" cried Johannes. "Do you suppose that
anything can take the place of faith in the world? Can a soul as lofty
as your own be content with the mere knowledge of the laws that rule
the universe, without raising reverential eyes to the Power whom those
laws represent? Forgive me if I talk like a theologian. Let me be clear
with you upon this point too, before we part. I would at least restore
to you one possession of which your uncle has robbed you, and that
belongs to women in an eminent degree, far more than to men,--the power
of seeing heaven open when the earth does not suffice us!"
Ernestine gazed at him in utter amazement: "Do you speak thus, you, a
man of exact science,--a science that teaches how everything in
existence is developed from itself! What is left for us to reverence in
the God whom you would seem to declare, after we have learned that
nature of itself alone creates and achieves everything?"
Johannes shook his head. "Oh, Ernestine, can we believe in Him only by
believing that his Spirit hovered over the face of the waters and
created the heavens and the earth in six days? I think we have learned
to separate this gross material representation from the actual being of
God! Thus only can faith and knowledge join hands, and I am one of
those in whose minds they have thus formed an alliance, although
perhaps not without a struggle. I can give my belief no concrete shape,
I have not the simplicity that is satisfied with a Deity compounded of
human attributes and powers, but the fervent aspiration that looks up
and holds fast to my formless God,--this aspiration is my rock of
safety."
"That is only a subjective emotion. What does it prove?"
"Nothing!" said Johannes. "For the existence of a God can be as little
proved as disproved. I might say He is to the world what the soul is to
the body, and we cannot give form to the soul in our minds. The organs
of the body work in obedience to unchangeable laws, but, although they
thus work, they are under the control of the soul, and, although we can
explain never so exactly the mechanism that the soul puts in motion at
its good pleasure, we cannot explain how it thinks and desires. Are we
therefore to deny that it does think and desire? But I know what little
value will attach to such comparisons in your eyes, for you will demand
logical proof of the truth of my parallel, and this I cannot give you."
Ernestine was lost in thought. "I never should have conceived it
possible that such a man as you are could believe in the existence of a
God!"
"If you will listen, I will tell you how faith first entered into my
heart. I was a wayward lad, just emancipated from the ignorant
illusions of childhood, with a living desire for the Infinite in my
heart,--longing to prove scientifically the existence of the God in
whom I no longer believed. In my ignorance of myself, I naturally fell
into the way of that spurious philosophy which the science of to-day
looks back upon with contempt, and--to use Du Bois' words--racked my
brain for awhile over the riddle of Being, human and divine. My
affections were warm,--I loved those belonging to me, and especially my
little sister Angelika. One day the child was taken dangerously ill,
and, as she was more devoted to me than to any other member of the
family, I watched with her through long nights with fraternal
tenderness. The child suffered greatly, and one night in particular her
cries fairly broke my heart. My mother at last took her little hands in
her own, clasped them, and said, 'Pray, my darling,--pray to God. He
may grant your prayer!' And the child, suppressing her sobs, cried,
'Ah, dear God, take away my pain!' And I--I flung myself upon my knees
and prayed fervently, I knew not what,--I knew not to whom,--no
matter! I prayed. I heard my mother's voice say Amen, and I repeated
Amen,--almost unconsciously. The child was soothed, grew calm, looked
up to heaven with childlike trust, then smiled upon us and went to
sleep with her head upon my breast,--her first sound sleep after a week
of suffering. I listened to her breathing, it was soft and regular. I
was filled then with an emotion such as I had never before
experienced,--tears came to my eyes. I could have embraced the world in
my delight,--no, a world would not suffice me, I needed a God beside.
What shall I say,--how explain it in words? Like the girl born blind,
in the poem, that believed she _saw_ when she _loved_, I loved the God
to whom I had prayed, and because I loved Him I saw Him with my heart!"
He paused, and looked at Ernestine, who had listened with sympathy.
"That is the very essence of faith," he continued. "No reason can give
it to you or take it from you. One single agonized moment taught me
what science and philosophy had failed to teach. I found by the bedside
of a child the God for whom my intellect had vainly searched earth and
skies. From this time I learned to keep myself open to conviction. I
now first became an exact physiologist. I no longer set fantastic
bounds to science, I no longer adulterated my pure contemplation of
nature with metaphysical notions, but confined myself strictly to the
actual, and it never conflicted with my feelings, for Science itself
pauses before the first cause of all Being, and says, 'Thus far, and no
farther,' and here, where my knowledge ceases, my faith begins!"
"You speak well, but you do not convince me," said Ernestine sadly.
"I see. I know that the remedy for your disease does not lie in the
words or the example of others, but in your own experience. I prophesy,
if you are ever overwhelmed by a moment of despair, that you will waken
to the need of that God whom you now ignore. Even were it not to be so,
I could only pity you, for a woman who cannot pray is a bird with
broken wings. I maintain that there is no woman who does not
believe,--for there is none who does not _fear_, and fear looks in
reverence to God, whether as avenging justice or protecting love, to
which to flee when all other aid fails. Can you be the sole exception
to this rule?"
"I hope so," said Ernestine proudly. "I am not one of those weaklings
who dread danger in the dark. I look every phantom of terror boldly in
the face, and can recognize its natural origin. I fear nothing, and
have no need of a God."
"You fear nothing?" asked Johannes, and then, struck by a sudden
thought, added, "Not even death?"
"Not even death! I know that I am but a part of universal matter, and
must return to it again. What is there to fear? The dissolution of a
personal existence in the great sum of things,--the transformation of
one substance into another? Since I learned to think, I have constantly
pondered this great law of nature, and have accustomed myself to
consider my insignificant existence only as part and parcel of the
wondrous transmutation of matter perpetually taking place in the
universe. Only when we have attained this conviction can we smilingly
renounce our vain claim to individual immortality, and see in death the
due tribute that we pay to nature for our life."
"Indeed? And you imagine that this consolation will stand you in stead
when the time really comes for you to descend into that dark abyss
which is illuminated for you by no ray of faith or hope?"
"I am sure of it."
"And if you were plunged into it before the appointed time?"
"I should not quarrel with the measure of existence that nature
accorded me."
"You would not, however, curtail that existence intentionally?"
Ernestine looked at him in surprise. "No, assuredly not."
"Are you not afraid of doing so by going to America?"
"Why should I fear it?--on account of the dangers of the sea, perhaps?
Oh, no. It has borne millions of lives in safety upon its waves,--why
not mine also? It will be more merciful than my kind, I think."
"Then you are still determined to go, after all that I have told you of
your uncle?"
"With him or without him, I shall go," said Ernestine.
"Well, then, God is my witness that I have tried my best! Now,--you
will think me cruel, but I cannot help it,--one remedy still is left
me,--a terrible one, but your proud courage gives me strength to use
it. Ernestine, if you persist in your determination to undertake this
voyage, I fear the time is close at hand when the genuineness of your
philosophical consolation will be tried indeed. You will hardly live to
reach New York."
Ernestine grew, if possible, paler than before at these words. "What
reason have you to say so?" she faltered.
"I will tell you, for there is no time left for concealment." He looked
at the clock. "I cannot understand how, with your understanding and
the knowledge that you possess, you should fail to see that you are
ill,--not only nervous and prostrated, but seriously ill."
Ernestine looked at him in alarm.
"I am firmly convinced that you are lost if you continue your present
mode of life, as you will and must in America. Notwithstanding all your
uncle may have told you, I know that, once in New York, you will have
no chance of recovering from him one thaler of your fortune, even
supposing that, in accordance with your wishes, I allow him to leave
this country. You will be forced to earn your daily support, and, I
tell you truly, your life, under such conditions, will not last one
year. You will die in your bloom in an American hospital, and be buried
in a nameless grave!"
Ernestine turned away.
"Are you still determined to go?" Johannes asked after a pause.
Ernestine pondered for one moment of bitter agony. She knew only too
well that he was right. But what should she do? He had no idea that her
fortune was actually lost,--that she would be forced to earn her bread
if she stayed as surely as if she went,--that she must labour
incessantly, if she would not be a dependent beggar. Think and reflect
as she might, she saw nothing before her but death in a hospital! And
she would far rather perish in a foreign land than here, where all knew
her, and where all would triumph over her downfall, that they had
prophesied so often. No! she must fly! Like the dying bird in winter,
hiding himself in his death-agony from every eye, she would conceal, in
a distant quarter of the globe, her poverty, her degradation and
disgrace, from the arrogant man of whom she had been so haughtily
independent in the day of her prosperity.
At last she raised her head, and, with a great effort, said, "There is
no choice left me. I must fulfil my contract,--I _must_ go to America!"
Johannes had awaited her decision with breathless eagerness. He lost
almost entirely his hardly-won self-control. "Ernestine," he exclaimed,
seizing both her hands, "Ernestine, I plead for life and death. Do you
not hear?--I tell you there is no hope for you but in absolute repose.
Will you voluntarily hurry into the grave yawning at your feet? I have
watched you with the eyes of a physician and a lover, and I swear to
you, by my honour, that I have been continually discovering fresh cause
for anxiety. You look as if you were in a decline at this moment. You
have the feeble, capricious pulse and the cold hands of a victim of
disease of the heart. Yesterday I heard from Frau Willmers of symptoms
that filled me with alarm for you,--I grasp at the hope that they may
be only the effects of your unnaturally forced manner of life. But
these effects may become causes, in your present exhausted condition,
causes of mortal disease, if you do not spare yourself I cannot, in
duty or conscience, let you go without, hard as it is, enlightening you
with regard to your physical condition. I would have spared you the
cruel truth, but your determined obstinacy extorts it from me. Have
some compassion upon me, and do not go before you have seen Heim. He is
a man of experience, let him judge whether I am right or not. I entreat
you to see him. Do, Ernestine, do, for my sake, if you would not leave
me plunged in the depths of despair."
Still he held her hands firmly clasped in his. His chest heaved, his
cheeks were flushed with emotion. All the strength of his passionate
affection for her seethed and glowed in his imperious and imploring
entreaties.
Ernestine stood pale and calm before him. No human eye could divine her
thoughts.
Whilst they stood thus silently gazing into each other's eyes, there
was a sound as of a carriage driving from the door below. Johannes, in
his agitation, never heard it. Ernestine thought it was possibly her
uncle, but she did not care. She had suddenly grown strangely
indifferent to everything in the world.
"Ernestine, have you no answer for me?" asked Johannes.
"I will--reflect--until to-morrow."
"Thank God!" burst from the depths of Johannes' heart. As he dropped
Ernestine's hands, he fairly staggered with exhaustion.
Again a few moments passed in gloomy silence.
"Ernestine," he then said, "you have in this last hour punished an
innocent man for all the sins of his sex. Let it suffice you--indeed
you are avenged."
Ernestine did not speak.
Johannes continued. "I will intrude no longer. May I come with Heim
to-morrow?"
"You shall learn my decision to-morrow."
"Your hand upon it. No? Then farewell!"
Ernestine was alone. She stood motionless for awhile, never thinking of
Johannes, nor of her uncle, who, strangely enough, did not appear, but
with one sentence ringing in her ears,--"Your pulse is that of a victim
to disease of the heart." Those words had stung like a scorpion. There
was no doubt, then, that Johannes considered her past all hope of
recovering,--he had plainly intimated as much, although he had
refrained from bluntly telling her so. But was Dr. Moellner capable of
forming a correct judgment in her case? Yes, certainly, both as
physiologist and physician, he was thoroughly able to form a just
diagnosis. She did not understand how she could so long have ignored
the signs in herself of physical decline. He was right,--her uncle was
her murderer. She shuddered at the thought. How near death seemed to
her now! She thought, and thought called to mind every peculiar
sensation that she had lately been conscious of, weighed the evidence,
and drew conclusions.
It was remarkable how everything betokened trouble with her heart.
Johannes wished to consult Heim. He would not have done that, had he
not thought her dangerously ill. What could he or Heim tell her that
she did not know herself? Had he any means of obtaining knowledge that
were not hers also? Had she not a pathological library, filled with all
that a physician needed,--the same that she had destined for Walter,
but had not yet sent to him? She would consult it and know the truth
that very day.
Night had fallen--the rain was dripping outside--the room lay in dreary
shadow. She rang for lights. Frau Willmers brought a study-lamp with a
green shade, and left her alone again.
Ernestine placed a small library-ladder against one of the tall,
heavily-carved bookcases, and mounted it, with the lamp in her hand.
She took out one book after another, without finding the one for which
she was searching. Impatiently she rummaged among the dusty folios,
that had not been touched for months. At last, by the dim light of her
lamp, she saw the title that she was looking for, but it was beneath a
pile of books hastily heaped above it. She dragged it out with feverish
impatience. The volumes tumbled about, some hard, heavy object, lying
among them, fell upon her head, almost stunning her, and then shattered
the lamp in her hand, falling afterwards upon the floor with a dull
noise amidst the broken glass that accompanied it. Ernestine, her book
under her arm, got down from the ladder with trembling knees, to see,
by the expiring flame of the wick of the lamp, what it was that had
caused the mischief. As she stooped to pick it up, a fleshless,
grinning face stared into her own. She started back with a cry. It was
one of the skulls that she had put away in the library and long
forgotten. The dim light of the lamp died out, but through the darkness
the white jaws still grinned horribly. Almost insane with horror, she
called again for lights. To her overwrought nerves, the trifling
accident was in strange harmony with the thoughts that were tormenting
her. It was as if nature thus gave her ominous warning of her fate.
When lights were brought, she forced herself to look the hateful thing
in the face again. She picked up the head by its empty eye-sockets.
"Thus shall I shortly look,--no fairer than this horror!" And she went
up to a mirror, and, in a kind of bravado, compared her own head with
the fleshless thing. "You must learn to recognize the family likeness,"
she said to her own reflection, and in feverish fancy she began to
analyze her own fair, noble features and imagine all the changes that
they must pass through before their resemblance to their mute, bleached
companion should be complete. Disgust and dread mastered her again, and
she feared her own reflection in the mirror as much as the skull. She
threw it from her, and then started at the noise it made as it fell
into the corner of the room. The blood rushed to her head, and she was
deafened by the whirr and singing in her ears, although, through it
all, she seemed to hear something, she knew not what, that she could
not comprehend, and that increased her terror. The death's-head in the
corner would not--so it seemed to her--keep quiet; it was rolling about
there. She could not stay in the room,--there was something evil in the
air. She took the book that she had found, and the candle, and fled
like a hunted deer to her own apartment, never looking around her in
the desolate rooms, in fear lest the formless thing that so filled her
with dread should take visible shape and stare at her from some dim
recess. But it followed at her heels, dogging her footsteps,
surrounding her like an atmosphere, and with its hundred arms so
oppressing her chest and throat, even in the quiet of her own room,
that it scarcely left space for her heart to beat. How strangely it did
beat,--so irregularly! now faint, now strong, as only a diseased heart
can beat! And she opened the book and read her doom,--read the pages
devoted to diseases of the heart, hastily, feverishly, with little
comprehension of their meaning, for by this time thought was merged in
fear, and of course she gave the words a meaning they did not possess,
in dread of finding what she wanted to know and yet greedily searching
for it. Yes, it was just as she feared. Not a symptom here described
that she had not felt. Now it was beyond all doubt, she was lost,--no
cure was possible,--only delay, and even that, in her present state of
weakness, was hardly to be hoped. She tossed the book aside, and went
to the window for air. Damp with rain and close as it was, still it was
air,--freer and purer than any that she would have in her coffin. Then,
to be sure, she would need it no more, but it was still delightful to
breathe, and the thought of lying beneath that close coffin-lid was
suffocation!
And she was to die soon! Johannes had not been mistaken. It was true.
And her strength had been failing for a long time. What was she afraid
of? What was there to fear? The pain that she might suffer? Thousands
had suffered the same agony, and the hour of her release was perhaps
closer at hand than she thought. Then she would be strong,--this hope
should sustain her. She would not falsify, even to herself, the
declaration that she had made to Johannes scarcely an hour before.
Fear? What? Annihilation,--to cease to be,--it was not cheering, and
certainly not sad,--it was simply nothing! It was not annihilation that
she feared, but a continuation of existence that might be worse than
death,--the uncertainty whether the soul perished with the body.
"True," she said to herself, "if our eyes are blinded they are not
conscious of light, our closed ears cannot hear. Let this physical
mechanism, that is our means of communication with the exterior world,
pause in its working, and communication ceases. But suppose thought
should be independent of this mechanism? Oh! horrible, horrible! why is
there no proof that it cannot be so? What if memory lives on and there
are no eyes for seeing, and of course no light,--no ears for hearing,
and no sound, no body sensitive to touch, no time or space,--nothing
but eternal night, eternal silence, only informed by the memory of what
we have seen and heard, and the longing for light, sound, and feeling?"
This was the worst of all,--more dreadful than personal annihilation;
this was what she feared. Eternal night, eternal silence, and eternal
solitude! Whose blood would not curdle at the thought, except theirs,
perhaps, who were weary and worn with existence, or who, looking back
upon life's long labour well performed, needed not shun an eternity of
remembrance? But she? She was not weary of the world, she had not yet
began to enjoy it,--she was not old, she was just beginning to live.
She had done nothing towards fulfilling her high purposes, nothing that
she could look back upon with satisfaction. It was too soon,--if she
must go now, she had nothing to look forward to but an eternity of
remorse! And how long must she endure this dread before the horrible
certainty came upon her? "Oh, cruel death!" she moaned, "to assail me
thus insidiously in his most horrid shape,--of slow, languishing
disease! If he would only attack me like an assassin, that I might do
battle with him,--meet me in the shape of some falling fragment of rock
that I might try to avoid, or in engulfing waves that I could breast
and strive against,--it would be kinder than to steal upon me thus,
invisible, impalpable, inevitable! Let me flee across the ocean to the
farthest ends of the earth, I cannot escape him, I take him with me!
Let me mount the swiftest steed and be borne wildly over hill and
valley, I cannot escape him, he will ride with me! Let me climb the
loftiest Alps,--in vain! in vain! He nestles within me." She fell upon
her knees. "Oh, omnipotent nature, cruel mother who refusest me
your bounteous nourishment, have compassion upon me, and save your
child,--do not give my thought, my life, to annihilation, and its
garment to decay! Millions breathe and prosper who are not worthy of
your blessings,--will you thrust out me, your priestess, from your
grace?" And she lay prostrate, wringing her hands, as if awaiting an
answer to her entreaty. All around her was silent. There was no pity
for her. She bethought herself, "Oh, nature is implacable, why should I
pray to her? she does not hear, she does not think or feel, but sweeps
me from her path in the blind despotism of her eternal mechanism. Is
there no hand to aid? no judge of the worth of an existence, to say,
'Thou art worthy to live, therefore live?' There is, there is! By the
agony of this hour, I know there must be a higher justice, a Divinity
other than nature. The spirit that now in dread of death wrestles with
nature must have another refuge, a loftier destiny than the life of
this world!" She clasped her hands upon her breast. "Oh, Faith! Faith!
and if it be so,--if there be a God, what claim can I have upon His
pity? Could my vain pride sustain me before such a judge? What have I
done to make me worthy of His compassion? Have I been of any use in the
world,--conferred happiness upon a single human being, formed one tie
pleasant to contemplate? Have I not all my life long denied His
existence, and now, like a coward, do I fly to Him for succour? Can I
expect aid, and dare to raise my eyes to heaven and seek there what the
earth denies me? No! I will not deceive myself; there is no pity for
me,--none in nature, none in mankind, none in God!"
And Faith overwhelmed her with its terrors, for only to the loving
heart is Faith revealed as Love. To those who have shunned and denied
it, it comes like an avenging blast. It bore her poor diseased mind
away upon its wings like a withered leaf from the tree of knowledge,
and tossed it down into the night of despair.
A cry, "Johannes, come! save me!" burst from Ernestine's lips, and, in
a vain effort to reach the door, she fell senseless upon the ground.