While Cornelia was confidently looking forward to a meeting with
Ottmar, proud in the consciousness of having repelled all the attacks
of his enemies, _Heinrich_ was tortured by uncertainty in regard to her
fate. Ever since his return home, he had lived exclusively on his
estates, engaged in making preparations for his new calling. In this
complete seclusion from the would, whose influence had been so hostile
to Cornelia, engrossed by the ideas of which she was the charming
representative, he fed his longing for her more and more. At every step
in his new career he had expected some sign of life from her, but in
vain. His hope began to waver. He knew that she was in the hands of the
Jesuits, and trembled lest her young, susceptible soul, her easily
excited fancy, should not remain closed to their influences, for then
she would be irrecoverably torn from him. He had fulfilled every
condition mentioned in her letter. It was not possible that she still
loved him if, after all this, she still persisted in her obstinate
silence. A deep melancholy began to overpower him once more; his
prospects lay before him like a region destitute of sunlight; his whole
career would lack purpose if Cornelia was not won again. As yet no
success had crowned his efforts. He had no anticipation of the
happiness he would feel if he could some day consider himself as the
true benefactor of a whole nation. The quiet labor for his new vocation
did not yet satisfy him, and he therefore founded all his hopes upon
his entrance into parliament, and longed for the day of election as the
last limit Cornelia had perhaps allowed herself. One day, in his
restlessness, he drove into the city to divert his thoughts. He wished
to visit the Exhibition, and as he went up the broad staircase of the
museum he noticed with secret pleasure that people whispered to each
other, "That is Ottmar!" and looked at him with interest and approval.
He entered the large hall where reigned the solemn silence with which
men receive into their souls the wonders of art. The first and second
rooms were empty of spectators. The dead and yet lifelike forms upon
the walls looked down upon him with their eternal laughing, weeping, or
anger. An exhibition is a mute world of a brilliant-hued medley of
times, customs, and passions, petrified as if by some magic, and
imprisoned in frames, condemned to remain motionless in the attitude
assumed at the moment when the spell began to work. There a Magdalen
repents with inexhaustible tears; yonder a Roman maiden allures, ever
unsuccessfully, with her motionless, half-opened lips; and here an Alva
rages in implacable fury, while close by a Huss burns in never-dying
flames; below a wolf snaps in unappeasable hunger at a child, which,
fortunately, he will never reach; a mother seeks to tear it away, and
cannot draw it to her protecting breast; the poor woman is condemned to
perpetual dread, and the spectator with her. Not far away is--and will
forever remain--a pair of lovers in the act of exchanging a kiss.
Upon the other side ships struggle with waves, nations contend in a
never-decided battle, a vanquished man awaits the death-stroke of the
conqueror, and high up, an a golden background, flooded by the light
that streams through the glass dome, is enthroned the Virgin, in her
calm peace, surrounded by her heavenly glory.
All the passions, joys, griefs, and hopes of humanity, fixed and
beautified by the power of genius, displayed themselves to _Heinrich's_
wandering gaze, but his thoughts dwelt only with Cornelia; nay, it even
seemed as if here and there he found some resemblance to her. One
picture had her eyes, another her profile or her mouth,--her brow. He
fancied he saw her everywhere; it was doubtless a trick of his excited
imagination, or the likeness all regular beauties bear to each other.
He passed on into the third hall, which was crowded. Two oil-paintings
attracted the especial attention of the public, and the universal
verdict pronounced them to be the best in the Exhibition. It was
difficult for him to make his way in, but he could scarcely trust his
eyes when he saw one of them,--for it was Cornelia again; the likeness
was so speaking that no doubt was possible, and the figure of Severinus
beside her was equally unmistakable. Both were really only minor
accessories to a beautiful landscape, but painted in a most masterly
manner. They were standing under lofty trees which formed the
foreground, by the shore of a lake, which, surrounded by beautiful
mountain-peaks, stretched out into the background. Severinus had one
arm extended, pointing to a church-tower almost shrouded in mist.
Cornelia, with clasped hands, was looking up into his face. In
the catalogue, the work was merely named "View of the Ch---- See,
by A----."
_Heinrich_ could not understand it; and when an acquaintance came up
and called his attention to the other famous painting, he turned
carelessly towards it; but his astonishment was inexpressible, as here
also he found Cornelia. The figures were life-size. The picture
represented the moment before a novice assumes the garb of a nun. She
was leaning upon the window-sill of a gloomy convent-room, gazing up
towards heaven, whose brilliant blue gleamed through the bars, while a
green branch, swayed by the wind, tossed against the rusty iron
gratings. The artist, by a singular fancy, had drawn his principal
figure with her back towards the spectators, probably to show in all
its magnificence the beautiful brown hair which was so soon to fall
under the scissors. But the bright panes of the window, which opened
inwards, revealed the face, upraised in fervent prayer. This face was
Cornelia's, as well as the hair he had so often stroked; the youthful
neck, which the thin undergarment she was soon to cover with the nun's
dress, lying close by, clearly revealed, and which he had so often
admired. He rubbed his eyes; he looked again and again; it was still
Cornelia. A gloomy, haggard prioress was in the act of advancing with
the scissors, and a sweet-faced young nun was gazing with evident
compassion at the beautiful, devout novice.
"Is it not a true work of genius?" said _Heinrich's_ companion. "The
expression of enthusiastic devotion in the face reflected in the
window, and the wonderfully painted hair! One really dreads the moment
when that stern, unfeeling prioress will cut it off!"
"By whom was the picture painted?" asked _Heinrich_.
"By a B---- artist of the name of Richard."
"Does any one know whom he had for a model?"
"No; he keeps it a profound secret. I could almost believe he
has--Heaven knows how!--witnessed such a scene. People don't create
such things purely from imagination."
_Heinrich_ made no reply, and his acquaintance, perceiving his strange
emotion, withdrew.
Ottmar went from one picture to another; but reflect and consider as he
would, one thing only was clear to him, that Cornelia must have sat to
these artists herself, for such a resemblance could not be accidental;
and although the window-panes in one picture reflected her face but
dimly, it was all the more unmistakable in the other,--and Severinus
too. So in this way she had consented to make known to the world her
connection with Jesuitism! She must consider these relations an honor
of which she publicly boasted, and this she could not do unless she had
been converted to Catholicism,--unless they had impressed upon her mind
the dogma of the supremacy and infallibility of the one saving church.
There was a mysterious connection of ideas between the two pictures;
and although he would not give way to it, it oppressed his heart with a
torturing dread. The words "people don't create such things purely from
imagination" still rang in his ears. Suppose the artist had really
taken the idea of his work from the fact that Cornelia, whom he perhaps
painted a short time before, had entered a convent? In conditions of
the soul like that into which he had cast Cornelia, where the whole
existence is pervaded with pain, and every foundation is shaken, the
seeds of the Jesuits thrive best; in such moods they most easily obtain
a mastery over man. Now, for the first time, it occurred to him that
her letter had been redolent of that pride of self-sacrifice, which,
after great conflicts, chills so many a young heart, and drives it into
the nursery of such virtues, the convent. Suppose Cornelia had gone so
far? It was not impossible! Her enthusiasm in everything, especially
her zealous desire to be of use, the inclination to sacrifice herself
for great ideas which she had so often shown, her susceptibility to the
poesy of religion,--all this seemed to him material enough to form an
agent of the church; and as the psychological fathers would not have
ventured to send such a fiery genius into the world, they had perhaps
taken advantage of some moment of weakness to imprison her in one of
the convents which lead young girls "to the heart of Jesus." The more
_Heinrich_ thought of this, the more probable and clear it appeared.
Urged on by his agony, he hastened to ascertain the residences of the
two artists. He wished to buy the pictures spite of their extremely
high price,--wished to learn some particulars about Cornelia. He would
and must have some certainty; he could not bear this terrible doubt. He
wrote to Richard and A----, but at the same time to Cornelia,
addressing the letter to the Ch---- See. Perhaps the people there knew
her present residence and could send it to her.
The reply of the artist A---- was extremely unsatisfactory. He would
give no account of the manner in which he had succeeded in obtaining
the portrait, for he had stolen her features on that first morning by
the lake, when Cornelia, thinking herself unobserved, had walked upon
the shore with Severinus. Richard wrote: "The lady had been painted
from memory, and he had really taken the subject of his picture from
the fact that she had entered a convent, where she had been kept
rigidly secluded, since no information concerning her had been
obtained."
So she had really entered a convent, and there was no possibility of
learning any further particulars! _Heinrich's_ condition was pitiable.
To wait--to do nothing but wait--with this burning longing and
uncertainty in his breast, for an event which perhaps might never
occur, to hope for a fortunate dispensation that perhaps was already
baffled,--such was his fate! He lived in a feverish dream, but forced
himself to enter with all his powers into what would promote the
decision of his fate, his election to the parliament. The newspapers
mentioned his name connection with those of the most honored patriots;
and if Cornelia still had free control over herself, she must at least
be touched by the loyalty with which he struggled to reach the
prescribed goal; if she were silent, then there could be no doubt that
she was lost to him. Just at that time the blow Cornelia had vainly
sought to avert suddenly fell upon him. The Jesuits executed their
threats, but this time in a different way from that Severinus had
adopted years before. The organ of ultramontanism in H---- printed an
article headed, "Contributions to the Traits of Character of a New
Candidate." This essay contained a biography of Ottmar, from the time
of his entrance into the Jesuit college to that of his present change
of opinions, which, animosity, distortion of facts, and compromising
indiscretions, surpassed everything for which Ottmar had given them
credit. The style was in the so-called interests of the nation, so
often merely the cloak beneath which partisan writers strive to win the
applause of the masses; but the worst part of all was that the author,
Geheimrath Schwelling, who years before had played so contemptible a
part as Severinus's companion in the interview with _Heinrich_, offered
to exhibit to any one who might desire it written proofs of most of his
accusations. There was no lack of credulous and doubtful persons who
wished to convince themselves with their own eyes. The Geheimrath's
house became the rendezvous of the curious of all parties, and the
papers Severinus had returned to the General for a more worthy use
passed from hand to hand. The matter made all the greater excitement an
account of the great expectations which had been fixed upon Ottmar. The
sheet containing the scandalous article had an immense circulation; and
although the cultivated portion of the community turned with disgust
from its coarse tone, the facts were not to be denied, and people
shrugged their shoulders doubtfully. But the lower classes even gave
credence to the charges, in consequence of the amusement the
commonplace wit of the style afforded them. In vain Ottmar's friends
printed articles in his defense; in vain his banker proved that he had
spent the greater portion of his property in purchasing expensive
agricultural implements, which he allowed all the country people in the
neighborhood to use gratis, and for other national purposes; it was now
an easy matter for his enemies to convince the suspicious masses that a
man who had gone from rationalism to Jesuitism, then back again to the
former, next to despotism, and finally to liberalism once more, was not
to be trusted in any relation. "Hold psychological discussions about
the motives which forced you to deny your convictions, you will be
laughed at, and your name will be branded before all parties,"
Severinus had said contemptuously years before, and now the result
proved how completely he had been in the right. The facts spoke against
him, and he could not succeed in giving the people a correct
understanding of them, because he had only words,--no contradictory
proofs at his command. Even the sincerity with which in N---- he had
stood forth in behalf of the constitution was no longer acknowledged,
for the scandalous article rendered even this deed suspected as a mere
prudential measure. He had perceived that he could no longer hold his
ground against the progressive party, and therefore took sides with
them in time. This belief appeared only too probable in the case of a
man whose life had been so full of contradictions. The confidence which
had just been obtained was shaken; the voters began to hesitate. Many
forgot what they owed him since his return; others made all the
acknowledgments of his services as a public benefactor which were his
due; but even they did not wish to elect, as the representative of the
most important interests, one whose politics were doubtful. The day of
decision came and crowned his enemies' labors with success. Ottmar was
defeated by a large majority. He saw himself scorned, insulted; all his
hopes crushed, his honor lost; and she for whom he suffered such
intolerable torments, who alone could repay him for what he had
lost,--Cornelia,--was silent! For love of her he had sacrificed
everything; for love of her entered the path which was to lead him to
find an abundant reward for ignominy in her arms; and day by day
elapsed without bringing any tidings, convincing him more and more that
she was torn from him,--that he had gained nothing save the fruits of
his sins.
Every morning he went to meet the postman, who brought the letters to
his estate, and always in vain. Fourteen times since the election he
had borne the tortures of renewed and disappointed hope, had rushed
towards the postman in breathless haste only to return with empty
hands. He had lain awake on his couch all through the long nights, and
welcomed the first ray of light as a preserver from his feverish,
agonizing impatience. One morning this restlessness drove him out even
earlier than usual, for it was the anniversary of the day on which
Cornelia had left him. Perhaps she would give herself to him again on
this day; perhaps she had waited for it intentionally. One who has
hoped and expected so long at last clings to every conceivable
possibility. Thus Ottmar's feet were winged with double speed as he
hurried through pleasure-grounds and woodlands, to obtain that for
which he longed a half-hour earlier. Wearied with his haste, he emerged
from the thicket upon the highway. A fresh autumn breeze was rustling
through the tops of the poplars, bending their stiff boughs asunder
like the fingers of menacing giant hands. The broad, level road, with
its dazzling white sand, stretched before him, endless and empty,--the
storm had swept it clean; nothing was to be seen on the wide plain, and
Ottmar hurried restlessly onward. Just at that moment the dark figure
of the postman appeared in the distance, and with a beating heart
_Heinrich_ quickened his pace. At last he reached the man, who was
already holding out his bag; but again he was disappointed,--it
contained nothing but unimportant business letters. The last
possibility of hope had now disappeared; now he could no longer doubt
that Richard had written the truth, that Cornelia was in a convent.
His measure was full. The Nemesis he had so long seemed to escape had
overtaken him, and he must patiently endure her fury with fettered
hands. Fortune, love, honor, all were lost, irrevocably lost, and every
accusation he wished to heap upon others recoiled upon himself. He was
the cause of his own misery, he alone. Fate had given him everything he
desired; but he had only demanded that which contained the germ of his
ruin. No disaster had befallen him which was not the punishment of a
crime. Absorbed in these reflections, the deeply-humbled man slowly
returned and reached the wood. The bright rays of the autumn sunlight
fell through the branches and made the yellow leaves glitter like gold;
the farther he went the more quiet and pleasant it became. The withered
foliage, alternated with the dark-green hue of a dense grove of firs;
the forest murmured and whispered to him in a soothing tone,--he did
not hear it, did not remember that the enchanted ground be entered was
his own property; his heart remained closed, no source of comfort could
force an entrance. In silent agony the man was collecting his thoughts
to pass a stern, hopeless judgment upon himself.
A bench stood beside a beautiful forest stream; he involuntarily turned
towards it, and sat down with his face turned towards the rushing
water. He did not think of going home: he had one no longer; the house
in which he lived contained nothing dear to him; the whole world had no
spot where love and joy awaited him, where he would be missed; if he
remained away, society had no place for him to fill, no interests which
it would confide to him. What was he better than an outcast, a homeless
man? Could he endure the disgrace of such a life? Was it not more
honorable to extinguish it in the pure current of this stream? Who
would lose, from whom would he take anything, if he cast off the burden
of a hated, purposeless existence? And yet God had so endowed him that
his death must have made a void in the world, if he had been to it what
he ought. He gazed down into the murmuring water, which incessantly
glided by him pursued by the wind; his soul allowed itself be carried
on by the waves like a loosened vine. The eternally changing movement
before his eyes made him giddy; he looked away, and now, for the first
time, became aware to what thoughts he had involuntarily yielded. Did
no power then live in him except that of despising and destroying
himself? Could he atone for his faults by committing a crime against
himself? Should he steal away like an unfaithful steward who allowed
the property intrusted to his care to go to ruin? Should he add to the
dishonor which had fallen upon his name the eternal disgrace of
suicide, incur Cornelia's contempt, because he could not bear the loss
of her love? No, he had not fallen so low as not to repel such a
thought with a blush.
But what could, what ought he to do now, since the only profession for
which his education and studies fitted him--that of politics--was
closed to him in every direction? A quiet, inactive, private life,
which but a few hours before, in the hope of a marriage with Cornelia,
had appeared endurable, now seemed to him a moral death. He did not
understand nature, the occupations of an agriculturist had no charms
for him. Should he turn his estates into money, and invest it in some
other way? But in what? All the pleasures that can be purchased he had
already enjoyed to the dregs; life could afford him nothing more. The
egotist had reached the end of his career, and could neither advance
nor recede. Crushed and helpless, he looked back upon his past life,
and now the point at which he had turned from the right path revealed
itself to his searching gaze. The hours stood forth before his soul
when he had struggled in his first conflict between inclination and
duty, and inclination had conquered. All the strange, feverish fancies
once more rose before his memory, and he perceived that they were the
voices of his own heart which had spoken to him in the forms of
delirium. Now he understood--now, after it was fulfilled--what they had
said. With the first false step to which egotism urged him, he was
lost. The frivolity with which he had degraded the first woman he
loved, to be the prey of his passion, robbed him of his best
possession, respect for the sex. Thus every base materialism, which
only sought the enjoyment of the senses and thereby often formed the
sharpest contrast with the demands of his intellectual nature,
developed itself. The more frequently this conflict occurred, the
greater it became, the further the two extremes became separated from
each other, and the more distinctly their characteristics were stamped.
The more the feelings were severed from the intellect, the lower they
sank into sensuality, the stronger the passions became, and the more
peremptorily they demanded their victim; while, on the other hand, the
more exclusively the intellect withdrew into its own sphere, the
further it banished the feelings, the colder and more obstinate it
became, the more dull to everything which did not concern its own
advantage, and therefore the more unprincipled. From this sprang the
crimes which _Henri_ on the one hand, and _Heinrich_ on the other, had
committed, whose consequences now drove him to despair, and had even
terrified and driven from him forever the only woman for whom both
extremes longed with equal ardor. Thus the cause of all the evil in his
whole mistaken life was the separation between the mind and heart; the
pleasure-seeking of the one, the immoderate ambition of the other, was
the curse which had sprung from this division, the form under which
egotism had taken possession of both portions of his nature. And of
what he had enjoyed and obtained--nothing was left! His life had been
fruitless to himself as well as to others. He had deceived and
sacrificed confiding natures, and brought a nation to ruin for the sake
of tasting the delights of ruling; the pleasure was over, and the
curses of the unhappy accompanied him. Everything life could offer was
exhausted, drained, and worn out! All the threads by which the heart
draws its nourishment from the world were cut off and withered.
He now felt the deep truth of what Cornelia had wished to teach him,
what he had once in a dream bodingly anticipated: "Remember that the
end of life is neither to enjoy nor to obtain, but to be useful and
accomplish good works." But now, when this great knowledge seized upon
him,--when he perceived the fruitlessness of all selfish efforts,--now
when a powerful impulse urged him to do what mankind, and accomplish
what God, could ask of him,--now it was too late; every path was
closed, and the woman who alone could restore harmony to his nature,
lost! The guilt of the past had destroyed the hope of the future.
He rested his forehead upon his hand and closed his eyes; he could form
no plans for the future, while repentance and anguish stirred his heart
so violently--the first true repentance, the first great sorrow, of his
life. True, his powers rose and expanded in the struggle with the
unknown enemy as they had never done before, and the mighty assault of
the contending elements widened and swelled his breast, as if now for
the first time he became a man, now for the first time there was room
in his heart for lofty feelings, resolutions, and efforts; true, the
consciousness of the strength ennobled and increased by sorrow
conquered for a moment: but as if with this, the longing for the nature
that had always guided him towards the right path strengthened, the
thoughts of Cornelia's loss once more gathered in the depths of his
soul to break over him with renewed violence. What could life still
offer him? There was no longer any love like Cornelia's, any mind like
hers, any woman who could compare with her. He felt that this sorrow
would never die; that he might perhaps obtain honor, but never
happiness again. He threw himself despairingly upon the bench, face
downward. The stream hurried along at his feet, plashing and
glittering; the birds looked down from the branches at the tall, quiet
man, turned their heads inquisitively, and softly twittered a timid
question. Far above his head the summits of the ancient firs rustled
and told the azure sky of the sorrow concealed beneath their shade.
Softly and slowly the bushes near him parted,--he did not hear it,--and
a slender girlish form glided over the soft moss with a light step;
cautiously approached, and as she stood beside him, bent down, holding
her breath. Her glances beamed through tears, and she trembled like a
wild rose under the morning dew. _Heinrich_ heard a heart beating close
beside his ear, felt his head raised and pressed to a heaving bosom;
looked into a pair of eyes like two shining worlds. It was no dream,
and yet he could not utter a sound; all that he thought and felt
blended together in an unspeakable something, which swelled his heart
with glowing warmth, rose higher and higher till it reached his eyes,
overflowed as if his whole soul was gushing forth with it: he had wept
his first tears upon Cornelia's breast, and holding her in a mute
embrace reveled in this unspeakable bliss!
The noonday sun shone brightly and glowed through the ripe clusters of
grapes which hung from a trellis that surrounded the steward's pretty
little house not far from Ottmar's castle. A charming young woman stood
in the doorway, looking with eager expectation towards the forest; the
steward was working busily in the garden, but he, too, often glanced
into the distance.
"I don't understand where they could stay so long, if they met each
other," said the little woman, at last. "It would be a pity if she
missed him. I grieve over every hour the poor master is obliged to
spend in his sorrow."
"Yes," gasped the man, wiping his brow, "it was time for her to show
herself; the master's melancholy manner and wretched looks were
becoming the talk of the whole neighborhood and, after all, she
couldn't have been kept concealed much longer: we were always in a
fright." He threw his tools aside, went up to his wife, and put his arm
around her neck. "You would not have borne seeing me suffer so long,
would you, my Roeschen?"
She nestled fondly to his side and nodded. "No, indeed, my dear Albert!
But these great people are very different from us. Cornelia has a
grand, noble soul, which we must not judge by our own."
"You are right; it would not be proper for us to apply our standard to
them. Let us thank God we are made as is needful for our situation and
welfare."
"Yes, thank God for it!" cried Roeschen, joyously. "Oh, Albert! how
unhappy these aristocratic people often make themselves with their
over-refinement and their lofty requirements! I saw that in my poor
dead princess. Heaven knows what sorrow was gnawing at her heart!
According to my ideas, she might have been very happy; but it often
seemed as if she did not wish to be. At any rate, it was a very
aristocratic sorrow. If she had been in our condition in life, and had
not had so much time to give way to her thoughts, she would undoubtedly
be alive now."
"Well, those two at least are not making themselves wretched," laughed
Albert, pointing to Cornelia and _Heinrich_, who were rapidly
approaching.
The married pair modestly withdrew, and Cornelia and _Heinrich_,
absorbed in delightful conversation, reached the house, and entered a
pleasant little room on the ground floor.
"See, Heinrich, here is the hiding-place where I waited for three
weeks. From behind the curtains of that window I saw you pass, day
after day, and watched your face with a throbbing heart. Will you
forgive me for becoming a spy upon you? I wished, I was obliged, first
to discover whether you were at last a man to whom I might dare to
intrust my fate, whether you still loved me, and whether in my
affection I should offer you a welcome gift. I was obliged to give you
time to collect your thoughts after the blow that had fallen upon you,
and to raise yourself by your own might. If you had shown yourself to
my secretly watchful gaze otherwise than I hoped, otherwise than I
might dare to love you, I should have gone away as I came, unobserved
by you; perhaps with a broken heart, but silently and forever."
"Yon would have gone as already many a happiness has fled from the
threshold of him who did not deserve it," said _Heinrich_, clasping her
closely in his arms. "Oh, God, my salvation and my ruin were both so
near! Your eyes watched me like those of God, and if I had not stood
the test you would have left me for the second time, and been
irrevocably lost to me."
"Ah, I did not doubt that you would stand the test! A man has rarely
made greater sacrifices for a woman than you for me in the course of
this last year; for I clearly perceived that you would never have acted
as you have done if it had not been for my sake. But for your love for
me you would in a few years have conquered your longing for a higher
satisfaction, and remained till the end of your days in the cold
splendor of your position at the court of N----. Love for me--I may be
allowed to say so, since it is no merit of mine--was the impulse that
led you to take the first steps in another path. It guided you hither,
and I did not fear that it would desert you now, when it was apparently
leading you into misery. But a noble woman asks more than love from the
man of her choice: she demands character, firmness in misfortune as
well as prosperity, the power which is to be her support and
protection, the greatness to which she can cheerfully submit,
admiringly look up. It is a necessity of our natures to honor what we
love; in this humility lies our pride. If we cannot truly consider the
man to whom we belong far superior to us, we feel humiliated in
acknowledging him as our master. That is why I remained concealed so
long; I wished to investigate your whole life and conduct here, to see
what influence you exerted, whether you did good and made those around
you happy, what pleasures and employments you choose, how you would
bear the misfortune that had fallen upon you. And what I saw and heard
convinced me that you had entered upon your new calling not only in
appearance, but reality; that you had become a man to whom I might
confidently give myself. Yet the tears you have just shed told me more
than all. With these tears a new and better man was born in you; they
have atoned for every wrong, washed away every spot. Ah, if the bigoted
priests who believe you a lost soul had witnessed that one moment, they
would have understood that there is something holy outside their
church!"
"Cornelia," cried _Heinrich_, "dear, precious girl, say no more to me
about the Jesuits! Although I bear no towards the unhappy Severinus,
whom you have taught me to know as my brother, although I forgive the
intrigues they plotted against me, I will never pardon them for having
torn you from me and attempted to make you a proselyte, for having
intrusted you for so long a time to that handsome, dangerous Severinus,
whose perhaps unintentional conquests over women's hearts are well
known to the order. I can only consider it as a miracle that you
remained faithful to me."
Cornelia smilingly shook the hair back from her brow. "The miracle is
nothing more than that I have a faithful heart and a firm head."
"Those are the highest gifts a woman can possess. And this jewel has
fallen to my lot, mine of all others; this loyal, sorely wounded heart
clung to me; this proud firm brow, no power has ever humiliated, bent
to me. Oh, Cornelia, strong, gentle, forgiving woman, no man ever yet
repented more deeply, or was more truly grateful, than I repent my
crimes and thank you for your love! A thousand others in your place
would either have been dragged down by me, or cast me off forever; but
you would not permit yourself to be misled by all my faults and sins,
you believed a noble germ within me. Instead of punishing, you reformed
me, have been faithful to me; and now give yourself to me as trustfully
and freely as in the first moment of our love. Oh, girl, there is no
word for this bliss my thoughts are whelmed in a sea of emotions!" He
paused and laid his head upon hers, as if he wished to rest from his
overmastering emotion.
"Heinrich," said Cornelia, with deep, loving, earnestness, "let the
past rest; the Heinrich to whom I always belonged, and shall as long as
I live, never wronged me; he suffered with me when that other came
between and tore us from each other. That Count Ottmar, whose wife I
never wished to become, has atoned for his fault; he is dead. Never
conjure up his gloomy shade before me, even to arraign him, I beseech
you."
"Yes, my angel, you are right. Never was it so clear to me as to-day
that I bore my worst enemy in myself, and in the last few hours I have
buried him forever. One complete in himself, Cornelia, receives you in
his arms; it shall be his one task to live for you and your happiness;
he no longer seeks or hopes for anything but you and a quiet family
happiness, unnoticed, but rich in blessing."
Cornelia looked at him in astonishment. "Would you renounce politics
and every manly profession?"
"How can I help it? What can I begin after this failure? My political
credit is ruined here as well as elsewhere. What can it avail to
convince myself more and more that I cannot make amends for my
errors in this province? But here,"--he laid his band an Cornelia's
shoulder,--"here, thank God, I can atone for the wrongs I have
committed; here I can and will prove that I have become a different
man!"
"No, Heinrich," cried Cornelia, deeply touched. "I thank you for these
words, and for the cheerfulness with which you hope to find in me a
compensation for all; but I think too highly of you to be able to share
this hope. No wife, not even the most beloved, can make that
superfluous for which her husband was born: to work in a lofty
vocation. What you now feel, in the first ebullition of joy, you cannot
always experience. The storm that now fills your heart now will subside
in time, and the calm which will then follow would at last make you
find a void in yourself. You are no 'shepherd,' Heinrich. An idyllic,
private life would not long satisfy you; a quiet withdrawal into your
own family circle, a limiting of yourself to that which is personally
dear to you, would be again an egotistical, and therefore only a
partial, happiness. You possess the power of solving comprehensive
problems. Every power imperiously demands its right to assert itself;
if the opportunity is denied, it turns destructively against the
barriers imposed upon it, and that which is also within them. Thus it
would be with you and our peace. Woe betide the wife who believes that
she can and must be the whole world to her husband! She does not
understand his larger nature, and will only make herself or him
unhappy. I do not belong to that class. I pride myself in taking into
account all the just demands of your character, thus only can I make
you happy. I will not regret you in the hours your profession claims,
for I shall take possession of you doubly in spirit, when I know you to
be toiling for that for which I myself would fain strive with all my
powers, and must not because I am a woman. I will not bewail the
time you take from me to give to mankind, for I love all men far too
much to grudge them what you can do for their welfare. And then,
Heinrich,"--she laid her head on his breast, and gazed into his face
with a bride's ardent love,--"then when you return home to your wife
weary but joyous in the consciousness of duty then you shall rest in my
arms, in my faithful love, and let me have the proud belief that my
heart is the soil from which the roots of your life draw nourishment
for the glorious fruits that you permit the world to reap!"
"Cornelia, glorious creature! What a picture you conjure up before the
soul! These are divine revelations, and I will follow them
unquestioningly. Yes, I will begin anew; guide me with your inspired,
prophetic glance, lead me to the path upon which my first step
faltered; you alone know what is for my welfare." He gazed long and
earnestly into her eyes. "Oh, do not reproach me as unmanly because I
give myself up entirely to you, since through you I first became what I
am, through you alone I first learned to perceive in laboring for
others a duty, an object, in life! The representatives of these noble
ideas are principally women; for to labor and care for others is
woman's mission, to sacrifice herself for others' interests her
greatest power. The man who allows himself to be guided by a woman need
not become womanish, nor the woman masculine. If, like you, Cornelia,
she rises above her narrow subjective world to ideas which comprehend
all humanity, she confers the qualities inherent in her upon them, and
then doubtless becomes capable of guiding the more egotistical man to
honest efforts for the race, self-sacrifice, and true philanthropy!
Thus the strength of your love and virtue, in one word, your lofty
womanhood, draws me upward." He threw his arms around her and pressed
her ardently to his heart. "Cornelia, my betrothed bride, oh, tell me
again and again that I can never lose you, that you are mine!"
She clasped her hands. "Forever! forever! and may God's blessing be
with us!"
"Amen!" said _Heinrich_.
Thus the power of a genuine love had healed the secret conflict in
Ottmar. Intellect and sensuous feelings, both equally attracted,
equally satisfied, united in the same object, and in the soft
atmosphere of a true happiness his shattered nature healed into a
symmetrical whole.
The ghostly apparitions of his dual existence disappeared before the
reality of an all-reconciling feeling which seized upon the inmost
kernel of life, and from this brought forth the source of never-failing
joy.
When the whole man was in harmony with himself, his long-scattered and
dispersed powers concentrated in the depths of his soul, and now for
the first time showed unity of purpose and noble, honest action: for
the first time he became a man. And when he thus once more appeared
before the world with head erect, he conquered; for real ability and
honest convictions always find allies in the natural instincts of the
people, and against these even the hostility of the Jesuits was
powerless. The web they had entwined around him was only that of
his own cowardice and duplicity. His manly conduct at last tore it
asunder. He was now free, and his purified character afforded no
opening for a new snare. After a few years he saw the noblest ambition
gratified,--that of being useful and accomplishing some good result. He
was the main support of the Party in favor of the constitution, averted
a threatening reaction by his ready dialectics, felt the mighty breath
of an applauding nation hovering like a vivifying spring-storm about
his head, and everywhere, far and wide, saw the seeds springing up
which his reawakened philanthropy had sown.
And with inexpressible joy he clasped his blooming wife in his arms,
compared the lifeless splendor of the former minister with the warm,
evermore richly developing activity of the simple deputy, and his full
heart gratefully overflowed in the proud words, "Yes, my wife, you were
right; it is not what the world is to us, but what we are to the world,
that is the measure of our happiness."