Weeks have passed--the young powers of these eyes are to be tried by
the light of day. The doctor, who, from the adjacent town where he
lived, had hitherto directed the children's simple treatment, had come
over on a bright unclouded day, to be present, and with his patients to
enjoy, the first fruits of his skill.
Green wreaths in lieu of curtains had been hung about the windows, and
both rooms festively adorned with flowers and foliage. The baron
himself, and from the village the nearer friends of both the families,
had assembled to wish parents and children joy, and to rejoice in the
happy wonder of the cure.
When Clement, scarlet with delight, was placed before Marlene, and took
her hand, in shy terror she had half hidden herself in a corner behind
some foliage. He had begged to be allowed to see her first--both
bandages had been loosened at the same moment. A cry of speechless
rapture had sounded from the boy's lips; he remained rigid on the same
spot, a beatified smile upon his lips, turning his flashing eyes on
every side. He has forgotten that Marlene was to be placed before him;
(he had yet to learn what the human form is like,) and she did nothing
to recall it to him. She stood motionless. Only her long lashes
quivered over her large clear brown passive eyes. No suspicions were
awakened yet. "Those unknown wonders of sight are strange to her," they
said. But when the boy broke out into this sadden rapture, and they
said to him, "This is Marlene," and in his old way he had felt for her
cheek with his hand, and stroked it, saying, "Your face is bright;"
then her tears gushed out. She hastily shook her head, and said, almost
inaudibly--"It is all dark; it is just as it always was!"
The horror of that first moment who shall describe? The agitated doctor
drew her towards the window, and proceeded to examine her eyes; the
pupils were not to be distinguished from seeing ones, save by their
lifeless melancholy fixedness. "The nerve is dead!" he said; "some
sadden shock, or vivid light must have destroyed it." The sexton's wife
tamed white, and fell fainting in her husband's arms. Clement could
hardly gather what was passing--his mind was filled with the new life
given him. But Marlene lay bathed in tears, and returned no answer to
the doctor's questions. Nothing was ever learned from her; she could
not tell how it had happened, she said; she begged to be forgiven
for her childish weeping. She could bear all that was appointed for
her--she had never known a happier lot.
Clement was beside himself when the extent of her misfortune was made
known to him. "You shall see too!" he cried, running to her; "I do not
care to see if you do not! It cannot be so hopeless yet. Ah, now I know
what it is you lose! Seeing would be nothing; it is that everybody else
has eyes, that look so kindly on us--and so shall you see them look on
you! Only have patience, and do not cry!" And then he turned to the
doctor, and with tears, implored him to cure Marlene. Large tears stood
in the good doctor's eyes; he could scarcely so far compose himself as
to bid the boy first be careful of himself; meanwhile he would see what
could be done; he was forced to leave him a ray of hope to spare him
dangerous agitation.
From the disconsolate parents, however, he did not withhold the truth.
The boy's grief had been some comfort to Marlene. As she was sitting by
the window she called him to her: "You must not be so grieved," she
said; "it is the will of God. Rejoice, as I rejoice, that you are
cured. You know I never cared so much; I could have been contented as
it was. If only father and mother would not mind!--but they will get
used to it again, and so will you. If you will only love me just as
well now that I am to remain as I was, we may still be very happy."
But he was not so easily to be comforted, and the doctor had to insist
on their being parted. Clement was taken into the larger room, where
the villagers came pressing round him, shaking hands with him by turns,
with cordial words and wishes. The crowd half stunned him, and he only
kept repeating: "Marlene is still blind; she will never see! have you
heard?" he would say, and burst into tears afresh.
It was high time to tie the bandage on again, and lead him to his own
cool quiet room--there he lay exhausted with joy and grief and weeping.
His father came to him, and spoke tenderly and piously; which did not
much avail him. He cried even in his sleep, and appeared to be
disturbed by distressing dreams.
On the following day, however, wonder, joy, and curiosity asserted
their rights again; sorrow for Marlene only appeared to touch him
nearly when he had her before his eyes. The first thing in the morning
he had been to see her, and with affectionate anxiety to enquire
whether she felt no change--no more hopeful symptom? Then he became
absorbed in the variegated world that was expanding before his eyes.
When he returned to Marlene, it was only to describe some new wonder to
her, although sometimes, in his fullest flow of narrative, he would
stop suddenly, reminded by a look at the poor little friend beside him,
how painful to her his joy must be. But in reality, she did not find it
painful. For herself she wanted nothing--listening to the enthusiasm of
his delight was joy enough for her. Only when by-and-by he came more
rarely, or remained silent, for the reason that all he could have said,
appeared as nothing to what he did not dare to say--only then she began
to feel uneasy. Hitherto, by day, she had hardly ever been without him,
but now she often sat alone. Her mother would come to keep her company;
but her mother, once so lively, in losing her dearest hope, had also
lost her cheerfulness.
She could find nothing to say to her child save words of comfort, which
her own sighs belied, and which therefore could not reach her heart.
How much of what the young girl now was suffering had she not foreseen
with terror! And yet the feeling of what she had lost, came upon her
with pangs of unknown bitterness.
She would still sit spinning in her father's garden, and when Clement
came, these poor blind eyes of hers would light up strangely. He was
always kind, and would sit beside her, stroking her hair and cheek as
he had done of old. Once she entreated him not to be so silent--she
felt no touch of envy when he told her what the world was like, and
what it daily taught him; but when he left her to herself, she felt so
lonely! Never, by word or look, did she remind him of that evening when
he had promised he would never leave her--such hopes as these she had
long resigned. And since he had nothing to conceal from her, he
appeared to love her twice as well.
In the fullness of his heart, he would sit for hours telling her of the
sun and moon and stars; of all the trees and flowers; and especially
how their parents looked, and they themselves. To her very heart's
core, she felt a thrill of joy, when he innocently told her that she
was fairer far than all the village maidens; he described her as tall
and slender; with delicately-chiselled features, and dark eyebrows. He
had also seen himself, he said, in the glass; but he was not nearly so
good-looking--men in general were not, by a great deal, so handsome as
women. All this was more than she could quite comprehend; only so much
she did: her own looks pleased him, and more than this her heart did
not desire.
They did not again return to this topic; but on the beauties of nature
he was perfectly inexhaustible. When he was gone, she would recall his
words, and feel a kind of jealousy of a world that robbed her of him.
In secret this childish feeling grew and strengthened--growing stronger
even than the pleasure she had felt in his delight. Above all, she
began to hate the sun; for the sun, he told her, was brighter than all
created things besides. In her dim conceptions, brightness and beauty
were the same; and never did she feel so disheartened as when, towards
evening, he sat beside her, intoxicated with delight, watching the sun
go down. Of herself he had never spoken in such words--and did this
sight so cause him to forget her that he did not even see the tears
that started to her eyes--tears of vexation, and of a curious kind of
jealous grievance?
Her heart grew heavier still, when, with the doctor's sanction, the
vicar began the education of his son. Before his eyes had been couched,
the greater part of his day had been spent in practising his music.
Bible teaching, something of history and mathematics, and a trifle of
Latin, was all that formerly had been considered needful. In all those
lessons, not extending beyond the most conventional acquirements,
Marlene had taken a part.
Now that the boy manifested a very decided taste for natural history,
his time was filled up in earnest; preparing him for one of the higher
classes of a school in the neighbouring town. With a firm unwearying
will, and his natural dispositions aiding, he laboured through all that
had been omitted in his education, and soon attained the level of his
years. For many an hour together, he would sit in the sexton's garden
with his book; but there was now no question of their former chat.
Marlene felt her twofold loss--her lessons and her friend.