Part 24

They entered the drawing-room, the apartment so short a time ago the scene of peace and joy; whose atmosphere was still pervaded with _Henri's_ glowing breath. There lay the gloves he had forgotten in his haste. Her tears burst forth afresh. It seemed as if she had just come from his funeral, and could not part from these last sad tokens of his life. She mutely motioned Severinus to be seated; she could not speak,--could not express her emotions in words. Severinus understood her thoroughly, and watched her in silence. She sat with bowed bead, speechless and pale; her hands resting on her lap; her loosened tresses falling around her, wet with tears. She still saw the impression made on the soft carpet where he had knelt before her; there lay a velvet ribbon he had torn from her arm; with a deep blush she looked up at the priest, as if he could read her thoughts. Now, for the first time, she noticed his delicate features, the melancholy expression of his large dark eyes, and gazed at him more earnestly. With an involuntary motion he pushed the hair from his brow, and a broad scar became visible.

"You are Severinus!" she exclaimed, starting up and seizing both his hands.

"Did you not know it?" he asked, in astonishment.

"No, I did not hear your name just now; but I think I once saw you in a brighter hour than this."

"In the churchyard a few months ago."

"Yes. Ah, it was a fleeting happiness!" she murmured. "It is strange that we should meet. Oh, I salute you: the only person of whom Heinrich always spoke with reverence, whom God has sent to be my preserver!"

"May the Almighty grant that I shall prove so! But what can I do for you? Will you raise me to the rank of your friend, that as such I may console you, since I am not permitted to bestow the blessings of my ecclesiastical office upon a Protestant?"

"How do you know I am of the Lutheran faith?"

"Because I have long known you, long watched your quiet labors in the prison; and of late, since the report of your relations with Ottmar went abroad, prayed that the Almighty might save the honor of a being whom he had created or his glory, if at any time she was in danger."

"A report? Oh, God! had matters already gone so far with me? Ah, this despicable world!"

"Calm yourself, my daughter. Do not accuse the world: you yourself are not wholly blameless. Had you submitted more to the laws of womanly custom, everything might now be very different."

Cornelia covered her face. "Alas, I believed all men as pure as myself!"

"You are right. If you had been less innocent, you would have paid more attention to appearances. Yet you now see yourself where it leads when a woman breaks down the barriers that protect her. If you had belonged to our church, and had a confessor whom you trusted, he would have called your attention betimes to the dangers that threatened you, and spared you many a bitter pang."

"Alas, many faithful friends warned me, but I would not listen: I had no thought for anything except this man. I was bound by a magic spell, which permitted me only to breathe with his breath, live in his life. I had forgotten God and the world for him; and therefore I am now punished."

"You recognize the hand of God, my child. Ah, yes! I know it rests heavily upon those he loves. You had suffered yourself to become absorbed too thoughtlessly in the passions of earth, and therefore he tore you away to the purer sphere of self-sacrifice and sorrow. Many an earthly happiness can still bloom for you, but you will be purified and enjoy it with grateful consciousness. This is the blessing of your sorrow."

"Oh, how nobly you speak! Go on," pleaded Cornelia, clasping her hands and kneeling like a little child beside the arm-chair which Severinus was seated.

"You have conquered, my daughter, and your heart bleeds from honorable wounds; yet do not imagine that the contest is ended with this one victory: it will not save you. In the languor into which the soul falls after great moral efforts, it is all the more defenseless against a fresh assault. You must leave here, must withdraw into solitude, where, as your days form the links of a continuous chain of self-sacrifice, you will obtain a quiet, unassuming victory over your passions. In the stillness of a magnificent, lonely region, you will once more hear the gentle voices in which God speaks to mankind. Beneath shady trees, and beside cool brooks, the tumult of the blood will be allayed, the life and labors of millions of innocent creatures will employ your fancy, lead you back to simplicity and childlike faith, and with devout reverence you will receive the duty that takes up its abode in every purified soul."

"Yes, reverend sir, you are right: I need repentance and rest; and balm for all sorrows can be found only in beautiful nature. I must leave here; but where shall I go? I have traveled very little; know not whither to turn; and since my engagement to Ottmar have become so much estranged from all my friends that I could not now ask any one to accompany me; besides, I know of no one whom I would suffer to look into my heart. You are the only person whom a strange accident has made my confidant, you understand, and in these few moments have become so necessary to me that it would be very difficult for me to part with you. Help, counsel me."

"You still have a faithful maid?"

"Certainly."

"Well, then, promote her to be a 'companion,' and take me for your fatherly guide, if you believe I know how to judge and treat you in the present state of your soul."

"What! would you devote your precious time to me?"

"If you need me, yes."

"If I need you? Oh, reverend sir, how can I thank you, how can I reward you for a sympathy of which I am so unworthy?"

"To save your immortal soul, to reconcile you with God, is the only reward and gratitude I ask. I am only doing my duty if I aid your erring spirit to find its home again."

"Oh, my friend, you arouse an emotion never felt before! I never knew my parents. Let me find in you that of which I have so long been deprived: a father on whose heart I can weep out my sorrows. Alas, I have never enjoyed this blessing I know not what it is when a child, overwhelmed with remorse, falls at its father's feet, and the latter, kindly absolving it from its guilt, says, 'Come, you are forgiven!' I have sinned deeply; yet if I had had my parents, everything would have been different. Father Severinus, can you enter into an orphan's feelings? Ah, one who, clasped in the arms of his family, has never lacked love, cannot know what it is to grow up alone, without that warm affection, that blissful interchange of parental and filial love, and, with an overflowing heart, which in its ardor could contain a world, find only sober friendship and partial understanding! My dear Veronica was an angel! I owe her all the good qualities I possess: she reared me lovingly, and treated me like a mother; but she had not a mother's affection, that rich, gushing tenderness which a warm, childish heart demands. I did not need an angel, but a noble, mature human being, and strict discipline. My powers soon carried me beyond her narrow intellectual sphere; she became more and more beneath me mentally, and indulged me wonderfully. I remained an obedient child, and loved her devotedly; but she could not give me what I required. An unfortunate youthful fancy passed over me like a dream. My aspiring mind knew no bounds; my thirst for love vainly sought satisfaction, in society, in toiling for the poor and miserable. Then I met Heinrich, with his ardor, his winning charm; and all the affection a child has for its father and mother, all the passion a woman can feel, I had for him. Now came the result of my education. Always habituated to do as I pleased, I despised the commands of custom, the warnings of friends. After being so long deprived of love, it burst over me like a flood: I gave myself up to it blindly. Perhaps I thereby forfeited my lover's respect, and apparently justified him in inflicting upon me the humiliation from which I fled to your protection, sir." She sighed heavily. "Ah, thank God that I could pour out my heart to you! For the first time in my life I feel the happiness of confessing a fault with remorseful sorrow, divesting my soul of its pride, and placing myself in the hands of a merciful judge! Impose the punishment, and I will bear it; tell me the penance, and I will perform it; but then, then bend down to me and tell me as my father would have done, 'Come; you are forgiven'!"

She laid her clasped hands upon the arm of the chair, and looked at Severinus imploringly. The latter sat absorbed in thought, gazing into her face.

"My dear child, you give me the right to punish and pardon; I can only make use of the latter privilege. Your intellectual development, as you have described it to me, excuses your relations with Ottmar, and your pathetic submission to this unprincipled man. I, too, was orphaned; I, too, have wandered through the world with a loving heart, and never found what I sought. To me also men have seemed cold and empty; they did not respond either to my ideas or feelings. But what drew you down raised me; the overmastering impulse led me to a purer sphere. In our church, Cornelia, reigns the man-born God. I could seize upon him, throw myself into his arms, and there find the love, the condescension, I needed. Our church alone is the bridge which unites the Deity with the earth. The symbols, Cornelia, are the steps by which the clumsy human mind, so long as it is fettered by temporal ideas, climbs upward to the supernatural. Even the most sinful man can reach God, if he makes the symbols his own. While your church requires a purified spiritual stand-point in order to give consolation and edification, ours bends down to the man imprisoned in sensuality and leads him upward, step by step, gradually removing him from his sinful condition." He paused and looked at Cornelia, then continued: "These blessings fell to my lot. My heart also bled when it tore itself away from all the human ties entwined about it; I, too, Cornelia, have struggled until I resisted the false allurements, and so spiritualized myself that the world became dead, and the kingdom of God a living thing to me."

"Oh," exclaimed Cornelia, "I shall never bring myself to that! The world dead! No longer love this beautiful earth, the master-piece of God! No, I cannot; it would be ungrateful to him who created it."

"I do not ask that, my child; I am not one of those bigoted priests who believe that men were made only to pray, that the pious and chaste alone are the elect, and the others the mere wretched laborers of creation, destined to propagate the race. Such a thought is far from me. Whomsoever. God destines to be his servant he calls; and let those whom he does not rejoice in the world for which they were born, and serve God by doing good in their own sphere. I will only warn you not to forget the Giver in the gifts; to remember the Dispenser while you enjoy his alms, is a duty you children of the world so easily neglect. This I will teach you to fulfill, and show you that it does not detract from happiness, but hallows and strengthens it. If you had thought more of God when he gave you Ottmar's love, you would have been more discreet, and perhaps matters would never have gone so far."

"Ah, that is terribly true!" sobbed Cornelia.

"Calm yourself, my child; I do not wish to burden your poor heart still more heavily. You were innocent, and Ottmar's influence was injurious to you. No mortal has a right to decide whether you would have been able to avoid this; I least of all, for I know Ottmar's personal power. I, too, trusted him, and was betrayed, for he is no man's friend, not even his own!"

"Unhappy man! Created in the image of God, so handsome, so noble, so capable of giving happiness, and yet a living lie, a deceitful phantom, which irresistibly allures us, and, as soon as we wish to hold it; melts into thin air. Do you understand, Severinus, that one may love him with all the strength of one's life, and when parted from him be but a broken bough which can do nothing but wither?"

"I understand it, for no other was ever so dear to me. I hoped to make him an instrument for the advancement of the good cause, thought God had given me in him a being to whom the heart might still be permitted to pay the tribute of human feelings, aided with admiration in the development of his great talents, and nursed him with tender anxiety. I listened to his breathing while he slept, watched him like a brother, and saw with delight that his health gradually improved. When he came up to me with beaming eyes, and said, 'My dear Severinus, how shall I thank you?' my heart swelled with proud delight, and I clasped him in my arms." He paused, covered his eyes with his hand, and continued, in a trembling voice: "And when I was compelled to lose him, such sorrow seized upon me that I struggled as if the foul fiend had possession of him and I must wrest Heinrich's soul from his grasp. It was the punishment that befell me because my love did not still belong exclusively to Heaven, as it ought. I endeavored to disarm his malice against the order as much as possible; I had nurtured the serpent, so it was my duty to deprive it of its venom, and thus I was forced to pursue as an enemy one who had been the dearest person on earth to me. Believe me, my daughter, your tears are not the only ones which have been shed for him."

Cornelia seized Severinus's hand with deep emotion; he rose. "I will now leave you alone: you need rest. Compose yourself, and pray. I hope to find you ready to travel early to-morrow morning, and will consider tonight whither I will guide you."

As Severinus went out into the street he met a brother-priest, who was just coming from the Jesuit church.

"Father Severinus!" he said, in astonishment. "How did you come here? what are you doing in Fraeulein Erwing's house?"

"I am gaining a soul for the church!" he answered, proudly, and passed on.

XX.

THITHER.

The minister of foreign affairs sat in his office alone. Stray, feeble rays from the winter sun fell through the window and gleamed upon a heap of documents and papers with huge seals; but the minister's eyes did not rest upon them, they were fixed absently on vacancy. From time to time he dipped his pen in the ink, only to let it fall again unused, upon a diplomatic dispatch which had just been commenced. At last he started up and went to the door. His figure was not so elegant, nor his bearing so haughty, as in former days: his hair and beard were neglected, his eyes and cheeks sunken. Was it work or sorrow that had thus shaken this noble frame? He seemed aged, even ill. Anton brought in some letters, which he hastily seized, then threw them all but one upon the table.

"God grant it may be some good news!" said Anton, casting a troubled glance at his master's haggard features as he left the room.

"God grant it!" repeated _Heinrich_; and his breath came quickly and anxiously as he read:

"Your Excellency,--In reply to your highly esteemed favor of the 15th, I have the honor to say that I must positively reject the denunciation it contains against our reverend brother in Christ, Father Severinus: namely, that without my knowledge he had secretly fled with a young and beautiful lady, and kept her concealed for several months against her will. Father Severinus is a pattern to the whole order for humble obedience and the strictest devotion to all. No false appearances can render his blameless and immovable purity suspicions in our eyes. His relation to that lady is one well pleasing to God and the order, and his course has my entire approval. This I must permit myself to say in correction of your Excellency's erroneous suspicion.

"I have no right to inform your Excellency of the residence of Father Severinus and the lady in question until your Excellency has given us the most satisfactory proofs of your right to the possession of the young lady's person.

"With all due respect to your Excellency, etc.,

"Father R----

"_General of the Holy Congregation of the Fathers of Jesus_.

"Rome, -- 20, 18--."

_Heinrich_ sank upon the sofa with the paper in his hand. "This failed too! All, all in vain!" he murmured, crushing the letter convulsively in his clinched fingers. "What is to be done now? Shall I give notice to the embassies of every country? Shall I add to this consuming anguish the disgrace that I am pursuing an adventuress, who is rambling about with a Jesuit? Cornelia! Cornelia! Have these pious fathers or have you obtained so much mastery over yourself that you can inflict this upon me? It is not possible that they have subdued your free will. You are not one of these natures which allow themselves to be ruled. You have done the most difficult, the most unprecedented thing,--conquered me and yourself in a moment when passion was most aroused. You would not suffer the arts of these men to obtain dominion over you! Noble, wonderful woman! By what cords do you hold me that I will go to utter ruin rather than forget you?"

He rested his head wearily upon his hand. His whole life passed before him. He thought of all the unhappy creatures who had clung to him with the same ardor he now felt for Cornelia, and been repulsed as he was now by her. Again Ottilie's image rose before him. The sorrow gnawing at his heart made him for the first time understand the tortures she so silently, so patiently, bore for him, and for the first time he experienced the true human sympathy he had never felt while grief was unknown to him. "Poor Ottilie! We are now companions in suffering!"

A low knocking roused him from his gloomy thoughts. It was his private secretary, to ask whether Ottmar had prepared the dispatch for the court of R----. "Oh! good heavens, no!" he exclaimed, in great impatience, and sat down to finish it. Thrice he began, erased the words, and then flung the pen aside with a sigh of the bitterest despondency. "I am not in the mood," he said, at last. "My head aches too violently. I cannot give myself up to work now."

"Allow me to remind your Excellency that you will be expected at the council of ministers at twelve o'clock," said the young man, timidly.

"You are right: thanks! Remind me of it again at eleven."

With the most painful effort of self-control he applied himself to the preparation of the document, and then hurried away to dress.

"Your Excellency ought to get a long leave of absence," said Anton, as he assisted him to make his toilet. "You cannot live on so."

"Very likely, Anton. It is an existence which is becoming more and more unendurable to me. But I cannot take a leave now. I must either disappear from the scene entirely or remain at my post."

He left the room with a slow step and drooping head. Anton looked after him sadly. "Poor master! It must have been bad news again. No doubt the young lady has good cause for her acts; but I pity him, for he never loved so before."

A few hours afterward the prince entered his wife's apartments. "My dear Ottilie, I must entreat you to grant me a favor. You did not wish to see any one on account of your indisposition, but I beseech you to make one exception."

"It shall be as you wish, Alfred," said Ottilie, in a faint voice.

She was reclining upon a couch under an arbor of dense exotic plants, which made one forget the cold, wintry landscape without. The prince took a chair and sat down beside her. "The matter concerns Ottmar," he began, breaking a withered leaf from a gum-tree, and thus not observing how Ottilie started. "I do not know what I am to do with the man. Something is wrong with him; I cannot discover what. He seems entirely changed. The youngest attache could not make so many diplomatic blunders as he. He brought to the council to-day the rough sketch of a dispatch to R----, which was totally useless. He, our most talented statesman! It is incomprehensible! He is apathetic and reserved; nay, he even permits himself to fail in the personal respect which, as his prince, I am entitled to demand, and whose punctilious observance has hitherto endeared him to me. I do not think this proceeds from any diminution in his loyalty,--he has so often assured me that I was his only friend,--but is the result of some secret disturbance, some physical or mental suffering. All my efforts to obtain his confidence are fruitless, so I thought of applying to my charming wife and calling her to my aid in this, to me, very important affair."

"But how can I be of any assistance?" asked Ottilie, in astonishment.

"You shall speak to him, my dear. You are mistress of the art of assuming a condescending manner which induces people to give their confidence freely without forgetting in whose presence they stand. I confess that in this respect you far surpass me. You remove my subjects' awe of the grandeur of your position, and substitute reverence for your person. Thus you succeed in being affable without forfeiting any portion of your dignity, and people, open their hearts to you without overstepping the bounds prescribed by etiquette. It is a great art, for which not only intellect and heart, but the unusual queenliness of air that distinguishes you, are requisite."

"But it is an 'art' which, at all events, I practice very unconsciously," interposed Ottilie, smiling. "Yet I thank you, Alfred, for this praise; it makes me very proud. And now I shall try to earn it by attempting to prove my skill upon Ottmar."

"There is no praise you have not already fully earned. But I will beg you to subdue this reserved diplomat with your--if I may so call it--diplomacy of the heart, and discover what is really the matter with him."

"But have we a right to interfere, my prince?"

"It is not only a right, but a duty. If he merely neglected me, I would ignore it; but he neglects the obligations of his high position, and thereby injures the interests he ought to defend. This cannot continue, so we must discover the cause of Ottmar's trouble and try to remove it. If this does not succeed, then----" The prince rose with the shrug of the shoulders he always used to express what was not yet sufficiently decided to put into words. "At the present critical moment, when everything is crowding upon us, we need men who are thoroughly in earnest, and will hold the reins with a firm hand," said he, continuing his interrupted chain of ideas. "It is no time for personal considerations and indulgent delays. Every moment brings and demands important decisions, which should not be permitted to suffer from the absence of mind of any individual. There must be a change soon. I cannot lecture him like a school-boy, but you can say many things as a proof of friendly sympathy, which, from my lips, would sound like an implied reproach."

"I will try; although I do not expect much from the interview. I can scarcely flatter myself that I shall be able to win from him what he withholds from you, and perhaps the secret may be of such a nature that he cannot confide it to us. Perhaps--he has some love-sorrow."

"Oh, my dear! Would a polished man of the world, a thorough diplomat, give himself up to such sentimentality?"

The glance that Ottilie cast at the prince had a shade of compassionate contempt. "You call it sentimentality because you have never felt the power of a passionate emotion. You must consider that the moderation inculcated into the minds of royal personages, that they may be able to rule themselves and others, is an almost exclusive prerogative of their rank, which no one else shares----"

"Except the priests," interposed the prince.