CHAPTER II.

THE SWAN.

A dark, gloomy pile overlooked the village of Hochstetten, that lay about two miles from the city, in the midst of a charming country. It had once been called Hochstetten Castle; but since the direct line of the noble family in which it had passed for a century from father to son had died out, and only a castellan had dwelt there, to hold it in possession for a distant branch of its ancient house, it had gone by the name of the "Haunted Castle" among the people; for of course in such an old house, where so many men had died, there must be ghosts, and popular superstition declared that the spirits of the departed still hovered about the spot where their earthly forms had been wont to wander.

But in this last year it happened that the castle was really inhabited by a spirit whose appearance inspired the vulgar, who suspect the devil's agency in whatever they do not comprehend, with quite as much horror as they had felt at the ghosts of their former lords,--although this latter spirit still inhabited a young and very beautiful body. Ernestine Hartwich had rented the castle, and, with her uncle, was living her strange life there. Since her arrival the house and the overgrown grounds within the high walls were certainly under a spell, and were avoided by all who were not obliged to go that way. There lay the old castle, in the midst of lovely hills and mountain-chains, embosomed in green trees, bathed in the sunlight of a dewy summer morning, and yet its gray, ancient walls looked abroad over the fresh life of wood and plain as gloomily as if they hid within them only death and decay.

Two strangers, driving past in a light vehicle, gazed gravely and silently at the place. The road grew somewhat steep, and they descended and walked beside the horse. A young peasant passed by, with scythe and reaping-hook, and, seeing the pleasant faces of the strangers; nodded kindly to them. The elder of the two stopped, as if prompted by a sudden impulse, and asked, "What castle is that?"

"That?" was the reply. "That is the Haunted Castle."

"Who lives there?"

"The Hartwich lives there."

"Who is the Hartwich?"

"Why, the witch who has rented it."

"Why do you call her a witch?"

"Because there's something wrong about her."

"Walk on with us a little way, if you have time, and tell us something of the lady," said the stranger.

"Oh, yes, I have time enough," replied the peasant, flattered by the interest that his remarks had excited. "But, good gracious! I do not know where to begin to tell about her. There is no beginning and no end to it."

"How does she look?" asked the younger gentleman. "Is she pretty?"

"No, indeed! She is pale and thin, and has big, coal-black eyes. And she looks so gloomy that you can tell as soon as you see her that she has an evil conscience."

"It is characteristic of the degree of culture to which the common people have attained," said the elder in an undertone to his companion, "that they have no admiration for beautiful outlines, but only for flesh and colour. They think a classic profile ugly if there is not a plump cheek on either side of it. This rude taste for the raw material is natural and excusable in peasants and common labourers, whose work is principally with raw material. Where should they learn anything better? But it is sad to think how many of the educated classes there are whose taste is just as uncultivated, and who admire only the beautiful embodiment, not the embodied beauty."

"Yes," added the other, "it is just so in spiritual matters. An expression of thoughtfulness is always strange and gloomy in the eyes of the common people; they are attracted only by thoughtless gaiety. The stamp of mind upon a serious brow is in their eyes the sign-manual of the evil one. But how many among ourselves are scarcely better than the people in this respect! We do not share their prejudices,--eh, Johannes?"

"No, Hilsborn, God knows we do not. This superficial idea of beauty explains the fact that Fraeulein Hartwich was called ugly as a child, although she had a beautiful brow, a fine profile, and such eyes as I never saw before or since in my life,--eyes, Hilsborn,"--and he laid his hand upon his friend's arm,--"in which lay a world of slumbering feeling, and the promise of bliss unspeakable for him who should awaken it to life. I had forgotten the little girl whom I saw only once, but when lately I encountered a glance from the eyes of that strange, lovely woman, I recognized the child again,--the poor, forsaken child. There was the old shy melancholy in those eyes, and they pierced my heart with a foreboding pain. I could have taken her in my arms and borne her away from the hill where she stood, as formerly from the breaking bough to which she had fled from me!"

"God grant she be worthy of such a man as you!" said Hilsborn.

"Do not speak so, Hilsborn; you know I will not listen to such words. Let us ask this fellow more about her."

He turned to the young peasant, who was walking whistling on the other side of the road.

"Is she not at least kind to the poor?" he asked.

"God preserve any one to whom she is kind! No one wants anything from her. Her uncle distributes some money every week, but only the very poorest people take it, and they always cross themselves over it."

Johannes and Hilsborn looked at each other with a smile. "Then her evil influence extends even to her charities?"

"Yes, that's what I mean,--wherever she goes she carries misfortune. She pretends to know more than any one, and wants to introduce all sorts of new-fangled ways. She wouldn't have people sick with a fever covered up in good, thick feather beds, or give them a single glass of good liquor. All that was wrong, she said. A poor widow in the village had a sick child, which she nursed as well as she could. The Hartwich went to see her, and overpersuaded the woman, so that she let her watch with it one night. Scarcely had she seated herself by the cradle when the child grew worse, and fell into convulsions. The Hartwich sent the mother to the castle to send off a man on horseback for the doctor, and was left all alone with the child. When the woman got back from the castle the witch had the child on her lap, and the poor little thing was dying. The woman, frantic with terror, tore the little body out of her arms; but it was dead! and the Hartwich left her, as she would not hear a word from her. When the doctor came, he talked all sorts of stuff, and wanted to have the child dissected, as they call it; but of course no Christian mother would allow such a thing, and no one knew what the Hartwich had done to the poor little creature."

"But, you foolish people," began Johannes indignantly, "you do not suppose----"

Hilsborn signed to him to be silent. "Hush!" he said in a whisper; "will you attempt what the gods try vainly--to contend with stupidity?"

"You are right," replied Johannes. "This people needs the teaching of centuries."

"Well, my good fellow," he said, again addressing the peasant, "what happened then?"

"Why, that very night, after the doctor was gone, the Hartwich came to the woman and offered her money,--I suppose to induce her to hold her tongue,--but the poor thing showed her the door, and told her what she thought of her."

"That was her thanks!" murmured Johannes.

"Since then she goes to see no one, and we are quit of her."

"Was this unfortunate instance the only one?" asked Johannes, "or has she done any further mischief?"

"Oh, yes, quantities! Once she persuaded a man to go to the city and have his leg taken off,--he had injured it ten years before. The man died in the city, and left a wife and children. If that witch had not sent him there, he would have been living still. He had managed to live with the injury ten years, and he might have borne it ten more. The poor widow heaped her with curses!"

Johannes exchanged glances with Hilsborn.

"Do you, too, believe that she is a witch?" he asked the peasant.

"Well, if I don't exactly believe that, I know well enough that no blessing can attend her, for she does not love God."

"How do you know that?"

"Oh, there are a great many signs of it. She does not like to hear him mentioned,--she never goes to church, and doesn't pray at home."

"You cannot be sure of that," said Johannes.

"Oho! yes, I can, for Harcher's Kunigunda is a maid at the castle, and she tells us all about it. For one thing, there used to be a bell-tower up there, and the bell was always rung for prayers, morning and evening, in old times. It was right and good to hear the bell ringing with the one in the village church, and we were used to it, and liked it. Even when the last of the family up there died, the village congregation gave the castellan two bags of potatoes every year that he might allow the ringing to continue. But when the Hartwich came, what did she do? Why, she tore down the bell-tower and made it into an observatory, as she calls it, where she sits for nights long and counts the stars."

"Well, if she looks up into heaven so much, she must surely think of God and his works there," rejoined Johannes smiling, "and those who love to pray do not need to be reminded of it by the ringing of bells."

"No, no! that is not so," the peasant obstinately maintained. "She does not wish to be reminded of prayer, or she would have loved the clear sound of the bell, as we did, and would have left it hanging where it had rung out comfort and religion for a hundred years. She might have built her star-chamber upon the old tower all the same, if she had wanted to,--but she did not want to,--and so we hated her from the first."

Johannes and Hilsborn looked grave.

"Books she has in plenty; she brought whole chestsfull with her, but never a hymn-book or prayer-book, Kunigunda, who dusts them, says, and, search as she may, she has never seen a Bible there yet. And the Hartwich never mentions the name of God; and if any one does it before her, she talks of something else instantly. But the worst of all is that she has a room there that no one, except her uncle and herself, is allowed to enter, and she always locks the door when she is there with her uncle. What they do there no living soul knows, but Kunigunda tells all sorts of strange stories about it, for she has often listened at the door, and sometimes got a peep inside when the Fraeulein was going in or coming out. She says there are all kinds of strange things in there, such as no honest man knows anything about,--black tablets, with eyes and ears painted on them, and burning flames, and bellows, and Heaven only knows what beside! And she has heard dreadful noises, that were not of this world,--sometimes sounds as sweet as the organ plays in the church, and then a rustle and roar as of a mighty wind, although not a breeze is stirring outside, or blasts of a trumpet like the trumpet of Jericho, so that she ran away in deadly fright."

"Those were experiments in sound," said Johannes, greatly amused, to Hilsborn.

"And Kunigunda says that it is often so light in that room that the rays through the keyhole dazzle her just like sunlight, although the sun has long been set outside. Kunigunda declares that it is not common light,--it burns quite blue, and she had to shut her eye quickly not to be blinded by it. Now, what sort of light is that? What business has she with fire and flames? And Kunigunda says she is almost always up until morning, and scarcely sleeps at all. Oh, she leads a godless life,--for, if God had not intended men to wake in the daytime and sleep at night, He would not have made night dark and day light; and if she were doing any good, why should she shun the daylight when she does it? Kunigunda says, too, that she tortures poor dumb animals just for pleasure, for she has often seen how she and her uncle carry rabbits and such creatures into their secret chamber, and they never bring them out again. Now, what do they do with the poor things? They cannot eat the rabbits. And Kunigunda will swear that there are a couple of skulls in the book-room, tumbling about among the old books. Now, I ask, what Christian would take the head away from a dead man and spoil his rest in the grave? Is it not just dishonouring a corpse out of devilish wantonness?"

"There certainly is a whole mountain of charges towering between Fraeulein Hartwich and her neighbours," whispered Johannes to his friend, "and I see clearly that the curse of singularity has pursued her even hither, and that this rare creature is repulsed and isolated here as she was as a child. It is high time that some strong arm should bear her hence into the purer atmosphere of a warm, healthy existence, from which her eccentricity has hitherto excluded her."

"Do you see that green balcony there?" said the peasant, when they were quite near the house. "There she has hanging a kind of cittern that plays of itself. I would not believe Kunigunda, when she told me of it, at first; but then I hid myself here once, and heard it with my own ears, the music softer and sweeter than any that human hands can make. I could feel it beginning to bewitch me."

"Indeed! and how did it feel?"

"Oh, my heart grew so soft, so different from usual,--just--just as if I had been drinking linden-blossom tea. I could not help thinking of the girl I loved, who is dead, and I could have listened forever. Suddenly I bethought me that there was a spell weaving around me, and I ran away as fast as I could."

"That was an AEolian harp, my good friend," Johannes explained; "its strings were stirred by no spirit hand, but by the wind. The spell that you perceived was only the effect of the beautiful tones upon your ear and heart; and if you had examined yourself, you would have found that, when you were thinking of your dead sweet-heart, you were better than when you are sitting in the village inn abusing the Hartwich. Consider for a moment whether an evil spirit could inspire such good, tender sensations. And listen as often as you can to the AEolian harp; it will not bewitch you,--it will only do good to you."

The fellow looked in amazement at the kindly speaker.

"I don't exactly understand you, sir, but you seem to mean well."

"What makes you think so?" asked Johannes,--"you do not know me."

"Oh, why, you look honest and good, sir," said the peasant, looking frankly into Johannes's face.

"Then believe what I say, when I tell you that you do Fraeulein Hartwich great wrong. I have known her from childhood, and I know that she is good and kind!"

Johannes sent an earnest glance towards the castle, which they were passing. An elderly woman was just opening a window in an upper story.

"Look!" cried the peasant, "that is her housekeeper, Frau Willmers. The Fraeulein is just getting up--it is nine o'clock."

"God bless your awakening!" Johannes breathed softly to himself.

And, borne on the breeze of morning and the fragrance of flowers, the blessing was wafted up to the girl, who, weary with her night-watch, was reposing by the open window. She laid her head upon the sill, and the fragrant summer air fanned her brow. Johannes's words floated around her in a sea of light and warmth, and she felt them without hearing them. At last she opened her burning eyelids, and looked abroad, seeing everything at first through the gray, misty veil which weariness spread before her eyes,--but gradually was revealed in its full splendour the sunny picture, above which arched the clear, cloudless firmament. She arose and leaned out with a deep sigh of pain. She knew no happiness but that of gratified ambition,--she could imagine no other, and therefore desired no other, for we cannot desire that of which we have no conception,--and yet, in the sunlight laughing around her, in the gloom of night, in the beauty of the valley and the grandeur of the mountains, a promise of a far different happiness beckoned to her, and she pined in longing for it without recognising it. Yes, from every voice of nature, from the song of birds, the murmur of the brook, the roaring of the tempest, and the muttering of the thunder, a call was ringing in her ears, she knew not whence or whither, but she would willingly have plunged into the ocean to follow it.

"There is no surer means of preventing all aimless desires than study, nothing better to prevent all abstract dreaming than absorption in some specialty," her uncle had told her when he suspected her of moods like that we have just described. "If you long to grasp the whole, first grasp a part,--if you thirst to fly to heaven, remember that the observatory is the only way thither,--if you desire to feel the warm throb of life, you can find it nowhere so satisfactorily as at the dissecting-table."

And she had turned away silently, uncomplainingly, from her flight to distant realms, to the telescope, and with a warm, swelling heart that would have embraced a world, had busied herself with analyzing microscopic organizations. Thus, in the course of long years, she had grown used to suppress emotions such as she experienced to-day, and they seldom came to the surface, just as the bells of the sunken city are only heard above the sea on Sunday. To-day was not Sunday, but it was an anniversary. Ten years ago to-day she had been sent to her first and only party,--her father had almost killed her,--and the whole current of her life had been changed. She knew the date perfectly, for the next day was the anniversary of her father's death. The familiar forms of those days hovered around her; they were the only ones that had ever approached her nearly, for since that time she had had no intimate relations with any one. She had studied mankind, but human beings were strangers to her. And as she thought and pondered, she wished herself again the child that ran races with the wind and cradled herself among the storm-tossed boughs. Oh for one breath of hopeful childhood, one throb of that love-thirsty heart, one tear of that wrestling faith! All dead and silent now, every blossom of childhood and youth faded: a woman, old at two-and-twenty, looking down from the heights of passionless contemplation upon a life, lying behind her, that she has never enjoyed, upon a time, now past, that she has never lived. Sighing, she turned away from the sunny landscape. "Our life lasts seventy--perhaps eighty--years," she said to herself, "and the delight of it is labour and trouble." This reading, by a great modern philosopher, of the golden words of the ancient writings, she had adopted as her motto, and it still possessed its old charm for her. What more could she desire of life than labour and trouble? What could youth or age bring her beyond these? She turned away from the window, and quickly arranged in thick braids around her head her loosened hair which had fallen down like a black veil. Her glance, as she did so, fell only passingly and indifferently upon the mirror. She never saw the face that gazed at her from its depths,--a face as faultlessly beautiful as an artist's fancy pictures those dark, melancholy female forms with which the ancients peopled the night. She dressed herself in simple white, and then her arms dropped wearied at her side. The expression of strength that the word labour had called into her face gave way to a profound melancholy, almost despair, and she sank exhausted upon a couch. She sat still for one moment, her head sunk upon her breast, and then the large tears rolled down her cheeks.

"Labour is a delight, when one has strength for it--but I have none!" she said, clasping her knees with her small, transparent hands, while she gazed despairingly towards the distant horizon.

The housekeeper, Frau Willmers, entered. "A gentleman is waiting below, Fraeulein Hartwich, who sends his card and says he comes from the gentleman whose name is written upon it."

Ernestine read the name "Professor Heim," and below, in Heim's handwriting, "earnestly recommends the bearer of this card."

"The gentleman is welcome!" she cried with awakened animation. "Show him into the library."

"Will the Fraeulein receive him without the knowledge of----" the woman asked with hesitation and surprise.

"I will!" replied Ernestine firmly.

"Now, Heaven be praised!" muttered the old woman, "that you are to see some one at last, and the gentleman is well worth a look. But you will bear the blame with your uncle, so that I may have no responsibility in the matter?"

"The responsibility is mine."

Frau Willmers hurried out and conducted the stranger into Ernestine's library.

A pleasant bluish twilight reigned in the room as he entered it, caused by the heavy blue damask curtains that draped the high bow-windows. It was a spacious octagon apartment, in the style of the tower chambers of the Middle Ages, opening on to a balcony, which was likewise separated from the room by blue damask curtains. The AEolian harp, of which the peasant had spoken, hung in the balcony, and some loosened tendrils of a wild grapevine, growing outside, stirred by the breeze, touched the strings and called forth from them broken stray notes, which a stronger breeze would blend in harmony, as the fingers of a child, guided by its teacher, plays vaguely upon an instrument until the practised hand of its master produces a full, clear chord. In the dark boughs that overshadowed the balcony, birds were singing, and now and then hopping confidingly upon the rose-bushes with which it was decorated.

"She loves beauty," thought the stranger with a pleased glance around the cool, quiet apartment, which breathed only contentment and peace. And it must be true peace of mind that the inhabitant of this room possessed,--wherever the eyes were turned, they fell upon the immortal works of the great thinkers of modern times,--a costly library was ranged upon shelves, in richly-carved oaken bookcases.

The stranger began to read the titles of the books, but the more he read the more thoughtful he became. If the contents of these books were, or were to be, crammed into one woman's brain, there could dwell there not peace, but only torturing unrest, strife. At last his eye rested upon a writing-table of dark oak, richly carved, as was all the rest of the furniture of the room. Around the edge of the table, cut in raised letters, he read the sentence, "Our life lasts seventy--perhaps eighty--years, and the delight of it is labour and trouble!" He gazed long and thoughtfully at this motto, so strangely grave for so young a girl. A shade of melancholy passed over his handsome face as he turned away and noticed the scores of sheets of paper scattered here and there on the table, all containing either a few figures or written sentences, evidently hurried beginnings of scientific labour of all kinds, tossed aside, as it appeared, hastily and impatiently. Partly on the table, partly on a desk, and partly on the floor, were piles of open books, their margins filled with annotations, pamphlets, &c. Names like Helmholtz, du Bois, Ludwig, Darwin, &c. showed what massive material this bold aspiring mind was calling to its aid, over what mountains of labour it was pursuing the path to its ambitious aims. "So much vital force wasted in fruitless energy--so much noble zeal expended upon a blunder. What a pity!" said the stranger with an involuntary sigh. Then he noticed just in front of the writing-table a small open drawer, in which Ernestine apparently kept her most precious and valuable books. One of them was Moellner's latest work on Physiology; another, du Bois' Eulogy upon Johannes Mueller; and the third, _Andersen's Fairy Tales_.

The grave man's features showed signs of deep emotion at this sight. Only a strong, true nature could so preserve the memories of its childhood. He could not help taking the book in his hand to examine it more closely. As he did so, he noticed a little marker of paper yellowed with age. It was placed in the last pages of the story of the Ugly Duckling, just where the children stand by the pond and cry, "Look! there comes a new swan!" Was it this, then, that had made the story so precious to her--the prophecy that the duckling would one day be a swan, and not the memory of what had been dear to her childhood? He put the book back in its place with a look that showed that the question he had put to himself grieved him. Then he became so lost in thought that he was almost startled when a door behind him opened, and Ernestine approached him. As he saw the tall form, with its air of royal dignity, standing there calm and silent in the noble consciousness of mental superiority, he repeated involuntarily in thought the words, "Here is a new swan!" Yes,--the ugly duckling had unfolded its wings! For one moment his heart throbbed violently. It cost him an effort to preserve his composure.

"I crave forgiveness, Fraeulein Hartwich," he began, "for venturing to offer my medical skill in place of his for whom you sent."

"If you come from Dr. Heim, you are welcome. Is he ill, that he sends me a substitute, or is he angry with me?" And Ernestine looked gravely and fixedly at the stranger.

"Neither the one nor the other, Fraeulein Hartwich," was the reply. "He has merely permitted me to use his name as the talisman to unlock this enchanted castle."

"And why so?" asked Ernestine, regarding him still more attentively.

"Because I am convinced that I understand the treatment of your case better than Dr. Heim."

Ernestine started, and turned away from the arrogant speaker. Her face darkened with momentary displeasure,--but not long. She raised her large eyes to him again and said frankly, "No, you are not in earnest. Heim would not have sent me a physician as vain and conceited as these words make you appear!"

Johannes offered her his hand with a smile. "Boldly spoken, Fraeulein Hartwich,--I thank you! Nevertheless, I must rest under the charge of vanity and arrogance until you declare me innocent, for I only uttered Dr. Heim's honest conviction and my own. You shake your head, and do not comprehend me. I hope you will do so soon. How could I have had the courage to challenge your displeasure by so bold an assertion, had I not been sure that time would justify my pretensions?"

Ernestine motioned to him to be seated. "May I be permitted, sir, to request your name before speaking further with you?"

Johannes cast at her a glance of kindly entreaty. "I pray you allow me to suppress it for the present. I should so like to inspire you with confidence in me for my own sake, without the aid of a name perhaps not unknown to you. Such confidence would be so precious to me. Call it a whim, if you will, but I beg you to indulge me!"

"As you please, sir," said Ernestine with some constraint, looking keenly at him as she spoke. She seemed to be searching in his handsome face for something,--she scarce knew what,--it seemed to suggest some dim recollection to her mind. Then she dropped her glance, as if comparing what she saw with some image in her memory, yet without arriving at any satisfactory conclusion.

Johannes watched every expression of her countenance. No shade of thought passing across that broad white brow escaped him. He gazed at her and almost forgot to speak, she was so wondrously beautiful, this shy, grave girl, pale and suffering from her devotion to the studies to which she was sacrificing herself with such religious zeal. The saddest error would be touching in such a form,--yes, we must bow before it, instead of laughing at it. So thought Johannes as he sat silent before her, and something of what was passing in his mind must have been mirrored in his features, for Ernestine turned away with a shade of embarrassment, and asked suddenly, "Well, sir, and what news do you bring me of Father Heim? Is he still vigorous in mind and body?"

The indifference of her tone rather nettled Johannes. "Yes, Fraeulein Hartwich, he is indeed. Beloved and revered by his associates, as well as by his patients, the evening of his days is calm and cheerful."

"I am very glad to hear it. I am bound to him by ties of gratitude, he has done much for me, at one time he saved my life. Therefore I hoped for benefit now from his prescriptions. He is a great practitioner, although he has not quite kept pace in his old age with the march of modern science."

"He certainly is. But he can do nothing for your gravest malady, and therefore he has sent me in his place."

"You are, then, famous for some _specialite_. But how can Dr. Heim know that I need such a physician?"

"He does know it, for you were attacked as a child by the malady of which I speak, and Dr. Heim was powerless to effect a cure. Now that he is convinced that my method of cure is efficacious, he has adopted me as his assistant. Therefore I ask you frankly and openly, Will you have me for your physician? Yes or no!"

For a moment Ernestine made no answer, and then said firmly, "Yes, if Dr. Heim believes that you can restore me to health, it is sufficient, and I will follow your prescriptions implicitly."

"I thank you," said Johannes; "but I warn you beforehand, I am a strict physician, and my medicines are bitter!"

"Scarcely as bitter as disease?" said Ernestine inquiringly.

"Who can say? To speak with perfect sincerity, Fraeulein Hartwich, the malady from which I come to relieve you, the disease that poisons your past and your future, is your uncle's influence!"

Ernestine stood up. "Sir!"

"Hear me before you condemn me! I assert nothing that I cannot prove."

"No, sir, I will not hear you. You do my uncle gross injustice; whatever proofs you may adduce. A life of self-sacrifice and devotion far outweighs the accusation of a stranger. What do I not owe to him? What has he not done for me? I owe to him my scientific culture. He has made me what I am."

"And may I be so bold as to ask if you are so very sure that you are what you should be?"

A pause ensued. Ernestine retreated a step, and, offended and confused, cast down her eyes.

Johannes continued. "What if I were come to prove that you are not?"

Ernestine looked sullenly at him. "I certainly cannot answer you here; but your depreciation of me forces me to ask whether you have read anything that I have written, and so have come to form so poor an opinion of my abilities?"

"On the contrary, Fraeulein Hartwich, your essay upon Reflex Motion is full of talent, and your article upon the Capacity of the Eye for Stereoscopic Vision has won the prize."

Ernestina started. Her face flushed, her eyes sparkled. "Why have you waited until now to tell me? My essay won the prize! Do I wake, or am I dreaming? Oh, how can I thank you for this intelligence? I have no words. But let your reward be the consciousness that you have given me the greatest happiness my life has ever known! And do not attempt to malign to me the man to whose disinterested care for my education I owe it."

"Poor girl, if this is your greatest happiness! You are betrayed indeed, if you owe no other enjoyment to your uncle!"

"Oh, sir, what can there be beyond fame and honour?"

Johannes looked gravely at her. "Something of which your uncle has never told you."

In the flush of her gratified ambition, Ernestine did not hear him. She walked a few steps to and fro, then seated herself again, and said with a beating heart, "Perhaps you also bring the answer to my application for admission to the lectures at the University."

"I do, but it has been rejected decidedly, Fraeulein Hartwich."

Ernestine's arms dropped at her sides. "Rejected! Was it known, when they rejected it, that the prize essay was mine?"

"It was."

Ernestine stood for one moment as if stunned. At last she began slowly and dejectedly, "Ah, I understand it all! the gentlemen took the author of that treatise for a man, and awarded it the prize, but my application was refused because I am so unfortunate as to be a woman. It is only natural, why should a woman be permitted to vie with the lords of creation?"

"Your disappointment makes you unjust," said Johannes. "Your essay received the prize because it accomplished what it aimed at. The application of the woman was rejected because in the University no woman can accomplish what should be her aim."

"How can you prove that?" asked Ernestine with bitterness.

"Because she has deserted the sphere which nature has assigned her, and cannot fulfil the requirements of the one that she has selected for herself."

"You, then, are one of my opponents?"

"I am, Fraeulein Hartwich."

"Oh, I am sorry!"

"Why? Of what consequence can the opinion of a stranger be to you?"

Ernestine looked down. "The impression that you make upon me, sir, is such that it pains me to find that you are one of those narrow-minded persons who deny to women the possession of any but the humblest ability."

"You are mistaken, I think them, and especially your self, possessed of very great ability."

Ernestine looked at him with surprise. "But how can this ability avail us, if we are not allowed to enlarge the bounds of the sphere within which we are so unkindly confined at present?"

"That sphere does not seem to me contracted. I think it so noble, so elevated, that the loftiest talent may well content itself within it, if it be rightly understood."

"But if a woman, if I--forgive my presumption,--am especially endowed beyond other women, should I not, with the power, possess also the privilege of transcending the usual bounds?"

"You would then possess the privilege of ennobling your sex, of showing it what it could accomplish within its own sphere,--you would possess the power to be first among women, but not to become a man."

Ernestine looked down sadly. "Have you read my essay?"

"Yes."

"Do you think it deserved the prize?"

"Yes."

"And yet you would deny me the right to accomplish tasks usually assigned to men."

"You have accomplished one such. How far your kind uncle may have assisted you in your labor we will not ask."

Again Ernestine's eyes drooped.

Johannes continued: "Probably you yourself are not aware of the answer to such a question,--at all events, the victory over the other competitors for the prize was slight, and by no means difficult. But do you imagine, Fraeulein Hartwich, because the instinct of your genius has answered this one question, that you can lord it over the boundless domain of science? Have you the least suspicion of the magnitude of what you propose?"

"I believe I have learned enough to know what there is for me to learn."

"Do not deceive yourself with regard to your aim. You wish to learn that you may teach,--not as every schoolmaster teaches, to tell what has been told you before,--you wish to educe new truths from what you learn,--in other words, you wish to produce, to create!"

"And you deny me the requisite ability?"

"Not at all," replied Johannes; "but I grant only one domain for the creative faculty of woman,--the domain of art,--because, in works of art, the heart shares in the labour of the understanding; because, in the creation of beauty, a profound inner consciousness and soaring fancy can replace masculine acuteness of thought--and these belong especially to the gifted woman. But science presents tasks for the thinking power. I deny to woman not the ability to grasp the grand results of science, but the mental endurance, the technical facility, to arrive at them unassisted."

Ernestine clasped her hands in entreaty. "Do not destroy the hope and aim of my life!"

Johannes bent towards her and said gently, "My dear Fraeulein Hartwich, may your life have other aims than this that you can never attain!"

"Never attain!" cried Ernestine, sitting proudly erect "I can see nothing to justify those words. If I were only well and strong, if my body were only a more, obedient tool of my mind, I would show what a woman can do! I would show that we are not merely domestic animals, endowed with some degree of reason, as a certain class of men designate us, but free, independent, equal beings! If you only knew how my whole soul revolts at our social oppression, our intellectual slavery! Oh, believe, believe, sir, that I am not actuated by vain ambition, but I am wrung with anguish for those wretched souls who, like myself, have chafed so painfully in the fetters of commonplace conventionalities, or, like those born blind, have dreamed in their darkness of the light that floods the world with joy and freedom, but from which they are excluded! I long to break the yoke under which my whole sex languishes, to avenge their wrongs. For this I will give my money and my blood!--for this I resign all claims to the happiness of woman!--yes, for this I would sacrifice life itself!"

Johannes sat listening to her with his arms folded. He now began quietly: "I understand and admire you,--but you exaggerate. The social position of woman is determined by her capacity and her desires. Women like yourself are rare exceptions; your sex, as a general rule, is at so low a stage of development that they neither can claim nor desire any higher position."

"And whose fault is this?" Ernestine interrupted him eagerly. "Yours,--you masters of the world. If we are intellectually your inferiors, why not educate us more thoroughly? Why not elevate us to a higher degree of intelligence? It is for your strong hands to form us as you will. And nowhere in Christian lands is the position of woman more depressing than in this country. Look at Russia, the land that so long retained serfdom and the knout,--even there the number of learned women is perceptibly increasing, and the Russian high schools do not reject female pupils. Look at France, at England,--women are everywhere employed and the sphere of their capabilities enlarged, and the sex is held in higher estimation. Unfortunately, I cannot deny that the mass of German women are either mere household drudges, with never a thought beyond the material interests of the kitchen and nursery, or glittering dolls, with no idea of anything but the adornment of their persons. They understand little or nothing of politics, of the interests of their native land, of science, or of poetry; they go to art for amusement, not for instruction and refreshment. Such mothers can never implant the seeds of patriotism in the breasts of their sons, or educate the minds of their daughters; such wives can never share the thoughts and aims of their husbands. Who is to blame? Those men alone who would exclude woman from their world, and, denying her all claim to intellectual ability, banish her to the kitchen, or force her to indemnify herself for exclusion from their spiritual life by rendering herself necessary to their material existence!"

Johannes made no reply. It was enjoyment enough for him to look at her and hear her. He wished her, before attempting to reply to her, to finish all that she had to say.

Ernestine continued: "All this constitutes the ignominy of my sex,--an ignominy that must be overcome, or its revenge will be terrible; for luxury and self-indulgence have been the ruin of those nations who rendered no homage to the spiritual nature of woman. We must force this reverence from you, at any risk, before it is too late. Smile, if you will, at my presumption in arrogating the place of a feminine Arnold von Winkelried, breaking a path for our spiritual freedom through the lances of contempt and prejudice. I know what lies before me. No commonplace woman feels any pride in her sex; when one of her sisters achieves distinction, she is only all the more galled by the consciousness of her own inferiority, and takes her revenge, if she knows no better, with the wretched weapons of conventional prejudices,--casting the odium of indelicacy upon the woman who dares to be free; and men contemptuously close their doors upon her. My lot must be to struggle and suffer. Still, I do not hesitate. If I can effect nothing here, I will seek other lands, where woman striving after better things is treated with humanity and true chivalry."

"Where humanity and chivalry assist woman to lay aside the very crown of her being,--her womanhood!" Johannes now interrupted her; "for how can you preserve it, if in anatomical studies you harden yourself to everything that shocks a compassionate woman, if you are forced into contact with things at which all maidenly delicacy must revolt? I have not interrupted you hitherto, because I wished thoroughly to understand you, and because your sacred zeal touched and delighted me. With much that is crude and exaggerated, there is truth, and beauty, in what you have just said. But, believe me, the physical frame of a woman is as little suited as her intellect to certain scientific pursuits. I directed you to the broad domain of the beautiful,--of art,--but you would not listen to me--there you would have to share your fame among too many. Your ambition craves something entirely new and unheard-of. But, Fraeulein Hartwich, this ambition will be your ruin! If you long to create, create forms for your ideas that will speak for themselves, clothe them in poetic language, or give them local habitation and a name in art--you can complete such work, and your soul can find rest in it from its labours. A poetical idea can be fully embodied in a work of art; but a scientific hypothesis is inexhaustible, because, however clearly proved and demonstrated, it brings new problems in its train. Only a man's rude strength can endure such a restless pursuit that knows no pause; the woman's delicate nature must succumb even because her mind is so alive that she labours with all the ardent desire, the breathless interest, of the devotee of science. And if she succeeds, at the sacrifice of her life, in contributing some addition to the universal stock of knowledge, she has done only what would have cost a man far less pains. The result of her work is wrung from her death-agony, and the world, with a shrug of its shoulders, says, 'It is about all that a woman could do!' Is praise thus qualified not purchased too dearly at the cost of health and life?"

Ernestine had listened with intense eagerness. Her dark eyes were riveted upon the speaker. As he ceased, she folded her hands in her lap and said, "What injustice you do me if you think that desire for the world's applause is the moving spring of my actions! Yes, I do long for recognition; that I have confessed to you. But I might have obtained it more easily if I had chosen other branches of science, and my uncle allowed me to choose. I selected, from inclination, natural philosophy, and, in especial, physiology. I cared little for history, because I care little for mankind. Moral philosophy seems to me too dogmatical, so does religion. Nature alone is always filled with new, genuine life. 'There I know,' as Johannes Mueller says, 'whom I serve and what I have.' Physiology has opened a new world for me,--or, better still, has re-created the old world, for I truly see only when I understand what I am looking at;--every sunbeam glancing in a dewdrop, every wave of sound borne to my ear from afar, awakens new and vivid images in my mind. What enjoyment is comparable to that which science offers us! She makes the real a miracle,--and shows us the miraculous as reality. And shall I resign this ennobling possession because I am a woman? And can this inspiring search for life bring me death? Oh, no! I cannot, I will not believe it!"

Johannes held out his hand to her. "You are a rarely-gifted woman, and comprehend the nature of science. But, supposing that you possessed the rare power--both of body and mind--to accomplish the task which you propose to yourself, you must do it at the cost of your vocation as a woman. For no woman can fulfil both these offices. As a scholar, you must live exclusively for your studies; the duties of wife and mother would distract you too much to admit of your accomplishing your purposes, for they require an entire lifetime. Now you have the courage to endure the want of love and happiness growing out of your determination, but will your courage last? When age and illness assail you,--when you become weak and helpless and need faithful, devoted hands about you and true loving hearts upon which you can rest from weariness and pain, and there is no one belonging to you,--because you have chosen to belong to no one,--how will it be then? Have you no presentiment of such misery? Is there no desire for consolation, no longing for love, in your inmost soul?"

Ernestine's gaze was fixed darkly on the ground. "I know nothing of love. How can I long for what I know nothing of?"

"Good heavens! how can that be? Have you had no parents, relatives,--friends who were dear to you?"

"No! my mother died at my birth, and my father--who treated me very harshly, and did not care for me--died when I was twelve years old. My guardian became my teacher and guide, and initiated me into the pursuit of science. At no time of my life have I had any intercourse with my equals. I did not wish for it. My uncle sent his own little daughter to a boarding-school and lived for me alone, but the tie that bound me to him was only my interest in science and his readiness to gratify it. He is cold by nature,--as I am also. I have never felt anything for him but gratitude. I have always lived alone, and have never loved a human being."

Johannes was deeply moved. "Poor girl!" he said. "Had you cast yourself on the ground at my feet, bathed in tears, bewailing the death of father, mother, or husband, you could not have inspired me with such pity as those words, 'I have never loved,' awaken within me. You look amazed! The time will come when you will understand me,--when by the depth of your anguish you will learn the heights of bliss from which you have been banished; then he, whom you now regard as your enemy, will be beside you,--to soothe your grief for your lost life,--perhaps to lead you to one nobler and better!"

Ernestine turned away, greatly agitated. She would not have Johannes observe her emotion, and therefore only breathed a gentle "Farewell," and would have left the room.

"Are you going? Have I offended you? May I not come again?" he asked.

Ernestine stood still, and did not speak.

"May I not?" he repeated,--and there was such urgent entreaty in his voice that it stirred the very depths of Ernestine's soul.

There was one moment of hesitation; then she returned to him, held out her hand and said, with eyes swimming in tears,--eyes that pierced his heart to the core:

"Yes; come again."

"God bless you!" he said, with a long sigh of relief, and then, kissing her hand respectfully, he left the room. She stood still where he had left her, lost in thought.

The tones of the AEolian harp floated out upon the air, the roses exhaled fresh fragrance, the birds twittered, and the sunlight shone in soft rays through the blue curtains. She heeded none of these things, she stood there absorbed in the pursuit of some dim, half-remembered image in the distant past--even in the days of her childhood.

Why was it that the oak boughs, whither she had fled from the handsome lad, seemed to rustle around her again? Why was the little Angelika so distinct in her memory,--the little girl rocking in her arms the doll that her brother had sent her, in the sure hope that her tenderness would inspire it with life?

And as she stood there, dreaming in the midst of AEolian tones, fragrance, and light, she herself was like Pygmalion's statue, when beneath the breath of love the first glow of life informed its marble breast, and the cold lips opened for its first sigh!