CHAPTER XII.

THE THIRD POWER.

"'What the law of force fails to accomplish, the intellect will effect,--where the intellect fails, love succeeds!' That was what he said," said Ernestine. Again her thoughts were involuntarily occupied with Johannes. "I wish I could write the sermons for his reverence, instead of copying them,--that would be such an excellent text." Thus she broke forth one day while seated with Gretchen at the table, where the latter was busy finishing the new dress that Hilsborn had sent her.

"Have you proposed it to Herr Pastor?" asked Gretchen with a smile.

"If he were not so conceited, I certainly would do so. But I suppose he would be offended."

"I rather suppose so too," laughed Gretchen.

"There is a Nemesis in it," said Ernestine, as she sat making a pen. "Here am I, who have hardly ever listened to a sermon in my life, obliged to copy sermons for my bread. Well," she added gravely, "it is just."

And again her pen flew quickly over the paper. After some time she sat up, with a long breath. "I have learnt to deny myself and to pray, but I have yet to learn the hardest task of all,--patience."

"It must be a terrible drudgery to such a mind as yours merely to write down the thoughts of another," said Gretchen.

"If there only were thoughts here, but these are nothing but empty words. And I must not even correct them,--it is mental death!" She wrote on for awhile, then suddenly raised her head and broke out, "At least they might let women have something to do with religion, if they deny our right to meddle with science or politics. Religion is so much a matter of feeling, and feeling is a woman's prerogative. Humility, self-sacrifice, and submission are native to woman, and a woman's lips could discourse far more eloquently than a man's of these Christian qualities. Why should a woman not be found worthy to declare the word of God? Why?" She suppressed a sigh. "Ah, the old indignation is getting possession of me! I will not yield to it,--such independence of thought does not become a mere copyist." She tried to go on with her writing, but her cheeks were flushed, and the tears stood in her eyes. "Oh, Gretchen, I shall never live it down,--this pity for our poor sex. It will always be the same,--any allusion to our wrongs cuts me to the very quick."

Gretchen laid her hand upon her shoulder. "Dear Ernestine, we will speak of this some other time. Now remember that you have promised that your copy shall be ready by four o'clock."

"You are right I will finish it instantly," said Ernestine, dipping the pen in the ink. "No, I cannot let such nonsense stand as it is!" she exclaimed after a pause. "The man is going to have the sermons printed,--he will thank me for correcting the worst faults."

"Ernestine, take care,--he may be offended," said Gretchen.

"Oh, no, surely I may change a couple of words. Whatever goes through my hands shall be as free from errors as possible."

Gretchen shook her head.

Ernestine completed her copy in about half an hour, and prepared to carry it to the pastor.

The days were beginning to grow longer. Although it was past four o'clock, the winter sun was looking brightly into the room, and upon the roofs below their windows the snow was melting into little rills.

"Shall you be back soon?" Gretchen called after Ernestine as she went out.

"In a very little while," was the answer, as the speaker left the room with her bundle of papers under her arm.

Gretchen was left alone in the room.

Another half-hour passed. A firm step was heard ascending the stairs. Gretchen listened intently. Her heart beat fast with joyous expectancy. Who was it that was intruding upon their seclusion?

She had not long to wait, there was a loud knock at the door. Gretchen's "Come in" was instantly followed by a "Thank God, 'tis he!" for Moellner stood upon the threshold.

"I knew you would come,--I was sure my letter to Herr Hilsborn would bring you,--I am delighted!" cried the girl, drawing him into the room. He said nothing in reply to her welcome, but let her take his hat and coat, and then, with a glance around the wretched apartment, exclaimed, in a tone of horror-stricken compassion, "Good God!"

Gretchen understood him, and gave him time to recover himself.

At last he asked, "Where is she?"

"She has gone to carry home some copying that the pastor gave her to do. She will be here very soon. Do not be startled at seeing her look so badly. We have lived wretchedly of late."

Johannes took her hand. "Gretchen, can't you hide me somewhere? I am not sufficiently composed to see her at present,--I must collect myself."

"Yes, come into our kitchen. I had better prepare Ernestine, too, for seeing you,--she is weak, and must be treated with great caution."

She conducted him into the little, cold, dark room that she called a kitchen. "Look! the poor girl has cooked our wretched dinners in this place for the last five months, and shed many a tear when she spoiled anything. Oh, if you could have seen, as I have, our proud Ernestine work and struggle and starve, you would not have refrained so long from putting an end to our misery."

"It is well that I could not see it. I should have been unnerved, and spoiled all by precipitation."

"Forgive me, but indeed you are hard. Hilsborn would not have left me here one instant longer than he could have helped."

"And he would have been right, Gretchen. But Ernestine and you are very different characters. She needed, and would have, this struggle for life,--even now I tremble lest she should refuse to let me put an end to it."

"Oh, no! when you see Ernestine, you will acknowledge that it was high time to hasten to her. Since all her efforts to obtain a situation have failed, her spirit seems well-nigh broken. I think in a little while she would have been hopelessly embittered, and her health would have given way entirely."

Johannes threw himself into the wooden chair by the window, where, in the midst of the hard prose of her life, Ernestine had been visited by such wondrous dreams. "Here is a letter to you, my dear Gretchen, from Hilsborn. He would have been only too glad to come with me, but every moment of his time is in demand."

"He is good and true," said Gretchen, "and I know how he trusts in me, but I cannot leave Ernestine until her future is assured."

"You are a noble child, Gretchen! If Ernestine had the least suspicion of what you are renouncing for her sake, she would never permit----" He paused, a flush mounted to his brow, his lips trembled, as he whispered, "There she is! I hear her coming! For God's sake, Gretchen, give me time to collect myself."

"I will go and meet her, that she may not come in here," said Gretchen.

Johannes handed her a book. "Here, lay this upon her table. It is a copy of the same edition of Andersen's Fairy Tales that I once gave her, and that was burnt. It may prepare her for seeing me."

"Yes, yes!" Gretchen hurried into the next room, and laid the book in Ernestine's work-basket. She started at the haggard appearance of Ernestine who entered with eyes flashing, and an expression of sullen indignation upon every feature.

"What is the matter, Ernestine?" she asked.

Ernestine threw off her hat and cloak, wrung her hands, and walked hurriedly to and fro. "That has gone too!"

"What, Ernestine?--what?"

"The pastor has refused to give me any more sermons to copy, because I ventured to correct his errors."

"Oh, is that all?" cried Gretchen, very much relieved.

"Is that all?" Ernestine repeated bitterly. "You say that, because, faithful and true as you are, you see no hardship in the prospect of supporting me again, without any help on my part, by your own unwearied exertions. You can say, 'Is that all?' but I, who fancied myself the first and proudest of my sex, am a beggar, dependent upon charity, fit for nothing but the duties of a common maid-servant, and not able to perform even these decently. I have lost all confidence, all hope, in myself. That is all!"

Gretchen caressed her lovingly, and smiled,--how could she smile at this moment? "Ah, Ernestine, how could you reject Dr. Moellner when he first wooed you? I should have thought you would have given your heart to him upon the spot. I only hope you may never know what you threw away."

"Gretchen," said Ernestine gravely, "it is long since I have learned what I then rejected. The pride with which I turned away from him, refusing to sacrifice my foolish ambition to make myself a name, has been severely punished. As in our dreams we are sometimes borne aloft as upon wings into immeasurable space, until our balance is lost and we fall headlong, awaking with the shock, so my ambition carried me to heights where I could not sustain myself. I fell, but strong and tender arms were held out to receive me, and I awoke to find myself embraced by them instead of prostrate in a frightful abyss. Then, in the confusion of my wakening, I thought those sustaining arms were fetters. I thrust them from me, and now I lie crushed and broken on the ground." She crossed her arms upon the table, and bowed her head on them.

Gently Gretchen took the book from the basket, and, opening it where she saw that Johannes had put a mark, she silently pushed it towards Ernestine, who raised her head at the touch, and at first looked absently at the pages before her, then gazed and gazed as if utterly unable to comprehend what she saw. It was her dear old book,--there was the swan that she had burned. "Heavens!" she cried, between laughter and tears, "can this be real? My swan! My swan! Who brought me this? Oh, dreams of my childhood, who has restored you to me?"

And she knelt beside the table, and laid her cheek upon the book. Before her closed eyes it was night again. Before her upon the table burned the dim night-lamp, and her father lay asleep close at hand. She read the story of the Ugly Duckling, and above her softly rustled the snowy plumage of the swan, and among her curls trembled the leaves of the oak whence the handsome boy had snatched her from mortal peril. And then her father awoke, and sent her up to her uncle. There stood the telescope, through which she was again gazing, thirsting for a peace which her young heart presaged without the power to grasp,--filled with longing to be borne up--up to those starry worlds gliding so silently through space. She knew now what she had so desired,--Love! But she searched for it among those worlds in vain. Suddenly she was standing upon the hill in the garden of her castle, and above her hovered the faithful little mermaid, in the shape of a sunset cloud, while a deep, tender voice whispered, "Poor swan!" Here, here was what she sought.

"Poor swan!" The words sounded distinctly now in her ears, not in her dreaming fancy only. She opened her eyes, and started up with a low cry, and would have fled,--fled to the uttermost ends of the earth,--but she could not stir from the spot. She tottered and would have fallen, but two strong arms upheld her, and for a moment she lost all consciousness. This was rest indeed.

"Shall I get some water?" asked Gretchen.

"Oh, no. Do not grudge me one moment," said Johannes, clasping the lifeless form to his heart "She will recoil from me as soon as she comes to herself."

"You should not have spoken to her so suddenly," said Gretchen.

Ernestine opened her eyes, looked up and around for a moment in bewilderment, and then extricated herself instantly from the arms in which she had found such rest.

"Did I not know her well?" Johannes said, by a glance, to Gretchen.

"You came so unexpectedly,--I was weak. I am ashamed of myself," she said, struggling for composure.

"You might be ashamed, if you could be what you call strong at this moment," he replied. At a sign from him, Gretchen withdrew.

Johannes gazed for a moment with intense devotion into Ernestine's eyes. "Dear heart, let me speak one fervent, last word to you. I know that I just now held another Ernestine in my arms than she who fled from me almost half a year ago. I felt it in the throbbing of your heart. But fear nothing, I am not come to take advantage of your helpless condition,--to wring from you a decision which might be stigmatized, in your present circumstances, as extorted from you by necessity. I understand you now. Yours is a nature never to yield to pressure from without,--it must take form and direction from within. It would be as useless to attempt controlling such a nature by force as to endeavour to make a rose bloom by tearing open the bud. We might destroy, but we could not unfold it. I have done all that I could to restore to you what is as necessary to you as light and air,--your independence. You once accused me of selfishness and interested motives. You shall be convinced that you did me injustice in this respect." He drew a paper from his breast-pocket. "I have succeeded through my friend Brenter, in St. Petersburg, in procuring you the offer of a position as Teacher of Natural Science in the famous Normal School established there. The place is a capital one, and has hitherto been occupied by men only. You will be entire mistress of your time, with the exception of the few hours daily spent in instruction. You can easily pursue your studies, and I can procure you admission to the scientific society of St. Petersburg. Your life there will be what your former ambition craved. You can earn your livelihood honourably, and sooner or later you will have an opportunity of attaining the goal of your desires,--a degree, for the Russian universities are not so strict as the German in the matter of admitting women to a share in their honours. Here is Brenter's letter. You see it makes you independent of all aid, even of mine. And now I venture again to ask you to make a sacrifice for me,--a great sacrifice. You cannot fear, if you now grant my suit, that any suspicion can be cast upon the freedom of your choice, or that you can be accused of being driven by necessity into my arms. If you yield now, you renounce brilliant prospects for my sake. I will urge nothing in my own behalf. Leave me, and there is a great future before you. Be mine, and my heart and home stand wide open to receive you. I will only say, 'Choose, Ernestine.'"

"And have you done this,--this for me?" said Ernestine, trembling with emotion. "How truly have you understood and respected my pride! How firm and yet how tender you are with me! How can I thank you, how repay you?"

"How, Ernestine? Let your own heart answer."

"I cannot listen to my heart alone. I must do whatever will make me worthiest of such devoted love. What shall,--what should I decide?"

"Let me tell you, if you do not know, for the last time, that true pride will teach you that you can give me nothing half so precious as yourself. The value of this gift no worldly wealth or honours could enhance. True humility will teach you to yield your fate unquestioningly to the man who gives you his very life. Go from me, and you may be great, but you cannot be womanly, and what is such greatness, attained at the cost of a heart? Give up the false pride that would seek fame beyond the bounds of a woman's sphere, and confess that you can do nothing greater than to enrich and bless, as you will when you are what God intended you should be--a true, loving woman." He broke off. "But, I repeat, the choice is yours."

"The choice? Is there any choice left for me?" cried Ernestine with sparkling eyes. "Shall I dissemble now, and try to conceal what I have scarcely been able for a long time to control! What are learning and fame, what the pride of position that you have offered me, compared with the happiness of this moment? Away with them all, and with my false pride! My choice is made, Johannes." And she sank upon his breast.

He clasped her as in a dream. Their lips met in a first long kiss, in which the lover breathed forth his long-pent-up tenderness.

She trembled like a scarce-opened flower in the first wind of summer, and yet all was as well with her as when she had, as a child, measured herself against the Titanic force of the elements in commotion around her. She knew now that love was no weakness, but a mighty power, and that it was divine to put forth this power. She raised her head at last, and looked at him with tears in her eyes. "Johannes,--dearest, best,--forgive--forgive my faults and failings--I repented them so long ago!"

He leaned over her, and whispered, "Ernestine, only love, do you now confess the third power of which I once told you?"

"Yes, yes, I confess and bow before it." She folded her hands, and her face seemed for a moment transfigured. "Oh, Spirit of Love, dwell in my heart, and teach me to be worthy of him who is so dear to me."

* * * * *

There was a double wedding such as the town of N---- had never seen before! Moellner and Ernestine, Hilsborn and Gretchen, were married on the same day. There was a great crowd before the quiet house where Professor Moellner lived, to witness the arrival of the numerous guests who were to escort the bridal parties to church.

"That is one of the bridesmaids, but an old one," was whispered among the people as Elsa and her brother alighted from their carriage.

"And that is another, but a very little one," was added, as a stalwart young man lifted a charming brown-eyed child out of the carriage. She was dressed in white with pink ribbons, and had a huge bouquet in her hand.

"But, oh, she has only one arm!" was uttered in a tone of compassion as she passed into the house, accompanied by her companion bridesmaid, and disappeared beneath the garlands and among the flowering shrubs with which the hall was decorated.

Within, the large drawing-room was crowded with the science and respectability of N----. There had been great astonishment among the inhabitants of the place when Johannes' actual engagement to the Hartwich was announced, but all agreed that Professor Moellner always knew what he was about; and those who were invited to the wedding declared themselves delighted with the match.

Even Elsa was appeased by Moellner's request that she would act as bridesmaid. "I am glad to be his bridesmaid," she said to her sister-in-law in the morning. "It will break my heart, but I will not repine! I shall fade away like a blossom that zephyrs waft from the tree before it can become fruit. Oh, no, I do not repine,--I only share the fate of thousands of my sisters. The blossom dying the death of innocence in its virgin purity is not to be pitied--no, let pity be for him who could crush it beneath his trend in his onward path without ever dreaming of the delight that it might have given him." She did not foresee that the poetic death that she anticipated would be very long delayed, and that she would be a welcome guest in Moellner's house in future years, as "Aunt Elsa" to a throng of attentive little listeners whom she would delight with many a tale about the elves, gnomes, and wild flowers of her youth. She was dressed in character on the present occasion, in sea-green, with a wreath of cherry-blossoms in her hair; a long narrow scarf of white satin fluttered about her slender figure. "Many might be more richly clad," she thought, "but none so romantically and poetically."

Her brother was in a sad state of mind as he this morning put on the dress-coat in which he had made his first appearance a year before in the Countess Worronska's boudoir. He had just heard that the beautiful countess had been killed in a race at St. Petersburg, and his grief at the death of the woman whom he still loved was increased by the necessity of concealing it.

In spite of the number of guests, there was a solemn silence reigning in the large apartment. For all were awaiting the entrance of the two brides.

Who has not been conscious of a slight shudder at the first appearance of a bride, a young girl, about to take the most important step of her life? All eyes were turned towards the door of the antechamber.

Johannes, with his mother, and Hilsborn, with Heim, placed themselves opposite it, the guests withdrew from around them, and a space through the centre of the room was left free.

Slowly, and enveloped in her floating veil as in a white cloud, her head bowed beneath the myrtle-wreath, Ernestine entered the room. Her dark eyelashes were drooping, and upon her broad brow true womanhood was enthroned. She paused, bewildered and confused by the presence of so many people, among whom the whisper ran, "How lovely the bride looks!" In defiance of all rule, Johannes hastened to her, and clasped her hands in his.

"My swan," he whispered, "now you have unfolded your plumage!"

Ernestine bent her head lower still, and a tear fell on his hand.

"Johannes," she said softly, "let me confess,--I have loved you ever since you made known to me, eleven years ago, the promise of the swan, but I could not know that it was only through you that the promise was to be fulfilled!"

"You loved me then, and could reject and torment me! Oh, Ernestine, what penalty is there for such cruelty?"

"Only one, dearest, but a severe one,--grief for time wasted."

"Amen, my daughter," said the Staatsraethin gravely.

The second bride, Gretchen, now entered, with blushing cheeks and a radiant smile. Hilsborn, with his foster-father, went to her, and Heim gave her his paternal benediction. Then came Angelika, and the faithful Willmers, who had discharged the office of dressing-maid to the pair.

From a corner of the room, Johannes led forward a bowed, aged form, the friend whom Ernestine had chosen to give her away,--old Leonhardt.

"Father," she said, gently taking his hand in one of hers, while she held out the other to the Staatsraethin,--"father, mother in spirit and in truth, I thank you both."

"Ernestine," said Leonhardt, "only one day in my life,--the day of my own marriage,--equals this in happiness. God bless you!" The old man was happy indeed, for the day before Walter had handed him a parchment roll with the announcement "It is my diploma."

"Are we never going to start?" suddenly exclaimed Moritz. "These lovers are not in any hurry, apparently. They have had sufficient time to make up their minds,--pray Heaven they are not regretting their decision. To church, then, in God's name."

"In God's' name," Ernestine whispered, and the words were spoken with her whole soul.

A YEAR LATER.

"Who would have thought that Ernestine would ever have turned out such a woman?" said Moritz Kern in a suppressed tone to his wife.

The pair were walking to and fro in Moellner's study, which was furnished precisely like Ernestine's former library, and they were evidently awaiting some event with anxiety.

Half hidden by the heavy folds of the blue curtains, Hilsborn and Gretchen were standing at the window. They did not speak, their hearts were too full. Gretchen's hands were folded, as though she were breathing a silent prayer, and Hilsborn stood grave and anxious beside her. Even Moritz stopped now and then and looked towards the door of the adjoining room, as if expecting it to open, but he evidently wished to conceal all emotion, and talked on gaily. "Yes, who would have thought it? Johannes must have been puzzled indeed to know how to train that scatterbrain."

"I always told you that Johannes could do whatever he chose, and Ernestine was always sweet and good in reality, only she had been so warped by her education," said Angelika. "I liked her from the first moment that I saw her after she was grown up, and you know I always defended her from your attacks. And now all is just as I said it would be."

"Oh, of course! I really should like to hear of anything that you women did not know all about beforehand," laughed Moritz. "You are always so much sharper than we. If Ernestine had made her husband as unhappy as she makes him happy, we should hear the same thing,--'Oh, I told you so, I saw how it would be from the first, I never liked her.' I know you well!"

"Are you not ashamed," pouted Angelika, "to go on with your silly jests when we are all so anxious? If Johannes should lose his wife, what would become of him?"

"Ah, bah! he is not going to lose her. Don't be foolish," said Moritz.

Hilsborn came towards them. "Don't make yourself out worse than you are, Moritz," said he. "I never saw you look more troubled than you do just at this moment. You know well enough what Ernestine is to us all."

"Deuce take it, of course I know it!" cried Moritz,--"she's as much to me as to any of you,--but I hate to hear people cry before they are hurt. God keep her, she's a jewel of a woman!"

"Yes," said Gretchen, joining in the conversation, "such women are rare indeed. How she fulfils every duty, even those that she once considered so dull and commonplace!"

"Yes, yes," chimed in Angelika, "my mother is never weary of sounding her praises."

"This is the most wonderful thing she has accomplished yet," said Moritz. "Only hear these two notable housewives, Hilsborn, joining in a chorus of praise of a third! Did you ever hear anything like it? I never did."

"She deserves it all," answered Hilsborn. "And then she is invaluable to Johannes as a scientific companion and assistant. He could as ill spare her at his desk or in his laboratory as at the head of his household--or----"

"Hush!" interrupted Angelika, "did you not hear some one at the door?" And silence reigned in the room again for awhile.

"I hope it will be a boy,--Ernestine longs for a boy," sighed Angelika.

"Past two o'clock," said Hilsborn. "I wish they would send us some one to say how she is."

Suddenly the door was flung open, and old Heim's deep voice cried, "It is over."

"Thank God!" they all exclaimed as with one breath.

"Is it a boy?" asked Angelika.

"No, a girl!"

"A girl!" said Moritz. "Well, ''tis not pretty, but sin is uglier,' as the Suabian said."

"Do be quiet! What would Ernestine say if she heard you, you mocker?" said Angelika. "May we not go to her, Uncle Heim?"

"No, stay where you are," said the old man, closing the door.

Within Ernestine's apartment all was quiet and repose. Johannes was standing, mute with happiness, by Ernestine's side, supporting her head, when he was called to look at his little daughter, a bundle of snowy wrappings in her grandmother's arms.

He took the little creature from her and laid it by his wife's side. "Mother," was all he said, leaning over her enraptured for awhile, gazing into the pure delight mirrored in her eyes. At last he raised his head, and said, laughingly, "But, Ernestine, 'it is only a girl.'"

"Be it so. I do not question what God has sent me. I am a mother. I envy no man now, and our daughter shall never do so. We will cherish and train our child to be what a true woman should be, and some day she may say to one whom she loves, as I do to you, my dearest, 'Thank God that I am a woman, and that I am yours.'"

"Ernestine," said Johannes, "those are the dearest words you could utter. Happy the daughter of such a mother! Father Heim, mother dear, did you hear Ernestine's confession? She is reconciled at last to the destiny of her sex."

Ernestine gazed at the atom of being by her side, as if it were a miracle. She quite agreed with the Staatsraethin that it was a wonderfully pretty child for a new-born baby, and, as she laid her hand upon its little heart and felt its regular beating, she smiled amid her tears, and would gladly have clasped it in her arms, only it seemed so frail and slight she was afraid of breaking it.

"Uncle Heim," she said, "I once thought that it would have been better if you had left me to die when my father gave me that almost fatal blow, but since then I have been often grateful to you for preserving my life, although never so grateful as at this moment."

"Ah, bah!" said the old man, "I was only the physician of your body. Reserve your gratitude for this fellow," he laid his hand upon Johannes' shoulder,--"he was the physician for your soul, and so judicious was his treatment, that now you can have some comfort of your life."

Ernestine looked up gratefully at her husband. "Yes, faithful physician of my soul,--your medicines were very bitter, but they were my salvation."

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 1: See Du Bois Reymond: _Voltaire, in Relation to Natural Sciences_. Berlin, 1868.]

THE END