Chapter 22

FATHER GOTZKOWSKY.

The door had closed behind the soldiers and their prisoner. Gotzkowsky and Elise remained behind, silent and immersed in the deep sorrows of their souls. Neither spoke a word; both stood motionless and listened.

They heard the soldiers hurry down the steps; they heard the house door violently thrown open, and the officer announce in a loud voice to those of his soldiers who were waiting in the street, the lucky capture of the artilleryman.

A cry of triumph from the Austrians was the answer; then was heard the loud word of command from the officer, and the roll of the drum gradually receding in the distance until it was no longer audible. Every thing was silent.

"Have mercy, Father in heaven have mercy! They are leading him to death!" cried Elise in a heart-rending tone, and she sank on her knees in prayer.

"The brave cannoneer is saved!" murmured Gotzkowsky in a low voice to himself, and he too folded his hands in prayer. Was it a prayer of gratitude, or did it proceed from the despairing heart of a father?

His countenance had a bright and elevated expression; but as he turned his eyes down on his daughter, still on her knees, they darkened, and his features twitched convulsively and painfully. His anger had evaporated, and his heart was filled with boundless pity and love. He felt nothing but painful, sorrowful compassion for this young girl who lay deathly pale and trembling with suffering on the floor. His daughter was weeping, and his heart yearned toward her to forgive her every thing, to raise her up and comfort her.

Suddenly Elise started up from her knees and strode toward her father. There was something solemn and imposing in her proud bearing, her extraordinary composure, which only imperfectly veiled her raging grief and passionate excitement.

"Father," said she solemnly, and her voice sounded hoarse and cold, "may God forgive you for what you have done! At this moment, when perhaps he is suffering death, I repeat it, I am innocent."

This proud composure fell freezingly on Gotzkowsky's heart, and drove back all the milder forgiving impulses. He remembered only the shame and the injured honor of his daughter.

"You assert your innocence, and yet you had a man concealed in the night in your bedchamber!"

"And yet I am innocent, father!" cried Elise vehemently. "Read it on my forehead, see it in my eyes, which do not fear to meet yours. I am innocent!"

And completely overpowered by the bitter and desperate anguish of her soul, she continued, still more excited, "But how does all this concern you? It was not my honor that you were interested in; you did not seek to avenge that. You only wished to punish me for daring to assert my freedom and independence, for daring to love without having asked your leave. The rich man to whom all bend, whom all worship as the priest of the powerful idol which rules the world, the rich man sees with dismay that there is one being not dazzled by his treasures who owns an independent life, a will of her own, and a heart that he cannot command. And because this being does not of her own accord how down before him he treads it in the dust, whether it be his own child or not."

"Elise," cried Gotzkowsky, shocked, "Elise, are you mad? Do you know that you are speaking to your father?"

But her tortured heart did not notice this appeal; and only remembering that perhaps at this moment her lover was suffering death through her father's fault, she allowed herself to be carried away by the overpowering force of her grief. She met the flashing eye of her father with a smile of contempt, and said, coldly: "Oh yes, you may look at me. I do not fear your angry glances. I am free; you yourself have absolved me from any fear of you. You took from me my lover, and at the same time deprived yourself of your child."

"O God!" cried Gotzkowsky in an undertone, "have I deserved this, Father in heaven?" and he regarded his daughter with a touching expression.

But she was inexorable; sorrow had unseated her judgment, and "Oh!" cried she in a tone of triumph, "now I will confess every thing to you, how I have suffered and what I have undergone."

"Elise!" cried he painfully, "have I not given you every thing your heart could desire?"

"Yes!" cried she, with a cruel laugh, "you fulfilled all my wishes, and thereby made me poor in wishes, poor in enjoyment. You deprived me of the power of wishing, for every thing was mine even before I could desire it. It was only necessary for me to stretch out my hand, and it belonged to me. Cheerless and solitary I stood amidst your wealth, and all that I touched was turned into hard gold. The rich man's daughter envied the beggar woman in the street, for she still had wishes, hopes, and privations."

Gotzkowsky listened to her, without interrupting her by a word or even a sigh. Only now and then he raised his hand to his forehead, or cast a wandering, doubtful look at his daughter, as if to convince himself that all that was passing was not a mad, bewildering dream, but painful, cruel reality.

But when Elise, breathless and trembling with excitement, stopped for a moment, and he no longer heard her cutting accents of reproach, he pressed both hands upon his breast, as if to suppress a wail over the annihilation of his whole life. "O God!" muttered he in a low voice, "this is unparalleled agony! This cuts into a father's heart!"

After a pause, Elise continued: "I too was a beggar, and I hungered for the bread of your love."

"Elise, oh, my child, do you not know then that I love you infinitely?"

But she did not perceive the loving, almost imploring looks which her father cast upon her. She could see and think only of herself and her own tormented heart.

"Yes," said she, "you love me as one loves a jewel, and has it set in gold in order to make it more brilliant. You loved me as a costly ornament of your rooms, as something which gave you an opportunity of exercising the splendor of your liberality, and to be produced as an evidence of your renowned wealth. But you did not love me as a father; you did not perceive that I wept in secret, or if you did see it, you consoled me with diamonds, with rich dresses, to make me smile. But you did not give me your father's heart. At last the rich man's child discovers a happiness not to be bought with gold or treasures, a happiness that the millions of her father could not purchase for her. This happiness is--love. The only possession that I have owned, father, contrary to your will, you have deprived me of, because it was mine against your will. Now, poor rich man, take all your gold, and seek and buy yourself a child with it. Me you have lost!" and staggering back with a sob, she sank fainting on the carpet.

A dread silence now reigned in the room. Gotzkowsky stood motionless, with his eyes directed toward heaven. The cruel, mocking words of his daughter sounded over and over again in his ears, and seemed to petrify the power of his will and chain him fast, as if rooted to the floor. Gradually he recovered from this apathy of grief. The stagnant blood revived in his veins, and shot like burning streams of fire to his heart. He bent over his daughter, and gazing for a long time at her, his features assumed a gentler and softer expression. Tenderly with his hand he smoothed the tresses from her clear, high forehead; and as he did so, he almost smiled again, so beautiful and charming did she seem to him in her death-like repose.

"She has fainted," whispered he, low, as if fearful of awakening her. "So much the better for her; and when she recovers, may she have forgotten all the cruel words that she has uttered!"

He laid his hand on her head as if to bless her, and love and forgiveness were expressed in his looks. A perfect peace seemed to pervade his whole frame. In this moment he forgave her all the pain, all the suffering she had caused him. He pardoned her those unjust reproaches and accusations, and with lofty emotion, raising his eyes toward heaven, he exclaimed, "O God! thou seest my heart. Thou knowest that love alone has possession of its very depths, love to my child! and my child has no faith in me. I have worked--I am rich--I have amassed wealth--only for her. I thought of my child as I sat at my desk during the long, weary nights, busied with difficult calculations. I remembered my daughter when I was wearied out and overcome by this laborious work. She should be happy; she should be rich and great as any princess; for this I worked. I had no time to toy or laugh with her, for I was working for her like a slave. And this," continued he with a sad smile, "this is what she reproaches me with. There is nothing in which I believe, nothing but my child, and my child does not believe in me! The world bows down before me, and I am the poorest and most miserable beggar."

Overpowered by these bitter thoughts, which crowded tumultuously upon his brain, he leaned his head upon his hand and wept bitterly. Then, after a long pause, he drew himself up erect, and, with a determined gesture, shook the tears from his eyes.

"Enough!" said he, loudly and firmly, "enough; my duty shall cure me of all this suffering. That I must not neglect."

He rang the bell, and ordered the servant-maids, who appeared, to raise up the insensible girl and bear her to her room.

But when the maidens called the waiting-man to their assistance to raise their mistress, Gotzkowsky pushed them all aside, and carried her softly and gently, as carefully and tenderly as a mother, to a couch, on which he placed her. He then pressed a fervent kiss upon her brow. Elise began to move, a faint blush overspread her cheeks, she opened her eyes. Gotzkowsky immediately stepped back, and signed to her maids to carry her into her room.

He looked after her until she had disappeared, his eyes dimmed with tears. "My child," said he, in a low voice, "she is lost to me. Oh, I am a poor, pitiable father!" With a deep groan he pressed his hands to his face, and nothing was heard but the painful sobs wrung from the heart of this father wrestling with his grief.

Suddenly there arose from without loud lamentations and cries for help. They came nearer and nearer, and at last reached Gotzkowsky's house, and filled its halls and passages. It was not the outcry of a single person. From many voices came the sounds of lamenting and weeping, screams and shrieks:

"Help! help! have pity on us, save us! The Austrians are hewing us down--they are burning our houses--save us!"

Gotzkowsky dropped his hands from his face and listened. "What was that? who cries for help?" asked he, dreamingly, still occupied with his own sorrows, scarcely conscious of the reality. But suddenly he started, and from his eyes beamed life and courage. "Ah!" cried he aloud, "mankind is suffering, and I am thinking of my own griefs. I know these voices. The wives and children of my workmen, the poor and oppressed of the city are calling me. The people need me. Up, Gotzkowsky! give them your heart, your life. Endeavor to be a father to the unfortunate, and you will not be poor in children!"

Without the wailing and cries for help continued to resound, and the voices of weeping and trembling women and plaintive children cried aloud, "Gotzkowsky, help us! have pity on us, Father Gotzkowsky!"

"Father!" cried he, raising his head, his countenance beaming with delight. "They call me father, and yet I complain. Up! to my children who love me, and who need my help!"

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