Part 14
"Sometimes, especially at night, when I am staring into the darkness, a wild, mad longing comes over me with such power, that I feel as if I must succumb to it. It seizes me like a feverish delirium; it dims my senses, and makes my blood boil in my veins; it is the longing to lie just for once upon his breast, and there to weep my heart out. For in those nights my tears were dried up. I have never been able to weep since the day when I found Martha lying on her sick-bed.
* * * * *
"_A fortnight later_.
"It has come to pass. He loves me. He came to woo me. Now I know that there is an expiation! These tortures must indeed purify! Jesus, I have lost my childish faith in Thee, but Thou wast a man. Thou hast suffered like me. Thee I implore--no, this is madness! Come to your senses, woman; pull yourself together. Is there not an everlasting resting-place, whither you may flee by your own free will, if your strength is no longer equal to the misery of this life? Who is to prevent you?
"He loves me. I have attained it. But in order that he might love me, Martha had first to perish, I myself had to sink down into an abyss of guilt and shame from which no power in heaven or on earth can save me.
"I am dead. Dead shall be my desires and my hopes, and my rebellious blood, which wells up seething at thought of him. I will soon compel it to be calm; and if not----.
"Oh, how he stood before me, timidly stammering forth word by word. How shyly and imploringly his eye sought mine, and yet how he hardly dared to raise his glance from the ground. How, in his awkwardness, he twisted the ends of his beard round his fingers, and stamped his foot when he could not find the right word! Oh, my poor dear, big child, did you not see how my every limb was trembling with the desire to rush towards you and hold you tight for all eternity, did you not see how my lips were twitching with the temptation to press themselves upon yours, and to hang there till their last breath?
"Did you not see all this?
"Did you really believe the words, which half unconsciously I spoke to you? My heart knows nothing of them, that I swear to you. I have loved you ever since I can remember. I know that my last breath will utter your name.
"And shame on you, if you really had faith in my pretexts! I leave you for a rich girl! You, for whom I would gladly beg in the streets, for whom I would work till my eyes grew dim and my fingers sore, if you needed it!
"Do you remember that night in our parents' house, when you were wooing Martha? Do you remember it and dare to insult me by putting faith in my miserable excuses?
"And when at parting I gave you my hand, why did you look into my eyes so sadly and humbly? Did you not know that now that look will haunt me day and night like the reproach of some heavy crime I have committed towards you?
"No, my friend, you are the only one on earth who have nothing to reproach me with. Towards you I have acted honestly--and most honestly to-day, even though you were never so unutterably deceived as to-day! If only I might tell you how much I love you! How gladly would I die in that self-same hour. Only once to lie upon your breast--only once to hide my head upon your shoulder and weep, weep--weep blood and tears!
"You must never again look at me like that, my giant, as if I had had a right to despise you, as if you were too simple and not good enough for me. I do not know what I might not do in that case! Heaven protect you from me and my love!
* * * * *
"_A week later_.
"And now I have done it _after all_! I have thrown myself upon his neck; I have satiated myself with his kisses; I have wept my fill in his arms!
"I am calm--quite calm. I have tasted whatever of happiness life had left to offer me, the sinner.
"But what now?
"Since hours I have been face to face with the last great question: 'Shall I flee or die?'
"One or the other I must do this very night; for to-morrow he will come to lead me to Martha's grave.
"Rather than follow him thither, I will die!
"But I will even assume that I could be enough of a hypocrite not to drop down beside the grave and confess all to him, I will assume that I should not be choked with loathing of myself, that I should really have enough wretched courage to become his wife; what sort of a life should I lead at his side?
"What is the good of clinging to happiness when one has long since forfeited it? Should I not slink about like some poor criminal in her last hours, everlastingly tortured by the fear of betraying myself to him, and yet filled with the desire to proclaim my guilt to the whole world? How could I sleep in the bed out of which I wished her into her grave! How could I wake between the walls on which there still stands written in flaming letters: 'Oh, that she might die!'
"I will converse quite calmly and sensibly with myself, as is meet for one who is making up the account of her life. That I cannot become his wife I know very well.
"Shall I flee?--What should I do among strangers? I know them. I know these people and despise them. They have wrought evil towards me; they would torment me again in the future.
"All the faith, all the love, all the hope still remaining to me, have their foundation in him alone.
"So I must die! The bottles of morphia stand, well preserved, in the corner of my cupboard. I had some suspicion that I might want them, when, in defiance of the old doctor, I secretly saved up their contents. The few hours of sleep which I thereby lost, will now be amply compensated for.
"Only a letter yet to my uncle the doctor; he shall be my heir and my confidant. Perhaps he can help me to wipe away all traces of my deed, so that Robert may suspect nothing. Not a greeting to him. That is the hardest of all, but it must be so.
* * * * *
"I have run out secretly and posted the letter. The watchman was signalling midnight. How empty, how dark is the whole world! In the lime-trees the wind is soughing. Here and there a light is sadly gleaming as if to illumine hidden sorrows. A drunken fellow came shouting along the road and made as if to attack me. Darkness, poverty, and brutality out there--in here guilt and unappeasable longing--that would be my future. Verily this life has nothing more to offer me.
"People talk and write so much about the terror of death. I feel nothing of it. I am content, for I have wept my fill. Those suppressed tears weighed heavily upon me; and weeping makes one weary, they say. Good-night!"
The End.