Only a Girl Part 25

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

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

"I am, Fraulein 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 n.o.ble, 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 enn.o.bling your s.e.x, 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 a.s.signed to men."

"You have accomplished one such. How far your kind uncle may have a.s.sisted 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 compet.i.tors for the prize was slight, and by no means difficult. But do you imagine, Fraulein 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 una.s.sisted."

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 Fraulein 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 cla.s.s 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 s.e.x 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 s.e.x, 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 s.e.x is held in higher estimation. Unfortunately, I cannot deny that the ma.s.s 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 amus.e.m.e.nt, not for instruction and refreshment. Such mothers can never implant the seeds of patriotism in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s 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 const.i.tutes the ignominy of my s.e.x,--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 s.e.x; 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 a.s.sist 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 compa.s.sionate 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, Fraulein 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 succ.u.mb 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 Muller 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 enn.o.bling 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 accomplis.h.i.+ng 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 a.s.sail 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 grat.i.tude. 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 n.o.bler 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."

"G.o.d 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!