The Lost Manuscript Part 94

The Professor looked at the student who stood before him and did not wish to be considered a woman. The Princess had never looked so attractive. He gazed on the blus.h.i.+ng cheeks, on the eyes which were fastened so expressively on his countenance, and on the rosy lips which trembled with inward emotion. "My pupils generally look different from that," he said, softly, "and they are accustomed to criticize their teacher more stringently."

"Be content for once," said the Princess, "with finding pure admiration in a susceptible soul. I have before said how much I value your acquaintance. I am no empress who governs a kingdom, and do not wish to employ your powers in my interest. But I should consider it the highest happiness to be in intimate relations with your mind, to listen to the n.o.ble words you utter. I feel a longing to look upon life with the clear eyes of a man. You have easily, as if in play, solved riddles that have tormented me, and answered questions with which I have struggled for years. Mr. Werner, you have taken a kind interest in me; if you go from here, I shall find myself alone in those pursuits with which I should most prefer being occupied. If I were a man I should seek you as my teacher; but I am fettered here, and, I beckon you to me."

The learned man listened, entranced, to the soft voice that spoke so persuasively.

"I do not beg for myself alone," continued the Princess, "my brother also needs a friend. It will be his task to take charge of the welfare of many. What you could do for his mind would be for the benefit of others. When I look away from the present, and dream of the future of our princely house and of this country, I feel proud that we, brother and sister, have a presage of what will be demanded in our time from princes, and I feel an ambition that we should both, before all others, show ourselves worthy of this high calling. I hope to see a new life developed in my home, and my brother and myself surrounded by the best minds of our nation. Thus we should live sensibly and earnestly together, as our times require; it should be no pleasure-loving Court after the old style, but a hearty intercourse between the Sovereign and the mind of the nation. That will make us freer and better in ourselves, and will be an advantage to the whole people; it will also be a bright remembrance for future times. When I think of such a future, then, Mr. Werner, I see you as the dear companion of our life, and the thought makes me proud and happy."

The sun was setting, and its last rays fell glowing upon the Princess and the head of the scholar. Sweetly sounded the song of the nightingale among the elder-bushes; the Professor stood silent opposite the beautiful woman who painted life to him in such rosy colors; his heart beat and his strength failed him. He saw before him two eloquent eyes, and the sound of the entreating words, "Remain with us," rang with entrancing magic once more in his ear.

Something rustled near the Princess; the leaves of the ma.n.u.script which she had taken fell to the ground. The Professor bent down to pick them up, and as he raised himself again began, in a feeble tone:

"Your Highness takes a bright look into the future; my eye is accustomed only to read single lines in the history of past ages. Here lies my first task; my dreams hover about these leaves. I am only a man of the study, and I should become less were I to endeavor to become more. I know that I deprive myself of much, and in this hour, when a vision of a brilliant life s.h.i.+nes before me so invitingly, I feel this more deeply than ever. But my greatest happiness must be, from within quiet walls, to impress upon the souls of others what will there blossom and bear fruit. My greatest reward must also be that in hours of triumph, when filled with the consciousness of power, some pupil of mine will give a fleeting thought to the far-distant teacher, who has been but one among the thousands that have formed him, but one among the many sowers in the limitless fields of science."

Thus spoke the scholar. But while speaking, with a severe struggle for composure, what was true and honorable, he did not think only of the truth, nor only of the treasure which he was seeking, but of the greater one which he had left in order to pursue his quest with the beautiful fairy of the tower. He heard the beseeching words, "Do not go, Felix," and they were a timely warning. "When I return to her, will she be contented with me?" thought the innocent man. He was spared the necessity of asking the question.

The rolling of a carriage was heard below, and the steps of the servant who was coming to announce an arrival.

"Is your will so inflexible, your intention so firm!" exclaimed the Princess, pa.s.sionately. "But I am also obstinate; I shall continue my entreaties. War between us two, Mr. Werner! Farewell, till evening."

She hastened down the steps. The evening light disappeared behind dark clouds; the mist hovered over the meadows and hung on the tops of the trees; and the daws flew croaking round the walls of the tower. The door of the room above creaked on its hinges, and the Castellan rattled his keys, while the scholar looked lovingly at the leaves which he held in his hand.

_CHAPTER x.x.xVI_.

ILSE'S FLIGHT.

Ilse was awakened by her husband's parting kiss; she sat at her bed-side and listened to the sound of the rolling wheels.

"This has been a fearful night," she said; "after tears and anguish there came bad dreams. I was hanging over a precipice; from the depth below, concealed by fogy arose the noise of a waterfall. Felix standing above, held me by a handkerchief; his strength was giving way; I felt that, but I had no anxiety about it in my dream. I wished that Felix would let me go, and not sink with me. Pa.s.s away in peace, my dream, to thy portals of ivory; thou wast a good dream, and I have no cause to be ashamed of thee.

"He is on his journey, and I am alone. No, my Felix, you are with me, even when I do not hear your voice. Yesterday I was angry with you; I am sorry for it. I bear you within me, just as you have taught me, that the soul of man pa.s.ses into and rests in others. That part of Felix which I preserve within me I will keep honorably, and quietly cherish in this hateful house."

She opened the curtains.

"It will be a gloomy day again; the finches are already sitting at the window, crying for the dilatory woman who has slept beyond the breakfast hour of her little ones. Outside all is in bloom, and the large leaves of the Schubart-plant blow about joyously in the moist air. But this rain will be more than my father likes; the seed will suffer. The good G.o.d cannot please us all at the same time; we are indeed covetous.

"At home they gossip about me; my neighbor did not say the worst that she knew. I have not been used to this. When I became the wife of my Felix I thought myself raised above all the meanness of the world, but I now feel its sting in my soul."

She pa.s.sed her hand over her eyes.

"No tears to-day?" she cried springing up. "When my thoughts course wildly through my brain I will prove to myself that I have something of the scholar's character in me, and will calmly look into my own heart and quiet its beatings by prudent reflection. When he first came to our house, and the n.o.ble spirit of his conversation aroused me, his image pursued me into my room. I took a book, but I did not know what I read; I took up my accounts, but I could not put two and two together; I observed that all was confusion within me. Yet it was wrong to think thus about a man who was still a stranger to me. Then in my anguish I went into the nursery, tidied all my brother's and sister's things, and saw whether the boy's clothes needed mending. I was then a regular home body. Ah, I am so still; I hope it will help me now. I will put all my things together for I feel as if I should take a journey to-day, and that it will be well to have all prepared."

She opened the closet, drew out her trunk, and packed it.

"But where to?" she asked herself. "Far away? How long it is since I had wings like a swallow, and could gaily fly with my thoughts into foreign parts! And now the wings of the poor little swallow are broken.

I sit alone on my branch; I would gladly conceal myself in the leaves, and I dread the fluttering and the chattering of my neighbors."

She supported her weary head with her hands.

"Where should I go to?" she sighed; "not to my father; nor could I now look with pleasure on mountains and old monuments. How can one have a heart for the forms of nature and the achievements of past nations when one's own life is racked and disturbed?

"My Felix said that one should always consider oneself the child of the whole human race, and be elevated by the high thought that millions of the dead and living are united to us in an indissoluble unity. But who of those who were and are about me will relieve my tormented soul of the pangs that constantly trouble me? Who will deliver me from dissatisfaction with myself and from fear about the future? Ah me! It may be a teaching to inspire man in hours of exaltation, when calmly contemplating all about him, but for him who is writhing in torment and affliction, the teaching is too high, too high!"

She took from the shelf her little Bible, which had been given her by the good Pastor on her departure from her father's house, and drew it out of its cover. "I have long neglected to read you, dear book, for when I open your pages I feel as if I had two lives; the old Ilse revives who once trusted in your words; and then again I see myself, like my husband, criticizing many pa.s.sages, and asking myself whether what I find in you is according to my reason. I have lost my childish faith, and what I have gained instead gives me no certainty. When I fold my hands in prayer, as I did when I was a child, I know that I dare pray for nothing but strength to overcome, by my own exertion, what now casts down my spirit."

The gardener entered the room, as he did every morning, with a basket of flowers which the lord of the castle sent her. Ilse rose and pointed to the table.

"Set it down," she said, coldly, without touching the basket.

She had, at other times, frequently expressed to the man her pleasure in the beautiful flowers he had cultivated. It had always given him pain that the ill.u.s.trious personages of the castle never noticed his rare plants, and he had been so pleased with the warm interest taken by the strange lady that he brought the flowers every morning himself, and pointed out to her the new favorites of the conservatory; he had cut for her the best he had.

"The others do not notice them," he would say; "and she remembers the Latin names too."

He now placed the basket of flowers down with a feeling of mortification.

"There are some new specimens of the calceolaria," he began, reproachfully; "they are of my own raising: you will not see others of this kind."

Ilse felt the disappointment of the gardener. She approached the table, and said:

"They are indeed very beautiful; but flowers, dear sir, require a light heart, and that I have not now. I have ill repaid your kindness to-day; but you must not be angry with me."

"If you would only look at the grey-spotted ones," exclaimed the gardener, with the enthusiasm of an artist; "these are my pride, and are not to be had anywhere else in the world."

Ilse admired them.

"I had taken great pains for many years," continued the gardener. "I had done all I could to obtain good seed, but only common ones came; after I had almost lost courage, the new kinds blossomed all in one year. It was not my art," he added, honestly: "it is a secret of nature; she has given me good fortune, and relieved me from my cares all at once."

"But you took pains and did your best," answered Ilse; "when one does thus, one may trust to the good spirit of life."

The gardener went away appeased; Ilse looked at the flowers.

"Even he who sent you has become to me an object of dread. Yet he was the only one here who showed me uniform kindness and treated me with respect. Felix is right: there is no reason for us to be disturbed on his account. Who knows whether he is much to blame for the disagreeable reports about this house. I must not be unjust towards him; but when I look at his flowers, it seems as if an adder lay within them, for I do not know whether his soul is pure or impure. I do not understand his ways, and that makes me uncertain and fearful."

She pushed the basket away, and turned from it.

The maid who waited upon her came into the room, with a troubled countenance, and begged permission to go away for the day, as her mother was very ill in a neighboring village. Ilse asked kindly about the woman, and gave the girl the desired permission, with good wishes and advice. The maid went slowly out of the room; Ilse looked sorrowfully after her.

"Her heart, too, is heavy. It is well that Felix is not at home, for I can now be alone with my sorrow. It will be a quiet day, and this will be welcome after yesterday's storm."

Again there was a knocking at the door; the Castellan brought the letters that the postman had given him for the Pavilion. There were letters from her brothers and sisters who kept up a regular correspondence with their distant Ilse. A ray of joy pa.s.sed over her serious face.

"This is a pleasant morning greeting," she said. "I will to-day answer my little band in detail. Who knows whether I may have time for it next week."

She hastened to the writing-table, read, laughed, and wrote. Her uneasiness had pa.s.sed away; she chatted like a lively child in the language and thoughts of the nursery. Hours flew in this occupation.

Gabriel brought up and carried away the dinner. When in the afternoon he found her still bending over the letters, he lingered by her and hesitated whether he should speak to her; but as Ilse was so deeply engrossed in her work, he nodded and closed the door.