Part 23 (1/2)

”You are not sincere with me, Herr Freyer!” said the countess, motioning to him to sit down. ”This expression of thanks does not come from your heart, for you do not care what I do for Josepha. That is merely the pretext for coming to me--because you do not wish to confess what really brought you. Am I not right?”

”Countess!” said Freyer, completely disconcerted, as he tried to rise.

She gently laid her hand on his, detaining him. ”Stay! Your standard is so rigid in everything--what is your view of truth?”

Freyer fixed his eyes on the floor.

”Is it _true_, when you say that you came to thank me for Josepha? Were you not drawn hither by the feeling that, of all the thousands of souls who pa.s.s you in the course of the summer, perhaps there is not one who could understand you and your task as I do?”

Freyer clasped his hands on his knees and silently bent his head.

”Perhaps you have not thought of me as I have thought of you, all day long, since our eyes met on the mountain, as though some higher power had pointed us out to each other.”

Freyer remained silent, but as the full cup overflows at the slightest movement, tears again gushed from his eyes.

”Why did you look at me so from head to foot, pouring forth in that gaze your whole soul with a world of grief and joy, as a blossoming tree showers its flowers on the pa.s.ser-by? Surely not on account of a woman's face, though it may be pa.s.sably fair, but because you felt that I perceived the Christ in you and that it was _He_ for whom I came.

Your glance meant to tell me: 'It is I whom you are seeking!' and I believe you. And when at last the promise was fulfilled and the long sought redeemer stood before me, was it by chance that his prophetic eye discovered me among the thousands of faces when he said: 'But in many hearts day will soon dawn!' Did you not seek me, as we look for a stranger to whom we must fulfill a promise given on the journey?”

Freyer now raised his dark eyes and fixed them full upon her, but made no reply.

”And is it true that you came yesterday, only because Ludwig wished it, you who, spite of all entreaties, have kept ladies who had the world at their feet waiting on your stairs for hours? Did you not come because you suspected that I might be the woman with whom, since that meeting, you had had some incomprehensible spiritual bond?”

Freyer covered his eyes with his hand, as if he was afraid more might be read in them.

”Be truthful, Herr Freyer, it is unworthy of you and of me to play a conventional farce. I am compelled to act so many in my life that I would fain for once be frank, as mortal to mortal! Tell me simply, have I judged correctly--yes or no?”

”Yes!” whispered Freyer, without looking up.

She gently drew his hand down. ”And to-day--to-day--did you come merely out of grat.i.tude for your cousin?” she questioned with the archness of her increasing certainty of happiness.

He caught the little hand with which she had clasped his, and raised it ardently to his lips; then, as if startled that he had allowed himself to be carried so far, he flung back his raven locks as if they had deluded his senses, and pushed his chair farther away in order not to be again led into temptation. She did not interfere--she knew that he was in her power--struggle as he might, the dart was fixed. Yet the obstacles she had to conquer were great and powerful. Coquetry would be futile, only the moral force of a _genuine_ feeling could cope with them, and of this she was conscious, with a happiness never felt before. Again she searched her own heart, and her rapid glance wandered from the thorn-scarred brow of the wonderful figure before her, to pierce the depths of her own soul. Her love for him was genuine, she was not toying with his heart; she wished, like Mary Magdalene, to sanctify herself in his love. But she was the Magdalene in the _first_ stage. Had Christ been a _man_, and attainable like _this_ man, what transformations the Penitent's heart must have undergone, ere its fires wrought true purification.

”Herr Freyer,” the countess began in a low, eager tone, ”you said yesterday that it troubled you when people showed you idolatrous reverence and you felt that you thereby robbed your Master. Can we give aught to any earthly being without giving it to _G.o.d_?”

Freyer listened intently.

”Is there any soul which does not belong to G.o.d, did not emanate from _Him_, is not a part of _His_ power? And does not that which flows from one part to another stream back in a perpetual circle to the _Creator_?

We can _take_ nothing which does not come from G.o.d, _give_ nothing which does not return to Him. Do you know the principle of the preservation of power?”

”No,” said Freyer, confused by his ignorance of something he was asked.

”Well, it can be explained in a very few words. Science has proved that nothing in the universe can be lost, that even a force which is apparently uselessly squandered is merely transformed into another.

Thus in G.o.d nothing can be lost, even though it has no direct relation to Him--for he is the _spiritual_ universe. True, _every_ feeling does not produce a work of G.o.d, any more than every effort of nature brings forth some positive result. But as in the latter case the force expended is not lost, because it produces other, though secondary results, so in _G.o.d_ no sentiment of love and enthusiasm is lost, even though it may relate to Him only in a secondary degree.”

”Very true.”

”Then if that _is_ so,--how can any one rob this G.o.d, who surrounds us like the universe, from which we come, into which we pa.s.s again, and in which our forces are constantly transformed in a perpetual round of change.”

Freyer rested his head on his hand, absorbed in thought.