Part 16 (1/2)
”Say no more, Adelheid--for my sake--for thine own sake, say no more--in mercy, be silent! Thou never canst be mine--No, no--honor forbids it; in thee it would be madness, in me dishonor--we can never be united. What fatal weakness has kept me near thee--I have long dreaded this--”
”Dreaded!”
”Nay, do not repeat my words,--for I scarce know what I say. Thou and thy father have yielded, in a moment of vivid grat.i.tude, to a generous, a n.o.ble impulse--but it is not for me to profit by the accident that has enabled me to gain this advantage. What would all of thy blood, all of the republic say, Adelheid, were the n.o.blest born, the best endowed, the fairest, gentlest, best maiden of the canton, to wed a nameless, houseless, soldier of fortune, who has but his sword and some gifts of nature to recommend him? Thy excellent father will surely think better of this, and we will speak of it no more!”
”Were I to listen to the common feelings of my s.e.x, Sigismund, this reluctance to accept what both my father and myself offer might cause me to feign displeasure. But, between thee and me, there shall be naught but holy truth. My father has well weighed all these objections, and he has generously decided to forget them. As for me, placed in the scale against thy merits, they have never weighed at all. If thou canst not become n.o.ble in order that we may be equals, I shall find more happiness in descending to thy level, than by living in heartless misery at the vain height where I have been placed by accident.”
”Blessed, ingenuous girl!--But what does it all avail? Our marriage is impossible.”
”If thou knowest of any obstacle that would render it improper for a weak, but virtuous girl--”
”Hold, Adelheid!--do not finish the sentence. I am sufficiently humbled--sufficiently debased--without this cruel suspicion.”
”Then why is our union impossible--when my father not only consents, but wishes it may take place?”
”Give me time for thought--thou shalt know all, Adelheid, sooner or later.
Yes, this is, at the least, due to thy n.o.ble frankness, Thou shouldst in justice have known it long before.”
Adelheid regarded him in speechless apprehension, for the evident and violent physical struggles of the young man too fearfully announced the mental agony he endured. The color had fled from her own face, in which the beauty of expression now reigned undisputed distress; but it was the expression of the mingled sentiments of wonder, dread, tenderness, and alarm. He saw that his own sufferings were fast communicating themselves to his companion, and, by a powerful effort, he so far mastered his emotions as to regain a portion of his self-command.
”This explanation has been too heedlessly delayed,” he continued: ”cost what it may, it shall be no longer postponed. Thou wilt not accuse me of cruelty, or of dishonest silence, but remember the failing of human nature, and pity rather than blame a weakness which may be the cause of as much future sorrow to thyself, beloved Adelheid, as it is now of bitter regret to me. I have never concealed from thee that my birth is derived from that cla.s.s which throughout Europe, is believed to be of inferior rights to thine own; on this head, I am proud rather than humble, for the invidious distinctions of usage have too often provoked comparisons, and I have been in situations to know that the mere accidents of descent bestow neither personal excellence, superior courage, nor higher intellect.
Though human inventions may serve to depress the less fortunate, G.o.d has given fixed limits to the means of men. He that would be greater than his kind, and ill.u.s.trious by unnatural expedients, must debase others to attain his end. By different means than these there is no n.o.bility, and he who is unwilling to admit an inferiority which exists only in idea can never be humbled by an artifice so shallow. On the subject of mere birth, as it is ordinarily estimated, whether it come from pride, or philosophy, or the habit of commanding as a soldier those who might be deemed my superiors as men, I have never been very sensitive. Perhaps the heavier disgrace which crushes me may have caused this want to appear lighter than it otherwise might.”
”Disgrace!” repeated Adelheid, in a voice that was nearly choked. ”The word is fearful, coming from one of thy regulated mind, and as applied to himself.”
”I cannot choose another. Disgrace it is by the common consent of men--by long and enduing opinion--it would almost seem by the just judgment of G.o.d. Dost thou not believe, Adelheid, that there are certain races which are deemed accursed, to answer some great and unseen end--races on whom the holy blessings of Heaven never descend, as they visit the meek and well-deserving that come of other lines!”
”How can I believe this gross injustice, on the part of a Power that is wise without bounds, and forgiving to parental love?”
”Thy answer would be well, were this earth the universe, or this state of being the last. But he whose sight extends beyond the grave, who fas.h.i.+ons justice, and mercy, and goodness, on a scale commensurate with his own attributes, and not according to our limited means, is not to be estimated by the narrow rules that we apply to men. No, we must not measure the ordinances of G.o.d by laws that are plausible in our own eyes. Justice is a relative and not an abstract quality; and, until we understand the relations of the Deity to ourselves as well as we understand our own relations to the Deity, we reason in the dark.”
”I do not like to hear thee speak thus, Sigismund, and, least of all, with a brow so clouded, and in a voice so hollow!”
”I will tell my tale more cheerfully, dearest. I have no right to make thee the partner of my misery; and yet this is the manner I have reasoned, and thought, and pondered--ay, until my brain has grown heated, and the power to reason itself has nearly tottered. Ever since that accursed hour, in which the truth became known to me, and I was made the master of the fatal secret, have I endeavored to feel and reason thus.”
”What truth?--what secret?--If thou lovest me, Sigismund, speak calmly and without reserve.”
The young man gazed at her anxious face in a way to show how deeply he felt the weight of the blow he was about to give. Then, after a pause he continued.
”We have lately pa.s.sed through a terrible scene together, dearest Adelheid. It was one that may well lessen the distances set between us by human laws and the tyranny of opinions. Had it been the will of G.o.d that the bark should perish, what a confused crowd of ill-a.s.sorted spirits would have pa.s.sed together into eternity! We had them, there, of all degrees of vice, as of nearly all degrees of cultivation, from the subtle iniquity of the wily Neapolitan juggler to thine own pure soul. There would have died in the Winkelried the n.o.ble of high degree, the reverend priest, the soldier in the pride of his strength, and the mendicant! Death is an uncompromising leveller, and the depths of the lake, at least, might have washed out all our infamy, whether it came of real demerits or merely from received usage; even the luckless Balthazar, the persecuted and hated headsman, might have found those who would have mourned his loss.”
”If any could have died unwept in meeting such a fate, it must have been one that, in common, awakes so little of human sympathy; and one too, who, by dealing himself in the woes of others, has less claim to the compa.s.sion that we yield to most of our species.”
”Spare me--in mercy, Adelheid, spare me--thou speakest of my father!”
Chapter XI.
Fortune had smil'd upon Guelberto's birth.