Part 65 (1/2)
”You speak well, but you do not convince me,” said Ernestine sadly.
”I see. I know that the remedy for your disease does not lie in the words or the example of others, but in your own experience. I prophesy, if you are ever overwhelmed by a moment of despair, that you will waken to the need of that G.o.d whom you now ignore. Even were it not to be so, I could only pity you, for a woman who cannot pray is a bird with broken wings. I maintain that there is no woman who does not believe,--for there is none who does not _fear_, and fear looks in reverence to G.o.d, whether as avenging justice or protecting love, to which to flee when all other aid fails. Can you be the sole exception to this rule?”
”I hope so,” said Ernestine proudly. ”I am not one of those weaklings who dread danger in the dark. I look every phantom of terror boldly in the face, and can recognize its natural origin. I fear nothing, and have no need of a G.o.d.”
”You fear nothing?” asked Johannes, and then, struck by a sudden thought, added, ”Not even death?”
”Not even death! I know that I am but a part of universal matter, and must return to it again. What is there to fear? The dissolution of a personal existence in the great sum of things,--the transformation of one substance into another? Since I learned to think, I have constantly pondered this great law of nature, and have accustomed myself to consider my insignificant existence only as part and parcel of the wondrous trans.m.u.tation of matter perpetually taking place in the universe. Only when we have attained this conviction can we smilingly renounce our vain claim to individual immortality, and see in death the due tribute that we pay to nature for our life.”
”Indeed? And you imagine that this consolation will stand you in stead when the time really comes for you to descend into that dark abyss which is illuminated for you by no ray of faith or hope?”
”I am sure of it.”
”And if you were plunged into it before the appointed time?”
”I should not quarrel with the measure of existence that nature accorded me.”
”You would not, however, curtail that existence intentionally?”
Ernestine looked at him in surprise. ”No, a.s.suredly not.”
”Are you not afraid of doing so by going to America?”
”Why should I fear it?--on account of the dangers of the sea, perhaps?
Oh, no. It has borne millions of lives in safety upon its waves,--why not mine also? It will be more merciful than my kind, I think.”
”Then you are still determined to go, after all that I have told you of your uncle?”
”With him or without him, I shall go,” said Ernestine.
”Well, then, G.o.d is my witness that I have tried my best! Now,--you will think me cruel, but I cannot help it,--one remedy still is left me,--a terrible one, but your proud courage gives me strength to use it. Ernestine, if you persist in your determination to undertake this voyage, I fear the time is close at hand when the genuineness of your philosophical consolation will be tried indeed. You will hardly live to reach New York.”
Ernestine grew, if possible, paler than before at these words. ”What reason have you to say so?” she faltered.
”I will tell you, for there is no time left for concealment.” He looked at the clock. ”I cannot understand how, with your understanding and the knowledge that you possess, you should fail to see that you are ill,--not only nervous and prostrated, but seriously ill.”
Ernestine looked at him in alarm.
”I am firmly convinced that you are lost if you continue your present mode of life, as you will and must in America. Notwithstanding all your uncle may have told you, I know that, once in New York, you will have no chance of recovering from him one thaler of your fortune, even supposing that, in accordance with your wishes, I allow him to leave this country. You will be forced to earn your daily support, and, I tell you truly, your life, under such conditions, will not last one year. You will die in your bloom in an American hospital, and be buried in a nameless grave!”
Ernestine turned away.
”Are you still determined to go?” Johannes asked after a pause.
Ernestine pondered for one moment of bitter agony. She knew only too well that he was right. But what should she do? He had no idea that her fortune was actually lost,--that she would be forced to earn her bread if she stayed as surely as if she went,--that she must labour incessantly, if she would not be a dependent beggar. Think and reflect as she might, she saw nothing before her but death in a hospital! And she would far rather perish in a foreign land than here, where all knew her, and where all would triumph over her downfall, that they had prophesied so often. No! she must fly! Like the dying bird in winter, hiding himself in his death-agony from every eye, she would conceal, in a distant quarter of the globe, her poverty, her degradation and disgrace, from the arrogant man of whom she had been so haughtily independent in the day of her prosperity.
At last she raised her head, and, with a great effort, said, ”There is no choice left me. I must fulfil my contract,--I _must_ go to America!”
Johannes had awaited her decision with breathless eagerness. He lost almost entirely his hardly-won self-control. ”Ernestine,” he exclaimed, seizing both her hands, ”Ernestine, I plead for life and death. Do you not hear?--I tell you there is no hope for you but in absolute repose.
Will you voluntarily hurry into the grave yawning at your feet? I have watched you with the eyes of a physician and a lover, and I swear to you, by my honour, that I have been continually discovering fresh cause for anxiety. You look as if you were in a decline at this moment. You have the feeble, capricious pulse and the cold hands of a victim of disease of the heart. Yesterday I heard from Frau Willmers of symptoms that filled me with alarm for you,--I grasp at the hope that they may be only the effects of your unnaturally forced manner of life. But these effects may become causes, in your present exhausted condition, causes of mortal disease, if you do not spare yourself I cannot, in duty or conscience, let you go without, hard as it is, enlightening you with regard to your physical condition. I would have spared you the cruel truth, but your determined obstinacy extorts it from me. Have some compa.s.sion upon me, and do not go before you have seen Heim. He is a man of experience, let him judge whether I am right or not. I entreat you to see him. Do, Ernestine, do, for my sake, if you would not leave me plunged in the depths of despair.”
Still he held her hands firmly clasped in his. His chest heaved, his cheeks were flushed with emotion. All the strength of his pa.s.sionate affection for her seethed and glowed in his imperious and imploring entreaties.
Ernestine stood pale and calm before him. No human eye could divine her thoughts.