Part 129 (1/2)

MILLER (starts up eagerly). Ah! art thou there, my child? Art thou there? But wherefore thus alone, and without a light?

LOUISA. Yet am I not alone. When all things around me are dark and gloomy then have I the companions.h.i.+p which most I love.

MILLER. G.o.d defend thee, my child! The worm of conscience alone wakes and watches with the owl; none shun the light but criminals and evil spirits.

LOUISA. And eternity, father, which speaks to the soul in solitude!

MILLER. Louisa, my child! What words are these?

LOUISA (rises, and comes forward). I have fought a hard fight--you know it, father! but G.o.d gave me the strength! The fight is over! Father, our s.e.x is called timid and weak; believe it no more! We tremble at a spider, but the black monster, corruption, we hug to our arms in sport!

This for your edification, father. Your Louisa is merry.

MILLER. I had rather you wept. It would, please me better.

LOUISA. How I will outwit him, father! How I shall cheat the tyrant!

Love is more crafty than malice, and bolder--he knew not that, the man of the unlucky star! Oh! they are cunning so long as they have but to do with the head; but when they have to grapple with the heart the villains are at fault. He thought to seal his treachery with an oath! Oaths, father, may bind the living, but death dissolves even the iron bonds of the sacrament! Ferdinand will learn to know his Louisa. Father, will you deliver this letter for me? Will you do me the kindness?

MILLER. To whom, my child?

LOUISA. Strange question! Infinitude and my heart together had not s.p.a.ce enough for a single thought but of him. To whom else should I write?

MILLER (anxiously). Hear me, Louisa! I must read this letter!

LOUISA. As you please, father! but you will not understand it. The characters lie there like inanimate corpses, and live but for the eye of love.

MILLER (reading). ”You are betrayed, Ferdinand! An unparalleled piece of villany has dissolved the union of our hearts; but a dreadful vow binds my tongue, and your father has spies stationed upon every side.

But, if thou hast courage, my beloved, I know a place where oaths no longer bind, and where spies cannot enter.” (MILLER stops short, and gazes upon her steadfastly.)

LOUISA. Why that earnest look, father? Read what follows.

MILLER. ”But thou must be fearless enough to wander through a gloomy path with no other guides than G.o.d and thy Louisa. Thou must have no companion but love; leave behind all thy hopes, all thy tumultuous wishes--thou wilt need nothing on this journey but thy heart. Darest thou come; then set out as the bell tolls twelve from the Carmelite Tower. Dost thou fear; then erase from the vocabulary of thy s.e.x's virtues the word courage, for a maiden will have put thee to shame.”

(MILLER lays down the letter and fixes his eyes upon the ground in deep sorrow. At length he turns to LOUISA, and says, in a low, broken voice) Daughter, where is that place?

LOUISA. Don't you know it, father? Do you really not know it? 'Tis strange! I have described it unmistakably! Ferdinand will not fail to find it.

MILLER. Pray speak plainer!

LOUISA. I can think of no pleasing name for it just now! You must not be alarmed, father, if the name I give it has a terrible sound. That place,----Oh! why has no lover invented a name for it! He would have chosen the softest, the sweetest--that place, my dear father--but you must not interrupt me--that place is--the grave!

MILLER (staggering to a seat). Oh, G.o.d!

LOUISA (hastens to him, and supports him). Nay, father, be not alarmed!

These are but terrors which hover round an empty word! Take away the name and the grave will seem to be a bridal-bed over which Aurora spreads her golden canopy and spring strews her fairest flowers. None but a groaning sinner pictures death as a skeleton; to others he is a gentle, smiling boy, blooming as the G.o.d of love, but not so false--a silent, ministering spirit who guides the exhausted pilgrim through the desert of eternity, unlocks for him the fairy palace of everlasting joy, invites him in with friendly smiles, and vanishes forever!

MILLER. What meanest thou, my child? Surely, thou wilt not lay guilty hands on thine own life?

LOUISA. Speak not thus, father! To quit a community from which I am already rejected, to fly voluntarily to a place from which I cannot much longer be absent, is that a sin?

MILLER. Suicide is the most horrible of sins, my child. 'Tis the only one that can never he repented, since death arrives at the moment the crime is committed.