Part 19 (2/2)
”I understand the reproof in your question, princess,” replied _Heinrich_. ”I was prepared for it; and yet accompanied with that voice and glance, it now pierces deep into my breast. As the amba.s.sador of my princely master, I had courage to appear before you--as your friend. My heart trembles, for I well know I shall not bear your sublime, angelic judgment.”
Ottilie motioned to him to be seated. ”Yes,” she began, after a pause, ”I had wished to see you a different man, and I do not even know whether I still have the right to tell you so.”
”Speak! heap upon my head the whole burden of your accusation, princess.”
”Do not fear reproaches from me. All that there is to be said I represented to you, if I remember rightly, long ago. You did not obey my warning voice; what was useless then will also be vain now.”
_Heinrich_ covered his eyes with his hand, as if obliged to conceal his tears; and yet it was not all hypocrisy, for it really seemed to him as if a pang of remorse shot through his breast.
Ottilie remained silent for a long time.
”Be merciful, princess,” pleaded _Heinrich_; ”you reproach me with my change of opinions, but you do not know what may exert an influence over a life, how even the most independent man may be forced into a course contrary to his wishes, and where he must be untrue to himself; therefore be charitable, princess; do not give me up!”
”Ah, how could I!” exclaimed Ottilie, in an outburst of feeling. ”Do you not see that I grieve for you, pity you, deeply and sincerely? I do not accuse you; but let me lament that you have defrauded yourself of all true happiness. Do not tell me the career you have adopted satisfies you; in it you can neither follow your own convictions nor develop your talents. I speak now as a woman who has done with self, who is bound to life by no wish, no hope. What have you made of yourself, Ottmar? How have you used the gifts G.o.d so richly, so abundantly, bestowed? I have carefully watched your political activity; alas that I must say it you have fallen lower in my eyes the higher you rose in the world. Forgive the harshness,” she pleaded, extending her hand to him, ”it is the most heartfelt anxiety that speaks from my lips. Do you not see the double danger to which you are exposed? You are robbing yourself of your moral freedom as well as the nation of its political rights; you are servilely bending your n.o.ble soul to the dominion of principles in which you do not believe, making yourself the slavish supporter of an impotent reaction. Thus you are losing your intrinsic dignity, and sooner or later your influence as a statesman; for a new and invincible spirit, purer than that of the revolution, is pervading the nations,--the spirit of a profound political knowledge.
We cannot subdue this with cannon, nor shut it into prisons; where we believe it to be shattered, it unites again above our heads. It is the child of the age, and unceasingly advances, demanding its rights. And you, instead of throwing yourself into the free current and allowing your breast to expand with the universal impulse, prop yourself with narrow-hearted blindness against the crumbling steps of a throne, to withstand the weight of the approaching shock. You will fall, and as an enemy of ideas which you cherish with every drop of your blood, fall a victim to your hypocrisy, not your convictions. Then you will seek to find compensation in yourself, and perceive with despair that by your perpetual untruthfulness you have destroyed yourself.”
”It is very possible,” murmured _Heinrich_.
”Oh, believe me; through many a sleepless night I have stretched out my hand to you to draw you out of the gulf into which I saw you sinking.
Yet I still trust you; what you did could not estrange me. I still hope, still pray for you; I can say no more than I have already done; but I know that although you have not yet listened to me, quiet hours will come, hours of repentance, when my long silent words will unite with the voice of your conscience,--then, perhaps, you will obey me.”
_Heinrich_ seized Ottilie's hands and gazed into her sparkling eyes. A deep blush was glowing upon her cheeks. ”Ah, the old magic! Ottilie, Ottilie,” he cried, ”I fear I am too deeply entangled in hypocrisy! If you could read my soul you would reject me.”
”This is one of the moments of depression which utterly subdue such natures. To-morrow, in another mood, you will smile at it. But it is true that you think yourself worse than you really are, that you have less faith in yourself than I in you. Every power needs to be used, even that of the soul. Exert your strength in doing right, then you will first ascertain your own capabilities.”
”Ah, princess, how am I to help myself? I know not; I have gone astray into this path, and cannot find strength to retrace my steps. I am well aware that my political career is not in accordance with the spirit of the age; when I entered upon it I really had no other thought than to save myself from a momentary humiliation by the Jesuits, and therefore considered my position in N---- a mere episode. But by degrees my success, and the magnificent means at my command for the advancement of my apparent purposes, charmed me. My influence over the prince tempted me irresistibly. The power he placed in my hands roused all the ambition of my nature. Power, Ottilie, has often transformed a hero into a despot. This being the history of my political development, everything else follows as a matter of course. As everything was at the command of the feared and admired favorite, I felt myself justified in enjoying all. That, in so doing, I formed many a sacred tie only to break it again, and profaned many a bond that already existed,--everything was considered allowable, because everything was granted to me,--you will of course suppose. But I will confess to you, to you alone of all human beings, that this haughty, envied Ottmar became a crushed, wearied, joyless man, an egotist,--who does not even love himself. I can no longer distinguish between truth and falsehood; for everything has two sides, and, as no voice within my breast pleads for either, I decide in favor of the one which will bring me the most immediate advantage. There is no philanthropy in my nature, and thus I make men happy or miserable according as it will be profitable or injurious to myself. I perceive that all this is reprehensible; I envy those who act from principle; I would fain be virtuous, yet cannot discover what virtue is; for my blase feelings make me perceive, in all the dogmas of religion, morality, and philosophy, only arbitrary beliefs without any eternal foundation, which change at every advance of the nations in civilization, are now wrested here, now there, nay, even dependent upon the fas.h.i.+on of the day; and thus I have formed the despairing conclusion, that there is no virtue, believe the loathing of my own deeds which sometimes seizes upon me to be a relic of old school prejudices, and despise myself. Therefore I have no rule of conduct for my acts except advantage; and when this is obtained, it does not make me happy. I scorn it, as well as the men by whose weakness I won it!”
Ottilie had hung upon his words in breathless suspense. This frank self-accusation had borne her along with it, and she was obliged to collect her thoughts before she could reply.
”Then you are even more unhappy, more worthy of commiseration, than I feared. All lofty, independent natures yield unwillingly to the human law of right and wrong; for the same power which instilled the theories of goodness lives also in them and justifies them in giving its law to themselves. But in you, my friend, this power was only sufficient to dissolve existing beliefs, not to make them unnecessary to you, for you are now wandering, unsupported, without any clear standard of measurement, amid the ruins of your shattered world of ideas. You are seeking for a higher divine law, and because it does not reveal itself to you you despair of virtue. It would be useless to refer you to religion, for you do not believe it; but even without religion a man of lofty character feels a moral want, which, without regard to reward or punishment, impels him toward the right. Though such a man is never quite happy, for only faith can give the highest joy, he will yet experience that peace which a pure conscience bestows. But you have destroyed even this. Your heart is desolate, your soul flutters wearily upon the ground. I no longer see deliverance, blessing, or hope for you. So I must behold the fairest work G.o.d and nature ever made, the n.o.ble image in which I joy with reverent admiration, sink into the dust, and stand powerless, unable to stretch out a hand to save for G.o.d a soul which he has favored beyond all others. Alas, Ottmar! By the sorrow in my own heart, I feel how your Creator mourns over you!” She leaned back upon the sofa and wept aloud.
_Heinrich_ could not resist the contagion of her emotion. For the first time the request he was about to make seemed like sacrilege, and yet he could not give up all his carefully matured plans for the sake of a ”fit of sentimentality,” as he mentally called it. He perceived that she clung to him with unchanging affection, and that no political considerations whatever would induce her to wed with such a nature as that of the prince. If he won her, it would only be by means of his influence over the heart so susceptible to his power. Years before she had taken an oath that she would never become his wife, so she must either part with him or marry his ruler. The more she loved him the greater was his power over her, the more surely he would succeed in convincing her that she could not live without him. Thus he was compelled to throw the whole weight of his own personal attractions into the scale, and there was a strange blending of honesty and hypocrisy in his plan of persuasion. He really felt what he wished to say, but his manner of turning it to account was artfully calculated, and converted truth into falsehood. ”Your Highness,” he exclaimed, at last, ”I have come to bring you a crown; but at this moment I see a halo s.h.i.+ning around your head, and can scarcely venture to offer the pitiful diadem of royalty. Princess, it is of great importance to my interests to bind you to the country in which I play a part; I came here to obtain your hand for the prince, to cunningly win your consent, even at the cost of your happiness. But before your n.o.ble nature all the arts of diplomacy dissolve into nothing. Therefore, my friend, I will leave you free to choose, will not steal the decision of your destiny, but tell you frankly that it is from selfishness I press my master's offer, for I wish, I long, to have you near me. Your character is formed, your opinions are matured, you will advise me when G.o.d is silent in my own breast. You will aid me to give a new direction to our politics, one more in harmony with the spirit of the age; supported by you, I will venture it, without you I cannot. Look, Ottilie, the crafty diplomatist is prostrate in the dust before your victorious truthfulness, and prattles out his whole programme like a school-boy. I do not plead for the country whose salvation you would be, nor in the name of a philanthropy I have never known, but by which I might win your gentle heart; I do not implore you to aid a nation I helped to crush: I renounce all this acting, and plead simply and openly for myself; for in this hour I perceive more clearly than ever what you are to me. If I have hitherto thought I needed you for the attainment of certain advantages, I now know that you will do more for me by teaching me to despise as well as dispense with them.”
Ottilie gazed silently into vacancy; her breath came more quickly, and her hands were burning as though with fever.
”I know,” continued _Heinrich_, ”that it is the sacrifice of your whole life; but you have yourself given me the courage to ask it, for you give me the belief that you will make it.”
”Oh, G.o.d I what do you ask?” Ottilie began. ”You wish me to marry,--to destroy my life! Is it possible? Have I deserved this from you? You wish to lure me from my home to a desolate career of grandeur, to chain me to a man whom I know to be a cold-hearted weakling, and scorn as a mere tool in the hands of the oppressors of his people. And by the painful act I am to perform I do not even make one person happy.”
”Ottilie, how can you say so? Thousands will lavish blessings upon you, the grat.i.tude of thousands will recompense you, if the happiness of one whom your presence can transform into another man does not reward you,”
cried _Heinrich_, reproachfully.
”Ottmar, if I knew that I should be permitted to exert a good influence over you, no sacrifice would seem too great. But you are deceiving yourself now, as usual. You are easily moved, easily excited: the moment carries you away with it; the present person is in the right with you, and when you turn your back upon this room the emotions you have experienced will be effaced with all their impressions. What influence did I exert over you while you lived in H----? It would be precisely the same thing again, and then I should not even be allowed the one consolation of mourning for you unheeded, in quiet solitude.”
”Do you think me so unstable?”
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