Part 30 (1/2)
”I believe you,” said Ottilie; ”but may I ask what has so strongly attracted you towards the prisoners?”
”Here, also, I only followed the impulse of my own feelings. Love for one of them led me accidentally to the scene of his misery. Love for the individual taught me to understand and pity the sorrows of his companions. Ordinary crimes would have terrified me and filled me with horror. I should have been as little inclined to aid in reforming a debased man as a base woman, but at that time the prisoners were princ.i.p.ally political criminals. The idea for which most of them had struggled and erred, to which my father and my dead lover were martyrs, was necessarily sacred to my heart; and although I admit that it may have been erroneous,--even pernicious in the extremes and manner in which they strove to establish it,--I could neither condemn nor abhor those who had suffered for the same conviction to which my father had sacrificed himself. At first I employed my efforts only in behalf of the political prisoners. An accident, however, made me acquainted with a--as people usually say--'common murderer'; and I found in him a weak-minded, but thoroughly n.o.ble man, who had been driven by the force of circ.u.mstances to do what is recognized among all nations, not only as a right, but a duty; he punished the tempter of his betrothed bride!” She paused a moment, while again a deep blush suffused her face.
Ottilie, too, blushed slightly, and murmured, ”I know the particulars of the occurrence.”
”That convinced me,” continued Cornelia, ”how many good and evil powers can exist in the broad breast of a man at the same time,--how mighty the impulses often are to commit crimes which arise in his life; and from that moment I went into the cells of all who justified this view.”
”And were there many of them?” asked Ottilie.
”No, your Highness. With the exception of the political prisoners, at the utmost only or five among a hundred and twelve; but these few were sufficient to confirm my a.s.sertion.”
”And among a hundred female convicts, would you not perhaps find four or five deserving of your sympathy?”
”Very possibly, your Highness; but I could not devote myself only to these: I should be compelled to care for the many wicked creatures who could only arouse my loathing and abhorrence. I have always considered my labors in the prison as an episode, and only employed a few hours of the day in them; but here I should be compelled to devote my whole time--nay, my life--to a vocation which could not satisfy me. I am not one of those persons who do anything systematically, who make the work of mercy a trade,--a mechanical, daily occupation,--in which, through habit, they become so dull that they scarcely feel the blessing of their labors. I wish to perform it freely and earnestly, whenever and wherever I find an opportunity: and whose destiny does not afford one?
I do not even want you to be obliged to make it for me,--it must come as a revelation from the inmost heart of life; and when I seize upon it, it must be a quick, joyful deed, gus.h.i.+ng full and warm from the depths of a loving breast. Thus alone can it make me and others happy; thus alone can I practice charity.”
Ottilie clasped Cornelia's hand, and gazed into her eyes with increasing delight.
”This may be selfish,” the latter continued, ”but it is natural, and I cannot make myself different from what I am. I want events, emotions, and--love. I want art pleasures. I feel the pulsations of an ever-advancing civilization throbbing within me, and am enn.o.bled by my enthusiasm for everything beautiful which it has created. With this tide of life swelling in my breast, I cannot bury myself behind the walls of an inst.i.tution for penitents,--cannot turn my delighted eyes from the loftiest model of human greatness to fix them forever upon the lowest caricatures of depravity. In the monotony of such a life I should die of longing for the warm human love which has. .h.i.therto streamed forth from the n.o.ble hearts that surrounded me. I see no moral obligation to do so, for I am proud enough, your Highness, to believe that G.o.d has destined me to make a good and n.o.ble being happy. Does it not seem to your Highness far more beautiful to devote a life to this purpose, rather than allow it to wither away in an inst.i.tution for the reformation of degraded creatures?”
Cornelia had scarcely ended when she found herself clasped in Ottilie's arms.
”Forgive me,” said the princess, with deep emotion. ”I have esteemed you highly, but not known you; now I understand you. You shall hear no more from me of an expectation so ill suited to your character. You are born for higher things; you belong to the great band of those who are appointed to restore the ideal balance of the world. You are right.
Fate allots to each his sphere of labor, and you are to make the happiness of an equally gifted nature. To seek to withdraw you from this object would be committing a wrong against him for whom G.o.d created you; and, in truth, he must love the man to whom he has given you for a companion.” Again a short pause followed. ”Let those for whom life has no longer any hopes, whom it has robbed of all the heart of woman needs, devote themselves to the vocation I have mentioned. For you many great joys and duties are still reserved,--but do not deceive yourself, perhaps many sorrows also.”
”Oh, I have never blinded myself to that!” replied Cornelia. ”I do not fear them. No one is spared, and what all suffer will not be too heavy for me.”
”It is easy for us to say so. G.o.d grant you may be spared the hours when we doubt our own strength! Shall I be frank?” she asked, with sudden resolution; and then continued, without waiting for a reply, ”I thought I could guard you from such sorrows when I selected you for the position at T----. I believed you to be under dangerous influences, and as I had become deeply interested in you from the descriptions I had heard, thought it any duty to const.i.tute myself your protectress. But I now feel ashamed in your presence, for I am convinced that you are too n.o.ble to need my protection; you have the best support in yourself. It depends upon you to make the power that will be exerted over you beneficial or otherwise, and I know now it will be the former.”
”Oh, your Highness,” cried Cornelia, her eyes dim with tears, ”I thank you for those words! But I beseech you not to overvalue me at the expense of another whose influence I have thus far felt as one rich in blessing. I should despise myself if I did not gratefully remember all the beauty and goodness I have received through the very intercourse you feared for me. Least of all, your Highness, could I bear to see the heart which is the dearest thing on earth to me misunderstood by you.”
She was silent in alarm. Ottilie coughed and pressed her handkerchief to her lips, then removed it and looked at Cornelia with a smile.
Cornelia could not speak: she was gasping for breath; she had seen blood on the transparent folds.
”Do you suppose,” Ottilie began, as quietly as if nothing had happened,--”do you really suppose I misunderstand this heart? Ah, no!
But I see its faults, and wished to warn you of them. G.o.d knows whether he has a truer friend than I. As long as he lived at my court in H---- I devoted the most kindly care to him; but my influence was too weak.
Perhaps the blissful task of enn.o.bling him is a.s.signed to her whom he loves. May G.o.d bless and strengthen you for this work! And of whatever nature the faults you will discover in the course of time may be, beware of them; but do not let yourself be discouraged, they are only the goblin shapes of his twofold nature, which will melt into nothing as soon as your pure, n.o.ble spirit is united to his better self. Bear with him faithfully, for he will love you as he never did any one, and must be utterly wretched without you!”
She rose. Her cheeks glowed, and her eyes again beamed with the unearthly expression of a spirit about to take its flight from the earth.
Cornelia kissed her hand with deep emotion. ”Your Highness, I stand before you as if in the presence of the guardian angel of my betrothed, and take a solemn vow that nothing shall part me from him except himself! I knew his faults before his good qualities, and they were so great they made me forget the latter. I began by despising, and ended by loving him; and if I should lose faith in him again I should die!”
”Oh, my child, we outlive a great deal! May G.o.d protect you and him!
Farewell. Remember me kindly until I can see you again.” She dismissed Cornelia with a warm embrace. ”He will not corrupt her; she will save him,” she murmured. ”My G.o.d, I thank thee!”
”Are you come at last?” cried a well-known voice, as Cornelia entered the room. ”Where have you been? I have been waiting for you an hour.”
”And you are so much accustomed to have me devote myself entirely to you,” said Cornelia, as she laid her hat and shawl aside, ”that you are angry because I have given even a few hours to some one else.” She sat down beside him, drew back his head, and gazed with winning tenderness into his clouded face. ”Must I ask whether you have come to-day as a schoolmaster or a lover? The book lying beside you, and your stern manner, predict the former; but I must confess that I have no mind to give to anything except the wonderful event of this day.”
”Well, what has happened to you?” asked _Heinrich_, resting his head upon her shoulder. ”Tell me.”