Part 38 (1/2)
But the others would not yield at once, and began to plead again.
”If you understood the spirit that animates these features, you would beg no longer, for you would know it to be vain,” cried Richard, with his usual artless pathos. Then he held out his hand to Cornelia and continued: ”I should probably have the best right to entreat you for another sitting, since I was so great a loser; but I will not ask it after what you have just said.”
”I thank you for your delicacy of feeling, Herr Richard,” replied Cornelia, with unconcealed admiration. ”You may be a.s.sured that if I sat to any of these gentlemen it would be to you; yet if you understand the reason of my refusal, you will not be angry if I make no exception, even in your favor.”
Richard buried Cornelia's hand in his p.r.i.c.kly beard to press a kiss upon it. ”Angry with you? Who that had the heart of a true artist could be? For, although we are not permitted to make portraits of you, we still owe you thanks for a type of beauty which will be of service to us all.”
”Yes, yes; he is right,” they all a.s.sented. ”You have not only enriched our eyes, but our imaginations! Long live Cornelia Erwing! Hurrah!”
At that moment the sound of the dinner-h.e.l.l echoed from the inn, and at the same instant Severinus's black-robed figure appeared, coming from the neighboring convent. The artists wiped the perspiration from their brows, for the noonday sun and their zeal had made them very bot.
”There comes your pious father!” declaimed the young enthusiast, who always spoke in quotations. ”Now, brothers, let us fly!”
And partly fear of the ”black coat,” partly hunger, drove the noisy group to the table. They departed waving their hats, nodding, and singing; and Cornelia was still looking after them with a smile, when Severinus approached with a pale, gloomy face.
”Such ovations certainly do not prepare one for the church,” he murmured, somewhat bitterly.
”Ah, Severinus! I am so happy!” cried Cornelia, frankly. ”What open-hearted, gay, magnificent men they are! How I laughed! It is a pity you were not here! Tell me, Father Severinus,--you are sincere,--am I really as beautiful as they all say?” she asked, with mischievous navete.
Severinus looked timidly away from her, and with a deep flush fixed his eyes upon the ground. ”I do not know.”
”You don't know?”
”I think only your soul beautiful, but not your body. Physical beauty is something so perishable that it is unheeded by one who perceives, and knows how to value, that of the soul.”
Cornelia became embarra.s.sed. She was ashamed of the want of reserve which had induced her to ask Severinus so inappropriate a question, and did not see the strange glance with which he gazed at her blooming cheeks and lips, and then clinched his teeth.
”Forgive me for disturbing your grave mood with such jests, my reverend friend; but I cannot help it. The gayety natural to my youth will sometimes a.s.sert its rights. I was very glad they thought me beautiful.
The sight of a lovely face is always a pleasure to me, and the idea that my appearance could also rejoice the eyes and hearts of others pleased me. If this is vanity, is, at least, very innocent.”
”Certainly, my child,” said Severinus, and his tone gradually lost its a.s.sumed harshness. ”I will not embitter the harmless little pleasures of your youth. I am sure they will not smother the earnestness of your nature.”
”Severinus,” said Cornelia, smiling, ”isn't it a fact that you do not know what hunger is?”
”No, certainly not. But you seem to know; so come,--let us go to dinner.”
Cornelia was glad to have put an end to the uncomfortable conversation, and hastened lightly on before him. Since her joy in life was once more awakened, and hope and cheerfulness again stirred within her, she felt Severinus's gloomy mood as a heavy burden. As long as she was at variance with her own heart and the world, the character of the ascetic priest suited her better than aught else; but now it began to form a disagreeable contrast with her mood, and cast a shadow over the newly-risen sun of her love. Yet she was too grateful to forget for a moment what consolation his a.s.sistance had afforded her in the time of her heavy visitation; so she maintained an unaltered, frank cordiality towards him, although he now began to torture her with a thousand contradictions and absurdities.
The scene with the artists, innocent as it was in itself, seemed to have made Severinus very thoughtful, in consequence of the pleasure Cornelia derived from it. Such impressions must be kept from her at any cost, for they were not adapted to aid his work of conversion. Even if he should remove her from the neighborhood, he could not prevent these young enthusiasts from traveling after her. He therefore went to the superior of the convent on the island, and, when he returned, brought an invitation from her to Cornelia to take up her residence in the cloister, ”as it was not proper for a young girl, with an equally young companion, to remain in a country inn with a party of gay young men.”
Cornelia, who did not care where she lodged, easily allowed herself to be persuaded to fulfill Severinus's wish, and accept the friendly superior's offer. Her removal to the cloister took place immediately, and the astonished hostess told the artists, on their return from an excursion, that the beautiful Fraulein Erwing had just entered a convent. They were beside themselves at the news, for who could doubt that the poor victim of the black coat had been brought here to commence her novitiate? Thus Severinus's design of spreading a halo of inaccessibility around Cornelia, and cutting off any intrusive pursuit, was effectually attained; but that neither she nor her companion should betray the truth in their unavoidable walks, it was necessary that they should be taken away with all secrecy. On that very evening Severinus excited Cornelia's interest in the B---- Oberland to such a degree that she herself expressed a wish to continue her journey as soon as possible, and he was merely fulfilling her own desire when he proposed that they should leave the Island at daybreak, not to return. As no one saw or heard anything of this departure, Cornelia was, and remained, in the convent, whose strict seclusion made any inquiries impossible, and the young artists grieved deeply that the world was robbed of so much beauty.
Meantime Severinus took the supposed victim farther and farther away, and several months pa.s.sed so quickly in the constant change from one beautiful scene to another, and in grave but intellectually exciting conversation with Severinus, that she was not conscious how skillfully he managed to cut her off from all society. Priests and nuns were the only persons with whom she held occasional intercourse; and she pa.s.sed them by with friendly indifference, which rendered any advances impossible. Severinus's hopes of a conversion drooped more and more; he could not conceal from himself that a sorrow was gnawing at his soul which exhausted his best powers, and felt, with increasing despair, that he should succ.u.mb himself before he could conquer Cornelia's resolute temper.
XXIII.
BETWEEN HEAVEN AND EARTH.
Severinus entered Cornelia's room one evening when they were to spend the night in a peasant's house in the B---- forest. She was standing at the window, gazing out into the sultry night. The sky arched over the earth like a leaden-hued canopy; not a breath of air was stirring, not a leaf moved on the trees; here and there a star gleamed forth where the dense ma.s.ses of clouds parted for a moment, and now and then a distant flash of lightning glittered in the horizon, revealing the dim outlines of the forest-crowned heights. ”Severinus,” she said, drawing a long breath, as she turned toward him, ”let us go out into the open air before the storm breaks: the air is so oppressive here; perhaps it is cooler outside.”