Part 38 (2/2)
”I have come to speak to you about very serious subjects: it will be better for us to stay here,” said Severinus. And now for the first time Cornelia noticed his gloomy expression, and looked with anxious expectation into his face.
”Cornelia, the time when your fate must be decided has arrived. The day of election is approaching. I must not allow Ottmar to move forward unrestrained upon the road in which he can only bring ruin upon our church. If he is elected to the parliament, a powerful enemy will arise against us. I have already told you what papers the order has in its hands: they must be used now, if they are not to become useless. Let Ottmar be a deputy; let him speak, and--as is to be foreseen--win the ma.s.ses, and everything we undertake against him will be in vain. The last point of time is reached, when I must decide what is to be done.”
”And that is a publication of his relations with Jesuitism, the destruction of the toilsomely obtained confidence of his party, in order to prevent his election. Am I not right?”
”Certainly.”
”And do you not know that you will not convert a man like Ottmar by such means, but simply render him miserable?”
”We wish to make him harmless,--nothing more.”
”But you do far worse,” cried Cornelia, indignantly. ”You bar the path upon which he might become a better man; hurt him back to the cheerless void of a life without a purpose: perhaps even entangle him in fresh snares of falsehood and hypocrisy; and thus destroy a nature which, in its own way, might accomplish great things for the world. Who gives you the right thus violently to interfere with an independent existence?”
”The same right which the government has to punish secular crimes, we, as the representatives of the kingdom of G.o.d, possess against him who sins against G.o.d and his servants.”
”Severinus, when the government chastises, it represents the insulted law, and uses honest means; but you avenge only your own boundless pride, and your weapons are hypocrisy and deceit! Are you better than he whom you punish?”
”Cornelia!” cried Severinus, with flas.h.i.+ng eyes, ”do you dare say that to me?”
”I have never spoken anything but the truth all my life. You could not expect me to call wrong right; and if G.o.d should descend to the earth once more he would judge the zeal of those who commit sin for his honor, and misuse his name for selfish purposes, far more harshly than the errors of the men who have deserted him in form, but not in reality.”
”It is only natural that the child of the world should speak in her lover's favor; and I will be patient now, as I have often been before.
I cannot ask you to perceive the sublimity of a subordination to the will of a chief, as our order practices it. Our General alone bears the responsibility; G.o.d will call him only to an account; and he can lay it aside: for G.o.d is higher than the law, and whoever represents him on earth cannot have his acts measured by the standard of earthly justice!”
Cornelia gazed at Severinus long and silently. ”You told me a short time ago that you pitied me. Now I must answer you in the same words: Severinus, I pity you! I am not angry; but you will perceive that from this hour our paths must lie apart. If you deal a blow which will destroy Ottmar's honest efforts, it is my duty to be at his side.”
”Cornelia, it is in your power to avert this dangerous blow.”
”How?”
”The order has determined to give up the papers to you at the price of your conversion to Catholicism. The order feels itself justified in resigning the pursuit of this faithless man; if it can thereby win for the good cause another soul, which will be pleasing to G.o.d.”
”Indeed!” cried Cornelia, fixing a piercing glance upon Severinus. ”Is it thus you advance your work of conversion?”
”We leave you the choice between the only church which can save souls and your lover's prosperity, or his destruction and our hostility. Can you hesitate?”
Cornelia stood before him with n.o.ble dignity. ”And do you believe you can win me over to a religion which sanctions such means? Do you think to bribe me by any advantage--even the welfare of the man I love--to deny that which is highest and most sacred to me: the knowledge of the truth? No, Severinus; I feel I possess the power to make the man of my heart happy without being compelled to save him from your persecution by abjuring my own faith!”
”May you not trust to yourself too much? He whom we wish to ruin is not so easily saved by any one, even the bold spirit of Cornelia Erwing!”
”Severinus, you frighten me! I never saw you in this mood before. I feel as if in my sleep I had wandered into a tiger's den, and on awakening found myself shut up alone with the terrible enemy!” She paused and looked at Severinus; then growing calmer, shook her head: ”No, no, Severinus; that is a bad comparison; forgive me for it! Those pure eyes give the lie to your threats; the dignity enthroned upon your brow cannot suffer you to become the tool of a base revenge.”
”Cornelia, you will never learn to understand the nature of Jesuitism.
I am no blind tool who mechanically performs what is imposed upon him, but a living part of the whole, who abhors what injures the order, and labors for its advantage. Our obedience is no mere form which we can outwardly satisfy without real sympathy: it is an allegiance in spirit and in truth, which makes the will it serves its own. Thus I hate Ottmar, since he became faithless to his obligations towards us, as the order hates him, and will destroy him as the order commands, if you do not comply with the condition upon which we will spare him.”
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