"Thank G.o.d," cried Cornelia, joyously, "you are moved, touched! The voice of blood is again stirring within you; you will be reconciled to him, will spare him! Oh, say you will!"
Severinus raised his head and leaned against the window-sill; the tears that Cornelia had seen in his eyes were dried. "Do you believe that a pupil of Loyola will listen to the voice of blood? Do you know what the saint, who is our protector and pattern, did? He burned, unread, the letters from his own family, that he might break off all ties with the world; and I, should I spare the enemy of my church because he is related to me? Should I allow my zeal in G.o.d"s cause to grow cold because my heart warms with a mere animal instinct? No, Cornelia, my brothers are in Christ; he who does not belong to him is no brother of mine."
"Cruel, hard-hearted man!" cried Cornelia, in horror. "I do not know whether it is compa.s.sion or terror that seizes upon me, but my soul trembles at the power of an illusion which can thus petrify the n.o.blest heart."
"Petrify!" cried Severinus. "Oh, do not speak so, child that you are!
Have you ever cast a glance into this "petrified heart"? Have you a suspicion of the strength of the love I must tear away from earth and consecrate to G.o.d? Have you ever heard the outcry of the tortured man when he is obliged to accomplish his regeneration from earthly to heavenly things? Do you know how mighty nature writhes and struggles and groans under the p.r.i.c.kly iron ring of the cilicium?[2] You are spared these agonies, because G.o.d requires only the easiest sacrifices from you; but we, who are appointed to be the imitators of Christ upon earth, are compelled taste them to the dregs. We must fulfill our great task, and no human eye is permitted to see that the sacrifice it admires trickles from the warm heart"s blood."
"My poor Severinus!"
"Do not pity me; I want no one"s compa.s.sion. I only want you to understand me; the more difficult the victory, the greater the fame. I shall one day be proud of my tortures. But I must labor without rest or sleep, and watch over myself at every hour, for the enemy is cunning, and if he chooses can clothe himself in the garb of an angel." His large eyes rested ardently upon Cornelia.
"Severinus," she answered, sadly, "do you take me for this false angel--me, who preach nothing to you except the first and simplest laws of Christianity? Do you think the "foul fiend" is in me, because I oppose a belief which rejects the purest impulse of nature as a mere animal instinct, if it is not of use to its plans,--denies the tie G.o.d himself has hallowed, if it bars its progress; and acknowledges nothing which does not----"
"Redound to the greater honor of G.o.d," interrupted Severinus. "Yes, we do all for the honor of G.o.d. That is the word which permits no false meaning; the path from which we cannot deviate an inch; the object from which we dare not turn our eyes, even though we trample underfoot the bodies of our dearest friends. He who opposes us must fall, for we cannot allow ourselves to be stopped. For the honor of G.o.d we live, and are ready to die."
"And are you sure that in this you act only for the honor of G.o.d? Are you sure you do not abuse this great word as a pretext for an act of selfishness?"
Severinus looked at her inquiringly.
She struggled with her Feelings, and then began, gently: "Tell me, my friend, if in the execution of a punishment commanded by the order a Jesuit should also find the gratification of a personal desire for revenge, would he not profane the cause of G.o.d by making it his own?"
"Certainly," replied Severinus, in a hollow tone, fixing his eyes upon the floor.
"There are many kinds of pa.s.sions, of which the man who ardently desires only what is right is scarcely conscious, because he does not even allow them to take the form of a thought; yet they are there, and the so-called foul fiend undermines in them the more securely, because concealed, the toilsomely-erected structure of virtue. Let me quote an example. Suppose a Jesuit hated an enemy of his order, not only because the order hates him, but because he is loved by a girl who is dear to the Jesuit himself?"
Severinus started; a deep flush suffused his face.
Cornelia continued: "Suppose he used against him the weapons the order placed his hands, not for the sake of the church, but to serve the instincts of his own jealousy, and should suddenly perceive what he had not confessed, even to himself, what would be his duty then?"
Severinus was now as pale as he had before been red. He stood like a marble statue, not a breath stirred his breast; but at last his delicate lips opened to utter the words, "Then it would be his duty to resign the work he would profane to another, who could perform it with pure hands, solely for the sake of G.o.d and the order."
"Well, then, Severinus, do what you believe to be your duty. I have nothing more to say."
A deep silence followed. Severinus still stood motionless, and Cornelia did not venture to look at him; she did not wish to read the pale face.
She was terrified at what, for Heinrich"s sake, she had done to this n.o.ble man, and involuntarily feared the results.
Severinus slowly approached her, laid his hand upon her head, and said, "Let us bid each other farewell."
Cornelia looked up. The pure features expressed no bitterness, no anger, only the repose of an immovable resolution. "Farewell?" she asked, in surprise.
"For life!"
Remorse suddenly seized upon her. She had overstepped the bounds of womanly delicacy, and pitilessly a.s.sailed the heart which, in spite of its errors, she had always seen rise superior to every weakness. She now felt for the first time how much she should lose in him, and, with sincere shame, bent down, and before he could prevent it, pressed her lips to his hands. "Severinus, can you forgive me?"
"I have nothing to forgive," he replied, gently drawing back.
"Where are you going?"
"To Rome."
"And what takes you to Rome so suddenly?"
"I had already resolved to return there some weeks ago; only the hope of still winning you for the church, and the hostile mission against Heinrich, detained me. This hour is the destruction of all my plans.
Nothing is left for me to do except to place the papers intrusted to me in the General"s hands, and explain to him that I am unworthy of his confidence,--that I am not fit for the business of the world."
"And then,--what will happen then?"
"Then the General will commit the office I held to another, and, if G.o.d wills, sanction the penance I shall impose upon myself of voluntary seclusion in the monastery during the remainder of my life."
"Will you retire from the world,--bury yourself within the walls of a cloister?"
"That I may the more surely rise again in G.o.d."
"And is such a resolution compatible with your zeal for the order?
Suppose your office falls into the hands of a man who will not act with the wisdom and dignity you have shown,--who will perhaps injure the interests and authority of your a.s.sociation,--would you not reproach yourself for having been to blame for this injury by resigning the "holy cause" into unworthy hands?"
"There are many among our ranks who are perfectly competent to fill my place; the General"s keen eye will discover the right man. I can perform my duties to the order. Even in the silence of a convent-cell, I can write the words with which I should cheer souls and strengthen them in the faith, and, in undisturbed intercourse with the Highest One, they will gain more sanct.i.ty and power than in the profane society of the world. Nay, my writings may perhaps influence future generations long after spoken words have died away. Is not such an expectation edifying to true faith?--such a resolution the highest victory over our earthly nature?"
"A victory! Oh, Severinus, do not deceive yourself! A spark of the warm life you wish to deny still glows in your breast. Suppose, Severinus, you should perceive too late that you had formed your resolution too early? Suppose you should long despairingly for a breath of freedom, and in the suffocating agony of being walled up alive in the wild struggle of its contending elements, your soul should forget itself and G.o.d, and fall into the apparently liberating hand of Satan?"
Severinus recoiled a step in horror. "Stop, I implore you!"
But Cornelia"s unfettered stream of eloquence would not allow itself to be repressed. "You go into the cloister, not because you have conquered, but because you fear to yield; you go there to fly from the battle, not to rest after the victory; but that which would have caused the conflict here will go with you, will disturb the peace of your devout solitude; and you must conquer it with anguish there as well as here, can succ.u.mb to it in the narrow convent-cell as well as in G.o.d"s wide world."
Severinus"s broad breast heaved painfully. "Oh, G.o.d! my G.o.d! let me withstand this last trial!" he prayed, fervently. "Cornelia, I do not retreat to the cloister on account of the danger, but to fly from the evil I abhor; that I may no longer see the world that stands between me and heaven, which I hate----"
"The world to you is mankind; if you detest the former it is for the sake of the latter. But why? What have men done to you? You are a servant of Christ. Does this humanity, which Christ so loved that he suffered and bled for it, deserve your love less than the Master"s? Why do you scorn the race whose form a G.o.d did not hesitate to a.s.sume,--for which a G.o.d bore the tortures of life and death? Has it injured you more than him? It has not pressed upon your brow the crown of thorns; it has not nailed you to the cross; and yet he could forgive, while you cannot!"
"A G.o.d might do this,--but I am a man!"
"And do you know why you hate mankind? Because you dare not love like a human being. You curse your own earthly nature, because it always opposes your task. You are a man, and would fain be a G.o.d; you have human pa.s.sions, and desire to practice a divine self-sacrifice. This is the fatality of your position, this the foul fiend you fear! Oh, I know my words fall upon you as the surges dash against a rock, but it seems as if a higher power urged me on to struggle again and again against the unhappy errors of your church!"
"Cornelia," cried Severinus, starting up, "my church does not err,--she is infallible!"
"But, I tell you, it is an error that Christ has required of his priests what the church demands from you. If Christ was G.o.d, it is presumption for you mortals to imitate his divine person, and attempt to give the world an example of what you do not attain yourselves. You are merely to announce it and show it in all its beauty in yourselves.
But how can you do this,--shut off from life behind convent walls? Only when, like our ministers, in real life, before the eyes of a whole parish, oppressed by the same anxieties, pursued by the same enemies, a.s.sailed by the same temptations as all, you can practice the virtues you preach, will you become a true representative of the Christian religion, will you have a right to require of others what was not too difficult for yourself, and be what Christ desires, a true, perfect man!"
Severinus hastily approached the door: his whole manner betrayed tokens of violent emotion. "I dare not listen to you longer, terrible, dangerous woman! G.o.d sees my anguish that I cannot save your soul, make your n.o.ble powers useful to the good cause. In you all the hostile powers of the world a.s.sume a bodily form; in you I have convinced myself that I am no match for them, and only the repentance of a whole life can atone for the weakness!"
"Must I, then, lose you forever?"
"Forever! But my prayers will be with you,--implore the protection of the Holy Virgin for you." His voice trembled. "G.o.d cannot let such a soul go to destruction!" He turned and, with averted face, opened the door.
Then Cornelia"s sincere affection burst forth in all its fervor; she rushed up to him, threw her arms around his neck, and with childlike contrition laid her head upon his breast. "Will you go without a farewell?" she cried, sobbing. "Ah, Severinus, a deep, inexpressible pity for you overwhelms me! Poor, n.o.ble man, I loved you so dearly!"
Severinus stood as if a thunderbolt had struck him; he did not move a finger, did not clasp Cornelia to his heart or push her from him. But suddenly a cry of anguish burst from his compressed lips, so full of torture that Cornelia"s very soul was filled with terror, and she no longer ventured to detain him when, as if driven by some mortal dread, he hurried away.