"Making yourself useful?" repeated _Heinrich_, thoughtfully. "Do you really imagine you are of much use here?"
"_How much_ is not for me to measure, I make myself as useful as I can.
If every one only did this the world would be happier. It is not the success, but the will, that determines the value of an act. Vanity asks only about the result, honest purpose is satisfied with the doing."
"Indeed!" said _Heinrich_. "Are you so totally free from vanity?"
"Oh, no!" She suddenly burst into a merry laugh, and a ray of bright healthful enjoyment sparkled in her eyes. "I will not say that. G.o.d forbid that I should surround myself with a false halo. I am as vain as every other young girl; it is only where the sphere of my earnest labor is concerned that I am humble and modest, then my own person retires completely into the background, and I live solely to accomplish my purpose. But in the outside world, where I am least useful, I am vain, a.s.suming, and selfish. I have often thought of this contradiction."
"I understand that," said _Heinrich_; "you feel small in comparison to your ideas and wishes, because like all gifted human beings you always desire more than you can accomplish. But when, outside of this sphere, you meet with commonplace, petty natures, you feel great, because you desire and accomplish so much more than they. Am I not right?"
The girl raised her eyes in astonishment, and looked at him earnestly.
"You are right, and must have studied psychology more than one would have expected from a "servant of the government.""
"There is a singular blending of jest and earnest in your disposition,"
said _Heinrich_. "I have never before witnessed such rapid transitions from gay to grave and grave to gay in any one. Yes, I might really believe you followed only your own impulses without motive or purpose."
"Indeed, indeed you can! Believe me, I am doing nothing and want nothing, except to prove my love for mankind in every possible way. You seem to give me credit for political intrigues and dangerous connections. Oh, go to the prisoners, and convince yourself whether the spirit I instill is a revolutionary one or one of humility and repentance! By the manner in which I have taught these people to bear their misfortunes you will see whether my intentions are good and pure; and then you will give no information, but permit me to continue my office here, will you not?"
_Heinrich_ made no reply; he was gazing earnestly into the sparkling eyes of the suppliant. Suddenly he pointed to the nearest door. "Go in to the prisoner there,--un.o.bserved; I will watch how you discharge the duties of your office and then decide."
The warder opened the door, and the young girl quietly entered. A shrill cry of joy greeted her. "Oh, Prison Fairy! dear Prison Fairy!
have you come at last?" exclaimed a young man.
"Why does he call her that?" _Heinrich_ asked the turnkey, in a low tone.
"One of the prisoners gave her the name, and since then we have all called her by it, because we know no other, and this suits her so well."
"Oh, dear Fairy, I have pa.s.sed another terrible night! So long as you are here I am as good as a child," continued the prisoner; "but when you go away, the old sorrow bursts forth again in all its fury. Oh, if I could go out into the world and satisfy the impulses of my own heart!
Something might be made of me now, but after five years it will perhaps be too late. I felt that last night. True, the power to do evil may perhaps be broken in a ten years" imprisonment, but so is the strength to do well; and when I am sent out of this place, crippled in body and soul, an outcast from society, robbed of all civil honors and ability, it will get the dominion over me again. Then I shall be a mere idiot, who can no longer think of or feel anything except the greatness of his own misery; and for the a.s.sault I committed in a moment of pa.s.sion, a twofold murder will have been practiced upon my body and soul during these ten years!"
"Albert, why are you in such a horrible mood to-day?" asked the young girl, in alarm. "You have not been so for a long time."
"Because I have been obliged to wait for you during so many painful hours; because I thought you were not coming again, and felt that in you alone is rooted the power which has upheld me for the last three years, that I should be lost if you remained away. No, I have not deserved this punishment."
"Albert, shall I repeat what I have always told you? Repeat it yourself."
"You said I was aware of the punishment, and voluntarily drew it upon myself by my crime, that I must bear what was the result of my own guilt; but I a.s.sure you again and again that if that terrible moment I had been sufficiently master of myself to be able to think, I should never have committed the crime; not from fear of the punishment, but of the sin."
"That excuses you in my eyes, but not in those of the law. Will you never be able to perceive that a man of such blind pa.s.sions must be made harmless? Who will guarantee that the next instant, spite of all good resolutions, he may not be attacked by the same madness and commit a second murder?"
"Harmless! Yes, yes, I have been made harmless!" he groaned. "Why do you conjure up all the stings of conscience when I so greatly need consolation?"
"Because I see more clearly than ever that only the memory of your guilt makes your misery endurable; because you complain of the injustice of your punishment, and always become calmer when forced to acknowledge that, if not deserved, it was at least necessary and unfailing. And has not G.o.d sent a comfort to you in your sorrow,--a soul which understands you, which brings news of your beloved into your dungeon, and keeps the heart of your betrothed bride faithful to you?
Is not this a divine mercy which can cheer you?"
"Yes, yes, I acknowledge the blessing, and for the sake of this mercy will strive and hope that I may procure for you the only reward you can receive, n.o.ble, wonderful creature!--the consciousness of having saved a soul!"
"Yes, my friend, give me that reward; it is the n.o.blest gift which can be bestowed upon me for my efforts; and if I live to see the day when, purified and enn.o.bled, you return to the world, I shall thank G.o.d more fervently than ever for having given me a heart to suffer with others, and also make them rejoice."
"And some day I will tell my children of the "Prison Fairy!"" cried the young man, transported with hope.
Just at that moment _Heinrich_ appeared in the doorway. "Well, sir,"
said the young girl, "is any other motive needed for my conduct? Do you now believe that such a moment would outweigh years of fruitless toil?"
"I understand and believe you, for you are a perfect enthusiast," said _Heinrich_, seizing her hand.
"Do you call this enthusiasm?" she said. "If so, every great act of love, from Christ"s down to our own times, has been enthusiasm, and nothing is true and real except enthusiasm and its results. I confess, sir, that if all mankind shared your views, I would rather live with my prisoners in this dungeon than in the outside world!"
_Heinrich_ gazed in astonishment at the proud, girlish figure, with the natural dignity of a pure, unshaken self-appreciation on the undaunted brow, and the alluring grace of true womanhood in the soft, undulating outlines of the whole frame; and an admiring reverence overwhelmed him, such as, for many a long year, no woman had inspired in his breast.
"Do not misunderstand me, Fraulein. You take the word in a different sense from the one intended. Where enthusiasm is united to such energy as you possess, it has always accomplished the n.o.blest deeds the world has ever known; but we usually give that name----"
"To what we have no power to feel ourselves," involuntarily interrupted the excited girl; and it seemed as if her glance rested sorrowfully upon _Heinrich"s_ beautiful, expressive features.
_Heinrich_ stood speechless. He felt as if a burning brand had suddenly been cast into the dark recesses of his soul, and his spiritual eyes were following the light as it penetrated deeper and deeper.
Just at that moment the prisoner"s voice interrupted his reverie.
"Pardon me, sir," he began, timidly, "have I not the honor of seeing Herr von Ottmar?"
"Albert!" exclaimed _Heinrich_, "is it really you? I thought I recognized you, but doubted it, because I should have expected to find you in a monastery rather than a dungeon, and besides, you are very much altered. How did you, of all the world, happen to be placed in such close confinement?"
"Oh, Herr von Ottmar, you were so kind to me at college, may I tell you the story of my misfortune?" said Albert, the person who had been at the Jesuit college with _Heinrich_, and of whom he had spoken in his interview with Severinus.
"Will you allow it, Fraulein?" asked _Heinrich_.
"Certainly," replied the young girl, joyfully. "Perhaps the tragical history may for once arouse even in you the enthusiasm of compa.s.sion."
With these words she glanced at _Heinrich_ with a pleading, inexpressibly charming smile. The latter could not turn his eyes away from the wonderfully changeful face, but murmured, as if in a.s.sent, "Prison Fairy!"
Meantime Albert had commenced his story. At first _Heinrich_ gave it very little attention; gradually, however, he became attracted and listened eagerly, even anxiously. Albert related how, after being expelled from the order in the second year of his novitiate, he had for some time earned a scanty support, and at last lived several years as a tutor in the family of a wealthy German merchant. Six years before, this family removed from Italy to Germany, and in fact to the very capital where Ottmar had lived before his departure for N----. "There,"
said he, "I became acquainted with a young girl,--a girl who was really as pure and blooming as a rose. I had never loved a woman before,--the dark, ardent Italians were repulsive to my quiet nature,--but when I found the thoughtful, golden-haired German maiden, I clung to her with fervent affection. She loved me; and I, who had been tossed about the world from a child, was intoxicated by her tenderness, as if it were the aroma of some costly wine. I gradually neglected my pupils, my duty, and several times received censure; but in vain. Pa.s.sion, so long repressed, was aroused, and locked me, the novice, completely within its magic circle.
"But now I became the sport of other feelings, which were more dangerous to me,--I grew jealous. My beloved suddenly seemed changed.
She became timid, absent-minded, embarra.s.sed, and day by day colder. I spoke to her father. The old man asked me whether I doubted the virtue of his child. The fever of jealousy and suspicion increased. I had no thoughts for anything else, and no longer knew what I was doing. Then one day my employers dismissed me. They had grown weary of my indolence and absence of mind, and I was penniless. With an agonized soul I hurried through the gathering twilight to seek my betrothed. I wished to find her heart once more,--the heart for which I had sacrificed and lost all. She was deeply moved when I told her of my misfortune and the tortures I had suffered for her sake; and as in decisive moments a long-concealed truth is often revealed, her innocent breast in this agitation could no longer hide its secret. She confessed, amid tears of agony and remorse, that she was on the point of being lost to me forever; that an aristocratic, handsome, brilliant gentleman had tempted her, and she was too weak to withstand him; that he had loaded her and her father with favors of all kinds, and she had thought grat.i.tude made it her duty to obey him; nay, he had even persuaded her to come to his garden, but there, heaven be praised! she had been saved from disgrace by his old valet. The gentleman must have gone away an a journey, for she had heard nothing more from him.
"So I had sacrificed everything, and this was my reward. I stood silent, trembling from head to foot, as I leaned against the window in the little dark room on the ground-floor. I was not accustomed to say much, but I felt all the more. A cold perspiration trickled down my forehead; my clammy hands clinched the sill; the lights out-of-doors cast strange, unsteady shadows into the room, and dim, restless shadows settled upon my brain. At last I asked with difficulty, "Who is the scoundrel?" The young girl had been standing beside me pale and trembling, with her eyes fixed intently upon the street. Suddenly she screamed and retreated from the window alarm. There he comes! so he hasn"t gone yet! It is he! he is coming!" I saw a tall, slight figure, closely wrapped in a cloak approach the house; heard that it was he!
The blood rushed to my brain! I seized an axe that was lying near the stove, dashed out, and felled the approaching figure to the ground! The young girl ran after me terror, saw the wounded man, and screamed, Jesus Maria! it is not he! You have killed an innocent person!" I felt bewildered and unable to move. Just then the man opened his eyes, looked at me, and gasped my name. My heart seemed to stop beating! I had killed Father Severinus!"
A long pause ensued. The prisoner was living over these scenes again, and needed a moment to collect his thoughts.
_Heinrich_ gazed fixedly at the floor in silence. The Prison Fairy, in her dark dress, leaned calmly against the wall, her eyes resting on _Heinrich"s_ agitated face.
"What is the young girl"s name?" asked _Heinrich_.
"Roschen, the daughter of Martin the beadle," replied Albert.
"And you do not know the name of your rival?"