"It is what she has deserved!" said Otto. "I did not bring it about."
"O no!" answered Heinrich; "in a certain way we bring nothing about; but you can put in a good word for her. You must see that this punishment does not befall her."
"But the punishment is merited!" replied Otto; "and how can I mix myself up in the affair? What is it that you have to say to me?"
"Yet, the good gentleman must not get angry!" began Heinrich again; "but I am grieved about the girl. I can very well believe that he does not know her, and therefore it gives him no trouble; but if I were now to whisper a little word in his ear? She is your own sister, Mr. Thostrup!"
All grew dark before Otto"s eyes; a chill as of death went through his blood; his hands held firmly by the cold wall, or he must have sunk to the earth; not a sound escaped his lips.
German Heinrich laid his hand in a confidential manner upon his shoulder, and continued in a jeering, agitated tone, "Yes, it is hard for you to hear! I also struggled a long time with myself before I could make up my mind to tell you. But a little trouble is preferable to a great one. I had some talk with her yesterday, but I did not mention you, although it seemed queer to me at my heart that the brother should sit at the first table with the young ladies, and the sister be farm swine-maiden. Now they have put her in prison! I am very sorry for her and you too, Mr. Thostrup, for it is disagreeable! If the magistrate come to-morrow morning, and she fall into the claws of the red angel, it will not be so easy to set her at liberty again! But yet you could, perhaps, help her; as, for instance, to-night! I could make an opportunity--I would be in the great avenue beyond the hall. If she could get thus far she would be safe; I would then conduct her out of this part of the country. I may as well tell you that we were yesterday half-betrothed! She goes with me; and you can persuade the gracious lady at the hall to let the bird fly!"
"But how can I? how can I?" exclaimed Otto.
"She is, however, always your sister!" said Heinrich, and they both remained silent for a moment. "Then I will," said Heinrich, "if all be still at the hall, wait in the avenue as the bell goes twelve."
"I must!" exclaimed Otto; "I must! G.o.d help me!"
"Jesu, Maria, help!" said Heinrich, and Otto left him.
"She is my sister! she, the most horrible of all!" sighed he; his knees trembled, and he leaned against a tree for support: his countenance was like that of the dead; cold sweat-drops stood upon his brow. All around him lay the dark night-like wood; only to the left glimmered, between the bushes, the moonlight reflected from the lake.
"Within its depths," sighed he, "all would be forgotten--my grief would be over! Yet, what is my sin? Had I an existence before I was born upon this globe? Must I here be punished for sins which I then committed?"
His dark eye stared lifelessly out of his pale countenance. Thus sit the dead upon their graves in the silent night; thus gazes the somnambulist upon the living world around him.
"I have felt this moment before--this moment which now is here; it was the well-spring whence poison was poured over my youthful days! She is my sister! She? unhappy one that I am!"
Tears streamed from his eyes, it was a convulsive weeping; he cried aloud, it was impossible to him to suppress his voice; he sank half down by the tree and wept, for it was night in his soul: silent, bitter tears flowed, as the blood flows when the heart is transpierced. Who could breathe to him consolation? There lay no balsam in the gentle airs of the clear summer night, in the fragrance of the wood, in the holy, silent spirit of nature. Poor Otto!
"Weep, only weep! it gives repose, A world is every tear that flows,-- A world of anguish and unrest, That rolleth from the troubled breast.
"And hast thou wept whilst tears can flow, A tranquil peace thy heart will know; For sorrow, trivial or severe, Hath had its seat in every tear.
"Think"st thou that He, whose love beholds The worm the smallest leaf enfolds,-- That He, whose power sustains the whole Forgets a world--thy human soul?"
CHAPTER x.x.xVII
"Mourir! c"est un instant de supplice: mais vivre?"
--FReDeRIC SOULIE.
The physician from Nyborg, who had been on a visit to a sick person in the neighborhood, took this opportunity of calling on the family and inquiring after Eva"s health. They had prayed him to stay over the night there, and rather to drive hone in the early morning than so late in the evening. He allowed himself to be persuaded. Otto, on his return, found him and the family in deep conversation. They were talking of the "Letters of a Wandering Ghost."
"Where have you been?" asked Sophie, as Otto entered.
"You look so pale!" said Louise; "are you ill?"
"I do not feel well!" replied Otto; "I went therefore down into the garden a little. Now I am perfectly recovered." And he took part in the conversation.
The overwhelming sorrow had dissolved itself in tears. His mind had raised itself up again from its stupefaction, and sought for a point of light on which to attach itself. They were talking of the immense caves of Maastricht, how they stretch themselves out into deep pa.s.sages and vast squares, in which sound is lost, and where the light, which cannot reach the nearest object, only glimmers like a point of fire. In order to comprehend this vacuity and this darkness, the travellers let the guide extinguish his torch, and all is night; they are penetrated, as it were, with darkness; the hand feels after a wall, in order to have some restraint, some thought on which to repose itself: the eye sees nothing; the ear hears nothing. Horror seizes on the strongest mind: the same darkness, the same desolate emotion, had Heinrich"s words breathed into Otto"s soul; therefore he sank like the traveller to the earth: but as the traveller"s whole soul rivets itself by the eye upon the first spark which glimmers, to kindle again the torch which is to lead him forth from this grave, so did Otto attach himself to the first awakening thought of help. "Wilhelm? his soul is n.o.ble and good, him will I initiate into my painful secret, which chance had once almost revealed to him."
But this was again extinguished, as the first spark is extinguished which the steel gives birth to. He could not confide himself to Wilhelm; the understanding which this very confidence would give birth to between them, must separate them from each other. It was humiliating, it was annihilating. But for Sophie? No, how could he, after that, declare the love of his heart? how far below her should he be placed, as the child of poverty and shame! But the mother of the family? Yes, she was gentle and kind; with a maternal sentiment she extended to him her hand, and looked upon him as on a near relation. His thoughts raised themselves on high, his hands folded themselves to prayer; "The will of the Lord alone be done!" trembled involuntarily from his lips. Courage returned refreshingly to his heart. The help of man was like the spark which was soon extinguished; G.o.d was an eternal torch, which illumined the darkness and could guide him through it.
"Almighty G.o.d! thou alone canst and willest!" said he; "to thou who knowest the heart, do thou alone help and lead me!"
This determination was firmly taken; to no human being would he confide himself; alone would he release the prisoner, and give her up to Heinrich. He thought upon the future, and yet darker and heavier than hitherto it stood before him. But he who confides in G.o.d can never despair the only thing that was now to be done was to obtain the key of the chamber where Sidsel was confined, and then when all in the house were asleep he would dare that which must be done.
Courage and tranquillity return into every powerful soul when it once sees the possibility of accomplishing its work. With a constrained vivacity Otto mingled in the conversation, no one imagining what a struggle his soul had pa.s.sed through.
The disputation continued. Wilhelm was in one of his eloquent moods. The doctor regarded the "Letters of the Wandering Ghost" as one of the most perfect books in the Danish literature. Once Sophie had been of the same opinion, now she preferred Cooper"s novels to this and all other books.
"People so easily forget the good for the new," said Wilhelm; "if the new is only somewhat astonishing, the many regard the author as the first of writers. The nation is, aesthetically considered, now in its period of development. Every really cultivated person, who stands among the best spirits of his age, obtains, whilst he observes his own advance in the intellectual kingdom, clearness with regard to the development of his nation. This has, like himself, its distinct periods; in him some important event in life, in it some agitating world convulsion, may advance them suddenly a great leap forward. The public favor is unsteady; to-day it strews palm-branches, to-morrow it cries, "Crucify him!" But I regard that as a moment of development. You will permit me to make use of an image to elucidate my idea. The botanist goes wandering through field and wood, he collects flowers and plants; every one of these had, while he gathered it, his entire interest, his whole thought--but the impression which it made faded before that of its successor: nor is it till after a longer time that he is able to enjoy the whole of his treasures, and arrange them according to their worth and their rareness. The public seizes alike upon flowers and herbs; we hear its a.s.siduous occupation with the object of the moment, but it is not yet come into possession of the whole. At one time, that which was sentimental was the foremost in favor, and that poet was called the greatest who best knew how to touch this string; then it pa.s.sed over to the peppered style of writing, and nothing pleased but histories of knights and robbers. Now people find pleasure in prosaic life, and Schroder and Iffland are the acknowledged idols. For us the strength of the North opened heroes and G.o.ds, a new and significant scene. Then tragedy stood uppermost with us. Latterly we have begun to feel that this is not the flesh and blood of the present times. Then the fluttering little bird, the vaudeville, came out to us from the dark wood, and enticed us into our own chambers, where all is warm and comfortable, where one has leave to laugh, and to laugh is now a necessity for the Danes. One must not, like the crowd, inconsiderately place that as foremost which swims upon the waters, but treasure the good of every time, and arrange them side by side, as the botanist arranges his plants. Every people must, under the poetical sunshine, have their sentimental period, their berserker rage, their enjoyment of domestic life, and their giddy flights beyond it; it must merge itself in individuality before it can embrace the beauty of the whole. It is unfortunate for the poet who believes himself to be the wheel of his age; and yet he, with his whole crowd of admirers, is, as Menzel says, only a single wheel in the great machine--a little link in the infinite chain of beauty."
"You speak like a Plato!" said Sophie.
"If we could accord as well in music as we do in poetry," said Otto, "then we should be entirely united in our estimation of the arts. I love that music best which goes through the ear to the heart, and carries me away with it; on the contrary, if it is to be admired by the understanding, it is foreign to me."
"Yes, that is your false estimation of the subject, dear friend!" said Wilhelm: "in aesthetics you come at once to the pure and true; but in music you are far away in the outer court, where the crowd is dancing, with cymbals and trumpets, around the musical golden calf!"
And now the aesthetic unity brought them into a musical disunity. On such occasions, Otto was not one to be driven back from his position; he very well knew how to bear down his a.s.sailant by striking and original observations: but Otto, this evening, although he was animated enough--excited, one might almost say--did not exhibit the calmness, the decision in his thoughts and words, which otherwise would have given him the victory.
It was a long hour, and one yet longer and more full of anxiety, which commenced with supper. The conversation turned to the events of the day.
Otto mingled in it, and endeavored therefrom to derive advantage; it was a martyrdom of the soul. Sophie praised highly his discovery.
"If Mr. Thostrup had not been here," said she, "then we should hardly have discovered the thief. We must thank Mr. Thostrup for it, and really for a merry, amusing spectacle."
They joked about it alai laughed, and Otto was obliged to laugh also.
"And now she sits up there, like a captive, in the roof!" said he; "it must be an uncomfortable night to her!"
"Oh, she sleeps, perhaps, better than some of us others!" said Wilhelm: "that will not annoy her!"
"She is confined in the gable chamber, out in the court, is she not?"
inquired Otto: "there she has not any moonlight."
"Yes, surely she has!" answered Sophie; "it is in the gable to the right, hooking toward the wood, that she is confined. We have placed her as near to the moon as we could. The gable on the uppermost floor is our keep."
"But is it securely locked?" inquired Otto.
"There is a padlock and a great bar outside the door; those she cannot force, and no one about the place will do such a piece of service for her. They dislike her, every one of them."
They rose up from the table; the bell was just on the stroke of eleven.
"But the Baron must play us a little piece!" said the physician.
"Then Mr. Thostrup will sing us the pretty Jutlandish song by Steen-Blicher!" exclaimed Louise.
"O yes!" said the mother, and clapped Otto on the shoulder.