MILLER (starts up eagerly). Ah! art thou there, my child? Art thou there? But wherefore thus alone, and without a light?
LOUISA. Yet am I not alone. When all things around me are dark and gloomy then have I the companionship which most I love.
MILLER. G.o.d defend thee, my child! The worm of conscience alone wakes and watches with the owl; none shun the light but criminals and evil spirits.
LOUISA. And eternity, father, which speaks to the soul in solitude!
MILLER. Louisa, my child! What words are these?
LOUISA (rises, and comes forward). I have fought a hard fight--you know it, father! but G.o.d gave me the strength! The fight is over! Father, our s.e.x is called timid and weak; believe it no more! We tremble at a spider, but the black monster, corruption, we hug to our arms in sport!
This for your edification, father. Your Louisa is merry.
MILLER. I had rather you wept. It would, please me better.
LOUISA. How I will outwit him, father! How I shall cheat the tyrant!
Love is more crafty than malice, and bolder--he knew not that, the man of the unlucky star! Oh! they are cunning so long as they have but to do with the head; but when they have to grapple with the heart the villains are at fault. He thought to seal his treachery with an oath! Oaths, father, may bind the living, but death dissolves even the iron bonds of the sacrament! Ferdinand will learn to know his Louisa. Father, will you deliver this letter for me? Will you do me the kindness?
MILLER. To whom, my child?
LOUISA. Strange question! Infinitude and my heart together had not s.p.a.ce enough for a single thought but of him. To whom else should I write?
MILLER (anxiously). Hear me, Louisa! I must read this letter!
LOUISA. As you please, father! but you will not understand it. The characters lie there like inanimate corpses, and live but for the eye of love.
MILLER (reading). "You are betrayed, Ferdinand! An unparalleled piece of villany has dissolved the union of our hearts; but a dreadful vow binds my tongue, and your father has spies stationed upon every side.
But, if thou hast courage, my beloved, I know a place where oaths no longer bind, and where spies cannot enter." (MILLER stops short, and gazes upon her steadfastly.)
LOUISA. Why that earnest look, father? Read what follows.
MILLER. "But thou must be fearless enough to wander through a gloomy path with no other guides than G.o.d and thy Louisa. Thou must have no companion but love; leave behind all thy hopes, all thy tumultuous wishes--thou wilt need nothing on this journey but thy heart. Darest thou come; then set out as the bell tolls twelve from the Carmelite Tower. Dost thou fear; then erase from the vocabulary of thy s.e.x"s virtues the word courage, for a maiden will have put thee to shame."
(MILLER lays down the letter and fixes his eyes upon the ground in deep sorrow. At length he turns to LOUISA, and says, in a low, broken voice) Daughter, where is that place?
LOUISA. Don"t you know it, father? Do you really not know it? "Tis strange! I have described it unmistakably! Ferdinand will not fail to find it.
MILLER. Pray speak plainer!
LOUISA. I can think of no pleasing name for it just now! You must not be alarmed, father, if the name I give it has a terrible sound. That place,----Oh! why has no lover invented a name for it! He would have chosen the softest, the sweetest--that place, my dear father--but you must not interrupt me--that place is--the grave!
MILLER (staggering to a seat). Oh, G.o.d!
LOUISA (hastens to him, and supports him). Nay, father, be not alarmed!
These are but terrors which hover round an empty word! Take away the name and the grave will seem to be a bridal-bed over which Aurora spreads her golden canopy and spring strews her fairest flowers. None but a groaning sinner pictures death as a skeleton; to others he is a gentle, smiling boy, blooming as the G.o.d of love, but not so false--a silent, ministering spirit who guides the exhausted pilgrim through the desert of eternity, unlocks for him the fairy palace of everlasting joy, invites him in with friendly smiles, and vanishes forever!
MILLER. What meanest thou, my child? Surely, thou wilt not lay guilty hands on thine own life?
LOUISA. Speak not thus, father! To quit a community from which I am already rejected, to fly voluntarily to a place from which I cannot much longer be absent, is that a sin?
MILLER. Suicide is the most horrible of sins, my child. "Tis the only one that can never he repented, since death arrives at the moment the crime is committed.
LOUISA (stands motionless with horror). That is dreadful! But my death will not be so sudden, father. I will spring into the river, and while the waters are closing over me, cry to the Almighty for mercy and forgiveness!
MILLER. That is to say, you will repent the theft as soon as the treasure is secure! Daughter! Daughter! beware how you mock your G.o.d when you most need his help! Oh! you have gone far, far astray! You have forgotten the worship of your Creator, and he has withdrawn his protecting hand from you!
LOUISA. Is it, then, a crime to love, father?
MILLER. So long as thou lovest G.o.d thou wilt never love man to idolatry.
Thou hast bowed me down low, my only one! low! very low! perhaps to the grave! Yet will I not increase the sadness of thy heart. Daughter! I gave vent to my feelings as I entered. I thought myself alone! Thou hast overheard me! and why should I longer conceal the truth. Thou wert my idol! Hear me, Louisa, if there is yet room in thy heart for a father"s feelings. Thou wert my all! Of thine own thou hast nothing more to lose, but I have my all at stake! My life depends on thee! My hairs are turning gray, Louisa; they show that the time is drawing nigh with me when fathers look for a return of the capital invested in the hearts of their children. Wilt thou defraud me of this, Louisa? Wilt thou away and bear with thee all the wealth of thy father?
LOUISA (kissing his hand in the deepest emotion). No, father, no! I go from this world deeply in your debt, and will repay you with usury in the world to come.
MILLER. Beware, my child, lest thy reckoning should be false! (very earnestly and solemnly). Art thou certain that we shall meet in that world to come? Lo! how the color fades from thy cheek! My child must feel that I can scarcely overtake her in that other world if she hurries there before me. (LOUISA throws herself shuddering into his arms, he clasps her warmly to his bosom, and continues in a tone of fervent adjuration.) Oh! Louisa! Louisa! Fallen, perhaps already lost, daughter! Treasure in thy heart the solemn counsels of a father! I cannot eternally watch over thee! I may s.n.a.t.c.h the dagger from thy hands; but thou canst let out life with a bodkin. I may remove poison from thy reach; but thou canst strangle thyself with a necklace. Louisa!
Louisa! I can only warn thee. Wilt thou rush boldly forward till the perfidious phantom which lured thee on vanishes at the awful brink of eternity? Wilt thou dare approach the throne of the Omniscient with the lie on thy lips? "At thy call am I here, Creator!" while thy guilty eyes are in search only of their mortal idol! And when thou shalt see this perishable G.o.d of thine own creation, a worm like thee, writhing at the Almighty"s feet; when thou shalt hear him in the awful moment give the lie to thy guilty daring, and blast thy delusive hopes of eternal mercy, which the wretch implores in vain for himself; what then! (Louder and more fervently), What, then, unhappy one? (He clasps her still closer to his bosom, and gazes upon her with wild and piercing looks; then suddenly disengages himself.) I can do no more! (Raising his right hand towards heaven.) Immortal Judge, I can do no more to save this soul from ruin!
Louisa, do what thou wilt. Offer up a sacrifice at the altar of this idolized youth that shall make thy evil genius howl for transport and thy good angels forsake thee in despair. Go on! Heap sin upon sin,--add to them this, the last, the heaviest,--and, if the scale be still too light throw in my curse to complete the measure. Here is a knife; pierce thy own heart, and (weeping aloud and rushing away), and with it, thy father"s!
LOUISA (following and detaining him). Stay! stay! Oh! father, father!-- to think that affection should wound more cruelly than a tyrant"s rage!
What shall I?--I cannot!--what must I do?
MILLER. If thy lover"s kisses burn hotter than thy father"s tears--then die!
LOUISA (after a violent internal struggle, firmly). Father! Here is my hand! I will--G.o.d! G.o.d! what am I doing! What would I?--father, I swear. Woe is me! Criminal that I am where"er I turn! Father, be it so! Ferdinand. G.o.d, look down upon the act! Thus I destroy the last memorial of him. (Tearing the letter.)
MILLER (throwing himself in ecstasy upon her neck). There spoke my daughter! Look up, my child! Thou hast lost a lover, but thou hast made a father happy. (Embracing her, and alternately laughing and crying.) My child! my child! I was not worthy to live so blest a moment! G.o.d knows how I, poor miserable sinner, became possessed of such an angel!
My Louisa! My paradise! Oh! I know but little of love; but that to rend its bonds must be a bitter grief I can well believe!
LOUISA. But let us hasten from this place, my father! Let us fly from the city, where my companions scoff at me, and my good name is lost forever--let us away, far away, from a spot where every object tells of my ruined happiness,--let us fly if it be possible!
MILLER. Whither thou wilt, my daughter! The bread of the Lord grows everywhere, and He will grant ears to listen to my music. Yes! we will fly and leave all behind. I will set the story of your sorrows to the lute, and sing of the daughter who rent her own heart to preserve her father"s. We will beg with the ballad from door to door, and sweet will be the alms bestowed by the hand of weeping sympathy!
SCENE II.
The former; FERDINAND.
LOUISA (who perceives him first, throws herself shrieking into MILLER"S arms). G.o.d! There he is! I am lost!
MILLER. Who? Where?
LOUISA (points, with averted face, to the MAJOR, and presses closer to her father). "Tis he! "Tis he! himself! Look round, father, look round!--he comes to murder me!
MILLER (perceives him and starts back). How, baron? You here?
FERDINAND (approaches slowly, stands opposite to LOUISA, and fixes a stern and piercing look upon her. After a pause, he says). Stricken conscience, I thank thee! Thy confession is dreadful, but swift and true, and spares me the torment of an explanation! Good evening, Miller!
MILLER. For G.o.d"s sake! baron, what seek you? What brings you hither?
What means this surprise?
FERDINAND. I knew a time when the day was divided into seconds, when eagerness for my presence hung upon the weights of the tardy clock, and when every pulse-throb was counted until the moment of my coming. How is it that I now surprise?