"I will amend," said the weeping daughter. "I promise it you from this very hour, which so infinitely affects me."
All embraced and kissed her, and Dorothea, who had been long as it were a stranger in her family, felt as if a new life had begun for her. She looked searchingly at all, she caressed every one, she let the presents be shown and explained to her; it seemed as though she had returned from a long journey, and were now greeting her family after a painful separation. "If I could but do anything for you all!" she exclaimed.
"If it is your serious will," answered her mother, "it is in your power to-day to make all of us, and especially me, indescribably happy."
"Name it," cried Dorothea, "say what I am to do."
"If on this solemn day," proceeded the Baroness, "you would at last give your long-refused consent, if you would this day bless with your plighted word our friend Wallen, whom you yesterday mortified in so improper a manner."
Dorothea turned pale, and shrank back aghast. "Is this what you require?" said she faultering; "I thought on that subject I had once for all made my declaration."
"Your passionate mood," said the mother, "cannot pass for a rational resolution. You love no man, as you have often said, you scarcely know one whom you could esteem; this generous friend is devoted to you with a noble ardour, he proposes to you a lot, fairer than will ever again present itself to you, should you now reject it; you know the situation of your family, the critical state of our property; it is in your power to become the benefactress of your mother, the protectress of your sisters. Have you well reflected, my dear child, how cheerless your own future prospects will be, if you should persist in your obstinacy? Forsaken by men and women, in discord and enmity with your family, lonely and utterly lost in a cold, insulting world, poor and without succour! Will you not then review your youth with regret, and in bitter anguish repent, that you so wantonly, so thoughtlessly, rejected all happiness for yourself and your family? Does this generous man then require from you love and passion, as they are described in our perverse books? Does he wish for more than friendship and esteem? And can you refuse him this? He is ready for all sacrifices, which our pressing situation requires, and which his great wealth enables him to make. But if you treat him with such cold scorn, and he withdraws offended and affronted--who knows where your sisters or your mother, and you yourself, at some time or other in your old age, may be forced to beg a pitiful alms, where I may lay my head sick and helpless? and then will your weeping eye cast back a look of vain regret upon these days, which will be then for ever past."
"Say no more, my dearest mother!" cried Dorothea in the greatest distress. "Oh, unhappily, unhappily, the right is all on your side, and the wrong entirely on mine. No, I never yet loved, and never shall, my heart is locked against that feeling; the men, with whom I have been acquainted, inspire me all with a feeling of dislike, many with one of pity, not to say contempt. I perceive that a marriage founded on reason, which places us in a state or opulence and independence, must be a desirable thing; that it is in my power to make you and all of us happy by a single word, that it is certainly generous to speak it, that it is perhaps forced from me by necessity, by filial duty, and the noblest motives--and yet--why do my feelings shudder at it?--Ah, my dear mother, if it were not for just one thing,--may I say it? Will you not quite misunderstand me? O certainly! for I really do not understand myself."
"Speak, my beloved child," said her mother in the kindest tone, "I shall feel your heart, though I do not quite comprehend your words."
Dorothea hesitated, looked at her beseechingly, and said at last, in embarrassment, and with a beseeching voice: "Often have I put the question to myself, in hours of solitude I have earnestly examined myself, and then it appeared to me, as if I could join hands with the worthy man, whom you all, whom all the world respects, were he only not----"
"Well?" cried the mother.
"Were he only not pious," said the daughter hastily.
A long pause of embarrassment ensued. Dorothea's face had turned of a glowing red, the sisters shrank back in affright, the mother cast a look downwards, and then turned it with the severer scrutiny on the poor girl, who seemed to all, and to herself, almost a monster. At last the mother said: "Well, really, I cannot help feeling surprized at this, and if I understand what you have expressed, it would be enough to fill me with horror. So then you make open profession of your apostasy from God? You are conscious then, that every thing holy is an offence and an abomination to you? You cannot love what is love itself? Go then and deny every thing divine, live a reprobate and die forsaken by heaven."
"You do not understand me," cried Dorothea with deep indignation: "it is the very misfortune of my life, that every thing is misunderstood in me, however well I mean it. Perhaps M. von Wallen would be quite to my mind, if only I did not know that he is so pious, perhaps even I might then think him pious."
"Excellent!" said the mother in a painful state of irritation: "when we are ourselves depraved, it is certainly most convenient to doubt the virtue of persons of worth. Herein at the same time you express, what you think of me, and what I have to expect from your filial affection!"
"You must, you shall find your error!" cried Dorothea, almost angry: "I will do more for love of you, than I can justify to myself. I will this evening, I give you my word, betroth myself to Baron von Wallen."
A general burst of joy, tears, embraces and sobbings, interrupted and filled up the place of conversation. The dispute changed into the loudest and most joyous hubbub; all had lost their composure, and expressed love and rapture in vehement and exaggerated terms. Only Dorothea, after her last words, had suddenly grown quite cool again, and gave herself up quietly without any return to their caresses.
"Oh, my beloved child!" said the mother when she had at last recovered her composure, "yes, I misunderstood you, and you will excuse me; this unexpected voluntary declaration sets all right again. And now I may add to those gifts of love the most beautiful and costly present, these ornaments, which the Baron sends you. I kept it back, because I really doubted of your noble feelings."
The daughter stared at her mother, then cast a cold glance at the precious stones, and laid them calmly down by the flowers on the table. Breakfast was served, and after the loud scene followed the deeper calm; no conversation could be brought to bear. The bell rang for church, and the servants brought the cloaks and books. Dorothea laid her prayer-book down, and said: "You will excuse me, dear mother, if I do not to-day accompany you to church, I am too much excited; I will endeavour, in the meanwhile, to collect myself here, and prepare for our dinner-party, and still more for the evening."
"As you will, my sweet child," answered the Baroness. "It is true that the church, and the discourse of our pious pastor, would certainly be the most natural place and occasion for collecting your thoughts; nevertheless you have a way and fashion of your own, keep it then wholly uncriticized. It is evidently Heaven itself, which leads you, my love, who are most in need of it, to our dear friend Wallen; by his side you will learn to think differently, and perhaps I may still live to see you shame us all, and shine before us in a superior lustre."
When Dorothea saw herself alone, she examined, almost unconsciously, the presents. The glittering richly bound books were of that modern religious class in which she had never been able to take an interest. "What matters it?" said she to herself: "is the earth itself then, is the sum of life so much worth the talking of? Why do I persist in playing the part assigned to me with so much reluctance? What in earlier days I thought and planned, is to be sure only a dream and empty fancy! I see indeed how all men, all, do but act and counterfeit an elevation of soul, from which they afterwards willingly and placidly sink into common-place. If it is the universal destiny, why do I persist in struggling so vehemently against it? Horrible it is! But at last, sooner or later, death is sure to unravel this tangled net of life, and on the other side the grave there surely will be freedom."
With her mood the heavens too grew more gloomy. Dark massy clouds rolled along, and seemed to be bringing a storm with them. A tall man came up the garden and approached the parlour. As he was on the point of stepping in, she advanced to meet the stranger, who seemed to be a person of condition. They exchanged compliments, and the stranger begged leave to stay; "he had given his horse to a servant in the avenue, and had then stepped into the garden which he found open;" he regretted not finding the rest of the family; whereupon Dorothea invited him to wait in the parlour till the storm had past, and to stay till her mother and sisters returned from church.
"You seem not to be alarmed at the storm;" observed the stranger.
"Yes indeed," replied Dorothea, "when it comes too near, and the flash and the stroke are one. I believe too that all men then are more or less afraid; for where there is no possibility of resistance, where a sudden unforeseen moment might snatch me away, I am uneasy precisely because I cannot be on my guard. In these moments nothing gives tranquillity but the belief in an inevitable fate, and the reflexion that I am no better than the thousands of my fellow-men who are exposed to the same danger."
"This is a frame of mind," said the stranger, "which I cannot but call courageous, contrasting it with that weak one which is not uncommon among ladies, when they almost faint for fear, lose all composure, and weep and wail, if but the most distant flash of lightning does but gleam across."
"Yes," said Dorothea, "and indeed I am apprehensive about my mother and sisters, who are but too susceptible of alarm. I would not blame it, because like may other nervous fears, it may be a disorder of the body."
"That is a point not so easily decided," observed the stranger, "because it would be first necessary to make a serious trial, what strength of will is able to effect, and whether, when the soul puts a constraint upon itself, the body does not also take some steps with it, and health does not arise of itself where nothing but a wilful mood has engendered the disease."
"That leads to the question," said Dorothea, "how far we are free, and what we are able to effect by resolution in mind and body."
"Certainly," replied the other, "and not only this, but all serious reflexions lead to the great question. Without having answered this to ourselves, we can take an interest in nothing, and can believe neither in ourselves nor in others."
"Freedom!" sighed Dorothea, as if in a reverie, "You believe in it then? I did so too formerly, when I was younger."--
"Younger, my young lady? That sounds strange from your lovely lips. I doubted as a youth, and have only learnt to form this conviction in later years."
"Excuse me," cried Dorothea confused, "for losing myself with you on such topics, as I"----
The stranger interrupted her: "Do not treat me as a young man, of whom you know nothing, and who is only at liberty to take notice of your presence, in order to say some obliging things to you. You met me with a noble and serious confidence, and I know that I am not undeserving of it."
And really it seemed as if Dorothea was speaking with an old acquaintance or a brother, so little was this man--whose name even she forgot to inquire--strange to her. It was long since she had experienced this feeling, of venturing to express her thoughts without fear of being misunderstood; it gave her so much satisfaction that she paid but little regard to the storm, and even forgot the evening, which just before she could only think of with horror. In the course of the conversation the stranger gave an account of his travels and several of his vicissitudes; he recalled the remembrance of his youth, and at last acknowledged, that he had often seen the house in which they were, and particularly the young lady's father, who had been many years dead. "You are wonderfully like your father," he concluded, "and from the very first I could not contemplate those mild lineaments without emotion."
Dorothea was taken by surprize, when she saw the family already returned from church. On saluting the stranger, the mother stepped back almost in terror, and Dorothea turned pale when she heard him called Count Brandenstein. He was politely invited to dinner, and old Baron Wallen likewise made his appearance, as well as Alfred and the young officer; both had ridden over from town. The family went to dress, and Dorothea alone in her chamber was lost in deep thought. The world lay in a more singular shape than ever before her mind; she could scarcely recover herself sufficiently to arrange her simple attire, and when she afterwards returned as in a dream to the company, all their faces seemed to her in a manner hard and strained, nay even strange, but especially the soft, sanctimonious countenance of the Baron looked like a hideous caricature, and a sensation, as if she were on the point of laughing, took possession of her whole frame like a shivering fit, when she remembered that this was the man to whom that same evening she was to plight her troth. As the young officer and the counsellor were revolting to her, just so familiar, open and benign, was the expression which beamed upon her in the looks of the Count, whom but the day before she had heard described as a bad and dangerous man.
He seemed the only person at table who was unconcerned. He spoke with satisfaction of the affairs he was transacting on behalf of his American friend; he mentioned the estates he had already purchased, or for which he was in treaty; and much surprize was excited by the wealth of the stranger, who was able to consolidate the finest estates in the country in one large domain. By the Count's address the conversation soon became more free, and the Baron, who seemed to be resisting with violence the feeling which pressed upon him, endeavoured to engross and command it, principally no doubt that the young people and the lady of the house might not slacken in their wonted homage.
But as it often happens, that conversation, if it is not conducted with easy unconcern and delicate tact, is led, by arrogance and vehemence, to assume a polemical character, such was the case here; for the speeches and expressions of the Baron were all disguised attacks on the Count and his opinions, such as he conceived them from the description he had heard of him. The Count took little notice at first of these intimations; he conversed principally with Dorothea, who sat by his side, spoke of his affairs, and at last said as if in jest, that he had at the same time received a commission from his American friend to look out for a wife for him.
"That you cannot surely either of you mean in earnest," said the Baroness.
"And why not?" answered the Count in a sprightly humour; "My friend in this only imitates the custom of sovereign princes, to treat by ambassadors, and according to political considerations. He is now no longer young, and cannot expect to excite passion; he has had in his youth a great deal of melancholy experience, and his own misfortune, as well as the fate of many of his friends, has convinced him, that what men call love, is but an unmanly craving, often vanity, sometimes even infatuation, and that most marriages which are contracted in seeming passion, bring on but a joyless, most fretful life, often wretchedness. I am his most intimate friend, and he calculates on my knowledge of mankind for drawing him a lot which will suit him."
The Baron replied, that he still thought such an undertaking a critical one, and that the stranger was certainly placing the happiness of his life at stake.
"Happiness?" the Count repeated the word: "certainly, if he had conceived that idea of something unqualified, infinite, and inexpressible, which young people usually associate with the word. Where do you find this? Whoever does not know how to confine himself will attain nothing, least of all what lies beyond all bounds. Resignation may seem bitter at first, but without it no state of life is endurable; for, if we would but deal ingenuously with ourselves, all raptures must, in the first instance, make way for melancholy, nay they are identical with it; and Beauty, Art, Enthusiasm, every thing, exists for us earthly perishable men, only so far as it is perishable, though the root of every thing that is divine rests in eternity."
"Singular!" said the Baron: "according to this even devotion and piety, the perception of heavenly things, would be subject to this change?"
"I believe," said the Count, "whoever will not stoop to earth, cannot soar to heaven; night and day, sleep and waking, elevation and indifference, must take their turns. We complain with reason that it is and must be so; it cannot however be helped; but one who should make the influxes of devotion, the raptures of celestial love, a standing article in his heart, is probably in one of the most dangerous positions on which a man can venture."
"You are notorious as a freethinker," answered the mother, "and you will not succeed in clouding our clear conviction."
Kunigunde said with a melting accent, "You think then that it is dangerous to love the Lord?"
Brandenstein could not help smiling: "Dangerous like all love, fair lady," replied he playfully, "especially if one does not know the object one undertakes to love, or conceives an incorrect notion of it; still worse, if we form out of it a phantom, that is to strengthen all our prejudices, justify us in our weaknesses and sanction our faults and errors. In that case we might perhaps be giving away our foolish hearts to a spectre, such as some of the old legends tell of, and be struck with horror, when, in a moment of illumination, the real form of divinity appeared to us."
Dorothea listened with attention, and the Baron said with some ill humour: "Love cannot err; where else should we seek a guide for our path?"
"If it is the true love, it cannot," replied the Count; "but in this we too easily deceive ourselves; for if our passions were not sophists, they would in fact not be passions."
"So then doubt," said the Baron angrily, "is the only thing we can gain."
"Let it be considered as our servant," answered the Count, "who explores our road; our fool, to warn us with his dry jest against excess and precipitation. Children and fools, the popular proverb says, speak the truth; sometimes at least, if not often and always."
"A mother," said the Baroness, "knows what love is; a man retains perhaps always but a dim dubious conception of its power. The act too is always more than the word, and so have I brought up my children and lived with them, wholly in love, requiring from them no blind obedience, never anything unreasonable; I have ever sacrificed myself to them; but even in their lispings they have recognized and returned my love; they have only needed to follow their hearts, and rigour, fear, and every thing of that sort, has been always wholly unknown to them."
The daughters looked tenderly at their mother, the mother had tears in her eyes, only Dorothea looked timidly downwards, and the Baron said in a fit of rapture, "All the world knows and reveres this model of education, and if any one doubts the power of love, let him come and see this family circle."
"Far be from me," said Brandenstein, turning himself to Dorothea, "the rudeness of feeling which would refuse to acknowledge this tender love; I only think, when I recall to mind my happy childhood, that love to parents, and a certain religious and liberal fear of them should be one and the same thing; for by means of the latter alone my childish love acquired, I think, its true force and intensity; it is this holy awe too of something incomprehensible in the parents, that should produce that blind unqualified obedience, which is the very thing wherein the child feels itself so happy; for without this obedience, it appears to me, neither education nor love are possible."
The mother looked apprehensively at her eldest daughter, who seemed to be of the same opinion, and then said with a rather pointed tone: "I preferred convincing my children at an early age, and where that was impossible, I so disposed them, that they did for my sake what they could not perceive to be proper."
"I respect your mode of education," said the Count, "for who in this lovely circle could have the heart to impugn it? Yet perhaps these expedients may be rather too costly substitutes for that plain and cheap obedience."
The Baron addressed himself in ill humour to Alfred, and the conversation took a different turn. The young officer related with self-complacency, that he had lately declined a party, to which he had been invited by a lady, without any apology, as it appeared to him sinful to pretend indisposition or an engagement. The company praised this love of truth, and were of opinion that this fashion and habit must become universal in society, if it was ever to be delivered from empty affectation, hypocrisy, and continual petty falsehood. The mother also hesitatingly joined in these assertions, though she feared such a line of conduct might be difficult to pursue, without entirely dissolving the delicate ties of society; but that on this very account the virtue of the individual, who has the courage to overlook these considerations, was the more praiseworthy. "There is nothing," she continued, "which I have sought so much to awaken and keep alive in my children, as the sacred instinct of truth; I have been on my guard to prevent them from ever permitting themselves the smallest untruth, even in jest. I have myself always endeavoured to answer all their questions with truth, to remove out of their course of instruction every thing which could not be made clear and plain; but above all I avoided those absurd legends and lying stories, which cherish fear and superstition, and tend certainly, more than any thing else, to estrange the minds of children from truth."
The Baron enlarged upon these positions, and all the rest concurred, except the Count, who expressed his opinion, that it might be one of the most difficult of answers to say, what truth, truth properly so called, was. "Men," said he, "have been seeking it in all directions for thousands of years, and in this, as in almost all things, good will, the intention of being veracious, must but too often supply the place of the thing itself. If I would constantly tell the truth to children or imbecile persons in answer to all questions, I run in danger of being unable to speak truth any longer; for the last answer at least rests upon a mystery which I am as little at liberty to deny, as I am able to explain it. And to this invisible region we are impelled at a very early age by imagination and feeling, and the teacher, who would keep youthful impatience aloof from it, is only obliged to have recourse to a different lie, which perhaps, in its false philosophy, is as bad as that of superstition. So likewise it appears to me injudicious to avoid cultivating the imagination of children, even in that singular power, which seeks horror, and devises blind and wild terrors. This impulse is in us, it stirs itself early; and if one aims at keeping it under, if one strives to destroy it, which is impossible, it grows on darkling and deepening, and gains in strength, what it loses in shape. I have known women, who in an over-enlightened education had been kept even from the most innocent fairy tale, and who, in their riper years, could not summon courage to go even through the next room of an evening, so tyrannized were they by a nameless, absolutely childish panic, so that they impotently trembled at every sound and every shadow. If, on the contrary, that element in the imagination of children, which delights in the prodigious and fearful, is reduced to shape, if it is softened in legends and stories, then this world of shadows blends even with humour and drollery, and itself, the most intricate labyrinth of our minds, may become a magic mirror of truth. By means of this phantasmagoria, we may catch glimpses of far distant and yet friendly spirits, which but very seldom pass across us in visible approximation."
"That you are such a friend to superstition," answered the Baroness, "is what I now learn for the first time."
Dorothea seemed not to lose a word of this singular conversation; she looked at Kunigunde, whom this description of an irrational alarm, to which she was often subject even in the day time, literally fitted; the other sisters too were at times childish enough, and were afraid of every walk in the evening. Kunigunde was sensitive; she thought the stranger was acquainted with her weakness, and meant only to describe her. The mother could hardly conceal her embarrassment.
"I cannot always approach society," proceeded Brandenstein, "with the naked truth, for this is what it does not require or expect from me. I may not throw into it the virtues of solitude, if I would not destroy the charm by which it is so attractive to the man of cultivated mind. One finds every where bad society, which I certainly do not mean to praise; but when polished life, the delicate links of the educated world, the graceful relation of the sexes, the forms contrived by wit and good breeding, have been so often compared in contempt to the laws and conditions of an ingenious game of cards, I have thought the simile not unappropriate, but the contempt singular, and have been at a loss to conceive that any one should have been blind to the variety of life and its necessary forms. A man should only have lived for a time with rustics, who so often want to pass off their rude bluntness for manly virtue, who violate all decencies, who acknowledge no mystery, no delicate relation, but nick-name every thing at all refined, affectation and hypocrisy; a man should have been exposed for weeks together to this rude pawing and grasping, and the oppressive weariness it occasions, to value once more the dignity of a polished intellectual intercourse. In that indeed a bare yea and nay will not always pass; and to wish to overthrow, by what we call truth, the conventional forms, by which alone this phenomenon admits of being exhibited, is just as unreasonable as if I should call the laws which regulate a game of chess a lie, move with my pawns into my antagonist's last row, and declare my game won."
"You are a tolerable sophist," said the Baron. "All that is still wanting is an encomium on the calumny and slander, the envy and intrigue, of great societies; it would then only remain to throw contempt upon the quiet virtue, the beautiful civic plainness, the childlike innocence and noble simplicity of the unfashionable world."
"You cannot possibly have so misunderstood me," said the Count; "I only mean that one ought not to confound the conditions which are requisite to every game and every work of art (and good and polite society ought certainly to partake of the nature of both) with untruths; for even in dancing there is no truth, if the straight-forward bustling step of business is to be called by that name, and even the promenade might from this point of view be exposed to no inconsiderable conscientious scruples."
"Worse and worse!" cried the Baron: "happily, my ingenious Count, you are saying all this in company, on which you cannot produce a pernicious impression."
"You have drawn me in for once," replied Brandenstein, "and so you may hear my whole confession of faith. I believe there never was a man (and there never will come one), who did not at some time or other in his life consciously lie, whether it were a forced shift or weakness, fear, selfishness, or vanity, or any of the other stains of our nature; perhaps even merely to follow the spirit of falsehood which but too temptingly allures us. And we need only take a look at the sublime apostles, to learn, that they had not always strength sufficient to be faithful to their model, the eternal divine truth. Many instances of this sort I should be inclined to call innocent lies, which, for the very reason that they are so decided, a man of a better nature can soon avoid. But how stands the case then with that varnished self-love, that parading egoism, that finished hypocrisy, which form the entire life of many men into one single lie? I have known some, at least, who were sunk so deep in the spirit of lying, that there no longer existed for them such a thing as truth. And these men passed for virtuous, they esteemed themselves chosen vessels, they could even keep up their part of hypocrisy on their death-bed."
"Such a case is impossible!" exclaimed the Baron, and all agreed with him; only Alfred expressed his opinion, that a depravity of this sort might exist, whereupon Dorothea stared at him with surprize. "You are speaking, in fact," continued the Baron, "of a former world; during your absence every thing has changed with us so, that if you are only now beginning to renew your acquaintance with our country, you will scarcely find a trace of its former state. The old irreligion, that empty scepticism which called itself philosophy, is, heaven be thanked, pretty well gone by; the germs of a genuine religious temper are unfolding themselves from day to day in greater beauty, one is no longer ashamed of being a Christian, of believing in the Lord, and elevating one's self to him in fervent prayer. The churches are once more filled, the higher classes do not disdain any longer the communion of their fellow-Christian, books of devotion have supplanted frivolous reading on the tables of our wives and daughters; purified souls, instead of entertaining themselves with theatrical gossip, converse upon the bible, animate each other to penitence and devotion, communicate the experience of their hearts, mutually strengthen one another, and the spirit of the Lord speaks more and more distinctly in these exalted affections. All this, my sceptical friend, you will at least be forced to allow its value and its weight, for here is truth and love, here no mistake is possible."
He had said all this with great unction. The Count was silent a moment, before he said: "Our table-talk has assumed so serious a turn and so grave an import, that it would certainly be more proper to break off, and either to reserve these explanations for a calmer hour, or wholly drop them, since on these important subjects one is most easily misunderstood."
"Because you now feel yourself completely defeated," said the Baron, "you wish at all events to provide yourself with a safe retreat. I should have thought it now became your duty, openly to confess, that you have nothing to say on this point, unless you would undisguisedly avow, that the almost forgotten scepticism of former times is dearer to you than our holy religion."
"O speak!" cried Dorothea, forgetting herself.
"You see how pressingly you are called upon," said the mother, darting a long and threatening look at Dorothea. Alfred too requested the Count to explain how far he coincided with the opinions of the age on this point.
"As I cannot entirely avoid it," said he, "I will briefly hint what I have been able to observe; for as I have been now a year again in Germany, every thing is not so strange to me as you suppose, though it is but a short time back that I came to revisit my birthplace here. I only wish I could divest you all of the prejudice with which, I observe, you consider me, as a profane infidel. No, that is really not my character; but I must reserve to myself the incontestable right of being a Christian after my own manner. That there are now, as at all times, really pious and enlightened spirits, and that these deserve our respect, who would doubt? The need of faith has again proclaimed itself, the spirit has knocked at almost every heart, and admonitions have been heard, of various kinds, and from all quarters. A clear fresh stream has once more poured from the eternal hills along the thirsty plain, and the things and beings overtaken by it follow the force of its waves: all feel irresistibly hurried along, and great and small, strong and weak, are forced down with its current. Genuine as is the enthusiasm which this has occasioned, yet has it happened here, as in all historical events, that this phenomenon likewise has been clouded by the multitude, by vanity and human weakness, and as it was once the fashion to play the freethinker and theesprit fort, though many were weak and superstitious, so it has now become the custom to seem religious, though many are frivolous and lukewarm enough at heart."
"Desinit in atrum piscem," said the Baron warmly, "your beginning promised something better."
"How many persons," proceeded Brandenstein calmly, "have fallen in my way, who almost at the first bow gave me to understand that they were extraordinary Christians. Others, at every third word, and upon the most indifferent subjects, make mention of the Saviour; upon every occasion, however trifling, they fall a praying, and tell us of it; nay, I have read romances, in which the author said in his preface, that he never wrote without praying first, and that every thing good contained in his book was immediate inspiration; the shortest way of rebutting all criticism, and setting the romance close by the side of revealed Writ. In company people take every opportunity to talk of repentance, penance, devotion and redemption, and profane, according to my feeling, what is sacred, forgetting that it has a resemblance to love, the feelings and confessions of which the true lover will be unwilling to expose to a stranger's ear."
"But what harm does it," said the Baron, "if pious spirits do perhaps speak even too often of the object of their love?"
"It cannot be love," replied Brandenstein, "it is vanity, arrogance, that affects to be better than other men. Just like that of the period of sentimentalism or philosophism, it is a sickly craving, that seeks nourishment every where, that flatters and humours itself into deeper and deeper disease, looks intolerantly and contemptuously on our fellow men, who are often better and more pious, because they will not precisely chime in with the given tone."
"You are painting the excess," faultered the Baroness in a kind of uneasiness.
"Nothing else, honoured madam," answered the Count; "only that it has frequently fallen under my notice. I have seen too books of edification, that seem to be very much in fashion, old and new, which really can only serve completely to distract men of moderate intellects, who are already infected with this vanity, in which the Creator, the essence of love, is represented like a capricious old humourist, that for want of employment has taken a fancy to weave the most complicated destinies, and again, in a subtle and extraordinary manner, to extricate this or that individual out of their misery, though many at the same time are lost. Others convert religion into magic and enchantment, or harden the hearts of wives so that they feel themselves infinitely exalted above their husbands, and keep them, if they do not quite adopt their own devotional twattle, in a state of purgatory, and in the feeling, how low they have themselves descended, to be the saintly wives of such ordinary sinners. I knew a poor girl of moderate capacity, who esteemed herself happy in becoming the wife of a young man in thriving circumstances, but who, by the end of half a year, became likewise a saint, and now juggles herself into the belief, that her christian virtue consists in enduring her husband; she seems to herself super-human if she does not quite despise him, but however she says this every day to herself and her religious playmates, who confirm her in this exercise of piety. Is not this now sin?"
"Ay surely!" suddenly sighed Kunigunde's husband; and the mother, who saw the prop of her family visibly breaking down, repented having begun this conversation, and was angry with her worthy friend the Baron, for having stirred it into a blaze.
Brandenstein however, who was now at last in full career, was likewise unable to rest in his spiritual ardour, till he had brought his whole philippic to bear. "How elevating a spectacle is it," he proceeded more loudly, "to see pious men, in order to devote themselves entirely to things sacred, turn their backs on the world and all its treasures, to live in still seclusion to one great feeling only! I will not censure particular fraternities, when in a like spirit they immure themselves, and will have no concern with art and history, philosophy and the world. But when these narrow-minded devotees, who remain in the world, who have enjoyed the same education with the rest of mankind, and profess themselves people of cultivated minds, call out to us over and over again, that there is only One Thing Needful, that painting, music and poetry are not only superfluous, but even sinful, and that prayer, the inward light and penitence, is all that ought to interest the heart of man,--I should be inclined to ask these persons, of what narrow feeling that which they call their religion is composed, that it cannot and ought not to admit of love, truth, reason and the lovely forms of the imagination? Is it then no longer true, that to the pure all things are pure? The man to whom God no longer appears in nature and history, is to be considered as dead; that man is lost, who no longer sees his lofty presence in the strength of reason. He too is pious on whom a picture flashes rapturous delight, and who, while he reads Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream, feels blest and in paradise. For even mirth, humour and wit are of divine original, and we grow the purer and the more refined, the more we learn to perceive the ray of divinity in these delicate sports of the fancy."
"It is true indeed," said the Baron, who had observed the Baroness's obvious dissatisfaction, "we cannot to-day bring this interesting conversation to an end."
"Impossible," answered the Count, who seemed himself surprized at his own warmth, "else I should be glad to be informed why these pious spirits do not submit with more humility to the church? Why they require, that all men should see things in their way? How it happens that no doubts cross them too, and enable them to conceive, that they may themselves be in an error? Whether it is not more christian to pray, rather according to the gospel with closed doors, than pharisaically to proclaim their much praying to the world? I might also observe, that this spiritual vertigo combines itself strikingly enough with a political one, and that this morbid mood, which is spreading over all Germany, has rendered it possible for an excessively confused and feeble book to gain the applause of a crowd, which now at last evinces, how little it ever comprehended our great poet, at the time when it was shouting his praises. It may be considered as an outrage to this great man, if we would not rather view it as ludicrous, that he should be so schooled and catechized, that his works should be charged with immorality, and deficiency in idealism, because he never condescended to the miserable wants of this spokesman. That all this has been possible, has shown me how little true intellectual culture has taken root among us, and how easy it is therefore for giddy heads to perplex with half-notions the bawling crowd."
"You mean Göthe," said the Baron, "and what are called the spurious 'Wander-jahre.' Well, we have now rambled sufficiently wide of our original argument."
A pause ensued, all seemed out of tune, Dorothea was deeply agitated. As a servant was bringing in a dish of roast meat, the Baroness cried, "Oh! how could I forget the poor sick widow? John, carry this dish immediately to the unfortunate woman, with my hearty wishes. She is suffering incredibly, as I have been told to-day; she is besides poor, and her children are able to give her but little assistance." "Ay, poverty, sickness!" sighed the Baron. "Oh heaven, what would become of this gloomy earth, if there were not still some tender, noble spirits, who endeavour to mitigate its enormous wretchedness!"
"The poor woman," added Kunigunde, "is supposed not to have been at all happy with her deceased husband, he was harsh and rough, and often treated her with insolence." She darted at the same time at her husband, who sat at the other end of the table, a singular look, that was pregnant with meaning. The young man, roused by the conversation, had the unexampled boldness to reply, that it was often wives' own fault, if they were not happy in matrimony. The Count, to prevent more specific explanations, observed that, as the woman's complaint was not exactly known, it might perhaps do her harm, to eat meat without proper precaution. But the Baron, who anticipated a new hostile attack, spoke with pathos of the great beneficence of the Baroness, how she was a mother to the poor, and could not conceive, how there could be men so callous as to be unaffected by the misery of their fellow-creatures.
Now came John back with the roast meat, and brought word, that the widow returned her most dutiful thanks; but that she had been forbidden meat for the present in her fever by the physician, and that beside she had received from the chateau, for three weeks past, every thing she stood in need of, for which she could not sufficiently express her gratitude. "A physician?" said the Baroness, "she has received already? and how?"--"Oh, your ladyship," said the old servant confused, and in agitation, "Miss Dorothea has for a long time past sent her every thing, she got the doctor for her too, and visits the sick woman herself every morning and evening." "So!" said the Baroness with a lengthened quivering tone, and a piercing look fell on her daughter, who in her confusion could make no reply; "And why, my child, is this exercise of beneficence, this virtue, which is so new to me in you, kept so secret? Why not allow your mother a share in the merit, now that at last your heart inclines to such christian offices of love? My advice would make the act of charity a genuine one. But as it is, it looks as if waywardness, rather than compassion, guided your actions."
"Dear mother," begged Dorothea, "spare me."
"It is to be lamented," proceeded the mother, "when even that which in itself is virtue, by the mode in which it is exercised, transforms itself into a subject of censure. Above all I see pride and presumption in this mode of acting, in your undertaking to be wise and managing without me, when you cannot know whether by this means you are not causing more harm than good."
"It is too much!" cried Dorothea, weeping aloud; she rose hastily, and with covered face left the room.
All stared, but the Count seemed most surprized; he said with emotion in his voice: "Is not the censure that has been passed on the young lady really too much? She probably meant well; nor does it appear to me blameable, that she performs her charitable acts in secret, that she is perhaps a little too reserved about them, in order not to expose herself to the appearance of ostentation."
"Of a surety, your ladyship," said the grey-headed servant, "my young lady is an angel, so all the people in the village think her; all that she can save out of her pocket-money, whatever she can spare of her clothes, she lays out upon the poor, but the most beautiful thing of all is the gracious quiet way she has, and how she calms the people, and comforts the sick, and admonishes the children to be obedient to their parents, who are often cross;--indeed we are to keep it a secret, for she gave us strict orders about that, and we have done so for years, but sooner or later a man will be caught tripping. Beg your ladyship's pardon."
This discourse passed as the company were rising: the Baroness was in a tremor. The Baron, with solemn face and air, kissed the mother's hand, and endeavoured to set matters right; the Count took his leave with few words, and Alfred accompanied him; the rest of the party went into the garden-parlour.
"It brings no good," said the mother, "when wicked men cross our thresholds."
"No blessing of heaven follows them," added the Baron.
"What an afternoon!" cried the Baroness, "it will be long ere I forget it! Such men are all that is wanting in our neighbourhood, to plunge my poor rebellious child into total ruin. But you too, my son, took more interest in that godless man, than I or your pious Kunigunde could wish."
"I think though," said Kunigunde's husband, "that he said many very sensible things; I am of opinion myself, that this piety is carried too far, and that there may be many women who think too much of themselves."
Upon this the Baron gave him a long reproving look, which the poor man could not stand; and when Kunigunde now began to weep aloud, and the mother likewise weeping folded her in her arms to comfort her, he was so much moved, that he could no longer restrain his repentant tears: he also threw himself on his wife's bosom, sobbing, and begging forgiveness. "Be all composed," said the Baron in a solemnly consolatory tone, as he raised his eyes to heaven: "the Lord will set every thing right, for this evening, as you have told me, that obdurate and yet dear heart pledges itself to me; through my weak co-operation the Spirit will then enlighten her, and we shall all be one heart and one love."
Dorothea had shut herself up in her chamber in tears. So distracted, so dissatisfied with herself and the world, so utterly lost and wretched, she had never yet felt herself before. She was deeply ashamed that the simple method of relieving the poor, which seemed to her the most natural, had been suddenly divulged by the simplicity of the servant; but still she thought it too hard, to be treated as she had been for it by her own mother, before all the company, and what pained her more than all was, that it was done in the presence of the man, whom she could not but respect, who had won her confidence, and whose esteem she likewise desired to obtain.
It had grown dark without her perceiving it, when a servant tapped at her door, and requested her to come down to her mother and the company. "Mother!" said she to herself, "Mother! what a sweet word! Why have I never known one?"
She went down, the family were assembled in the parlour; the young officer was also present. As Dorothea entered, it occurred to her for the first time, why she had been summoned. A shivering fit came over her. All saluted her as the Baron's betrothed, the mother said kindly, she would now forgive her that day's behaviour; the sisters wished the dejected girl joy, and the Baron covered her trembling hand with tender kisses. "Be calm, be happy," said he in a soft tone; "henceforth, my love, you will quite belong to us, and this man shall never more enter our house; you were certainly right, and it was heaven that spoke in you, that such a wretch ought not to move where we set our steps."
"A wretch?" cried Dorothea, and tore her hand so violently away, that the Baron staggered back. "You are an audacious man, to dare so to vilify such a person."
"Heaven!" shrieked the mother, "she has lost her senses! An evil spirit speaks out of her."
Dorothea bethought herself again; she saw the astonishment of those around her, and endeavoured to collect herself. "I am so shaken," she began, "I feel myself so agitated, perhaps indisposition--I will just cool myself a moment in the open air."
"In this weather?" said the mother, "in this storm and rain, so without a handkerchief, in your thin dress?"
"I must, I must!" she exclaimed, and without listening to remonstrances, she had already opened the parlour door, and was standing in the dark cold garden. As the rain beat against her, she turned into the walk which was covered by closely interwoven boughs, and walked hastily up and down. "To him, that loathsome being," said she to herself, "united for ever? So deeply, so deeply degraded? And for whom? For those, who will never thank me for it, who will afterwards make it appear as if it was the greatest of benefits that had been conferred on myself? Save my soul? That here is lost, utterly ruined!"
A dark shadow came up to her, and by the lisping soft voice she immediately recognized the Baron. "My sweet girl," he began, "your dear mother, and all of us, are expecting you indoors with anxious apprehension; my heart is overflowing with tenderness, for I already consider you as my wife, and the mother of my pious children."
"Heaven!" she exclaimed, "that I never thought of, that my misery may extend so far, as to see hypocrites and selfish wretches spring out of my blood. But though I had not that calamity to fear, still I could never be yours."
"How?" cried the Baron, "and the solemn promise, which you this morning pronounced to your mother?"
"Though I had made it to an angel of heaven," said Dorothea, "still I cannot keep it! Nay, even had the wedding taken place, we must have been parted again!"
"Strange, young lady! Do you reflect on the consequences?"
"What can they be? Any thing may be endured in comparison with that abyss of misery which awaits me."
"Are you aware too that your mother has a right to require it? Are you aware, that she is under engagements to me, which till now I bore and kept secret with the patience of love, in the hope of belonging to your family? Ask yourself, whether under these circumstances you are not bound, as a good daughter, to discharge your mother's engagements?"
"No!" cried she in the greatest excitement, "rather pine with her, work for her, nay, die for her."
"There are still methods," said the Baron half laughing, "to bend such stubbornness; the rights of parents are great, and you are evidently at present not quite in possession of your senses; a little of intreaty, a little of force, will subdue in time this childish wilfulness."
He had seized her arm with violence, and endeavoured to pull her towards the house; but the strong girl tore herself quickly away, and flew down the walk, the Baron after her. She however, who was more nimble and better acquainted with the mazes of the garden, was soon a great way ahead; she was now at the open verge of the grounds; this she also stepped over, and ran across the fallow field, like a hunted deer, while alternately the rain drenched her, and the storm chilled her delicate limbs.
Madame von Halden was sitting comfortably in her little parlour, while the storm shook the trees out of doors, and the rain pattered against the windows. Her heart was perfectly at ease; for she had sold her estate at an unexpectedly high price, all was concluded, and Count Brandenstein with counsellor Alfred had that very evening brought every thing into due form. The two gentlemen were upstairs asleep, for it was near midnight, and she was herself on the point of retiring to her chamber, when she was alarmed by a violent loud knocking at the house door, and a plaintive suppliant voice. She rang the bell, a servant was sent to open the door, and with her clothes dripping, trembling and pale as death, Dorothea rushed in, threw herself immediately with violence upon her bosom, and cried with a hoarse voice, "Save me, save me!"
"For God's sake!" said her friend in extreme terror, "is it you, my dear girl? And so, in this state? I cannot trust my eyes." Notwithstanding her fright however, she immediately with the most friendly alertness fetched linen and clothes, helped the chilled girl to change her dress, cheered her laughingly and kindly, and then forced her to take some mulled wine which she had got ready with the utmost haste, to guard against the bad effects of the chill. She at the same time embraced her so cordially, drying the tears from her eyes, and kissing her cheeks which began now to recover their colour, that Dorothea felt herself almost as happy as in the arms of a mother. After many cheering and playful words, Madame von Halden said at last, "Now tell me briefly, how you came to this mad resolution, and then go to bed and sleep all off."
"You must protect me," said Dorothea, "you must not refuse me shelter, otherwise I must run in despair into the wide world, or madness will drive me into a mill-pool."
"Calm yourself, child," said her friend soothingly; "you must of course return home. But tell me: what has befallen you all of a sudden?"
"Only do not laugh," cried Dorothea, "keep serious, my good dear friend, for I am in despair. This morning I let myself be persuaded, from weakness, from emotion, they had celebrated my birthday so unexpectedly, to promise to betroth myself this evening to Baron von Wallen. This was now to take place, and that is why I have run away, because I abhor him, because I cannot live any longer at home with my sisters and my mother."
"I am well aware," replied her friend, "that you cannot love the Baron, that injustice was often done you in the family; but this expression of horror in you, as you seemed so used to every thing, is still incomprehensible to me."
"I do not yet understand it myself," answered Dorothea; "I do not know how I am to relate it to you. That I was not happy, you must of course have seen, though I never said a word to you on the subject. Alas, the origin of that dates itself from my beloved father's death. You know I was scarcely thirteen years old when he died. O heaven, what a man! I could not at that time estimate his value, but the older I grew, the more he bloomed in my remembrance as the bright object of my love. That benign gentle spirit, that cheerfulness, humanity, quiet piety, that delight in nature and art, that active, admirable intellect--alas! and he was not happy either! I saw, I observed it well, when I came to distinguish a little, he was not happy in his marriage; he and my mother were too unlike one another, they were often at variance with each other. He was then at times deeply dejected, infinite sorrow would speak out of his fine dark eyes, as he bent them silently to the ground. And now on a sudden he was gone! He must have learnt and felt on the other side the grave how my heart's love followed him. O my friend, there are moments of pain, when nothing but the cold dull stupor into which our whole being sinks, rescues us from frenzy and madness. So I grew up in pain and regret, which no one shared, no one understood. And what an alteration took place in the life of our family! Instead of the cheerful conversations, instead of the lively parties, a serious solemn parade. My younger sisters were educated in a spirit quite opposite to that which my father had wished. Prayers, books of devotion, religious conversation, filled up the intervals of the day; and my heart grew more and more vacant; I could not sympathize in their devotion, could not even believe in its existence. My books, which were my father's presents too, I no longer ventured to shew; all was worldly and offensive. I was frightened at the constructions put on passages, which were my greatest favorites, which I knew by heart. Even Göthe's heavenly nature, his noble elevation, was seductive sensuality; and a refined prudery, which to me was in the highest degree disgusting, was to assume the name of virtue. My sisters, as they came to the age of reflexion, considered me as a degenerate creature, unsusceptible of any thing good; it was what they heard every hour, they could not help believing it. Between them and my mother there sprang a relation, which kept me at an equal distance from both parties, but for which I could not envy them; an overstrained love, a delicate tenderness, a soothing and fondling which often cut me to the heart; nay my mother went so far as to idolize her younger daughters, to adore them, and to tell them she did so. My sisters treated my mother nearly in the way that one would hold intercourse with a departed saint, if she were to return to us; but this was what I could not carry on for above a day; I was then under the necessity of seeking a more cheerful intimacy with her, or avoiding her altogether. I still well remembered how often my father had said, that in early youth children must learn to obey blindly, in order that, when grown up, they may be capable of freedom. This freedom of the mind and heart, which makes man an independent being, which is the indispensable condition of love, of a free devotion, found however no room in this close union, nay, whenever it attempted to shew itself, it was treated as the worst of sins. Not the least weakness, not the slightest prejudice of my mother was to be touched; even in trifles, on the subject of an indifferent book, the character of a man, nay even on the colour of a ribbon, no one was to entertain a different opinion from her. If but a walk was proposed only to a neighbour's house, nay in the garden, she forbad it, unless she could or chose to join in it, not directly, but she would say; 'Go, if you can be without me; I indeed cannot live without you, but if you can, I will not disturb you; I am accustomed indeed to make every sacrifice to you.' Of course the thing was not done, and my sisters gave their vexation the air of devotion, and I, who did not belong to the compact, was forced to pay for their humours. My courage failed me. I endured to be taken to task even by my youngest sister. O my friend! when I observed all this, which appeared to me unnatural and wrong, I would then go into the most solitary corner of the garden, and give my hot tears their course; for I seemed to myself vile and reprobate to confess all this to myself, and to be unable to stifle my sense of truth, which had been awakened and formed by my father. I was often so inexpressibly miserable that I prayed for death. There would come times too, when, as I could not help seeing how every body that came to our house paid respect and homage to my sisters, and avoided me, I appeared to myself vile and despicable. But when I struggled to be like the others, all my strength failed me, and my arms dropped unnerved by my side.--But did you not hear a noise in the next room?"
"No, my sweet girl," said Madame von Halden: "every body is asleep, it cannot be any thing more than a cat."
"Kunigunde married," proceeded Dorothea; "the men who paid their addresses to me, only teazed me by their coxcombry, or shocked me by their ill breeding. I could not conceive that any one could love me, without my most fervently loving him, and on that account their affected hyperbolical phrases appeared to me so insipid, and I could not possibly believe in their passion. All however was still tolerable, till Baron Wallen came to our house; he soon gained possession of my mother's affections, and the slavery now grew quite insupportable. Now began a parade to be made on a great scale with the love which my sisters bore each other and my mother; it was the talk of the whole province; when strangers came, it was like a drama in which all the virtues were displayed. O forgive me! you and the lonely night will not carry my words farther; you have yourself indeed seen their way, and heaven must alter my feelings, or pardon them. But what was truly alarming was, that in this smooth Baron there moves a very satyr under the priestly robe. He took a liking to Clara, to Clementine too; but the girls, great as was the reverence which they could not help feeling for him, were still terrified at the thought of being forced to adore him as a husband. They were however soon released; for the lot, for which they felt themselves too good, was imperceptibly and artfully shifted upon me. I now heard perpetually how noble, nay how necessary it was, to sacrifice one's self, how wretched a thing the mere passion of love appeared, how much a prudent marriage surpassed all other happiness on earth. Believe me, I should have given way, my life had lost all its bloom, I should have fallen a victim, and become utterly wretched, if----"
Dorothea hesitated. "Well, my child?" asked her friend on the stretch.
"If it had not been, that to-day," she proceeded in her melodious tone, "on this very day, the day on which I was born, and on which I have returned to life again, a man appeared, who was an abomination to our family, with whom, from the descriptions I had heard, I was myself violently angry, a man, who has made a total revolution in my heart, indeed has regenerated it, and whose mere presence, even if he had not spoken, would have rendered it impossible for me to marry the Baron, or indeed any man whatever."
"Wonderful!" cried Madame von Halden.
"Call it so," said the maiden: "indeed it is so, O, and yet again so natural, so necessary! In him, in his mild look, which inspires confidence (believe me I had really quite forgotten there were such things as eyes) in his intelligent discourse, in every one of his gestures, there appeared to me once more that truth which had now become a fable to me, my youthful days, the blessed time of my father. I never could conceive that which men call love; in the Poets indeed I may have caught a glimpse of it, but I always believed that this heavenly feeling was not made for a poor outcast like me; but now I know, it must be that which I experience towards this excellent man, for I could not imagine that such a being really moved upon the earth."
"Poor girl!" said her friend; "he is a ruined man, without property, and besides who knows whether he may feel the same sentiments for you, for he is no longer young. Now go to bed, to-morrow morning early we will consult rationally on the means of soothing the Baroness, and making the Baron leave you in peace."
"I never will return!" cried Dorothea with renewed vehemence. "I would rather be a servant-maid in a distant land."
A noise was now heard more distinctly in the adjoining room, the ladies started, the door opened, a ray of light gleamed through and Count Brandenstein presented himself to them.
"O my God!" cried Dorothea, "the Count himself!"
"I had not gone to bed," answered he; "but was still busy, when this unexpected visit----"
"O you sly creature!" cried Madame von Halden; "and so you have heard of course every thing that my friend has been telling?"
"I cannot deny it," said the Count; "the wainscot and door are so thin, that not a word escaped me. (Dorothea trembled violently.) And so, my lovely, generous, and inexpressibly dear young lady, you would not disdain me, if I could lay a fortune at your feet?"
"O how you confound me!" said she; "am I to say still more?"
"Take this letter," proceeded the Count; "these few lines will ensure you perfect security at home."
He cast a thrilling glance at Dorothea and lingeringly withdrew. She was so agitated and shattered, that her slumbers were broken and afforded her but little refreshment.
A few friends were assembled at Baron Wilden's house for a little ball. Alfred and the officer were likewise present, and the Baron's young sister, an amiable girl, seemed extremely entertained. Miss Erhard too was in high spirits, and Michael, who was a spectator, could hardly conceive how she could move so nimbly in the Scotch reel. The dance was now over, and the corpulent host tumbled down exhausted upon a sopha. "If it does not fairly make one young again," he cried; "though it is hard work too. The deuce, my dear Miss Erhard, what bounds you can take! I should never have expected along with your piety so much elasticity. This is as I like it, when a way can be found to reconcile the heavenly with the earthly, for really the heart is cramped to death with that humility and meekness, unless it can now and then make a good start in mirth and pleasure. You seem to me quite a new creature, Miss Erhard, here in my house, I should not at all have known you again if I had not been sure that it was you."
The lively virgin seated herself by him and both looked on at the dancers. Alfred was paying great attention to Sophia, the Baron's sister, a circumstance which the Baron remarked not without satisfaction. The sideboards were abundantly supplied with refreshments, which were handed round by servants in rich liveries on silver plate. "Is it not true?" said the Baron, who perceived the complacent looks of his neighbour, with a leer: "We do not lead here such a life as in the chateau yonder, where they sit for the most part all together, like Adam and Eve before the fall? High-flown phrases, apocalyptic sighs, and a marvellous tincture of ambrosial melancholy. Virtue and devotion the stuff, pious sentiment for a lining, and the whole turned up with contrition and penitence. No, a man must sin a bit, to be able to become a convert; is it not so, my highly esteemed young lady? Your legs do not ache sure? You make such a twitching with your mouth."
"No," said she, "I was only trying to check a laugh at your strange expressions, for in fact you are an abominable sinner. I hope however that you will still repent."
"Time brings counsel," said the Baron: "do you see, I have managed my matters prudently, I have committed a multitude of sins before hand in my youth, in order that, in my old age, I might have a pretty stock to repent of, and not be obliged, like many a devotee, to suck transgressions out of my fingers' ends, and make scruples of conscience for nothing and against nothing. O of that I have things to tell you some of these afternoons, that shall make you open both your eyes."
"But this sort of talk is sin again," answered the virgin.
"Come," cried the Baron, "you must not examine my virtue through the microscope, else we shall never have done with each other; for with me every thing tends rather to the gross; my merits are as little refined as my vices. But see, how among all my guests Mr. von Böhmer is standing so solitary by the stove, and musing in the midst of the music! Lieutenant, pray come and take a dance with one of these ladies."
"I never dance," said the young officer, coming up to them: "nor should I have come, had I not been invited by Miss Erhard; and it could never have occurred to me, that she had in view a dinning ball."
"Is it not said, that to the pure all things are pure?" asked the lady with great unction.
Alfred, who had come up, answered; "Certainly, that is the right view of the matter, and it would be droll enough, if M. von Wilden were to be converted by the lady, and she by our lively Baron. But you Ferdinand (addressing himself to the officer,) wear not a single holiday look on your dusky countenance."
"I am going away," he answered, "to the Baroness, will you accompany me?"
"No, my friend," answered the other, "nor do I purpose ever troubling that circle again; for that ostentatious hypocrisy has of late become sufficiently clear to me. How thankful am I to the worthy man, who shook the bandage from my eyes!"
"You mean Count Brandenstein?" said his friend: "You take then the part of the wicked against the pious, of sin against virtue?"
"Let us drop this language now," replied Alfred, "I feel myself, since I became acquainted with that person, more my own man."
"Do you know then," interrupted the Baron, "any thing of the story? They say the savage, the American, is come, a spotted, copper-coloured man, with hair like scales or prickles. People say too, this wild animal would marry that froward girl Dorothea.
"Nothing is known for certain," said Alfred. "The American will at all events be a man like all others, and consequently she will be more happy with him, than with Baron Wallen."
"Whom you are incapable of appreciating," cried the officer, as with a slight bow he withdrew.
"You think then," continued the Baron, "a well-bred girl might live happily with such a sea-monster? But indeed in life a great many sorts of happiness must be consumed, that every one may get something to suit him; and they tell me, the pretty Dorothea is so ungodly, that perhaps the most ungodly cannibal is not too bad for her."
"You are misinformed," answered Alfred, and was on the point of beginning a story, when the good-natured Sophia came tripping up, to remind him that he had engaged her for the next quadrille. The Baron in the mean while drank, and promised Miss Erhard to dance the next Polish Waltz, or at all events the merry "Turn Out" with her.
When Dorothea was missed that night, and the Baron had communicated the history of his unfortunate courtship, the whole house was thrown into the greatest confusion. Servants were sent out with lights, but all came back in the stormy night without intelligence. The mother was very uneasy, and seemed to reproach herself with having urged a violent temper, such as she knew her eldest daughter's to be, too far. She did not go to rest, but wandered about in the house, and her two younger daughters endeavoured to comfort her. In the morning appeared a messenger from Madame von Halden, and delivered a note to the Baroness; shortly after a coach drew up, from which Dorothea alighted, whom her mother received with a forced composure. But little was said, not a word of reproach however was heard, and the daughter could as little produce an apology.
The Baron, who had observed every thing with anxiety and confusion, said at last, when he saw himself alone with the Baroness; "This letter has certainly done wonders! Of all that you proposed to yourself with regard to this perverse girl, not a particle has been executed, you are, on the contrary, kinder to her than ever. May I not be allowed to know, from whom it comes, and what it contains?"
The Baroness reddened. "It comes from that Brandenstein," said she with a tremulous voice: "but the conclusion contains the grossest calumny."