Four Phases of Love

by Paul Heyse

CHAPTER IV.

Autumn interrupted for a time the boy's studies. The rector determined to take him with him for some days into the neighbouring mountains, before the winter set in, to show him hill-side and valley, and to let him have a wider look into that world which already seemed so beautiful to him, even on the barren village plains. When the boy was told of it he asked, "And we shall take Mary with us too?"

They tried to dissuade him from it, but without her he refused to travel. "Even if she does not see anything, they say the mountain air is so healthy, and she has been so pale and thin for a long time, and will be quite lonely without me." So they did as he wished; the little maiden was lifted into the carriage beside him, and a short day's journey brought them to the foot of the mountain range.

Now began the journey on foot. Patiently the boy led his blind little friend, more reserved than ever. Often he longed to climb this or that isolated rock-peak which promised him a new view, but he supported her as she went, and would not desert his post, however much his parents begged him. Only when they had reached some eminence, and were seated at rest in a shady nook, did he leave the maiden, and sought his own way amongst the dangerous rocks, collecting curious stones, or flowers that did not grow in the plains below. When he returned to the resting-place he had ever something for Mary--berries, or a sweet-scented flower, or the soft nest of a bird which the wind had dislodged from its tree.

She received everything cheerfully from him, and seemed more contented than she had been at home. And she was so, too; for she breathed the same air with him all the day long. But even then her foolish jealousy accompanied her, and she felt angry with the mountains, whose autumnal beauty, she fancied, only made the world dearer to him, and widened the separation between them. Her strange manner struck the rector's wife. She talked with her husband now and again about the child, who was as dear to them as their own, and both placed her obstinate melancholy to the account of her disappointed hopes; and yet she regretted nothing that had been promised, or that she had been told to expect--only what she had already known and enjoyed.

At the end of the second day's journey they were to pass the night at a lonely house celebrated for the neighbourhood of a magnificent waterfall. They had a long day's journey, and the women were quite tired out. When they reached the house, the rector led his wife within, without proceeding onward to the chasm, from which the roar of the waterfall could be plainly heard. Mary, too, was very tired, but she insisted on following Clement, who cared not to rest so soon; so they climbed together higher up the steps, and ever louder the sound of the roaring water was borne towards them. Half-way up the steep path Mary's last strength deserted her: "I will sit here," she said; "go on to the end, and come back for me when you have seen enough." He begged her to let him take her back to the house first, but she was already seated, and so he left her, and advanced towards the roar, deeply affected by the solitude and majesty of the scene.

The girl sat on a stone and awaited his return. She thought that he lingered very long away. A cold shiver struck through her, and the distant muttering thunder of the fall terrified her, "Why does he not come back?" she thought to herself; "he will forget me in his joy now as ever. I wish I could find my way back to the house, that I might get warm."

So she sat, full of anxiety, and listening intently. Suddenly she fancied that she distinguished his voice calling to her; trembling, she started up. What should she do? Almost involuntarily she took a step forward, but her foot slipped, she tottered and fell. Fortunately the stones near the path were overgrown with moss, but still the fall nearly stunned her, and she cried wildly for help. In vain! her voice could not reach Clement, who stood close to the abyss, surrounded by the roarings of the fall, and the house was far too distant. A bitter pain shot through her heart as she lay there between the stones, neglected and helpless. With tears of despair in her eyes, she raised herself painfully. All that she loved best seemed to her at this moment hateful, and the bitterness of her soul permitted no thought of the nearness of the Omnipresent to rise before her.

So Clement found her when, for her sake, he tore himself away from the witchery of the marvellous scene.

"I come!" he cried to her from a distance. "It is fortunate that you did not go with me. The path above is so narrow that the smallest slip would cost a life! How unfathomably deep it plunged, and roared and sprang up in clouds of spray, till one's senses were lost! Feel how sprinkled I am with the fine water-spray!--but what is the matter with you? You are as cold as ice, and your lips tremble. Come--I was wrong to leave you in the chilly air--God forbid that it should have made you ill!"

She remained obstinately silent, and permitted herself to be led back to the house. The rector's wife was alarmed. The girl's sweet, delicate features were strangely disturbed. They hastened to give her a warm draught and to put her in her bed, without learning more from her than that she was not well.

And ill, indeed, she was--and so ill, that she longed for it all to be over. She hated the life that showed itself so hostile to her. In bitter, God-forgotten thinking she lay, and of her own will broke the last threads which bound her to mankind. "I will go out to morrow," she said, darkly, to herself; "he shall lead me himself to the cliff where a false step costs a life--and my death will not cost him much! Why should he for ever bear the burden which he has laid on himself out of mere compassion?"

Ever stronger the unholy determination twined itself about her heart. What had become of the old bright, loving courage in this short month of concealed sorrow? She even thought on the consequences of her sin without horror, and said, defyingly, to herself, "They will manage to become reconciled to it as they have become reconciled to my remaining blind, and he will be freed from that picture of misery that destroys all his pleasure in that beautiful world he loves so much." That was ever the last thought when a feeling of uncertainty rose within her.

In the room next to hers, only separated from it by a thin partition, sat the rector and his wife. Clement was still loitering about under the trees without, unable to tear himself from the stars, and the mountains, and the muffled music of the waterfall.

"I feel very uneasy," said the rector's wife, "at Mary's being so sad and reserved; the slightest occurrence agitates her. If it lasts she will be quite worn out. I wish you would talk to her, and try to persuade her not to take what cannot be altered so deeply to heart."

"I am afraid that I should speak in vain," said the rector. "If what she has already been taught, and the love of her parents, and our daily care of her, have not spoken to her heart, mere human words will be of no avail. If she had learned humility before God, she would have submitted to his will, which has left her so much to be thankful for, with gratitude instead of murmuring."

"But he has taken much from her."

"Ay, indeed! but not all, or for ever! That is my hope and my prayer. The power of loving, and of looking on all as worthless compared to the love of God and man, seems to have gone from her; but it returns when we return to God! As she now is she longs not for him, she hugs her discontent and hatred too closely to her heart--but her heart is too true to bear this miserable companionship much longer; then when it is free from discontent, God will enter into it, and love will find its old place again, and then she will have an inward light to guide her, though night may still hang before her eyes."

"God grant it! And yet the thought of her future makes me very unhappy."

"She will not be lost, if she is not determined to lose herself. Even were all who now love her and tend her to be called away, all human kindness would not have died. And if she marks well the hand of God, and the way He would lead her, she will bless her blindness, which from her childhood upwards has kept her from the false glitter of the world, and brought her nearer to what is true."

Clement interrupted the conversation. "You cannot think," he cried, "how beautiful the night is. I would give one of my eyes, if Mary could have it, to see this glory of the stars! I hope the noise of the waterfall does not keep her awake. I cannot forgive myself for letting her sit so long in the cold."

"Speak lower, dearest son," said the mother; "she is sleeping close to us, and the best thing you can do is to go to rest too."

Whisperingly the boy bade them "Good-night!" When his mother went into Mary's room, she found her tranquil, and apparently sleeping. That strange expression of her features had given place to a sweet tranquillity. The storm had passed over, and had destroyed nothing of the beautiful within her. Even shame and regret hardly made themselves felt, so powerfully reigned within her the joyous peace which had been preached to her from the neighbouring room. For the evil gains its influence over us slowly and creepingly; the victory of the good is soon decided.