A YEAR LATER.
"Who would have thought that Ernestine would ever have turned out such a woman?" said Moritz Kern in a suppressed tone to his wife.
The pair were walking to and fro in Möllner's study, which was furnished precisely like Ernestine's former library, and they were evidently awaiting some event with anxiety.
Half hidden by the heavy folds of the blue curtains, Hilsborn and Gretchen were standing at the window. They did not speak, their hearts were too full. Gretchen's hands were folded, as though she were breathing a silent prayer, and Hilsborn stood grave and anxious beside her. Even Moritz stopped now and then and looked towards the door of the adjoining room, as if expecting it to open, but he evidently wished to conceal all emotion, and talked on gaily. "Yes, who would have thought it? Johannes must have been puzzled indeed to know how to train that scatterbrain."
"I always told you that Johannes could do whatever he chose, and Ernestine was always sweet and good in reality, only she had been so warped by her education," said Angelika. "I liked her from the first moment that I saw her after she was grown up, and you know I always defended her from your attacks. And now all is just as I said it would be."
"Oh, of course! I really should like to hear of anything that you women did not know all about beforehand," laughed Moritz. "You are always so much sharper than we. If Ernestine had made her husband as unhappy as she makes him happy, we should hear the same thing,--'Oh, I told you so, I saw how it would be from the first, I never liked her.' I know you well!"
"Are you not ashamed," pouted Angelika, "to go on with your silly jests when we are all so anxious? If Johannes should lose his wife, what would become of him?"
"Ah, bah! he is not going to lose her. Don't be foolish," said Moritz.
Hilsborn came towards them. "Don't make yourself out worse than you are, Moritz," said he. "I never saw you look more troubled than you do just at this moment. You know well enough what Ernestine is to us all."
"Deuce take it, of course I know it!" cried Moritz,--"she's as much to me as to any of you,--but I hate to hear people cry before they are hurt. God keep her, she's a jewel of a woman!"
"Yes," said Gretchen, joining in the conversation, "such women are rare indeed. How she fulfils every duty, even those that she once considered so dull and commonplace!"
"Yes, yes," chimed in Angelika, "my mother is never weary of sounding her praises."
"This is the most wonderful thing she has accomplished yet," said Moritz. "Only hear these two notable housewives, Hilsborn, joining in a chorus of praise of a third! Did you ever hear anything like it? I never did."
"She deserves it all," answered Hilsborn. "And then she is invaluable to Johannes as a scientific companion and assistant. He could as ill spare her at his desk or in his laboratory as at the head of his household--or----"
"Hush!" interrupted Angelika, "did you not hear some one at the door?" And silence reigned in the room again for awhile.
"I hope it will be a boy,--Ernestine longs for a boy," sighed Angelika.
"Past two o'clock," said Hilsborn. "I wish they would send us some one to say how she is."
Suddenly the door was flung open, and old Heim's deep voice cried, "It is over."
"Thank God!" they all exclaimed as with one breath.
"Is it a boy?" asked Angelika.
"No, a girl!"
"A girl!" said Moritz. "Well, ''tis not pretty, but sin is uglier,' as the Suabian said."
"Do be quiet! What would Ernestine say if she heard you, you mocker?" said Angelika. "May we not go to her, Uncle Heim?"
"No, stay where you are," said the old man, closing the door.
Within Ernestine's apartment all was quiet and repose. Johannes was standing, mute with happiness, by Ernestine's side, supporting her head, when he was called to look at his little daughter, a bundle of snowy wrappings in her grandmother's arms.
He took the little creature from her and laid it by his wife's side. "Mother," was all he said, leaning over her enraptured for awhile, gazing into the pure delight mirrored in her eyes. At last he raised his head, and said, laughingly, "But, Ernestine, 'it is only a girl.'"
"Be it so. I do not question what God has sent me. I am a mother. I envy no man now, and our daughter shall never do so. We will cherish and train our child to be what a true woman should be, and some day she may say to one whom she loves, as I do to you, my dearest, 'Thank God that I am a woman, and that I am yours.'"
"Ernestine," said Johannes, "those are the dearest words you could utter. Happy the daughter of such a mother! Father Heim, mother dear, did you hear Ernestine's confession? She is reconciled at last to the destiny of her sex."
Ernestine gazed at the atom of being by her side, as if it were a miracle. She quite agreed with the Staatsräthin that it was a wonderfully pretty child for a new-born baby, and, as she laid her hand upon its little heart and felt its regular beating, she smiled amid her tears, and would gladly have clasped it in her arms, only it seemed so frail and slight she was afraid of breaking it.
"Uncle Heim," she said, "I once thought that it would have been better if you had left me to die when my father gave me that almost fatal blow, but since then I have been often grateful to you for preserving my life, although never so grateful as at this moment."
"Ah, bah!" said the old man, "I was only the physician of your body. Reserve your gratitude for this fellow," he laid his hand upon Johannes' shoulder,--"he was the physician for your soul, and so judicious was his treatment, that now you can have some comfort of your life."
Ernestine looked up gratefully at her husband. "Yes, faithful physician of my soul,--your medicines were very bitter, but they were my salvation."
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 1]: See Du Bois Reymond: Voltaire, in Relation to Natural Sciences. Berlin, 1868.