The person of Frederick was indeed fitted to inspire respect and love. His figure was naturally majestic and noble, and was neither bent nor wasted by years; his eye was grave and piercing, his brow serene and pensive; his countenance still shone with the animation of youth, notwithstanding the paleness of his face, and the visible traces it presented of abstinence, meditation, and laborious exertion. All his features indicated that he had once been more than ordinarily handsome; the habit of solemn and benevolent thought, the internal peace of a long life, love for mankind, and the influence of an ineffable hope, had substituted for the beauty of youth, the more dignified and superior beauty of an old age, to which the magnificent simplicity of the purple added an imposing and inexpressible charm. He kept his eyes for a few moments fixed on the Unknown, as if to read his thoughts; and imagining he perceived in his dark and troubled features something corresponding to the hope he had conceived, “Oh!” cried he in an animated voice, “what a welcome visit is this! and how I ought to thank you for it, although it fills me with self-reproach.”
“Reproach!” cried the Unknown, in astonishment; but he felt re-assured by his manner, and the gentleness of his words, and he was glad that the cardinal had broken the ice, and commenced the conversation.
“Certainly, it is a subject of self-reproach that I should have waited till you came to me! How many times I might, and ought to have sought you!”
“You! seek me! Do you know who I am? Have they told you my name?”
“Do you believe I could have felt this joy, which you may read in my countenance—do you believe I could have felt it, at the sight of one unknown to me? It is you who are the cause of it—you, whom it was my duty to seek—you, for whom I have so wept and prayed—you, who are that one of my children (and I love them all with the whole strength of my affections)—that one, whom I would most have desired to see and embrace, if I could have ever dared to indulge the hope of so doing. But God alone can work miracles, and he supplies the weakness and tardiness of his poor servants.”
The Unknown was amazed at the kindness and warmth of this reception; agitated and bewildered by such unlooked-for benevolence, he kept silence.
“And,” resumed Frederick, more affectionately, “you have some good news for me; why do you hesitate to tell it me?”
“Good news! I! I have hell in my soul, and how can I bring you good news! Tell me, tell me, if you know, what good news could you expect from such a one as I?”
“That God has touched your heart, and is drawing you to himself,” replied the cardinal calmly.
“God! God! If I could see! If I could hear him! Where is God?”