How would it be if the queen were dead, and he who once loved you and whom you loved in return--ah, so deeply!--were doubly alone and forsaken, and grieving because of thee? Let him have but the faintest token that you are still alive, and he will come for you, and, mounted on a white palfrey, you shall again enter the palace as queen. All will be expiated, all will be forgiven. You will be a friend to the people. You know them, for you have lived and suffered with them--This thought often seizes me and envelops me, as it were, in an enchanted net. I cannot rid myself of it, and I seem to hear voices and trumpet tones, calling me hence. I have not yet quieted the wild brood that dwells in my soul.
Mysterious demons slumber within our souls. At the faintest call, they raise their heads and crawl from their hiding-place. They have cunning eyes and can readily change their shapes. They can appear as virtues, and, borrowing priestly robes, can speak the language of sympathy: "Have pity on yourself and others." They make a show of their power and love of action, and say: "You can bestow happiness on one and on many. You can do great and good service to one and to the multitude."
I annihilated them. I held the light up to their eyes, and they vanished.
Thou livest, queen! Friend whom I have so deeply injured, thou livest! I do not ask, nor do I wish to know, whether thou art dead.
Thou livest, and my only wish is that thou mightst know of the life of repentance that I am now leading, and how little compassion I have for myself.
The Greek drama, "Prometheus Bound," occurs to me. Prometheus was the first anchorite. He was fettered from without; we fetter ourselves by vows or the rules of an order.
I am neither a Prometheus, nor a nun.