"Dearest Henrich,
Don't you think you and I are the best in the whole comedy? It gives us a great deal of annoyance, but that is nothing; I engrasserer thee to go to the masquerade with me to-morrow night; for I have never been, and I long for some real fun; here at home, it is so quiet and lonely. Du est a great rascal, Henrich,--wherever are you keeping yourself? for here sits
Your Pernille."
Finally in large letters, written distinctly and several times over, the following verse; she might have found it somewhere, and wanted to learn it by heart:
"In my heart, an inward burning,
'Tis the Great within me yearning,--
From the hidden springs to draw,--
Loki bind in Baldur's law,
Power to speak with power imbibe,
High and noble thoughts describe,--
Thereto help in mercy, Thou
Who the need awakens now!"
There was a great deal more, but the dean did not read it.
Then it was to be an actress that she had entered his house, and taken instruction from his daughter. It was with this secret aim, she was so eager to hear them read aloud, and then afterwards learn by heart. She had been deceiving them the whole time; even yesterday, when she seemed to be telling them everything, she was hiding something: when she seemed to laugh so innocently, she was lying.
O this secret purpose! That which the dean had so often condemned in her presence, SHE embellished with the calling of God, and dared to ask His blessing upon it! A life of appulance and frivolity, of jealousy and passion, of idleness and sensuality, of lies and growing unprincipledness, a life over which the vultures gather, as over a carcase, was that to which she longed to attach herself, and prayed God to consecrate! And it was to this life, that the dean and his daughter had helped her forward in the quiet parsonage, under the watchful eyes of the awakened church.
When Signe, bright and cheerful as the winter morning, came in to greet her father, she found the study entirely filled with tobacco smoke. This was always a sign of trouble, but especially so early in the morning. He did not speak a word to her, but gave her the book,--she saw directly it was Petra's; a shadow of the mistrust and pain of yesterday, came over her, she dared not look at it; her heart beat so violently that she was obliged to sit down. But the same word that had attracted the dean's attention, caught hers too; she must see more, so she read on. Her first feeling was one of shame--not for Petra,--but because her father had seen it too.
But she soon experienced the deep mortification, that comes when we find ourselves deceived by one we love. For a moment, the one who has been able to do it, seems greater, more ingenious, wiser than we, yea, he may even glide into the mysterious. But soon the mind is aroused in indignation; integrity is strengthened by the powers which are not secret, though they are unseen: we feel able to defy a hundred cunning devices; we DESPISE, what at first caused us mortification.