On the very next day, the Baroness, with Aurelia, unexpectedly made her appearance. I saw them alight from their carriage, and, received by the Baron, entering the gates of the castle. Unnerved and disquieted, I stepped restlessly up and down in my chamber, under a tempest of extraordinary anticipations. This, however, did not continue long, ere I was summoned down stairs.
The Baroness came forward to meet me. She was an eminently beautiful woman, still in the full bloom of her charms. There was in her countenance and tout ensemble a voluptuous tranquillity, diversified only by the restless gleam of her eyes, which were to an unparalleled degree fiery and expressive.
As soon as she beheld me she seemed involuntarily to start, and betrayed extraordinary emotion. Her voice faltered, she could scarcely command words.
This visible embarrassment on her part gave me courage. I looked her boldly in the face, and, in the conventual manner, gave her my blessing. Hereupon she became all at once deadly pale, and was obliged to seat herself on a sofa. Reinhold meanwhile looked on me as if quite satisfied, and even with smiles of good humour.
At that moment the door opened, and the Baron entered with Aurelia.
As soon as I had set eyes on this girl, it seemed as if a gleam of light from heaven flashed around me, and penetrated to my very heart, kindling up mysterious and long-lost emotions—the most ardent longings—the raptures of the most fervent love. All indeed that I had formerly felt seemed only like obscure and shadowy indications of that which now stepped forth at once into reality and life. Nay, life itself dawned for the first time, glittering, variegated, and splendid before me, and all that I had known before lay cold and dead, as if under the desolate shadows of night.
It was she herself—the same mysterious unknown whom I had beheld in the vision of the confessional. The melancholy, pious, childlike expression of the dark blue eyes—the delicately formed lips—the neck gently bent down, as if in devout prayer—the tall, slender, yet voluptuous form; all these—they belonged not to Aurelia—it was herself, the blessed St Rosalia! Even the minutest particulars of dress—for example, the sky-blue shawl, which the young Baroness had now thrown over her shoulders, was precisely the same worn by the saint in the picture, and by the unknown of my vision.
What was now the luxuriant beauty of Euphemia compared with the divine charms of this celestial visitant? Only her, her alone could I behold, while all around was faded into coldness and obscurity.
It was impossible that my inward emotion could escape the notice of the by-standers.
"What is the matter with you, reverend sir?" said the Baron; "you seem agitated in an extraordinary degree."—By these words I was directly brought to myself, and I felt rising up within me a supernatural power,—a courage till then unknown,—to encounter all obstacles, if she—if Aurelia were to be the prize to reward me for the combat.