Teja took the speaker's hand and pressed it. "Yes, even when my ways perplex thee, thou withholdest not thy respect and sympathy. The others---- And yet, one of them I love much!"
"Whom?"
"He whom all love."
"Totila?"
"Yes. I love him as the night loves the morning star. But he is so frank, that he cannot understand when others are, and must be, reserved."
"Must be! Why? Thou knowest that curiosity is not my failing. And if, at this earnest moment, I beg thee to lift the veil from thy grief, I ask it only because I would gladly help and comfort thee, and because a friend's eye often sees more clearly than one's own."
"Help? Help me? Canst thou awaken the dead? My pain is irrevocable as the past! Whoever has, like me, seen the unmerciful wheel of Fate roll, crushing everything before it, blind and dumb to all tenderness and nobleness; yea, even crushing what is noble more easily and readily, because it is tender; whoever has acknowledged that a dull necessity, which fools call the wise providence of God, rules the universe and the life of mankind, is past all help and comfort! If once he has caught the sound, he hears for ever, with the sharp ear of despair, the monotonous rumble of the cruel, insensible wheel in the centre of the universe, which, at every revolution, indifferently produces or destroys life. Whoever has felt this, and lived through it, renounces all and for ever. For evermore, nothing can make him afraid. But certainly--he has also for ever forgotten the sweetness of a smile."
"Thou makest me shudder! God forbid that I should ever entertain such a delusion! How hast thou acquired, so young, such terrible wisdom?"
"Friend, by thought alone the truth cannot be reached; only the experience of life can teach it. And in order to understand what and how a man thinks, it is necessary to know his life. Therefore, that I may not appear to be an erring dreamer, or an effeminate weakling, who delights in nursing his sorrow--and in honour of thy trust and friendship--thou shalt hear a small portion of the cause of my grief. The larger part, by far the larger, I will keep to myself," he added, in evident pain, and pressing his hand to his heart. "The time for that will come too. But now thou shalt only hear how the Star of Misfortune, even at my birth, shone over my head. And amidst all the million stars above, this one alone remains faithful. Thou wert present--thou wilt remember--when the false Prefect taunted me before the whole assembly with being a bastard, and refused to fight with me. I was obliged to endure the insult. I am even worse than a bastard. My father, Tagila, was a famous hero, but no noble. Poor, and of low birth. He had loved, ever since his beard sprouted, the daughter of his father's brother, Gisa. She lived far away on the outermost eastern frontier of the realm; on the cold Ister, where continued battles raged with the Gepidæ and the wild Sarmatian hordes, and where a man has little time to think of the Church, or of the changing laws promulgated by her Conclaves. For a long time my father was not able to lead Gisa to his home; ha had nought but his helm and spear, and could not pay the tax, nor prepare a home for his wife. At last fortune smiled upon him. In the war against the Sarmatians, he conquered the king's stronghold on the Alutha, and the rich treasures which the Sarmatians had gained by years of plunder, and had there amassed, became his booty. In reward of his valour, Theodoric gave him the rank of earl, and called him to Italy. My father took with him Gisa, now become his wife, and all his treasure, and bought a large and beautiful estate in Tuscany, between Florentia and Luca. But his good fortune did not last long. Shortly after my birth, some miserable fellow, some cowardly rascal, accused my parents of incest before the Bishop of Florentia. They were Catholics, and not Arians--and brothers' children; their marriage was null in the eyes of the Church--and the Church ordered them to part. My father pressed his wife to his heart, and laughed at the order. But the secret accuser did not rest----"
"Who was he?"