The lady looked up at the flowers, and an expression of pain passed over her countenance as she turned away her head and said, "They are beautiful, but keep them, Susanna, they are painful to my eyes."
She resumed her former position, and Susanna, much troubled, drew back; after a short silence, however, she again ventured to raise her voice, and said, "We have got to-day a beautiful salmon-trout, will you not, Mrs. Astrid, have it for dinner? Perhaps with egg-sauce, and perhaps I might roast a duck, or a chicken——"
"Do whatever you like, Susanna," said the lady, interrupting her, and with indifference. But there was something so sorrowful in this indifference, that Susanna, who had again approached her, could not contain herself; she quickly threw herself before her mistress, clasped her knees, and said:
"Ah, if I could only do something to please my lady; if I could only do something."
But Susanna's warm glance, beaming with devotion, met one so dark, that she involuntarily started back.
"Susanna," said Mrs. Astrid, as with gloomy seriousness she laid her hand upon her shoulder and gently put her back, "gratify me in one thing, attach not thyself to me. It will not lead to good. I have no attachment to give—my heart is dead! Go, my child," continued she more kindly, "go, and do not trouble thyself about me. My wish, the only good thing for me, is to be alone."
Susanna went now, her heart filled with the most painful feelings. "Not trouble myself about her!" said she to herself, as she wiped away a tear; "not trouble myself about her, as if that were so easy."
After Susanna was gone, Mrs. Astrid threw a melancholy glance upon the papers which lay before her. She seized the pen, and laid it down again. She seemed to shudder at the thought of using it; at length she overcame herself, and wrote the following letter:
"You wish that I should write to you. I write for that reason; but what—what shall I say to you? My thanks for your letter, my paternal friend, the teacher of my youth; thanks that you wish to strengthen and elevate my soul. But I am old, bowed down, wearied, embittered—there dwells no strength, no living word more in my breast. My friend, it is too late—too late!
"You would raise my glance to heaven; but what is the glory of the sun to the eye that—sees no longer? What is the power of music to the deaf ear? What is all that is beautiful, all that is good in the world, to the heart that is dead, that is turned to stone in a long, severe captivity? Oh, my friend, I am unworthy of your consolation, of your refreshing words. My soul raises itself against them, and throws them from herself as 'words, words, words,' which have sounded beautifully and grandly for thousands of years, whilst thousands of souls are inconsolably speechless.