"Good heavens! how great, how glorious!" exclaimed Susanna, involuntarily, whilst with her hands pressed upon her breast, she bowed herself as though in adoration before the descending ruler of the day.
"Yes, great and glorious!" answered a gentle echo near; Susanna looked around, and saw Harald standing beside her. There stood they, the two alone, lighted by the descending sun, with the same feelings, the same thoughts, ardent and adoring in the waste, dead solitude. Susanna could not resist the feelings of deep and solemn emotion which filled her heart. She extended her hand to Harald, and her tearful look seemed to say, "Peace! peace!" Susanna felt this a leave-taking, but a leave-taking in love. In that moment she could have clasped the whole world to her breast. She felt herself raised above all contention, all spite, all littleness. This great spectacle had awakened something great within her, and in her countenance Sanna beamed in beautiful and mild illumination.
Harald, on the contrary, seemed to think of no leave-taking; for he held Susanna's hand fast in his, and was about to speak; but she hastily withdrew it, and, turning herself from him, said:
"We must now think about supper!"
The fire outside the cave blazed up cheerfully, and in the eastern heaven uprose the moon amid rose-coloured clouds.
Soon was Susanna, lively and cheerful, busied by the fire. From cakes of bouillon and prepared groats which she had brought with her, she prepared an excellent soup, in which pieces of veal were warmed. Whilst this boiled, she distributed bread, cheese, and brandy to the men who accompanied them, and cared with particular kindness for the old guide. Harald allowed her to do all this, without assisting her in the least. He sate upon a stone, at a little distance, supported on his gun, and observed her good and cheerful countenance lighted up by the fire, her lively movements and her dexterity in all which she undertook. He thought upon her warm heart, her ingenuous mind, her activity; he thought upon the evenings of the former winter, or when he read aloud, related stories to her, and how she listened and felt the while. All at once it seemed to him that the ideal of a happy life, which for so many years had floated before his mind, now was just near to him. It stood there, beside the flames of the nocturnal fire, and was lighted up by them. Alette's warnings flitted from before him like the thence-hastening night-mists, without shape or reality. He saw himself the possessor of an estate which he would ennoble as Oberlin has done the sunken rocky valley; saw himself surrounded by dependents and neighbours, to whose happiness he really contributed; he saw himself in his home—he contemplated it in the most trying light—the long winter evenings; but it dimmed not thereby. For he saw himself as before, on the winter evenings with Susanna; but yet not as before, for he now sate nearer to her and she was his wife, and he read aloud to her, and enjoyed her lively, warm sympathy; but he rested at intervals his eyes upon her and upon the child, which lay in the cradle at her feet, and Susanna glanced at him as she had just now done upon the rock in the evening sun. The flames which now danced over the snow were the flames of his own hearth, and it was his wife who, happy and hospitable, was busied about them, diffusing comfort and joy around her.
"What is the use of a finer education?" thought he, "it cannot create a heart, a soul, and qualities like this girl's!" He could not turn his eyes from Susanna; every moment she seemed more beautiful to him.—The sweet enchantment of love had come over him.
In the mean time the evening meal was ready, and Harald was called to it. What wonder if he, after a fatiguing day's journey, and after the observations which he had just been making, found Susanna's meal beyond all description excellent and savoury?! He missed only Susanna's presence during it, for Susanna was within the cave, and upon her knees before Mrs. Astrid, holding in her hand a bowl of soup, and counting with quiet delight every spoonful which her lady with evident satisfaction conveyed to her lips. "That was the best soup that I ever tasted!" said she, when the bowl was emptied; "it is true, Susanna, that you are very clever!" It was the first time that Mrs. Astrid had paid attention to her eating, and the first praise which Susanna had received from her mouth,—and no soup, not even nectar, can taste so charming, so animating, as the first word of praise from beloved lips!
When Susanna went out of the cave, she was welcomed by Harald's looks; and they spoke a language almost irresistibly enchanting for a heart to which affection was so needful as was Susanna's: and in her excited and grateful spirit she thought that she could be content for all eternity to be up in these mountains, and wait upon and prepare soup for those beloved beings who here seemed first to have opened their hearts to her.
They now made preparations for the night, which promised to be clear, but cold. The peasants laid themselves around the fire. Mrs. Astrid, anxious on account of Harald's shoulder, prayed him to come into the cave, where it was sheltered from the keen air; but Harald preferred to keep watch on the outside, and sate before the fire wrapped in his cloak. Susanna laid herself softly down at his mistress's feet, which she hoped by this means to keep warm. Strange shapes flitted before her inward sight whilst her eyelids were closed. Shapes of snow and ice came near to her, and seemed to wish to surround her—but suddenly vanished, and were melted before the warm looks of love, and the sun shone forth in glory; and happy, sweet feelings blossomed forth in her soul. Amid such she slept. Then a new image showed itself. She was again in Heimdal; she stood upon the bank of the river, and looked with fearful wonder on the opposite shore; for there, amid the dark fir-trees, shone forth something white, mist-like, but which became ever plainer; and as it approached the brink of the river, Susanna saw that it was a child, and she knew again her little Hulda. But she was pale as the dead, and tears rolled down her snow-white cheeks, while she stretched forth her little arms to Susanna, and called her name. Susanna was about to throw herself into the waves which separated them, but could not; she felt herself fettered by an invisible power. At this, as she turned round with inexpressible anguish to free herself, she perceived that it was Harald who thus held her; he looked so cold, so severe, and Susanna felt at the game time both love and hatred for him. Again anxiously called the tender child's voice, and Susanna saw her little sister sink upon the stones of the shore, and the white waves beat over her. With a feeling of wild despair Susanna now awoke from sleep, and sprang up. Cold perspiration stood upon her brow, and she looked bewildered around. The cave darkly vaulted itself above her; and the blazing fire outside threw red confused beams upon its fantastically decorated walls. Susanna went softly out of the cave; she wished to see the heavens, the stars; she must breathe the free fresh air, to release herself from the terrors of her dream. But no beaming star looked down upon her, for the heavens were covered with a grey roof of cloud, and the pale moonlight which pressed through cast a troubled light over the dead country, and gloomy and hideous shapes. The fire had burnt low, and flickered up, as if sleepily, now and then, with red flames. The peasants slept heavily, lying around it. Susanna saw not Harald at this moment, and she was glad of it. In order to dissipate the painful impression she had experienced, Susanna took a water-jug, and went down to the river with it, to fetch water for the morrow's breakfast. On the way thither she saw Harald, who with his gun upon his shoulder, walked backwards and forwards some little distance from the cave. Unobserved by him, she, however, came down to the river, and filled her jug with the snow-mingled water. This little bodily exertion did her good; but the solitary ramble was not much calculated to enliven her spirits. The scene was indescribably gloomy, and the monotonous murmuring of the snow-brook was accompanied by gusts of wind, which, like giant sighs, went mournfully whistling through the desert. She seated herself for a moment at the foot of a rock. It was midnight, and deep silence reigned over the country. The rocks around her were covered with mourning-lichen, and the pale snow-lichens grew in crevices of the mountains; here and there stuck out from the black earth-rind the bog-lichen, a little pale-yellow sulphur-coloured flower, which the Lapland sagas use in the magic arts, and which here gives the impression of a ghastly smile upon these fields of death. Susanna could not free herself from the remembrance of her dream; and wherever she turned her glance she thought that she saw the image of her little dying sister. Perhaps in this dream she had received a warning, perhaps a foretelling; perhaps she might never leave this desert; perhaps she should die here, and then——what would become of her little Hulda? Would not neglect and want let her sink upon the hard stones of life, and the waves of misery go over her? In the midst of these gloomy thoughts, Susanna was surprised by Harald. He saw that she had been weeping, and asked, with a voice so kind it went to Susanna's heart—