"And the Countess Solenstråle," said the lively Gabriele, archly, "has herself spoken for her nephew, and invited you to her house. Very polite and handsome of her! And you, Petrea, no longer covet this exaltation?"
"Ah, no, Gabriele!" answered Petrea, "this childish desire is long past; it is another kind of exaltation than this, that I pine for."
"And this is called?" asked Gabriele, with a light in her lovely eyes, which showed her that she very well knew that, which however she had not pronounced in words.
"I do not know what I should call it; but there lives and moves here a longing difficult to describe," said Petrea, laying her hand upon her breast, and with eyes full of tears; "oh, if I could only rise upwards to light—to a higher, freer life!"
"You do not wish to die!" said Gabriele, warmly; "not that I now fear death. Since Henrik has trod this path, I feel so entirely different to what I used to do. Heaven is come quite near to the grave. To die is to me to go to him, and to his home. But I am yet so happy to be living here with my family, and you, my Petrea, must feel so too. Ah! life on earth, with those that we love, may indeed be so beautiful!"
"So I think, and so I feel, Gabriele," replied Petrea, "and more so than ever when I am at home, and with my own family. On that account I will gladly live on the earth, at least till I am more perfect. But I must have a sense of this life having in it a certain activity, by which I may arrive at the consciousness of that which lives within me—there moves in me a fettered spirit, which longs after freedom!"
"Extraordinary!" said Gabriele, half displeased, "how unlike people are one to another. I, for my part, feel, not the least desire for activity. I, unworthy mortal, would much rather do nothing." And so saying she leaned her pretty head with half-shut eyes against her mother, who looked on her with an expression that seemed to say, "live only; that is enough for thee!"
Petrea continued: "When I have read or heard of people who have lived and laboured for some great object, for some development of human nature, who have dedicated all their thoughts and powers to this purpose, and have been able to suffer and to die for it; oh! then I have wept for burning desire that it also might be granted to me to spend and to sacrifice my life. I have looked around me, have listened after such an occasion, have waited and called upon it; but ah! the world goes past me on its own way—nobody and nothing has need of me."
Petrea both wept and laughed as she spoke, and with smiles and tears also did both Gabriele and the mother listen to her, and she continued—
"As there was now an opportunity for my marrying, I thought that here was a sphere in which I might be active—But, ah! I feel clearly that it is not the right one for me, neither is it the one for which I am suitable—especially with a husband whose tastes and feelings are so different to mine."