"That I do not give you, Oldenburg," said Melitta, with warmth; "really not. I love you as one would love a brother who is a few years older, who stands somewhat in the place of a father, and to whom one looks up with cheerful respect and gratitude. It is our fate, that you must needs love me in a different way, and that I cannot love you in any other way."
"It is our fate, indeed, Melitta, and now let us say nothing more about it. Against fate nothing can be done. We can only bow our head, and accept the laurel wreath or the death-blow in silence. I might have learnt that in these last days, if I had not known it before. And now, Melitta, since you yourself have called me a brother, let me speak to you like a brother. May I?"
"Yes," said Melitta, who had lowered her head at these last words of Oldenburg's, after a short pause, and in a low voice.
"Overcome your love for Oswald! I cannot advise you to pull out the arrow by one single effort, because I fear the wound might bleed till you die; but do not resist the effect of time, which is almost as powerful as almighty Fate. After a few weeks, or a few months, you will think more calmly about it; will you promise me, like a good sister, not to look upon these calmer and wiser thoughts as a sin against your love?"
"Yes."
"For, Melitta, he is lost to you, even if he should overcome this last passion of his. His mad hunt after an Ideal, which he cannot find anywhere upon earth, because it only lives in his imagination, will lead him to another and another love. He will ever think: This is what you have been looking for in vain; and he will ever discover the illusion, until he will take at last, in his bitterest disappointment, a step which will relieve him of all further care for this wretched world. These last days have brought him much nearer to this unavoidable end."
"How are matters at Grenwitz?"
"Felix is out of danger, although at first he was given up. But he will, in all probability, be an invalid for life--a heavy punishment for one who has so long 'enjoyed the sweetness of flowers and broken every flower.' Oswald's ball missed its aim only by a hair's breadth. Felix owes his life to Bruno's death. Oswald did not say a word during the whole duel; his face remained unchanged, only when Felix fell a kind of smile passed over his features; he looked the very image of perfect composure, and only the close observer could have noticed that it was the snow on a volcano, and that from time to time a feverish tremor ran through his limbs. He bore himself in the whole affair with consummate tact, and even the host of adversaries had to acknowledge that Cloten actually said, in his admiration, he was very sorry the man was not born noble."
"And Helen?"
"Helen left, a few hours after the duel, with her father for Grunwald. I believe they are going to keep the girl there for a time, in a kind of honorable exile, till they have brought about a reconciliation with her mother. In the mean time the good woman is simply beside herself, and would have moved heaven and earth, and the police besides, to destroy Oswald, if Cloten and others had not told her that Felix had given the first provocation, and that a duel was simply unavoidable."