As she now turns round, having reached the end of the long walk, and is coming up again in the pale light of the autumnal evening, she can be better seen than before. How graceful and light her step is! How delicately slender her figure appears as she now draws the silk shawl closer around her sloping shoulders and wraps it around her arms! How prettily the black fichu which she has tied over her head, fastening it under the chin, frames the lovely oval of her fair face! And how much more clearly the expression of goodness of heart, which always made the handsome face so attractive, strikes the observer now! And yet the soft brown eyes look so much graver! the charming mouth, whose red lips formerly looked as if they were made only to kiss and to laugh, is now firm and resolute. It looks as if the beautiful and noble psyche of the woman had freed itself of all that formerly held it in chains, and was now free from the mists of passionate thoughts, lighting up the sweet, kindly face in all its nobility and beauty as the chaste light of the moon lights up a soft, warm summer night.
What is she thinking of as she now comes slowly down the walk, her eyes fixed upon the ground? First of all, probably, of her son, who is recovering his full rosy cheeks, and growing up so strong and so hearty, just as Doctor Birkenhain has predicted. She has written to Doctor Birkenhain to-day to congratulate him and herself on the fulfilment of his prophecy. Then as she passes a little niche in the hedge where a low bench is still leaning against a small table--it must have escaped the eyes of old Baumann--she stops for a moment. On this bench she sat on that eventful summer afternoon with Oswald, when they had watched two white butterflies who were hovering on their delicate wings over the flower forests of the parterre and caught each other and chased each other and then rose into the blue ether, embracing each other, then parting again to flutter hither and thither into the green wilderness. "Will those butterflies ever meet again in life?" she had asked Oswald; and he had answered: "That may happen, but whether they meet with the same delight, that is another question." She had not seen Oswald again since the first night when she left for Fichtenau. If she should meet him again! She started at the idea, for she felt that she wished it. Had she not loved him very, very much? Had she not been unspeakably happy with him? But no! Prudence and pride commanded her to forget the faithless man who knew only how to conquer but not how to preserve his conquests.
She crossed her hands more firmly across her bosom, and her face looked almost dark, as she went on; but soon it brightened up again, and now she laughs to herself. What is it? She cannot help it. She must think of the expression in Oldenburg's face as she said the other night, when the weather was so terrible and he was just rising to say good-by and to ride home, "Had you not better stay over night, Adalbert?" and he had cast one sharp glance at her, and then refused the invitation with a certain haste and embarrassment. Oldenburg, whose morality was constantly decried so bitterly; who had the reputation of having had countless liaisons dangereuses in his life; so carefully anxious, so tenderly concerned, for the good repute of a widow! Why did he treat her so differently from all other women, of whom he got tired so soon? Will he come to-night? The hour has passed at which the hoof of his Almansor is commonly heard on the pavement of the yard. The young widow looks anxiously up to the dark clouds, which are threatening more and more, and from which now a few scattered snow-flakes begin to drop silently, the first of the season, but melting in a few moments on the black ground. If Julius only would not ride too far! But old Baumann is with him, and that ought to be enough for the most anxious heart. Perhaps they have gone over to Cona and will return with Oldenburg, who has forgotten the hour over his books. They will be half-frozen when they come; it would be better to get tea ready for them.
Melitta hastened back to the house and ordered supper, and sent for the lamp, for it is quite dark now, and she would like to look a little at Oldenburg's diary. He had read to her not long ago some of his notes about his travels in Egypt, and as he could not finish them that night he had left the book and asked her to read it for herself; and as she laughingly reminded him of the danger of letting a lady read his diary, he had replied: "In that book, as in my heart, there in nothing that you may not know." On the contrary, he had desired she should read it all; he did not wish to appear better or different from what he was. That was speaking boldly; and, Melitta soon became convinced, acting boldly. For there were strange things recorded in these sketches, thrown off with a daring hand. Here the traveller's glance had rested on the voluptuous charms of dancing Ghawazees. There half-naked Indian women are standing by the shore turning the creaking wheel of the Sakyee in the burning heat of the sun. There, on the market-place of Asyut, black slaves are crouching, who had but yesterday come down from Darfoor on the large Nile boats. But amid all these sketches not one single trait of frivolous sensuality! He describes the dancing of these children of the Sun with the calm words of a professional critic. When he sees the poor woman at the waterworks, he curses the tyrannical government which forces even helpless women to work for cruel taxes, and in the slave market at Asyut his heart is heavy with grief that man should permit the image of God to sink to the level of a brute, or even below! "Sorrow! sorrow!" he cries; "such as man cannot imagine--and the most sorrowful is that when we see such degradation we begin to despair of man himself, for we cannot help acknowledging to ourselves that beneath the civilized sentiments that shine on the surface, deep down in the darkness of our heart the same fearful passions are slumbering, which here crop out in all their shameless nakedness, merely because they may do so with impunity under this burning sun." And thus he shows everywhere the deep, serious mind with which the traveller observes the manners of men abroad. The same deep love with which he ever makes the cause of humanity his own, so that it seems altogether incomprehensible how this man could ever be looked upon as an eccentric oddity and a frivolous roué. There is no lack even of statistical tables, reflections on political economy, and other evidences of a mind not only bold and deep, but also learned and most industrious. And between these are verses, especially on the first pages of the diary, which are evidently of a much earlier date than the sketches from Egypt; at least this is clear to those who, like the fair reader that night, are sufficiently familiar with the author's life to recollect the different events which have occasioned one or the other poem.
Thus she recalls perfectly well how the baron, then a youth of perhaps nineteen, once walked with a young lady who was then perhaps fifteen, in the woods, after they had just eaten a philippine at table. He was to lose who first forgot to say j'y pense when he took anything from the hand of the other. She had cunningly made a most beautiful bouquet, and when the young man admired the flowers, she had said with a bashful smile, "Would you like to have it, Adalbert?" And when he, blushing at the unexpected favor, had taken the bouquet without saying a word, she had clapped her hands and cried out, "J'y pense! j'y pense! I thought you would lose it!" That was a long time ago, and the ink with which the poem was written had faded considerably. The poem ran thus:
J'Y PENSE.
I know a little maid--
J'Y PENSE!
With eyes deep brown and staid--
J'Y PENSE!