"Would to God, Adalbert--for your sake, for my sake, for all our sakes--I could answer you Yes!"
"Why can you not do it?"
"You know!"
"But, Melitta, is the memory of the man whom you cannot possibly love any longer, and of whom you say yourself that you do not love him any longer, to part us forever? Have you not paid the penalty of your wrong--if wrong it was to follow the impulse of a free heart--with a thousand tears? Are you not now to me what you have always been? And, if there must be a reckoning between us, have you not to forgive and forget far more in me than I in you? Is it reasonable to sacrifice the wife to a rigorous moral law, which the husband does not consider binding? Who has made that unwise law? Not I; nor you. Why then should you and I obey it? I tell you, the day of freedom, which is now dawning, will blow all such self-imposed laws to the four winds, and with them all the ordinances devised by a dark monkish prejudice to fetter nature and to torment our hearts."
"Whenever that day comes--and when it comes for me," replied Melitta, "I will greet it with joy. If it is a mere notion which prevents me from falling into your arms and from saying: Take me; I am yours, now and forever!--have pity on me, it makes me suffer as much as yourself. But Adalbert, I am a woman; and a woman can wait and hope for the day of release, but she cannot fight for it. And until that day comes, until I feel as free as I must be in order to be yours in honor, things must remain as they are now."
Melitta had said this with a low and sad but yet firm voice, and Oldenburg felt that it would be cruel to press her further. He took her hand, kissed it, and said,
"Never mind, Melitta! I am patient. I know that you do not make me suffer from obstinacy. That is enough for me. And then the day of release which you wait for, and which we fight for, must come sooner or later."
At that moment old Baumann knocked and entered to announce the expected visitors. Melitta passed her handkerchief over her face, while Oldenburg advanced to greet Sophie, who entered with her husband and Bemperlein by her side.
Melitta and Sophie met to-night for the first time, but the meeting was free from all ceremonious formality. The two ladies had heard so much of each other (especially Sophie of Melitta) that they knew each other down to the smallest details of their outward appearance, and then it was natural to both of them to lay aside all restraint when they felt a sympathetic attraction. Nevertheless they looked at each other with much interest as they shook hands and exchanged the first words. Sophie noticed that Melitta appeared much milder and gentler than she had expected from the great lady; and Melitta observed, on the other hand, that Sophie did not look half as serious and thoughtful as Bemperlein had made her believe of the clever and highly educated daughter of the privy councillor. Sophie saw also Baron Oldenburg for the first time, and she cast from her seat on the sofa many a trying glance at the tall man in black, who stood in the centre of the room talking to the two gentlemen. He also had never seen her before, and, on his part, observed carefully the two ladies. It struck him that both had an abundance of soft, curling hair, and in that feature, as well as in the cut of their large, expressive eyes, a certain resemblance like two roses, of which one, the darker and fuller, has entirely opened its calyx, while the other lighter one is but just unfolding the delicately-colored leaves to the light of day.
As a matter of course, Sophie was especially curious to see how Oldenburg and Melitta would behave towards each other, for, in spite of Bemperlein's assurances she had persisted in believing that there were close relations between them. But Melitta was too much of a lady of the great world, and Oldenburg had too much self-control, to show anything more than a tone of perfect politeness and mutual esteem.