"Our flight from Paris had been so sudden, and was for Leonora so entirely the result of a momentary impulse--her sickness, following immediately afterwards, had so completely broken down all her energies that she had willingly acceded to all my arrangements, and was only now coming to a clear understanding of our situation--I had not thought of it at first, and became aware of it only now through Leonora's manner towards me--that in this dependence on a man whom she had shamefully betrayed, and in the constant company of him before whom she would have loved to hide herself in the lowest depth, she suffered probably the severest punishment that could have been inflicted upon a person in whom the last spark of honor and self-respect was not extinguished. Leonora did not hesitate to say so; but she added, 'the punishment is severe but just; it was the only way, perhaps, to teach me how grievously I had sinned against you.' While Leonora found thus a soothing comfort for her conscience in her deep repentance, I had in my unspeakable sorrow only one very modest consolation: to act towards Leonora as my conscience dictated. I was at liberty to drain the cup of sorrow to the very last drop. That was the fulfilment of all the precious happiness of which I had dreamt so much in the golden days of Fichtenau, and even later in the dark nights of my imprisonment in the fortress! This pale, feeble form--that walked slowly along the sea-coast in the evening sunlight, hanging on my arm and never lifting up the weary head--she by whose sick-bed I sat watching day after day, when sickness confined her in her room, and in whose broken heart it had become my duty to pour soothing balm, of which I stood so much in need myself--this was the girl whom I had chosen to be my wife, and in whom I had worshipped, full of bright hopes, the mother of my children. Oh, Oswald! Oswald! the most fanatical optimist might have been appalled--the most orthodox soul might have been led to doubt if there were not after all a great deal of truth in Voltaire's assertion, that life was nothing but a mauvaise plaisanterie.
"And yet it was good for me to pass through this trial also. It was a bitter medicine; but it cured me thoroughly of that disease which others call joy of existence and pleasure in life.
"Leonora's humility in bearing her sufferings put me altogether to shame. In proportion as the disease was destroying her bodily form, the original beauty of her soul began to reappear. She had led a sinful life; when she died, she died like a saint.
"It was late in the evening. I had carried the poor sufferer, who was specially excited on that day, and anxiously yearned after air and light, in my own arms from the fisherman's cottage which we occupied, to the edge of the black basaltic rocks which here hang over the sea. She was resting on a couch formed of cushions. The sun was setting in resplendent magnificence, and just sinking into the sea. Not a breath stirred the smooth surface of the waters, and the emerald and golden lights which shone in the sky were purely and calmly reflected below, as in a mirror. Upon the pale face of the patient also fell an enchanting sheen--a rosy lie--the lie with which the sun and life scoff at the night and at death. And in that hour Leonora took leave of the sun and of life. She told me that she had always loved me, even at that moment when vanity and folly had blinded her; that her whole life since that day had been but a continuous effort to drown her remorse. She did not desire to live, even if it were possible that I should ever love her again. She felt herself to be unworthy of being my slave, much more so of being my wife. She was shuddering at the mere thought. 'Oh never, never more,' she continued, and her beautiful eyes shone with a supernatural fire, 'never upon this earth, where I have so tearfully sinned against you. But when this desecrated body has crumbled into dust, and the soul has been freed from the fetters that bound it to the dust, then I will hover around you, I will wait for you; and when you come, your soul will kiss my soul, and by that kiss I shall know that all has been atoned for, that all is forgotten and forgiven.'
"I told her that I had long since forgiven her fully, and that I now loved her with a purer and holier love than in the days of our happiness.
"I kissed, weeping, her white hands and her pale lips.
"'This is our wedding-day,' she whispered--'poor, poor man.' She sank back upon the cushions.
"I carried her, quite exhausted, back to the cottage and to her bed.
"It was the last time.
"That night Leonora died."