"And suppose that we did not meet a few days ago for the first time; suppose I had held you in my arms when you were a boy four or five years old; suppose the interest I took in you sprang from a much deeper source than our business relations, was connected with all the poetry and beauty of my life: what then, my dear young friend, what then?"
"Did you know my mother?" asked Gotthold, with a sudden presentiment; "you must have known her."
"I knew and--loved her. To know and love her was in those days the same thing to me, nay, even at this moment they still seem to belong together, like light and warmth."
"And my mother--loved you. Speak frankly, and explain the mystery that has always rested upon the relations between my parents."
Wollnow shook his head. "No, no," said he, "that is not it; even if it seemed so for a moment, it was only seeming, and it is the sorrowful pride of my life that I did not allow myself to be dazzled by this semblance; that through it I perceived the rugged path duty and honor commanded me to tread."
"You increase the mystery instead of dispelling it," said Gotthold.
"So many things in this drama have remained mysterious, even to me," replied Wollnow, covering his eyes with his hand; "but one fact is plain, that a man of your father's stamp, so highly gifted, so glowing with the holy passion of truth, could not fail to arouse an overmastering love in the heart of your no less gifted, no less enthusiastic mother. I assure you, my friend, if ever there was a love such as you described a short time ago, it was that which impelled these two rare, beautiful natures towards each other, like two flames which rush together into one. Any one who witnessed the spectacle stood in silent admiration, saying: No other conclusion is possible. My poor dear friend said so, though it was a death sentence to him; I said so too, and thought my heart would break; but it was stronger than I believed, and then--I was determined to live! With that determination one can do so, my friend, although it is at first a very wretched, pitiful fragment of life."
Wollnow paused, for he felt that he could not go on calmly. After a short time he continued:
"I am not now in a condition to judge whether I have erred in allowing myself to be led on to make this confession to you, but I should certainly wrong the memory of your parents, you, my dear young friend, nay, myself, if I did not now tell you all, although the all is but little, and this little terribly significant of the sad uncertainty of human destiny.
"The handsome young couple came here. I saw them again by accident a few years after, when business chanced to bring me into this neighborhood, for I would have gone out of my way to avoid a meeting which could only cause me pain. But as I drove through Rammin, one of the wheels of my carriage broke directly in front of the parsonage. I was thrown out so violently that I dislocated my arm, and was compelled to claim your parents' hospitality for several weeks. You cannot remember me, but I can still see the curly-haired, large-eyed little boy, who played so happily at his mother's side among the beds of asters in the garden in the autumn sunlight, and, thank God, had no suspicion of the meaning of the mournful expression with which the beautiful young mother often gazed over the child's head into vacancy. Alas! for her the flowers did not bloom, the sun did not shine; everything around her was dark, and darkness was within her, in her warm young heart. And it was the same in the ardent heart of the man whom she had once so passionately loved, and who had loved her with equal fervor, who, I am perfectly sure, loved her with no less devotion at that moment, when they already seemed to hate each other, perhaps fancied they did. Oh! my dear friend, I won't preach--I won't begin our late dispute again; but how can I help touching the wound, and saying: 'Here again it was--and in a fatal manner--the want of moderation, which will not be satisfied with things as they are, will not try to make the best of circumstances, but releasing itself from commonplace conditions, strives to realize an ideal vision'? These two beautiful natures, which could offer so much, be so much to each other, considered it nothing because it was not all. She expected him to be not only the champion of the Church before whom she had at first knelt in admiration, but also to possess every virtue the intelligent, much-courted young girl had ever admired in any man. He expected her to wear, in addition to all the charms with which nature had so lavishly endowed her--I know not what mystic crown, without which all earthly beauty was valueless in the eyes of the enthusiastic apostle. And instead of trying to lessen the necessary differences between their natures as much as possible by gentleness and patience, and overlook the remnant which would still be left, out of respect for the Great Power of which we are only an infinitesimal part, both with fatal defiance increased their special gifts; he wanted to do nothing but see and read obscure writings by a glass; she, who had always been far too proud to be vain, declared that the glass told her nothing except that she was young and beautiful, as the world was, in spite of all fanatics and devotees. And now this strange conflict went on in the quiet parsonage of a little village, on an island which in those days was almost entirely secluded from all intercourse with the outside world--what marvel was it that the two unhappy combatants bled from painful wounds--and must bleed to death if they are not separated in time, the world thinks and says in such cases. I am well aware of it, but I did not think so. I said to myself: 'These two cannot forget or lose each other, even if they should place a world between them, and next to themselves the person would suffer most who might be mad enough to aid this separation.' I said this also to the young wife, who could not or would not conceal her misery from me. I spoke to her--as I thought my duty required me to do--with earnest entreaty, and I must confess that in so speaking I drowned, not the voice of my conviction, but of my own heart, which during this strange scene seemed as if it would burst my laboring breast. Now, for the first time, I learned that before the right man came I had been dearer to the beautiful girl than I had ever ventured to hope or suspect--learned it in broken words and hints which rose from her glowing, passionate heart like sparks from a blazing fire. How can I deny that I was touched by this fire, that it became inexpressibly difficult for me to withstand it? Yes, my friend, I struggled like the patriarch of old on that wondrous night, and from my heaving breast, like his, the magic words were gasped forth, 'I will not let thee go, except Thou bless me.'