"Terror," exclaimed the Professor, displeased, "terror of spirits. Rarely is life among strangers so easy and comfortable as this residence is to us; there may be discord everywhere, and it is our own fault if we allow it to master us."
"Do not go," cried Ilse again. "Yes, there are spirits that pursue me, they hang day and night above my head. Do not go, Felix," she exclaimed, raising her hand; "it is not the manuscript alone that allures you, but the woman who awaits you there. This I have known ever since the first day we came to this town. I see how the magic of her superficial soul ensnares you. I have until to-day struggled against this fear, from the confidence I had in my loved husband. If you go now, Felix, when I would like to cling to you, when I seek every moment for comfort from your voice, I shall begin to doubt you and to have the fearful thought that my trouble is indifferent to you, because you have become cold to me."
"What are you thinking of, Ilse?" cried the scholar, horrified; "is it my wife that speaks thus? when have I ever concealed my feelings from you? and can you not read in my soul as in an open book? Then, was it this that lay so heavy on your mind? Just what I should not have considered possible," he said, frankly and sorrowfully.
"No, no," cried Ilse, beside herself; "I am unjust, I know it; do not attend to my words. I trust you; I cling to you. Oh! Felix, I should be driven to despair if this support breaks under me."
She threw her arms around his neck, and sobbed. Her husband embraced her, and tears came into his eyes at the grief of his wife.
"Remain with me, my Felix," continued Ilse, weeping. "Do not leave me alone just now. I have still a childish, simple heart. Have patience with me. I have been ill at ease here; I do not know why. I cling to you, and I tremble lest you should be alienated from me. I know that you are mine, and I struggle with the fearful foreboding that I shall lose you here. When you go out of the house, it seems to me as if I must take an eternal farewell, and when you return, I look doubtfully at you, as if you had changed towards me in a few hours. I am unhappy, Felix, and unhappiness makes one distrustful. I have become weak and faint-hearted, and I am afraid of telling you, because I fear that you will on that account have less respect for me. Remain here, my beloved; do not go to the Princess--at least, not to-morrow."
"If not to-morrow," he said, cheerfully, "then the next day, or some other day. I cannot forego this short journey. To give it up would be a wrong that we must not take upon ourselves. The longer I delay. Ilse, the longer you will be kept within these walls. Even from your point of view, is it not prudent to do quickly what would make us free?"
Ilse released herself from his embrace.
"You speak sensibly at a moment when I had hoped for a far different tone from your heart," she said quietly. "I know, Felix, that you do not wish to give me pain, and I hope that you are true in what you now say, and conceal nothing from me. But I feel in the depths of my heart a long-accustomed pang that has often come over me in sorrowful days since I have known you. You think differently from what I do, and you feel differently in many things. The individual and his sufferings signify little to you in comparison to the great thoughts that you carry about with you. You stand on a height, in a clear atmosphere, and have no sympathy with the anguish and trouble in the valley at your feet. Clear is the air, but cold, and a chill seizes me, when I see it."
"It is the nature of a man," said the Professor, more deeply moved by the restrained grief of his wife than by her loud complaints.