The Lost Manuscript: A Novel

by Gustav Freytag

They say he went to the same country to which his brother had gone before him--far off in the West.

He passed away, he hid his head--an unfaithful servant, and at the same time a victim of science. All his life long he had pondered over written words; now the living words, which penetrated from another soul into his, drove him from his home. Day and night he had been surrounded with the letters of books and learned writings which had flowed from the pen on to the white sheets; but the blessing of living words which pass from the mouth to the ear, and echo from heart to heart, had failed him at the right time; for what is in common use with us is also our highest boon. Its power is as mysterious to us to-day as it was to our ancestors; the generation of our literary period, accustomed to contemplate tones in their imaginations, and to estimate the powers of nature by measure and weight, seldom think how powerfully the echoing word from the human heart rules within us; it is mistress and servant, it elevates and annihilates us, it produces disease and health. Happy the living being in whose ear it sounds full and pure, who incessantly receives the soft sound of love and the hearty call of friendship. He who is deprived of the blessing of the conversation which flows from warm hearts, wanders among others as a living being in whom the spirit is separated from the body, or like a book that one opens, makes use of, and puts away at pleasure. The Magister had sinned by the written word; a cry of agony uttered by a human voice had frightened him into the misty and silent distance.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

BEFORE THE CRISIS.

The cattle lowed and the sheep-bells tinkled, and the springing blades of wheat waved in the wind. The eldest daughter of the family was again walking in the garden, surrounded by her brothers and sisters. What has become of the glad brightness of your eye and the hearty child's laugh, Lady Ilse? Your countenance has become serious and your demeanor subdued; your looks scan critically the men about you and the paths that you tread, and calm commands sound from your lips. Your home has not made your heart light, nor given you back again what you lost among strangers.

But it zealously exercises its right to be loved by you and to show you love; it recalls familiar images to your soul, and old recollections awake at every step; the people whom you fostered faithfully in your heart, the animals that you cared for, and the trees that you planted, greet you, and labor busily to cover with bright colors what lies gloomily within you.

The first evening was painful. When Ilse, accompanied by her neighbor, entered her home a fugitive, striving to conceal what tormented her, amidst the terror of her father and the inquisitive questions of her brothers and sisters, anger and dismay once more threw their black shadows over her. But on the breast of her father, under the roof of a secure house, together with the feeling of safety, her old energy revived, and she was able to conceal from the eyes of her loved ones that which was not her secret alone.

Another painful hour came. Ilse was sitting late in the evening, as years before, on her chair opposite her father. After her story was told, the strong man looked down anxiously, used hard words concerning her husband, and cursed the other. When he told her that even in her father's house danger threatened her, when he desired her to be cautious at every step, and when he told her that in her childhood there had been a dark rumor that a maiden from the house on the rock, a child of a former possessor, had been the victim of a distinguished prince, she raised her hands to heaven. Her father seized them and drew her towards him.

"We are wrong to forget in an uncertain future how mercifully Providence has guarded you. I hold you by the hand and you stand on the soil of your home. We must do what the day requires, and trust everything else to a higher Being. As for the talk of strangers we care not; they are weather-cocks. Be calm and have confidence."

The younger children chattered innocently; they asked about the charming life at the capital, they wished to know accurately what their sister had gone through, and above all how the Sovereign of the country had treated Ilse, he whom they thought of as a holy Christ, as the unwearied dispenser of joy and happiness. But the elder ones were more cautious in their language without exactly knowing why, with that kind of natural tact which children show towards those whom they love. Ilse accompanied her sister Clara through the upper floor, they arranged the room for the guests who were expected, and placed an immense bunch of flowers in the room which Mr. Hummel was to occupy. Her brothers took her through the kitchen-garden into the narrow valley, and showed her the new wooden bridge over the water to the grotto, which their father had built as a surprise for Ilse. Ilse passed by the swollen brook, the water rushed yellow and muddy over the rocks, it had overflowed the small strip of meadow by its banks and flowed in a strong stream down the valley to the town. Ilse sought the place where she once, under the foliage and wild plants, lay concealed, when she read in the eyes of her Felix the acknowledgement of his love. This cosy nook was also flooded; the stream ran muddily over it, the flowers were broken down and washed away, the alder bushes covered to their upper branches, and reeds and discolored foam hung round them: only the white stem of a birch rose out of the devastation, and the flood whirled round its lowest branches.