"I hear your tones of love," she exclaimed, passionately, throwing her arms round his neck. She led him into the grotto, stroked the drops of water out of his damp hair, and kissed him. "I have you, my beloved one; I cling firmly to you, and no power shall ever again separate me from you. Sit here, you long-suffering man; I hold you fast. Let me hear all the trouble you have gone through."
The Scholar held his wife in his arms, and related all. He felt her tremble when he told her his adventures.
"Indignant anger and terror impelled me along the road to Rossau after the Sovereign," he said, concluding his account, "and the delay for change of horses seemed insupportable to me. In the town I found a crush of vehicles worse than on a market-day; before the inn a confused noise of wheels, and the cries of men, drovers, and court-lackeys, who could not cross the water. In the city I learned from strangers that the foe of our happiness had been overtaken by a fate which pursued him to the water. We have done with him, and are free. They called out to me that the bridge on the way to you was broken. I sprang out of the carriage in order to seek the footpath over the hills and the road behind the garden. Then the dog of our landlord ran past me, and a coachman from our city came up to me and stated that he had brought Fritz and Laura to the town, but that they had gone further down the stream in order to find a crossing. You may believe that I would not wait."
"I knew that you would seek this path," said Ilse. "To-day you are come to me--to me alone; you belong only to me; you are given to me anew, betrothed to me for the second time. The habitations of men around us have disappeared; we stand alone in the wild cave of the dwarfs. You, my Felix, to whom the whole world belongs, who understand all the secrets of life, who know the past and divine the future--you have nothing now for a shelter but this cleft of the rock, and no covering but the kerchief of poor Anna for your weary limbs. The rock is still warm, and I will strew the grass of our hills as a couch for you. You have nothing, my hero in the wilderness, but the rocks and herbs, and your Ilse by your side."
The stillness of night reigns about; the stream rushes gently around the roots of the brambles; and the white mists hang like a thick curtain over the cave. Dusky phantoms glide along the valley; they hover, in long white dresses, past the rocky entrance, down into the open country, where a fresh breath of air dissolves them. High above, the moon spreads its white, glimmering tent, woven of rays of light and watery vapors; and the old juggler laughs merrily over the valley and down upon the rocky grotto. As the delusive moonlight harasses mortals by its unreal halo, so do they harass themselves by the pictures of their own fancy, in love and hate, in good and bad humor; their life passes away whilst they are thinking of their duty and err in doing it, whilst they seek truth and dream in seeking it. The spirit flies high, and the heart beats warm, but the hobgoblin of fancy works incessantly amidst the reality of life; the cleverest deceive themself, and the best are disappointed by their own zeal. Sleep in peace, Ilse. Thou sittest upon thy low stone bench and boldest in thy lap the head of thy husband. Even in this hour of bliss, thou feelest the sorrow that came to him and thee, and a gentle sigh sounds through the cavern like the movement of a moth's wings against the walls of rock. Sleep in peace. For thou hast lived, in the weeks gone by, through that which for all future time will be a gain to thee. Thou hast learned to seek in the depths of thy own life judgment and firm resolve. It would not be fitting. Ilse, that the lightly-woven tale of that which thou hast suffered, should separately bring up the lofty questions of eternal moment that thou hast raised--thy doubts and thy fierce battles of conscience. That were a too heavy burden for our frail bark. Yet as the mariner at sea, his eye fixed upon things below, recognizes in the waters beneath the reflection of the clouds of heaven, so will thy attainment of freedom, Ilse, be seen in the reflection of thy thoughts, in thy countenance, thy manner, and thy conduct.
Slumber in peace, you children of light! Many of your hopes have been deceived, and much innocent trust has been destroyed by rough reality. The forms of a past time--forms that you have borne reverentially in your hearts--have laid a real hold on your life; for what a man thinks, and what a man dreams, becomes a power over him. What once has entered in the soul continues to work actively in it, exalting and impelling it onward, debasing and destroying it. About you, too, a game of fantastic dreams has played. If at times it has given you pain, it has still not impaired the power of your life, for the roots of your happiness lie as deep as it is granted man, that transitory flower, to rest in the soil of earth. Slumber in peace under the roof of the wild rock; the warm air of the grotto breathes round your couch, and the ancient vaulting of the roof spreads protectingly over your weary eyes! Around you the forest sleeps and dreams; the old inhabitants of the rock sit at the entrance of the cave. I know not whether they are the elves in whom Ilse does not believe, or the old friends of the scholar, the little goat-footed Pans, who blow their sylvan songs on their reed pipes. They hold their fingers to their mouth, and blow so gently in their pipe that it sounds sometimes like the rushing of the water or the soft sigh of a sleeping bird.
CHAPTER XLII.
TOBIAS BACHHUBER.
Ilse gently touched the head of her husband. Felix opened his eyes, threw his arms round his wife, and for a moment looked in confusion at the wild scene about him. The mist hovered like a white curtain before the opening of the cave; the first dawn of morning cast a glow on the jagged projections of the dark vault; the redbreast sang, and the blackbird piped; the pure light of day was approaching.
"Do you not hear something?" whispered Ilse.