The following days were spent in visiting and in receiving visitors. On every post-day Otto sought through the leathern bag of the postman, but he found no letter from German Heinrich, and heard nothing from him. “I have been deceived,” said he, “and I feel myself glad about it! She, the horrible one, is not my sister!”
There was a necessity for him to go away, far from home, and yet he felt no longing after the mountains of Switzerland or the luxuriant beauty of the south.
“Nature will only weaken me! I will not seek after it. Man it is that I require: these egotistical, false beings—these lords of everything! How we flatter our weaknesses and admire our virtues! Whatever serves to advance our own wishes we find to be excellent. To those who love us, we give our love in return. At the bottom, whom do I love except myself? Wilhelm? My friendship for him is built upon the foundation,—I cannot do without thee! Friendship is to me a necessity. Was I not once convinced that I adored Sophie, and that I never could bear it if she were lost to me? and yet there needed the conviction ‘She loves thee not,’ and my strong feeling was dead. Sophie even seems to me less beautiful; I see faults where I formerly could only discover amiabilities! Now, she is to me almost wholly a stranger. As I am, so are all. Who is there that feels right lovingly, right faithfully for me, without his own interest leading him to do so? Rosalie? My old, honest Rosalie? I grew up before her eyes like a plant which she loved. I am dear to her as it! When her canary-bird one morning lay dead in its cage, she wept bitterly and long; she should never more hear it sing, she should never more look after its cage and its food. It was the loss of it which made her weep. She missed that which had been interesting to her. I also interested her. Interest is the name for that which the world calls love. Louise?” He almost spoke the name aloud, and his thoughts dwelt, from a strong combination of circumstances, upon it. “She appears to me true, and capable of making sacrifices! but is not she also very different from all the others? How often have I not heard Sophie laugh at her for it—look down upon her!” And Otto’s better feeling sought in vain for a shadow of self-love in Louise, a single selfish motive for her noble conduct.
“Away from Denmark! to new people! Happy he who can always be on the wing, making new friendships, and speedily breaking them off! At the first meeting people wear their intellectual Sunday apparel; every point of light is brought forth; but soon and the festival-day is over, and the bright points have vanished.”
“We will set off next week!” said Wilhelm, “and then it shall be—
‘Over the rushing blue waters away!
We will speed along shores that are verdant and gay!’
Away over the moors, up the Rhine, through the land of champagne to the city of cities, the life-animating Paris!”
CHAPTER XLII
“A maiden stood musing, gentle and mild. I grasped the hand
of the friendly child, but the lovely fawn shyly
disappeared.... From the Rhine to the Danish Belt,
beautiful and lovely maidens are found in palaces and tents;
yet nobody pleases me.”—SCHMIDT VON LÜBECK.