“That is their joy, their happiness!” said he. “It might have been my joy also, my happiness!” lay in the sigh which he heaved. His lips did not move, his thoughts alone spoke their silent language. “I might have stood on a level with these; my soul might have been chained to the dust, and yet it would have been the same which I now possess, with which I long to compass all worlds! the same, endowed with this sentiment of pride, which drives me on to active exertion. My fate wavered whether I should become one such as these or whether I should rise into that circle which the world calls the higher. The mist-form did not sink down into the mire, but rose above into the high refreshing air. And am I become happy through this?” His eye stared upon the bright disk of the moon. Two large tears rolled over his pale cheeks. “Infinite Omnipotence! I acknowledge Thy existence! Thou dost direct all; upon Thee will I depend!”
A melancholy smile passed over his lips; he stepped back into the chamber, folded his hands, prayed, and felt rest and peace.
CHAPTER XII
“The travellers roll through the world of men,
Like rose leaves in a stream.
The past will ne’er come back again,
But fade into a dream.”—B. S. INGEMANN.
The following day, the last before Otto’s departure, whilst he and Wilhelm were walking in the garden, Sophie approached them with a garland made of oak-leaves: this was intended for Otto; they were now really to lose him.
“Sophie will scarcely be up so early to-morrow morning,” said Louise; “she is, therefore, obliged to present her garland to-day. I am never missing at the breakfast-table, as you well know; and I shall then bring my bouquet.”
“I shall preserve both until we meet again,” returned Otto; “they are vignettes to my beautiful summer-dream. When I again sit in Copenhagen, when the rain patters and the winter approaches with cold and a joyless sky, I shall still see before me Funen with its green woods, flowers, and sunshine; it will appear to me that it must still be so there, and that the garland and bouquet are only withered because they are with me in the winter cold.”
“In Copenhagen we shall meet again!” said Sophie.
“And I shall see you again with the swallows!” said Louise, “when my flowers spring up again, when we have again warm summer days! As far as I am concerned, you belong to the summer, and not to the cold, calm winter.”