Clotilda came back with a countenance illumined with joy, and with eyes which had wept much, and with heavenly features in which shone an unnamable, not so much more ardent as more tender, love. Not for some time could she sufficiently command her emotions to communicate to Victor something of the interview: for I think I can detect that it was not all. The Parson's wife—Clotilda related—received her with a look full of crushing sorrows, but neither with coldness nor suspicion. At first neither could do anything but weep, and they spoke not a word; Clotilda was still more overcome, and her tears still continued to flow, when she began to relate her betrothal. She laid the hand of her friend upon her heart, and said: "Now is our friendship severely tried. I still believe in yours,—believe in mine!—O only this once, dear friend, stand firm! Heavy secrets, over which I have no right and to which I have only in a small degree the key, bring us all so near to these dreadful misunderstandings. Only this time rely upon it firmly, that you and I are changing our relation to each other as little as our characters."—Here the Parson's wife beheld her with a great look in which the old love for Victor still gleamed on, and then embraced her all at once with dry eyes and said: "Yes, I rely upon you, do you what you will, and though I should at last be the only soul left."—The last addition would at another time have offended Clotilda; ah, it could not do so now; O, she was glad to have something to forgive!
After the narration she told her friend, that, in case the invisibleness and the silence of his Lordship lasted much longer, she should perhaps, rather than wait, undertake the toilsome journey to London to her and Flamin's mother, in order to persuade the latter, as the solution of all these dangerous riddles, to come to Germany.—Ah, could Victor's self-sacrificing heart make an objection to the sacrifices of others?—No! his woe was redoubled, but also his respect and love.
In this situation of things there came to Clotilda a short letter from Emanuel.
* * * * *
Last evening my Julius came to me with a basket full of garden-earth and begged me for flower-pots and for hyacinths, because, he said, he was bringing earth for both. He had fetched the soil for his flowers from the hill of thy Giulia.—I drew his white- and red-blooming face, which resembles the pink with the red point, to my breast and said, 'Ah, who tends the flowers of man, when he has passed away?' And I meant him too with his tender bloom, into which may sorrow never fling its heavy rain-drops!—O Victor and Clotilda, when the lilies of the earth benumb me and put me into the last slumber, then adopt ye my blind Julius, and let this soul full of love be guarded by your loving souls!
"Clotilda! I now beg or wish something of you, which you perhaps can hardly grant. Ah, come on the longest day to Maienthal, thou fair soul! Cannot thy heart bear it? Didst thou not accompany thy Giulia even to the blind gate of the grave and there see her soul soar up and her body fall to the earth? O, if thou and thy friend, in the last hour, when life folds up its flashing peacock-mirrors and lets them sink heavy and colorless into the grave, could stay by me, as the two first angels of the future world!—For at the moment when the whole earth like a shell breaks off from the heart, the naked heart clings faster to hearts and would fain warm itself against death, and when all bonds of earth tear away, the flower-chains of love bloom on. O Clotilda! how heavenly to close my life in the presence of thy Elysian form! I should already be hovering around thee unfettered on the wings of eternity, to look upon thee, and if I could not wipe away thy tears with the ethereal hand, I would console thy heavy heart with a strange rapture! Ay, if man were blinded in the forecourt of the second world, still thy form would remain as an after-shining sun-image before my closed eyes!—O Clotilda, if thou shouldst come! Ah, probably thou wilt not come; and only the Eternal, who numbers the hours of the second life, knows when I shall see thee again, on the second earth, and how great are there the pains of longing. And so then farewell, and move on, lofty soul, in thy path beneath the clouds,—when I behold thy friend, thou wilt touchingly stand before me,—and when I die on his heart, I shall pray for thee, and say to God: Give her to me again, when on her head the flower-wreath of earth is great enough—or the crown of thorns too great!—Clotilda, never change, and then I shall not ask Destiny: How long will she smile down below there, how long will she weep there? Never change!
"Emanuel."
The two fell softly on each other's hearts and were silent over their thoughts; Emanuel's love glorified theirs, and Victor had too great a respect for his friend and his beloved to console the latter. He did not once ask her, how she answered Emanuel's prayer; he knew that she must refuse it, because otherwise her heart would break beside the loved one.
When at last he parted from her and from St. Luna, and she was compelled to reflect that in a few days he would go to Maienthal,—and when in his eyes and hers tears stood which indicated more than one sorrow, and which not, man dries away but death or God,—then Victor during the farewell looked upon her with the mute question, "Shall I say nothing to our beloved?"—Clotilda's soul remained most erect under burdens, and she never appeared greater than through tears, as the stars in a heaven full of rain come out brighter and larger; she looked up to heaven as if asking, "Couldst thou, all-gracious One, crush us so deeply?" then she weighed with oppressed heart the heavy grief,—then she found it too great for utterance—and too great for endurance,—and she no longer believed it, and said ambiguously, with wet eyes and with ambiguous smile, "No, Victor, we shall surely all meet again!"
Victor went off not long before the two crowned bathing-guests arrived with a considerable retinue.—I remark it with quite as little resentment as Victor felt on the occasion, that Agatha, notwithstanding the maternal example, broke off entirely, first with Victor, i. e. with the Antipode and Anti-Christ of her beloved brother; secondly and still more with Clotilda.