At this moment came a note from the Minister's lady, wherein she excused her to-day's absence on the score of the too sad farewell which her son had this evening so strangely and as if forever bid her. However many silent thoughts this intelligence left behind in Julienne and Linda, Idoine was not drawn by it out of the lively emotion into which the previous discourse had thrown her; but, with a noble indignation, which made out of the beautiful maiden a beautiful youth, and put Minerva's helmet on her head, she made to her lofty adversary, who was less to be roused by others' passions than by opposing sentiments, this declaration of war: Certainly her aversion to marriage was chargeable only upon her other aversion to "priests"; for was the marriage bond anything else than eternal love, and did not every real love hold itself for an eternal one? A love which thinks to die at some time or other was already dead, and that which feared to live forever, feared in vain. If even friends were joined at the altar, as is said to be somewhere or other the case,[[123]] they would at most only be more sacredly attached to each other in love. One might count quite as many if not more unhappy intrigues than unhappy marriages. One might, indeed, be a mother, but not a father, without marriage, and the latter must honor the former and himself by a decent respect for morality. "I am a German," she concluded, "and respect the old knightly ladies, my ancestors, highly. Blessed is a woman like Elizabeth and a man like Götz von Berlichingen, in their holy wedlock." All at once she found herself surprised by her warmth and her fluency. "I have really," she added, smiling, "become a pedantic parson's widow. This comes of my being the highest authority in the village, and from the fact that, as in almost every cottage a happy refutation of single blessedness dwells, I do not love to let other sentiments come up here."
"O," said Julienne, pleasantly, because she saw Linda serious, "girls always talk together about love and marriage a little; they love to draw flowers for themselves out of a bride's bouquet."
"That, as you know, I could not well do," said Idoine, alluding to the sworn promise which she had been obliged to give her parents, who were suspicious of her enthusiastic boldness, never to marry below her princely rank, which, to her, according to her sharp propensities and parts, amounted to as much as celibacy. "You were right, however," pursued Julienne, and would fain continue in her mirthful mood; "love without marriage is like a bird of passage, who seats himself upon a mast, which itself moves along. I praise, for my part, a fine, green-rooted tree, which stays there and admits a nest."
Contrary to her custom, Linda did not laugh at this, but went alone, without saying a word, down into the garden and the moonlight.
"The Countess," said Idoine to her friend, troubled about the meaning of that silent seriousness, "has not, I hope, misunderstood us." "No," said Julienne, with glad looks at the thought of having gained her point so far that the discourse had made an impression on Linda; "she has the rarest gift to understand, and the most common misfortune not to be understood." "The two things always go together," said she, remained a moment in thought, looked at Julienne, and at last said, "I must be entirely true. I knew the Countess's relation through my sister. Friend, is he entirely worthy of her?"—a question whose source the Princesse could seek only in the supposition of revengeful insinuations on the part of the Princess.
"Entirely!" answered she, strongly. "I gladly believe you," replied Idoine, with rapidity in her tones, but tranquillity in her looks. She looked longer and longer upon the sister of Albano; her great, blue eyes gleamed more and more strongly; Minerva's helmet was removed from the maidenly head; the soft countenance appeared lovely, tranquil, clear, not more strongly moved than a prayer to God permits it to be, and with as little of passionate desire as a glorified saint has, and yet shining more and more celestially. Julienne's fair heart leaped up; she saw Liana again, as if she had come from heaven to press the beloved man with a blessing to a new heart; she said, with tears, "Thou, thou didst once give him peace." Idoine was surprised; two tears gushed from her bright eyes; with emphasis she answered, "Gave!" in an agitated and passionate manner pressed herself to her friend, saying, "I loved you long ago," and they said nothing further.
Quickly she collected herself, reminded Julienne of Linda's night-blindness, and begged her to go directly after her as her friend, although she herself would gladly steal this service from her if she dared. Julienne hastened into the garden, but remembered with emotion that Idoine had not reciprocated her thou; Idoine avoided the female thou. Unlike the Oriental women, who leave off the veil before relations, she, like her fair French neighbors, transferred the delicate laws of politesse into matters of the heart.
Julienne found her friend in the garden in a dark bower, still, with deep, sunken eyes, buried in dreams. Linda started up: "She loves him!" said she, with pain and heat. "Hear it, Julienne: she loves him!" The latter, upon this utterance of a truth with which she had herself come directly from Idoine's arms, could do nothing but express her terror; but Linda took it for astonishment, and went on: "By Heaven! my eye has detected her. O, once she was not by far so lively and earnest and sensitive and soft. Her deep emotion at beholding me, and her weeping at Roquairol's voice because it resembles his, and her long and earnest marriage-sermon, and her soul-like glances at me,—O, did she not see him in the great, glorious moment when the blooming one knelt weeping, and lifted his godlike head to heaven, and called down the saint and peace? O, that she should have so much as ventured to personate either before him! And can she forget that?"
Julienne at last got the word: "Well, suppose it, then; is not Idoine, however, noble and good?" "I have nothing to say against her or for her," answered Linda. "But when he sees her now, when he finds the saintly one once more like the departed, when his whole first love returns and triumphs over the second ... By Heaven! No," she added, proudly and strongly, "no, that I cannot brook; I will not beg, will not weep nor resign, but I will battle for him. Am not I, too, beautiful? I am more so, and my spirit is more boldly shaped for his. What can she give which I cannot offer him three times over? I will give it to him,—my fortune, my being, even my liberty; I can marry him as well as she; I will ... O speak, Julienne! But thou art a cold German, and secretly attached to her from like godliness. O God, Julienne! am I, then, beautiful? Assure me of it, I pray. Am I not at all like the glorified one? Should I not look exactly as he would wish! Why was I not his first love, and his Liana, and even dead too? Good Julienne, why dost thou not speak?"
"Only let me speak," said she, although not with entire truth. She had been struck and punished by Linda's home-coming truth, and by her own consciousness that she had laid out a plan of doing away Linda's prejudices against marriage, the very supports of which plan had been anticipated and reckoned over by Linda as justifications of jealousy, and that she had set a rock in motion on the point of a rock, and brought it to the point of falling, which she could now no longer manage. She was confounded, too, yes, angered, by what she felt to be a strange impetuosity of love, before which she could not at all speak out the Job's-comfort that Albano would always act according to the obligations of fidelity. Beautifully was she surprised by the prospered conversion to a readiness for marriage. With some uncertainty as to the result, however, on the part of Linda, who by the moonlight and the mild, distant mountain-music had only been made more stormy, she continued: "I would not willingly interrupt thee with praise of thy marriage resolution; in all other particulars thou art wrong. To be sure, she is now more serious; but she stood at the deathbed of her likeness, and saw herself grow pale in Liana; that does much to chasten. Touching him, had he seen thee earlier ..."