As my prospects were now gradually improving, I took them to be more promising than they really were, and I thought the more about coming to a speedy explanation, since go public an intimacy could not go on much longer without misconstruction. And, as is usual in such cases, we did not expressly say it to one another; but the feeling of being mutually pleased in every way, the full conviction that a separation was impossible, the confidence reposed in one another,—all this produced such a seriousness, that I, who had firmly resolved never again to get involved in any troublesome connexion of the kind, and who found myself, nevertheless, entangled in this, without the certainty of a favorable result, was actually beset with a heaviness of mind, to get rid of which I plunged more and more in indifferent worldly affairs, from which apart from my beloved I had no care to derive either profit or pleasure.
A Betrothal.
In this strange situation, the like of which many, no doubt, have with pain experienced, there came to our aid a female friend of the family, who saw through characters and situations very clearly. She was called Mademoiselle Delf; she presided with her elder sister over a little business in Heidelberg, and on several occasions had received many favors from the greater Frankfort commission-house. She had known and loved Lili from her youth; she was quite a peculiar person, of an earnest, masculine look, and with an even, firm hasty step. She had had peculiar reason to adapt herself to the world, and hence she understood it, in a certain sense at least. She could not be called intriguing; she was accustomed to consider distant contingencies, and to carry out her plans in silence: but then she had the gift of seeing an opportunity, and if she found people wavering betwixt doubt and resolution, at the moment when everything depended upon decision, she skilfully contrived to infuse into their minds such a force of character, that she seldom failed to accomplish, her purpose. Properly speaking she had no selfish ends; to have done anything, to have completed anything, especially to have brought about a marriage, was reward enough for her. She had long since seen through our position, and, in repeated visits, had carefully observed the state of affairs, so that she had finally convinced herself that the attachment must be favored; that our plans, honestly but not very skilfully taken in hand and prosecuted, must be promoted, and that this little romance be brought to a close as speedily as possible.
For many years she had enjoyed the confidence of Lili's mother. Introduced by me to my parents, she had managed to make herself agreeable to them; for her rough sort of manner is seldom offensive in an imperial city, and backed by cleverness and tact, is even welcome. She knew very well our wishes and our hopes; her love of meddling made her see in all this a call upon her good offices; in short she had a conversation with our parents. How she commenced it, how she put aside the difficulties which must have stood in her way, I know not; but she came to us one evening and brought the consent. "Take each other by the hand!" cried she, in her pathetic yet commanding manner. I stood opposite to Lili and offered her my hand; she, not indeed hesitatingly, but still slowly, placed hers in it. After a long and deep breath we fell with lively emotion into each other's arms.
It was a strange degree of the overruling Providence, that in the course of my singular history, I should also have experienced the feelings of one who is betrothed.
I may venture to assert, that for a truly moral man it is the pleasantest of all recollections. It is delightful to recall those feelings, which are with difficulty expressed and are hardly explained. For him the state of things is all at once changed; the sharpest oppositions are removed, the most inveterate differences are adjusted; prompting nature, ever warning reason, the tyrannizing impulses, and the sober law, which before kept up a perpetual strife within us, all are now reconciled in friendly unity, and at the festival, so universally celebrated with solemn rites, that which was forbidden is commanded, and that which was penal is raised to an inviolable duty.
The reader will learn with moral approval that from this time forward a certain change took place in me. If my beloved had hitherto been looked upon as beautiful, graceful, and attractive, now she appeared to me a being of superior worth and excellence. She was as it were a double person: her grace and loveliness belonged to me,—that I felt as formerly; but the dignity of her character, her self-reliance, her confidence in all persons remained her own. I beheld it, I looked through it, I was delighted with it as with a capital of which I should enjoy the interest as long as I lived.
There is depth and significance in the old remark: on the summit of fortune one abides not long. The consent of the parties on both sides, so gained in such a peculiar manner by Demoiselle Delf, was now ratified silently and without further formality. But as soon as we believe the matter to be all settled—as soon as the ideal, as we may well call it, of a betrothal is over, and it begins to pass into the actual and to enter soberly into facts, then too often comes a crisis. The outward world is utterly unmerciful, and it has reason, for it must maintain its authority at all costs; the confidence of passion is very great, and we see it too often wrecked upon the rocks of opposing realities. A young married couple who enter upon life, unprovided with sufficient means, can promise themselves no honey-moon, especially in these latter times; the world immediately presses upon them with incompatible demands, which, if not satisfied, make the young couple appear ridiculous.
Of the insufficiency of the means which for the attainment of my end, I had anxiously scraped together, I could not before be aware, because they had held out up to a certain point; but now the end was drawing nearer, I saw that matters were not quite what they ought to be.