"The servants suspect something already," he thought, "and soon all the world will wonder what has happened. Old Jutta is right; God alone knows what misery has fallen on my house, and God alone can help, for I know not what to do."
He threw himself down on the sofa, and thought it all over again, but he could not keep still, and soon started up and began to walk up and down the room again.
"How foolish it was of me to say that God alone could help!" he thought. "God can not be expected to work miracles for our individual needs. What can God do but let him die, or me?—that would solve the difficulty."
He pressed his burning brow on the window-pane, and stared out into the darkness. "I possessed a treasure, and I did not know its value until another, who was wiser than I, came and took it from me. Perhaps—perhaps I deserve it....
"Deserve it!" he repeated. "No, no, she is my wife, and whoever takes her from me is a robber and a coward....
"He is a coward!... He, who always used to be such a good, straightforward man. I can scarcely believe that he could have been so wicked.... It must have been her fault—her fault alone.
"But oh, is a wife like other property, as I have always thought? Is she no more than any other chattel, such as an ornament or a house? Has she not a will like every other human being? And has that will ever been consulted?...
"That was the sin, and now we are suffering from its consequences.
"I was not to blame in those old days; nor was she. And we have lived irreproachably for many years. The punishment for that sin has come upon us now; and on which of us is the expiation to fall?...
"Can I give her up? If I do, my heart will break; but my heart must not decide. I must not think of myself; but try to find out whether it would not be a sin against God and the law. Ought I to let my wife leave me, and become the mistress of a Christian, or even become a Christian herself? Ought I to bring such shame upon the name of our God and upon his people?"