“But, mother, this is impossible, I do not love the count, I cannot marry him! Have pity on me, mother!” she sank down on her knees, and raised her hands imploringly. “I repeat it; I love Frederick Schiller!”
“Well, then, love Frederick Schiller, if you will,” said her ladyship, with a shrug of her shoulders, “but marry Count Kunheim. It is given to no woman to marry the object of her first love, to make the ideal of her heart her husband. You will only share the common lot of woman; you will have to renounce your first love and make a sensible marriage. I can tell you, however, for your consolation, that marriages of the latter sort generally prove much happier in the sequel than these moneyless love-marriages. When hunger stalks in at the door love flies out at the window. On the other hand, the most lovelorn and desolate heart will finally recover, when given a daily airing in a carriage-and-four. Drive in your carriage, and accord me a seat in it; I am weary. I have been travelling life-long on the stony streets, and my feet are wounded! Marie, I entreat you, my child, take pity on the poor mother, who has suffered so much, take pity on the brother, who must give up his career in life, unless we can give him some assistance. He would be compelled to leave the army, and perhaps his only resource would be to hire himself out as a copyist to some lawyer, in order to earn a subsistence. Marie, dear Marie, I entreat you, take pity on your family! Our happiness is in your hands!”
She made no reply, she was still on her knees, had covered her countenance with her hands, and was weeping bitterly. Her mother gazed down upon her without an emotion of pity, her broad, fleshy face and little gray eyes expressed no sympathy whatever.
“Be reasonable, Marie,” said her ladyship, after a short interval, “consider the happiness of your mother and brother, rather than the momentary caprice of your heart. Cast aside these dreams, this sensitiveness, and seek your own happiness in that of your family.”
“It shall be as you say,” said Marie, rising slowly from her knees. “I will sacrifice my own happiness for your sake, but I make one condition.”
“And that is—?”
“That all these little mysteries and intrigues be discontinued, and Schiller be told the whole truth. No more signs are to be given requesting him not to come; he is no longer to be made use of and yet denied at the same time. He must not be permitted to hope that his addresses will be accepted; he must learn that they will be rejected. If he should then still desire to visit us, our door must be open to him at all times, and the light must never be placed in my window again to warn him off. This is my condition. Accept it, and I am ready to cover my face with a mask, and play the rôle which the necessities of life compel me to assume.”
“I will accept it,” replied Madame von Arnim, “although I consider it very impolitic. Schiller’s nature is violent, easily excited, and deficient in that aristocratic cultivation which represses all the movements of natural impulse. For instance, if he should come here this evening, a very disagreeable scene might ensue; he would be capable of reproaching me or yourself quite regardless of the presence of others.”
“And he could reproach us with justice,” sighed Marie, “I am resolved rather to bear his anger than to deceive him any longer.”
“But I am not,” rejoined her ladyship, “I have a perfect horror of these scènes dramatiques. But you will have it so, you made it your condition, and nothing remains for me but to accept it. And now, be discreet, be sensible; induce Count Kunheim to declare himself this evening, if possible, in order that Schiller may hear of your betrothal as a fait accompli.”