"No, let us stay," said Leonora, in a low voice. "If it is a secret, they will bid us go; but I should like to know what ails the fine- looking young man whom Madame von Lutzow calls a poet and a hero. Oh, I have never yet seen a poet, and this one is so handsome!"
"Let us sit down on this bench," whispered Caroline, "and—"
"Hush, let us listen!" said Leonora, sitting down.
"It is not that, then?" exclaimed the lady, who in the mean time had continued her conversation with the young man. "Your father has not rebuked his son for the quick resolve he had taken."
"No, no," said Theodore Korner, hastily, "on the contrary, my father approves my determination to enlist, and sends me his blessing. I received a very touching letter from him this morning."
"It is his affianced bride, then, that has driven our poet to despair, because he loves her more ardently than the fatherland," said Madame von Lutzow. "It is true, I cannot blame her for it, for the woman that loves has but one country—the heart of her lover, and she is homeless as soon it turns from her. But this is precisely the grand and beautiful sacrifice—that you give up for the sake of your country all that we otherwise call the greatest and holiest blessings of life—your affianced bride; your pleasant, comfortable existence; a fine, honorable position, and a future full of a poet's fame and splendor. It is, indeed, a sacrifice, but a sacrifice for which the fatherland will thank you, and which will incite thousands to emulate your noble example."
"Would it were so!" exclaimed Korner, enthusiastically, raising his large black eyes to heaven; "would that our patriotic ardor struck all hearts like a thunderbolt, and kindled a conflagration, whose flames would shed a lustre over the remotest times! I do not deny that I felt how great was the sacrifice I made, but this very feeling filled me with enthusiasm. All the stars of my happiness were shining upon me in mild beauty, but I was not allowed to look up to them because it was the night of adversity; but now that this night is about to vanish, and a new morning is dawning, my stars, too, must fade before the sun of liberty. That was the sacred conviction which drove me away from Vienna, from my betrothed bride, and caused me to cast aside all that otherwise imparts value to life. A great era requires great hearts. I felt strong enough to go out and bare my breast to the storm. Could I do nothing but sing songs in honor of my victorious brethren? No one would have then loved and esteemed me any longer; my parents would have been ashamed of me, and my affianced bride would have contemptuously turned away from the cowardly poet. Therefore, I gave up every thing for the sake of my native land. It is true, my parents and my Emma will weep for me. May God comfort them! I could not spare them this blow. It is not much that I risk my life; but that this life is adorned with love, friendship, and joy, and that I nevertheless risk it, is a sacrifice that can be compensated only by love of country, more sacred than any other love, and to it we should devote our life. [Footnote: His own words.—Vide "Theodore Korner's Works," edited by Carl Streckfuss p. 54] My noble father feels and knows this, and so does my betrothed."
"And yet, agreed though you are with yourself and your dear ones, why this despair?" asked Madame von Lutzow, with a smile.
Korner looked down in confusion, and then raised his flaming eyes with a strange expression. "Ah, madame," he exclaimed, "I divine your stratagem; it is that of an angel, and, therefore, worthy of you."
"What stratagem do yon mean?" she asked, with a semblance of surprise.