Marie listened to these relations with a gloomy calmness and a defiant sorrow. Illness had wrought a peculiar change in her mind, and hardened the gentle, tender feelings of the young girl. Grief had steeled her soul, benumbed her heart, and she had risen from her couch as one born anew to grief and torture. Her present situation and lost happiness had changed the young, loving, tenderly-sensitive maiden to the courageous, energetic, and defiant woman, who recognized a future of self-renunciation, combat, and resignation.
Trude observed these changes with disquietude and care. She wished Marie would only once complain, or burst into tears. After the first storm of despair had passed, the tears refused to flow, and her eyes were bright and undimmed. Only once had profound emotion been awakened, as Trude asked her if she had forgotten her unhappy lover, and cared no more to learn his fate. It had the desired effect.
A deathly paleness overspread her delicate, transparent cheek. “I know how he is,” she said, turning away her face, “I realize his sufferings by my own. We are miserable, lost—and no hope but in death. Ere this comes, there is a desert to traverse in heat, and dust, and storm, and frost, alone, without consolation or support. Hush, Trude! do not seek to revive miserable hopes. I know my fate, and I will endure it. Tell me what you know about him? Where is he? Have they accused him? Speak! do not fear to tell me every thing!” But fearing herself, she threw her handkerchief quickly over her face, and sat with it covered whilst Trude spoke.
“I know but little of poor, dear Moritz. He has never returned to his lodgings. A day or two after that night, two officers sealed his effects, and took away his clothes. His hostess has not the least suspicion of the mysterious disappearance of her otherwise quiet, regular lodger. The secret of the elopement has been carefully guarded, as no one of the neighbors know it, and there is no gossip about you and Moritz. Those who think he is travelling are not surprised at his having left without taking leave, as they say he was accustomed to do so. But,” continued Trude, in a lower tone, “Herr Gedicke looked very sad and grave, as I asked for the Conrector Moritz. ‘He has disappeared,’ he sighed, ‘and I know not if we shall ever see him again.’ ‘Oh, Jemima!’ I screamed, ‘you do not think that he has committed a self-injury!’ ‘No,’ said the director, ‘not he himself, he is too honorable a man. Others have ill-treated him and made him unhappy for life.’ It was in vain to ask further; he knew not or he would not say any thing. I believe your family know where poor Moritz is, for your mother speaks of him as one in the penitentiary, and quite triumphantly she told me yesterday that the king, in his new book of laws, had expressly condemned the person who elopes with a minor to be sent to the house of correction for ten years, and then she laughed so cruelly, that I trembled to hear her.”
As Trude related this, she searchingly glanced at Marie to observe the effect of her words, hoping to see her weep or complain and that, at last, grief would melt the icy crust around her heart.
But Marie sat motionless and without uttering a sound—not a sigh or a moan escaped her. After a long silence, when her grief was too deep for tears, she drew the handkerchief from her face, the pallor and rigidity of which startled Trude.
She sprang forward, folding her in her arms. “Marie, child of my heart, do weep, do complain! I know that he loved you dearly, and deserves that you should mourn for him. Have you no more confidence, though, in your old Trude? Is she no longer worthy to share your grief?”
Marie laid her languid head upon the bosom of her faithful nurse; a long-drawn, piercing cry of anguish was her response, she trembled violently, and the tears ran down her cheeks.
Trude raised her eyes to heaven, murmuring, “I thank thee, O Lord! Her heart is not dead! It lives, for it suffers!”
“It suffers,” groaned Marie, “the anguish of death.”