Four Phases of Love

by Paul Heyse

He had entreated to be allowed to see her first of all. At the same moment they loosed the coverings from their eyes.

A cry of utter inexpressible joy rang from the boy's lips. He remained fixed on the same spot,--a glorified smile upon his face,--moving his bright eyeballs hither and thither. He had forgotten that Mary was to stand before him, and knew not as yet what the human form might be. She, too, did nothing to put him in mind of her. She stood, motionless, only lightly moving her eyelids, which overshadowed bright brown dead eyes. Yet they had no suspicion of the truth. "The wondrous things," they thought, "which seem so strange to her at first, have paralysed her for a time." But when the boy's delight broke loudly forth, they told him "That is Mary:" and he stretched out his hand towards her cheeks in his old manner, and said, "You have a bright face!" Then her tears flowed apace, she shook her head hastily, and said, hardly intelligibly, "It is still dark here! It is all as it used to be!"

Who can describe the misery of the next few hours! The doctor, deeply affected, led her to a chair by the window, and examined her eyes. The thin grey film of the cataract which he had removed had not reappeared. Nothing distinguished the pupils from those of health but their lifeless sorrowful fixedness.

"The nerve is paralysed," he said, "some sudden vehement light must have destroyed it." The sacristan's wife fainted, she fell pale as death in her husband's arms. Clement at first hardly understood what had happened. His soul was too full of its newly-gained existence. But Mary lay bathed in tears, and would answer none of the doctor's questions. Even later, they could learn nothing from her. "She did not know how it had happened. They must forgive her for having cried so childishly. She would bear all as it had been appointed. Had she ever known anything different?"

When they had made Clement clearly understand the misfortune, he was beside himself, sprang towards her, and cried incessantly, "You shall see too! I will have nothing more than you! Ah! now I know for the first time what you have lost! One does not see oneself; but all around have eyes, and look at us as if they loved us. And they shall look at you so too, only be patient and do not cry." And then he asked for the doctor, and rushed to him, beseeching him with tears to help Mary. The bright drops stood in the good man's eyes--he restrained himself with difficulty, and persuaded the boy to be tranquil; "he would see what could be done," and gave him hopes, in order to avoid an excitement which might be dangerous for him. He did not conceal the hopeless truth from the parents.

But the boy's sorrow seemed to have comforted Mary. She sat still by the window, and called him gently to her. "You must not be so sorry," she said, "it all comes from God. Be happy, as I am happy, that you are cured. You know already that I never wished very much for it. And now I should be quite contented if it did not grieve my parents so. But they will grow used to it, and you too, and so it will be as well--if you only love me as you used to do--that I remain as I was."

He would not be comforted, and the doctor insisted on the children being separated. They took Clement down into the large room below, where the people from the village pressed around him. They shook his hand, one after another, and spoke kindly words; but the crowd stupified him. He only said, "Do you know yet that Mary is blind still?" and then began to weep afresh.

It was high time to replace the bandage and to take him to a cool and quiet room. There he lay down, exhausted with joy, sorrow, and weeping. His father spoke gently and piously to him, which did him but little good; even in his sleep he wept, and seemed to dream painfully.

But on the following day, curiosity, desire for information, and astonishment asserted their rights, and his sorrow for Mary only appeared when he happened to see her. He visited her in the early morning and asked her whether she had not altered or got better during the night. But then the bright world that opened itself before him claimed all his attention, and when he returned to Mary it was only to tell her of some new wonder, often checking himself in the midst of his rapid narration, as a glance at his poor little friend reminded him what pain his joy must cost her. But, in truth, it did not cause her much pain; she wanted nothing for herself; to hear him talk so enthusiastically was pleasure enough for her. But when he began to come more rarely, fancying that he made her sad, or was silent because all other interests vanished before the one on which he did not dare to speak, she became uneasy; formerly she had seldom been separated from him during the day, now she was much alone. Her mother, indeed, often came to sit with her; but the cheerfulness of the once lively woman had departed, since her darling hopes had been so rudely crushed; she could say nothing to her child but mere words of comfort which her own heavy sighs belied, and which could be but of little use to Mary. How much of what she now suffered had she foreseen? and yet the sense of separation gave her inexpressible pain.

Now she sat often again under the boughs in her father's garden and span. When Clement came to her, her poor eyes gleamed strangely. He was ever kind to her, sat down on the bench beside her, and caressed her hair and cheeks as in the old times. She begged him once not to be so silent. When he told her about the world and the new things he had learned each day about it, it did not make her feel envious. But when he did not come at all she was so lonely. She never put him in mind, by a single word, of the promise he had given her one evening never to leave her; she had long ago renounced it. She seemed doubly dear to him, he had no longer to be guarded before her. His heart overflowed, and he talked for hours about the sun and moon and stars, and the flowers, and the trees; and, above all, how their parents and she herself looked. She trembled with happiness in her inmost heart, when he told her innocently, that she was prettier than all the other girls in the village. Then he told her how graceful she was, and that she had such a pretty head, and dark, soft eyebrows. He had seen himself, too, in a looking-glass, but he was not nearly so pretty; he did not want to be, and it was all the same to him, as long as he grew up to be a clever man. Men appeared generally not to be so pretty as women. She did not understand all of this, but this much she did understand, that she pleased him, and what could she desire more? They never returned to this subject; but he was indefatigable in describing the beautiful world to her. When he came not, she thought over his words, and grew almost jealous of this world which robbed her of him; gradually this feeling of enmity grew stronger, and, at last, became more powerful than her pleasure at his happiness. Above all things she hated the sun, for she knew that he was the brightest of all, and in her obscure notions, bright and beautiful were one and the same thing. Nothing discomposed her more than his bursts of admiration over the setting sun, when he was with her of an evening. He had never spoken of her in such words, and why did he forget her so utterly over this scene that he never saw the tears that her strange jealous sorrow forced into her eyes?