So deep a silence reigned here, that when he paused, he fancied he could hear the sap rising through the trunks of the trees. The wind, which had brought the rain, had changed, the brightest summer sky arched over the cool forest. From the thicket of pines, a narrow path wound through large tracts of hilly beech woods, past which the hunt had rushed at so great a distance that the deer and hares had not been startled from their repose, and let the lonely pedestrian pass by with more curiosity than fear. But he scarcely disturbed them by a glance; his gaze was turned inward; he was questioning his own heart, yesterday so peaceful, and now agitated by a wild horde of painful thoughts.
He understood this impetuous heart well enough not to deceive himself a moment as regarded the nature of the storm within. So fixed was his habit of taking seriously everything he felt, and his honest endeavor never to spare or palliate anything pernicious in his nature, that even midst the indescribable confusion into which the last hour had plunged him, he said steadfastly to himself as soon as he was alone: "You're lost, if you remain." He felt, with deep horror, how all that four years of the deepest, purest happiness had done to stifle the memory of his old struggles, was baffled in a single moment. He did not deceive himself about the matter, it was not commiseration for his friend's cheerless fate that burned so passionately in his soul. If he had found her radiant in happiness, pride and love, he would have felt no differently.
But to know she was unhappy and that in suffering this misery she had become a true woman, loving and needing love, that she clung to him and to his firm soul--as she thought it--as to a last stronghold, fanned the flames within him, and broke his resolute will.
What he owed himself, himself and his pure, faithful, noble wife, rose so clearly in his mind amid all the confusion, that without shame, and in the firm conviction that nothing could avail against his final victory over these dark powers, he repeated Leah's name. He spoke to her as if she were walking beside him, as if he were telling her about his condition. "No, child," said he, "fear nothing for either of us. We shall never part, never, never! Only have patience with me; the elements are let loose and playing foot-ball with my heart. But such a heart, child, which you have taken in your keeping and drawn to you--no, it will not be thus played with long. If it is painful, dearest, this storm, this rending and tearing within--it will pass away, I hope, without your perceiving it. It's not true that we are helpless drops of water in the sea of passions. We can recollect ourselves, cling fast to what is right and good, like a mussel to the cliff from which no surge can tear it. To be sure, the cliff might totter, but the happiness we have found together is imperishable and I will cling to it. And yet--can it be the same as of old, if we are forced to remember how unhappy this poor woman will always be?"--
He lost himself in a dull reverie over the thought of what might be, if he had no duties, and need not consider any one except the woman who had clutched his hand like a person sinking in a bottomless gulf. If he had only found her so four years ago!
Leah's image grew dim, he saw at this moment only the form of his first, lost love, as he had now found her again--a shudder ran through his frame, as he still felt the pressure of her hand on his arm, and thought of the dark lustre of her eyes and those lips which he had only once kissed on that drive through the moonlight. He smiled in the midst of his horror, and yet he could scarcely breathe, so heavily did the sultry atmosphere weigh upon his breast; without knowing what he did, he repeated two lines of one of Rückert's poems:
The taper's dim and flickering light
She has re-kindled with her smile--
So in happy wretchedness, forgetting where he was, he staggered through the dense forest. He felt as if he were wandering through a region far away from the world, where every thing that binds and separates human beings, all strictly drawn lines of duty, were abolished and overgrown by the wild luxuriance of the powers of nature, where a poor mortal wanders aimlessly about, and so long as he remains in the enchanted wilderness must give himself up to the sweet torture of hidden fires.
Several shots, which echoed in the distance, and the strange whining yelp of the hounds suddenly roused him from this bewilderment. He perceived that he was in danger of approaching within range of the hunt. For one moment he thought how little was needed to reduce the conflict in his mind to peace; a stray bullet--and all would be over. But he felt no temptation to provoke this solution, far less could he resolve to follow the track of human beings. He hastily bent his steps in the opposite direction and then once more allowed his movements to be directed by chance.
He had probably wandered to and fro for about an hour, when he entered one of the numerous paths only wide enough to permit the passage of the wood cutters' carts which intersected the forest in straight lines. He was about to cross it, and to plunge into the thicket on the opposite side, when a strange procession, approaching at a measured pace scarcely a gun shot from the spot, made him pause, in spite of his desire to shun the presence of man. First rode the little high shouldered doctor, holding an eager conversation with a huntsman who walked beside him. Behind them four peasants, who seemed to have been acting as beaters, carried a litter, on which, lying upon coverlets hastily rolled up into cushions, a stout figure was stretched, the upper part of the body, despite the uncomfortable position, in constant motion, the head turning first to the right and then to the left, and the arms employed in eager gesticulation. The rear of the train was closed by two horsemen, dressed exactly alike and mounted on horses of the same color, in whom Edwin already recognized the brothers Thaddäus and Matthäus von der Wende. They seemed, as usual, to be perfectly silent, but hung their heads sorrowfully, and in their wonderful resemblance to each other looked still more comical on horseback than on foot.