"Why have you said this, Johannes? You ought to know me and be aware that I have done with life. Do not suppose that the opinion of the world would awe me, if I felt that I was still young enough to be happy and make others happy. But I was probably never created to devote myself with my whole heart to a single individual, as a true wife ought. Even my unfortunate first love was but a delusion of my imagination. I have every talent for friendship or for being a Sister of Charity, and my most passionate feeling has ever been a fervent sympathy with pauvre humanité, as Mademoiselle Suzon said. But you would not wish to be married from compassion.
"No," she continued, as I was about to protest, "it would be a cruel pity. In a few years I should easily pass for your mother, and you would cut a ridiculous figure in attending me through the streets. You are still a young man and a very foolish one, as you have just proved. Your heart must still possess a fountain of youth, though you are no mere lad. Why don't you do me the favor to marry my Agnes, who is nine and twenty, an epitome of every feminine virtue, and, moreover, in love with you?"
This Agnes was her favorite pupil, the daughter of the district physician, and, as I lived opposite to her house, our names had already been associated by the gossips. It was by no means humiliating to be suspected of cherishing a special liking for this exemplary and by no means ugly girl. But, Good Heavens, I!
I could only shake my head and answer: "Why do I not love your Agnes? Because I don't want to marry a bundle of virtues, but one human being, and in fact only that one who in my eyes will always be young, and whom I desire to call mine in order to please no mortal save myself. However, as you have so little love for me that you would willingly serve as a match-maker in my behalf, it was of course folly to ask if you would become Frau Johannes Weissbrod, and I therefore most humbly beg your pardon."
I rose with an uncontrollable sense of grief, and, scarcely bowing to her, stalked away like a thoroughly rude, defiant man.
The next day, it is true, I returned humbly, and remorsefully besought her to forgive my spiteful escapade. She was quite right; I was nothing but a crack-brained young man who grasped at the stars, and in doing so fell on the ground. Frau Luise gazed silently into vacancy, and then said: "The most difficult task and the one we learn latest is to cut our garments according to the cloth, though we feel it will grow with us. Let us say no more about it."
I did not exactly understand what she meant. It became clear to me afterward.
We again lived on as before, and, after she had survived the spring tempest, life seemed to become dear to her once more, though a slight shadow rested on her brow. At Easter she gave her concert for the benefit of the poor, which was a brilliant success. Her birthday came just after Whitsuntide, and, in token of the love and gratitude of the whole community, was to be celebrated with special pomp. I, of course, began the festival with a morning serenade executed under her windows by my pupils, after which she invited the whole choir in and treated them to coffee and cakes. At ten o'clock the burgomaster's wife and her most distinguished friends called, and attended her in a stately procession down to the shore of the lake. There the greatest surprise awaited her. The burgomaster had sent to Berlin several days before for a machinist and some assistants to inspect the little steamer and put her in safe condition to make an excursion over the mirror-like surface of the lake. The boiler and engine were found to be still in tolerable order, and a trial trip was taken at night whose result was perfectly satisfactory.
When we came down to the shore, the little vessel, gayly decked with flags, hung with garlands of fir, and sending upward a light column of smoke from its smokestack, looked extremely pretty and inviting; and Frau Luise's eyes dilated with astonishment when she understood that this smoke was floating from the stack, so long empty, in honor of her. The burgomaster's wife and I led her across the long, swaying plank that extended to the deck; but here she was so startled that she almost made a misstep, for an exultant pæan suddenly resounded with such vehement, youthful energy from invisible throats that it was almost too much for her composure. Her pupils had posted themselves behind a canvas awning, which was afterward drawn over the deck as a protection from the sun, and in the excitement of the moment were singing the festal melody I had composed and arranged with more regard to the feelings of their hearts than the rules of art, by which state of affairs neither words nor music were especially enhanced. However, in the open air and amid the general emotion, this modest overture performed its part acceptably. Then the deck suddenly became thronged with joyous, loving faces; and, when the anchor was weighed and the little vessel swept with majestic calmness through the glittering water, first along the shore and then across the lake to the little grove, while the chorus of fresh young voices, now mindful of every nicety of execution they owed to their mistress, began the superb air, "Who has Thee, Forest Fair--" I saw the sweet face of the woman I loved illumined with gentle, divine emotion, and was forced to turn away that my tears might fall into the water unobserved.