"Stupid stuff! He has, however, an unblemished shadow."
"Thou art right, but—"
The man in the gray coat laughed and looked at me. The door opened and Mina came forth. She supported herself on the arm of a chambermaid, silent tears rolling down her lovely pale cheeks. She seated herself on a stool which was placed for her under the lime trees, and her father took a chair by her. He tenderly took her hand, and addressed her with tender words, while she began violently to weep.
"Thou art my good, dear child, and thou wilt be reasonable, wilt not wish to distress thy old father, who seeks only thy happiness. I can well conceive it, dear heart, that it has sadly shaken thee. Thou art wonderfully escaped from thy misfortunes! Before we discovered the scandalous imposition, thou hadst loved this unworthy one greatly; see, Mina, I know it, and upbraid thee not for it. I myself, dear child, also loved him so long as I looked upon him as a great gentleman. But now thou seest how different all has turned out. What! every poodle has his own shadow, and should my dear child have a husband—no! thou thinkest, indeed, no more about him. Listen, Mina! Now a man solicits thy hand, who does not shun the sunshine, an honorable man, who truly is no prince, but who possesses ten millions, ten times more than thou; a man who will make my dear child happy. Answer me not, make no opposition, be my good, dutiful daughter, let thy loving father care for thee, and dry thy tears. Promise me to give thy hand to Mr. Rascal. Say, wilt thou promise me this?"
She answered with a faint voice—"I have no will, no wish further upon earth. Happen with me what my father will."
At this moment Mr. Rascal was announced, and stepped impudently into the circle. Mina lay in a swoon. My detested companion glanced angrily at me, and whispered in hurried words—"And that can you endure? What then flows instead of blood in your veins?" He scratched with a hasty movement a slight wound in my hand, blood flowed, and he continued—"Actually red blood!—So sign then!" I had the parchment and the pen in my hand.
CHAPTER VII
My wish, dear Chamisso, is merely to submit myself to thy judgment, not to endeavor to bias it. I have long passed the severest sentence on myself, for I have nourished the tormenting worm in my heart. It hovered during this solemn moment of my life incessantly before my soul, and I could only lift my eyes to it with a doubting glance, with humility and contrition. Dear friend, he who in levity only sets his foot out of the right road, is unawares conducted into other paths, which draw him downward and ever downward; he then sees in vain the guiding stars glitter in heaven; there remains to him no choice; he must descend unpausingly the declivity and become a voluntary sacrifice to Nemesis. After the hasty false step which had laid the curse upon me, I had, sinning through love, forced myself into the fortunes of another being, and what remained for me but that, where I had sowed destruction, where speedy salvation was demanded of me, I should blindly rush forward to the rescue?—for the last hour struck! Think not so meanly of me, my Adelbert, as to imagine that I should have regarded any price that was demanded as too high, that I should have begrudged anything that was mine even more than my gold. No, Adelbert! but my soul was possessed with the most unconquerable hatred of this mysterious sneaker along crooked paths. I might do him injustice, but every degree of association with him revolted me. And here stepped forth, as so frequently in my life, and as in general so often in the history of the world, an event instead of an action. Since then I have achieved reconciliation with myself. I have learned, in the first place, to reverence necessity; and what is more than the action performed, the event accomplished—her propriety. Then I have learned to venerate this necessity as a wise Providence, which lives through that great collective machine in which we officiate simply as coöperating, impelling, and impelled wheels. What shall be, must be; what should be, happened, and not without that Providence, which I ultimately learned to reverence in my own fate and in the fate of those on whom mine thus impinged.
I know not whether I shall ascribe it to the excitement of my soul under the impulse of such mighty sensations; or to the exhaustion of my physical strength, which during the last days such unwonted privations had enfeebled; or whether, finally, to the desolating commotion which the presence of this gray fiend excited in my whole nature—be that as it may, as I was on the point of signing I fell into a deep swoon and lay a long time as in the arms of death.
Stamping of feet and curses were the first sounds which struck my ear as I returned to consciousness. I opened my eyes; it was dark; my detested attendant was busied scolding me. "Is not that to behave like an old woman? Up with you, man, and complete off-hand what you have resolved on, if you have not taken another thought and had rather blubber!" I raised myself with difficulty from the ground and gazed in silence around. It was late in the evening; festive music resounded from the brightly illuminated Forester's house; various groups of people wandered through the garden walks. One couple came near in conversation, and seated themselves on the bench which I had just quitted. They talked of the union this morning solemnized between the rich Mr. Rascal and the daughter of the house. So, then, it had taken place!