She, she—who once had dreamed that her love was an inexhaustible fount, and had reproached herself for having been so niggardly with it, for having turned her lover from her door, for having left him out in the dreary waste of life, where he must perish in anguish and despair! She, who was so haughty because she knew that she had all the world to give; that her love was like the storm which surges on, overriding everything that is not stronger than itself—like a flood which rolls on, destroying everything that does not rise into the clouds.
That had been her fear all along; he too—even he would not understand her entirely; there would be a yawning breach between her ideal and the reality, and she must not on that account sacrifice her ideal, even though her heart throbbed with even greater longing and the blood coursed through her veins even more imperiously. She had only this one greatest thing to lose in order to be poorer when it was lost than the poorest beggar—she whose implacable mind destroyed once and forever the fair dream of many years of being a true artist!
How she had fought! How she had struggled through so many dreary days, so many wakeful nights, in gloomy brooding and racking despair to the horror of which, strong though she was, she would long ago have succumbed, had not his dear illusive image flitted through her morning dreams, luring her on to other dreary days, to other nights of torture.
Now it was no longer his image; it was he himself—illusive no longer, and yet still dear! Oh, how deeply she had loved—more than ever, infinitely more in his helpless misery, than in the days of his prosperity!
If she could help him! For herself she had no wish, no longer any desire. God was her witness! And if she rested tonight in his arms, he in hers—she could think of it without feeling her pulses quicken, and without feeling that the despair which depressed her heart had vanished even for a moment. He will not draw any new strength or fresh courage from your embraces, your kisses, she said to herself. He will arise from the couch of love—a broken man, weary of life. How should she keep her strength and courage to live—no longer for herself alone—now for both of them? If not strength and courage to live—then to die!
If she could die for him! Dying for him could say: "Behold, death is a joy and a feast for me if I may hope that you will despise life from this moment on, and, because you despise it, will live nobly and well, as one who lives only to die nobly and well!" But for his weak soul even that would be no spur, no support—only one dark shadow more to add to the other dark shadows which had fallen upon his path; and he would continue to waver upon the steady path, inactive, inglorious, to an early inglorious grave!——
Thus she lay there, deep in the abyss of her woe, not regarding the howling of the storm which shook the house continually from garret to cellar, not hearing the boisterous tumult of the drunken guests directly below her room, scarcely raising her head when the innkeeper's wife came into the room.
The latter had intended to ask the young lady, as the guests would now certainly remain for the night, how she wished to have the beds arranged in the room; but, at the strange expression of the beautiful pale face which rose from the arm of the sofa and gazed at her with strange looks, the question had died on her lips and she had only asked the other question—if she might not make the young lady a cup of tea. The young lady had not appeared to understand her; at least she made no reply, and the innkeeper's wife thought: She will doubtless ring if she wishes anything. So she went with the light in her hand into the adjoining room, and left the door, which was hard to close, slightly ajar, in order not to disturb the young lady further, and then turned with her candle to the windows to see if they were closed; the upper bolt had stuck, and as she loosened the lower one, the storm, coming through the narrow opening, blew out the candle which she had placed upon the window-sill.
"I can find my way," the landlady murmured, and turned toward the beds in the dusk, but stopped as she heard the door adjoining open and the young lady utter a slight scream. "Good Heavens!" thought she, "people of quality are almost worse off than we are"—for the gentleman who had returned had begun at once to speak in a tone not exactly loud, but evidently excited. What could be the trouble between the two young people? thought she, slipping on tiptoe to the door. But she could not understand anything of all the gentleman was saying, nor the few words which the lady interjected; and then it seemed to the landlady as if it was not the clear voice of the gentleman and as if the two were not speaking German. She peeped through the crack and saw, to her astonishment and terror, a wild strange man in the room with the young lady, from whose shoulders a brown coat fell to the floor as she looked in; but he did not pick it up, though continuing to gesticulate and to speak more rapidly and loudly in his unintelligible gibberish like a crazy man, as the terrified landlady thought.