“When I am able to reflect, I know that I am imposing on your generosity in some way, but I scarce know how. It is only your goodness which has prompted you to undergo all this fatigue and trouble; and now I feel bound, I wish to open my heart to you, but it seems as though all I can tell you cannot compensate you. At any rate, it will be a relief to me, and hereafter it may help the vividness of your recollections of Heidelberg. I thought I should never tell this story, or speak this name again; but that lady recalled, in so many ways, so lively an image of my lost Ella, that I must unburden my heart of its excess. She was the niece of Father Klaus. Her parents died when she was very young, and the good old man took her into his own charge. No parent could have loved her more, or watched over her with more tender solicitude than he did. As she grew up, he taught her many things which, but for him, would have been entirely beyond her reach; but she repaid him, for an apter scholar never learned, and never had man a child who loved him more. She grew to be very beautiful, and was talked of for her beauty all the country round; but I had won her heart when it was a child’s, and as we grew up my only fear in life was for that, and all my efforts were only for that. Father Klaus knew how matters stood nearly as soon as we, and was contented. When we grew up, he ratified and blessed our betrothal, and turned his attention to my own prospects. Through his influence with the old Count Reisach, I was enabled to enter the academy of Heidelberg, and, thanks to the count’s generosity and patronage, I had laid up nearly enough to gain Father Klaus’s consent to our marriage. The day was fixed; but nearly a year distant, and the good old man was to perform the ceremony himself. Often, and often, as I returned home from town have I turned down this path, and here was Ella waiting for me, to sit a while, and then stroll home together. Here we built this very bower, when we were children, with our own hands. She chose the place. Here we would sit and watch the setting sun; and I, as a proud young artist, would descant to her upon the harmony of the glowing colors, scarce brighter than her own bright eyes and glowing cheeks. Here would we come and spend hours together—she would bring her needle, and I would sketch the castle, the mountain, the town, the plain, the forest, and every object that could afford a pretext for remaining. Sometimes, when she was very busy, I would gaze, and gaze into her sweet face and forget every thing but that. Then she would look up and smile, and come and bend her head over my shoulder to see the progress of my sketching, and find the whole sheet covered over with images of herself, and Ella, Ella, Ella, scribbled in every form, and ornamented with every possible device. Then she would steal her little hand over my eyes, and say I was a ‘lazy, lazy boy.’ Perhaps, sir, you cannot know why I speak of these little things, and you may deem them trifling; but, sir, it is a true saying that life is made up of trifles. It was so that she wound about me a web that could not be unwound; all these endearing trifles cannot be reversed, one by one, and the web uncoiled. There is but one method of release, and that is, by a mighty effort to burst the whole fabric—even then, the shreds will hang about, and float in every breath of memory. Here, time after time, we repeated our vows of love and fidelity, and eagerly looked forward to the day that would crown our happiness.
“In the meantime Count Reisach died, and his son, a youth of some twenty years, succeeded to the estates. He was known ere that time, through all the land, for his boldness, courtliness and generosity, courted and sought by all the nobility and gentry—for he was handsome and rich. Moreover, he was a connoisseur in almost all the fine arts. I was often employed by him in copying his paintings for presents to his friends. Once he induced me to part with a portrait of Ella, which I was very proud of, and which he had seen at Father Klaus’s. I often saw him there. One evening last April, as I was returning from town, I turned down the path, for I knew I should meet Ella here. I was startled by a shriek. I cried, Ella! Ella! In a moment I was here upon the spot, and she rushed into my arms, weeping and frightened. To all my questions as to what had alarmed her, she only sobbed. I seated her, and examined all about the bower; I thought of serpents, and searched under rocks, peered over the bushy precipice, but could discover nothing. We could not sit and enjoy that evening—she was agitated, and I led her home. She did not go often to the bower after that. One evening, it might be a fortnight after, upon appointment, I came here again to meet her, and I found her weeping. As before, I took her home. Another time, she was not weeping, but seemed silent, thoughtful, depressed. We went home again. I was puzzled, pained; I knew not what to think or do, and she revealed nothing to all my entreaties. She would not go to the bower any more. At times she wore a deadly paleness for days, and again she would glow with a flush, as though a fresh impulse were given to her life. She was evidently declining. All the neighbors watched and pitied “poor Ella;” they pitied Father Klaus, but none knew the extent of the agony I nursed in secret. When I would beg her to walk with me to the bower that her and my childish hands had built, and where we always were so happy, she would turn pale and tremble—I dared not speak to her of the bower any more. Frequently I would detect her eye resting upon me as if in pain, as though she pitied me; a starting tear would glisten in her eye for a moment, and she would turn away; immediately she would be as composed as before. I was pained, shocked; and a presentiment of some awful calamity seized me. One evening I was detained in town later than usual. I had been for several days employed in restoring a painting for Count Reisach, and the next day would see it finished. ‘It is not finished yet,’ he whispered. The count had hurried me to work early and late. It was a relief to be so busily employed. As I wended my way up the mountain, I thought of Ella all the way—I must go to her that evening, tired as I was. When I came to the end of the path, I could not resist a moment’s visit to the bower; for since pleasure there seemed to be henceforth forbidden fruit to me, I longed for a moment even of its pain. It was growing dark, and as I brushed past yonder bush, I thought I saw something move, just where you sit. I stopped, and distinctly saw the cloaked figure of a man disappear down that precipice. I rushed forward, for thoughts of some dark crime crowded upon me, and I nearly fell upon the prostrate form of a woman at my feet. I knelt, and raised the head upon my knees; it was bare, and the dark locks uncoiled upon the ground.”
Here he paused. I never before or since beheld such a mute picture of agony. He lowered his head upon his hands, and the big drops fell fast upon the ground. He tried not to restrain them. At length he raised his eyes inquiringly, and I feared not to say,
“It was Ella.”
He nodded. After a few minutes, which I indulged him in without a question or remark, he continued—
“I bounded, as if stung by a serpent, and I hurried to Father Klaus. I told him, I know not what. Then I hurried home; and for days, they told me, I raved. When I recovered I learned that they were gone.”
“Who?”
“Count Reisach. No traces of them could be found until within three weeks, when we learned that they had been in Cologne.”
“Were they—” I could not finish; he gave me an inquiring look, and I thought his severe part was going to be acted again. I had not the heart to think of it more.
“From that time my poor mother has been a paralytic, and now we fear her reason is almost gone. Father Klaus is an older man, but his feelings are all for others; he is constantly with her. Now, do you wonder that I hate this spot, and all that I can see from here? Here have I known my happiest and bitterest moments. From this day I see you no more!” exclaimed he, starting to his feet, and gazing on the work of his hands: “Here I bid an eternal, an eternal farewell to you and—” He took his pencil and wrote (he would not speak it)—I looked—“Ella Corbyn.”