Did she love him better than all the girls?
The poor boy was breathless.
Yes, she thought she loved him better than all the girls?
The mighty weight had turned out a feather; he knew no more than he did before. Many a time did the poor fellow try to hit the mark from afar off, but always with the same success. He persevered with the same affectionate devotion, her very slave; and it was not until several years after, when he became assured of more than one suitor’s rejection, that he summoned courage to address her plainly, and received an answer to his heart’s content.
That Father Klaus approved the betrothal of Roderick and his niece, may not seem wonderful. He knew him to be the son of pious parents, a boy of good principle and good capacity. He had often seen at his father’s house, pasteboard horses, cows, cottages, and even pencil sketches, that he amused himself with, when once recovering from a severe illness. When the boy recovered he frequently brought into request his newly-discovered capacity, and improved very much in his rough sketching. He had no idea of prosecuting his ability any further. All this was not lost on the priest, who felt assured that he could command the necessary influence to enter Roderick in the academy of Heidelberg, and enable him to become the master of an honorable and lucrative art. He knew that capacity is more unfailing, and possesses more resources than wealth; he knew Roderick’s substantial worth and undoubted probity, and felt that he had neither right nor inclination to thwart his niece’s predilection.
It was during one of these flower-hunting excursions that Roderick and Ella first conceived the idea of weaving the bower on the Castle Mount. They were accustomed frequently to extend their rambling to the ruined castle, in the old garden of which a variety of flowers were still cultivated by the guardian of the place; and by the time they had clambered up to the terrace on their return, were fain to sit down and repose awhile. They soon began to feel a partiality for the place; and no wonder, for there was not so fine a view, even to childhood’s eyes, to be found in the whole country. Their childish hands there twined the bower whose strange demolition I, in after years, witnessed. There they spent many of their happiest hours; there they first plighted their troth; there they renewed it over and over again; and there poor Roderick first saw the—beginning of the end.
It were useless to attempt to say how proud the poor boy was of his betrothed, and of her accomplishments. The fact that he never felt a pang of jealousy during four long years, frequently under most trying circumstances, that his trust in his beloved never for a moment wavered till his heart was wrung, and his brain was crazed that eventful evening at the bower, loudly testifies to his ingenuousness, and the priest’s correct estimate of the man. A neighboring Curé, who had in former years been a fellow-student of Father Klaus in Italy, frequently rode over to spend half a day. On such occasions Ella was entertained with metaphysical disquisitions, which, unknown to her entertainers, her deep, psychological nature eagerly drank in, in draughts as great as her capacity would admit. To their theological discussions she was a silent, attentive listener; subjects which her uncle never upon any other occasion spoke of in her presence, were argued with an earnestness that made him forgetful of the indirect injury they might work upon her mind. She began to propound questions to herself, and to attempt the solution of them, of herself. She remembered many delicate cases of morality determined by learned heads; pondered over the principles upon which those decisions were based; constructed new cases for the application of similar principles; in short, became a blundering casuist before she knew it. A new light was dawning upon her mind; she saw, for the first time, that laws can be stretched to very tension, and not broken. She did not reflect that principle is firm as a rock, and lasting and unchanging as eternity itself—that there is no going and returning there. She knew not that he who ranges about to strain the utmost limits of law, has wandered far from the moral centre of gravity—principle. She knew not that we do not always stand guiltless in the forum of our own conscience, though no other living being dare censure us, even in his inmost mind. The world may judge a man for what he does and dares; he alone, for what he does not fear. Ella was precisely in that unfortunate state of mind, in which one knows just too much or too little; in which a certain degree of knowledge necessarily requires more to prevent its running astray. There is a degree of pride which renders one ridiculous, contemptible; a greater degree checks its manifestation—governs it. One is vanity; the other despises vanity. Such a relation did Ella’s science bear to true philosophy as vanity does to pride;—and she played with it. One must, one will destroy the other. Had her uncle known her infatuation, one word would have dispelled every shadow of it.
Oftentimes the college friends would turn their conversation to days long past, to reminiscences of their sojourn in Italy. The lore of classic and romantic associations of that wonderful country; the graphic illustrations of life, and scenes, and elegance, and delights, in that delicious clime, enchanted their young listener. Dissertations on the political changes there enacting; surmises of changes impending, necessarily drew forth a detail of social, historic and scenic minutiæ, that expanded her young mind to poetic conceptions; distance lent its enchantment to the view, and her rich fancy glowed with the beauty of its imaginings. A longing, secret and subtle at first, then craving and irrepressible, to taste the sweets of forbidden fruit, took possession of her. She was betrothed at that time; she knew that with Roderick she could not enjoy those pleasures; she ought and did know that this longing would breed discontent;—hence the subtle manner of its entering on possession of her heart. Long she repelled it; principle forbade it; her reasonings were very nice; and lax as she may have become speculatively, she nourished a high-minded honor that would have done credit to any child of Adam. Soon she thought it no harm to enjoy the victory she had, with so great an effort, gained over herself; frequently she did so. Then her sophistry came to the attack; she might have regrets in secret, she thought, and they might not be at all detrimental to her husband’s happiness; hers would be the only loss, the only pain, if pain there were;—and she let her longing take its way. Still, she loved her betrothed as much as ever, none the less on that account; it is true she became a shade more thoughtful, not quite so light-hearted as she was, but she did not notice any change. If her heart lost any of its feeling, her harp did not. She took it more rarely; her touch was bolder, and still more delicate; a beautiful originality undulated more in her modulations, and she played more without the words than she ever did before. Her spirit was more self-dependent. There was something of the wild energy of insidious despair.
About this time the younger Reisach was summoned from England to attend his father, who was very ill. Soon the good old count died, and his heir entered upon the title and estates, in a manner so becoming and consistent with filial affliction, that every one said the young count was quite equal to the old one. The rougher field sports he had been accustomed to in England were now abandoned, and he lent his mind to the more quiet and refined German tastes. Study, poetry, music, painting, sculpture, divided his attention; he aimed at conciliating and winning all, the little as well as the great, and no undue ostentation had place in the details of his establishment. Regular and attentive at church, he gained the confidence and esteem of pastor as well as flock. Refined and delicate in his speech, no virtuous peasant-girl shrunk from his attention whenever he thought proper to bestow it. To the reunions at the mansion the Curé had a standing invitation; and in return, the young nobleman strolled out upon many a welcome call at the parsonage. It would be harsh, it would be unjust, to say that Count Frederick commenced his attentions there with any deliberate design of wrong. Ella’s harp and voice were frequently brought into request for his passing entertainment, and he was not sparing of his eulogiums upon them. He soon began to experience deeper and more lasting sensations than the momentary pleasure she intended; no one could do otherwise. In his presence Ella conversed little, but that little was full of refinement, of thought and taste. He felt it difficult to smother his feelings or restrain them; and although he strictly maintained the distinction in their conditions, in his intercourse with her, and knew that a violent death must await all his more tender sentiments toward her, still he was unwilling to deprive himself of the pleasure he enjoyed in her presence. He was deeply in love with her, and he knew it; yet supposed that, like many other impressions he had experienced, it would soon pass away, that he might as well enjoy it whilst it lasted;—no one would ever be the wiser in the end.
It was before, and about this time, that Roderick and Ella were accustomed to spend their hours, and almost days together, at the bower. She had grown into womanhood, had entered into her twentieth year; and it was on her last birth-day, that she and Roderick had knelt before her uncle, to receive his blessing on their betrothal. Roderick had finished his course in the academy, and had already acquired his quota, both of fame and money, in painting. Ella sincerely loved him; and despite the admiration she felt for the young count, would have been supremely happy could she have been promised the realization of her imaginary enjoyments by his side. She loved him more when in his presence than when away. Absence threw no enchantment around him; it was in the sunshine of his tenderness and devotion that she felt the full glow of her affection for him; at other times she would feel the chilly mingling of her regrets. Had they been married then, they would have been very happy.