But he soon surmounted this violent emotion, and rose up ashamed of his weakness. At that moment he heard a window open above his head. It was Fleurange, who soon appeared on the balcony. He could see her white dress and the regular outline of face against the light from her chamber. He saw her soft glance lost in the darkness. Then she folded her hands and bent down her head. She was praying, but not alone to-night. Clement, kneeling unperceived in the shade, prayed with her. He was in the very place where he heard her say to Felix: “Clement is my brother, and you are not.” He recalled the words now, and renewed in his heart the solemn promise to be for ever faithful to all the obligations they imposed.
XIII.
If the happy inmates of the Old Mansion had been told a month previous they only had a few weeks more to pass within its walls, they would have been greatly dismayed by the prediction, and asked how such a trial could be borne. But there is in life—even in the happiest life when it is ordered aright, that is, when its duties are daily considered and faithfully accomplished—there is, I say, in such a life a latent preparation for the most violent shocks of adversity, and, when they suddenly come, it is surprising to find that they who seemed to enjoy more than others the good things they possessed are the best able to resign themselves to their loss with firmness and serenity. And yet they are not insensible to the calamity. It falls on them with its full weight, but it comes alone, unaccompanied by the two scourges which generally follow in the train of a misfortune resulting from misconduct—trouble and confusion of mind.
Neither of these followed ruin into Ludwig Dornthal’s house. Externally the disaster was complete, but peace and order were maintained within. All their decisions—even the most painful—were made deliberately, and executed calmly and without delay. They did not dissemble the greatness of their sacrifice; they made no pretence to an insensibility they did not feel; but they quietly made their preparations—tears often blinding their eyes the while—like a brave and worthy crew wrecked by a tempest and forced to abandon their vessel.
It was thus they made all the arrangements for leaving their dear home and disposing of their library, paintings, and objects of virtu, which the professor had selected with so much care and pride, and were his only source of pleasure apart from the society of his family and friends. And from the latter also he was to be separated. When Ludwig Dornthal announced his intention of resuming the career he abandoned twenty years before, positions were offered him on all sides, especially in the city where he resided. But on account of the strict economy he must henceforth practise, as well as a secret repugnance to a different social position in a place where he had been so prosperous, he decided, after some hesitation, to leave Frankfort, and accept a modest situation offered him at the University of Heidelberg. He succeeded in purchasing a small house in that place at a low price—somewhat rustic, it is true, but situated without the city walls, on the banks of the Neckar, and surrounded by a garden. He could easily walk to the university every morning, and the perspective of the rural repose that awaited him at the end of the day would enable him to endure its labors more cheerfully. He therefore decided to take possession of it as speedily as possible, and all the necessary arrangements had to be made during the few weeks they were to remain in the Old Mansion before leaving it for ever.
Clement took charge of all the preliminaries of the somewhat extensive sale that was to take place. He wished to relieve his father from so sad a task, and perform the painful and fatiguing business without any assistance, but it was made much easier for him than he anticipated. Fleurange insisted on his accepting her aid. She set herself to work, silently going to and fro with her sleeves turned back, carrying the rare china carefully from one place to another with her small but efficient hands, and dusting, arranging, and numbering the books according to her cousin’s directions. Of course she greatly lightened his labors. In the evening they seated themselves in the library, now nearly stripped of its treasures, and wrote lists or inserted notes in the large registers concerning the precious manuscripts and books that were to be disposed of. It was, in short, a work that required the vigor and activity of youth, as well as much thought and assiduous labor. To say that, while performing this double task, they never found it tiresome, that no shade ever came over their brows, and that their eyes were never tearful while handling so many objects they were never to see again, would be false; it would be equally so to say that Clement, in spite of the fatigue, was greatly to be pitied during these days.
There came a time, long after, when, looking back on the past, it seemed to him that these hours passed in the light of Fleurange’s beautiful eyes, sometimes cast down as she bent over the large registers, and anon raised to ask a question or give him a friendly glance—it seemed to him, I say, that these vanished hours were among the most delightful of his life.
At length came the day their task would be completed, and, while they were working together for the last time, Fleurange raised her eyes. “Clement,” she said, “we are nearly done. I have been waiting for this moment to tell you something.”
Clement dropped his work at once, and looked up interrogatively.
“No, no; finish what you are doing, and I will tell you afterward.”