She rose and bent towards him; he clasped her in his arms, and the two noble figures clung to each other in an ardent, silent embrace. At that moment it seemed to Ottmar as if his two natures also embraced, as if their opposing qualities were blended by the enthusiasm that pervaded both his intellectual and sensuous existence, and all the powers of the harmonious man expanded to exhaust the intellect and physical delight of the moment. He closed his eyes and clasped Cornelia more and more closely to his heart; he thought and felt nothing except, "She is mine!" And blissful peace descended upon him. Just then a funeral-bell tolled, and roused the lovers to a consciousness of what place they had selected for the cradle of their happiness.
"Come away from this ghostly spot, Cornelia."
"Oh, stay! the scene is a dear and familiar one to me."
"Strange child, who must be sought in dungeons or graveyards! How does it happen that you always choose so gloomy a background for the radiant picture of your life? Does a churchyard suit our mood? have not the flowers which garland our first embrace sprung from corruption? Why think of death when we are just crossing the threshold of a new life?"
"Why not? Death has no terrors for me. Is it not pleasant to see how life rises anew from corruption? Look the bodily form of a friend is springing up around me in spring flowers; his nature was as pure, delicate, and fragrant as a lily of the valley, and perhaps in these evening breezes his gentle spirit hovers around me in benediction. Why should I not rejoice here, where I have so long mourned you? How often the rustling of this shrubbery has deceived me when I thought I had summoned you hither by my ardent longing! how often these birds have sung of hope and consolation when I believed myself lonely and forgotten, and came here to atone to the dead man for having forsaken him for the sake of one who loved me not! I have never left here without being aided, and am I now to carelessly turn away from the spot because I no longer need its modest consolation? Should I avoid the grave of my young friend,--the grave which, in the perfume of these flowers, has so often poured forth blissful promises of love?"
"Cornelia, how happy you are even when grave, and how profoundly earnest! I have never known a nature upon which all the delicate and noble instincts of the soul were so clearly impressed. Come, let me clasp you to my heart again, that I may convince myself you are really flesh and blood, and no glorified spirit, which may some day soar upward from whence it came."
"Even if I were a spirit, I would not fly from you," said Cornelia, gazing up at him with a face radiant with joy. "I would gladly submit to all the sorrows of this earthly life, in order to be able to taste its joys in your heart, you noble man."
"Girl!" cried Henri, his eyes blazing with a sudden light, "what a world of love your tender breast conceals! Yes, you will know how to love as I desire,--warmly, nobly, overpoweringly. Come, kiss me once more; it is so lonely here: no one is watching us. You cannot kiss yet, Cornelia. When I return I will teach you."
"When you return? Are you going away again?"
"This very day; but it is for the last time, then I will stay with you."