"You ask for my hand, Heinrich. I have read the words with tears of grateful surprise. You bear a beautiful and noble testimony, both to yourself and me; and in spirit I fall upon my knees before you, and implore your pardon for the reproaches and upbraidings hurled at your dear head on that terrible evening of our parting. Your letter reveals all the wealth of your deep heart, and shows me that you undervalued yourself when you wished to commit a deed so unworthy of you. Forgive me that I too then believed you worse than you are. I thank God for the merciful kindness with which he restored my only treasure, esteem for you; for nothing humiliates a woman more deeply than to feel affection for a man she must despise. I frankly confess, Heinrich, that I could not cease to love you, even for a moment, that I was torn by the most torturing struggle between heart and my consciousness of right. Now, since I have, received your letter and know you deserve my love, I am once more at peace with myself. I write this that you may not think me prompted by anger or bitterness when I refuse your hand. My eyes grow dim at the sight of these cruel words, the fingers that guide the pen are paralyzed; I must pause a moment and collect my thoughts.
"I cannot become your wife after what has passed between us,--I dare not. You have wounded my womanly honor too deeply, shown with too little consideration what a great sacrifice you would make if you raised me to the position of your wife, for me to be able to reconcile my conscience or my pride to its acceptance. I cannot belong to a man who found me in a station so far below him that he thought he could degrade me to the lowest ignominy; although a nobler emotion or an unconquerable affection afterwards leads him to atone for the wrong. I should always fear that, according to the opinions you have often declared, you would consider your marriage with me a mesalliance. Besides, you have described my position as the plebeian wife of Count Ottmar too clearly and distinctly for me not to shrink from the picture with dread and horror; while even if I could myself suffer the humiliations the pride of your aristocratic circle would prepare, I could not bear that you, as my husband, should be compelled to share them with me; for even if your love at first helped you to endure them, they would only too soon stifle it. There would be a perpetual conflict between your heart and the prejudices the world in which you live has stamped upon you. This must banish peace from your breast, and sooner or later make you as miserable as before. Love would yield, and prejudice conquer, for society would neglect no opportunity of bringing new and painful proofs of the justice of its views before your eyes, and then what would be left me in return for all the humiliations I had suffered? Your scorn! Oh, I was foolish ever to permit myself to be so blinded as to believe that happiness for yourself or me could ever be expected to result from a marriage with Count Ottmar! The extent of my folly you first taught me to know in that hour of agony. Do not rebuke the application I have made of your lessons as exaggerated. It might, perhaps, be so in regard to a man who stood further above the views and demands of a narrow-minded circle than you. But with you, Heinrich, it is the direct result of your whole character. You are far too much fettered by the ideas of those who surround you, cling too closely to the false lustre of brilliant positions, accidental aristocratic prerogatives, and personal distinction, to long retain your love for a woman who would constantly inflict the most painful wounds upon your aristocratic vanity. Believe me, love has no worse enemy than doubt of the equality of its chosen object; and even if you thought me worthy of you in intellect, the inferiority of my birth, and the want of esteem shown by society, would weigh heavily against me. You must become another man for me to accept your hand; and--forgive me if I am harsh--your letter gave me no proof of this, although it revealed a depth of feeling for which, since our separation, I had not given you credit. But you are and will remain the minister, Count Ottmar, the court favorite; I can only make him unhappy, as he would me. If you were once more yourself, Heinrich von Ottmar, my Heinrich, who has nothing in common with that unprincipled aristocracy,--if you openly acknowledged what I taught you, what I believe requisite to true manly dignity and greatness,--then, then you should learn how I love you. Count Ottmar, who wished to inflict such disgrace upon me, I do not love, and have sworn never to marry. Farewell! For your happiness and my own I must avoid you, and leave it to God whether and how he dispose your heart towards me. If your love is more than the obstinacy of a passion irritated by resistance, it will unite with your better self and make you a new man, will remove from our path the obstacles that separate us, and upon the open way will find me once more; of that you may be assured. But if it has not the strength to do all this, it would in the end only make both you and myself miserable,--thrice as miserable as we are now.
"When you receive this letter, I shall have left Rome for another place of residence. Do not try to seek me: you will not find me. Do not call me 'cruel'; in these lines you see only the victory I have obtained over myself, but not my anguish, my tears. Beloved, I extend my arms to you, and would fain press you to my aching heart, but only the cold phantom of womanly duty and honor bends toward me, and breathes an icy kiss on my burning lips. Oh, it is hard to be cast off by one you love, and compelled to renounce your most ardent desire! But, Heinrich, it is still harder to reject him yourself, and voluntarily resign that for which you long. These, Heinrich, are superhuman victories, and they strip all blossoms of youth from the heart; but it is better to lose them than reap the envenomed fruit of eternal remorse. May God keep his gentle, fatherly hand over you! He can still lead you to happiness, and he alone.
"Cornelia Erwing."
It was morning when Heinrich read and re-read this letter, until a sorrow never imagined before made the words swim before his eyes, and lay like a weight upon his chest, until, with a half-stifled cry of agony, he bent his head upon the sheet lying before him. He started as if bewildered, when Anton suddenly appeared, and informed him that a message had come, summoning him to go to the palace as soon as possible.
A few hours after, the bells rang, the cannon thundered, and the populace shouted with joy, for in the palace a new-born child, a prince, lay in a golden cradle. The hope of the country, whose fulfillment slumbered in that little heart, stood by its side uttering a benediction, and the promise of a great future encircled the baby brow with an invisible crown.
But beside him a precious life was struggling silently and uncomplainingly with death. Ottilie had fulfilled her last and highest task, but it had exhausted the remnant of her strength. She felt that her pulse had but a few more throbs, her breast would rise and fall only a few more times, and, gazing gently and submissively around the circle, Said, "Give me my son,"--took him from the arms of the prince and pressed him closely to her heart. "Oh, God! what do I need more than the happiness of this moment?" Yet a tear fell from her glazing eyes as she kissed the little one and softly whispered, "You are so sweet, so dear! Oh, it must be an immeasurable delight to cradle such a child in one's arms, protect, foster, and watch the awakening of its slumbering powers! It is not allotted to me. I must leave you and give you up to your father. May his soul open itself to you! may you become the innocent mediator between him and his poor people!" She pressed the boy more and more feebly to her breast. "Farewell! it grieves me to leave you,--grieves me deeply. Yours was the only heart an which I relied. But I will not complain. I have borne you,--this, too, is a mercy from God, and with a kiss upon your rosy lips it is sweet to die." The child fell from her arm, and her head sank back.
"She is asleep," said the prince, dismissing the bystanders, that he might not be compelled to show any grief.
That evening the bells rang out another peal, and thousands wept aloud under the brilliantly-lighted windows of the palace, for behind them, on a black-draped bed of state, lay the beautiful corpse of the princess, and her people's love stretched its arms towards her in vain. With her the last bond that bound the sympathies of the masses to the throne was sundered, and in the child-like ideas of the nation, Ottilie's glorified spirit rose from her death-bed as that of a saint, a martyr, who had vainly struggled and suffered to the end. She hovered above the mourning country in a halo of glory and grief, and despair transformed the angel of peace into a goddess of freedom, who with a mighty power revealed to their oppressed hearts the consciousness of their crushed rights.