Ottmar stood at the window gazing silently, now at the glowing sky and now at the blood-stained earth. Horror had stupefied him. In the angles of the streets soldiers, who had fallen asleep while standing in the ranks, leaned against each other, shoulder to shoulder. Now and then a body covered with straw was borne past; pallid women stepped noiselessly over the barricades, urged on by the courage of despair, and crept along the streets to seek their husbands and sons; invisible angels of death floated through the air, guided them into the right path, and hovered around them when, in some lifeless body, they were forced to recognize a relative.
Heinrich gazed motionless at these changing scenes of misery; but his inmost heart was strangely stirred. The spirit of murdered freedom celebrated in him its resurrection, built a temple in his soul, raised its arches heavenward, and led him away from this sorrowful scene of his former unhallowed labors to his own home, where the lists stood open to the missionaries of national happiness, where he could obey the call which had appealed to his conscience in the death-cry of an ill-used country. All the frivolity and brilliancy that had formerly charmed him was swallowed up in the streams of blood he had seen flow,--all striving and struggling to assert his own merits vanished in the newly-awakened consciousness of the duties devolving upon every talented man for the development and culture of the masses. The solemnity of the moment had seized upon him and stripped off all that was false and superficial. He could not answer with sophisms the great question propounded by the times; he must at last be himself again, must acknowledge the truth, and from amidst all the horrors of vengeance, the rushing streams of blood, once more arose in its pure beauty the thought of the eternal rights of man he had so grievously profaned.
[XXII.]
LIGHT AND SHADOW
A radiant morning sky arched over a green island which lay in the midst of a broad, ruffled lake. Blue mountain-peaks, veiled in mist, bounded the almost-immeasurable surface of water. Who can describe all the changeful lights upon the tide when the young rays of the morning sun play upon the dancing wavelets--the rising and falling, the sparkling and flashing, the confused blending of the reflections? A fresh breeze swept over the lake to the island and rustled the leaves of the lofty trees; with that exception, a deep silence, a sabbath-like peace, brooded over the scene.
A girlish figure stood upon the shore, gazing, in a trance of delight, at the starry shimmer of the waves, and inhaling with parted lips the cool breath of the water; dewy leaves and blossoms kissed her floating robes, and dragon-flies sported upon the tide at her feet. Her eyes followed with a longing look a bird of prey which soared in a majestic flight towards the pure, vaulted firmament. Just then the sound of the matin-bell rang out upon the silence, and at the same moment a tall man, in long, dark robe, appeared in the doorway of a peasant's house near by, and, standing motionless, gazed at the slender figure, whose marvelous proportions were sharply outlined against the sparkling lake! "Cornelia!" he called at last.
She turned and hurried towards him. "My dear Severinus! Oh, how happy I am! Here the free German air blows once more; here I again hear the rustling of German oaks and pines. Home surrounds me in this fresh, simple nature, speaks in the familiar language, looks from the kindly blue eyes. I live once more,--I am awake,--and what surrounds me is charming, bright reality."
"Have you only been dreaming while in our glorious Italy?" asked Severinus, gravely.
"Yes, Severinus; a beautiful, wonderful dream, but a dream after all. I was torn from my native soil; my heart could not take root anywhere; no dear relations with my past existed; no new ones were formed with the present. What I saw and experienced only enriched my intellect, not my heart; it afforded me pleasure without making me happy; occupied my mind without obtaining any hold upon my nature. I gazed, admired, learned, and reveled in a wealth of beauty; but I was not myself,--my individual life had no connection with my surroundings. What is this except a dream into which we bring nothing, and from which we take only a memory?"
"I had hoped you would not return so empty from a country of the loftiest revelations. I expected your great soul would there find its only true home, and the sorrow of finding myself mistaken shall be the last the world can prepare for me."