A Twofold Life

by Wilhelmine von Hillern

"Forever! But my prayers will be with you,--implore the protection of the Holy Virgin for you." His voice trembled. "God cannot let such a soul go to destruction!" He turned and, with averted face, opened the door.

Then Cornelia's sincere affection burst forth in all its fervor; she rushed up to him, threw her arms around his neck, and with childlike contrition laid her head upon his breast. "Will you go without a farewell?" she cried, sobbing. "Ah, Severinus, a deep, inexpressible pity for you overwhelms me! Poor, noble man, I loved you so dearly!"

Severinus stood as if a thunderbolt had struck him; he did not move a finger, did not clasp Cornelia to his heart or push her from him. But suddenly a cry of anguish burst from his compressed lips, so full of torture that Cornelia's very soul was filled with terror, and she no longer ventured to detain him when, as if driven by some mortal dread, he hurried away.

Late at night, before she went to rest, she saw him wandering about in the storm and rain, and before dawn he entered the carriage which bore him away from Cornelia forever. He traveled without pausing until he reached Rome, where he delivered the papers to the General; confessed, resigned his office, and entered the Casa al Gesu as a monk, to atone by the strictest seclusion for the crime of being a man.

[XXIV.]

REGENERATION

While Cornelia was confidently looking forward to a meeting with Ottmar, proud in the consciousness of having repelled all the attacks of his enemies, Heinrich was tortured by uncertainty in regard to her fate. Ever since his return home, he had lived exclusively on his estates, engaged in making preparations for his new calling. In this complete seclusion from the would, whose influence had been so hostile to Cornelia, engrossed by the ideas of which she was the charming representative, he fed his longing for her more and more. At every step in his new career he had expected some sign of life from her, but in vain. His hope began to waver. He knew that she was in the hands of the Jesuits, and trembled lest her young, susceptible soul, her easily excited fancy, should not remain closed to their influences, for then she would be irrecoverably torn from him. He had fulfilled every condition mentioned in her letter. It was not possible that she still loved him if, after all this, she still persisted in her obstinate silence. A deep melancholy began to overpower him once more; his prospects lay before him like a region destitute of sunlight; his whole career would lack purpose if Cornelia was not won again. As yet no success had crowned his efforts. He had no anticipation of the happiness he would feel if he could some day consider himself as the true benefactor of a whole nation. The quiet labor for his new vocation did not yet satisfy him, and he therefore founded all his hopes upon his entrance into parliament, and longed for the day of election as the last limit Cornelia had perhaps allowed herself. One day, in his restlessness, he drove into the city to divert his thoughts. He wished to visit the Exhibition, and as he went up the broad staircase of the museum he noticed with secret pleasure that people whispered to each other, "That is Ottmar!" and looked at him with interest and approval. He entered the large hall where reigned the solemn silence with which men receive into their souls the wonders of art. The first and second rooms were empty of spectators. The dead and yet lifelike forms upon the walls looked down upon him with their eternal laughing, weeping, or anger. An exhibition is a mute world of a brilliant-hued medley of times, customs, and passions, petrified as if by some magic, and imprisoned in frames, condemned to remain motionless in the attitude assumed at the moment when the spell began to work. There a Magdalen repents with inexhaustible tears; yonder a Roman maiden allures, ever unsuccessfully, with her motionless, half-opened lips; and here an Alva rages in implacable fury, while close by a Huss burns in never-dying flames; below a wolf snaps in unappeasable hunger at a child, which, fortunately, he will never reach; a mother seeks to tear it away, and cannot draw it to her protecting breast; the poor woman is condemned to perpetual dread, and the spectator with her. Not far away is--and will forever remain--a pair of lovers in the act of exchanging a kiss. Upon the other side ships struggle with waves, nations contend in a never-decided battle, a vanquished man awaits the death-stroke of the conqueror, and high up, an a golden background, flooded by the light that streams through the glass dome, is enthroned the Virgin, in her calm peace, surrounded by her heavenly glory.

All the passions, joys, griefs, and hopes of humanity, fixed and beautified by the power of genius, displayed themselves to Heinrich's wandering gaze, but his thoughts dwelt only with Cornelia; nay, it even seemed as if here and there he found some resemblance to her. One picture had her eyes, another her profile or her mouth,--her brow. He fancied he saw her everywhere; it was doubtless a trick of his excited imagination, or the likeness all regular beauties bear to each other. He passed on into the third hall, which was crowded. Two oil-paintings attracted the especial attention of the public, and the universal verdict pronounced them to be the best in the Exhibition. It was difficult for him to make his way in, but he could scarcely trust his eyes when he saw one of them,--for it was Cornelia again; the likeness was so speaking that no doubt was possible, and the figure of Severinus beside her was equally unmistakable. Both were really only minor accessories to a beautiful landscape, but painted in a most masterly manner. They were standing under lofty trees which formed the foreground, by the shore of a lake, which, surrounded by beautiful mountain-peaks, stretched out into the background. Severinus had one arm extended, pointing to a church-tower almost shrouded in mist. Cornelia, with clasped hands, was looking up into his face. In the catalogue, the work was merely named "View of the Ch---- See, by A----."

Heinrich could not understand it; and when an acquaintance came up and called his attention to the other famous painting, he turned carelessly towards it; but his astonishment was inexpressible, as here also he found Cornelia. The figures were life-size. The picture represented the moment before a novice assumes the garb of a nun. She was leaning upon the window-sill of a gloomy convent-room, gazing up towards heaven, whose brilliant blue gleamed through the bars, while a green branch, swayed by the wind, tossed against the rusty iron gratings. The artist, by a singular fancy, had drawn his principal figure with her back towards the spectators, probably to show in all its magnificence the beautiful brown hair which was so soon to fall under the scissors. But the bright panes of the window, which opened inwards, revealed the face, upraised in fervent prayer. This face was Cornelia's, as well as the hair he had so often stroked; the youthful neck, which the thin undergarment she was soon to cover with the nun's dress, lying close by, clearly revealed, and which he had so often admired. He rubbed his eyes; he looked again and again; it was still Cornelia. A gloomy, haggard prioress was in the act of advancing with the scissors, and a sweet-faced young nun was gazing with evident compassion at the beautiful, devout novice.

"Is it not a true work of genius?" said Heinrich's companion. "The expression of enthusiastic devotion in the face reflected in the window, and the wonderfully painted hair! One really dreads the moment when that stern, unfeeling prioress will cut it off!"