Heinrich bowed. "I am well aware that you are too proud to adopt such a course."
"Well then, for what wrong can you upbraid me, which justifies this inconsiderate, heartless language?" He paused and looked at Heinrich, who bit his lips and drummed on the arm of his chair. "What wrong has the order done you that you take upon yourself the task of entering upon a contest with it?" repeated Severinus. Another pause ensued. "What could induce you to commit such a breach of faith?"
"I have committed no breach of faith!" exclaimed Heinrich, "for I never belonged to you; I am and was a free-thinker. For a long time I admitted your great and manifest excellences, but the longer I remained among you the more I learned to hate you and the principles of your order, whose sole aim is the subjection of the mind to your dogmas, or rather your authority, an object to attain which you know how to employ every conceivable means, good as well as bad. Do you really ask a man of my nature to submit to become the tool of such plans? If you could expect it, it was your fault, not mine, if you now find yourselves deceived."
"To that, my son, I have two answers," replied Severinus, after a short pause of reflection. "If the principles of our order, which the hand of God has hitherto wonderfully protected, seem to you so worthy of blame that you consider it a duty to oppose them and prepare a better fate for your nation by your own ideas, I can say nothing against it in my own person, except that I pity your error, while I can pay a certain respect to the man who has at heart the welfare of his people, even though his views may be mistaken. But you, Heinrich, do not oppose us from the necessity of preserving your country from a supposed evil, nor from the sanctity of a firm though erroneous conviction, but merely out of vanity, that thereby you may play a prominent part before your revolutionary party. You know nothing more sublime and imperishable than the worldly admiration bestowed upon you, because the reward and recognition of Christ, promised by his vicars throughout eternity, are incredulously scorned by your narrow soul. Vanity and egotism are answerable for your actions towards us, and even destroy the paltry merit of having sacrificed yourself for your convictions."
"Oh, Ottilie," Heinrich suddenly exclaimed, in bitter wrath, "gentle, innocent angel! How much better you understood me!"
"That is not all I have to say in reply," continued Severinus, without permitting himself to be at all disturbed by the interruption. "If, as I have just seen, the reproach of acting from selfish impulses wounds you so deeply, tell me what noble motive induced you to remain a year with men whom you abhor, receive every possible proof of friendship from them, and feign enthusiastic interest in a faith which seems to you pernicious and criminal? Pray answer this, if you can."
"I can," replied Heinrich, quietly. "Chance and ennui threw me into your hands. You took me to the college. The genius of your system attracted me; I wished to penetrate the mysterious nimbus which surrounded you, to investigate you and your nature, as people desire to examine every curiosity. You interested me, and I very soon perceived that it would only cost me a little hypocrisy to acquire knowledge which would be useful all my life. I looked upon it as a necessary entrance-fee, and paid you with it. Why did you not see that the coin was false? You trained me for diplomacy, and drilled me in the arts of dissimulation, to which you gave the noble name of 'self-command.' As I learned them I tested them on you, and thus you see that my diplomatic career began by making you the first victims of your own teachings, and by deceiving you. Truth will pardon my year of faithlessness for the sake of a lifetime of repentance."
"That sounds very strange," said Severinus. "Did we teach you hypocrisy? To conceal the truth without telling a lie is the art we communicated to aid you in your diplomatic career. But granted that it was so, granted that we taught you dissimulation to obtain certain necessary ends, should not common human gratitude have withheld you from betraying in such a despicable manner the men who trusted you?"
"Gratitude," laughed Heinrich, "for what? Did you receive me cordially and bestow your instruction upon me for my own sake? Certainly not. Why did you expel poor Albert Preheim, who was miserably poor, dependent, and sincerely devoted to you? Because he had not sufficient ability to serve you, because he was a man of limited intellect. You did not keep me for my good but your own, because you expected to find in me a useful tool, because a skillful agent for this country was necessary. Tell me yourself, would you have done all this for me if the matter had only concerned my welfare?"
"No," said Severinus; "our mission is to serve God alone. This claims us so entirely that the interests of individuals must be excluded. We cannot trouble ourselves about any one who is not in some manner useful to this end; he must apply to those orders whose sole vocation is the practice of Christian charity. If he cannot find among them the benefits he seeks, he would not be worthy of ours."