"Will you allow it, Fräulein?" asked Heinrich.
"Certainly," replied the young girl, joyfully. "Perhaps the tragical history may for once arouse even in you the enthusiasm of compassion."
With these words she glanced at Heinrich with a pleading, inexpressibly charming smile. The latter could not turn his eyes away from the wonderfully changeful face, but murmured, as if in assent, "Prison Fairy!"
Meantime Albert had commenced his story. At first Heinrich gave it very little attention; gradually, however, he became attracted and listened eagerly, even anxiously. Albert related how, after being expelled from the order in the second year of his novitiate, he had for some time earned a scanty support, and at last lived several years as a tutor in the family of a wealthy German merchant. Six years before, this family removed from Italy to Germany, and in fact to the very capital where Ottmar had lived before his departure for N----. "There," said he, "I became acquainted with a young girl,--a girl who was really as pure and blooming as a rose. I had never loved a woman before,--the dark, ardent Italians were repulsive to my quiet nature,--but when I found the thoughtful, golden-haired German maiden, I clung to her with fervent affection. She loved me; and I, who had been tossed about the world from a child, was intoxicated by her tenderness, as if it were the aroma of some costly wine. I gradually neglected my pupils, my duty, and several times received censure; but in vain. Passion, so long repressed, was aroused, and locked me, the novice, completely within its magic circle.
"But now I became the sport of other feelings, which were more dangerous to me,--I grew jealous. My beloved suddenly seemed changed. She became timid, absent-minded, embarrassed, and day by day colder. I spoke to her father. The old man asked me whether I doubted the virtue of his child. The fever of jealousy and suspicion increased. I had no thoughts for anything else, and no longer knew what I was doing. Then one day my employers dismissed me. They had grown weary of my indolence and absence of mind, and I was penniless. With an agonized soul I hurried through the gathering twilight to seek my betrothed. I wished to find her heart once more,--the heart for which I had sacrificed and lost all. She was deeply moved when I told her of my misfortune and the tortures I had suffered for her sake; and as in decisive moments a long-concealed truth is often revealed, her innocent breast in this agitation could no longer hide its secret. She confessed, amid tears of agony and remorse, that she was on the point of being lost to me forever; that an aristocratic, handsome, brilliant gentleman had tempted her, and she was too weak to withstand him; that he had loaded her and her father with favors of all kinds, and she had thought gratitude made it her duty to obey him; nay, he had even persuaded her to come to his garden, but there, heaven be praised! she had been saved from disgrace by his old valet. The gentleman must have gone away an a journey, for she had heard nothing more from him.
"So I had sacrificed everything, and this was my reward. I stood silent, trembling from head to foot, as I leaned against the window in the little dark room on the ground-floor. I was not accustomed to say much, but I felt all the more. A cold perspiration trickled down my forehead; my clammy hands clinched the sill; the lights out-of-doors cast strange, unsteady shadows into the room, and dim, restless shadows settled upon my brain. At last I asked with difficulty, 'Who is the scoundrel?' The young girl had been standing beside me pale and trembling, with her eyes fixed intently upon the street. Suddenly she screamed and retreated from the window alarm. There he comes! so he hasn't gone yet! It is he! he is coming!' I saw a tall, slight figure, closely wrapped in a cloak approach the house; heard that it was he! The blood rushed to my brain! I seized an axe that was lying near the stove, dashed out, and felled the approaching figure to the ground! The young girl ran after me terror, saw the wounded man, and screamed, Jesus Maria! it is not he! You have killed an innocent person!' I felt bewildered and unable to move. Just then the man opened his eyes, looked at me, and gasped my name. My heart seemed to stop beating! I had killed Father Severinus!"
A long pause ensued. The prisoner was living over these scenes again, and needed a moment to collect his thoughts.
Heinrich gazed fixedly at the floor in silence. The Prison Fairy, in her dark dress, leaned calmly against the wall, her eyes resting on Heinrich's agitated face.
"What is the young girl's name?" asked Heinrich.
"Röschen, the daughter of Martin the beadle," replied Albert.