A Twofold Life

by Wilhelmine von Hillern

Albert seemed confused and did not appear to understand anything.

"You are free!" cried Heinrich. But Albert with a deep sigh sank senseless into the arms of the bystanders like a somnambulist suddenly aroused from a heavy slumber. Ere long, however, he opened his eyes and threw himself at Heinrich's feet, murmuring, "Forgive me!"

"We have both forgiven each other long ago," replied Heinrich, raising him kindly from the ground.

The presiding officer approached him, saying, "Herr von Ottmar, allow me in the name of the whole court to thank you for having given us an opportunity to rescind an undeserved sentence, and changed the sad duty of condemnation to the joy of pronouncing a decree of liberation; permit me to give you the assurance that I have become your sincere friend."

Heinrich took a cordial farewell of the worthy man, whose eyes beamed with heartfelt esteem. But when he came out of the building to enter his carriage the multitude had assembled before it, and for the first time in his life a loud cheer of universal approbation greeted him. Heinrich felt every nerve thrill pleasantly at the unwonted sound, and as he raised his hat in acknowledgment murmured, with joyful emotion, "Prison Fairy, I thank you!"

He had intended to play a part; but the seriousness of the matter had laid hold upon him and converted acting to reality. He perceived this fact with a throb of strange elation; and if the joy he felt sprang more from the result than the act itself, the pleasure was so pure, the vanity so legitimate, that even he could scarcely distinguish it from the emotions of an unselfish, satisfied conscience. Enough: he had done a noble deed, felt the happier for it, and formed the resolution to take advantage of every opportunity of procuring this delight again. But of course he thought only of those occasions which would secure him a similar popular recognition; he did not think of the unfortunates he might aid, but of the gratitude he should receive from them and the public. To his heartless egotism no other course of reflection was possible, yet even this was a great advance towards better things.

There are natures which, incited by the love of applause, first do good merely from vanity; but the more frequently this occurs, the more they become accustomed to it, and at last do it, with or without success, from habit. But inasmuch as every habit gradually becomes a necessity, so it is with this, until at last they do right from a secret need.

Ottmar was such a man. Amid all his great faults and errors, it was not the opposition between right and wrong that was the point of controversy in his nature, but that between the heart and intellect. The cause of all the dissensions about right and wrong into which Heinrich, as well as Henri, had fallen, was that his heart and intellect opposed each other, instead of harmonizing. All Heinrich's errors were rooted solely in the selfishness of his cold intellect, as Henri's were founded upon the egotism of his material nature. If any great influence could succeed in uniting the two extremes he would become the most noble and estimable of men. Society, therefore, is not so far wrong when it allows itself to be dazzled by the ideal nimbus which such persons understand how to diffuse around them; for beneath it there is always an instinct of good by means of which they may really become what they seem.

There are also noble, sensitive souls which understand such men, and wish to aid them in reaching the right path. The extent of their success of course depends upon their own capacity.

Ottilie was one of these souls, but Ottmar knew that the Prison Fairy would become more, infinitely more, to him if he could succeed in approaching her. That which in the fading, suffering Ottilie had failed to make any deeper impression upon him, because it had appeared in a form too sentimental, too little akin to his own nature, kindled an ardent enthusiasm in him when he encountered it in the energetic, vivacious Prison Fairy. Ottilie seemed to him a distant, glorified ideal; her self-denial, her capacity for self-sacrifice, appeared superhuman, and only rooted in the indifference of a spirit striving to cast off its earthly nature; it never entered his mind to try to imitate, greatly as he admired it. The Prison Fairy, while possessing Ottilie's ideal character, was also in every respect congenial to him, and thus he could follow her. He had seen the former suffer from her ideas, which repelled him; but the latter was happy, and attracted him. In a word, the princess gave him the theory, the Prison Fairy the practice.