Cornelia started. "I forgot something," she replied, and slipped out of the room. When she returned through Veronica's chamber she carried a portfolio in her hand.
"What have you there?" asked Veronica.
"Don't be angry with me for waking you, dear," said Cornelia, kissing the white, aged brow, "I only wanted to read Hedwig's essay again; it was left in the parlor."
When she had closed the door of her pleasant bedroom behind her, she took Ottmar's portrait from the portfolio, placed it on a reading-desk, sat down before it, and, shielding her eyes with both hands, rested her arms on the table, and became absorbed in studying the mysterious head. The more she looked at it the more beautiful she found it. "How simple those lines are, and yet how rich, how infinitely expressive! Oh, who could decipher the mute language of that ardent mouth, whose kiss still burns upon my hand? How can people kiss so with such delicate lips? It is not the lips that kiss, it is his heart, which lies between them; that is why his caress is so soft, so warm; that is why it penetrates to the inmost soul. And when he speaks they are again only the beautiful, slender banks over which the flood of feeling streams! And those eyes,--oh, they reveal all the wonders of the soul! He might err, nay, he might even be shattered by life, but the look that shines in his eyes is divine; it will raise him above his lower nature, and everything else. And I,--I will aid him; I will join the good genius that floats above the darkness of his soul like the Spirit of God over chaos, and teach him to perceive his own greatness, his ideal strength."
She sat long, absorbed in thought; but, by degrees, it seemed as if the pictured head moved to and fro, the eyes turned, the lips parted and closed again. She gazed and made the light burn brighter; in vain. Nature asserted her rights, sleep was casting her deceptive veil over her weary head. She rose, removed the flowers from her hair, and released her lovely form from its clinging drapery. Again and again her eyes rested upon the drawing. She paused. "How you look at me, as if you were alive! as if I ought to be confused! Stop, wait! You shall not see me undress." So saying, she hastily placed the picture in the writing-table, went to bed, extinguished the light, and nestled comfortably among the pillows. "Good-night, Heinrich."
[XI.]
A NEW LIFE
After Henri had written his letter, the exhausted body imperiously demanded rest, and while it slept Heinrich hastened to Cornelia and hovered round her slumbering soul as if it were the petals of a folded rosebud. She did not know, but she suspected it; the magic of the soul revealed his presence, and she felt his spiritual kiss.
When Ottmar awoke the following morning he thought he had not slept well, and had been dreaming a great deal of the Prison Fairy. Yet neither had been dreaming; although their bodies slept, their souls were together. Heinrich remained in bed some time. He was in the best of humors, and compared this awakening with the one six years before, when he had resolved to yield to the power of the Jesuits. At that time he was in the act of beginning a new but worse life, as to-day he had awakened to a new and better one. He thought of Cornelia with grateful reverence. Through her he obtained a peace of which he had long been deprived; for, while in himself there was naught save opposition and contrast, in her he found the complement of his nature and the full satisfaction of homogeneousness. Thus Heinrich already preferred to dwell upon her harmonious character rather than the struggles in his own breast, and this was one step, though scarcely perceptible, towards liberation from the egotism that was constantly throwing him back upon himself. Even Henri, the night before, had rejected the pleasure of the moment, and yielded to an ardent love for an object he could never expect to obtain his way. Even in this hopeless submission there was a slight contest with his usual selfish pursuit of pleasure. It was with a certain feeling of abhorrence that he compared the base passions of the past with his longing for Cornelia's intellectual charms, and fell into this temporary self-sacrifice. Thus egotism sooner or later defeats itself. The true egotist ends with a feeling of loathing and disgust, not only towards the world, but himself. Unmistakable tokens of this state were already visible both in Heinrich and Henri; but, fortunately for him, he was at an age when fresh buds can shoot forth and supply the places of those that are dead. These germs now began to stir with life. Intellect and feeling, with equal power, drew Heinrich and Henri towards a being whose bodily and mental gifts were equal. In this the two extremes already began to approach; but they did not yet understand each other, and their meeting must still produce conflict instead of reconciliation.
Ottmar lay for a long time absorbed in meditations upon his strange twofold nature. A servant entered to wake him. He remembered how he had expected old Anton to come in that morning, and, for the first time, a strange face appeared instead. "Good old Anton, no doubt he was right," thought Heinrich; "and how shamefully he was treated! Now he would certainly have no occasion to be angry about such faults. He was the best servant I ever had. I will take him back again." He rose, ordered a message to be sent to the inn for old Anton, and sat down to write to Cornelia.