He spent three days in the most terrible excitement. The blood coursed madly through his veins; his brain burned and whirled with plans to regain the lost one and prevent her return to Paris. On the third Monsieur d'Anneaud called to bid him farewell, complaining bitterly of the caprices of his wife, who had suddenly dismissed her whole household, would see no one, and wished to set off at once for Paris. Everything around him grew dim as he heard these words; his heart throbbed as if it would burst, and when his friend had taken leave he turned deadly pale and sank exhausted upon the sofa. Now for the first time he felt what, in the suspense of the last few days, he had not heeded, that he was ill; but he dared not yield to it. Madame d'Anneaud was to set out that very evening. The thought drove him back to the city, that he might at least watch her window and witness her departure. She saw him, and as she entered her carriage cast a long and, as it appeared to him, sorrowful glance at him.
He returned to the castle wild with despair. What was he to do now, follow her, perhaps to be again repulsed? sacrifice his scientific studies at the decisive time of the examination to rush around Paris imploring love, perchance in vain? It seemed too useless and degrading for him to resolve upon it without further reflection. He strove with superhuman exertion to busy himself in his work; in vain, his thoughts refused to obey his will. Day and night he sat over his books, gazing with burning eyes and bewildered brain at the letters, to him so unmeaning and disconnected, while the maddest longing raged in his panting breast. In this torturing, mental struggle his bodily health failed more and more; the illness which he had felt ever since his first great emotion made itself the more apparent the less he spared himself. At last he yielded, and became the prey of a most violent feverish attack. The physician who was summoned shrugged his shoulders thoughtfully, for the young man's condition afforded every symptom that nervous fever was to be apprehended.
[II.]
DUAL APPARITIONS
The fever increased day by day. Heinrich became very delirious and required incessant watching. On one of his worst nights the nurse, overpowered by fatigue, fell asleep. The patient seemed to become more quiet for a few minutes, and gazed with half-closed eyes at the dull glimmer of the night-lamp. For a time in his stupefaction followed a fixed train of ideas,--it was the conflict between duty and inclination which had made him so ill. His imagination incessantly painted pictures which his conscience destroyed. He lamented that he did not possess that thoughtless frivolity which receives every enjoyment as a gift from the loving Father, without doubt, struggle, or conflict with what we term conscience, duty, honor. "Oh, God! Thou who hast given me life," he murmured, "what didst thou bestow in putting me under the dominion of a power which feeds upon the blood of my murdered joys, and absorbs the sweetest marrow of this existence! The only happy natures are those which can so divide intellect and feeling that they can no longer bias each other. Oh, would that I might also!"
Amid such thoughts be fell into that feverish, half slumber in which dreams and reality are often so strangely blended. We know that we are in bed, know that we are dreaming, and yet cannot prevent the creations of our fancy from appearing before us, surrounding us like substantial forms, and arbitrarily forcing their existence upon us. Such was the case with Heinrich. His mind was busily weaving the torn threads of his thoughts into fairy-like figures, at first quaint like arabesques, but by degrees revealing a strange secret connection. The faces became more and more distinct as his consciousness of the outside world grew dim. He still felt vaguely that egotism and ideality were waging a fierce battle in his heart, and by degrees the ideal he could no longer think of in the abstract assumed a bodily form. There seemed to be something in the room which terrified him,--something that crawled and glided over the floor. "Do not fear," it whispered hypocritically. "I do not come to destroy but to aid. I am the impulse of self-preservation, and when in aristocratic society I cultivate my mind and call myself Egotism." The shape writhed and glided nearer, while over Heinrich's head sounded a melodious yet powerful rustling of wings, and a voice from above rang like the low notes of an organ, "Fear not, I am the Genius of the Ideal, and will save you."
Heinrich gasped for breath, he feared the whispering, ghostly apparitions that surrounded him, his breast and neck seemed bound with heavy cords, he strove to cry out but his voice refused to obey him, he tried to open his eyes but in vain; he only felt the overmastering presence of the two original elements of humanity, and his ear thrilled at their words. "See what cowardly monsters you men are!" laughed the fiend on the floor. "You carry hideous forms within you and think you imperiously rule them, but recoil in horror when you have conjured them from the secret depths of your hearts. I was nearer to you when in your own breast than I am now, yet you fostered and cherished me; now that I appear before you, you fear me."
The voice above murmured: "Compose yourself, we are only the powers you have felt struggling within your soul, but now we have united in the common object of gratifying your wishes, for your folly will never be satisfied until you perceive the vanity of your desires. Your wishes shall be fulfilled, that you may learn to perceive in what the end of life and true happiness consist."
"Oh, mighty beings!" groaned Heinrich, "we are so proud of what we accomplish by your aid, and yet it is we who serve you while you do everything. What sustains us, that in our weakness we do not fall helpless victims to one or the other of you?"
"The Hand which rules over all things and appoints to each its bounds," answered the Genius of the Ideal. "It has so wisely apportioned the powers of evil that we exert an equal influence over the human race. As the law of attraction holds worlds in their courses, our opposing strength maintains the right balance in your minds if all the elements are properly blended; but sometimes that is not the case, then your lives take their direction from the strongest, for spirit strives towards spiritual things, outweighs the earthly nature, releases itself from the world, and follows my guidance above."