Half defiantly, half imploringly, the words poured from her inmost soul like molten lava. "Let all misunderstand me--save you, Freyer! You, by whom God wrought the miracle, ought not to be narrow-minded! You ought not to destroy it for me, you least of all!" Then she pleaded, appealed to him: "Let saints, let glorified spirits grasp only the essence and dispense with the earthly pledge--I cannot! I am a type of the millions who live snared by the weaknesses, the ideas, the pleasures of the world of sense; do you suddenly require of me the abstract purity and spiritualization of religious thought, to which only the highest innate or required perfection leads? Be forbearing to me--God has various ways of drawing the rebellious to Him! To the soul which is capable of material ideas only. He gives revelations by the senses until, through pain and sorrow, it has worked its way upward to intellectual ones. And until I can behold the real God in His shadowy sphere, I shall cling lovingly and devoutly to His image."
She sank on her knees before him in passionate entreaty. "Do not destroy it for me, rather aid the pious delusion which is to save me! Bear patiently with the woe of a soul seeking its salvation, and leave the rest to God!" She leaned her brow against the hand which hung by his side and was silent from excess of emotion.
The tall, stalwart man stood trembling as Abraham may have stood before the thicket when God stayed his uplifted arm and cried in tender love: "I will not accept thy sacrifice."
He had a presentiment that the victim would be snatched from him also, if he was too stern, and all the floods of his heart burst forth, all the flood gates of love and pity opened. Bending down, he held her head in a close, warm clasp between both hands, and touched her forehead with quivering lips.
A low cry of unutterable bliss, and she sank upon his breast; the next instant she lifted her warm rosy lips to his.
But he drew back a step in agonizing conflict; "No, Countess, for Heavens's sake no, it must not be."
"Why not?" she asked, her face blanching.
"Let me remain worthy of the miracle God has wrought upon you through me. If I am to represent Christ to you, I must at least feel and think as He did, so far as my human weakness will permit, or everything will be a deception."
The countess covered her face with her hands. "Ah, no one can utter such words who knows aught of love and longing!" she moaned between her set teeth in bitter scorn.
"Do you think so?" exclaimed Freyer, and the tone in which he spoke pierced her heart like a cry of pain. Drawing her hands from her face, he forced her to meet his glowing eyes: "Look at me and see whether the tears which now course down my cheeks express no love and longing. Look at yourself, your sweet, pouting lips, your sparkling eyes, all your radiant charms, and ask yourself whether a man into whose arms such a woman falls can remain unmoved? When you have answered these questions, say to yourself: 'How that man must love his Saviour, if he buys with such sacrifices the right to wear His crown of thorns!' Perhaps you will then better understand what I said just now of the spirit and nature of Christ."