"It is, and I could be your husband only on the condition that I might continue to work and earn my own support."
"Oh! the envious arrogance of the poor, who grudge the rich the noblest privilege--that of doing good. Believe me, true pride would be to say to yourself that your noble nature a thousand times outweighed the petty sacrifice of worldly goods which I could make for you. He who scorns money can accept it from others because he knows that the outward gift is valueless, compared with the treasures of happiness love can offer. Or do you feel so poor in love that you could not pay me the trivial debt for the bit of bread I furnished? Then indeed--let me with my wealth languish in my dearth of happiness and boast that you sacrificed to your pride the most faithful of women--but do not say that you loved the woman!"
"My dove!"
"I am doing what I can!" she continued, mournfully, "I am offering you myself, my soul, my freedom, my future--and you are considering whether it will not degrade you to eat my bread and be apparently my servant, while in reality you are my master and my judge.--I have nothing more to say, you shall have your will, but decide quickly, for what is to be done must be done at once. My father himself (when he perceived that I really intended to marry) advised me to be wedded by our old pastor at Prankenberg. But I know my father, and am aware that he was only luring me into a trap. He will receive from me to-morrow a power of attorney to raise some money he needs--the day after he will invent some new device to keep me in his power. We must take the pastor at Prankenberg by surprise before he can prevent it. Now decide!"
"Omnipotent God!" exclaimed Freyer. "What shall I, what must I do? Oh! my love, I ought not to desert you--and even if I ought--I could not, for I could no longer live without you! You know that I must take what you offer, and that my fate will be what you assign! But, dearest, how I shall endure to be your husband and yet regarded as your servant, I know not. If you could let this cup pass from me, it would be far better for us both."
"And did God spare the Saviour the cup? Was Christ too proud to take upon Him His cross and His ignominy, while you--cannot even bear the yoke your wife imposes, is forced to impose?"
He bowed his head to the earth. Tears sparkled in his radiant eyes, he was once more the Christ. As his dark eyes rested upon her in the dim light diffused by the lamp, with all the anguish of the Crucified Redeemer, Madeleine von Wildenau again felt a thrill of awe in the presence of something supernatural--a creature belonging to some middle realm, half spirit, half mortal--and the perception that he could never belong wholly to the earth, never wholly to her. She could not explain this feeling, he was so kind, so self-sacrificing. Had she had any idea that such a man was destined to absorb us, not we him, the mystery would have been solved. What she was doing was precisely the reverse. His existence must be sacrificed to hers--and she had a vague suspicion that this was contrary to the laws of his noble, privileged nature.
But he, unconscious of himself, in his modest simplicity, only knew that he must love the countess to the end--and deemed it only just that he should purchase the measureless happiness of calling this woman his by an equally boundless sacrifice. The appeal to Christ had suddenly made him believe that God proposed to give him the opportunity to continue in life the part of a martyr which he was no longer permitted to play on the stage. The terrible humiliation imposed by the woman whom he loved was to be the cross received in exchange for the one he had resigned.
"Very well, then, for the sake of Christ's humility!" he said, sadly, as if utterly crushed. "Give me whatever position you choose, but I fear you will discover too late that you have robbed yourself of the best love I have to bestow. Your nature is not one which can love a vassal. You will be like the children who tear off the butterfly's wings and then--throw aside the crawling worm with loathing. My wings were my moral freedom and my self-respect. At this moment I have lost them, for I am only a weak, love-sick man who must do whatever an irresistible woman requires. It is no free moral act, as is usual when a man exchanges an equal existence with his chosen wife.
"If you think that, Joseph," said the countess, turning pale, "it will certainly be better--for me to leave you." She turned with dignity toward the door.