"Indeed?" Josepha's cheeks flushed scarlet, it seemed as if the bones grew still more prominent. "If I am in your Highness' way--I can go at once."
"Josepha!" said the countess, now suddenly turning toward her a face wet with tears. "Surely I might be allowed to spend fifteen minutes alone with my child without offending any one! I will forgive your words--on account of your natural jealousy--and I think you already regret them, do you not?"
"Yes," replied Josepha, somewhat reluctantly, but so conquered by the unhappy mother's words that she pressed a hard half reluctant kiss upon the countess' hand with her rough, parched lips. Then, with a passionate glance at the child, she gave place to the mother whose claim she would fain have disputed before God Himself, if she could.
But when the door had closed behind her, the countess could bear no more. Placing the child in his little bed, she flung herself sobbing beside it. "My child--my child, forgive me," she cried, forgetting all prudence "--pray for me to God."
Just at that moment the door opened and Freyer entered. All that was stirring the mother's heart instantly became clear to him, as he saw her thus broken down beside the boy's bed.
"Calm yourself--what will the child think!" he said, bending down and raising her.
"Don't cry, Mamma!" said the boy, stroking the soft hair on the grief-bowed head. He did not know why he now suddenly called her "mamma"--perhaps it was a prospect of the heaven where she would be his mother, and he said it in advance.
"Oh, Freyer, kill me--I am worthy of nothing better--cut short the battle of a wasted life! An animal which cannot recover is killed out of pity, why not a human being, who feels suffering doubly?"
"Magdalena--Countess--I do not know you in this mood."
"Nor do I know myself! What am I? What is a mother who is no mother--a wife who cannot declare herself a wife? A fish that cannot swim, a bird that cannot fly! We kill such poor crippled creatures out of sheer compassion. What kind of existence is mine? An egotist who nevertheless feels the pain of those whom she renders unhappy; an aristocrat who cannot exist outside of her own sphere and yet pines for the eternal verity of human nature; a coquette who trifles with hearts and yet would die for a genuine feeling--these are my traits of character! Can there be anything more contradictory, more full of wretchedness?"