Again Ernestine's eyes drooped.
Johannes continued: "Probably you yourself are not aware of the answer to such a question,--at all events, the victory over the other competitors for the prize was slight, and by no means difficult. But do you imagine, Fräulein Hartwich, because the instinct of your genius has answered this one question, that you can lord it over the boundless domain of science? Have you the least suspicion of the magnitude of what you propose?"
"I believe I have learned enough to know what there is for me to learn."
"Do not deceive yourself with regard to your aim. You wish to learn that you may teach,--not as every schoolmaster teaches, to tell what has been told you before,--you wish to educe new truths from what you learn,--in other words, you wish to produce, to create!"
"And you deny me the requisite ability?"
"Not at all," replied Johannes; "but I grant only one domain for the creative faculty of woman,--the domain of art,--because, in works of art, the heart shares in the labour of the understanding; because, in the creation of beauty, a profound inner consciousness and soaring fancy can replace masculine acuteness of thought--and these belong especially to the gifted woman. But science presents tasks for the thinking power. I deny to woman not the ability to grasp the grand results of science, but the mental endurance, the technical facility, to arrive at them unassisted."
Ernestine clasped her hands in entreaty. "Do not destroy the hope and aim of my life!"
Johannes bent towards her and said gently, "My dear Fräulein Hartwich, may your life have other aims than this that you can never attain!"
"Never attain!" cried Ernestine, sitting proudly erect "I can see nothing to justify those words. If I were only well and strong, if my body were only a more, obedient tool of my mind, I would show what a woman can do! I would show that we are not merely domestic animals, endowed with some degree of reason, as a certain class of men designate us, but free, independent, equal beings! If you only knew how my whole soul revolts at our social oppression, our intellectual slavery! Oh, believe, believe, sir, that I am not actuated by vain ambition, but I am wrung with anguish for those wretched souls who, like myself, have chafed so painfully in the fetters of commonplace conventionalities, or, like those born blind, have dreamed in their darkness of the light that floods the world with joy and freedom, but from which they are excluded! I long to break the yoke under which my whole sex languishes, to avenge their wrongs. For this I will give my money and my blood!--for this I resign all claims to the happiness of woman!--yes, for this I would sacrifice life itself!"
Johannes sat listening to her with his arms folded. He now began quietly: "I understand and admire you,--but you exaggerate. The social position of woman is determined by her capacity and her desires. Women like yourself are rare exceptions; your sex, as a general rule, is at so low a stage of development that they neither can claim nor desire any higher position."