"It is only the great and majestic in life that deserve to be loved."
Then she added, transported by this thought:
"Why should I not love a great man?"
And she whispered these words with unbounded enthusiasm. But instantly a shiver ran through her delicate frame, a bright flash shot from her dark eyes, and she said, almost trembling at the thought:
"It is only the great and majestic in life that deserve to be hated! Why should I not hate——?"
She did not finish the sentence. She bent her head towards the ground, the fire in her eyes disappeared, and in its place a tear was seen. Two mighty opposing spirits fought with each other in this passionate soul. One said to her "Love!" the other said to her "Hate!" And her heart bled under this terrible struggle between the angel and the demon.
It is unnecessary to mention what the reader has already divined, that the slender girl on board the "Maria Eleonora" was no other than Lady Regina von Emmeritz, the beautiful fanatical girl who tried to convert King Gustaf Adolf to the Catholic faith at Frankfurt-on-the-Main. The king who knew the human heart, considered with reason, that this religious enthusiast was capable of anything if left a prey to the Jesuit's influence. It was, therefore, not from revenge, which was unknown to this great heart, but, on the contrary, from noble compassion for a young and richly endowed nature, that he had sent her away for a time to a far-off country, where the black monk's influence could not reach her. The reader will remember that the king, on the night of the feast at Frankfurt, ordered the Lady Regina to be sent by Stralsund and Stockholm to the strict old lady Marta at Korsholm. The noble king did not know that the dark power, from whom he was trying to save his beautiful prisoner, followed her even to the far-off coast of Finland. Lady Regina had permission to choose one of her maids to accompany her; accordingly she selected the one in whom she had the greatest confidence; unfortunately this was not the bright and fair Ketchen—she had been sent back to her relations in Bavaria—but old Dorthe, who had been her nurse, and who was controlled by the Jesuit; for a long time this old woman had nourished the fanatical fire in the young girl's soul. So the poor unprotected maiden was still given up to the dark powers that had warped her mind since childhood, and perverted her rich, sensitive heart with their terrible teachings. And against this influence she could only place a single but mighty feeling: her admiration, her enthusiastic attachment to Gustaf Adolf, whom she loved and hated at the same time—whom she would have been able to kill, yet for whom she would herself have suffered death.
The shrewd Dorthe seemed to guess her mistress' thoughts; she leaned forward, and peering with her small eyes, said in the familiar tone which a subordinate in her position so easily assumes:
"Aye, aye.... Is that the way it stands; do they come up again, the sinful thoughts about the heretic king and all his followers? Yes, yes, the devil is cunning; he knows what he is about. When he wishes to catch a little frivolous girl of the usual kind, he puts before her eyes a young handsome cavalier, with long silken curls. But when he wishes to entangle a poor forsaken girl, with great proud thoughts and noble aspirations, he brings forward a great king, who gains castles and battles; and little does the poor child care that the stately conqueror is a sworn enemy to her Church and faith, and is working for the ruin of both."
Regina turned her tearful and glistening eyes away from the sea, and looked for a moment with indescribable doubt at her old counsellor.