"Say," said she, almost vehemently, "is it possible to be at once the greatest and the most hateful of human beings?"
Regina looked again towards the sea. The peaceful tranquility of the mornine lay over the glittering waters, and stilled the tempest within. The young girl remained silent. Dorthe continued:
"By their fruits ye shall know them. Just think, what evil has not the godless king done to our Church and us? He has slain many thousands of our warriors; he has plundered our cloisters and castles; he has driven out our nuns and holy fathers from their godly habitations, and the devout pater, Hieronymus, has been frightfully abused by his people, the heretic Finns; ourselves he has sent away to the ends of the earth..."
Again Regina looked over at the islands and the inlets bathed in the mild morning effulgence. While the dark demon whispered hatred in her ears, beaming nature seemed to preach only love. On her lips hovered already the ravishing thought:
"What matters it if he has slain thousands; if he has driven away monks and nuns; if he has forced us into exile! What matters all this, if he is great as an individual, and acts according to the dictates of his faith!"
But she kept silent from fear; she dared not break from all her preceding life. She caught up, instead, one of Dorthe's words, as if to dispel the thunder-cloud of hatred and malice, which enveloped her heart in its dark mist, in the midst of this calm and lovely scene.
"Do you know, Dorthe," she said, "that the Finns whom you hate live on the coast of this sea? Do you see that strip of land over there in the east? It is Finland. I have not yet seen its shores, and yet I cannot detest a country which is bathed by so glorious a sea. I cannot think that evil people can grow up in the heart of such a land."
"All saints protect us!" exclaimed the old woman, and her lenn hand hastily made the sign of the cross. "Is that Finland? St. Patrick preserve us from ever setting foot upon its cursed soil; my dear lady, you have then never heard what is said of this land and its heathen people? There prevails an eternal night; there the snow never melts; there the wild beasts and the still wilder men lie together in dens and caves. The woods are so thick with hobgoblins and imps, that when one of them is called by name, a hundred monsters immediately come forth from the leaves and branches. And among themselves, these people bewitch each other with all kinds of evils, so that when anyone carries food to another person, he changes his enemy into a wolf; and every word they speak takes life, so that when they wish to make a boat or an axe, they say it, and directly they have what they wish."
"You are drawing a fine picture," said Regina, smiling for the first time in a long period, for the freshness of the sea had a good influence on her dreamy soul. "Happy is the land where the people can create all they wish for with a word. If I am hungry, and desire a beautiful fruit, I have but to say, peach, and right away I have it. If I feel thirsty, I say, spring, and instantly a spring gurgles at my feet. If I have sorrow in my heart, I say, hope, and hope returns. And if I long for a beloved friend, I mention his name, and he stands by my side. A glorious land is Finland, were it such as you represent it to me. Even if we lived with wild beasts in a cave under the eternal snows, we would look at each other and say, Fatherland, and at the same moment we would sit hand in hand on the banks of the Main, beneath the shadows of the lindens, where we often sat when I was a child, and the nightingales of our native land would sing to us as before."
Dorthe turned angrily away. The vessel steered between the rocks and islands, and moved with gentle speed past the outermost cliffs, many of which now stand high above the surface of the water, but at that time these were washed by the briny waves.