A Twofold Life Part 2

"Become a diplomat and act for us; practice the arts of the world to serve the cause of Heaven," they said, when they bade him farewell. And he thought, with a sarcastic smile, "I will become a diplomat not to serve Heaven, but myself." On returning to his home, his rank and striking character made it easy for him to begin a diplomatic career.

The government of H---- was Protestant and liberal. He therefore carefully concealed the fact of his stay in the Jesuit college, and, with his large means, succeeded in a few years in raising himself to a lofty position. He became councillor of the legation, a friend of the minister, a favorite at court, and now stood upon the height from which he could begin to discharge his debt to the order, and the admonition was not delayed. The point in question, of course, related to procuring admittance into the country for, and also extending the privileges of, the ubiquitous Jesuits.

Ottmar was to introduce these claims--and did not. The moment had arrived when he must break with the order openly and forever. Now, for the first time, he perceived the danger resulting from the step. Ought he to become the representative of a faith which he denied, and during his stay in Rome had found utterly irreconcilable with his opinions?

Was it to become the shibboleth, which would betray the earlier a.s.sociations he had so carefully concealed, perhaps forever crush his aspirations to obtain a portfolio in the government of H----? At this price the year of study in the college had been too dearly bought.

Should he, on the other hand, forfeit the powerful a.s.sistance of the Jesuits, and make unrelenting enemies where he had formerly possessed trusting friends?

The outward advantages of the two courses to be chosen seemed tolerably equal; his convictions of right must turn the scale, and did so. In vain were the more and more vehement warnings that followed. He wished to make the unfettered tendency of his intellect the guide of his life, and deserted the teachings and struggles of the order; for there still remained in him a remnant of that feeling of duty which commands men to oppose what they consider false and pernicious.

But vengeance was not delayed.

_Heinrich_ soon felt that his position in the government and at court was no longer the same. While hitherto, from the prince down to his humblest subject, the greatest respect, even admiration, had been paid him, he now suddenly found himself eyed distrustfully, and even avoided, without being able to discover a reason. Formerly no important measure had been taken upon which the minister had not privately requested his counsel, now the latter enveloped himself in a cloak of cold reserve. Thus days and weeks elapsed, leaving him in a most distasteful position.

But one person at the court remained the same towards him: his patroness, the niece of the widowed prince, Princess Ottilie, an ethereal vision, who combined the haughty grace of a born aristocrat with the charms of a feeling soul. In her he possessed a true friend, whom he honored as a higher being; nay, he was often inclined to believe he loved her, although not even the faintest wish to possess her had ever arisen in his mind. All real merit was attracted to the princess, and she won every one by her poetic mind and clear intellect, as well as the charms of her maidenly character, although she had already pa.s.sed her first youth. She had distinguished Ottmar beyond all others at the court, but for some time she had been unable to receive him. It was reported that Ottilie was ill, and in his very uncomfortable situation he was totally bereft of counsel and consolation.

IV.

A GUARDIAN ANGEL.

At last a court ball was given, and _Henri_,--for it was _Henri_ who went to b.a.l.l.s,--who was always the star that dazzled all eyes, found himself as much neglected as ever. Only the members of the court who were suspected of ultramontanism approached him with mysterious cordiality; and whenever a number of observers were present, some persons whom he knew to belong to the ranks of his worst enemies cast strange glances at him which could scarcely fail to be noticed.

Infuriated by this irritating and to him incomprehensible conduct, he turned to the young girls to pa.s.s away a few moments in their society; but the first whom he approached, a distant relative, drew back with mingled sorrow and alarm. He laughingly seized the little finger of her outstretched hand and drew her into a window corner. "Why do you avoid me, little Elsie? What have I done to harm you?" he asked.

"Oh, go away, you are a Jesuit!" whispered the girl, half timidly, half sullenly.

"Ah!" A flush slowly mounted into _Henri's_ face, but without the slightest change of countenance he pushed a gold bracelet which had slipped down to the young girl's wrist so far up the rounded limb that for the first time in her life she shrank from the sight of her bare arm.

"Do you know that a Jesuit is something so very bad?"

"No," was the embarra.s.sed reply. "I only know it is--must be--something you ought not to be; or else you would not do it so secretly." The young girl paused.

"Well, and who told you this?" asked _Henri_, in the greatest suspense, gazing so steadily and firmly into the large childlike eyes, that she continued in the greatest bewilderment.

"Why, Herr von Neuenburg told my mother so, and she was very unhappy about it, and they both said you could not be trusted any more. Now you know, let me go. Oh, dear, I ought not to have said anything about it!"

With these words she ran away, and his smiles fled with her. It was no longer the careless, jesting _Henri_, but _Heinrich_ who stood haughtily erect in the alcove surveying the a.s.sembly with cold, contemptuous glances.

"These people wish to be diplomats, and discuss such important matters before children! Fortunately, I know you well enough to perceive that this rumor proceeds from you Jesuits. Oh, to be chained to such a life!

to be forced to sacrifice all one's power for an honor the miserable breath of a liar's lips can blow away like dust! Is this life worth the trouble?"

"Not this life," murmured the fiend who was to help him "obtain." "You must enter a wider field, and mount higher and higher to a sphere where these petty intrigues can have no power over you; then only will you find rest."

These reflections, which were not by any means the first of the kind, were disturbed by the rustle of a dress, and when he looked up Princess Ottilie was standing before him. She gazed at him for a long time in silence, while he bowed low, murmuring a few words of apology for his absence of mind.

"Not so, Herr von Ottmar," she interrupted; "we already know that even when surrounded by the bustle of a crowd, you sometimes hold intercourse with your own thoughts; in any case, a much greater source of entertainment than society could offer you."

"Ah, your Highness, if society consisted of the elements united in my gracious princess, it would be the highest enjoyment to devote to it every power; but when people are compelled, like me, to wander perpetually, held aloof and misunderstood, through this labyrinth of pretensions, disappointments, and prejudices, they are sometimes glad to take refuge in the unsubstantial world of thought."

"But why do you not release yourself from surroundings so distasteful?"

asked the princess. "Why do you not find strength to withdraw, if not to the world of spirits, at least to that of the intellect?"

"Your Highness," replied Ottmar, after a slight pause, "if I could take with me to that realm what has. .h.i.therto chained me to the court, how gladly would I resign this whirl of society! But so long as the object of my holiest longing is still clasped in the arms of the world, so long I will at least maintain a place near her, and fill it as well as I am able."

With these words he cast upon the princess one of the glances whose power he had so often tried. She involuntarily turned her head to see if any one could hear her.

"Herr von Ottmar," said she, and her voice became lower, her expression more sympathetic, "may I speak to you frankly?"

"Oh, my most gracious, benevolent friend!" murmured _Heinrich_, in a tone whose submissive devotion produced an irresistible influence upon the impressionable soul of the princess.

"Do not imagine that I have not perceived your design of winning me by flattery; I have read that, as well as your whole character. I am gracious enough to forgive you for placing the same estimate upon me as upon every other woman whom you may have misled by similar speeches. I forgive you, because I believe you to be greater than such arts would make you appear; you possess no false nature, and if you deceive it is only in cases which have no connection with your secret life, and no reality for you. Where you have to answer for yourself, your own established convictions, you will be true. I have this confidence in you, and therefore can calmly look on and see you make sport of the men and circ.u.mstances which, from your lofty stand-point, must appear so small; nay, I can even see you test your superiority over myself; and while I know all you say is false, am unable, I frankly confess, to resist the charm which your masterly acting exerts over me, and feel attracted towards you as the ignorant man is drawn to the artist whose skill he admires. Do not deny the truth of my a.s.sertion. Be n.o.ble; or, better still, show yourself to me as you really are, and confess I am right."

"Princess," cried Ottmar, "you are right. I grant that you have understood me; but I must oppose you in one thing, that I have been hypocritical to you. Ten minutes ago you might perhaps have termed me a flatterer, but now everything I said has become simple truth, and I should have far more to say to you if time and opportunity favored me."

"I fear this is the last opportunity I shall have of speaking to you undisturbed, and therefore I speak now. I know you will not remain here under existing circ.u.mstances, and was not willing to have you go without taking with you on your weary way a word of conciliation, perhaps of warning; for you do not deserve the sentence pa.s.sed upon you, and it grieves me deeply to see a n.o.ble, great-hearted man so misunderstood through his own fault."

"Has it already gone so far?" asked Ottmar, in surprise.

"Unfortunately, yes, my friend. You are considered a very dangerous man. Your enemies have decried you as a secret agent of the Jesuits, and at last placed before the prince proofs that you spent a year as a student in the Jesuit college at Rome. Your whole secret is betrayed."

"And do they not suppose," replied Ottmar, "that the Jesuits would know how to guard such a secret better, unless it suited their interests to reveal it?"

"You must consider that you are at a _Protestant_ court. You have hitherto pa.s.sed for a free-thinker, now you are discovered to be a pupil of the Jesuits. Thus one or the other must be false; people find themselves mistaken in you, and are so blindly enraged that they will believe your enemies rather than you. They consider everything you have done and are doing against the Jesuits to be merely a mask. The cordiality which several gentlemen, who are known to be adherents of the order, showed you this evening confirmed the prince still more in his opinion. You know his pa.s.sionate temper; I have just heard a conversation between him and the minister which I have neither time nor inclination to repeat; but my conscience urged me to warn you, and--"

"And your heart, princess; it tells you that, spite of the equivocal part you see me play, I am a man of honor, who at any moment can cast aside hypocrisy and deceit as contemptible tools, and whom you can trust."

"I know not whether I may venture to do so. You were sincere with none, and I can only entreat you always to remember that falsehood is as dangerous as a poisonous dye, by means of which men often color things of trifling value, but which by constant use so pervades the atmosphere that they at last can no longer breathe in it themselves."

"Your Highness," whispered _Heinrich_, "let me at least know why, in spite of my faults, you can still feel so much sympathy for me."

"Because I have recognized your great talents, the conflict, the want of peace, in your soul; because I know that the contradictions which make you suspected by the world at large are rooted in the contrasts of your own nature; and because I cannot help feeling the deepest compa.s.sion for you," she said, at last, with an outburst of feeling, laying her hand carelessly upon his. Her voice rang upon _Heinrich's_ ear in tones of strange warning, and tears were glittering in her deep blue eyes as she continued: "Oh, there is something so n.o.ble, so G.o.dlike, in a true human soul, that when I see one struggling and battling in the prison of this earthly body, ensnared and tortured, my heart bleeds and I would fain extend my hands protectingly over the wildly fluttering wings, until the hour when it can free itself and soar away unfettered! We are observed. G.o.d be with you! Farewell!" She glided away and disappeared among the crowd.

"My Ideal spoke from her lips," said Ottmar, gazing after her.

A strange conflict now ensued between the opposing elements in his breast.

"She loves me; she, this n.o.ble creature, so full of intellect and feeling," said _Heinrich_. "She could not speak more distinctly, and what she concealed I read in her eyes, which absorbed my image in their blue depths and reflected it again, as the sun paints a Fata Morgana upon the clouds."

"And I," _Henri_ rejoined, "I feel ashamed and miserable when in her presence, for I can give her nothing in return for the treasures she brings me. I do not love her."

"And why not?" asked _Heinrich_. "Can she not make a man happy for his whole life? Does she not hold a lofty position, is she not as n.o.ble as she is intellectual, and has she not sufficient strength of mind to accept my hand, if I offer it, in spite of all intrigues?"

"True," replied _Henri_; "but she is neither young nor blooming, and is an invalid. How can I bind myself forever to one who has not the slightest personal charm for me? A beautiful soul and n.o.ble mind are phantoms, but a sickly body is the most comfortless reality, and a burden which I must drag about with me during my whole life. No: so long as I am still young I wish to enjoy this miserable life; when I am old and decrepit I shall have enough to do to bear my own ailments without the addition of an invalid wife."

"Ah, I could love her!" said _Heinrich_. "You should not extend your arms to me vain, beautiful soul; I would foster and cherish you as my most sacred possession; but it is impossible. Even if I should give her this man, what would she possess? A cold intellect and a sensuality which this poor ethereal nature would be unable to attract, and by which she would sooner or later be betrayed." Absorbed in these thoughts, he walked through the rooms to take his leave. He wished to go home, for he had lost all inclination for the entertainment. When he reached the last apartment a new dance had just commenced and drawn every one into the large salons. The room was silent and empty, only the lights in the candelabra burned with a low crackle; fans and withered bouquets lay scattered over the tables, and cloaks that had been carelessly cast aside were thrown upon the sofas. Everything bore witness to the bright and joyous life that had reigned here a few minutes before, and now the deserted chamber with its marble columns and gilded arches seemed like a mausoleum, where the soul might take a last farewell. He paused an instant. "Ottilie!" he murmured, half unconsciously, and the solemn mood he had felt a short time before again overmastered him. It seemed as if beneficent spirits were floating in the waves of light that surrounded him and trying to whisper something, but he could no longer understand them. Just then he suddenly heard a low rustle: some living creature was near. He looked around him and saw the princess standing in the doorway gazing at him with deep earnestness.

"Ottilie," cried _Heinrich_, "G.o.d has sent you here! The angel of my life called me, but I could no longer understand his words; for in the tumult of the world I have grown deaf to his spirit voice. He dwells in you; become his oracle, let him speak to me through your lips."

"Herr von Ottmar, my heart is filled with the thought of your welfare, but bow to help you I know not. I will pray your good angel to show me some means of fathoming the trouble in your soul. I know of no way unless"--she hesitated, less from embarra.s.sment than to seek the right word,--"unless you can find a nature which will understand and have for you the patience of true love. Only the anxiety of a heart entirely devoted to you will discover the means of restoring your lost peace.