Only a Girl Part 83

"Oh, no, surely I may change a couple of words. Whatever goes through my hands shall be as free from errors as possible."

Gretchen shook her head.

Ernestine completed her copy in about half an hour, and prepared to carry it to the pastor.

The days were beginning to grow longer. Although it was past four o'clock, the winter sun was looking brightly into the room, and upon the roofs below their windows the snow was melting into little rills.

"Shall you be back soon?" Gretchen called after Ernestine as she went out.

"In a very little while," was the answer, as the speaker left the room with her bundle of papers under her arm.

Gretchen was left alone in the room.

Another half-hour pa.s.sed. A firm step was heard ascending the stairs.

Gretchen listened intently. Her heart beat fast with joyous expectancy.

Who was it that was intruding upon their seclusion?

She had not long to wait, there was a loud knock at the door.

Gretchen's "Come in" was instantly followed by a "Thank G.o.d, 'tis he!"

for Mollner stood upon the threshold.

"I knew you would come,--I was sure my letter to Herr Hilsborn would bring you,--I am delighted!" cried the girl, drawing him into the room.

He said nothing in reply to her welcome, but let her take his hat and coat, and then, with a glance around the wretched apartment, exclaimed, in a tone of horror-stricken compa.s.sion, "Good G.o.d!"

Gretchen understood him, and gave him time to recover himself.

At last he asked, "Where is she?"

"She has gone to carry home some copying that the pastor gave her to do. She will be here very soon. Do not be startled at seeing her look so badly. We have lived wretchedly of late."

Johannes took her hand. "Gretchen, can't you hide me somewhere? I am not sufficiently composed to see her at present,--I must collect myself."

"Yes, come into our kitchen. I had better prepare Ernestine, too, for seeing you,--she is weak, and must be treated with great caution."

She conducted him into the little, cold, dark room that she called a kitchen. "Look! the poor girl has cooked our wretched dinners in this place for the last five months, and shed many a tear when she spoiled anything. Oh, if you could have seen, as I have, our proud Ernestine work and struggle and starve, you would not have refrained so long from putting an end to our misery."

"It is well that I could not see it. I should have been unnerved, and spoiled all by precipitation."

"Forgive me, but indeed you are hard. Hilsborn would not have left me here one instant longer than he could have helped."

"And he would have been right, Gretchen. But Ernestine and you are very different characters. She needed, and would have, this struggle for life,--even now I tremble lest she should refuse to let me put an end to it."

"Oh, no! when you see Ernestine, you will acknowledge that it was high time to hasten to her. Since all her efforts to obtain a situation have failed, her spirit seems well-nigh broken. I think in a little while she would have been hopelessly embittered, and her health would have given way entirely."

Johannes threw himself into the wooden chair by the window, where, in the midst of the hard prose of her life, Ernestine had been visited by such wondrous dreams. "Here is a letter to you, my dear Gretchen, from Hilsborn. He would have been only too glad to come with me, but every moment of his time is in demand."

"He is good and true," said Gretchen, "and I know how he trusts in me, but I cannot leave Ernestine until her future is a.s.sured."

"You are a n.o.ble child, Gretchen! If Ernestine had the least suspicion of what you are renouncing for her sake, she would never permit----" He paused, a flush mounted to his brow, his lips trembled, as he whispered, "There she is! I hear her coming! For G.o.d's sake, Gretchen, give me time to collect myself."

"I will go and meet her, that she may not come in here," said Gretchen.

Johannes handed her a book. "Here, lay this upon her table. It is a copy of the same edition of Andersen's Fairy Tales that I once gave her, and that was burnt. It may prepare her for seeing me."

"Yes, yes!" Gretchen hurried into the next room, and laid the book in Ernestine's work-basket. She started at the haggard appearance of Ernestine who entered with eyes flashing, and an expression of sullen indignation upon every feature.

"What is the matter, Ernestine?" she asked.

Ernestine threw off her hat and cloak, wrung her hands, and walked hurriedly to and fro. "That has gone too!"

"What, Ernestine?--what?"

"The pastor has refused to give me any more sermons to copy, because I ventured to correct his errors."

"Oh, is that all?" cried Gretchen, very much relieved.

"Is that all?" Ernestine repeated bitterly. "You say that, because, faithful and true as you are, you see no hardship in the prospect of supporting me again, without any help on my part, by your own unwearied exertions. You can say, 'Is that all?' but I, who fancied myself the first and proudest of my s.e.x, am a beggar, dependent upon charity, fit for nothing but the duties of a common maid-servant, and not able to perform even these decently. I have lost all confidence, all hope, in myself. That is all!"

Gretchen caressed her lovingly, and smiled,--how could she smile at this moment? "Ah, Ernestine, how could you reject Dr. Mollner when he first wooed you? I should have thought you would have given your heart to him upon the spot. I only hope you may never know what you threw away."

"Gretchen," said Ernestine gravely, "it is long since I have learned what I then rejected. The pride with which I turned away from him, refusing to sacrifice my foolish ambition to make myself a name, has been severely punished. As in our dreams we are sometimes borne aloft as upon wings into immeasurable s.p.a.ce, until our balance is lost and we fall headlong, awaking with the shock, so my ambition carried me to heights where I could not sustain myself. I fell, but strong and tender arms were held out to receive me, and I awoke to find myself embraced by them instead of prostrate in a frightful abyss. Then, in the confusion of my wakening, I thought those sustaining arms were fetters.

I thrust them from me, and now I lie crushed and broken on the ground."

She crossed her arms upon the table, and bowed her head on them.

Gently Gretchen took the book from the basket, and, opening it where she saw that Johannes had put a mark, she silently pushed it towards Ernestine, who raised her head at the touch, and at first looked absently at the pages before her, then gazed and gazed as if utterly unable to comprehend what she saw. It was her dear old book,--there was the swan that she had burned. "Heavens!" she cried, between laughter and tears, "can this be real? My swan! My swan! Who brought me this?

Oh, dreams of my childhood, who has restored you to me?"

And she knelt beside the table, and laid her cheek upon the book.

Before her closed eyes it was night again. Before her upon the table burned the dim night-lamp, and her father lay asleep close at hand. She read the story of the Ugly Duckling, and above her softly rustled the snowy plumage of the swan, and among her curls trembled the leaves of the oak whence the handsome boy had s.n.a.t.c.hed her from mortal peril. And then her father awoke, and sent her up to her uncle. There stood the telescope, through which she was again gazing, thirsting for a peace which her young heart presaged without the power to grasp,--filled with longing to be borne up--up to those starry worlds gliding so silently through s.p.a.ce. She knew now what she had so desired,--Love! But she searched for it among those worlds in vain. Suddenly she was standing upon the hill in the garden of her castle, and above her hovered the faithful little mermaid, in the shape of a sunset cloud, while a deep, tender voice whispered, "Poor swan!" Here, here was what she sought.

"Poor swan!" The words sounded distinctly now in her ears, not in her dreaming fancy only. She opened her eyes, and started up with a low cry, and would have fled,--fled to the uttermost ends of the earth,--but she could not stir from the spot. She tottered and would have fallen, but two strong arms upheld her, and for a moment she lost all consciousness. This was rest indeed.

"Shall I get some water?" asked Gretchen.

"Oh, no. Do not grudge me one moment," said Johannes, clasping the lifeless form to his heart "She will recoil from me as soon as she comes to herself."

"You should not have spoken to her so suddenly," said Gretchen.

Ernestine opened her eyes, looked up and around for a moment in bewilderment, and then extricated herself instantly from the arms in which she had found such rest.

"Did I not know her well?" Johannes said, by a glance, to Gretchen.

"You came so unexpectedly,--I was weak. I am ashamed of myself," she said, struggling for composure.

"You might be ashamed, if you could be what you call strong at this moment," he replied. At a sign from him, Gretchen withdrew.

Johannes gazed for a moment with intense devotion into Ernestine's eyes. "Dear heart, let me speak one fervent, last word to you. I know that I just now held another Ernestine in my arms than she who fled from me almost half a year ago. I felt it in the throbbing of your heart. But fear nothing, I am not come to take advantage of your helpless condition,--to wring from you a decision which might be stigmatized, in your present circ.u.mstances, as extorted from you by necessity. I understand you now. Yours is a nature never to yield to pressure from without,--it must take form and direction from within. It would be as useless to attempt controlling such a nature by force as to endeavour to make a rose bloom by tearing open the bud. We might destroy, but we could not unfold it. I have done all that I could to restore to you what is as necessary to you as light and air,--your independence. You once accused me of selfishness and interested motives. You shall be convinced that you did me injustice in this respect." He drew a paper from his breast-pocket. "I have succeeded through my friend Brenter, in St. Petersburg, in procuring you the offer of a position as Teacher of Natural Science in the famous Normal School established there. The place is a capital one, and has. .h.i.therto been occupied by men only. You will be entire mistress of your time, with the exception of the few hours daily spent in instruction. You can easily pursue your studies, and I can procure you admission to the scientific society of St. Petersburg. Your life there will be what your former ambition craved. You can earn your livelihood honourably, and sooner or later you will have an opportunity of attaining the goal of your desires,--a degree, for the Russian universities are not so strict as the German in the matter of admitting women to a share in their honours. Here is Brenter's letter. You see it makes you independent of all aid, even of mine. And now I venture again to ask you to make a sacrifice for me,--a great sacrifice. You cannot fear, if you now grant my suit, that any suspicion can be cast upon the freedom of your choice, or that you can be accused of being driven by necessity into my arms. If you yield now, you renounce brilliant prospects for my sake. I will urge nothing in my own behalf. Leave me, and there is a great future before you. Be mine, and my heart and home stand wide open to receive you. I will only say, 'Choose, Ernestine.'"

"And have you done this,--this for me?" said Ernestine, trembling with emotion. "How truly have you understood and respected my pride! How firm and yet how tender you are with me! How can I thank you, how repay you?"