The Home; Or, Life in Sweden Part 29

[13] To say that "a gentleman has received a basket," is the same as saying he is a rejected lover.--M. H.

CHAPTER XII.

MORE COURTSHIP STILL.

Judge Frank had, unknown to himself, spoken a striking word. It was true that Schwartz had drawn ever narrower and darker circles around Sara, and at the very time when she would appear free from his influence her temper became more uncertain and suspicious. The mother, uneasy about this connexion, no longer allowed her to be alone with him during the music lesson, and this watchfulness excited Sara's pride, as well as the grave yet gentle remonstrances which were made on account of her behaviour were received with much impatience and disregard. The Judge was the only person before whom Sara did not exhibit the dark side of her character. His glance, his presence, seemed to exercise a certain power over her; besides which, she was, perhaps, more beloved by him than by all the other members of the family, with the exception of Petrea.

One evening, Sara sate silent by one of the windows in the library, supporting her beautiful head on her hand. Petrea sate at her feet on a low stool; she also was silent, but every now and then looked up to Sara with a tender troubled expression, whilst Sara sometimes looked down towards her thoughtfully, and almost gloomily.

"Petrea," said she, quickly, "what would you say if I should leave you suddenly to go into the wide world, and should never return?"

"What should I say?" answered Petrea, with a violent gush of tears: "ah, I should say nothing at all, but should lie down and die of grief!"

"Do you really love me then so, Petrea?" asked she.

"Do I love you!" returned Petrea; "ah, Sara, if you go away, take me with you as maid, as servant--I will do everything for you!"

"Good Petrea!" whispered Sara, laying her arm round her neck, and kissing her weeping eyes, "continue to love Sara, but do not follow her!"

"It seems terribly sultry to me this evening!" said Henrik, wearily: "we cannot manage any family a.s.sembling to-night; not a bit of music; not a bit of entertainment. The air seems as if an earthquake were at hand. I fancy that Africa sends us something of a tempest. Petrea is weeping like the cataract of Trollhatten; and there go the people in twos-and-twos and weep, and set themselves in corners and whisper and mutter, and kiss one another, from my G.o.d-fearing parents down to my silly little sisters! The King and Queen, they go and seat themselves just has it happens, on living or dead things; they had nearly seated themselves on me as I sate unoffensively on the sofa; but I made a turn about _tout d'un coup_.--Betrothed! horribly wearisome folks! Are they not, Gabriele? They cannot see, they cannot hear; they could not speak, I fancy, but with one another!"

A light was burning in Sara's chamber far into the night. She was busied for a long time with her journal; she wrote with a flying but unsteady hand.

"So, to-morrow; to-morrow all will be said, and I----shall be bound.

"I know that is but of little importance, and yet I have such a horror of it! Oh, the power of custom and of form.

"I know very well whom I could love; there is a purity in his glance, a powerful purity which penetrates me. But how would he look on me if he saw----

"I must go! I have no choice left! S. has me in his net--the money which I have borrowed from him binds me so fast!--for I cannot bear that they should know it, and despise me. I know that they would impoverish themselves in order to release me, but I will not so humiliate myself.

"And why do I speak of release? I go hence to a life of freedom and honour. I bow myself under the yoke but for a moment, only in order to exalt myself the more proudly. Now there is no more time to tremble and to waver--away with these tears! And thou, Volney, proud, strong thinker, stand by me! Teach me, when all others turn away, how I may rely on my own strength!"

Sara now exchanged the pen for the book, and the hour of midnight struck before she closed it, and arose tranquil and cold in order to seek the quiet of sleep.

The earthquake of which Henrik had spoken came the next day, the signal of which was a letter from Schwartz to the Judge, in which he solicited the hand of Sara. His only wealth was his profession; but with this alone he was convinced that his wife would want nothing: he was just about to undertake a journey through Europe, and wished to be accompanied by Sara, of whose consent and acquiescence he was quite sure.

A certain degree of self-appreciation in a man was not at any time displeasing to Judge Frank, but this letter breathed a supercilious a.s.surance, a professional arrogance, which were extremely repugnant to him. Besides this, he was wounded by the tone of pretension in which Schwartz spoke of one who was as dear to him as his own daughter; and the thought of her being united to a man of Schwartz's character was intolerable to him. He was almost persuaded that Sara did not love him, and burned with impatience to repel his pretensions, and to remove him at the same time from his house.

Elise agreed perfectly in the opinion of her husband, but was less confident than he regarding Sara's state of feeling with respect to the affair. She was summoned to their presence. The Judge handed to her Schwartz's letter, and awaited impatiently her remarks upon it. Her colour paled before the grave and searching glance which was riveted upon her, but she declared herself quite willing to accept Schwartz's proposal.

Astonishment and vexation painted themselves on the countenance of her adopted father.

"Ah, Sara," said the mother, after a short silence, "have you well considered this? Do you think that Schwartz is a man who can make a wife happy?"

"He can make me happy," returned Sara; "happy according to my own mind."

"You can never, never," said the mother, "enjoy domestic happiness with him!"

"He loves me," returned Sara, "and he can give me a happiness which I never enjoyed here. I lost early both father and mother, and in the home into which I was received out of charity, all became colder and colder towards me!"

"Ah, do not think so, Sara!" said the mother. "But even if this were the case, may not some little of it be your own fault? Do you really do anything to make yourself beloved? Do you strive against that which makes you less amiable?"

"I can renounce such love," said Sara, "as will not love me with my faults. Nature gave me strong feelings and inclinations, and I cannot bring them into subjection."

"You will not, Sara," was the reply.

"I cannot! and it may be that I will not," said she, "submit myself to the subjugation and taming which has been allotted as the share of the woman. Why should I? I feel strength in myself to break up a new path for myself. I will lead a fresh and an independent life! I will live a bright artiste-life, free from the trammels and the Lilliputian considerations of domestic life. I will be free! I will not, as now, be watched and suspected, and be under a state of espionage! I will be free from the displeasure and blame which now dog my footsteps! This treatment it is, mother, which has determined my resolution."

"If," answered the mother, in a tremulous voice, and deeply affected by Sara's words and tone, "I have erred towards you--and I may have done so--I know well that it has not been from temper, or out of want of tenderness towards you. I have spoken to and warned you from the best conviction; I have sincerely endeavoured and desired that which is best for you, and this you will some time or other come to see even better than now.[14] You will perhaps come to see that it would have been good for you if you had lent a more willing ear to my maternal counsellings; will perhaps come to deplore that you rewarded the love I cherished for you with reproaches and bitterness!"

"Then let me go!" said Sara, with gentler voice; "we do not accord well together. I embitter your life, and you make--perhaps you cannot make mine happy. Let me go with him who will love me with all my faults, who can and will open a freer scope to my powers and talents than I have hitherto had."

"Ah, Sara," returned Elise, "will you obtain in this freer field a better happiness than can be afforded you by a domestic circle, by the tenderness of true friends, and a happy domestic life?"

"Are you then so happy, my mother?" interrupted Sara with an ironical smile, and a searching glance; "are you then so happy in this circle, and this domestic life, which you praise so highly, that you thus repeat what has been said on the subject from the beginning of the world. Those perpetual cares in which you have pa.s.sed your days, those trifling cares and thoughts for every-day necessities, which are so opposite to your own nature, are they then so pleasant, so captivating? Have you not renounced many of your beautiful gifts--your pleasure in literature and music--nay, in short, what is the most lovely part of life, in order to bury yourself in concealment and oblivion, and there, like the silkworm, to spin your own sepulchre of the threads which another will wind off?

You bow your own will continually before that of another; your innocent pleasures you sacrifice daily either to him or to others: are you so very happy amid all these renunciations?"

The Judge rose up pa.s.sionately; went several times up and down the room, and placed himself at last directly opposite to Sara, leaning his back to the stove, and listening attentively for the answer of his wife.

"Yes, Sara, I am happy!" answered she, with an energy very unusual in her; "yes, I am happy! Whenever I make any sacrifice, I receive a rich return. And if there be moments when I feel painfully any renunciation which I have made, there are others, and far more of them, in which I congratulate myself on all that I have won. I am become improved through the husband whom G.o.d has given to me; through my children, through my duties, through the desires and the wants which I have overcome at his side--yes, Sara, above all things, through him, his affection, his excellence, am I improved, and feel myself happier every day. Love, Sara, love changes sacrifice into pleasure, and makes renunciation sweet! I thank G.o.d for my lot, and only wish that I were worthier of it!"

"It may be!" said Sara, proudly; "every one has his own sphere. But the tame happiness of the dove suits not the eagle!"

"Sara!" exclaimed the Judge, in a tone of severe displeasure.

The mother, unable longer to repress the outbreak of excited feeling, left the room with her handkerchief to her eyes.

"For shame, Sara," said the Judge with severe gravity, and standing before her with a reproving glance, "for shame! this arrogance goes too far!"

She trembled now before his eye as she had done once before; a remembrance from the days of her childhood awoke within her; her eyelids sunk, and a burning crimson covered her face.

"You have forgotten yourself," continued he, calmly, but severely, "and in your childish haughtiness have only shown how far you are below that worth and excellence which you cannot understand, and which, in your present state of mind, you never can emulate. Your own calm judgment will make the sharpest reproaches on this last scene, and will, nay, must lead you to throw yourself at the feet of your mother. All, however, that I now ask from you is, that you think over your intentions rationally. How is it possible, Sara, that you overlook your own inconsistency? You argue zealously against domestic life--against the duties of marriage, and yet, at the same time, wilfully determine to tie those bonds with a man who will make them actual fetters for you."

"He will not fetter me," returned she; "he has promised it--he has sworn it! I shall not subject myself to him as a wife, but I shall stand at his side as an equal, as an artiste, and step with him into a world beautiful and rich in honours, which he will open to me."

"Ah, mere talk!" exclaimed the Judge. "Folly, folly! How can you be so foolish, and believe in such false show? The state gives your husband a power over you which he will not fail to abuse--that I can promise you from what I know of his character, and from what I now discover of yours. No woman can withdraw from a connexion of this kind unpunished, more especially under the circ.u.mstances in which you are placed. Sara, you do not love the man to whom you are about to unite yourself, and it is impossible that you can love him. No true esteem, no pure regard binds you to him."

"He loves me," answered Sara, with trembling lips; "I admire his power and artistical genius;--he will conduct me to independence and honour!

It is no fault of mine that the lot of woman is so contracted and miserable--that she must bind herself in order to become free!"

"Only as a means?" asked he; "the holiest tie on earth only as a means, and for what? For a pitiable and ephemeral chase after happiness, which you call honour and freedom. Poor, deceived Sara! Are you so misled, so turned aside from the right? Is it possible that the miserable book of a writer, as full of pretension as weak and superficial, has been able thus to misguide you?" and with these words he took Volney's Ruins out of his pocket, and threw it upon the table.