Friedrich Spielhagen

“ Oh, Oswald, have pity on me! let me not suffer so terribly for something I did, after all, but from passionate love for you!"
"Poor, unhappy child," whispered Oswald, pressing her tenderly to his heart, "poor unhappy child; and unhappy through me! That is the bitterest part! Emily, sweet one, dear one, don't cry so! Your sobbing tears my heart. Leave the man who has already made you so unhappy, and who can do nothing but make you still unhappier. Forget that you ever saw him! Go back to your husband! You will not be happy with him; but who is happy in this world? ”

“ Come, sweetheart, sit down by me on the sofa here, and let us talk like two sisters; and let us be sisters, if never again, at least for this hour. If you did not wish me to speak candidly to you, I think you would have hardly come to me, when you have so many brighter and greater friends. Am I right?"
"Go on!" said Helen, as if it were comfort and consolation merely to hear the voice of her friend.
"You ask me," continued Sophie, gathering courage as she spoke, "whether I really thought you were happy. I do not. You do not look like a happy woman. ”

“ At last he found himself--he knew not how--before the garden-gate of Miss Bear's boarding-school. There was light in one of the windows--Helen's window. It was the first light he had seen for hours, and he felt as if a star was once more shining down into the night of his heart. Comfort and hope he knew that star could not bring him, but it softened his despair into sorrow. He glided into that humor in which man rises from the chaos of his own passions, looks full of painful pity at the careworn features of his genius, and feels the sorrows of the world in his own sorrow. ”

“ The occupant of the room was Helen Grenwitz. She was writing eagerly, with burning cheeks, as young ladies who have no confidant but a friend hundreds of miles away are apt to write:
"You quiet, prudent girl, with your quiet, prudent blue eyes! Ah, who could pass through life as you do, ever true to one's self! Who could have your peace of soul, in which everything is reflected, as in a deep still lake, in clear colors and sharp outlines! Whatever you think right to-day, you think so to-morrow; what you like to-day, you will not dislike to-morrow. ”

“ Timm was as angry as he had ever been in his life. It was the rage of the hunter when he sees a wild beast tearing his cunningly-woven nets and escaping from his most ingenious trap. This booby of a Schmenckel, with his stupid honesty! How he had worked at the man to dazzle him with golden prospects; and now! It was enough to turn a man's brain! The glorious fortune all lost! And why? For nothing but a fit of honesty! And if Oswald, too, should be such a fool! These blockheads can never be left alone for a moment! And just now the bleeding will not stop! What enormous strength that fellow has! ”

“ The baron looked at Melitta as she said this, almost frightened.
"Melitta," he answered, so seriously as to be almost solemn; "it is not right to awaken the desire to live, in a man who is sick unto death. Do not spoil me, from pure pity, with a kindness which does not come from the heart!"
"Not from the heart!" repeated Melitta in a low voice. "To be sure I have deserved that reproach; I ought not to complain."
"I did not mean to reproach you, Melitta."
"And yet I deserve it. Yes, Oldenburg, I must tell you, or it will oppress my heart beyond endurance. I feel deeply ashamed before you. ”

“ You are a good, clever girl, and I think you cannot have chosen thoughtlessly, or from mere ambition; no! no! not thoughtlessly, nor from ambition, for you are my good, clever girl!" repeated the old man, as Helen, unable to control her emotion any longer, hid her beautiful head on his bosom, and gave way to a passionate fit of weeping.
"What is the matter, girl?" he said, frightened by this sudden vehemence; and then, as if a flash of lightning had lighted up for an instant the dark places in his daughter's heart, "For God's sake, child, you have not let your eyes be dazzled by Mammon! ”

“ But here comes the form of a living man who is dead, of a dead man who still lives, and I find neither in my mind nor in my heart the magic words which will lay this spirit, whom I reverence, whom I mourn with tears, like the others."
"Then let us turn back," said Doctor Braun, with great vivacity. "If you do not feel the strength in you to maintain the position which you have yourself chosen, against every objection and every authority, it would be madness to expose yourself to such danger. Let us turn back; it is time yet."
"No," said Oswald, "that would be both cowardly and foolish. ”

“ But, Melitta, is the memory of the man whom you cannot possibly love any longer, and of whom you say yourself that you do not love him any longer, to part us forever? Have you not paid the penalty of your wrong--if wrong it was to follow the impulse of a free heart--with a thousand tears? Are you not now to me what you have always been? And, if there must be a reckoning between us, have you not to forgive and forget far more in me than I in you? Is it reasonable to sacrifice the wife to a rigorous moral law, which the husband does not consider binding? ”

“ Until then, Oswald farewell!"
Berger embraced Oswald and kissed him.
Oswald was deeply moved.
"Let me stay with you," he said, his voice half-drowned in tears; "let me stay with you and never leave you again. I hate the world, I despise the world, as much as you do."
"I know that," said Berger, "but to despise the world is but the first stage of the three on the road to the Great Mystery."
"And which is the second stage? Mention it, so that I may reach it at once!"
"To despise one's self." ”

“ You wish to rule and to love at the same time, and that cannot be done. Helen! love, true love--and there is no other love--must be humble; it bears all thing's and believes all things; it wants only to be one with the person loved, one in joy and one in sorrow Look, sweetheart! such love has fallen to my share, and therefore I know what I say. Franz and I have but one will: he wants to do what is right, and so do I; and even if our views ever should be apart, our hearts are always united. All joys are doubly great, and all sorrows are diminished by half. ”

“ Has your excellency ever been in St. Petersburg? There is the Princess--but, after all, I am not at liberty to speak as freely of such a great lady as----"
"In one word," said Oswald, scarcely able to restrain himself, "the Czika is your child?"
"I couldn't swear to that," said Mr. Schmenckel, smiling, "but I can take my oath that she might be my child, and that I have always looked upon her in that light."
"And you think the gypsy will come back again?"
"Oh, your excellency may rely upon that; she is never as well off as when she stays with me." ”

“ Since there has come to me the faintest ray of hope that you may yet some time consent to be mine, the world has recovered all its youthful beauty in my eyes; but now I should also like to see the fountain from which I have drunk this water of youth, free of all admixture and undimmed. As you are all in all to me, so I should like to be all to you; to see you have no other desire than to be loved--loved more and more--as I have no other desire than to love you, more and more. What is the rest of the world to us? ”

“ Did she not owe it solely to her own prudence, moderation, and discretion that she, the simple nobleman's daughter, who had no fortune whatever, had become Baroness Grenwitz and mother-in-law of Prince Waldenberg? Had she not had to struggle through all her life, not only with circumstances, but also with those who stood nearest to her; with her weak husband, who had no energy and no sense for great comprehensive plans, and with her haughty, self-willed daughter? Had she not been forced to think and care for them all; to compel them almost to accept their good fortune? ”

“ To die in a good cause had no terrors for him. Oldenburg actually fancied he felt a faint desire for death in his heart. Had he not seen how the sweet hope of at last calling Melitta his own had been recently put off once more, and further than ever? He could not blame her that the memory of her fondness for Oswald was weighing her down like an Alp, and made it impossible to her to raise her eyes boldly to a better and more faithful man; but the very fact that he could not but honor her for the feeling which parted them made him so very hopeless and helpless. ”

“ Deep blushes flew over Helen's face as Sophie said these words in a firm voice, and at the same time looked at her so gravely and reproachfully with her large blue eyes.
"No, darling; don't be ashamed of having loved him. That is not what I blame you for. He is a man of uncommon attraction, and gifted by nature with all that can charm woman. I do not even blame you for loving him still. Who can cast aside true love so promptly? But, Helen, since it is so, do not marry the prince! You ought not to do it from respect for yourself, from respect for him, if he deserves respect." ”