Ottilie

“ So they labored on, straining every nerve to make Ottilie's birthday splendid, without any open acknowledgment that this was what they were aiming at, or, indeed, without their directly acknowledging it to themselves. Charlotte, wholly free from jealousy as she was, could not think it right to keep it as a real festival. Ottilie's youth, the circumstances of her fortune, and her relationship to their family, were not at all such as made it fit that she should appear as the queen of the day ”

“ You take Ottilie. Let me have the Captain; and, for a short period, at least, let the trial be made."
"We might venture it," said Charlotte, thoughtfully, "if the danger were only to ourselves. But do you think it prudent to bring Ottilie and the Captain into a situation where they must necessarily be so closely intimate; the Captain, a man no older than yourself, of an age (I am not saying this to flatter you) when a man becomes first capable of love and first deserving of it, and a girl of Ottilie's attractiveness?"
"I cannot conceive how you can rate Ottilie so high," replied Edward. ”

“ One day I suddenly learned that Ottilie was engaged to her cousin.
"You will not wonder that Agalma, who before this had exercised great fascination over me, now doubly became an object of the most tender interest. I fell madly in love. Hitherto I had never known that passion. My feeling for Ottilie I saw was but the inarticulate stammerings of the mighty voice which now sounded throught the depths of my nature. The phrase, madly in love, is no exaggeration; madness alone knows such a fever of the brain, such a tumult of the heart. ”

“ Ottilie's own personal position with the Architect was as pure and unconscious as possible. His agreeable presence, and his industrious nature, had charmed and entertained her, as the presence of an elder brother might. Her feelings for him remained at the calm unimpassioned level of blood relationship. For in her heart there was no room for more; it was filled to overflowing with love for Edward; only God, who interpenetrates all things, could share with him the possession of that heart. ”

“ The Lady Ottilie of Thüringen was in a restless mood, in that mood when a woman wants everything and nothing, when she is eager to reveal and careful to hide everything but her eagerness. To an older man perhaps there would have been no puzzle, but to Nigel Charteris, who had never known the spell of woman, she was a mysterious child following her own phantasies. ”

“ No one except myself saw that Ottilie was disturbed. She has a way when she experiences any sharp unpleasant emotion which she wishes to resist, of showing it in the unequal color of her face; the left cheek becomes for a moment flushed, while the right turns pale. I perceived this symptom, and I could not prevent myself from saying something. I took our Superior aside, and spoke seriously to her about it. ”

“ Edward cried; "how could we have overlooked it. This is what you mean, Ottilie, is it not?" He took a lead pencil, and drew a great black rectangular figure on the summit of the hill.
It went through the Captain's soul to see his carefully and clearly-drawn chart disfigured in such a way. He collected himself, however, after a slight expression of his disapproval and went into the idea. "Ottilie is right," he said; "we are ready enough to walk any distance to drink tea or eat fish, because they would not have tasted as well at home—we require change of scene and change of objects. ”

“ But the last and most important point of all which I have to urge is this: supposing that we, our outward and inward condition being what it is, could nevertheless make up our minds to wait at all hazards, and bear what is laid upon us, what is to become of Ottilie? She must leave our family; she must go into society where we shall not be to care for her, and she will be driven wretchedly to and fro in a hard, cold world. Describe to me any situation in which Ottilie, without me, without us, could be happy, and you will then have employed an argument which will be stronger than every other ”

“ Must it not seem to Ottilie the token of a bad conscience? She could not bear that. She raised her head and looked the princess steadily in the face.
"Your Highness, the law does not punish the errors of love; but if a woman falls so low that she commits from love crimes which make her amenable to the law, she becomes as detestable to me as all others. You see I lack the first requisite for the vocation your Highness did me the honor to propose,--the true Christian charity which does not judge but pardons." ”

“ I wish to make you mistress of a beautiful and wealthy land, to give you a position in which alone your superior qualities can make themselves valuable, wed you to a prince whom you greatly undervalue, and who will understand and love you as you deserve."
"I want no love," interrupted Ottilie, "I am weary of suffering; do not grudge my repose; I have, by a violent struggle obtained the peace of the grave. Oh, do not drag me back to life! for life is conflict. Ah, Ottmar, have pity upon me! ”

“ Ottilie entered, and the hostess, seeing him, retired. From Ottilie herself, too, he could not remain concealed for a moment. He turned toward her; and there stood the lovers once more, in such strange fashion, in each other's presence. She looked at him calmly and earnestly, without advancing or retiring. He made a movement to approach her, and she withdrew a few steps toward the table. He stepped back again. "Ottilie!" he cried aloud, "Ottilie! let me break this frightful silence! Are we shadows, that we stand thus gazing at each other? Only listen to me ”

“ The Count seconded the grandmother's proposal most decidedly, but Ottilie was anxious and disturbed, and strove against the decision. She did not like losing her only son, whom she loved so tenderly, and called it cruel kindness to take away the only comfort of the long, weary days of illness--but in vain--mother and husband, usually most indulgent to the gentle patient, for once withstood her wishes with incomprehensible hardness, and the Countess, too weak and too little accustomed to independent resistance, was obliged to comply. ”

“ CHAPTER III I mind me that when she had drawn from me all she had wanted to know, the little lady’s pert tongue became still for a while, and that she stretched her long young limbs and lay back upon her mound of hay with the most absolute unconcern either of my presence or of the Princess’s, gazing skyward with a sudden gravity in her look. As for me, I was content to sit in silence too, glad of the quiet, because it gave me leisure to taste the full zest of this fortunate and singular meeting. I thought I had never seen a human being whom silence became so well as the Princess Ottilie. ”

“ Charlotte did not answer, but went. Some followed her—others followed these: in the end, no one wished to be the last, and all followed. Edward and Ottilie found themselves alone under the plane-trees. He insisted that stay he would, earnestly, passionately, as she entreated him to go back with her to the castle. "No, Ottilie!" he cried; "the extraordinary is not brought to pass in the smooth common way—the wonderful accident of this evening brings us more speedily together. ”

“ After the Major had left her, Charlotte sat on, buried in her own reflections; but it was only for a few minutes. Ottilie suddenly raised herself from her lap, and looked full with her large eyes in her friend's face. Then she got up from off the ground, and stood upright before her.
"This is the second time," began the noble girl, with an irresistible solemnity of manner, "this is the second time that the same thing has happened to me. You once said to me that similar things often befall people more than once in their lives in a similar way, and if they do, it is always at important moments. ”

“ Albert sought Röschen at her father's house, and learned that since the death of Ottilie's head waiting-maid, which had occurred two years before, she had filled her place. Heinrich smiled when he heard this; he readily perceived that love for him had induced Ottilie to keep near her person the young girl he had tried to win; for true love embraces not only its object but everything connected with it. ”

“ Ottilie herself, partly from this remarkable affinity, perhaps still more under the influence of that sweet woman's feeling which makes them regard with the most tender affection the offspring, even by another, of the man they love, was as good as a mother to the little creature as it grew, or rather, she was a second mother of another kind. If Charlotte was absent, Ottilie remained alone with the child and the nurse. Nanny had for some time past been jealous of the boy for monopolizing the entire affections of her mistress ”

“ Ottilie's favorite walk, sometimes alone, sometimes with the child, was down below, toward the plane-trees, along a pleasant footpath leading directly to the point where one of the boats was kept chained in which people used to go across the water. She often indulged herself in an expedition on the water, only without the child, as Charlotte was a little uneasy about it. She never missed, however, paying a daily visit to the castle garden and the gardener, and going to look with him at his show of greenhouse plants, which were all out now, enjoying the free air. ”

“ Who are well trained enough never to wound others by a parade of their own advantages? and who stands so high as not at times to suffer under such a slight? In trials like these, Ottilie's character is growing in strength, but since I have clearly known the painfulness of her situation, I have been thinking over all possible ways to make some other arrangement. Every hour I am expecting an answer to my own last letter, and then I do not mean to hesitate any more. So, my dear Edward, it is with me. ”

“ Ottilie loved me, cried I in the depths of my exultant soul: what could be difficult now? “You are mad! Have you not yet learned your lesson? Do you not understand that they will never, never let you have her? Go back to your home, sir, and if you love her never let her know you are still alive, for if they heard it here, God knows what she would be put to bear; and if she knew they had tried to murder you, it would kill her. [286] I tell you, sir, a Court is a dreadful place, and Prince Eugen, you know what he is, and his Serene Highness himself, he is hard as the stones of the street. ”

“ Yes, how can you expect a family like ours to keep up a circle of decent acquaintances?... Ottilie writes to me now and again.... She's living with an Italian.... Why they don't get married is more than I can make out."
"And why should they get married?" asked Lot.
"But, Lot," said Elly, "you and I did!"
"We are more conventional than Ottilie. I am more conventional than Ottilie ever was. I should never have dared to suggest to you not to get married. Ottilie is more thorough than I."
"She's a thorough fine girl ... and a devilish handsome woman," said Pauws. ”

“ Princess Ottilie sighed, and they walked along the boards behind the bathing machines, and down the rattling beach to the shelter of a fishing boat, where they sat down, screened from the world, with the murmuring sea in front of them. Somerset talked of his love and the hatefulness of Bernheim. The little princess sighed again.
“I have worse news still,” she said. “It will pain you. We are going to Paris to-morrow, and then on to Aix-les-Bains. They have just decided. They say the baccarat here is silly, and they might as well play for bonbons. ”

“ One lively little creature only was incessantly complained of as showing no capacity for work, and as never likely to do anything if she were left at home.
Ottilie could not be angry with the girl, for to herself the little thing was especially attached—she clung to her, went after her, and ran about with her, whenever she was permitted—and then she would be active and cheerful and never tire. It appeared to be a necessity of the child's nature to hang about a beautiful mistress. At first, Ottilie allowed her to be her companion; then she herself began to feel a sort of affection for her ”

“ After Ottilie’s messenger had failed to induce me to give up my rights, had come the attempts upon my life, then the duel. The mysterious stranger who had sought to slay me with such rancorous hate, and had called “Ottilie” into my dying ears, had returned to claim his bride, and they had [264] wedded in their blood-guilt. Well might the nurse cry and repeat the cry of “God in heaven! God in heaven!” ”

“ Physically dazzled, mentally surprised, the people round appeared to have just moved to turn away their half-blinded eyes, to be glancing again toward the child with curious delight, and to be showing more wonder and pleasure than awe and reverence—although these emotions were not forgotten, and were to be traced upon the features of some of the older spectators.
But Ottilie's figure, expression, attitude, glance, excelled all which any painter has ever represented. A man who had true knowledge of art, and had seen this spectacle, would have been in fear lest any portion of it should move ”

“ The tragical complications and consequences resulting even from errors which never took shape in evil deeds could not in the highest tragedy be represented more purely and strikingly than here. The stain of impurity rests upon the soul of him who thinks that he detects it, not in the book itself. Ottilie is as pure and immortal a creation of genius as Mignon. ”