Blind

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Title:     Blind
Author: Paul Heyse [More Titles by Heyse]

Translator: Mary Wilson

CHAPTER I.

At a window which opened over a little flower-garden, stood the blind daughter of the village sexton, and sought revival from the wind as it blew over her hot face. The delicate half-grown figure shook, and the small cold hands lay clasped upon the windowsill.

Farther back in the room, sat a blind boy, on a stool before the old spinet, playing restless melodies. He might be about fifteen; scarcely a year older than the girl. No one who saw and heard him, as he lifted up his large open eyes, or bent his head towards the window, could have guessed him to be so afflicted--there was so much security, nay, vehemence, in his movements.

He broke off suddenly, in the midst of a sacred song that had been running wild beneath his fingers.

"Did you sigh, Marlene?" he asked, without turning his head.

"Not I, Clement; what should I sigh for? I only started when the wind burst in so suddenly."

"But sigh you did! Do you think I do not hear you when I play? When you shiver, I feel it even here."

"Yes, it is cold now."

"You don't deceive me! If you were only cold, you would not be standing there at the window. And I know what makes you sigh and tremble; you are afraid because the doctor is to come to-morrow and pierce our eyes with needles. Yet he told us how quickly it is done, and that it is only like the sting of a gnat. You used to be so brave and patient. When I was little, and used to cry when I was hurt, were not you always held up as a pattern to me by my mother, though you are only a girl. And now you cannot find your courage, and do not in the least think of all the joy that is to come after."

She shook her head. "Can you believe me to be afraid of so short a pain? And yet I am oppressed by foolish childish fancies, from which I cannot see my way. From that day when the strange doctor for whom the baron sent, came down from the great house to see your father, and your mother called us in to him from the garden--from that hour there has been a weight upon me which will not go. You were so glad, you took no notice; but when your father knelt down, and began to return thanks to God for this great mercy, my heart was dumb within me, and I could not join. I tried to find a reason for being thankful, but I could feel none."

She said this very quietly, and her voice was steady. He struck a few gentle chords. Between the hoarse jarring tones peculiar to such old instruments, sounded the distant song of returning labourers--contrasting, as did that life, in its plenitude of light and power, with the dream-life of these two blind children.

The boy appeared to feel it; he rose hastily, and went to the window with unerring step--for he knew that room and everything it contained--and, tossing back his fine fair curls, he said:

"You are fanciful, Marlene; our fathers and mothers and all the village wish us joy, and should it not be joy?--before they promised this, I did not mind. We are blind, they say; I never knew what it was we wanted. When visitors used to come and see my mother, and we heard them pity us, and say; 'Ah, those poor children!' I used to get so angry. What right have they to pity us? I thought. Still, I always knew that we are not like other people. They often spoke of things I did not understand, but yet which must be lovely; now that we are to know these too, curiosity has taken hold of me, and will not let me rest night or day."

"I was quite content before;" said Marlene, sadly. "I was happy, and could have been happy all my life--now it will be different. Do you never hear people complain of care and trouble? and what did we know of care?"

"That was because we did not know the world; and I want to know it, at whatever risk. I too have been contented to grope about with you, and to be left in idleness--but not for ever. I will have no advantage over those who have to work. Sometimes, when my father used to teach us history, and tell us of all the heroes and their doings, I would ask him if any of these were blind? But every man who had done anything to speak of, could see. The like thoughts would keep tormenting me for days. Then, when I was at my music, or was allowed to play the organ in your father's place, I would forget my grievances. Again, I often thought; 'Am I eternally to play this organ, and walk these few hundred steps about this village here for ever? and beyond this village, never to be heard of by one living soul, or spoken of when I am dead?' You see, since that doctor has been up there at the castle, I have had a hope of growing up to be a man like other men--and to be able to go out into the wide world, and go where I please, and have nobody to mind."

"Not even me, Clement?" She spoke without complaint or reproach, but the boy broke out passionately:

"How can you talk such stuff, which you know I can't abide? Do you think I would go away and leave you all alone? or steal from home in secret? Do you think I could do that?"

"I know how it is. When the village-lads begin their wanderings, or go away to town, nobody ever may go with them, not even their own sisters; and here, while they are children still, the boys run away from the girls whenever they come near them. Till now they let you stay with me, and we learned and played together; you were blind, as I was--what should you have done with other boys? But when you see, and wish to stay with me, they will mock you, and hoot after you, as they do to all who do not hold to them; and then you will go away, for ever so long a time, perhaps--and I--how shall I ever learn to do without you?"

The last words were spoken with an effort, and then her terrors overcame her, and she sobbed aloud.

Clement drew her towards him, and stroked her cheeks, and said with earnest tenderness: "Yon must not cry; I am not going to leave you--never--rather remain blind and forget the rest. I will not leave you if it makes you cry so. Come now, be calm; do be glad!--you must not heat yourself, the doctor said; it is not good for the eyes, dear darling Marlene!"

He took her in his arms, and clasped her close, and kissed her cheek--a thing he had never done before. Just then he heard his mother calling to him from the vicarage close by; and leading the still weeping girl to a chair by the wall, and seating her upon it, he hurried out.

Shortly after, a venerable pair might be seen walking down the hill, from the great house towards the village. The vicar, a tall and stately form, with all the power and majesty of an apostle; and the sexton, a simple slight-built man, with humble gait and hair already white. Both had been invited to pass the afternoon with the lord of the manor and the doctor, whom he had sent for from the adjacent town, for the purpose of examining the children's eyes and attempting an operation. The doctor had repeatedly assured the two delighted fathers, that he had every reasonable hope of a perfect cure; and he had requested them to hold themselves in readiness for the morrow.

It was the mother's business to prepare what was needful in the vicarage. The children were not to be parted on the day appointed to restore to both the light, of which, together, they had been so long deprived.

When the two fathers reached their homes (they were opposite neighbours), the vicar gave his old friend's hand a squeeze, and said, with glistening eyes: "God be with them and us!"--and then they parted. The sexton went into his house, where all was quiet, for the servant-girl was in the garden. He went into his room, rejoicing in the stillness that made him feel alone with his God. But when he crossed the threshold he was startled by his child. She had risen from her chair, holding her handkerchief to her eyes, her bosom heaving, as if in spasms, her cheeks and lips dead white. He sought to comfort her; begging her to be composed, and anxiously enquiring what had happened? Tears were her only answer--tears which, even to herself, she could not have explained.

 

CHAPTER II.

The children had been laid in two small rooms with a northern aspect, in the upper story of the vicarage. In default of shutters, the windows had been carefully hung with shawls, making soft twilight of the brightest noonday. The vicar's quiet extensive orchard, while it gave the walls abundant shade, kept off the din of village life beyond.

The doctor had enjoined extreme precaution, for the girl especially. As far as depended upon himself, the operation had proved successful. In solitude and silence. Nature must be left to do the rest. The young girl's temperament was so excitable as to require the utmost care, and most attentive watching.

At the decisive hour Marlene had not flinched; and when her mother had burst into tears on first hearing the doctor's step on the threshold, she had gone up to her to comfort her.

The doctor began the operation with the boy. Though somewhat agitated, he had seated himself bravely, and borne it well. At first he would not suffer himself to be held, and only yielded to Marlene's entreaties. When, for a second, the doctor removed his hand from his unveiled eyes, he had raised a cry of surprise and delight.

Marlene started; then she too proceeded to undergo the ordeal without a murmur. Tears gushed from her eyes, and she shook from head to foot, hastily tying on the bandage. The doctor helped them to carry her into the adjoining room, for her knees knocked together, and she could hardly stand. There, stretched on her little conch, she had a long alternation of sleep and faintness; while the boy declared himself to be quite well, and only his father's serious orders induced him to go to bed. To go to sleep was not so easy. Confused visions of forms and colors,--colors for the first time,--flitted across his brain; mysterious forms that had as yet been nothing to him, and were now to be so much, if those were right who wished him joy. He asked a thousand questions while his father and mother sat by his bedside--riddles not yet expounded by the deepest science. For what can science tell us, after all, of the hidden springs of life? His father entreated him to be patient; with God's help, ere long, he would be able to resolve these doubts himself; at present, quiet was the one thing needful--especially to Marlene, whom he must not wake by talking. This silenced him, and listening at the wall, he whispered a petition that the door between them might be left ajar, in order that he might hear whether she slept or if she was in pain. When his mother had done his bidding, he lay quite still, and listened to the breathing of his little sleeping friend; and the quiet rhythm as it rose and fell, sang him like a lullaby to sleep.

Thus they lay for hours. The village was much more still than usual. Those who had to pass the vicarage with carts, took every possible precaution against noise. Even the village-children, warned, most likely, by their master, in place of running riot on coming out of school as usual, went quietly by in couples to their remotest playgrounds, whispering as they passed, and looking up at the house with wistful eyes. The birds alone among the branches did not hush their song. But when did a bird's voice ever vex or weary child of man, be he ever so sorely in need of rest?

Only by the bells of the homebound flocks, were the children at last awakened. The boy's first question was for Marlene, and whether she had been asking for him? He called to her in a suppressed tone, and asked her how she felt? That heavy sleep has not restored her, and her eyes are burning under the slight handkerchief that binds them. But she does violence to her sensations, and forces herself to answer that she feels much better, and to talk cheerfully to Clement, who now gives utterance to all the wildest speculations of his fancy.

Late, when the moon stands high above the woods, a shy small childish hand is heard to knock at the vicarage door. The little village-girls have brought a garland for Marlene; woven from their choicest garden-flowers, and a bunch of them for Clement. When they are brought, the boy's whole countenance lightens up. "Give them my kindest thanks," he begs; "they are such kind good girls! I am not well yet, but when I have my sight, I shall always be on their side, and help them against the boys." When the wreath was brought to Marlene, she pushed it gently from her with her small pale hands. "I cannot have it here," she said; "it makes me faint, dear mother, to have these flowers so near--give these to Clement too."

Again she sank into a sort of feverish slumber; only the healing approach of day brought something like repose. And the doctor, who came in the morning very early, was able to pronounce her out of danger, which indeed was more than he had hoped for. He sat long by the boy's bedside, listening to his strange questions with a smile, benevolently admonishing him to patience; and, filled with the most sanguine hopes, he left them.

But to be admonished to quiet and patience after one has had a glimpse of the promised land! In each interval of his duties, his father had to go upstairs to that little room and talk. And the door was left ajar, that Marlene too might hear these charming stories. Legends of godly men and women, to whom the Lord had sent most heavy trials, and then withdrawn them. The story of poor Henry, and of that pious little maiden who would have sacrificed herself in her humility; and how God had guided all to the most blissful consummation; and as many of such edifying histories as the worthy pastor could find to unfold.

And when on the good man's lips, story would unconsciously turn to prayer; or his wife would raise her clear voice in a hymn of thanksgiving, Clement would fold his hands and join--but he would so soon break in with fresh enquiries, as to prove his mind to have been far more present with the story than with the song.

Marlene asked no questions; she was kind and cheerful to every one, and no one guessed the thoughts and questions that were working in her mind.

They recovered visibly from day to day; and on the fourth, the doctor allowed them to get up. He himself supported the young girl, as, all weak and trembling, she crept towards the door, where the boy stood joyously holding out a searching hand for hers, and then holding hers fast, he bid her lean on him, which she did in her usual confiding way.

They paced up and down--he with the perceptions of locality peculiar to the blind, guiding her carefully past the chairs and cupboards that stood against the walls. "How do you feel now?" he asked her. "Well;" she answered again--and always.

"Come," he said; "lean heavier on me; you are so weak. It would do you good to breathe the air, and the scent of the flowery meadows; it is so close and heavy here. Only the doctor says it might be dangerous; our eyes might get sore again, and even blind, if we were to see the light too soon. Ah! now I know the difference between light and darkness! No sound in music is so sweet as that feeling of space about the eyes. It did hurt me rather, I must confess; yet I could have gazed for ever at those bright colors--the pain was so beautiful (you will soon feel it also). But it will be many a long day before we are allowed to enjoy that pleasure. At first, I know I shall do nothing but look all day long. One thing I should like to know, Marlene; they tell us each thing has its color--now what is the color of your face and mine? I should so like to know--bright or dark? Would not it be disagreeable if they should not be bright and fair? I wonder whether I shall know you with my eyes? Now when I only feel with the tip of this little finger, I could distinguish you from every other human being in the world.

"But then!--ah! then we shall have to begin again. We must learn to know each other by sight. Now, I know that your cheeks and hair are soft to touch--will they be soft to look at? I do so long to know, and have so long to wait!" In this way he would run on, talking unceasingly. How silently she walked by his side, he never noticed. Many of his words sank deep into her heart. It had never yet occurred to her that she should see herself as others saw her--she could hardly fancy that could be. She had heard of mirrors, but she never had been able to understand them. She now imagined that when a seeing person's eyes are opened, his own image must stand before him.

Now as she lay in bed, her mother believing her to be asleep, the words recurred to her again: "It would be disagreeable if we should find our faces dark!" She had heard of ugliness and beauty; she knew that ugly people were generally much pitied, and often less loved. "If I should be ugly," she said to herself, "and he were to care less for me! He used to play with my hair and call it silk--he will never do that now, if he finds me ugly. And he?--if he should happen to be ugly, I never would let him feel it--never! I should love him just the same. Yet, no; he cannot be ugly--not he. I know he is not." Thus she brooded long, lost in care and curiosity. The weather was hot and close. From the garden the nightingale was heard complaining, while fitful gusts of west wind came rattling at the windowpanes. She was all alone in her room. Her mother, who till now had slept beside her, had had her bed removed, to lessen the heat within that narrow space. It was unnecessary to watch her now, they thought, as all feverish symptoms were supposed to have disappeared. This night, however, they did return again, and kept her tossing restlessly until long after midnight. Then sleep, though steep dull and broken, had taken pity on her, and come to close her weary eyelids.

Meanwhile the storm that had been encircling the horizon half the day, threatening and growling, had arisen with might, gathered itself just above the wood, and paused--even the wind had ceased. Now a heavy crash of thunder breaks over the young girl's slumbers. She starts up, half dreaming still--what it is she feels or wants, she hardly knows; impelled by some vague terror, she rises to her feet. Her pillows seem to burn her. Standing by her bed, she listens to the pattering rain without; but it does not cool her fevered brow. She tries to collect her thoughts--to remember what had passed. She can recall nothing but those melancholy fancies with which she had fallen asleep. A hasty resolution forms and ripens in her mind. She will go to Clement; he too is alone--what is to prevent her resolving all her doubts at once, by one look at him and at herself? Possessed by this idea, the doctor's injunctions are all forgotten. Just as she had left her couch, with groping trembling hands, she finds the door which stands half open; feeling for the bed, she steals on tiptoe to the sleeper's side; holding her breath, bending forward where he lies, she tears the bandage from her eyes.

But how is she terrified to find that all is as dark as ever. She had forgotten that it was night, and that she had been told night makes all men blind. She had believed it was the light streaming from a seeing eye that lighted up itself and other objects round it. She can distinguish nothing, although she feels the boy's soft breath upon her eyelids. In distress, almost in despair, she is about to leave the room, when a sudden flash of lightning flames through the now less carefully darkened panes; a second, and then a third--the whole atmosphere seems to surge with lurid light. Thunder and rain increase their roar. But she stands motionless, her rapt gaze fastened on the curly head before her, resting so peacefully upon its pillows. Then the picture begins to fade--the water gushes from her eyes; seized with unutterable terror, she takes refuge in her room, and hastily replacing the bandage, she throws herself upon her bed. She knows--she feels irrevocably--her eyes have looked and seen for the first time--and for the last!

 

CHAPTER III.

Weeks have passed--the young powers of these eyes are to be tried by the light of day. The doctor, who, from the adjacent town where he lived, had hitherto directed the children's simple treatment, had come over on a bright unclouded day, to be present, and with his patients to enjoy, the first fruits of his skill.

Green wreaths in lieu of curtains had been hung about the windows, and both rooms festively adorned with flowers and foliage. The baron himself, and from the village the nearer friends of both the families, had assembled to wish parents and children joy, and to rejoice in the happy wonder of the cure.

When Clement, scarlet with delight, was placed before Marlene, and took her hand, in shy terror she had half hidden herself in a corner behind some foliage. He had begged to be allowed to see her first--both bandages had been loosened at the same moment. A cry of speechless rapture had sounded from the boy's lips; he remained rigid on the same spot, a beatified smile upon his lips, turning his flashing eyes on every side. He has forgotten that Marlene was to be placed before him; (he had yet to learn what the human form is like,) and she did nothing to recall it to him. She stood motionless. Only her long lashes quivered over her large clear brown passive eyes. No suspicions were awakened yet. "Those unknown wonders of sight are strange to her," they said. But when the boy broke out into this sadden rapture, and they said to him, "This is Marlene," and in his old way he had felt for her cheek with his hand, and stroked it, saying, "Your face is bright;" then her tears gushed out. She hastily shook her head, and said, almost inaudibly--"It is all dark; it is just as it always was!"

The horror of that first moment who shall describe? The agitated doctor drew her towards the window, and proceeded to examine her eyes; the pupils were not to be distinguished from seeing ones, save by their lifeless melancholy fixedness. "The nerve is dead!" he said; "some sadden shock, or vivid light must have destroyed it." The sexton's wife tamed white, and fell fainting in her husband's arms. Clement could hardly gather what was passing--his mind was filled with the new life given him. But Marlene lay bathed in tears, and returned no answer to the doctor's questions. Nothing was ever learned from her; she could not tell how it had happened, she said; she begged to be forgiven for her childish weeping. She could bear all that was appointed for her--she had never known a happier lot.

Clement was beside himself when the extent of her misfortune was made known to him. "You shall see too!" he cried, running to her; "I do not care to see if you do not! It cannot be so hopeless yet. Ah, now I know what it is you lose! Seeing would be nothing; it is that everybody else has eyes, that look so kindly on us--and so shall you see them look on you! Only have patience, and do not cry!" And then he turned to the doctor, and with tears, implored him to cure Marlene. Large tears stood in the good doctor's eyes; he could scarcely so far compose himself as to bid the boy first be careful of himself; meanwhile he would see what could be done; he was forced to leave him a ray of hope to spare him dangerous agitation.

From the disconsolate parents, however, he did not withhold the truth.

The boy's grief had been some comfort to Marlene. As she was sitting by the window she called him to her: "You must not be so grieved," she said; "it is the will of God. Rejoice, as I rejoice, that you are cured. You know I never cared so much; I could have been contented as it was. If only father and mother would not mind!--but they will get used to it again, and so will you. If you will only love me just as well now that I am to remain as I was, we may still be very happy."

But he was not so easily to be comforted, and the doctor had to insist on their being parted. Clement was taken into the larger room, where the villagers came pressing round him, shaking hands with him by turns, with cordial words and wishes. The crowd half stunned him, and he only kept repeating: "Marlene is still blind; she will never see! have you heard?" he would say, and burst into tears afresh.

It was high time to tie the bandage on again, and lead him to his own cool quiet room--there he lay exhausted with joy and grief and weeping. His father came to him, and spoke tenderly and piously; which did not much avail him. He cried even in his sleep, and appeared to be disturbed by distressing dreams.

On the following day, however, wonder, joy, and curiosity asserted their rights again; sorrow for Marlene only appeared to touch him nearly when he had her before his eyes. The first thing in the morning he had been to see her, and with affectionate anxiety to enquire whether she felt no change--no more hopeful symptom? Then he became absorbed in the variegated world that was expanding before his eyes. When he returned to Marlene, it was only to describe some new wonder to her, although sometimes, in his fullest flow of narrative, he would stop suddenly, reminded by a look at the poor little friend beside him, how painful to her his joy must be. But in reality, she did not find it painful. For herself she wanted nothing--listening to the enthusiasm of his delight was joy enough for her. Only when by-and-by he came more rarely, or remained silent, for the reason that all he could have said, appeared as nothing to what he did not dare to say--only then she began to feel uneasy. Hitherto, by day, she had hardly ever been without him, but now she often sat alone. Her mother would come to keep her company; but her mother, once so lively, in losing her dearest hope, had also lost her cheerfulness.

She could find nothing to say to her child save words of comfort, which her own sighs belied, and which therefore could not reach her heart. How much of what the young girl now was suffering had she not foreseen with terror! And yet the feeling of what she had lost, came upon her with pangs of unknown bitterness.

She would still sit spinning in her father's garden, and when Clement came, these poor blind eyes of hers would light up strangely. He was always kind, and would sit beside her, stroking her hair and cheek as he had done of old. Once she entreated him not to be so silent--she felt no touch of envy when he told her what the world was like, and what it daily taught him; but when he left her to herself, she felt so lonely! Never, by word or look, did she remind him of that evening when he had promised he would never leave her--such hopes as these she had long resigned. And since he had nothing to conceal from her, he appeared to love her twice as well.

In the fullness of his heart, he would sit for hours telling her of the sun and moon and stars; of all the trees and flowers; and especially how their parents looked, and they themselves. To her very heart's core, she felt a thrill of joy, when he innocently told her that she was fairer far than all the village maidens; he described her as tall and slender; with delicately-chiselled features, and dark eyebrows. He had also seen himself, he said, in the glass; but he was not nearly so good-looking--men in general were not, by a great deal, so handsome as women. All this was more than she could quite comprehend; only so much she did: her own looks pleased him, and more than this her heart did not desire.

They did not again return to this topic; but on the beauties of nature he was perfectly inexhaustible. When he was gone, she would recall his words, and feel a kind of jealousy of a world that robbed her of him. In secret this childish feeling grew and strengthened--growing stronger even than the pleasure she had felt in his delight. Above all, she began to hate the sun; for the sun, he told her, was brighter than all created things besides. In her dim conceptions, brightness and beauty were the same; and never did she feel so disheartened as when, towards evening, he sat beside her, intoxicated with delight, watching the sun go down. Of herself he had never spoken in such words--and did this sight so cause him to forget her that he did not even see the tears that started to her eyes--tears of vexation, and of a curious kind of jealous grievance?

Her heart grew heavier still, when, with the doctor's sanction, the vicar began the education of his son. Before his eyes had been couched, the greater part of his day had been spent in practising his music. Bible teaching, something of history and mathematics, and a trifle of Latin, was all that formerly had been considered needful. In all those lessons, not extending beyond the most conventional acquirements, Marlene had taken a part.

Now that the boy manifested a very decided taste for natural history, his time was filled up in earnest; preparing him for one of the higher classes of a school in the neighbouring town. With a firm unwearying will, and his natural dispositions aiding, he laboured through all that had been omitted in his education, and soon attained the level of his years. For many an hour together, he would sit in the sexton's garden with his book; but there was now no question of their former chat. Marlene felt her twofold loss--her lessons and her friend.

 

CHAPTER IV.

The autumn came, and with it a few days' pause in the lad's studies. The vicar had resolved to take his son, before the winter, on an excursion among the mountains; to shew him the hills and dales, and give him a deeper insight into a world that already had seemed so fair, even upon the meagre plains around their village.

When the boy first heard of it; "Marlene must go with us," he said. They attempted to dissuade him, but he refused to go without her. "What if she cannot see?" he said; "The mountain-air is strengthening, and she has been so pale and weak, and she falls into anxious fancies when I am away."

They did his bidding therefore; the young girl was lifted into the carriage beside Clement and his parents, and one short day's journey brought them to the foot of the mountain-chain. Here commenced their wanderings on foot. Patiently the boy conducted his little friend, now more reserved than ever. He often felt a wish to climb some solitary peak that promised a fresh expanse of view, but he led her wherever she wished to go, and would not give up the charge, often as his parents would have relieved him of it.

Only when they had reached a height, or were resting in some shady spot, would he leave the young girl's side; seeking his own path among the most perilous rocks, he would go collecting stones or plants not to be found below. Then when he returned to the resting party, he had always something to bring Marlene--some berries, a sweet-scented flower, or some soft bird's-nest blown from the trees by the wind.

She would accept them with gentle thanks; she appeared to be more contented than at home, and she really was so, for all day long she breathed the same air with him. But, her foolish jealousies went with her. She felt angry at the mountains, whose autumn glory, as she believed, endeared the world still more to him, and estranged him more from her.

At last the vicar's wife was struck by her strange ways. She would occasionally consult her husband about the child, who was as dear to both as if she had been their own. Her obstinate dejection was attributed by both to the disappointment of her hopes of sight; and yet the young girl felt no pain in losing that which had only been promised to her, or depicted to her fancy--it was all in the loss of what she had already known; of what had been her own.

On the second evening of their journey they halted at a solitary inn, celebrated from its situation close to a waterfall. Their wanderings had been long, and the women were very weary. As soon as they reached the house, the vicar took in his wife before going on farther to the cleft, from whence they already heard the roaring of the water. Marlene was quite exhausted, yet she would persist in following Clement, who felt no want of rest. They climbed the remaining steps, and louder and nearer sounded the tumult of the waters. Midway up the narrow path Marlene's remaining strength gave way. "Let me sit down here," she said, "while you go on, and fetch me when you have looked long enough." He offered to lead her home before going farther, but she was already seated, so he left her and went on, following the sound; touched at once, and charmed with the solitude and majesty of the spot.

Seated upon a stone, the young girl began to long for his return. "He will never come!" she thought. A chill crept over her, and the dull distant thunder of the falls gave her a shudder.

"Why does he not come?" she said; "he will have forgotten me in his delight, as he always does. If I could only find the way back to the house that I might get warm again!" And so she sat and listened to every distant sound. Now she thought she heard him calling to her; trembling, she rose--what was she to do? Involuntarily she tried a step, but her foot slipped, and she staggered and fell. Fortunately the stones on the path were all overgrown with moss. Still the fall terrified her, and losing all self-command, she screamed for help; but her voice was unable to reach across the chasm to Clement, who was standing on the edge, in the very midst of the uproar, and the house was too far off. A sharp pain cut to her heart, as she lay among the stones, helpless and deserted. Tears of desperation started to her eyes, as she rose with difficulty. What she most dearly loved seemed hateful to her now--her heart was too fall of bitterness even to feel that an all-seeing God was nigh. Thus Clement found her; when for her sake he had torn himself with an effort from the spell of so magnificent a scene.

"I am coming!" he called to her from a distance. "It is lucky that you did not come with us--the place was so narrow, one false step would have been enough to kill you. The water falls so far, deep down, and roars and rushes, and rises again in clouds of spray, it makes one giddy. Only feel how it has powdered me. But how is this? You are cold as ice, and your lips are trembling. Come, it was very wrong of me to leave you sitting out so late in the cold! God forbid that it should make you ill!"

She suffered herself to be led back in perverse silence. The vicar's wife was much alarmed at seeing the child's sweet countenance so distorted and disturbed. They prepared some warm drink for her in haste, and made her go to bed without being able to learn more than that she felt unwell.

And in truth she did feel ill--so ill that she wished to die. Life that had already proved itself so adverse, had also become odious to her. She lay there, giving full vent to her impious rancorous thoughts, wilfully destroying the last links that bound her to her fellow-creatures. "I will go up there to-morrow;" she said to herself, in her dark brooding. "He himself shall take me to the spot where one false step may kill me. My death will not kill him. Why should he have to bear my burden longer?--he has only borne it out of pity."

This guilty thought wound close and closer round her heart. What had become of her natural disposition, so tender and transparent, during those last few months of inward struggle? She even dwelt without remorse on the consequences of her crime. "They will get used to it, as they have got used to my being blind; he will not always have the picture of my misery before his eyes, to spoil his pleasure in this beautiful world of his!" This last reflexion invariably came to strengthen her resolves, when a doubt would arise to combat them.

The vicar and his wife were in the adjoining room, separated from hers by a thin partition. Clement still lingered out of doors, under the trees; he could not part from the stars and mountains, or shut out the distant music of the waters.

"It distresses me to see how Marlene pines and falls away," said his mother. "If the slightest causes agitate her so, she will be soon worn out. If you would only talk to her, and tell her not to make herself so miserable about a misfortune that cannot be repaired."

"I am afraid it would be useless;" returned the vicar. "If her education, her father's and mother's tenderness, and her daily intercourse with ourselves, have not spoken to her heart, no human words can do so. If she had learned to submit herself to the will of God, she would bear a dispensation that has left her so much to be thankful for, with gratitude, and not with murmurings."

"He has taken much away from her!"

"He has, but not all--not for ever, at least. Now she seems to have lost the faculty of loving; of holding all things as nothing, compared to the love of God and of His creatures. And this faculty only returns to us when we return to God. As she now is, she does not wish to return to Him--her grievances and her discontent are still too dear to her; but the tone of her mind is too healthy to harbour these sad companions long. Sometime, when her heart is feeling most forlorn, God will take possession of it again, and love and charity will resume their former places, and then there will be light within her, even though it be dark before her eyes."

"God grant it! yet the thought of her future life distresses me."

"She is safe if she does nothing to lose herself. And even if all those who now love and cherish her should be taken from her, charity never dies. And if she take heed to the guiding of the Lord, and the ways it pleaseth Him to lead her, she may yet learn to bless the blindness, that from her infancy has separated her from the shadow, and given her the reality and truth."

Clement interrupted their discourse. "You cannot think how lovely it is to-night!" he cried from the threshold where he stood. "I would gladly give one eye if I could give it to Marlene, that she might see the splendour of the stars. I hope the noise of the waterfall may not prevent her sleeping. I can never forgive myself for having left her to sit out there in the cold."

"Dear boy, speak lower," said his mother; "she is asleep close by. The best thing you can do, I think, would be to go to sleep yourself." And the boy whispered his good-night.

When his mother went to Marlene's room, she found her quiet and apparently asleep--that troubled look had given place to an expression of peace and gentleness.

The tempest was overpast, and had destroyed no vital part. Even remorse and shame were slightly felt. So absolute was the victory of that joyful peace that had been preached in the room beside her. Slowly, and by side-paths, does the principle of evil steal over us, and assume its sway--good asserts its victory at once.

 

CHAPTER V.

Next morning her friends noticed with astonishment the change that had come over her. The vicar's wife could only explain it by supposing Marlene to have overheard their conversation of the night before. "So much the better," said the vicar. "If she has heard it, I have nothing more to say."

After this, the young girl's gentle tenderness towards Clement and his parents, was touching to behold. She only wished to be considered as belonging to them. Any proof of their affection she received with glad surprise; as more than she expected or deserved. She did not talk much, but what she said was gay and animated. In her whole manner there was a softness, an abnegation of herself, that seemed meant for a mute apology. In their wanderings she again took Clement's arm, but she often begged to be allowed to sit down and rest. Not that she was tired; she only wished to give the boy his freedom to climb about whenever he saw anything to tempt him. And when he came back to tell her what he had seen, she would welcome him with a smile. Her jealousy was gone, now that she desired nothing for herself but the pleasure of seeing him pleased.

Thus strengthened and raised to better feelings, she came to the end of her excursion--and the strengthening had come when it was needed. She found her mother laid low by a dangerous disease, which carried off the delicate woman in a day or two. And after the first few weeks of mourning, she found that her sadly altered life exacted duties of her, for which before she hardly would have been fitted. She busied herself about the household, late and early. She found her way, in spite of her infirmity, into every nook and corner of their small home; and though there were many things she was unable to do herself, she shewed both cleverness and foresight in her arrangements, and in her watchful care that her afflicted father should want for nothing.

She soon acquired a remarkable degree of firmness and quiet dignity. Where formerly repeated admonitions had been necessary, she ruled the men and maids with a gentle word. And if ever any serious instance did occur, of neglect or real ill-will, one earnest look of those large blind eyes would melt the coarsest nature.

Since she had understood that there was work for her to do--that the moulding of their daily life was entirely in her hands, and that it was her duty to be cheerful for her father's sake, she had much less time to feel the pain of Clement's absence; and when he was sent to school in town, she was able to bid him a more composed farewell than any of the others. For some weeks, it is true, she went about the house as though she were in a dream--as though she had been severed from her happier self. But she soon grew gay again, jesting with her father to win him to a laugh, and singing to herself her favourite songs. When the vicar's wife would come with letters, and read the news and messages from Clement, her heart would beat quick in secret; and that night perhaps, she lay awake for a longer time than usual; but in the morning she would rise serene as ever.

When Clement came home for the holidays, his first steps were to the sexton's house--and his step Marlene knew,--ever so far off. She stood still, and listened whether it was for her he asked; then with her slim hands, she hastily smoothed back her hair, that still hung in its heavy plaits upon her slender neck; then rose and left her work; and by the time he had crossed the threshold, there was not a trace of agitation on her features. Gaily she offered him her hand, and begged him to come in and sit down beside her, and tell her what he had been doing. There he would often forget the hours, and his mother would come after him, for she began to grudge any of his time she lost. He very rarely stayed all his holidays in the village; he would go rambling about the mountains, absorbed by his growing love of nature and of its history.

And so the years rolled on, in monotonous rotation. The old were fading gradually, and the young growing fast in bloom and strength.

Once when Clement came home at Easter, and saw Marlene, as, rising from her spinning-wheel she came to meet him, he was struck with the progress of her loveliness since autumn. "You are quite a grown-up young lady now," he said; "and I too have done with boyhood--only feel my beard, how it has grown over my winter studies." She blushed a little as he took her hand, and passed it across his chin to make her feel the down upon it. And he had more to talk of than he used to have. The master with whom he boarded had daughters, and these daughters had young companions. She made him describe them to her. "I don't care for girls," he said; "they are so silly, and talk such nonsense. There is only one, Cecilia, whom I don't dislike, because she does not chatter and make those faces the others do to beautify themselves--and what are they all to me? The other evening when I came home, and went into my room, I found a bunch of flowers on the table; I let it lie, and did not even put it in water, though I was sorry for the flowers--but it provoked me, and next day there was such a whispering and tittering amongst the girls!--I felt so cross, I would not speak a word to them. Why can't they let me alone?--I have no time for their nonsense."

When he talked so, Marlene would hang upon his lips, and treasuring up his words, would interweave them with an endless web of her own strange fancies. She might perhaps have been in danger of wasting her youth in fruitless reveries, but she was saved from this by serious sorrows, and cares that were very real. Her father, who had long fulfilled with difficulty the duties of his place, was now struck with paralysis, and lay entirely helpless for one whole year, when his sufferings were put an end to by a second stroke. She never left him for an hour. Even in the holidays which brought Clement, she would not spare the time to talk to him, save when he would come to spend ten minutes in the sick-room.

Thus concentrating her life, she grew more self-denying. She complained to no one, and would have needed no one, had not her blindness prevented her doing everything herself. Her misfortune had been a secret discipline to her, and had taught many a humble household virtue, that those who see neglect. She kept everything committed to her care in the most scrupulous order. Her neatness was exaggerated, for she had no eyes to see when she had done enough.

Clement was deeply moved when he first saw her trying to wash and dress her helpless father, and carefully combing his thin grey hair. If in that sick-room, her cheek grew somewhat paler, there was a deeper radiance in her large dark eyes, and to her natural distinction, those lowly labours were, in fact, a foil.

The old man died. His successor came to take possession of the house, and at the Vicarage Marlene found a kind and hospitable home.

Clement only heard this by letters rarely written, and still more rarely answered. He had gone to a more distant university, and was no longer able to spend all his holidays at home. Now and then he would enclose a few lines to Marlene, in which, contrary to his former custom, he would address her as a child, in a joking tone, that made his father serious and silent, and his mother shake her head. Marlene would have these notes read aloud to her, and listening to them gravely, would carefully keep them. When her father died, he wrote to her a short agitated letter, neither attempting to console her, nor expressing any sorrow; containing only a few earnest entreaties to be careful of her health, to be calm, and to let him know exactly how she was, and what she felt.

At Easter he had, been expected, but he did not come; he only wrote that he had found an opportunity, too good to be lost, of accompanying one of the professors on a botanical tour. His father had been satisfied, and Marlene at last successful in pacifying his mother.

He came unannounced at Whitsuntide, on foot, with glowing cheeks, unwearied by a long march before break of day--a fine-grown young man. He stepped into the silent house, where his mother was alone and busy, for it was the eve of a great holiday. Surprised, with a cry of joy, she threw herself upon his neck. "You!" she exclaimed, as soon as she had recovered herself, drawing back to gaze upon him, the long absent one, with all her love for him in her eyes. "You forgetful boy, are you come at last? You can find the way back, I see, to your old father and mother! I began to think you only meant to return to us as a full-fledged professor, and who knows whether my poor eyes would have been left open long enough to behold that pleasant sight on earth? But I must not scold you now that you are my own good boy, and are come to bring us a pleasanter Whitsuntide than I have known for years--me, your father, and all of us!" "Mother," he said, "I cannot tell you how glad I am to be at home again. I could not hold out any longer. I don't know how it happened. I had not resolved to come--I only felt I must. One fine morning, instead of going up to college, I found myself without the gates, walking for very life--such journeys in a day as I never took before, though I was always a good pedestrian. Where is my father, and Marlene?"

"Don't you hear him?" said his mother; "he is upstairs in his study." And in fact they heard the old man's heavy tread walking up and down. "It is just as it used to be--that has been his Saturday's walk all these twenty years I have known him. Marlene is with the labourers in the hayfield--I sent her away that I might be left to do my work in peace. When she is in the house, she would always have me sitting idle in the corner with my hands before me. She must needs do everything herself. We have new men just now, and I am glad that she should look after them a little, until they get accustomed to their work. Won't she be surprised to find you here? Now come, we must go upstairs to father, and let him have a look at you. It will be midday directly. Come along--he won't be angry at your disturbing him."

She led her son after her, still keeping hold of his hand while she slipped up the narrow staircase before him; then softly opening the door, with a sign to Clement, she pushed him forwards while she stepped back. "Here he is at last!" she said; "there you have him!" "Whom?" cried the old man angrily, and started from his meditations; and then he saw his son's bright face beside him radiant in the morning sunshine. He held out his hand: "Clement!" he cried, between surprise and joy, "You here!" "I was homesick, father," said his son, with a warm grasp of the proffered hand. "I am come to stay over the holidays, if there be room for me now that you have Marlene here." "How you talk!" eagerly broke in his mother; "If I had seven sons, I know I should find room for them. But I will leave you to your father now; I have to go about the kitchen, and I must rifle our vegetable-beds, for in town, I doubt they have been spoiling you."

And with that she went, leaving father and son still standing silently face to face. "I have disturbed you," at length said Clement; "you are in the middle of your sermon." "You can't disturb a man who has already disturbed himself. I have been going about all the morning, turning over my text in my mind, but the seed would not spring up. I have had strange ideas; misgivings I could not master."

He went to the little window that looked upon the church. The way thither was through the churchyard. It lay peacefully before them, with its flowers and its many crosses glittering in the noonday sun. "Come hither, Clement," said the old vicar gently; "come and stand here beside me. Do you see that grave to the left, with the primroses and monthly roses? It is one you never saw before. Do you know who it is sleeps there? It is my dear old friend; our Marlene's father."

He left his son standing at the window, and began pacing up and down the room again; in their silence they only heard his even tread crunching the sand upon the wooden floor; "No one ever knew him as I did;" he said, drawing a deep breath--"Nobody lost so much, in losing him; for he was to no one else what he was to me. What did he know of the world and the wisdom of this world, which is foolishness in the sight of God! What science he possessed was revealed to him--by scripture or by suffering. I know he is blessed now, for he was already blessed on Earth."

After a pause he went on; "Whom have I now to put me to shame, when I have been puffed up?--to save me, when my faith is wavering--to unravel the vexed thoughts that by turns accuse and excuse each other! This world is growing so terribly wise! What I hear is more than I can understand--what I read my soul rejects, lest it should lead it to perdition. Many there be who lift up their voices, and dream they have the gift of tongues; and behold, it is nought but idle lip-work, and the scorners listen, and rejoice. Ah! my dear old friend, would I were safe, where you are now!"

Clement turned to look at him. He had never so heard his father speak, in the anguish of his soul. He went up to him, trying to find the right words to say. "Don't, my son;" said his father, deprecatingly, "there is nothing you can say to me, that saints have not said better. Do you know, one day, just after his death, I had fallen asleep, here in this very room; night had come with a tempest that awoke me; my heart was heavy, even unto death, when suddenly I saw him--a great light was shining round him, but he appeared in the clothes he usually wore, just as if he were alive. He did not speak, but remained standing at the foot of my bed, calmly looking down upon me. At first it agitated me terribly, I was not worthy of the grace vouchsafed me; of beholding a sainted face.--Only the day after, I felt the peace it had left behind. He did not come again until last night--I had been reading one of those books, written to seduce Man from God, and from the word of God, and had gone to bed in grief and anger, when soon after twelve o'clock, I woke up again, and saw him standing as before, holding an open bible in his hand, printed in golden letters. He pointed to them with his finger; but so great a radiance was streaming from the pages, that I strained my dazzled eyes in vain; I could not read a line.--I sat up, and bent nearer to him. He stood still, with a look of love and pity in his face; which presently changed to anxiety when he saw that I was trying to read, and could not. Then, blinded by the brightness, my eyes ran over, and he vanished slowly, leaving me in tears."--

He went to the window again, and Clement saw him shudder. "Father!" he said, and took his hand as it hung down limply by his side--he found it cold and damp--"dear Father, you distress me! You are ill--you should send for a doctor."

"A Doctor?" cried his father, almost violently, drawing himself up to his full height--"I am well, and that is the worst of it. My soul feels, longs for, approaching death, while my body is still obstinately rebellious."

"These dreams are destroying you, father."

"Dreams! I tell you, I was as wide awake as I am now."

"I do not doubt it, father; you were awake, and that is just what makes me so uneasy. It is fever that given you those waking dreams, the very memory of which distresses you enough to quicken your pulse and make you ill. I need not be a doctor to know that last night you were in a fever, as you are now."

"To know! and what do you think you know, poor mortal that you are! Oh admirable wisdom!--Grace-giving science!--but after all, whom do I accuse? What do I deserve?--for babbling of God's most precious mysteries, and baring my aching heart as a mark for scorners. Are these the fruits of all your studies? What grapes do you hope to gather from thorns like these? I know you well, poor vain creatures that you are, who would set up new Gods for others, while in your hearts you worship no gods but yourselves; I tell you, your days are numbered."--His bald brow was flushed crimson as he turned to go, without one look at Clement, who stood shocked and silent, his eyes fixed on the floor. Suddenly he felt his father's hand upon his shoulder:

"Speak truth, my son; do you really hold to those of whose opinions I have read with horror? Are you among those bright votaries of matter, who jest at miracles; to whom the Spirit is as a fable which nature tells, and man listens to with scorn. If your youth could not choke these weeds, was the seed of gratitude sown by the Lord in your heart in vain?"

"Father," said the young man after some consideration, "how shall I answer you? I am ready to stake my life on the solution of these questions--I have heard them answered in so many different ways by men I love and honor. Some of my dearest friends profess the opinions you condemn: I listen and learn, and have not yet ventured to decide."

"He who is not with me, is against me, saith the Lord--"

"No, I could not be against Him--I could not strive against the Spirit. Who does deny the Spirit? even among those who would bind it to the laws of matter?--Are not its miracles the same, even if they be no more than nature's fairest blossoms? Is a noble image to be scorned, for only being of stone?"

"You talk as they all do; your heads are darkened by your own dim metaphors--you are so deafened with the sound of your empty words, that the small voice within you speaks unheard--and is it thus you come to celebrate our Whitsuntide?"

"I came because I loved you--"

There was silence again between them. The old vicar's lips parted more than once, as if to speak, and firmly closed again. They heard Marlene's voice below, and Clement left the window at which he had been sorrowfully standing. "It is Marlene," his father said: "Have you forgotten her? Among your profane associates who vie with each other in their reckless folly and deny the Spirit and the liberty of the Spirit--the freedom of God's adoption--did the memory of your young playfellow never come to remind you of the wonders the Spirit can work, when severed from outward sense; and of the strength God's grace can give to a humble heart that is firm in Faith?"

Clement kept back the answer that was on his lips, for he heard the blind girl's light step upon the stairs.--The door opened, and she stood on the threshold with blushing cheeks. "Clement!" she cried, turning her gentle eyes to the spot where he actually stood. He went up to her, and took the hand she held out waiting for him. "How glad you have made your parents! Welcome, welcome! a thousand welcomes! but why are you so silent?" she added.

"Yes, dear child," he said, "I am here--I wanted so much to see you all again; and how well you look! You have grown taller."

"The spring has set me up again--this winter was very hard to bear--but your parents are so good to me, Clement.--Good morning, father dear;" she said, turning to him--"It was so early when we went out to the field, that I could not come up to shake hands then"--and she held out hers to him.

"Go downstairs now, dear child, and take Clement with you. You can shew him your garden--you have a little while to yourselves yet before dinner; and you, Clement, think over what I have been saying to you."--And then the young people went away.

"What is the matter with your father?" said the young girl, when they had got downstairs--"his tone sounded rather strange, and so does yours. Have you had any angry words together?"

"I found him very much excited; his blood appears to be in a disordered state. Has he been complaining again of late?"

"Not to me. He sometimes appeared to be ill at ease, and would not speak for hours together, so as often to surprise our mother. Was he severe on you just now?"

"We had a discussion upon very serious subjects. He questioned me, and I could not conceal my convictions."

Marlene grew pensive, and her countenance only brightened when they got into the fresh air.

"Is it not pleasant here?" She asked, stretching out both hands.

"Indeed I hardly know the place again," he said; "what have you done to this neglected little spot? As far back as I can remember, there never was anything here but a few fruit-trees, and the hollyhocks and asters, and now it is all over roses."

"Yes," she said; "your mother never used to care much about the garden, and now she likes it too. The bailiffs son learned gardening in the town, and he made me a present of some rose-trees, and planted them for me--by degrees I got the others, and now I am quite rich. The finest are not in flower yet."

"And can you take care of them all yourself?"

"Do you wonder at that, because I cannot see?" she said, merrily; "but all the same, I understand them very well, and I know what is good for them--I can tell by the scent, which of them are fading, and which are opening, and whether they are in want of water--they seem to speak to me. Only I cannot gather one for you; I tear my hands so with the thorns."

"Let me gather one for you;" he said, and broke off a monthly rose--she took it--but--"You have broken off too many buds," she said--"I will keep this one to put in water, and there is the full blown rose for you."

They walked up and down the neatly kept path, until they were called to dinner--Clement felt embarrassed with his father--but Marlene, generally so modest in the part she took in conversation, now found a thousand things to ask and say. And thus the vicar forgot the painful feeling left by that first meeting with his son, and the old footing of cordiality was soon resumed.

In the course of the next few days, however, they could not fail to find occasion to revive their quarrel. When his father enquired about the present state of theology at that University, Clement endeavoured to turn the conversation to general subjects; but the farther he retreated, the hotter grew his father in pursuit. Often an anxious, and sometimes an indignant look from his mother, would come to support him in his resolution to avoid all plain speaking on this subject; but whenever he broke off, or was forced to say a thing that to him meant nothing, the awkward silence fell upon his spirits, and chilled him to the heart Marlene only was always able to recover the proper tone. But he saw that she too was grieved, and therefore he avoided her when she was alone. He knew that she would question him, and from her he could have concealed nothing. A shade came over him now whenever he saw her. Was it the memory of that childish promise he had long since broken? Was it the feeling that in the schism of opinion that threatened to estrange him from his parents she remained standing on their side?

And yet he felt his tenderness for her more irresistibly than ever; it was a thing he found impossible to deny, but which he did strive most resolutely to conquer. He was too much absorbed in study and in his visions of the future, not to struggle with the energy of an aspiring nature against everything that might cling to his steps, or eventually chance to clog them.

"I have to be a traveller," he said: "a traveller on foot--my bundle must be light." He felt strangely burthened when he thought of binding himself to a wife who would have a claim to a large share of his life; and a blind one too, whom he would feel it wrong to leave. Here in her native village, where everything wore the simple aspect she had known from childhood, she was secure from the embarrassments which a residence in a town must inevitably have produced; and so he persuaded himself that he should do her a wrong by drawing closer to her. That he could be causing pain by this self-denial of his, was more than he could trust himself to believe.

His measures became more decisive. On the last day of his stay, after he had embraced his parents, and heard that Marlene was in the garden, he only left a farewell message for her, and with a beating heart he took the road to the village, and then turned down a path across the fields, to reach the woods. But the vicarage garden also opened to these fields, and the nearest way to them would have been through its small wicket gate. It was a long way round he had preferred, but at the last, he could not make up his mind to go farther on his narrow way through the young corn, without at least, one pause of retrospection.

He stood still in the serene sunshine, looking towards the hamlet with its cottages and houses--behind the hedge that bounded his father's garden, he caught sight of the young girl's slender figure. Her face was turned his way, but she had no perception of his presence.

His tears sprang quick and hot, but he struggled and overcame them; then, leaping wildly over banks and ditches, he reached the hedge; she started: "Farewell, Marlene! I am going. I may be away for a year;" and he passed his hand over her hair and forehead. "Good-bye!"--"You are going?" she said; "one thing I should like to ask of you--write oftener;--do!--your mother needs it, and sometimes send me a little message."

"I will;" he said in an absent way--and again he went. "Clement!"--she called after him--he heard, but he did not look back. "It is well that he did not hear me," she murmured; "what could I have found to say to him?"

 

CHAPTER VI.

After this Clement never made a stay of any length in his father's house. Each time he came, he found him harsher and more intolerant. His mother was tender and loving as before, but more reserved: Marlene was calm, but mute whenever they became earnest in discussion. At such times she would rather avoid being present.

On a bright day towards the end of autumn, we find Clement again in the small room where, as a boy, he had spent those weeks of convalescence. One of his friends and fellow-students, had accompanied him home. They had gone through their course at the University, and had just returned from a longer tour than usual, during which Wolf had fallen ill, and had desired to come hither to recover in the quiet of village life. Clement could not but acquiesce, though of all the young men he knew, Wolf was the one, he thought, least likely to please his father. But, contrary to his expectations, the stranger prudently and cleverly contrived to adapt himself perfectly to the opinions of the old couple; especially winning the mother's good will, by the merry interest he manifested in household matters. He gave her good advice, and even succeeded in curing her of some little ailment with a very simple remedy. He had been preparing himself to follow his uncle in his business as apothecary: an avocation far beneath that for which his natural talents and acquirements would have fitted him; but he was by nature indolent, and was quite contented to settle down, and eat his cake betimes.

Mentally, he never had had anything in common with Clement; and on first coming to the vicarage, he had felt himself in an atmosphere so oppressive and uncongenial, that he would have left it, after the most superficial recovery, had not the blind girl, from the first moment he saw her, appeared to him as a riddle worth his reading.

She had avoided him as much as possible; the first time he had taken her hand she had withdrawn it, with unaccountable uneasiness, and had entirely lost the usual composure of her manner. Yet he would remain in her society for hours, studying her method of apprehending things, and with a playful kind of importunity which it was not easy to take amiss, taking note of her ways and means of communication with the outer world.

He could not understand why Clement appeared to care for her so little--and Clement would avoid her more than ever when he saw her in company with Wolf. He would turn pale then, and escape to the distant forest, where the villagers would often meet him, plunged in most disconsolate meditations.

One evening, when he was returning from a long discontented walk, where he had gone too far and lost himself, he met Wolf in a state of more than natural excitement. He had been paying a long visit to Marlene, who had fascinated him more than usual; he had then found his way to the village tavern, where he had drunk enough of the light wine of the country to make him glad of a cool walk among the fields in the fresh evening air.

"I say!" he called to Clement. "It may be a good while yet, before you are so fortunate as to get rid of me; that little blind witch of yours is a pretty puzzle to me. She is cleverer than a dozen of our town ladies, who only use their eyes to ogle God and man--and then that delicious way she has of snubbing me, is a master-piece in itself."

"You may be glad if she ends by making you a little tamer;" said Clement shortly.

"Tamer! that I shall never be--and that magnificent figure and lovely face of hers are not calculated to make a fellow tame. Don't believe I mean to harm her. Only you know, sometimes, I think if she were to be fond of one, there would be something peculiar in it. A woman who can't see--who can only feel, and feel as no other creature can--I say if such a woman were to fall upon a fellow's neck, I say, the feeling might prove especially pleasant to them both."

"And I say, you had better keep your sayings to yourself."

"Why? Where's the harm? what harm would there be in making her fall just a very little bit in love with me, to see how her nerves would carry her through the scrape? In general so much fire finds its safety valve in the eyes, but here----"

"I must beg you to refrain from making any such experiments," flared up Clement. "I tell you very seriously, that I do not choose to see or hear anything of the kind, and so you may act accordingly."

Wolf gave a sidelong look at him, and, taking hold of his arm, said with a laugh: "I do believe you really are in love with the girl, and want to try a few experiments yourself. How long have you been so scrupulous? You have often heard me out, before now, when I have told you what I thought of women."

"Your education is no concern of mine. What have I to do with your unclean ideas? But when I find them soiling one so near and dear to me, one who is twenty times too good for you to breathe the same air, that is what I can and will prevent."

"Oho!" said Wolf tranquilly--"too good you say? too good? It is you who are too good a fellow Clement, far too good! so take yourself away, out of my air, good lad."

He clapped him on the back, and would have moved on--Clement stood still, and turned white; "You will be so good as to explain the meaning of those words;" he said resolutely.

"No such fool; ask others if you wish to know--others may be fond of preaching to deaf ears; I am not."

"What others? What do you mean? Who is it dares to speak slightingly of her? I say who dares?" He held Wolf with an iron grasp.

"Foolish fellow, you are spoiling my walk," he growled, "with your stupid questions; let me go, will you?"

"You do not stir a step until you have given me satisfaction," cried Clement, getting furious.

"Don't I? Go to the bailiff's son if you are jealous! Poor devil! to coax him so, till he was ready to jump out of his skin for her, and then to throw him over! Fie! was it honest? He came to pour out his grievances to me, and I comforted him. She is just what all women are, says I, a coquette. It is my turn now, but we are up to a thing or two, you know, and may not be inclined to let our mouths be stopped, when we would warn other fellows from falling into the same snare."

"Retract those words!" shouted Clement, shaking Wolf's arm in a paroxysm of rage.

"Why retract? if they are true, and I can prove them? Go to! you are but a simpleton!"

"And you a devil."

"Oho! I say, it may be your turn to retract now."

"I won't retract."

"Then I suppose you know the consequences. You shall hear from me as soon as I get to town."

And having thus spoken in cold blood, he turned back to the village. Clement remained standing where he was.

"Villain!--miserable scoundrel!"--fell from his lips; his bosom heaved, a cruel pain had coiled itself about his heart, he flung himself flat upon the ground among the corn, and lay there long, recalling a thousand times each one of those words that had made him feel so furious.

When he came home at a very late hour, he was surprised to find the family still assembled. Wolf was missing. The vicar was pacing violently up and down the room. His wife and Marlene were seated with their work in their laps, much against their custom at so late an hour. On Clement's entrance the vicar stopped, and gravely turned to look at him.

"What have you been doing to your friend?--Here he has packed up and gone, while we were all out walking, leaving a hasty message. When we came home, we only found the man who had come to fetch his things. Have you been quarrelling? else why should he be in such a hurry?"

"We had high words together. I am glad to find that he is gone, and that I shall not have to sleep another night under the same roof with him."

"And what were your angry words about?"

"I cannot tell you, father. I should have been glad to avoid a quarrel, but there are things to which no honest man can listen. I have long known him to be coarse, and careless in feeling, both with regard to himself, and others, but I never saw him as he was to-day."

The vicar looked steadily at his son, and then in a low tone: "How do you mean to settle this quarrel between you?" he asked.

"As young men do;" said Clement gravely.

"And do you know what Christians do, when they have been offended?"

"I know, but I cannot do the same; if he had only offended me, I might easily have forgiven him, but he has insulted one who is very dear to me."

"A woman, Clement?"

"A woman. Yes."

"And you love this woman?"

"I love her;" murmured the young man.

"I thought so," burst out his father. "Yes! you have been corrupted in the town. You are become as the children of this world, who follow wanton wenches, fight for them, and make idols of them; but I tell you, while I live, I shall labour to win you back to God. I will smash your idols. Did the Lord vouchsafe to work a miracle for you, for you to deny him now? Far better have remained in darkness, with those gates closed for ever, through which the devil and all his snares have entered in, and taken possession of your heart!"

The young man had some struggle to suppress his rising passion. "Who gave you the right, father, to suppose my inclinations to be so base?" he said. "Am I degraded, because I am forced to do what is needful in the world we live in, to crush the insolence of the base? There are divers ways of wrestling with the evil one; yours is the peaceful way, for you have the multitude to deal with. I have the individual, and I know that way."

"It is a way you shall not go," hotly returned the father; "I say you shall not trample on God's commandments. He is no son of mine, who would do violence to his brother. I prohibit it with the authority of a parent and a priest. Beware of setting that authority at nought!"

"And so you spurn me from your home;" said Clement gloomily. A pause ensued. His mother, who had burst into tears, now rose, and rushed up to her son. "Mother," he said earnestly, "I must be a man. I cannot be a traitor." He went towards the door, with one look at Marlene, whose poor blind eyes were searching painfully; his mother followed him--she could not speak for sobbing. "Do not detain him, wife," said the vicar, "he is no child of ours, since he refuses to be God's; let him go whither he pleases, to us, he is as dead."

Marlene heard the door close and the vicar's wife fall heavily to the ground, with a cry that came from the depths of her mother's heart. She woke from the trance in which she had been sitting, went to the door, and with an immense exertion, she carried the insensible woman to her bed. The vicar stood at the window and never uttered a word; but his folded hands were trembling violently.

About a quarter of an hour later, a knock came to Clement's door. He opened it and saw Marlene.--She entered quietly. The room was in disorder--she struck her foot against the trunk. "What are you going to do, Clement?"

The stubbornness of his grief softened at once, and he took her hands and pressed them to his eyes which were wet with tears. "I must do it;" he cried, "I have long felt that I have lost his love. Perhaps when I am gone, he may feel that I have never ceased to be his son."

She raised him up, and said; "Do not weep, or I shall never have strength to tell you what I have to say. Your mother would say the same if your father did not prevent her. And even he,--I heard by his voice how difficult he found it to be so hard; yet hard he will remain--for I know him well--he believes that he is serving the Lord by being severe, and serving him best, in sacrificing his own heart."

"And you think the same?"

"No, I don't, Clement.--I don't know much about the world, nor the laws of that opinion that forces a man to fight a duel; but I do know you enough to know that every one of your thoughts and actions--and therefore this duel also--is submitted to the severest test of self-examination. You may owe it to the world, and to her you love; only I think you owe your parents more than either. I do not know the person who has been insulted, and do not quite feel why it should make you so indignant, to be prevented doing this for her. Do not interrupt me. Do not suppose me to be influenced by the fear of losing any remnant of our friendship which you may have retained during the years that have parted us. I would be willing to let her have you all to herself, if she be able to make you happy, but not even for her sake should you do what you are about to do, were she dearer to you than either father or mother. From their house you must not go in anger, at the risk of its being closed to you for ever. Your father is old, and will carry his opinions with him to the grave. If he were to give way to you, it would be at the sacrifice of principles which are the very pith and marrow of his life; and the sacrifice on your side, would be merely, the evanescent estimation in which you believe yourself to be held by strangers. If a woman whom you love, could break with you because you are unwilling to embitter the last years of your father's life, that woman, I say, was never worthy of you."

Her voice failed her; he threw himself on a chair and groaned.

She was still standing by the door, waiting to hear what he would say; and there was a strange look of tension about her brow--she seemed to be listening with her eyes. Suddenly he sprang to his feet, laid his two hands on her shoulders, and cried: "It was for you I would have done this, and now for your sake I will not do it;" and rushing past her, he ran downstairs.

She remained where she was. His last words had thrilled to her very marrow, and a sudden tide of gladness broke over that timid doubting heart of hers. She sat down on the portmanteau trembling all over. "It was for you! for you!"--the words echoed in her ear. She half dreaded his return; if he should not mean what she thought! and how could he mean it?--What was she to him?

She heard him coming upstairs again; in her agitation she rose, and would have left the room, but he met her at the door, and taking her in his arms, he told her all.

"It was I who was blind," he cried, "and you who saw--who saw prophetically. Without you, where should I have been now?--An orphan without a future, without a home; banished from the only hearts I love, and by my own miserable delusions. And now--now they are all my own again; mine and more than I ever believed to be mine--more than I could have trusted myself to possess."

She hung upon his neck in mute devotion; mute for very scorn of the poverty of language. The long repressed fervour of her affection had broken loose, and burned in her silent kiss.

Day dawned upon their happiness. Now he knew what she had so obstinately concealed, and what this very room had witnessed; where now, pledged to each other for life, with a grasp of each other's hands, they parted in the early morning.

In the course of the day a letter came from Wolf, written the night before, from the nearest village. Clement might be at rest, he wrote; he retracted everything; he knew best that what he had said was nonsense. He had spoken in anger and in wine.

It had provoked him to see Clement going about so indifferent and cool, when, with a word, he might have taken possession of such a treasure--and when he saw that Clement really did mean to do so, he had reviled what had been denied to him.

He begged Clement not to think worse of him than he deserved, and to make his excuses to the young girl and to his parents; and not to break with him entirely, and for ever.

When Clement read this to Marlene, she was rather touched: "I can be sorry for him now," she said; "though I always felt uneasy when he was here--and how much he might have spared us both, and spared himself! But I can think of him with charity now--we have so much to thank him for!"--

[The end]
Paul Heyse's short story: Blind

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