The Home | Page 6

are
tolerably good; that is to say, they are not good enough for heaven.
This evening I am alone. Ernst is away at the District-Governor's. It is
my birthday to-day; but I have told no one, because I wished rather to
celebrate it in a quiet communion with my own thoughts.
How at this moment the long past years come in review before me! I
see myself once more in the house of my parents: in that good, joyful,
beloved home! I see myself once more by thy side, my beloved and
only sister, in that large, magnificent house, surrounded by meadows
and villages. How we looked down upon them from high windows, and
yet rejoiced that the sun streamed into the most lowly huts just as
pleasantly as into our large saloons--everything seemed to us so well
arranged.
Life then, Cecilia, was joyful and free from care. How we sate and
wept over "Des Voeux Téméraires," and over "Feodor and
Maria,"--such were our cares then. Our life was made up of song, and
dance, and merriment, with our so many cheerful neighbours; with the
most accomplished of whom we got up enthusiasms for music and
literature. We considered ourselves to be virtuous, because we loved
those who loved us, and because we gave of our superfluity to those
who needed it. Friendship was our passion. We were ready to die for
friendship, but towards love we had hearts of stone. How we jested
over our lovers, and thought what fun it would be to act the parts of
austere romance-heroines! How unmerciful we were, and--how easily
our lovers consoled themselves! Then Ernst Frank came on a visit to us.
The rumour of a learned and strong-minded man preceded him, and
fixed our regards upon him, because women, whether well-informed or
not themselves, are attracted by such men. Do you not remember how

much he occupied our minds? how his noble person, his calm,
self-assured demeanour, his frank, decided, yet always polite behaviour
charmed us at first, and the awed us?
One could say of him, that morally as well as physically he stood
firmly. His deep mourning dress, together with an expression of quiet
manly grief, which at times shaded his countenance, combined to make
him interesting to us; nevertheless, you thought that he looked too stern,
and I very soon lost in his presence my accustomed gaiety. Whenever
his dark grave eyes were fixed upon me, I was conscious that they
possessed a half-bewitching, half-oppressive power over me; I felt
myself happy because of it, yet at the same time filled with anxiety; my
very action was constrained, my hands became cold and did everything
blunderingly, nor ever did I speak so stupidly as when I observed that
he listened. Aunt Lisette gave me one day this maxim: "My dear,
remember what I now tell thee: if a man thinks that thou art a fool, it
does not injure thee the least in his opinion; but if he once thinks that
thou considerest him a fool, then art thou lost for ever with him!" With
the last it may be just as it will--I have heard a clever young man
declare that it would operate upon him like salt on fire--however, this is
certain, that the first part of Aunt Lisette's maxim is correct, since my
stupidity in Ernst's presence did not injure me at all in his opinion, and
when he was kind and gentle, how inexpressibly agreeable he was!
His influence over me became greater each succeeding day: I seemed to
live continually under his eyes; when they beamed on me in kindness,
it was as if a spring breeze passed through my soul; and if his glance
was graver than common, I became still, and out of spirits. It seemed to
me at times--and it is so even to this very day--that if this clear and
wonderfully penetrating glance were only once, and with its full power,
riveted upon me, my very heart would cease to beat. Yet after all, I am
not sure whether I loved him. I hardly think I did; for when he was
absent I then seemed to breathe so freely, yet at the same time, I would
have saved his life by the sacrifice of my own.
In several respects we had no sympathies in common. He had no taste
for music, which I loved passionately; and in reading too our feelings

were so different. He yawned over my favourite romances, nay he even
sometimes would laugh when I was at the point of bursting into tears; I,
on the contrary, yawned over his useful and learned books, and found
them more tedious than I could express. The world of imagination in
which my thoughts delighted to exercise themselves, he valued not