The Staatsrathin frowned slightly, but she did not interrupt Ernestine, who continued: "It is hard enough that so much of the brute cleaves to us that we must eat and drink to keep our physical mechanism in order; thus, in the process of development, we never attain any higher degree of perfection. We ought to take pride in developing ourselves as fully as possible, in contending against every animal appet.i.te instead of making a formal study how best to pamper it. We ought to blush for our frail, indigent physical nature, instead of making an idol of it and regarding her who sacrifices to it most freely as the loftiest ill.u.s.tration of feminine virtue."

"That all sounds very fine," said the Staatsrathin, "but it is, nevertheless, a deplorable mistake. With the capacity for pleasure the Creator has bestowed upon us the right to enjoy. We ought only to see to it that our pleasures are true and n.o.ble. It is false shame that would repudiate what we cannot live without, and it sounds strangely contradictory from the lips of a natural philosopher like yourself.

Before whom would you blush? Before your fellow-beings? Certainly not, for they all share your mortal infirmities. And, since you do not believe in a G.o.d, where does there exist for you any supernatural ideal, any bodiless spirit, subject to do change nor desire of change, before whom you can be ashamed of being a mortal?"

"In myself,--in my own imagination."

"Yes, yes, this is the usual jargon. Because you deny your G.o.d, and still feel the need of Him, you exalt yourself into a divinity, and are humiliated at the idea of your imprisonment within a mortal frame!"

"Oh, no, I am not so vain and arrogant. There is, if I may thus express it, a refinement of mind that is shocked by the coa.r.s.e demands of material nature. And I should be afraid of degrading myself in my own eyes if, in satisfying these demands, I used the time and ability that might be employed for higher purposes."

"You speak as if by the responsibilities of a woman I meant devotion solely to creature comforts. I understand by these something more than eating and drinking. Order and cleanliness, for example, are among the necessities of our life, especially for fine natures, for they belong to the domain of the beautiful, and must be the special concern of the female head of a household, whatever may be the number of her servants.

To be sure, there are women who are so busy with brooms and dusters that we might almost think them neat from their love of dirt. But I am not speaking of such extreme cases. The superintendence of servants, if you have them, the distribution of labour, the purchase of clothing, with its hundred various branches, and, finally, the direction and care of children, are all necessities of existence, duties to which no woman, even the wealthiest, can refuse to attend. Least of all should they be left to the husband. I consider it one of our most sacred duties to relieve him from all material cares, that he may be free to work for the benefit of mankind. Thus we a.s.sist him, modestly though it be, in the great work, by enabling him to keep himself free and fit for his labours."

"I frankly acknowledge that I am incapable of such modesty. I cannot be satisfied with an excellence that I must share with every housekeeper.

I am conscious of the ability to a.s.sist directly in the cause of human progress. Why should I waste it in labour wholly possible to mediocrity?"

"You depreciate this labour because you do not know it. Rightly conceived and executed, it may prove of the greatest significance. For the more cultivated and intellectual a woman is, the more capable is she of appreciating the importance of the task a.s.signed to man, and the necessity of lightening it as much as she can by due care of his physical and mental welfare. And with this thought ever in her mind, the meanest employment, the most menial occupation, becomes a labour of love. And even the most careful housewife can find time, if she is so disposed, to educate herself still further, and so to form and exercise her talents as to make them the delight of her husband's hours of leisure. That is what I understand, my dear, to be a wife in the truest sense." She suddenly took Ernestine's hand and drew her towards her.

"And thus,--why should I not speak frankly?--thus I would have the woman to whom I am to be a mother."

Ernestine looked at her in amazement. "Will you--are you to be a mother to me, then?"

The Staatsrathin hesitated for a moment, and then said, "I should like to be. You are an orphan, and I pity you. If you would only be what a woman should be,--if you would only conform to our social and Christian views, I could give you all a mother's love."

Ernestine withdrew her hand. "I thank you for your kind intentions, but, if these are the only conditions upon which you can bestow your affection upon me, I fear I shall never deserve it."

The Staatsrathin shook her head in rising displeasure. "You do not understand me."

"I understand you far better than I am understood by you."

"You probably think my homely wisdom very easy of comprehension--while yours is too deep for my powers of mind." The Staatsrathin laid down her knife, and pushed away the dish of beans. "But the time may come when you will think of what I have been saying, and will be sorry that you have repulsed me."

"Frau Staatsrathin, I have not repulsed you. I am only too honest to accept a regard bestowed upon me on conditions that I cannot fulfil. To gain your approval I should be obliged to equivocate,--and I have always been true. It is robbery to accept an affection springing from a false idea of one's character. What would it profit me to throw myself on your breast and silently return your tenderness, when I know that you would love me not for what I am, but for what I might pretend to be? Sooner or later you would discover your error, and despise me for deceiving you. No, I am not unworthy of the love of good people just as I am, but if I cannot win it by frankness and conscientiousness, I will never try to steal it."

"You speak proudly. Such self-a.s.sertion does not become a young girl towards an old woman, least of all towards the mother of her best friend and benefactor."

"Frau Staatsrathin," cried Ernestine, "I shall always be grateful to your son for his kindness to me, but surely I ought not to testify my grat.i.tude by hypocrisy and slavish servility."

"My dear," said the Staatsrathin, controlling herself, "you agitate yourself causelessly. I am a simple, practical woman, who does not speak your language, and cannot follow you in your flights. I have no desire to drag you down to us. I simply wish to show you the world in its actual shape, that you may know what awaits you when you come to make your home in it; and I would gladly receive you in my motherly arms, lest you should receive too severe a shock from your first contact with reality."

"Oh, Frau Staatsrathin, if the world is what you describe it to me, I would rather remain above it, in a colder but purer sphere."

"I should have thought the sphere in which you were not safe from the a.s.saults of angry peasants hardly a desirable one. I, at least, should prefer the modest discharge of domestic duties in the circle of home.

But tastes differ."

Ernestine shrank from these words. "Truth is born in heaven, but stoned upon the earth. Those who wish to bring it into the world must have the courage of martyrs. These are such old commonplaces that one can hardly give utterance to them without their seeming trite. Those who recognize truth must speak it, and the happiness of possessing it outweighs with me the misery that I may incur in speaking it."

"Forgive me, but these are phrases that utterly fail to cast any halo around such a disgraceful occurrence as that of yesterday."

"Frau Staatsrathin!" cried Ernestine, flushing up.

"Be calm, my dear child, I am speaking like a mother to you. What can you gain by casting discredit by your conduct, beforehand, upon the truths that you wish to a.s.sert? Who will place any confidence in the understanding and learning of a woman who does not understand how to guard herself from ridicule? Pray listen to me calmly, for I speak as he would who would give his life for you every hour of the day. I would empty my heart to you, that no shadow may exist between us. The world is thus pitiless towards everything in the conduct of a woman that provokes remark, because our ideas of propriety have a.s.signed her a modest retirement in the home circle, and it sees, in the bold attempt to emanc.i.p.ate herself from such universally received ideas, a want of womanly modesty and sense of honour, which, it thinks, cannot be too severely punished. Publicity is a th.o.r.n.y path. At every step aside from her vocation, although never so carefully taken, a woman meets with briers and nettles that wound her unprotected feet but are carelessly trodden down by a man. And even although she succeeds in weaving for herself a crown in this unlovely domain, it is, as one of our poets justly says, 'a crown of thorns.'"

Ernestine was looking fixedly upon the ground. The Staatsrathin could not guess her thoughts. Suddenly she raised her head proudly. "And if it be a crown of thorns, I will press it upon my brow. It is dearer to me than the fleeting roses of commonplace happiness, or the pinched head-gear of a German housewife!"

The Staatsrathin looked up to heaven, as though praying for patience.

Then she replied with an evident effort at self-control, "I grant you that the lot of woman might be, and should be, better than it is. But we cannot improve it by struggling against it, but by enduring it with the dignity which will win us esteem, while our struggles can only expose us to the ridicule that always attends unsuccessful effort."

"Frau Staatsrathin, I hope to turn ridicule into fear."

"And if you should succeed, what will it avail you? Which is the happier, to have people shun you in fear, or to be surrounded by a loving circle for whom you have suffered?"

"I do not live for myself,--I live for the cause of millions of women for whom it is my mission to struggle and contend. Even if I could be ever so happy, I should despise myself were I able in my own good fortune to forget the misery of others. But I confess frankly that I could not be happy with such a lot as you prescribe for woman. Whoever has once floated upon the ocean of thought that embraces the world, would die of homesickness if confined within the narrow limits of the domestic circle."

The Staatsrathin dropped her hands in her lap,--her patience was exhausted. "It is of no use,--you cannot comprehend the words of reason!"

"Do you call that reason? I a.s.sure you, my ideas of reason are very different."

"Of course, of course. You are thinking of the definitions of Kant and Hegel. You are talking of what is called 'pure reason,' that repudiates everything hitherto dear and sacred in men's eyes, and would have created a far better world if G.o.d Almighty had not so bungled the work beforehand. But scatter abroad your doctrines far and wide,--they cannot do much harm, for they only serve to show upon how flimsy an argument the enemies of G.o.d base their denial of Him. But such a person can never be cordially received into a family circle. She can never inspire confidence, and that grieves me for my Johannes's sake!"

Ernestine was silent for awhile, and then looked sadly at the Staatsrathin. "I have not asked you to receive me into your family, Frau Staatsrathin. I know that my opinions make me an object of dislike wherever I go. Any one who sees through the defects and abuses of society will never be a welcome guest, but will be shunned as an embodied reproach. Strong-minded women, as they are called, think me narrow-minded,--the narrow-minded call me strong-minded. I belong to no party, I am opposed to all. It is a terrible fate, and nothing can help me to endure it, save a good conscience."

"Or excessive self-conceit," the Staatsrathin interposed half aloud.

Ernestine blushed deeply. Scarcely restraining her anger, she replied, "Frau Staatsrathin, people, accustomed all their lives long to the modesty of stupidity that characterizes the women of your circle, will find it very easy to stigmatize as self-conceit the courage of a woman daring to have an opinion of her own."

"It is not necessarily stupidity that prevents one from trumpeting forth one's opinions as indisputable truth."

"Frau Staatsrathin," said Ernestine, trembling from head to foot, "if you possessed for me one drop of the motherly kindness of which you spoke a little while ago, you would judge me less harshly. A mother makes allowance for her child. How could you wish to be my mother, when you are not disposed to make any allowance for me?"

"I really cannot tell how I fell into such an error,--and yet I was sincere, perfectly sincere. G.o.d knows I meant kindly by you. If you knew the part that you are playing in the eyes of the world, you would be more humble and grateful for the sacrifice,--yes, listen to the truth, you who pride yourself upon your frankness,--for the sacrifice, I say, that a mother makes when she opens her house and heart to such a person for her son's sake."

Ernestine sat pale and mute, her hands folded in her lap; she could not stir. The Staatsrathin continued, greatly irritated: "But I did it; I conquered myself, and tried to forget your skepticism, your unwomanliness, your reputation. I hoped--hoped for my son's sake--that you would change, and I would gladly have been a help to you. But you repulse my first approach in a manner that makes me tremble at the thought that my Johannes has given his loving heart to such a hardened nature,--that he should have by his fireside a woman who despises a wife's duties, and who will be the ruin of himself and his home."

Ernestine sprang up. She gasped for breath, and her words broke forth from her with painful effort. "Frau Staatsrathin, I can a.s.sure you there has never been a word or hint at any nearer relation between your son and myself. I never would have crossed your threshold had I known how I was slandered. I promise you, you shall have no cause for alarm.

I shall never disgrace you by forcing you to receive me as your son's wife. If he should ever offer me his hand, I should refuse it. As I do not pretend to believe in a G.o.d, I cannot offer to appeal to him, but I swear to you by my honour, which is dearer to me than life----"

"Stop, stop!" the Staatsrathin interrupted her in mortal terror. "Oh, my Johannes, what am I doing! Ernestine, do not make matters worse than they are. Do not drive them to extremities. I want you to reject, not my son, but your own faults and errors. Promise me to give up these, and you shall be the beloved daughter of my heart!"

"I cannot promise you that. I do not wish to do so. Do you think I would beg and fawn for the doubtful happiness of reigning at a fireside where every occasion would be improved to remind me of the sacrifice that was made in enduring me?--where the only commendation that I could earn would be for the skilful management of sauce-pans and dish-cloths, and where a badly-cooked dinner would brand me as a useless member of society? No, you know less of me than I thought, if you imagine that the chasm that you have opened between us can ever be bridged over.

Spare me the humiliation of further explanations. I thank you for your hospitality. I leave you, as I did years ago, when I stood trembling and wet through before you, and you had nothing for me but cold words of reproof, that made me feel myself a little culprit, although I was as unconscious of wrong as I am to-day. Then I would sooner have died than have returned to you, although your son, blessings upon him! would have treated me like a sister. Ten years afterwards he has brought me again to you and overcome my old childish timidity; but the first moment that I stepped across your threshold and encountered your cold greeting, I knew that there was no home for me here!" She covered her face with her hands, and leaned exhausted against the door through which she was about to leave the room.

The Staatsrathin, like all impulsive but really fine-tempered people, was easily appeased and touched. She hastened to her and threw her arms around her. "My dear child! Can you not forgive the hasty words of an anxious mother? Indeed I was unjust. You are more sinned against than sinning. I thought only of my son, and--"

"There was no need to stab me to the heart for his sake. I never dreamed of becoming the wife of your son,--he is far too hostile to my views, much as I esteem him. I wished for nothing but the happiness of calling one human being in the world friend. But I can go without that too. I will prove it to you. Farewell!"

And she hurried out, followed by the Staatsrathin, who could not prevent her from gathering together the few things she had brought with her and leaving the house.

The mother looked after her with anxious forebodings. "What will Johannes say? How he will blame his mother!" she lamented,--but she soon collected herself, and said calmly and firmly, "In G.o.d's name, then, I will bear it. It is better thus!"