Only a Girl Part 82

"Postman," a rough voice answered from without.

"Oh, a letter from the agent," thought Ernestine, opening the door.

"Four kreutzers," said the man, handing her a letter.

Ernestine stood aghast. "Is it not prepaid? I--I have not a single kreutzer in the world--we shall have no money until to-morrow."

"No kreutzers, and no light? Hm--hm! Such a beautiful lady, with no money in her pocket? Well, well, you can pay me to-morrow. I'll trust you until then."

"Thank you, you are very kind," Ernestine stammered, greatly ashamed.

She was obliged to run in debt to the postman.

"Have you no light, to show me the way down-stairs? I shall break my legs or my neck upon these steep, narrow steps."

"I will lead you down. I know the way, and I must go down to read my letter by a street-lamp."

"Good G.o.d! what poverty! Go down to the people on the lower floor--they will give you a candle-end."

"No, I will not. They are not respectable people, and I will have nothing to do with them. The poorer one is, the prouder one must be--so as not to sink too low. You are a good man, Herr Bittner. Tell no one how poor we are."

"No, if you say so, but something ought to be done for you. I have seen what a hard time you have had of it ever since you came here. It's none of my business. I can only hope that there may be something good in the letter that I brought you,--and I do hope so, with all my heart.

Good-evening."

"G.o.d grant it!" said Ernestine, going into the street to read her letter by the gas-lamp there. A fine snow was falling again, and the pa.s.sers-by looked at her in amazement. The colour mounted to her forehead, but she could not wait until morning to read this letter, which she felt sure contained her fate. It was from the Frankfort agent who was to procure a situation for her, and was short and to the point:

"Fraulein von Hartwich:

"You wish me to tell you frankly how it is that I have as yet procured no situation for you. I will do so,--for I see from your note that you accuse me in your thoughts of a negligence that I should be sorry to be guilty of towards any one,--least of all towards yourself.

"You yourself, unfortunately, Fraulein von Hartwich, furnish the reason why I have hitherto been unable to procure a situation for you. No agent in the world would be able to find a position as governess in a respectable family for a lady bearing such a reputation as yours. For their children's sake, people are unwilling to receive into their houses a person who has written as you have done against religion and in favour of the emanc.i.p.ation of woman. You a.s.sure me, I know, that you have altered your opinions, and that you yourself now condemn these writings. But no one will believe in such a forced conversion. Besides, in your advertis.e.m.e.nt in the papers you referred to the Prorector of the University at N----, without giving any name. I can only conclude that you must have been mistaken in the person of the Prorector, for the present holder of the office is a Professor Herbert, who gives the strongest possible testimony against you, and has already destroyed your prospects in three separate instances, by referring people to your books,--after reading which, no one would listen to a word in your behalf."

Ernestine's arms dropped by her sides. From delicacy, she had suppressed Mollner's name in the papers, entirely forgetting that at this time the office of Prorector was held but for a year by one person. She remembered how she had mortally offended Herbert on the only occasion when she had met him, and she knew that this man's mortified vanity had made him her implacable foe. But that was a secondary matter. The blameless need fear no foe. It was her own fault that Herbert had the power to destroy her prospects. He had not maligned her, he had simply referred to the books which she had written. She had herself whetted the knife that he had used against her. She had only herself to blame.

Never had the phantom of the past loomed so monstrously before her as now. There she stood,--she, who had thought herself able to defy the world,--starving and freezing in the cold, reading by the light of a street-lamp the anathema that society hurls at the woman who offends it. The iron wheels of conventionality, in the path of which she had so boldly thrown herself, had pa.s.sed over her prostrate form. She was only a helpless, desolate woman.

She was scarcely capable of reading any further. She held the sheet in her trembling hands, caring not to decipher the few words of condolence with which the agent closed his communication. The snow-flakes wetted the paper, so that the letters ran together, and in the wintry wind it fluttered to and fro in her hand.

Her feet were stiff with cold as she turned into the house again and groped her way up the dark staircase. Gretchen's return was unusually delayed, and Ernestine longed so for her sympathy and advice.

What should she do? She could not permit her sister to sacrifice the best years of her life to her support. She could no longer be dependent upon the kindness of such a child. What should she attempt? Must she beg from door to door? How could she earn her own living, when she had been taught none of the arts by which to earn it? In these last few months Gretchen had taught her something of what was indispensable in such great need. She had never dreamed how difficult the things were that she had accounted so unimportant. She had come to the point where self-respect is imperilled in the struggle for mere subsistence. She wrung her hands, and called out into the darkness, "O G.o.d, take pity on me, and guide me through this valley of the shadow of death!"

And the bitter doubt whether He would listen to her cry would arise within her heart. She reviewed in her mind the miserable superficial essays that she had written denying Him, and felt that she was justly punished. How little had she thought, when exulting in the attention that they had excited, that she should ever feel herself disgraced by their authors.h.i.+p! As yet, she had uttered no reproach against her uncle. He had expiated by his death his theft of her property, but his crime against her mind and soul he could never expiate,--this it was that now branded him with infamy in her memory. What a happy woman she might now have been, if he had not misdirected her ambition! What friends might have been hers, had he not made a misanthrope of her! and now, when starvation stared her in the face, the demon of his teaching s.n.a.t.c.hed from her lips the bread that she might have earned.

When Gretchen at last returned, she found Ernestine crouching upon the hearth, gazing into the fire that she had kindled to warm her wet feet and to cook the evening meal.

"What are you doing, Ernestine dear?" she asked anxiously.

"I am praying for daily bread," she replied in a monotone.

Poor Gretchen listened sorrowfully to all that Ernestine had to tell her. She knew that for such a nature as Ernestine's this state of dependence and inactivity was worse than death, and that no love or devotion on her part could reconcile her proud sister to such a lot.

She could advise nothing. The only thing that Ernestine could do for her own support was, perhaps, copying. But who in the little town would have anything to copy? And they could hardly live unless Ernestine was able to earn something. Gretchen's modest salary would hardly suffice to keep them from starvation. She did not mind any amount of deprivation for herself,--but could she see Ernestine pine and sicken for want of nouris.h.i.+ng food? And she had promised solemnly to accept no help from Mollner or Hilsborn. What was to be done?

After a long, sleepless night, she arose at dawn, and, while Ernestine was still sleeping, sat down and wrote to Hilsborn. She wrote hurriedly, and the long letter was wet with tears that Ernestine would have been grieved to see. She finished it before Ernestine awoke, and her eyes began to sparkle again, as if they trusted that this letter would change the whole aspect of affairs.

"Gretchen," said Ernestine, as Gretchen leaned over her to give her a morning kiss, "how gay you look! Do you not feel the heavy burden that I have laid upon your shoulders?"

"Oh, Ernestine," her sister replied, "as long as I have you I will be thankful for you, however dark matters may look outside."

Ernestine looked at her thoughtfully. "Gretchen, there is a greatness in your fidelity and self-sacrifice that I never before conceived of.

Now first I know what Dr. Mollner meant by true womanliness. This womanliness your father took from me,--you, his child, have restored it to me. It is the greatest gift you have given me, and it atones for his depriving me of it."

Gretchen breathed a sigh of relief. "When you say so, I seem to hear the angels tell me that mercy will be shown to my poor father. Indeed, dear Ernestine, you are in alliance with beings of a better world, or you could not know how to console and inspire me thus. Indeed, when you look at me so tenderly I must believe there is redemption for the soul of my father. What can I do to repay you for such consolation?"

CHAPTER XII.

THE THIRD POWER.

"'What the law of force fails to accomplish, the intellect will effect,--where the intellect fails, love succeeds!' That was what he said," said Ernestine. Again her thoughts were involuntarily occupied with Johannes. "I wish I could write the sermons for his reverence, instead of copying them,--that would be such an excellent text." Thus she broke forth one day while seated with Gretchen at the table, where the latter was busy finis.h.i.+ng the new dress that Hilsborn had sent her.

"Have you proposed it to Herr Pastor?" asked Gretchen with a smile.

"If he were not so conceited, I certainly would do so. But I suppose he would be offended."

"I rather suppose so too," laughed Gretchen.

"There is a Nemesis in it," said Ernestine, as she sat making a pen.

"Here am I, who have hardly ever listened to a sermon in my life, obliged to copy sermons for my bread. Well," she added gravely, "it is just."

And again her pen flew quickly over the paper. After some time she sat up, with a long breath. "I have learnt to deny myself and to pray, but I have yet to learn the hardest task of all,--patience."

"It must be a terrible drudgery to such a mind as yours merely to write down the thoughts of another," said Gretchen.

"If there only were thoughts here, but these are nothing but empty words. And I must not even correct them,--it is mental death!" She wrote on for awhile, then suddenly raised her head and broke out, "At least they might let women have something to do with religion, if they deny our right to meddle with science or politics. Religion is so much a matter of feeling, and feeling is a woman's prerogative. Humility, self-sacrifice, and submission are native to woman, and a woman's lips could discourse far more eloquently than a man's of these Christian qualities. Why should a woman not be found worthy to declare the word of G.o.d? Why?" She suppressed a sigh. "Ah, the old indignation is getting possession of me! I will not yield to it,--such independence of thought does not become a mere copyist." She tried to go on with her writing, but her cheeks were flushed, and the tears stood in her eyes.

"Oh, Gretchen, I shall never live it down,--this pity for our poor s.e.x.

It will always be the same,--any allusion to our wrongs cuts me to the very quick."

Gretchen laid her hand upon her shoulder. "Dear Ernestine, we will speak of this some other time. Now remember that you have promised that your copy shall be ready by four o'clock."

"You are right I will finish it instantly," said Ernestine, dipping the pen in the ink. "No, I cannot let such nonsense stand as it is!" she exclaimed after a pause. "The man is going to have the sermons printed,--he will thank me for correcting the worst faults."

"Ernestine, take care,--he may be offended," said Gretchen.