Through Night to Light: A NovelSpielhagen, Friedrich
General
Through Night to Light: A Novel
Spielhagen, Friedrich
Fiction
worth more than all her fantastic dreams; but as yet she cannot, by any
effort of her own, abandon all the ideals that once filled her youthful
heart. She treats the man as she has treated the boy; she sends him on
his travels as she used to send him in the garden, when he was not
willing to fall in with her caprices.
And now come peaceful visions of years spent in the green solitude of
her estate, and among them continually re-appearing the forms of a
fair, delicate boy and an old gray-bearded servant in varied and yet
always similar situations--peaceful visions, although a certain
fragrance of melancholy attaches itself to all their bright perfumes,
the effect of unsatisfied longing and vain hopes. She thinks often
enough of the man whom she has sent into exile, but no longer with the
warm heart, which is in truth ashamed of its ingratitude. Some
bitterness has begun to mingle with her feelings towards this man,
since he has dared--it happened during a journey to Italy--to speak
openly of his love for her; since she has rejected him, fancying in her
false logic that she was consistent when she only adhered obstinately
to a caprice; and since he, proud as he was, had at once accepted her
decision, and left the country to travel in Egypt and Nubia. She
imagines even that she has begun to hate the companion of her youthful
years, the faithful friend who has stood by her in every need and
danger; and yet, any one who knows the human heart might have told her
that hatred is only the wild brother of the sweet sister love, and
indifference the only really impenetrable armor for a woman's heart.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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