interposed Mephistophiles; "Good! Your merriment You and Astræa were like dull citizens yawning over a comedy, which we were fools enough to act for you. When next we play in that fashion may we have a livelier audience."
"The reproach, I am afraid, is just," I observed, looking at Astræa. But she was not disposed to give the vantage ground to Mephistophiles. "I hope next time you may have an audience more to your liking," she observed; "tastes differ, you know, in these matters."
"Yes, that's quite true," returned the dwarf, dryly; "but your tastes, it seems agree wonderfully."
Thus Astræa and I were coupled and cast together by the mime, who evidently took a vindictive delight in committing us to embarrassments of that kind. To have attempted to extricate ourselves would probably have only drawn fresh imputations upon us; so we let it pass.
Every body has observed what important events sometimes take their spring in trifles. The destiny of a life is not unfrequently determined by an accident. I felt that there was something due to Astræa or the freedom to which she was exposed on my account. Yet it was an exceedingly awkward subject to touch upon. The very consciousness of this awkwardness produced or suggested other feelings that involved me in fresh difficulties. I felt that I ought to apologize for having brought this sort of observation upon her; but I also felt that explanations on such subjects are dangerous, and that it is safer to leave them unnoticed. The impulse, however, to say something was irresistible; and what I did say was not well calculated to help me out of the dilemma.
"I feel," said I, quite aware at the moment I spoke that it would have been just as well to have left my feelings out of the question – "I feel that I ought to apologize t you for bringing discredit on your taste. The whole fault of the dullness lies with me."
"Not at all," she replied; "I am perfectly willing to take my share of it. Be assured that the highest compliment is often to be extracted from some people's sarcasms."
This was a "palpable hit," and I apprehended that it would rouse the dwarf to a fierce rejoinder. But he had left the room, and we were alone.
There was a pause; and Astræa, who had more courage under the embarrassment than I could command, was the first to speak. "They mistake me," she said slowly; "it has been my misfortune all my life to be misunderstood. Per aps the error is in myself. Possibly my own nature is at cross-purposes, marring and frustrating all that I really mean to do and say. I try to adapt myself to other people, but always fail. Even my motive are misinterpreted, and I can not make myself intelligible. It must be some original willfulness of my nature, that makes me seem too proud to the proud, and too condescending to the humble; but certain it is that both equally mistake me."
"I do not mistake you, Astræa," I cried, startled by the humility of her confession.
"I feel you do not," she answered.
"They say you are scornful and unapproachable – not so! You are as timid at heart as the fawn trembling in its retreat at the sound of the hunter's horn. But you hold them, with whom you can not mingle, by the bond of fear. You compel them to treat you with deference, from the apprehension that they might otherwise become familiar. The translate your high intelligence into haughtiness; and because they can not reach to your height, they believe you to be proud and despotic."
"I know not how that may be," she returned; "but I will acknowledge that my feelings must be touched before the mere woman's nature is awakened. They who do not know me think – "
"That you are insensible to that touch," said I, supplying the unfinished sentence; "they libel you, Astræa! Achilles had only one vulnerable spot, but that was fatal. Protected in all else, you are defenseless on one point, and when that is struck your whole nature is subjugated. Do I describe you truly? When the woman is awakened, the insensibility and fortitude in which you are shut up will melt away – your power will be reduced to helplessness: absorbing devotion, unbounded tenderness, which are yearning for their release, will flow out; the conqueror will become the enslaved, living, not for victories which you despise, but for a servitude which will bring your repressed enthusiasm into action. For this you would sacrifice the world – pride, place, applause, disciples, flattery!"
"Not a very agreeable picture – but, I am afraid, a faithful one."
"Strong feelings and energy of character are not always best for our happiness," I went on; "you expected too much; you found the world cold and selfish, and your heart closed upon it. This was the action of a temperament eager and easily chilled; and it was natural enough that people who could not move your sympathies should think that your heart was dead or callous. Yet there it was, watching for the being who was one day to call up its idolatry – for it is not love that will constitute your happiness, Astræa – it must be idolatry. It is that for which you live – to relinquish yourself for another. All is darkness and probation with you till she who now inspires so much worship to which she is indifferent, shall herself become the worshiper. It is the instinct of your nature, the secret of the enigma, which makes you seem exactly the opposite of what you are."
I might have run on I know not to what excess, for I felt my eloquence kindling and rising to an extravagant height, when I perceived Astræa change color and avert her eyes.
"Have I offended you, Astræa?" I inquired.
"Offended me?" she answered; "no, you have done me a service. You have shown me the error of my life – the folly and delusion of hoping for a destiny different from that of the ordinary lot."
"Why do you call it a delusion? You will yet find that haven of rest toward which your heart looks so tremulously. The bird whose instinct carries it over the wild seas from continent to continent sometimes droops its jaded wings and sinks, but it makes land at last."
"No, no; it was a dream. There is no reality in such foolish notions."
"Come," said I, with increasing earnestness, "you must not speak against your convictions. You do not think it a dream – you rely confidently on the hope that the time will come – "
"The thought is madness," interrupted Astræa, quickly; "no – no – no – there is no such hope for me. Do not misconceive me. You have read my nature as clearly as if the volume of my whole life to its inmost thoughts were laid open before you. But the dream is over. It might have been the pride and glory of my soul to have waited upon some high Intelligence – to have followed its progress, cheered it patiently in secret to exertion, encouraged its ambition, and lain in the shadow of its triumphs. It is over. That may never be!"
Her voice shook, although she looked calmly at me as she spoke, trying to conceal her emotion. Her hand accidentally lay in mine. There was a danger in it which I would not see.
"And you have not found the Intelligence for which you sought?" I demanded, in a voice that conveyed more than it expressed in words.
"Yes," she replied slowly, "I have found Intelligence – original, hard, athletic; but wanting in the sympathy that alone wins the heart of woman."
"Astræa," I replied, "your imagination has pictured an ideal which I fear you will never find realized."
"I have found it!" she cried, betrayed into a transport of feeling; then, checking herself, she added, "and I have lost it. Would to God I had never found it!"
Her head drooped – it touched my shoulder; my arm pressed her waist – I was ignorant of it; a haze swam before my eyes. Tumultuous sensations beat audibly at my heart. Astræa, the haughty beauty – the intellectual, proud Astræa – where was her dominant power – her lofty self-possession now? Subdued, bowed down by emotion, the strength of her will
