The Bride of the Nile — Complete by Georg Ebers (top novels txt) 📕

Heaven for grace and a new birth, instead of seeking joys, such as she thought none but the most blameless—and, those of her own confession—could deserve, in union with so exceptional a creature as her beloved Paula. Indeed, having herself found peace for her soul only in the cloister, after a stormy and worldly youth, she would gladly have received the noble daughter of her old friend as the Bride of Christ within those walls, to be, perhaps, her successor as Mother Superior. She longed that her darling should be spared the sufferings she had known through the ruthlessness of faithless men; so she would not abate a jot of the tenor of her advice, or cease to impress on Paula, firmly though lovingly, the necessity of following it. At last Paula took leave of her, bound by a promise not to pledge herself irrevocably to Orion till his return from Doomiat, and till the abbess had informed her by letter what opinion she had formed of him in the course of their flight.

The high-spirited girl had not shed so many tears, as in the course of this interview, since the fatal affair at Abyla where she had lost her father and brother; it was with a tear-stained face and aching head that she had made her way back, under the scorching mid-day sun, to Rufinus’ house, where she sought her old nurse. Betta had earnestly entreated her to lie down, and when Paula refused to hear of it she persuaded her at any rate to bathe her head with water as cold as was procurable in this terrific heat, and to have her hair carefully rearranged by her skilful hand; for this had been her mother’s favorite remedy against headache. When, at length, Paula and her lover stood face to face, in a shady spot in the garden, they both looked embarrassed and estranged. He was pale, and gazed at her with some annoyance; and her red eyes and knit brows, for her brain was throbbing with piercing pain, did not tend to improve his mood. It was her part to explain and excuse herself; and as he did not at once address her after they had exchanged greetings, she said in a low tone of urgent entreaty:

“Forgive me for coming so late. How long you must have been waiting! But parting from my best friend, my second mother, agitated me so painfully—it was so unspeakably sad.—I did not know how to hold up my head, it ached so when I came home, and now—oh, I had hoped that we might meet to-day so differently!”

“But even yesterday you had no time to spare for me,” he retorted sullenly, “and this morning—you were present when Rufinus invited me—this morning!—I am not exacting, and to you, good God! How could I be?—But have we not to part, to bid each other farewell—perhaps for ever? Why should you have given up so much time and strength to your friend, that so scanty a remnant is left for the lover? That is an unfair division.”

“How could I deny it?” she said with melancholy entreaty. “You are indeed very right; but I could not leave the child last evening, as soon as she came, and while she was weeping out all her sorrows; and if you only knew how surprised and grieved I was—how my heart ached when, instead of finding you, your note....”

“I was obliged to go to Amru,” interrupted Orion. “This undertaking compels me to leave much behind, and I am no longer the freest of the free, as I used to be. During this dreadful breakfast I have been sitting on thorns. But let all that pass. I came hither with a heart high with hope—and now?—You see, Paula, this enterprise tears me in two in more ways than you can imagine, puts me into a more critical position, and weighs more on my mind than you can think or know—I will explain it all to you at another time—and to bear it all, to keep up the spirit and happy energy that I need, I must be secure of the one thing for which I could take far greater toil and danger as mere child’s play; I must know....”

“You must know,” she interposed, “whether my heart is fully and wholly open to your love....”

“And whether,” he added, with growing ardor, “in spite of the bitter suffering that weighs on my wretched soul, I may hope to be happier than the saints in bliss. O Paula, adored and only woman, may I....”

“You may,” she said clearly and fervently. “I love you, Orion, and shall never, never cease to love you with my whole soul.”

He flew to her side, clasped both her hands as if beside himself, snatched them to his lips regardless of the nearness of the house, whence ten pairs of eyes might have seen him, and covered them with burning kisses, till she drew them from him with the entreaty: “No, no; forbear, I entreat you. No—not now.”

“Yes, now, at this very moment—or, if not, when?” he asked vehemently. “But here, in this garden—you are right, this is no place for two human beings so happy as we are. Come with me; come into the house and lead the way to a spot where we may be unseen and unheard, alone with each other and our happiness.”

“No, no, no!” she hastily put in, pressing her hand to her aching brow. “Come with me to the bench under the sycamore; it is shady there, and you can tell me everything, and hear once more how entirely love has taken possession of me.”

He looked in her face, surprised and disappointed; but she turned towards the sycamore and sat down beneath it. He slowly followed her. She signed to him to take a seat by her side, but he stood up in front of her, saying sadly and despondently.

“Always the same—always calm and cold. Is this fair, Paula? Is this the overwhelming love of which you spoke? Is this your response to the yearning cry of a passionately ardent heart? Is this all that love can grant to love—that a betrothed owes to her lover on the very eve of parting?”

At this she looked up at him, deeply distressed, and said in pathetically urgent entreaty: “O Orion, Orion! Have I not told you, can you not see and feel how much I love you? You must know and feel it; and if you do, be content, I entreat. You, whom alone I love, be satisfied to know that this heart is yours, that your Paula—your own Paula, for that indeed I am—will think of nothing, care for nothing, pray and entreat Heaven for nothing but you, yes you, my own, my all.”

“Then come, come with me,” he insisted, “and grant your betrothed the rights that are his due.

“Nay, not my betrothed—not yet,” she besought him, with all the fervor of her tortured soul. “In my veins too the blood flows warm with yearning. Gladly would I fly to your arms and lay my head against yours, but not to-day can I become your betrothed, not yet; I cannot, I dare not!”

“And why not? Tell me, at any rate, why not,” he cried indignantly, clenching his fist to his breast. “Why will you not be my bride, if indeed it is true that you love me? Why have you invented this new and intolerable torment?”

“Because prudence tells me,” she replied in a low, hurried voice, while her bosom heaved painfully, as though she were afraid to hear her own words; “because I see that the time is not yet come. Ah,