It was not meant for you. That for eight days you have been breathing
more heavily than you used to, I well understand--I know your father.
But, God be praised! I can make your heart free again, and for that very
purpose I am here. You shall see your brother again this very evening,
and people shall point their fingers, not at him, but at those who cast
him into prison. Does that deserve a kiss, a sisterly kiss, if it cannot
be any other kind? Or shall we play blindman's buff for it?--If I do not
catch you in ten minutes, I am to go away without the kiss and take a
box on the ear into the bargain.

CLARA (_to herself_).

I feel as if I had suddenly grown to be a thousand years old, and time
were standing still with me. I can go neither backwards nor forwards!
Oh, all this brazen sunshine and cheerfulness round about me!

SECRETARY.

You do not answer me. To be sure, I forgot--you are engaged. Oh, girl!
Why did you do that to me? And yet have I any right to complain? She is
like all that is dear and good, and all that is dear and good should
have made me think of her. And yet to me she was for years as if she no
longer existed in the world! For that reason she--If it only were a
fellow before whom one had to cast down one's eyes! But this Leonard--

CLARA (_suddenly, when she hears the name_).

I must go to him. That is just it--I am no longer the sister of a
thief!--Oh, God! what shall I do? Leonard will, he must! He needs only
not to be a fiend! Everything will be as it used to be [_Shudders_]--as
it used to be!

[_To the SECRETARY._]

Do not be offended, Frederick!--Why are my legs so heavy all of a
sudden?

SECRETARY.

You will--

CLARA.

To Leonard! Where else should I go? Only that one road lies before me in
this world!

SECRETARY.

You love him, then! Well--

CLARA (_wildly_).

Love him? It is either he or death! Does anybody wonder that I choose
him? I would not do it had I only myself to consider!

SECRETARY.

He or death? Girl, thus speaks Despair, or--

CLARA.

Do not make me frantic! Do not mention that word again! You! It is you I
love! There! I cry it out to you as if I were already wandering on the
other side of the grave, where no one blushes any more, where cold and
naked forms glide past one another, because the fearful, holy presence
of God has entirely consumed in every one all thought of others.

SECRETARY.

Me? Still me? Clara, I divined it when I saw you out in th