t; but I had not
the courage to acknowledge my sin, and to reward the love of her
innocent heart. And thus I was a base wretch. She died, and I regarded
myself with still more hopeless scorn. The poor creature's parents,
whom I placed in comfortable circumstances, blest me, old villain as I
was, for not punishing their daughter's shame, and for bringing up her
child in my house. This child, this fair girl, whom I love, beyond
perhaps what is allowable--for her happiness is my thought day and
night--will now perchance also be sacrificed to woe; for a destiny
stronger than I constrains me to give her to Eleazar as his wife. Go
now to him; he is to be my son-in-law; tell him the wedding will take
place in a week; and if you cannot stay with me afterward, my dearest
Edward, whom I also love as my own son, the fortune I designed for you
shall be paid to you ... and we too shall never meet again. Go now."

* * * * *

He sobbed so violently that he could not say more; and Edward went
away in a most strange state of feeling, to look for Eleazar, who
lived in a house by himself lower down in a narrow valley, carrying on
his favorite pursuits there.

Eleazar was sitting in a loose flame-coloured bed-gown before a small
furnace with a still. The room was but dimly lighted; the curtains had
been let halfway down, and the lower panes were blockt up with large
books. Everything was in the utmost disorder, so that Edward could
scarcely find a place to sit down in. Vials and retorts, crucibles,
pans, hooks, cylinders, and all sorts of chemical instruments were
standing and lying about. A strange vapour from the fire filled the
room. With a surly air Eleazar put down the bellows, and came out of
his corner. He only half heard what Edward had to tell him, and said
at length with his croaking voice: "In a week? so soon? I shall never
have finisht my great work by that time. Could not the old fellow wait
patiently for another month or two? Why the silly child has not even a
notion yet what marriage means."

Edward was utterly disgusted with these peevish words, and with the
heartless ingratitude displayed in them. He called to mind how much
Balthasar had been saying to him about madness as the real groundwork
and substance of life; and it seemed to him as if this were actually
the foundation on which both father and son-in-law were about to erect
their melancholy dwelling. The fate of the innocent girl cu