nd. This carries with it no consolation, no comfort--a misfortune
full of bitterness and murmuring--a misfortune which abases us without
elevating us again, which casts us down in the mire, from the soil of
which not all the hot streams of our tears can purify and cleanse us.
Had she lost her lover, had he been snatched away from her by death,
Elise, while she gave him back to God, would have regarded this heavy
and sacred affliction as her great and holy happiness; she would have
accepted it as a precious promise which elevated her, and inspired her
with a blissful hope.

But she had lost him by his own treachery, by worldly sin, and she
had given him up, not to God, but to his own unrighteousness and
disloyalty. She had therefore lost him irretrievably, and for
always--not for a short space of time, but for all eternity; and she
dared not even weep for him, for her misfortune was at the same time
her disgrace, and even her tears filled her with humiliation and
shame. For that reason she never spoke, either with her father or
with Bertram, about the sad and painful past, about the errors and
disappointments of her youth; and neither of them in their pure and
indulgent love ever trespassed on the silence which Elise had spread
over her sorrow. Toward her father she was a careful, attentive, and
submissive daughter; toward Bertram a confiding and loving sister; but
to both she felt as if she were only giving what was saved from the
shipwreck of her affections. They both knew that Elise could no longer
offer them an entire, unbroken heart. But they were both content to
rest on the embers of this ruined edifice, to gather the leaves of
this rose, broken by the tempest, and to remember how beautiful it was
in its bloom.

Gotzkowsky only asked of his daughter that she should live, that she
should become again healthy and strong for new happiness.

Bertram, in the strength and fidelity of his affections, had no other
wish than that he should some day see her cheerful and content again,
and once more brightened by the beams which only love and
happiness can spread over a human countenance; and in his great and
self-sacrificing love he said to himself: "If I only knew that her
happiness lay in the remotest corner of the world, thither would I go
to fetch it for her, even if she thereby were lost to me forever!"

And thus did four years pass away--externally, bright and clear,
surrounded by all the brilliancy of wealth and h