I will tell
you my history now, that you may at last grant me the blessing of
your forgiveness."
"Well, tell me your history," exclaimed Hardenberg. "Come,
Frederica, sit down by my side here on the couch on which you have
so often reposed as a modern Pythia, and proclaimed to me the
oracles which your mysterious priest had whispered to you. Now you
are no priestess uttering equivocal wisdom, but a young woman
telling the truth, and making me listen to the revelations of her
heart."
"A young woman," she repeated, sighing and reclining on the bed
close to the easy-chair on which Hardenberg was sitting. "Am I
young, then? It seems to me sometimes as though I were old--so old
as no longer to have any illusions, any hopes or wishes; as though I
were the 'Wandering Jew' who has been travelling through the world
so many centuries, seeking perpetually for the rest which he can
nowhere find. But still you are right; I am young, for I am only
twenty years old.".
"And who are your parents? Where do they live?"
"Who are my parents?" she asked, laughing. "My father was a holy
man, a high-priest in the temple of Time. It depended on him when
men were to awake or sleep, eat or work. It was his will that
regulated rendezvous and weddings, parties and arrests, and he had
no other master than the sun. He allowed the sun alone to guide him,
and still he was no Persian!"
"But he was a watchmaker?" asked Hardenberg, smiling.
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