`Pardon me, Colonel,' said the Prince; `I readily acquit you of any design of offence, but your words bite like satire. Is this a time, do you think, when I can wish to hear myself called good, now that I am paying the penalty (and am willing like yourself to think it just) of my prolonged misconduct?'
`O, pardon me!' cried the Colonel. `You have never been expelled from the divinity hall; you have never been broke. I was: broke for a neglect of military duty. To tell you the open truth, your Highness, I was the worse of drink; it's a thing I never do now,' he added, taking out his glass. `But a man, you see, who has really tasted the defects of his own character, as I have, and has come to regard himself as a kind of blind teetotum knocking about life, begins to learn a very different view about forgiveness. I will talk of not forgiving others, sir, when I have made out to forgive myself, and not before; and the date is like to be a long one. My father, the Reverend Alexander Gordon, was a good man, and damned hard upon others. I am what they call a bad one, and that is just the difference.
The man who cannot forgive any mortal thing is a green hand in life.'
`And yet I have heard of you, Colonel, as a duellist,' said Gotthold.
`A different thing, sir,' replied the soldier. `Professional etiquette.
And I trust without unchristian feeling.'
Presently after the Colonel fell into a deep sleep and his companions looked upon each other, smiling.
`An odd fish,' said Gotthold.
`And a strange guardian,' said the Prince. `Yet what he said was true.'
`Rightly looked upon,' mused Gotthold, `it is ourselves that we cannot forgive, when we refuse forgiveness to our friend. Some strand of our own misdoing is involved in every quarrel.'
`Are there not offences that disgrace the pardoner?' asked Otto.
`Are there not bounds of self-respect?'
`Otto,' said Gotthold, `does any man respect himself? To this poor waif of a soldier of fortune we may seem respectable gentlemen; but to ourselves, what are we unless a pasteboard portico and a deliquium of deadly weaknesses within?'
`I? yes,' said Otto; `but you, Gotthold -- you, with your interminable industry, your keen mind, your books -- serving mankind, scorning pleasures and temptations! You do not know how I envy you.'
`Otto,' said the Doctor, `in one word, and a bitter one to say:
I am a secret tippler. Yes, I drink too much. The habit has robbed these very books, to which you praise my devotion, of the merits that they should have had. It has spoiled my temper. When I spoke to you the other day, how much of my warmth was in the cause of virtue? how much was the fever of last night's wine? Ay, as my poor fellow-sot there said, and as I vaingloriously denied, we are all miserable sinners, put here for a moment, knowing the good, choosing the evil, standing naked and ashamed in the eye of God.'
`Is it so?' said Otto. `Why, then, what are we? Are the very best -- `
`There is no best in man,' said Gotthold. `I am not better, it is likely I am not worse, than you or that poor sleeper. I was a sham, and now you know me: that is all.'
`And yet it has not changed my love,' returned Otto softly. `Our misdeeds do not change us. Gotthold, fill your glass. Let us drink to what is good in this bad business; let us drink to our old affection; and, when we have done so, forgive your too just grounds of offence, and drink with me to my wife, whom I have so misused, who has so misused me, and whom I have left, I fear, I greatly fear, in danger. What matters it how bad we are, if others can still love us, and we can still love others?'
`Ay!' replied the Doctor. `It is very well said. It is the true answer to the pessimist, and the standing miracle of mankind. So you still love me? and so you can forgive your wife? Why, then, we may bid conscience "Down, dog," like an ill-trained puppy yapping at shadows.'
The pair fell into silence, the Doctor tapping on his empty glass.
The carriage swung forth out of the valleys on that open balcony of high-road that runs along the front of Grunewald, looking down on Gerolstein.
Far below, a white waterfall was shining to the stars from the falling skirts of forest, and beyond that, the night stood naked above the plain.
On the other hand, the lamp-light skimmed the face of the precipices, and the dwarf pine-trees twinkled with all their needles, and were gone again into the wake. The granite roadway thundered under wheels and hoofs; and at times, by reason of its continual winding, Otto could see the escort on the other side of a ravine, riding well together in the night. Presently the Felsenburg came plainly in view, some way above them, on a bold projection of the mountain, and planting its bulk against the starry sky.
`See, Gotthold,' said the Prince, `our destination.'
Gotthold awoke as from a trance.
`I was thinking,' said he, `if there is any danger, why did you not resist? I was told you came of your free will; but should you not be there to help her?'
The colour faded from the Prince's cheeks.