Page:The Keepsake for 1838.djvu/37

Rh When the Electress ﬁrst rested on that pillow, her temples were feverish, and her heart beat even to pain; she slept only the restless sleep of exhaustion, and she waked in the midnight, the shriek on her lips, and the damp on her brow, one fearful sound for ever in her ears. and one fearful sight for ever before her eyes. Night after night had been conscious of her tears, and morning after morning had she loathed the sight of another day that brought the same monotony of sorrow. Anger, too, had hardened round her heart; undervalued and ill used, she grew embittered by injustice. Her son’s visit was the ﬁrst softening inﬂuence that had touched her for many years; but that thawed the well of affection, so long frozen within. She felt that she was beloved; and for the sake of that sweet child, she forgave the world and all its injuries. Mimi came, and brought with her all the genial feelings of youth—all its warm and kindly current of affection, old remembrances of nature, and its changeful loveliness; she brought the world of the past to the ill-fated prisoner. Think what it is to waste a whole life in captivity—to look on no faces but those of your guards—to be shut out from society—to know that you are forgotten, that the green grass and the crowded streets are alike forbidden things; to know that life goes on with its usual round of hopes, pleasures, and objects, in which you have no part; to feel that your faculties are stifling within you, that your mind, your heart, are dead before their time. This is the lot of a prisoner—this had the Princess of Zell endured for years—and this, too, had Mimi endured for her sake. But the devoted peasant knew not what endurance meant: that is not endurance which is undergone for one we love. Mimi’s whole world was the gloomy chamber of her ﬁrst, her dearest friend—she desired another only for her sake.

But the prison scene was closing; Sophie lay, supported by cushions, with life fast ebbing away; her hair was still long,