12 Emily Gertrude Moore 



Gersuind, present and face to face with Karl, is a puzzle ; absent 

 she becomes a torment. In the solitude of his country estate he 

 is haunted by the thought of her ; she becomes again " die Heilige " 

 to him. The revelation of her infatuation for Rorico and her 

 persistent pursuit of him is a shock to Karl but his anger is 

 directed against Rorico, not Gersuind. As the two face each 

 other again there is repeated the clash, not only of two powerful 

 personalities but of two absolutely different conceptions of life. 

 Gersuind has been living the life of her own choice and has no 

 complaint to offer, but Karl reproaches himself for having cast 

 her out defenceless into a sinful world. 



" Ich tat dir Unrecht ! denn ich war's, es war 

 die Laune des Gebietenden, die dich 

 hinunter stiess in jenen Abgrund, den 

 ich kannte : unrein, wimmelnd von Geschmeiss. 

 Ich war's und reiche heut' dir meine Rechte, 

 urn aus dem tiefen Elend, das du nun 

 ermessen hast, dich an das Licht zu zieh'n. 

 Verstehst du das? 

 Gersuind (lachend). Bei Irmins Golde, nein ! " 



By the standards of her own tribe Gersuind is an outcast, as 

 Karl points out to her, but she refuses to accept these or any other 

 standards. Under this pressure Karl is forced to abandon his 

 conception of her as " die Heilige." 



"... Ich sehe f reilich nun, 

 dass du gedankenlos und blind nicht handelst, 

 vielmehr mit Vorsatz, Kuhnheit und Entschluss, 

 das Bose suchst . . . 

 Doch wenn ich dich betrachte, fass ich's nicht ! " 



On the very face of it Gersuind is manifestly an enigma to 

 Karl ; but while it is not quite so self-evident, Karl is just as truly 

 an enigma to Gersuind. That she retains her first and false con- 

 ception of him she shows by suddenly flinging her arms around 

 his neck with an appeal to the primitive, brute man in him — " Sei 

 doch nicht narrisch, Alter ! " 



Here is the real turning point of the action, and Karl does not 

 conquer without a fierce struggle: 



254 



