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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm
+and Pietro of Abano, by Ludwig Tieck
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano
+       Tales from the German of Tieck
+
+
+Author: Ludwig Tieck
+
+
+
+Release Date: August 19, 2008  [eBook #26360]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN, THE
+LOVECHARM AND PIETRO OF ABANO***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Delphine Lettau
+
+
+
+THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN,
+THE LOVECHARM,
+AND
+PIETRO OF ABANO.
+
+Tales from the German of Tieck.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+London:
+Edward Moxon, 64, New Bond Street.
+1831.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN.
+
+
+The name of Herr Balthasar was well known throughout the whole
+hill-country: not a child but had heard of his vast riches, and had
+some story to tell of him. Everybody too loved and honoured him; for
+his bounty was as great as his wealth: but at the same time he was
+viewed with fear; for he harast both himself and others by a number of
+strange whims which no one could understand; and his moodiness, his
+silent reserve, were especially irksome to those who were nearest
+about him. No person had seen him smile for many years; he scarcely
+ever came out of his large house on the hill above the little
+mountain-town, nearly the whole of which belonged to him: its
+inhabitants too were almost all his dependents, whom he had drawn
+thither to work in his manufactories, his mines, and his alum pits.
+Thus through his means this small spot was very thickly peopled, and
+enlivened by the greatest activity. Waggons and horses were
+continually moving to and fro; and the clatter of the working
+machinery was mixt up with the roar of waters, and with the various
+noises from the pounding and smelting-houses. The smoke of the coals
+however, the steam from the pits, and the black heaps of dross and
+slag piled up on high all around, gave the gloomy sequestered valley a
+still more dismal appearance; so that no one who travelled for the
+sake of seeking out and enjoying the beauties of nature, would have
+any mind to linger there.
+
+Among the multitude of persons who in consequence of his large
+undertakings and the variety of his concerns were employed by old Herr
+Balthasar, none seemed to enjoy his confidence in so high a degree as
+Edward, the head overseer of his mines and manufactories, and the
+manager of his accounts. He was about thirty years old, tall and of a
+fine figure, had always something sprightly and good-humoured on his
+lips, and thus formed a striking contrast to his morose monosyllabic
+master, who had grown old before his time, and whose withered,
+wrinkled features, with the faint sad look from his hollow eyes, were
+no less repulsive to all, than Edward's cheerful frankness was
+attractive of confidence and affection.
+
+It was still very early on a summer morning when Edward was looking
+thoughtfully down into the smoking valley: the sun lay behind a thick
+mass of clouds; and the mists that were travelling along the bottom,
+and mingled with the black vapours from the steaming pits, checkt his
+view, and wrapt the landscape in a kind of grey veil. He mused over
+his youth, over the plans he had once formed, and then thought how,
+contrary to them all, he had become fixt in this melancholy solitude,
+which, as he was already verging on the maturity of manhood, he
+probably would never quit again. While he was thus losing himself in
+his meditations, young William hurried by him, fully equipt as it
+seemed for a journey, without even bidding him goodbye. The young man
+started as in passing he observed Edward standing there, and he looked
+very loth to meet his questions.
+
+"How now?" said Edward; "are you already leaving us again, young man,
+after all the entreaties and persuasions it cost us both but three
+weeks ago to prevail on our master to take you into his house, and
+after he has just forgiven you your sudden departure the other day?"
+
+"I must begone!" cried the young man: "do not stop me! I must submit
+to appear ungrateful; but I cannot help it."
+
+"Without speaking to our master?" replied Edward; "without leave of
+absence? What are we to think of you? Besides Herr Balthasar will want
+you; for there is no one here just now to take your post of
+secretary."
+
+"My dearest sir," exclaimed the young man uneasily, "if you knew my
+situation, you would not blame or think ill of me."
+
+"Has our master offended you? have you any ground of complaint?"
+
+"No, no! quite the contrary!" cried the young man impetuously; "the
+old gentleman is kindness itself; I appear to be base and
+good-for-nothing; but I have no other choice. Make the best excuse for
+me that your good nature and your conscience will let you."
+
+"Be a man!" said Edward, giving him his hand and holding him fast:
+"you may earn a maintenance here, and may lay the foundations of your
+fortune hereafter: do not a second time thus wantonly trifle away your
+master's confidence and mine. We took you in, when you came to us
+without a character, without any recommendation, almost without a
+name: Herr Balthasar departed for your sake from all his rules, which
+till then had always been inviolable; I have in a manner pledged
+myself for you: are you resolved to reward our confidence in this way,
+and to run thus rashly into suspicion? And can you hope that a month
+hence or later you will be received among us again?"
+
+The young man was much distrest, but tore himself forcibly away, and
+cried: "I know it too well, that I am closing this home, in which
+everything has gone so well with me, in which I have felt so happy,
+for ever against me. Misery and want await me, and the bitterest
+punishments for the thoughtlessness of my youth. But who can avoid his
+destiny? When a chariot is rushing headlong down a precipice, no human
+strength can arrest it."
+
+"But if you have any sense of honour," answered Edward, "if you would
+not leave us all at a loss what to make of you, you ought to stay now
+at all events; for I am quite unable to conceive what power can be
+driving you away from us thus suddenly. You know, the most expensive
+and valuable cloths in our magazine have been purloined day after day;
+and though this has been going on so long we have not been able to get
+any trace of the offender."
+
+"I must put up even this suspicion," said William with a quick blush.
+"There is no saving me now, and I have nothing more to lose: nor do I
+deserve the good opinion of any honest man, be he even the meanest of
+my brethren."
+
+After these mysterious words the young man hurried away, without even
+looking round again. Edward followed him with his eyes, and observed
+how he bent his steps hastily toward the little town, ran almost at
+full speed through the streets, and turned into a footpath on the
+other side, to climb up a steep rock. He there lost sight of him in
+the mountain solitude.
+
+The mist meanwhile had somewhat broken, and the little dells with
+their trees and bushes were seen rising out of it, like green ilands,
+illumined by the morning sun, with ever and anon a house or hut half
+hidden by leaves leaning against the side of the hill.
+
+An old miner, who worked a good way off in the pits belonging to the
+prince, came up now very much out of humour to Edward. "Another run
+over here to no purpose!" he cried peevishly: "I wanted to speak to
+the young shatter-brained jackanapes; and now I hear from the
+smelting-lads down in the town, that he has just been scampering
+through it, and not a soul can tell where he is gone."
+
+"What business have you with him, friend Conrad?" asked Edward.
+
+"What business should one have with young chaps such as he!" replied
+the cross old man. "There have I had to buy him a wonderful book about
+mines over yonder, of the white-headed master miner who is as old as
+the hills, and who has been blind these three years: the marvellous
+grey-beard copied the book ages ago, when he was young and had a
+younker's itching for knowing more than his neighbours, from the
+manuscript of a travelling Tyrolese, and took the trouble of
+scratching likenesses of all the foolish pictures in it. Now however
+that he is blind, he can't see to read it; so I have bought it for
+young master Lorenz, our William here; and lo! the coxcomb is clean
+over the mountains."
+
+"What does the little book contain?" said Edward.
+
+"Only look into it yourself," continued the other: "all sorts of
+stories about ghosts and spectres; clews for finding out the places
+over there in the high mountains, where one meets with gold and
+diamonds at the bottom of caves and sand pits in spots which mortal
+man has seldom set foot in. There are a number of marks, they say,
+which in ages of yore were carved on the hard rocks or written on the
+banks of the brooks: certain knowing Italians notcht and scored the
+places some two or three hundred years ago, and stuck in pieces of tin
+and pebbles which they laid after a fashion of their own: now however,
+the old man tells me, they are hard to find; for the mountain-spirits
+and goblins, who hate being disturbed, have shoved away many of the
+stones that might have served for signposts, and have utterly deranged
+their order."
+
+Edward laught as he turned over the leaves of the strange book.
+
+"None of your scoffing, young gentleman!" cried the old man: "so you
+too are one of their super-clever new-fangled wiseacres. But if you
+were once to see what I have seen, when all alone far down
+underground, cut off from the heavens and the whole world, with no
+light but my lamp, and no sound but my own hammer within hearing, and
+the terrible tall spirit of the mountain came to me; I'd wager you
+would twist your face into some other look, and would not laugh as you
+do here where the merry morning sun is shining on you. Everybody can
+grin; but seeing is the lot of few; and still fewer can behave like
+men, when their eyes are thrown open."
+
+"I will pay you for the book, my good old man," replied Edward kindly,
+"and keep it for our William till he comes back again."
+
+"Ha ha!" cried the miner, laughing heartily and putting up the money;
+"and read it too, and pore over it by yourself, and go on Sundays and
+holidays to look out for the marks and the secret passages. Only don't
+let them befool you, young man, or cajole, or frighten you; and when
+you have found anything, keep a fast hold. Look you, the lord of these
+hills, or the old man of the mountain, as many choose to call him,
+knows all about the matter: he has thrust his hands into the pockets
+of all the richest ghosts and elves and goblins; and they have been
+forced to empty them out for him."
+
+"Whom do you mean?" asked Edward a good deal surprised; and at the
+same time he wanted to give the besmeared book back again to the old
+man, saying with some irritation: "since you cannot trust me, or
+rather hold me to be such a fool, keep the treasure-casket yourself
+for our friend, and only give the master miner his money."
+
+"No," exclaimed the old man; "what has once been made over and paid
+for, must stay in the hands of the buyer: that is a sacred law, and if
+we break it, the maste rminer and I shall be under a ban. But whom do
+I mean, ask you, by the old man of the mountain, or by the lord of
+these hills? Are you ignorant of that? and have already been here a
+round dozen of years and more. Why, this is the name all the world
+gives to your high and mighty manufacturer, mine-holder, merchant,
+gold-maker, ghost-seer, your all-powerful man of millions, your
+Balthasar. And perhaps you would make believe into the bargain that
+you don't know how he comes by all his unnatural riches. Ay, ay,
+friend, the pale old sour-faced growler has them all in
+leading-strings, the whole posse of spirits: he is often absent for
+weeks, and tarrying with them in their secret chambers: then they pay
+away to him; then they break their old crowns in bits, and pour out
+the diamonds into his skinny hands; then they strike with their
+magical rods against the stone walls, and the water-damsels must needs
+swim up from the bottom of the brooks, and bring him gifts, corals,
+and pearls, and turkisses. As for gold he scarce heeds it now: he has
+a tribe of little elves that wash it out of the sand for him, and
+gather it up, like bees, into balls and grains, and then carry it like
+honey, and stuff his cane with it. Ay, ay, my worthy smooth-faced
+pedlar of all wisdom's small wares! this is why the old man is for
+ever moping so, and never dares laugh; this is why he loses his wits
+if he chances to hear music, which gladdens the heart of every godly
+man; this is why he never goes into company, and is always fretful and
+cross-grained: for he knows full well what end he must come to, and
+that all his earthly grandeur cannot buy him off; because he has
+forsaken his God, and no human being ever saw him in a church."
+
+"This is the hateful part of superstition," exclaimed Edward
+indignantly, "which otherwise would only deserve our contempt, and
+which, if it did not thus deprave the understanding and the heart,
+might delight us by its poetical features, and furnish the imagination
+with much fantastical amusement. Are you not ashamed, old man, to
+think and prate in this way of the most virtuous, the most beneficent
+of men? How many human beings are fed and supplied with comforts by
+his extensive transactions? is he not always giving the needy a share
+in the blessings with which heaven rewards his industry? He spends his
+life in thought, in watching, in care, in writing, in toil, for the
+sake of nourishing thousands, who but for him would perish without
+employment; and as whatever he undertakes with so much judgement is
+favoured by fortune, fools are audacious enough to slander his
+understanding which they cannot comprehend, and his virtues which they
+are unable to appreciate, with their stupid impertinent
+extravagances."
+
+"Fortune!" laught the miner: "you talk of fortune, and fancy that in
+using the silliest word in the world you have said something: why, it
+is the very same thing that I mean and believe; only that you don't
+understand what you say, nor can anybody make any sense of it. My
+jewel, the earth, the water, the air, mountains, forests, and vallies,
+are no dead lifeless dogs, as you mayhap think them. All sorts of
+things dwell and bustle about in them, things that you call powers and
+the like: these can't endure to have their old quiet abodes turned
+topsy-turvy in this manner, and dug away and blown up with gunpowder
+under their very feet. The whole country for miles and miles round is
+smoking and steaming, and clattering, and hammering; people are
+shovelling and poking, and digging, and blasting, and laying waste
+with fire and water even into the entrails of the earth; not a forest
+finds mercy; there are glass-houses, and alum works, and copper mines,
+and bleaching-grounds, and spinning-jennies: look you, this must bring
+mishap or goodhap to the man who sets such a sight of things a-going;
+it can't all end in nothing. Where there are no human beings, there
+dwell the silent spirits of the mountains and woods: but if they are
+too much squeezed,--for when not prest for room and left in peace they
+will live on good terms with man and beast,--but when one elbows them
+too close, and into their very ribs, they grow pettish and
+mischievous: then come deaths, earthquakes, floods, conflagrations,
+landslips, and all the other things they bring to pass; or else you
+must put a stiff yoke on them, and then they will serve you indeed,
+but against the grain, and the more toll they have to pay to anybody,
+the worse friends are they to him at the last. Now this, young master,
+is what you are pleased to call fortune."
+
+The dispute would probably have lasted some time longer, unless an
+elderly man had now approacht them, whom Edward, whenever he was able,
+was glad to avoid. On this occasion however Eleazar came too quickly
+upon him, and besides had so much business to talk over, that the head
+overseer was compelled to stay and hear what the manager of the looms
+had to say. Eleazar was a little sickly man, self-willed and sullen,
+even more so than his master, the old man of the mountain, as Conrad,
+after the custom of the neighbourhood, had called him.
+
+"I heard yesterday," said Eleazar, "of a carriage that was to stop the
+night in the next town; as I went by I told William of it; and now the
+fellow, who seemed aghast at the tidings, is up and off. My master
+will as usual have to endure loss and vexation from these vagabond
+knaves, whom he is so fond of trusting before his old tried friends."
+
+His eyes fell on the curious book, he looked into it, and seemed
+delighted. "If you like the nonsensical stuff," said Edward, "I will
+make you a present of it, in case William, for whom I have bought it,
+does not return."
+
+"Thank you, thank you, from my heart!" cried Eleazar, sniggering, as
+he lifted his sharp little eyes, and a strange smirking grin made his
+yellow crampt face still uglier than before.
+
+"So you really meant what you said!" exclaimed the old miner: "well!
+the revelations of the spirit of the earth are in better keeping under
+the guard of that sickly gentleman, than with such a merry
+care-for-nought." He then turned down the hill on the side opposite to
+that which led toward the town, to betake himself to his mine; while
+Eleazar seemed buried in thought as he read with great eagerness in
+his newly acquired treasure.
+
+Meanwhile Edward was watching a carriage that was toiling up the hill
+from the valley, and had just come through the wood. "Are we to have a
+visit?" he exclaimed with some surprise.
+
+"Heyday! what!" returned Eleazar: "it is our old master's carriage to
+be sure, which he has again been lending to the folks over yonder for
+a wedding; and his other coach has been sent off to a christening in
+the village at the further end of the mountains. Two such equipages!
+and he never uses either himself, since he never stirs out of the
+house; and coachmen and lacquies always on their legs to wait on some
+beggarly strangers, who don't even thank him when his carriages and
+horses go to wreck, and new ones are to be bought at the end of every
+four years."
+
+"Can you really find fault with this bountiful kindness?" replied
+Edward: but Eleazar relieved him from the trouble of prolonging the
+dispute, by carrying off his book in great haste, without once looking
+at him. Edward breathed more freely when delivered from the presence
+of this odious misanthrope, who took every opportunity of loading his
+benefactor with the bitterest abuse.
+
+The coach meanwhile was labouring up the second hill; and from the
+slow and unsteady footing of the horses it was evident they must have
+come out of the plain. The carriage too, Edward now saw clearly, was a
+strange one, and must probably be bringing some unexpected visitant.
+With much panting and straining at length the horses dragged the coach
+up the last slope; and an elderly lady got out at the door of the
+great house, and sent her maid and servant with the carriage to the
+inn in the town.
+
+Edward was surprised; for the lady, whose face still betrayed that she
+had once been handsome, was entirely unknown to him. "You will allow
+me," she said with a sweet-toned voice, "to rest here under the
+portico for a moment; after which I should wish to speak to Herr
+Balthasar."
+
+Edward felt at a loss what to do, and led the lady with evident
+uneasiness to a chair in the entrance hall. "If you will give me
+leave," he then said, "I will attend you into the parlour, and order
+you some breakfast."
+
+"Thank you for all your kindness," she cried: "the only thing I wish
+for, is an interview with the master of the house. Is he up yet? In
+what room shall I find him?"
+
+"That none of us knows," answered Edward: "until he himself opens his
+door, nobody ventures to go to him; and it is still shut. His wont
+however is to rise early, and he says he sleeps but little. Whether he
+employs these early solitary hours in reading, or in prayer and
+devotion, no one can tell; so great is his reserve toward everybody.
+But as to announcing you--even by and by--I know not: for we all have
+the strictest orders, never to let in any stranger to him: he speaks
+to no one, except his managers and servants on business at stated
+hours; and from this rule during the twelve years that I have known
+him he has not once departed. Strangers who have anything to request
+of him must declare their wishes to me or to master Eleazar; and we
+either settle the matter directly ourselves, or, if it does not lie
+immediately in our power, we make a report to him on the subject,
+without his ever setting eyes on the person. These whimsical rules, if
+you choose so to call them, render his solitude unapproachable; and
+that is the very thing he wishes."
+
+"O God!" cried the lady with a tone of anguish: "and must this journey
+then, this hard effort of mine, be all utterly in vain? For how could
+I ever find words to express my wishes and requests to a perfect
+stranger? O dear good Sir, your eye bespeaks and reveals the kindness
+of your heart: for my sake, for the sake of a miserable, deeply
+afflicted woman, make an exception this once to the strict custom of
+the house, and tell your master that I am here."
+
+At this moment they heard the sound of a large bell. "That is the
+sign," said Edward, "that we may go and speak to him, and that his
+room is open. I will say everything for you that you wish; but I know
+beforehand it is to no purpose, and I shall bring down his anger on my
+own head, without doing you any service."
+
+He went dejectedly down the long passage: for it pained him that he
+could not assist the lady whose noble form moved and interested him.
+Old Balthasar was sitting in deep thought, his head leaning on his
+arm, at his writing-table: he looked up cheerfully and kindly at
+Edward's greeting, and held out his hand. When the young man, after
+making a long preface to excuse himself and conciliate his master,
+mentioned the wife of a privy-counsellor, whose maiden name was
+Fernich, the old man started up suddenly from his desk as if struck by
+lightning, with a frightful cry.
+
+"Fernich! Elizabeth!" he then exclaimed, with fearful vehemence; "she,
+she here? in my house! O God, O heaven, quickly, quickly let her come
+in! O do make haste, my dear friend;" he cried out again, and his
+voice failed him.
+
+Edward was almost terrified, and went back to bring the stranger to
+Balthasar. In the mean time she had been joined by the young lady of
+the house, an adopted child, but whom the old man loved with the same
+tenderness and treated just as if she had been his own. The stranger
+trembled, and when she reacht the old man's apartment was near
+fainting: Balthasar dried his tears, and was unable to find words, as
+he led the pale lady to a chair: he made a sign, and Edward left the
+room, in great anxiety about his old friend, whom he had never seen so
+strongly moved, and with whom owing to this singular scene he stood on
+an entirely new footing.
+
+"It was very good of you, Rose," he said to the young blooming girl,
+"to entertain the stranger lady while she was waiting."
+
+"It was all to very little purpose," answered she, blushing: "for she
+was so faint and exhausted that, whatever I could say, she did nothing
+but weep. She must surely be sick, or have some heavy load on her
+heart. It has made me quite sorrowful, and I too have been crying.
+These eyes in our head are certainly very funny creatures, just like
+little children. They run about, and stare, and gaze at every thing
+new, shining and twinkling with joy; and then they grow so serious and
+sad, and when the pain at one's heart is very sore, they bubble with
+tears and overflow, and anon they become bright and glad again. There
+must be a vast number of sorrows in the world, my dear Edward."
+
+"May heaven preserve you from any very melancholy trials!" replied he:
+"hitherto your young life has glided along as peacefully as a swan
+over a silent pool."
+
+"You fancy," cried she laughing, "that such a thing as I cannot have
+had any sorrows of its own, much less very bitter and painful ones.
+You are mightily mistaken."
+
+"Well?" asked Edward earnestly.
+
+"One can't remember all in a moment what one's sorrows are," said the
+good-natured girl: "wait a little. When I think of sundry great
+misfortunes in the world, about which I have heard people talking at
+times, then indeed there does not seem to be very much in what I have
+had to go through: yet for little things like me a little misfortune
+is quite big enough. Now is not it a real grievance that I must never
+hear music? that I don't know how people look, or how they feel, when
+they are dancing? Ah, dearest Edward, the other day, when we were
+taking a drive, we passed by the little inn over yonder on the other
+side of the town, where the country folks were having a dance: their
+jumping about, the sound of the fiddles, the strange glee in the airs
+made such an odd impression on me, I cannot tell whether I felt glad,
+or sad to the very bottom of my heart. Here in our neighbourhood we
+must never have any music, either in the inn or anywhere else. Then
+when I hear of plays and operas, I cannot quite persuade myself that
+such wonderful things are really and truly to be found in the world.
+The lights, the numbers of finely drest people, and then a real stage,
+and a whole story acted upon it, which I am to believe to be true: can
+there be anything more curious? And is not it then a grievous
+affliction, that I am to grow old here, without ever in my whole life
+catching a single short glimpse of all these grand doings? Tell me,
+dear Edward, you too are a good man, is this wish of mine, are those
+sights themselves very sinful? Herr Eleazar indeed says they are, and
+my dear fatherly uncle thinks the same of them, and hates everything
+of the sort: but the king and the magistrates allow them, and learned
+people approve them, and write and compose the things that are to be
+acted: can all this then be so very wicked?"
+
+"My dear child," said Edward with the utmost friendliness, "how sorry
+I am that I cannot procure you even this innocent pleasure! But you
+know yourself how strict Herr Balthasar is in all these matters."
+
+"O yes," she replied: "why the miners in our town here must never even
+hum a tune; we must never drive more than just two miles from the
+gate; and no amusing book, no poem, no novel is ever let come into the
+house. And added to all this we are perpetually frightened with being
+told that such a number of thoughts and fancies, and all that one is
+fond of dreaming about in many a lonesome hour, are impious sins. At
+such times I muse over all sorts of little stories about the loveliest
+spirits, and beautiful vallies, and how the miller finds his love in
+the mill-stream, who by and by turns out to be a princess and makes
+him a king, or how the fisherman jumps into the river, and at the
+bottom finds the most glittering and gorgeous wonders. Or a little
+shepherdess is playing with her lambs on the meadow, and a handsome
+prince, sitting upon a great horse, rides by and falls in love with
+her. And then, if the evening bells chance to peal through the dusk,
+and the wind brings the noise of the hammering and knocking from yon
+black mountain, or I hear the sledge-hammer from afar, I could cry,
+and yet in fact am glad at my very heart. But our surly gloomy
+Eleazar, one day that I was telling him of this, abused me bitterly,
+and said that busying oneself with such thoughts is the very pitch of
+sin and wickedness. And yet I can't help it; for it all comes into my
+head just of its own accord."
+
+"Dear innocent creature!" said Edward, and seized the blooming girl's
+hand.
+
+"To you," she went on, "one may talk of all this, and you understand
+everything in the right way: but other people immediately begin
+scolding me, because they put a wrong meaning into everything. It was
+just the same with my old nurse, who is now dead. You had been a long
+time in the house before I ever thought I could tell you anything or
+trust you; I was so very little then and used to play with my doll.
+Dear Heaven, it is now full ten years since the last time I dandled my
+Clary, as we called her. To my old Bridget, and my father, and
+Eleazar, and the cook, I thought I might say everything, because they
+were so grave: you were always laughing; and this made me fancy that
+you did not rightly belong to us. Now when prayer time came, they would
+not let me look at Clary, or carry her with me; but she was shut up in
+the cupboard. This made me very sorry; for I fancied she must be
+crying after me. So I found out a way, and took her along with me hid
+under my pinafore, and held her close to my heart to keep her warm;
+and when we came into the prayer-room I began by praying in private to
+God that he would forgive me if I was too fond of my Clary, that he
+would pardon me too, great and mighty as he was, for having brought
+her in secret into his high presence, and that he would not think I
+meant to deceive him or to treat him with disrespect, for he knew it
+was not so. After this preface I fancied I had made my peace, and
+repeated my usual prayers very devoutly. Thus all went on well for a
+week: then Bridget found me out. O gracious! then there was a great to
+do: even my good father said, this shewed how the human heart from its
+very infancy is so corrupt and wicked as to give itself up to the
+idolatry of worthless and contemptible things. I cannot understand
+even now what he meant by these words. Whenever one loves anything, is
+it not very beautiful and perfectly right that one does not pry into
+it and finger it too closely? What is a rose, when I pull it to
+pieces? It is so perishable, and therefore so dear. Was it my poor
+Clary's fault, that she was only a leather doll? Last week I was
+looking at her again one day, and could not make out myself how I came
+to be so fond of her formerly; and yet I could almost have cried to
+think that none of the feelings of those days will ever come back to
+me again. But surely this cannot be fickleness in me now, any more
+than my love ten years ago was idolatry and wickedness."
+
+"Dear angel," said Edward tenderly, "our heart is trained by the love
+of visible perishable objects for the love of the invisible and
+eternal. When I see a child playing thus fondly and innocently with
+puppets of its own making, and crying for love and delight over the
+lifeless toy, I could fancy that at such hours angels gather about the
+little creature and sport lovingly around it."
+
+"Ah," exclaimed Rose, "that is a beautiful notion!"
+
+"When however," continued Edward, "heart truly bends to heart, when
+two souls meet and give up themselves to each other in love, this
+faith and feeling of theirs invests the invisible with a palpable
+reality, and brings it for all eternity before them."
+
+"That again I don't understand," said the maiden pondering; "but if
+you mean that sort of love which is necessary for a wedding, and to
+make a truly happy marriage, I think very differently on that score."
+
+"How so?" asked the young man.
+
+"That is a hard matter to explain," answered the girl, putting on a
+look of deep thought.
+
+"Supposing now," said Edward, forcing himself to laugh, that he might
+hide his emotion, "you had to marry tomorrow, whom would you choose?
+Which of all the men you have hitherto met with, do you like the best?
+Have you enough confidence in me to answer me this question honestly?"
+
+"Why should not I?" she replied: "for I need not even spend a moment
+in considering the point."
+
+"And ... and the man you have already chosen?"
+
+"Is of course our Eleazar."
+
+Edward started back in utter amazement. "A moment ago you did not
+understand me, he said after a pause; and now you have told me a
+riddle that terrifies me."
+
+"And yet," she answered with perfect simplicity, "it is the most
+natural thing in the world. My father too, I fancy, has already made
+up his mind, that our honest Eleazar is to be my future husband. Were
+I to love and choose you, there would be nothing remarkable in it; for
+I like you, and so does every body else; no one can help feeling
+confidence in you; and at the same time you are very handsome, and
+always friendly and good-humoured, so that, when one has once become
+acquainted with you, one hardly knows how to live without you. Such
+persons as our William would find a thousand girls to grow fond of
+them; and it is a pity that he has already run away from us again.
+Even old Conrad, and my father himself, must have been good-looking
+when they were younger: but only look at poor Eleazar, who is not so
+very old yet, and whom not a creature in the house, nay in the whole
+world can endure;--what is to become of him, if I do not marry him."
+
+"How!" said Edward interrupting her; "is your fair life to fall a
+victim to this fantastical delusion? Can the perplexity in which dark
+spirits involve themselves, entangle the purity of innocence in its
+snares? and must love itself devise a robe to deck out the most
+frantic extravagance as an act of noble self-sacrifice and reasonable
+resignation?"
+
+"We are quite at cross purposes today," she continued calmly. "It is
+not that I really love him: I have not even a notion yet what this
+love they talk of is, or what it means. Let me tell you again about
+the sorrows of my youth, with which we began. In the days when I was
+still very fond of my Clary, I had also a cat in the house here, that
+was no less dear to my childish heart. I even fancied to myself that
+the doll and the little white playful creature must be very jealous of
+each other on my account. Now Herr Eleazar detested and persecuted
+everything that even looked like a cat; for he says they are
+malicious. This seems to be a general superstition. Wherever the sleek
+animals shew their faces, everybody, even the best-natured people,
+will begin shouting, _puss! puss!_ and will worry and hunt them, as if,
+in pursuing the harmless things, they were driving away Antichrist
+himself. And this it is that makes them, as no doubt they are, so
+mistrustful and wary. My cat had kittens, which were just nine days
+old, and opening their little blue eyes. What fun and pleasure it is
+for children, to see the mother with her young ones, and the droll
+sports of the kittens, and their skipping and tumbling and jumping
+about, nobody who is grown up can understand. On the very same day
+master Eleazar had just got a new airgun, which he wanted to try.
+Complaints had for some time been made to my father, that my cat used
+to hunt the singing birds and eat them. It was taking the air behind
+the house, in the garden, and amusing itself by running up and down
+the big orange-tree. On the sudden Eleazar shot at it and it fell
+dead; and now the kittens too were to be drowned. Never before had I
+thought him so brown and nasty, so unlike a human being. In the night
+I prayed that God would let him too die; but the very next morning,
+though I was still such a mere child, it struck me to the heart, how
+very, very unhappy he must be, that there was no creature he could
+love, and neither man nor beast could love him; and so I think still.
+Such an odious creature as he is, he will never find a heart on earth,
+if I were to blot him out of mine."
+
+"Dear little Rose," said Edward, somewhat calmer, "you must not be too
+hasty, and assuredly you will change your mind on this point by and
+by."
+
+"My fate," she again began, while the tears mounted into her bright
+eyes, "has in fact been just like that of the poor little kittens;
+only that God Almighty did not let me be drowned in the same wretched
+manner. But I too never knew my mother; she had never the happiness of
+bringing me up; she died shortly after my birth. My foster-father here
+is very kind to me; still it must be quite a different feeling to have
+a real father; but he too is in his grave. Now, reckoning up all this,
+methinks we have here made out quite unhappiness enough for so young a
+thing."
+
+"Dearest Rose," said Edward after a pause, "would it give you any
+pain, if you knew that I too was very unhappy? or if I too were gone?"
+
+"Alas! my dear good friend," she exclaimed, "don't make me cry. I tell
+you, I never liked anybody so well as you. But happy and gay as you
+are, with all the world so fond of you, you can do very well without
+my love. But I cannot do without yours."
+
+A servant now came and called Edward away to the old man. The
+conversation must have been of deep interest; for Balthasar as well as
+the stranger seemed dissolved in tears, though both were trying hard
+to collect themselves.
+
+"My dear friend," said the old man with a broken voice, "my good
+gentle Edward, will you conduct the stranger lady to the inn; but at
+the same time take along with you four thousand dollars in gold and
+bills out of my strong-box. No human being however, I trust and charge
+you, must know of this affair, least of all Eleazar. Only conceive,
+the savage has left three letters of the highest importance from this
+poor woman to me without an answer. His not shewing them to me I can
+forgive, since on that point he has full powers from me."
+
+His wishes were executed, and the stranger set off again in the
+afternoon in better spirits, without paying her old friend another
+visit.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next day Balthasar sent Edward a summons to his room. When he had
+lockt the door he began: "You are the only person entrusted with a
+circumstance and a connexion, which agitated me so deeply yesterday
+that I was unable to tell you anything about it. As however I look
+upon you quite in the light of my son, I feel myself bound to disclose
+something more of myself and my story to you, than any mortal man has
+ever yet heard."
+
+They sat down: the old man gave his young friend his hand, which the
+latter prest cordially, and then said: "You cannot doubt my affection
+and friendship; and what you confide to me will in my hands be as
+secret as in the silent grave."
+
+"I have watcht you this long time," said the old man, "and know you
+well. Hitherto we have had but little talk together; I am now forced
+to change and break through my usage with regard to you, and I am
+anxious besides that there should be a being who knows and understands
+me."
+
+Edward's curiosity was roused; and the old man went on with a
+tremulous voice: "I am still so much moved, my whole frame is still so
+much disordered by yesterday's shock, that you must have patience with
+my weakness. That my life is a cheerless one, that I have long
+renounced all those recreations and enjoyments, which are in fact the
+only things most men live for, you must long ago have remarkt. From my
+youth up I have got out of the way of pleasure, with a feeling which I
+might almost call dread. Educated by a rigid father, who lived in the
+greatest penury, my childhood and youth were merely suffering and
+sorrow. When I grew bigger, my ripening understanding only enabled me
+more distinctly to perceive the misery of my parents and the
+wretchedness of the whole earth. Often for many nights together no
+sleep visited my eyes, which were flowing with tears. Thus my
+imagination accustomed itself to view the whole world as nothing but a
+place of punishment, where sorrow and need were the lot of all, and
+such as were raised above the sordid wants of life were but in a yet
+sadder state of silly delusion, in which they neither recognized their
+own calling nor the destiny of mankind, but giving themselves up to
+vapid pleasures and pitiful comforts reeled along toward the grave.
+One single star shed its light through this dark gloom,--but it was as
+far beyond my reach as if it had stood in the heavens,--my relation
+Elizabeth, whom you saw: she was rich, highborn, and bred to a life of
+splendour and luxury. A cousin of mine, Helbach, who was still richer
+and haughtier, was designed for her husband: our family scarcely ever
+saw these proud relations of theirs; and my stern father had a special
+hatred for them, and never spake but with rancour of their
+extravagance. This hatred he also transferred to me, when he
+discovered my secret and strong affection. He gave me his curse, if I
+ever dared to think of that lovely and beloved being. Nor was it long
+before she was married to her overbearing kinsman; one stream of
+wealth flowed into the other, and produced such a splendid way of
+living that the whole town felt envy at it. My mother's brother, who
+gave his son this large fortune, was so much ashamed of our poverty,
+that he did not even invite my parents to the wedding; which so
+greatly increast the vexation and annoyance of my father, already a
+prey to bitter mortification, that the after-throes of this insult
+brought him to the grave. My poor mother soon followed him. Of myself
+I will say nothing. If life had hitherto worn a dark aspect in my
+eyes, it now changed into a spectre, whose ghastly, distorted features
+and looks at first struck me with horrour, and afterward, when use
+made me cold and indifferent, taught me to despise everything, above
+all myself. Elizabeth had known of my passion. Rarely as we saw each
+other, she had taken no pains to conceal the affection with which she
+answered mine. Though she was not like me utterly dead to all joy, yet
+a shade was cast over her whole existence, and heavy clouds covered
+it. She has suffered enough since. Her husband was a profligate
+spendthrift; he squandered thousands from vanity, and for paltry,
+contemptible purposes. It would look as if a number of ill-starred
+men bore a kind of malice and hatred against money, so that they have
+recourse to the strangest devices to drive it away from them on every
+side, while the miser hugs and cherishes it with a blind devotion, and
+lets himself be crusht by his idol. Elizabeth was weak enough to give
+up her property to him unconditionally, and, when his credit had
+already fallen, to declare herself bound by his debts; and thus the
+very house into which all the gods of Olympus had seemed to enter,
+bringing eternal joy as their gift, became a scene of misery,
+confusion, hatred, and strife. The wretched husband, counsellor
+Helbach, has sold his last shilling for an annuity, without a thought
+about his wife and son. This son of his is as it were possest by the
+furies, unruly, headstrong, and without feeling: he ran into debt,
+then took to swindling, and finally, two years ago, when his weeping
+mother was trying to admonish him, abused and even struck her in his
+brutal rage. After this grand feat he set off into the wide world. His
+father meanwhile revels and laughs, devouring his income, which must
+still be large, at well-stored tables. This made her come to me,
+subduing her pride and her feelings, in order that I might relieve her
+from a debt, which would have brought her to shame and to a prison.
+These twenty years past she has been longing to die, but still lives,
+an object of horrour to herself, and of pleasure to nobody.--Send her
+a thousand dollars every quarter: she has promist me that her
+abandoned husband shall know nothing of this assistance either now or
+hereafter."
+
+Edward saw the old man's deep anguish, and was long silent: at last he
+began: "But how could Eleazar be so cruel as not to tell you of those
+letters?"
+
+"I was in the wrong," replied the old man, "to find fault with him for
+it yesterday. He acts in my name, and knows well that I am weak and
+soft-hearted: the particulars he was not aware of, and so only did his
+duty. Indeed I know not myself after all whether I have done rightly
+in following my torn and deeply agitated heart: for perhaps still she
+may have too little firmness to keep the wretch in ignorance of what
+has happened; in spite of everything he is her husband, and of all her
+ties his are the closest. You no doubt, because you love me, but are
+of a tender disposition so that distress affects you, would have acted
+otherwise, and better; and yet probably were I to put myself entirely
+in your hands, you would spoil me and ruin me: for no quality a man
+can have is so dangerous as vanity, which draws food from everything."
+
+"What do you mean by vanity?" asked Edward.
+
+"All our feelings," answered the old man, "the best and honestest, the
+gentlest and blissfullest, are rooted in this poisonous soil. But more
+of this another time. I only wanted to tell you briefly, how I
+acquired my fortune, how my character took that cast under which you
+have learnt to know me. After my parents death I fulfilled my father's
+last wish by uniting myself to a girl who was also a distant relation
+of our family. She was poor, unprovided, unprotected, had grown up
+amid straits without any kind of education; at the same time she was
+hideously ugly, and her temper was so morose and quarrelsome, that I
+never spent a pleasant hour with her, and had very few peaceful ones
+so long as she lived. My situation was horrible."
+
+"But how came you to marry her?" said Edward.
+
+"Because I had given my word to my father," continued Balthasar; "and
+because it is a principle of mine, that man must never gratify his
+passions, least of all that of love. My conviction is, that our life
+is a state of torment and woe; and the more we try to escape from
+these feelings, the more awful vengeance do our terrours afterward
+take upon us. As to why this is so, who can fathom that question?"
+
+"This belief," answered Edward, "is extremely strange, and at variance
+with all our wishes, nay with everyday experience."
+
+"O how scanty then must your experience have been hitherto!" replied
+the old man. "Everything lives and moves, only to die and to rot:
+everything feels, only to feel pangs. Our inward agony spurs us on to
+what we call joy; and all wherewith spring and hope and love and
+pleasure beguile mankind, is only the inverted sting of pain. Life is
+woe, hope sadness, thought and reflexion despair."
+
+"And supposing all to be so," said Edward somewhat timidly, "do we not
+find comfort and help in religion?"
+
+The old man lifted up his eyes and gazed fixedly in his young
+companion's face: his dark look grew brighter, not however with
+pleasure or any soft emotion; but so strange a smile ran across his
+pale furrowed features, that it lookt very much like scorn; and Edward
+involuntarily thought of the miner's words.
+
+"Let us turn aside from this theme for today," said the old man with
+his usual gloomy air; "we shall probably find time hereafter to speak
+of it. Thus I lived on in my state of damnation, and the thought of
+Elizabeth shone with a friendly but heart-piercing light into the hell
+around me. Still the frenzy of life had laid fast hold on me, and made
+me too take my place in the vast bedlam, and go through my part under
+the great task-master. People tell you that death cures all; others
+again look forward to being transported from one workhouse to another,
+where they shall keep on playing the fool through all eternity and
+evaporating in an endless succession of illusions. With a little
+money--it would be ridiculous were I to mention the sum; many take so
+much merely to fill their bellies--I engaged in a small line of
+business. It succeeded. I made a petty mercantile speculation. It
+turned out well. I entered into partnership with a man of considerable
+property. It seemed as if I had a talent of always guessing and
+foreboding where gain and profit were lying hid in distant countries,
+in uninviting, or hazardous undertakings; something like what is said
+of the divining rod, that it will hit upon metals and upon water. As
+many gardeners have a lucky hand, so in trade I prospered in every,
+even the most unpromising speculation. It was neither strength of
+understanding nor extent of knowledge, but mere luck. One becomes a
+man of understanding however, so soon as one has luck. My partner was
+astonisht; and, as he had a small estate here, we removed into this
+country, where till the time of his death we went on enlarging the
+number of our houses of business and manufactories. When he died, and
+I had settled my accounts with his heir, I might already have been
+accounted a rich man. But a feeling of awe came upon me along with
+this property as they call it. For how great is the responsibility for
+managing it rightly! And why were so many honest men unfortunate,
+while with me everything throve so unaccountably? After a number of
+painful years my wife also died: without children, without friends, I
+was again alone. How singularly that blind being, that men call
+fortune, pampered me, you may see from the following story. I always
+felt an aversion to play at cards or any other game for money. For
+what does a gambler do, but declare that he will exalt the wretched
+stuff, to which even as money he attaches such an inordinate value,
+into an oracle and a promulgation of the divine will? And then he
+stakes his heart and soul on this delusion: the freaks of chance,
+things utterly without meaning, are to calculate and make out for him
+by certain fantastical combinations, what he is worth, how he is
+favoured: his dark passions start up when he supposes that this chance
+neglects him; he triumphs when he fancies it sides with him; his blood
+flows more rapidly, his head is in an uprore, his heart throbs
+tumultuously, and he is more wretched than the madman that is lying in
+chains, when every card, down to the very last, turns up against him.
+Look you, this is the king of the creation in his patcht beggar's
+garb, which he takes to be a royal robe."
+
+The old man almost laught, and Edward replied: "Such is the case with
+all life; it runs along on a narrow line between truth and fancy,
+between reality and delusion."
+
+"Be it so!" cried Balthasar. "But no more of this. I was only going to
+tell you how I let myself be persuaded by my partner in the last year
+of his life to put for once into the neighbouring lottery. I did so
+against my own feelings; because these institutions appear to me
+deserving of the severest punishment. By them the state sanctions
+highway-robbery and murder. Even without such things ill-fated man is
+immoderately inflamed by the lust of gain. I had already forgotten the
+paltry concern, when I heard I had gained the great prize: after
+receiving the payment it never let me rest. What the vulgar fable of
+evil spirits, had come into my house along with these money-bags. This
+unblest sum supplied the funds for the hospital for sick old women in
+the valley a couple of leagues off, the building of which has been
+made such a merit of by senseless newspaper-scribes. What had I
+contributed toward it? Not even a stroke of the pen. Now you will
+understand how my perpetual gains, and the sums that flowed in to me
+from every venture, compelled me to plunge into fresh speculations,
+and how this has been going on year after year upon an ever-widening
+scale. And thus there is neither rest nor pause, until death will at
+length put the last full stop to the matter for this bout. Then some
+one else will of course begin to rave on just where I left off, and
+the same invisible power will perhaps meet his folly under the shape
+of misfortune."
+
+Edward knew not what to say. "You are not yet used," the old man
+continued, "to my words and expressions, because we have never yet
+talked upon these matters; you do not yet know my way of thinking; and
+as these feelings, these views of life are still new to you, you are
+surprised. Believe me, my good fellow, the only thing that keeps one
+from going mad, is swimming silently along with the stream, letting
+five always pass for even, and fitting oneself to that which cannot be
+changed. At the same time there is also another remedy that may serve
+to keep one afloat. One may lay down certain fixt unshakable
+principles, a line of conduct from which one never swerves. Money,
+wealth, gain, the circulation and the flowing of property and of the
+precious metals toward every quarter, through every relation of life,
+and every region of the earth, are one of the very strangest devices
+the world ever hit upon. It is a creature of necessity like every
+thing else; and as there is nothing on which passion has seized with
+such force, it has bred it up to be a monster more chimerical and wild
+than anything the fever of a heated fancy ever dreamt of. This monster
+is incessantly devouring and preying on all that comes within its
+reach; nothing satiates it; it gnaws and crunches the bones of the
+destitute, and laps up their tears. That in London and Paris before a
+palace, where a single banquet costs a thousand pieces of gold, a poor
+man should die of starvation, when the hundredth part of a piece of
+gold might save him,--that families should perish in frantic
+despair,--that there should be madness and suicide in the very room
+where a couple of paces off gamblers are rioting in gold,--all this
+seems so natural to us, such a matter of course, that we no longer
+feel any surprise at it; and everybody takes for granted with
+cold-blooded apathy, that it all must be so, and cannot be otherwise.
+How every state pampers this money-monster!--indeed it cannot help
+doing so--and trains it up to be more ferocious! In many countries
+wealth can no longer increase except among the rich, whereby the poor
+will be still more impoverisht, until at length Time will cast up the
+dismal sum, and then draw a bloody pen across the appalling amount.
+When I found myself thus rich, I held it to be my duty to keep this
+wealth in controul, so far as man can, and to tame the wild beast.
+Unquestionably the creation has been doomed to woe; else war, disease,
+famine, pain, and passion would not run riot and lay waste so.
+Existence and torment are one and the same word: nevertheless every
+one who does not mean wantonly to play the fiend, is bound to
+alleviate misery wherever he can. There is no property in the sense
+which most people put on the word; there ought not to be any, and the
+attempt to keep hold of it is godless. Still worse is it to spread
+calamity by the influence of wealth. Thus then I administer mine, so
+as to help my neighbours, to find work for the poor, care and remedies
+for the sick; and by an ever-increasing activity I strive to bring
+things into such a state, that as many as possible shall eat their
+bread without tears and anguish, shall gather pleasure from their
+children and their occupations, and that, so far as my eye and arm can
+reach, the creation may not be the object of as many curses here, as
+in other villages and towns."
+
+"The blessings you diffuse," Edward threw in, "must make you also
+happy."
+
+"Blessings!" repeated the old man and shook his head. "It is all a
+mere drop in the ocean. How short is the time within which even the
+child that is now sucking at the breast must needs die! This time,
+these hundreds and thousands of years, how they mock at our frail
+edifices! how Oblivion triumphs in every part of the earth, with ruins
+crumbling beneath her feet! and Destruction, while with unfeeling
+malignity she tramples every form of life in the dust! I have just
+been comforting my good Elizabeth today. But can I really comfort her?
+She is for ever haunted by the thought of her destiny, of her life, of
+her lost youth, of her having flung herself away on a worthless being,
+of her having brought a tiger as her son into the world. In her dreams
+she is visited by the feeling, whether asleep or waking it pursues
+her, and thrills through every fibre, that she once loved me, perhaps
+loves me still; and so her heart has to bear my wretchedness along
+with her own. True she may now and then relish a morsel somewhat
+better; she may now and then forget herself, perhaps over some silly
+book, delighting in the good fortune of others, and feeling interest
+in afflictions which are merely faint shadows of her own; and this
+sentimental folly may help her over half a dozen minutes a little more
+at her ease. Verily it is a grand achievement that I have been able to
+do this for her. The consciousness however, that neither her husband
+nor her son, the offspring of her own blood and body, and surely of
+her soul too, is to know anything of my bounty, as it would be called,
+or else her sufferings will increase--do you not perceive how pitiful
+this, and the whole of life is? But let us break off, and tell me
+instead what news you have heard."
+
+Edward informed him that William had again gone off suddenly and
+without assigning any cause. "I am glad of it," answered the old man;
+"I always took him for our thief, and winkt hard in looking at him,
+that I might not ruin him utterly: this indulgence however must have
+come to an end. I was exceedingly fond of him, and for that very
+reason only hated him the more."
+
+"How do you mean?" asked the young man.
+
+"Why," replied the other, "foolishly enough I felt charmed by his
+countenance, by the soft sound of his voice, by his whole look and
+air: this perverse sympathy will keep following us everywhere. I took
+a liking to him: and catching my heart in this piece of folly, I
+punisht myself by conceiving a downright aversion to the fellow, as we
+should and must do to everything we are greatly delighted with."
+
+Edward wanted to ask further questions, but the striking of the clock
+called him to his business, and being dismist by the old man he went
+away, with a multitude of thoughts concerning this singular
+conversation, to meditate further upon it at leisure.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Whenever Edward's thoughts now recurred, as they often did, to the
+nature of his situation, that and every thing connected with it, the
+appointment which had fixt him in this secluded spot, the business he
+was engaged in, as well as the persons with whom he had to hold
+intercourse, appeared to him in a light totally different from before.
+He was loth to acknowledge to himself how forcibly and singularly his
+imagination had been wrought upon by his late discourse with Rose.
+Hitherto he had only lookt on her as a pleasing child; but now the
+lovely girl became an object to which expectations and silent hopes
+attacht themselves: he watcht her more attentively; he talked oftener
+to her and more at length; and the budding of her youthful soul, the
+frank artlessness of her thoughts, interested his heart more and more.
+And then, when he recollected the hideous, sallow-faced Eleazar, with
+his surly morose temper, and thought that this tender flower had
+already in secret devoted herself as a sacrifice to so odious a
+creature, his anger was moved by this absurd project, which at other
+times again he could not help smiling at. Eleazar had been absent for
+some days past. He had not taken much pains to conceal that he was
+going into the lonely, remote parts of the mountains in search of
+those marks which he had read of in the master miner's book. This
+absurdity sorted well with his strange dreamy character; for he was
+perpetually poring over books of magic and alchemical treatises, had a
+laboratory in his room, and would often boast in pretty intelligible
+hints that he had found the philosopher's stone. When Edward bethought
+himself of his singular conversation with his old master, and of the
+sentiments he had given vent to during that confidential hour, he no
+longer regarded it as improbable that Balthasar should have been led
+by his wild moody whims to design his blooming foster-daughter for the
+wife of the gloomy Eleazar. A shudder came over him to think with what
+dark and perplext spirits he was so closely linkt; his head went round
+with the giddiness of all about him, and he seemed almost to lose his
+hold on himself. This made him still more regret the loss of young
+William: at the same time his annoyances were increast by the
+robberies of the warehouse, which instead of ceasing were carried on
+with more audacity than ever. He himself had entertained a slight
+suspicion of William, and was quite unable to make out how the crime
+was perpetrated.
+
+In this mood it was with no very friendly welcome that he met Eleazar
+on his return from his wild-goose chace. Eleazar too grew highly
+indignant, when he heard that the robberies had been continued during
+his absence with the greatest impudence; and as he could not justly
+charge Edward with any negligence or supineness, this first
+conversation between them, little as they had ever been disposed to
+agree, took a tone of still more bitterness than usual. As soon as his
+hateful companion was gone, Edward determined to do what he now could
+not help regarding as his indispensable duty, by speaking more
+seriously than ever to Herr Balthasar on this subject.
+
+These depredations, which were prosecuted with so much security,
+excited the wonder of the whole neighbourhood; and at the public-house
+in the town there was often much talk about them. Old Conrad was
+sitting in the wooden arm-chair beside the stove, and was just telling
+the fat thriving landlord the details of the last robbery, when a
+stranger came in, who immediately gave himself out to be a travelling
+miner. The stranger was much younger than Conrad, and therefore at
+first modestly said but little, and merely asked a few questions,
+insinuating however that there might probably be means of soon
+bringing the matter to light, if his advice were but to be followed.
+By these hints the curiosity of some peasants who happened to be
+present, having come with corn from the plain several miles off to
+this town high up among the mountains, was vehemently aroused. Conrad,
+who lookt upon himself as the wisest person in the company, became
+grave and monosyllabic, waiting to hear what this new device or scheme
+for detecting the thief, would end in.
+
+"You must lay a charm," said the stranger, "which the thief, when he
+has once set foot within it, will not be able to escape from; and so,
+as soon as the sun rises, you are sure to find him."
+
+"And what is such a charm to be made of?" asked Andrew, who was the
+forwardest of the peasants.
+
+Conrad laught aloud and scornfully, while he said: "Clownish dolts,
+don't thrust in your tongues, when people are debating about matters
+of art and science; stick to your straw and your chaff; they are
+things you are better skilled in handling. Proceed, knowing sir," he
+added, looking with suspicious graciousness toward the stranger; "how
+do you mean that such a charm or spell is to be prepared, so as to be
+certain of its effect?"
+
+The stranger, whose pale face formed a singular contrast with the
+stout dusky-hued Conrad, the fat host, and the puffy cheeks of the
+peasants, said with a somewhat stifled voice: "Yew twigs cut and
+peeled beneath the new moon, and then boiled at the first quarter in a
+decoction of wolf's milk and hemlock, which itself must have been
+previously made on the selfsame night, are to be stuck in the earth,
+while some words that I know are repeated, at certain distances round
+the spot where the robbery is committed; and the thief, be he ever so
+daring, and ever so learned in laying spells and breaking them, will
+be unable to step out of this circle, and will stand in fear and
+trembling, till the persons who set the magical trap pounce upon him
+in the morning. I have often seen this practist in Hungary and
+Transylvania, and it has always succeeded."
+
+Conrad was about to answer, but the pert Andrew was beforehand with
+him and cried: "My grandfather, the smith, had a spell with
+abracadabra, which was to be repeated backward and forward, along with
+certain verses of the Bible; and when he had said these words, every
+thief, whether he was in the wood, on the high road, or in the field,
+was forced to halt on the sudden in the middle of his running,--or, if
+he was riding on horseback, it was just the same--and to wait in
+terrour and affright, so that even children if they chose might seize
+hold of him."
+
+Conrad gave the peasant a look of inexpressible contempt, and then
+turning with ambiguous courtesy to the strange miner, said: "You are a
+man of experience and knowledge, as it seems; nevertheless your
+well-meant advice will hardly meet with acceptance here. For first the
+old man of the mountain will never have anything to do with sorcery
+and witchcraft, because he hates every kind of superstition, even that
+which is pious and unavoidable, much more then one of this sort, which
+he must needs hold to be utterly accurst. Besides you don't even know
+in what way the thief goes to work, so as to take proper measures
+against him."
+
+"What do you mean?" asked the stranger, somewhat abasht, but whose
+curiosity was stirred.
+
+"Have you never heard," continued Conrad, "or read of those wonderful
+persons, or, as you have been such a great traveller, have you
+yourself never stumbled upon such, whose eyes can pierce through a
+board, through wainscot and wall, nay down into the depths of the
+earth and into the heart of a mountain?"
+
+"In Spain," replied the stranger, "there are said to be men, who
+without the help of a divining-rod can find out treasures and metals
+with their bodily eyes, even though they should be lying ever so deep
+under rocks or forests."
+
+"Just so," proceeded Conrad; "Zahori, or Zahuri is the name borne, as
+I have heard tell, by the people who have carried their power and
+knowledge to this pitch. Only nobody knows whether one man can learn
+this of another, or whether it is a natural gift, or proceeds from a
+league with the evil one."
+
+"From the devil certainly!" cried Andrew interrupting him, having been
+gradually poking in his face nearer and nearer.
+
+"I am not talking to you, lowland lubber," said Conrad; "you would do
+better to seat yourself behind the stove; that is your right place
+when people are canvassing grave questions of science."
+
+Andrew muttered, and angrily drew back his chair a little; whereupon
+Conrad went on; "Look you man, this art in many countries is not the
+only one, nor even the highest, profitable as it may be for
+discovering veins of metal, or even gold and silver. Of much greater
+weight however, and far more formidable are those who have a power in
+their eyes to do one an injury, and with a single glance can infect
+one with a disease, a fever, a jaundice, a fit of madness, or even
+look one dead. The better and godlier part of these persons hence
+always of their own accord wear a bandage before one of their
+eyes--for this power will often exist only on one side--so that they
+may walk about and deal with their neighbours, without harming them."
+
+"Of these I have never heard," replied the stranger.
+
+"That is matter of surprise to me," continued the old miner with the
+most perfect gravity: "for since you come from Hungary, and probably
+were born there, where you have such a sight of vampires, or
+blood-sucking corpses, such swarms of goblins and manikins of the
+mountains, dwarfs and subterraneous creatures, that will often come
+across you even by broad daylight, I fancied everything belonging to
+witchcraft must be in high vogue there and generally notorious."
+
+"No," answered the traveller, "I never up to this present instant
+heard anything of these prodigies, much as I have seen and myself
+experienced that by such as have not been so far from home may be
+deemed remarkable enough."
+
+"Now then," said Conrad taking up his word again, "when the Zahori, as
+they call him, has once got so far that with his naked eye, instead of
+quietly seeing the treasures beneath his feet, he can give anyone a
+fit of sickness or put him to death, he has only one step further to
+become perfect and a master in his art. Look you, my good stranger,
+when he has thus reacht the highest degree, he will set himself down
+before a dish of baked meat, while it is still standing in the oven
+covered up and shut down, and without anybody being able to observe
+him will with his mere eyes devour you a goose, or a hare, or whatever
+it may be, swallowing it up so clean and neat, that, if he chooses,
+not a bone will be left. Place some nuts before him or melons, he will
+eat up all the kernel or pulp out of them, without making even a
+single scratch on the shell or rind, but leaving them undamaged just
+as if everything was still within. He has had a good meal; nobody can
+prove, or even suspect what he has done; and others have nothing left
+them but a fruitless search."
+
+"The devil again!" cried Andrew; "that's the trick I should like, if I
+could learn the art."
+
+"An artist of this sort," continued the old miner, "may however ascend
+a great deal higher; for such things after all would be merely a jest.
+If he has a spite against any one, he can pluck his heart out of his
+body with a look, just as easily as his money out of his pocket. The
+enemy he sets eye on will waste away and die miserably, or will sink
+into beggary, while he himself becomes as rich as ever he pleases."
+
+"It makes ones mouth water!" cried Andrew unconsciously, so completely
+was he carried away by the visions presented to him.
+
+Conrad turned his back upon him, drew his chair nearer to the miner,
+and then said: "If we had not this rabble so close at our side, I
+could explain the matter to you with greater tranquillity of mind. The
+truth is this. When the Zahuri has been promoted from being an
+apprentice or pounding-lad, to be a brother, and then a master or
+mine-surveyor, he will seat himself on his chair in his room, here
+overhead in this inn, or wherever it may be, will think of the
+warehouse of our old man of the mountain, or of the London docks, or
+of some place down in Spain where he knows that some banker, jeweller,
+or ship-master has valuable goods in his hands, and so soon as ever he
+thinks of them with his eyes, he has them before him, and nobody knows
+of it or can hinder it. In like manner by merely willing it he can
+also send them forthwith from the place whence he takes them, to
+Russia, or Calcutta, or anywhere else, and bring back the money he
+asks for them. Now should there be a man of this class living here, in
+the neighbourhood, or even in America, and he took a fancy to rob the
+warehouse, you will easily understand, with your unassisted reason,
+that then your peeled and boiled twigs would be of just as much avail,
+as a basin of well-made water gruel to cure an earthquake."
+
+The stranger had wit enough to perceive that Conrad was making a fool
+of him; but the peasants, though there were some things that puzzled
+them, swallowed all these nonsensical stories. Conrad exulted in his
+superiority, and went on: "Look you man, if there were no conjurers of
+this kind, how would all the contraband goods get in, which we find in
+every part of the world? and this is the reason why the preventive
+service can do so little, however strict and vigilant they may be. The
+learning the art indeed must probably cost some trouble; and this no
+doubt is why so very few seem to reach any mastery in it."
+
+"All that you have been telling me," answered the traveller, is mighty
+strange; "and perhaps the neatest way of winding up our dialogue would
+be, if I were to affirm that I am one of the masters in this art.
+However you would immediately require some specimen of my skill; and
+at that indeed I might boggle a little. Nevertheless be it in earnest
+or in jest that you have been talking all this while, there is most
+unquestionably, as no rational being will dispute, a number of
+incomprehensible and marvellous things in the world."
+
+Conrad, who in the mean time had been regaling himself with some
+strong beer, and fancied he had gained a complete victory over his
+unknown antagonist, was irritated by this rejoinder, and the more so
+because the peasants, who had heard the conversation, were not capable
+of undertaking the part of arbitrators.
+
+"Heyday!" he now exclaimed; "you seem to me to be one of those people
+who have hardly a notion as to what is marvellous or what natural.
+Have you ever seen spirits with your own eyes, as I have? Have you
+ever held conversations with goblins, with the little creatures that
+go into and come out of the mountain-lord's great house there? Have
+you ever seen metals and precious stones a-growing? or gold and silver
+trees waving and tossing about, all alive and vegetating?"
+
+"Do you believe then," asked the stranger, "that stones grow and
+decay, that metals shoot up and propagate their species? Do you fancy
+that the beds under the earth sprout up just like a potatoe-field?"
+
+"I know nothing about potatoes and all such vermin!" cried Conrad in a
+passion,--it being something new to him to have an unknown, and, as it
+seemed, an insignificant person lord it over him: "But that metals and
+rocks have life and motion in them every body is aware, that they grow
+up and die away, and that, as there is sunshine and moonshine here
+above, rain and mist, frost and heat, so there are vapours and blasts
+there below, which burst in and rush out, and boil invisibly in the
+dark there, and mould themselves into shape. One of these blasts will
+curdle into a mist, and then it trickles down, and intermarries with
+the essences of the hills and of the regions under the earth; and
+according to the course and form the steam takes then, it begets
+metals or stones, it quickens into silver or gold, or runs along as
+iron and copper branching out or cleft asunder in veins that strike
+far and near."
+
+"What then, are you so far behind all the rest of the world here!"
+asked the stranger with every mark of astonishment. "O my good friend,
+with your leave, ever since the creation, or at all events ever since
+the deluge, the mountains, and stones, and rocks, and metals, and
+gems, have been lockt up in their houses and never gadded abroad. We
+dig and delve in here at top, and hardly get even at deepest below the
+upper skin of the warts, as the mountains are in comparison to the
+whole earth, much such a part as a nail-paring is of a man. Wherever
+we can set foot, we grub up these primeval stores, so far as we need
+them; and nothing ever shoots forth again, neither coal nor diamond,
+neither copper nor lead; and your notion of the matter is a mere
+superstition. In Africa, they tell us a story, people used from time
+to time to find little grains of gold in a sandpit, which they had to
+deliver up to the poor black king as his property. With the help of
+these he would then buy all sorts of things from foreiners. One day
+going a little deeper they fell in with two good-sized lumps of massy
+solid gold. The slaves in great delight carried the fruit of their
+labours to their black master, it being more than they had found for
+ten years past, and they thought how overjoyed the poor man would be
+at becoming rich thus all at once. But they were mistaken. The wise
+old king said: 'Look ye, my friends, these pieces are the father and
+mother of that little brood of gold grains which we have constantly
+been finding for ages: carry them back immediately and set them in the
+very same place, that they may be able to go on producing fresh ones.
+Unless you do so, we should get a vast gain for the moment, but should
+lose a lasting source of profit for ever hereafter.' The moor was a
+goosecap, was not he?"
+
+"Very far from it," cried Conrad, growing more and more enraged; "he
+was quite right not to meddle with that which goes on in secret;
+although we, as miners, cannot see the matter exactly in the same
+light as he did. Solid masses have grown like the rest of us; and who
+can say whether they may not enliven and further the shooting and
+coalescing of the metallic particles round about them?"
+
+"I tell you however," replied the stranger, "that sprouting and
+growing, and spreading out into the regions of the air, or in the form
+of roots underground, are the properties of plants only. Stones rest
+in themselves; vegetables feed on light and warmth and moisture, and
+transform the particles of the earth they stand on into means of
+growth and enlargement. Then animals start off and break loose from
+the elements; but they move within them, and carry their roots about
+with them in their entrails."
+
+"No! no!" screamed Conrad, still more violently: "In this way the
+whole world, and above all my glorious mountains, with their
+glittering subterraneous chambers, will be hocus-pocust into mere
+store-houses, wretcheder ones than if they were made of wood, into
+miserable wareshops and stalls. What then would the dwarfish sprites,
+and the mighty mountain-spirit, and all the goblins and elvish imps,
+and the swarm of gnomes there below have to do? and yet they are
+always, some of them cleverly, some of them clumsily, putting their
+hands to the wheel. And the waters! and the vapours! O thou blind and
+deaf generation, that wilt not see and understand, what is yet much
+more easily comprehensible than your dead, lifeless world! If life and
+growth, and the workings by which life is propagated and multiplied,
+can ever come to a standstill, then in your own realm too, in the
+places where you fancy you see life, it is a sheer illusion and cheat.
+The solid earth is alive, but in a different manner; and when it
+happens to draw in its breath, when the old giant yawns and stretches
+his tired limbs, and tries to arrange them more comfortably, you are
+all aghast, and set up a howl about earthquakes, while your walled
+hovels are running after you for variety's sake, and your towers are
+tumbling into your pockets and slippers."
+
+"You are a strange man," said the other, "and much too hot-headed to
+listen to reason. Surely we ought to love truth above our puerile
+prejudices. We do not make nature, but she is already such as she is,
+spread out before us, for us to watch her ways and learn from her
+teaching."
+
+"Nature!" exclaimed the old miner; "that is just another of their
+stupid words! My mountain has nothing to do with nature; it is my
+mountain. About that I know everything; of your nature I know nothing
+at all. Just as if a tailor, who had a coat to make, were to keep on
+prating about nothing but wool, and merino sheep! To such a pitch have
+people already brought matters, that they can't look at anything as
+what it is, but search out some great big generality to which they may
+tie it and slay it and embowel it. What say you to this? I once talked
+to a man out of Hungary, a fellow-countryman of yours, but he had his
+wits more about him; and he told me of a vine, I believe not far from
+Tokay, which must have stood upon a vein of gold, and in which a
+stream of gold brancht out and ran through all the wood. He shewed me
+a bit of this vine, and I could clearly see and distinguish the
+gleaming of the gold that had grown up with it. He gave me his word
+that in some of the biggest and juiciest grapes seeds had been found
+at times which were of pure gold."
+
+"Now only look!" rejoined the stranger; "Can one wish for more than
+this? Gold not only grows as a mineral, but even as a plant. However I
+know a still better story. Once upon a time, when the weather was very
+damp, a man dropt some ducats in the rocky ground at a short distance
+from Cremnitz. In spite of every search they were not to be found.
+They must have fallen down among the stones, and have been buried in
+the rubbish. What came of it? Some years after, when no human being,
+not even the owner himself, thought any more of the loss, a strange
+sort of shrub was seen, which not a soul in the country had over met
+with. It flowered with wonderful beauty, and then formed a number of
+little pods. The pods soon after split like the fruit of the
+winter-cherry; and, when people went to look at it closelier, every
+skin contained a bright new Cremnitz ducat. Some fifty came to
+perfection; a good many, that had been nipt by the frost, were mere
+thin gold leaf. The oddest thing of all was that the ducats were
+always markt--for they took good care not to root up the beautiful
+weed--with the date of the year in which they ripened. Of late a wish
+has been entertained, if it were but possible, to graft a branch of a
+tree which peradventure might bear doubloons, on this lucrative bush,
+with a view of ennobling the fruit."
+
+The very peasants laught at this; for they fancied they saw the jest:
+Conrad, however, though he perceived it, misunderstood it so far that
+he did not answer a single word, but drunk with beer and rage only
+lifted up his fist, and thrust it so violently into the storyteller's
+face, that he instantly tumbled from his stool to the ground, and a
+stream of blood gusht out from his mouth and nostrils. On getting up
+again the stranger, though evidently the weaker, wanted to take his
+revenge; but the peasants rusht in between, and brought about a peace
+at least for the moment. This was the easier, as some travelling
+musicians were just come with their instruments into the inn, where
+Conrad in his drunkenness immediately took them into his pay.
+Notwithstanding the remonstrances of the host and hostess, he made
+them first play some songs, then some dances, and gave no ear to those
+who admonisht and reminded him that the music might be heard up in the
+great house.
+
+"Why should I trouble myself," he cried, "about the old man of the
+mountain? He may for once let his evil conscience be sung to sleep a
+little."
+
+He now began dancing, first alone, then with the hostess; and as the
+noise soon got abroad, several men and girls walkt in, who were glad
+to take part in this unexpected public ball. When the younger peasants
+however also stood up, Conrad rusht suddenly upon them, shoved them
+violently back, and imperiously commanded the musicians to be silent.
+
+"When clod-hoppers and such scum mingle with their betters," he bawled
+out, "one of us must retire from the foul contamination. But this I
+tell you, the first of you that budges, or even growls, I'll break
+every bone in his skin."
+
+The peasants, whether alarmed by his drunken fury, or perhaps only
+unwilling to incense him still more, drew back to their table. Conrad
+seated himself, after all the victories he had achieved, majestically
+in his armchair again, and rolled his eyes round with a look of
+defiance. As nobody uttered a word, he said with a loud voice: "Look
+ye, fellow miners, I am one of the oldest men about the works here
+above; see here, comrades, and ye ragamuffins there, host and peasants
+I mean, these dollars my prince and lord has gained from our pit."
+
+He threw a handful of silver on the table.
+
+"And old as I am, fellows, I was born and bred here in the mountains,
+and I never yet crawled down into the vallies and the plain. I can
+boast (and very few can say as much) I never yet saw any grain in the
+field, never yet saw corn growing or ripe atop of its pitiful straw.
+We work in gold and silver, are expert in mysteries and deep lore, hew
+blocks, amalgamate metals, fuse ores,--and the miserable louts there
+have to go about, as people have told me, hand and glove with rank
+dung, and to carry the stinking stuff into the fields and spread it
+out; and therefore I have a right to look upon their foul frocks as
+scandalous and vile; at all events no miner should ever shake hands
+with 'em, or drink out of the same mug. I am determined too to die a
+man of honour, as I have grown old, without ever setting foot under
+their thatch roofs, or on their threshing-floors; I have preserved
+myself four and fifty years from this disgrace, and heaven will
+continue to guard me from it while I live."
+
+Thus he went on prating, till at length he was so stupefied and
+exhausted that he fell asleep. The peasants, who now felt still
+sorelier affronted than before, had more than once cast significant
+looks on their cudgels. With these feelings they listened the more
+readily to the advice of the stranger, who had been washing himself in
+the meanwhile, to lift their insolent enemy, as he was fast asleep and
+seemed quite senseless, upon the top of one of their waggons, and to
+lay him, when they got to the bottom, in a corn field, that he might
+find himself there when he awoke from his fit. There was no difficulty
+in doing this, as the musicians had been paid and were gone, and the
+landlord was busied in the kitchen.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the depths of the forest, where the iron forges were at work, and
+where in the midst of dark rocks by the side of a waterfall the shouts
+and the hammering of the workmen resounded far and wide in rivalry
+with the roar of the torrent, Edward the next evening met the
+inspector of the mines, to talk over some business of importance with
+him, and to give him some instructions from Herr Balthasar. The fire
+in the vast furnace glared wildly through the dusk: the brighter glow
+of the half-molten iron, the myriads of dazzling sparks that spurted
+up from the anvil beneath the sledges of the sturdy smiths, the dark
+forms moving through the large boarded shed, into which the trunk of a
+tree in full leaf had forced its way, overshadowing the bellows in the
+corner with its branches--this singular night piece attracted all
+Edward's attention, when loud talking and laughter arose among the
+workmen. Some one had just been telling them how Conrad, when he was
+drunk, had been treated by the peasants the day before, and how to his
+extreme annoyance he had awaked that morning in the midst of a corn
+field. The story seemed to interest everybody so much, that their work
+was suffered to stand still for a while.
+
+"It serves him right," cried one of the broad-shouldered journeymen,
+"the vapouring coxcomb! He is the most insufferable and rudest miner
+in the whole country for miles round; and fancies he knows everything
+better than his neighbours, and is the cleverest fellow in the world."
+
+"They say he is running about like a madman, and as if the fiend had
+got hold of him," continued the narrator; "for now the very thing of
+which he has bragged from morning to night, is at an end: he has not
+only been forced to see corn growing in the field, he has lain in the
+midst of it."
+
+Edward turned to the speaker and askt: "Michael, are you quite well
+again already, that you come out thus into the open air?"
+
+"Yes, Sir," answered the smith; "thanks to you and our old master. My
+eye is gone of course; but how many of us have to work with but one!
+The spark of iron that burnt it out might have been still bigger. It
+was great pain, to be sure: that could not be otherwise; but with
+God's help I am become quite stout again after all. Herr Balthasar
+indeed has also done much toward helping me, and I owe a world of
+thanks to his care, his kindness, and his charity. And so we do all,
+everybody that belongs to him."
+
+Another man with one eye chimed in with these praises, and added: "It
+will fall out now and then that one or other of us gets maimed in this
+way; for fire is not a thing to be jested with: but God has blest us
+in giving us our old master; for even if a fellow were to become stark
+blind, he would never let him starve or want."
+
+The workmen were gone back to the anvil, and Edward then first
+observed that Eleazar had come into the hut, and was talking to a
+stranger. This was the travelling miner, the planner of the disgrace
+inflicted upon old Conrad, which of all mortifications he could have
+endured was the bitterest. Eleazar was scolding vehemently, and said
+it was quite impious to drive an old man by such tricks into a
+passion, nay to the brink of despair; for he had heard that Conrad was
+running franticly about the mountains, utterly deaf to all advice and
+consolation.
+
+The stranger excused and defended himself as well as he could; and as
+the sledges had now begun hammering again, while the roar of the
+bellows mingled with that of the waters, the quarrel was lost sound
+of, and only grew somewhat more audible, when Conrad himself in a fury
+rusht howling with swollen face and red starting eyes up to the
+disputants.
+
+"My honour!" he screamed, "my honour as a noble miner! my glory and
+my pride! all are gone, irrevocably and for ever! And by a pack of
+base boors, by a puny, cream-faced, chicken-breasted, outlandish
+starveling, have I been robbed of it. Amid all the mountains round,
+and doubtless in many others likewise, there was not a miner nor a
+mine-surveyor who could boast that he had never in his life been down
+in the beggarly plain. I awoke in the straw, in the corn, such was the
+rascals plot to ruin me. The ears were sticking in my nose and eyes
+when I came to myself, the sorry, brittle, bristly stuff, that I had
+never yet seen except in the pallet of my bed. Scandal and shame!
+Murder and house-breaking are not so detestable! and no law against
+it, no remedy, no mortal skill in the whole wide world."
+
+The others had enough to do to tear the strong old man away from the
+weakly stranger, on whom he wanted to take personal vengeance.
+
+As Conrad could not get satisfaction in this way, he sat down on the
+ground in a corner of the hut; and it being a holiday evening, the
+journeymen lay down round about him, some trying to comfort him,
+others jeering him. "Be pacified," said the man with one eye, "the
+whole affair is mere child's play. Had the fire burnt out your eye,
+had you had to endure unspeakable torments in your brain, and to toss
+through sleepless feverish nights, then indeed you would have
+something to complain of. But as it is, the whole matter is a sheer
+trifle, and all fancy."
+
+"That is your notion!" cried Conrad: "there never was a fool that
+could not talk and chatter like one. Your having lost your eye in your
+vocation is an honour to you, and you may be proud of it, and glory in
+it. But their sticking me down in the middle of their dung, where I
+was forced to lie like a tumble-down sheaf, or a truss of hay,--it has
+knockt half a dozen nails into my coffin. 'Conrad! Conrad! ninnyhammer!
+sack of straw!' so it seemed that everything was shouting in my ears.
+I have now seen the miserable, dirty ploughed land, in which the
+scurvy clowns have to breed up their bread. It's so flat down there,
+you can see nothing, far as eye can reach; and one hears no
+sledgehammers, no rush of waters, not even a boy pounding. It looks
+just like the end of the world; and I could never have fancied that
+the corn country and the plains, where more than half the world have
+to live, were so utterly mean and despicable."
+
+Thus they went on talking and squabbling, till some one for the sake
+of starting another subject began telling about the robberies, which
+their master, the old man of the mountain, was so incomprehensibly
+allowing to go on, doing next to nothing to find out the offender,
+although his losses, rich as he might be, must have amounted to very
+large sums. The stranger miner again spoke of his contrivances for
+making sure of catching the thief; and Conrad, who recollected the
+former conversation, shook his fist at him in silence.
+
+Eleazar seemed to enter into these strange schemes, and exulted with
+vulgar glee at the thought of thus at length getting hold of the
+rascal. As Edward eyed him in the dusky glare of the hut, and saw his
+face with its brown and yellow features unsteadily lit by the
+flickering flames, he thought that this disgusting and to him hateful
+monster had never lookt so hideous before: a secret shudder crept over
+him when he thought of Rose, and that this was the confident and
+bosom friend of a man whom he could not but honour, although his
+weaknesses and caprices formed so strong a contrast with his virtues.
+
+The smiths listened to the conversation with great earnestness: they
+believed the stranger; yet every one of them brought forward some
+superstitious device of his own, in which the speaker himself always
+put still greater reliance. Edward, in spite of the disgust this
+gossiping excited in him, was almost unconsciously held fast within
+the circle. Ghost stories were told; the wild huntsman was talkt of,
+and several said they had seen him; others had met with mountain
+sprites and goblins; then they got to forebodings and omens; and the
+conversation kept on growing livelier, the storytellers more eager,
+and the hearers more attentive.
+
+"Goblins," said Michael, "there are assuredly: for I myself ten years
+ago was well acquainted with one; and he was a very passable fellow to
+have to do with. The urchin foretold too in those days that I should
+lose my right eye about this very time."
+
+"What sort of a chap was that?" cried one of his comrades; "and why
+have you never told us this story before?"
+
+"When I had got through my apprenticeship," said Michael, "at the
+mountain-town twenty miles from here, and was now come to work at old
+master Berenger's forge, I used to be plagued at first and quizzed by
+the other journeymen, as every younker is when he is fresh. When I
+grew tired of laughing and grumbled, we came to blows; I gave and got
+my share, as in such cases always must happen. Among the rest there
+was a grizzly-bearded journeyman who worried and annoyed me most of
+all, a giant of a fellow, and all along with it so cunning, with such
+a sharp sting in his tongue, that one could not possibly help being
+vext, however stedfastly one might have made up ones mind and
+determined with oneself at morning prayers, not to allow the gall to
+mount into ones throat. In my distress I often cried with anger; for
+in the town I had fancied myself a clever fellow, and my unruly tongue
+had made many a one tremble. One night when I was thoroughly harast
+and woebegone, I was lying over there on the jutting crag all alone in
+a little bit of a room--the only other person in the house was a woman
+as old as the mountains--on the sudden I heard something stirring and
+scraping near me. I opened the window shutter at my head a little, and
+as the half moon peept into the room, I saw a tiny creature brushing
+away at my shoes. 'Who are you?' I askt the mite; for he lookt much
+like a boy of eleven years old.--'Hush!' said the little thing, and
+brusht away busily. 'I am Silly, the good comrade.'--'Silly?' askt I;
+'he's one whom I know nothing of.'--'Dame knows him, Ursul knows him,'
+said the little one, and put my shoes on the floor.--'Leave my things
+alone,' cried I.--'Make 'em clean, dust 'em, brush 'em neat,' answered
+the creature, and set to work at my Sunday hat.--'Is this farce never
+to end?' I called out to him; 'brush your own nose.'--He laught, and
+seemed to have no notion that I had any right to give orders in my own
+room. 'Art afraid, he then giggled out, of big Ulric? Need not be
+afraid. Ask him to morrow, when he sets at you again, where he got the
+brown fire scar atop of his head over the right eyebrow; he'll soon be
+meek as a lamb.' The creature was gone. I listened; there was nothing.
+I closed the window shutter again and fell asleep. In the morning it
+seemed to me as if the whole had been merely a dream. My shoes however
+were clean, my hat brusht. At length I askt old Ursul about the
+unknown boy. She was very deaf; and it was long before I could make
+her understand what I meant. 'Ah! she at last cried, has the little
+boy been with thee? Well, well, good betide thee, my tall lad. The
+tiny thing harms nobody, and brings luck to everyone he takes notice
+of. I have known him now well-nigh these forty years. He goes round to
+the houses where he likes the folks, and helps them in their
+housekeeping, now in one thing, now in another. Cleaning everything is
+his darling employment. He can't bear dust; dirty sooty pots and other
+kitchenware are his aversion; and he will often scrub at 'em with all
+his might. Bright brass vessels, shining copper pans, are things he is
+quite bewitcht with; pewter plates too he likes very well. Many a time
+has he brought me a groschen, bright and new, as if it had come from
+the mint.'--'But where does the imp live?' I cried.--'Where does the
+child live?' she said: 'people choose to call it goblin, or manikin;
+he himself signs himself Silly; that is his christen-name. But he is a
+kind good-natured sprite; and so thou must do nothing to hurt him,
+that he may not fall out with thee.' I had heard of such fellows, but
+before this could never believe in them. In the smithy the baiting
+began as usual; old Ulric put me quite in a fury; for they had remarkt
+my soreness, and this made them think it the better sport to badger
+me. I was just going to dash a redhot iron at the grizzly-bearded
+lubber's snow-white head, when Silly came across my thoughts. 'And the
+brown fire scar up there!' I said; 'you know, Ulric!' Thus I cried,
+without thinking there was anything in it, when on the sudden the old
+giant became so quiet, timid, and meek, that it made me stare my eyes
+out. From that moment forward the fierce fellow became my friend. Nay
+he was so humble in his behaviour to me, that I rose mightily in
+everybody's opinion, and thenceforth stood near the top of the board.
+When we grew better acquainted, he told me in confidence that in his
+youth he had once let himself be misled into engaging in an attempt to
+steal with the help of a servant maid. He had already crept into the
+room, supposing that everybody was asleep; but the smith being still
+awake had rusht against him with a fire brand snatcht up from the
+hearth; and thus his head and hair had been singed. He fancied that no
+mortal creature knew the story, of which he was heartily ashamed; and
+therefore he entreated me by all my hopes of heaven never to tell any
+one of it; indeed he was unable to make out how I could have learnt
+the affair. On this point however he was mistaken; for without his own
+confession I had never known a word of it. After this my life flowed
+along very peaceably, and the little creature came every now and then,
+and helpt me in what I had to do. Before long however we quarrelled.
+He often came upon me so suddenly, so unexpectedly, and many a time
+when nothing was further from my thoughts, that I was frightened to
+the very core. Whenever I said a word to him about this, he grew very
+pettish, and told me, I was an ungrateful fellow, not to acknowledge
+his manifold services. Now I had heard a little before from an English
+traveller, that the name of my goblin in his language meant _foolish_,
+and that in England such a creature was called Puck, or Robin
+Goodfellow; and when in the openness of my heart I told all this to my
+little guest, and at the same time, because he had just frightened me
+again, wanted to hang a bell about his neck, that I might always hear
+him when he was coming, the urchin became angry and furious beyond all
+measure, prophesied that I should lose my eye about this time, and
+vanisht with a great rumbling. Nor have I ever seen the brat again
+since."
+
+"Thou prince of all babbling braggarts!" cried Conrad, when the story
+was ended: "Can't you open your mouth, man, without lying? and yet you
+are already come to years. Folks that hold traffic for any time with
+spirits, grow shar-pwitted. The dealings of these creatures are with
+supernatural out-of-the-way things; and when they pay us a visit, the
+very terrour they arouse, till one grows used to them a bit, gives one
+something impressive and dignified."
+
+"More especially," cried Michael somewhat angered, "when one has been
+sleeping a night in a potato field."
+
+"That night," answered Conrad, "and that abominable mischance, that
+foul scandalous deed of a vagabond, will be the death of me; I know it
+as well as you. I shall not hold out much longer."
+
+"May be so," said the pale stranger; "yet you can't tell all this
+while whether I too may not be one of these goblins, who has been
+trying to cure you of your follies. To be good friends with you, my
+rough-spoken, overbearing sir, it was verily requisite that you should
+have treated me with a little more civility. Wisdom, experience,
+strength of mind, may often be learnt from those in whom one is the
+slowest to look for them. If however, my good companions, you would
+like to know which of you all will die first, I have a way of telling
+you that in a moment."
+
+They all seated themselves in a circle on benches and stools. The
+stranger pulled a plated box out of his pocket, while he continued:
+"When this little chip which I am going to light is burning, you must
+pass it quickly from hand to hand, and the person in whose hold it
+goes out will be the first of us to see the next world."
+
+All lookt at the stranger in anxious expectation. He thrust a little
+bit of wood down into the box, while he muttered some sounds, and then
+he drew it out again burning and flickering. Eleazar, who sat next to
+him, received it, gave it to his neighbour, and thus the match went on
+spitting sparks from one hand to another. It had finisht the round,
+and come back to Eleazar, who was very loth to take it, and was
+hastily passing it on, when on the sudden it flared brightly and then
+went out between his fingers. "Stupid stuff!" he cried sulkily, as he
+threw the bit of wood on the ground and jumpt up in a passion;
+"Nothing but empty superstition! And we are so good-natured as to let
+ourselves be made the tools of such nonsense."
+
+He lookt sharply at the stranger with his glaring eyes, then slapt him
+on the shoulder, and withdrew with him. Meanwhile the moon had arisen,
+and was pouring its bright light over the forests and rocks: the party
+went each his own way, and Edward too bent his steps homeward. As he
+was walking up the narrow footpath, he heard a warm discussion; it
+sounded like a quarrel; and when he drew nearer he fancied he
+distinguisht Eleazar and the stranger. He struck off therefore into
+another path, partly for the sake of avoiding them and not being
+forced to return in their company, partly too that he might not have
+the air of wishing to overhear what they were disputing about; for
+Eleazar was of a very suspicious temper, and mistrusted everybody,
+though he took it extremely ill if any one did not place an unlimited
+confidence in him.
+
+In the house everything was quiet: except that Rose was singing a
+simple air with a supprest voice, scarce audibly in her remote
+chamber. Edward was moved by it, and so strongly, that he could not
+help being surprised at his extreme susceptibility. Before he fell
+asleep, his melancholy had so increast, that he could hardly refrain
+from shedding tears.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A few days after this Edward observed the stranger coming out of Herr
+Balthasar's apartment. He wondered what such a person could have had
+to do there; and, when he entered the old man's room, he found him
+violently disturbed and enraged.
+
+"Always the same wild irrational feelings, the same superstitious
+foolery, ruling over mankind!" he cried, as Edward came in: "That
+miserable fellow there whom you met flatters himself he shall gain a
+large sum of money from me, if he can detect our thief by means of
+some senseless artifice. He won't come back again, the blockhead! for
+I have at length given vent for once to my feelings. There is nothing
+in the world so insufferable to me, as when people try, by means of
+certain phrases fabricated at random, or of certain traditional
+ceremonies, most of them a misgrowth out of historical blunders, or
+out of ancient usages which formerly had a very different meaning, to
+put themselves in connexion with what they call the invisible world,
+nay fancy, though they deem it an object of terrour, that they can
+master it thereby. In fact the greater part of mankind are crazed,
+without choosing to confess it: nay, the very wisdom of thousands is
+arrant madness."
+
+It seemed as if the worthy old man himself felt ashamed of his
+passionate vehemence; for he immediately began talking on other
+subjects. He made Edward sit down by him, and had some breakfast
+brought, which was quite against his usual custom. "Thus we shall be
+able," he then continued, "to settle a number of matters this morning,
+which on other days we may perhaps hardly find leisure for."
+
+The door was again lockt, and the servant was ordered not to interrupt
+their conversation on any account. "I feel," Herr Balthasar then
+began, "that I am growing old; I must take thought and provide for the
+future, as I know not whether I am doomed to die a slow lingering
+death, or a sudden unforeseen one. If I draw up no settlement of my
+property, if I die without a will, that spendthrift in my native town,
+who has made the beloved of my youth so unhappy, will be my next
+natural heir: and verily it appalls me to think that my large fortune
+may hereafter be misused to maintain that despicable glutton in his
+rioting. All my poor people, all the hands now actively employed in
+this spot, would again pine away and be condemned to beggary and
+sloth. It is a sacred duty to forestall this. What are your views, my
+young friend, for your future life?"
+
+Edward was a good deal embarrast by this address. Some time back
+indeed he had formed certain plans, and had even meant to speak to the
+old man about them, in the hope of profiting by his experience: but
+since his lovely foster-daughter had appeared to him in so different a
+light, since he had felt so strongly attracted toward her, he was no
+longer equally forward and confident. He could not make up his mind
+whether to declare or conceal his affection; for notwithstanding the
+familiarity with which Balthasar treated him, by many of the old man's
+feelings and views he found himself estranged and perplext.
+
+"You are hesitating," said the old man after a while; "you have not
+enough reliance in me, because you do not know me. I look upon it as
+one of my duties to provide as a father for you: you are honest,
+sensible, diligent, and kind-hearted; you are perfectly verst in the
+various branches of my business; and I feel a confidence in you such
+as I have seldom been able to put in anybody. Your exertions for me
+and my establishments, your prudence and integrity, everything obliges
+me, even though I entertained no affection for you, to leave you well
+and very richly provided, since I have so much to thank you for. But I
+should be glad to know, and I beg you to be perfectly candid to me,
+whether you could be prevailed upon by the possession of a large
+fortune to fix your abode in this country, in this house, or perhaps
+would prefer settling after my death as a rich man in the neighbouring
+town, engaging in some other occupation, and marrying, or, it may be,
+travelling about in search of the home which you may like the best.
+Tell me your thoughts on this subject now with entire sincerity: since
+you have a claim, which I will take care shall be a valid one, to a
+third of my property, I cannot well make my final arrangements till I
+have learnt your intentions: for my establishments here and up the
+mountains, my manufactories, machines, mines, and various
+institutions, I also look upon as my children, and they must not be
+left orphans at my death."
+
+Edward sank still deeper in thought. Never could he have expected this
+generosity and fatherly love from the old man; never had it occurred
+to him that this friend might one day make him rich and independent.
+This speech had changed the footing on which he stood with Herr
+Balthasar; he thought he should now be better able to confess boldly
+what for some days had been busying and disquieting his mind. He led
+the way by an assurance of his gratitude, saying that what the old man
+meant to do for him was far too much, that his relations after all had
+still a title to his affection, and that a great deal less would make
+him happy and as rich as he could desire.
+
+"I am aware of all that you can urge to me on this score," said the
+old man interrupting him: "these relations of mine, even the
+scapegrace son and the good-for-nothing father, will be taken care of,
+so that they shall not have any reasonable ground of complaint. But I
+know that you have sacrificed the best years of your youth and
+strength to me. To a gay spirit like yours, to a person of your lively
+friendly temper, your long residence amid these joyless mountains must
+have been anything but pleasant. You many years since bade adieu to
+every sort of merriment and amusement: everything that charms youth,
+music, dancing, even society, plays, travelling, the literature of the
+day, you have given up for my sake; because you resolved, as I well
+markt, and that too very early, to suit yourself entirely to my
+inclinations. Scarce one man in a thousand could have done this; and
+you were this one: you have done it too without losing anything of
+your good nature, and kindly obliging disposition. If therefore you
+would like to settle elsewhere hereafter and in a totally different
+line of life, I cannot have the slightest objection to it, nor will it
+occasion the least curtailment of your fortune. But you must tell me
+your determination frankly, if you have already made up your mind, or
+can make it up on the instant: for in case you choose to remain here
+and carry on my business, I must secure you the means of exerting
+yourself usefully, by a number of arrangements and explicit
+incontrovertible injunctions in my will; therefore speak."
+
+Edward replied with emotion: "Heaven grant you may long remain as a
+father amongst us! Whether however I am to look on this country as my
+home or no, depends solely upon you: a word from you, and I can
+immediately resolve to spend the whole of my life here, even if you
+should be spared to us many years longer. But if you cannot or will
+not speak that word, I must sooner or later seek out another home; and
+I fear that in that case even your noble bequest will fail to procure
+me that happiness, which I must needs value higher than riches."
+
+"I don't understand you, my young friend," answered Balthasar; "your
+words are a riddle to me."
+
+"Your generosity," continued Edward, "and your affectionate
+benevolence have brought up a poor orphan girl; you have behaved like
+a father to her; and her fate must therefore be decided by you and
+none else. Give me that dear maiden, give me Rose for my wife, and I
+will live and die on this mountain, without a wish beyond it."
+
+The old man's face suddenly darkened and put on an expression which
+might be called terrific. He started up hastily, walkt several times
+up and down the room, then sat down again sighing, and began in a
+bitter tone: "So! this is it! You are in love! Is it not so? I am
+doomed again to hear this ill-omened, this calamitous word! I am
+doomed to witness this frenzy, this dark, heart-rending, heart-sickening
+absurdity, even in you, in a man of your sense! And all, all that one
+might otherwise esteem, and look upon as reasonable, is swallowed up
+in this whirlpool, in which horrour, madness, wild passions, carnal
+lust, and capricious folly are frothing and boiling all at once. This
+marriage however, Edward, can never, never be."
+
+"I have said too much," answered Edward calmly, "to be satisfied with
+a bare refusal. Tell me what are your plans for the dear girl, and I
+shall learn to bear them with resignation."
+
+"And she, the little fool!" interposed the old man hastily, "has she
+too tumbled in love with you? Has the luckless word already past to
+and fro betwixt you?"
+
+"No," replied Edward; "her pure youth is still hovering in that happy
+state of simplicity, which only desires that tomorrow may be just like
+today and yesterday. She has no wishes but the simple ones of a
+child."
+
+"So much the better," said Balthasar; "she will be ready to act
+rationally then, and will not throw any hinderance in the way of my
+plan. Surely you, who are tolerably well acquainted with me, ought to
+have perceived long ago that I had designed the child for Eleazar. I
+mean her to marry, to live in sober wedlock, not to dream away and
+dote in what you call love."
+
+"And will she," askt Edward, "be happy with him for her husband?"
+
+"Happy!" cried the old man, bursting into a kind of loud laugh;
+"happy! What is a man to think of when he hears that word? There is no
+happiness; there is no unhappiness; only pain, which we are to welcome
+to our arms, only self-contempt, beneath which we must bow our necks,
+only hopelessness, which we must make the partner of our table and of
+our bed. Everything else is a lie and a trick. Life is a spectre,
+before which, whenever I pause to look upon it, I stand shuddering:
+and nothing but toil and activity, and straining all my faculties, can
+enable me to endure and to despise it. I could envy the loom and the
+spinning-jenny, if such a feeling, such a wish had any sense in it:
+for what is our consciousness but a consciousness of misery? what is
+our existence but an unveiling of the madness, the frenzy of all life?
+to which we either abandon ourselves in chill patience, or weep and
+struggle against it convulsively, or play through a caricature of
+happiness and joy, while in our dreary heart we are fully aware that
+it is all a wanton lie."
+
+"Neither then must I ask you," continued Edward quietly and
+sorrowfully, "whether you love Eleazar as a friend, whether he is
+truly worthy of friendship and esteem; for all freedom of will, every
+movement of feeling is crusht by these dark thoughts."
+
+"As if I had not felt," said Balthasar, "and wept and laught, like
+other men. The difference is only, that I soon stript truth naked, and
+that I acknowledged and felt my own baseness, and that of all mankind,
+of the world, and everything in it. Eleazar! he and you! If we are to
+make use of such words, my friend, I love you; all the fibres of my
+heart twine fast around you; awake and in my dreams you stand before
+me: your being miserable might reduce me to despair. And this
+raw-boned, loathsome Eleazar! If I am to give a name to this folly of
+my nature, I hate him; he is quite nauseous to me, whenever he stands
+before my eye or before my imagination: the bile which has tainted his
+eyes and face, his squinting glances, the twitches of his nose when he
+is speaking, while his long teeth stare out as if he were grinning,
+his shrugging up his shoulders at every word, whereby his odious
+snuff-coloured coat is every moment dragged upward and lays bare the
+skinny bones of his wrists, all this, his way of drawing in his
+breath, his hissing voice, is so revolting to my bodily senses, and
+always excites my wrath so strongly, so painfully, that no other
+created being ever gave me the same torment; and for this very reason,
+because there is so much I have to make amends to him for, because
+heaven and nature have so utterly neglected him, must he become my
+chief heir, my son. Besides he has long known of it, and is pleased
+with the prospect of this union."
+
+"I only half understand you," answered Edward: "you are fighting
+against your own feelings, you are wilfully putting yourself on the
+rack. I am not arguing now against your promise, since you have
+already given it to that man: but why do you cling to this image of
+life, that harasses and tortures you? Why not open your mind to those
+joyous feelings, to those sunny thoughts, which lie just as near, nay
+nearer?"
+
+"As you please," said the old man,--"for you, but not for me. Day
+after day has taught me that very few men really live. Most of them
+are in a state of ceaseless dissipation: nay what they call thought
+and reflexion is itself the very same thing, a mere attempt to raise a
+mist around the nature and inborn feelings of their hearts, and to
+keep themselves from discerning them. And arrogance starts up, the
+consciousness of their dignity and strength goads and spurs them on,
+till they rave with ungovernable pride. This too I have known in my
+youth, and outlived it. Then I loved, as I deemed. How clear and
+rosy-hued, how bright and smiling the world lay before me! My heart
+too was as it were bathed in pure ether, blue, boundless, with sweet
+hope, like morning clouds, floating and scattering freshness through
+it. And the primary stock of this love, what is it? Silliness, animal
+passion, which intertwines itself with our seemingly tender feelings,
+which tricks itself out with blossoms, and then eats canker-like into
+them, to make them too shed their leaves, to trample that, which it
+called heavenly, in the mire, and--far worse than the comparatively
+innocent beasts of the field, that are driven by a blind instinct
+without anything of volition--to deface and spoil everything which but
+now it worshipt as holy. From this conflagration then shoot forth ever
+and anon those disasterous sparks, which again grow into children, and
+again awaken to the consciousness of woe, if not of sin. And so the
+wheel goes evermore round and round, through a measureless viewless
+eternity. And the charm, the beauty of the world! the fresh bloom of
+its appearances! Is not everything here again grounded upon that which
+nature teaches me to loathe and abhor? It is perhaps by this feeling
+alone, as an invisible inward prompter, that I understand what people
+mean by beauty. This, wheresoever it is found, in flower or tree, in
+human being, animal, or plant, takes its rise always out of filth and
+abominations. The lily and the rose falls to pieces in your hand, your
+touch withers it, and it leaves only rottenness behind: the youth's,
+the virgin's beauty and loveliness--look at it without any
+self-imposed illusion, without the brutish sting of the senses--is
+horrour and putridity and everything we revolt from! a few hours of
+death, a corpse dug out of its tomb, make this woe manifest to
+all.--And I myself! what is there within me but death? a ghost and a
+skeleton! the stench of my own corpse haunts me; and in all my
+feelings there is madness, in all my thoughts despair."
+
+"Cannot religion then," replied Edward, "cannot philosophy, cannot the
+sight of the happiness you spread around you, lighten this gloomy
+mood, this melancholy, which is wasting your life away?"
+
+"Alas, my dear good friend," continued the old man, "I assure you that
+all I have read of those christian anchorets and self-tormentors, who
+out of overheated zeal transformed their life into a never-ending
+martyrdom, for the sake of stifling every impulse and thought save the
+highest of all, is less, far less, than what I have practist on myself
+since I became conscious of the cheerlessness of my existence. I too
+had once found a home for my whole soul in those regions in which the
+faithful feel the presence and the love of the deity, full of
+confidence and a blessed serenity. My spirit was transfigured; all my
+feelings were purified; my whole nature seemed as it were unfolding
+itself in a single blossom; all within me was bliss and calm; and in
+this heavenly tranquillity there was a sweet impulse to new
+contemplations, a ravishing excitement to plunge yet deeper into the
+flood of joy. And what was the end of it?"
+
+"Pray go on," said Edward.
+
+"I discovered,"--thus the old man after a pause resumed his
+speech--"that here too sensuality, delusion, and folly, had again made
+me their captive. Those voluptuous tears which I often shed in my
+seemingly fervent devotion, which I took for the purest gush from my
+heart, even they sprang only out of sensuality and a state of bodily
+intoxication. My animal impulses had put on the mask of spirit; and
+the deliciousness of those tears soon seduced me into endeavouring to
+stir up such emotions artificially, into abusing this mysterious close
+relation to infinite love as a stimulus of the most refined sensual
+excitement, which I then extinguisht in a rapture of tears. I was
+appalled by this lie in my soul, when I detected and could no more
+deny it; and the fearfullest desolation of despair, the dismallest
+solitude of death closed round me again, when the deception had been
+broken, and the vision would no more descend among the apish toys of
+my imagination. When after this I wisht to pursue my inquiries beneath
+the light of truth, horrour itself met me in the very spot where but
+now, like a scene-painting, my rapture had been standing. I no longer
+felt doubt, for even in this there is still joy; I had no certainty,
+for even in the most terrible there is life; but the dead blank of the
+uttermost indifference, a barren enmity to everything holy, a scorn of
+all emotion, as being sheer foppishness and silliness, lay like a large
+field of snow in the wildernesses of my soul.--'Soul! spirit!'--thus
+I often cried to myself laughing, and even now I cannot refrain from
+laughter,--'can there be anything else? And if this be so, in what
+does spirit differ from matter? where is the party wall between life
+and death?' In the spectral phantom of life, in the sphinx-born riddle
+of being, in that terrific fiat out of which the worlds sprang forth,
+to roll convulsively onward and evermore onward, till they can drop
+back into rest and nothingness--in this all contradictions and
+contrarieties are mixt up and confounded, to petrify into an
+indissoluble curse."
+
+Edward was silent at first for a while: then not without emotion he
+spake the following words: "I cannot understand what you say except in
+part; for the bent of your thoughts and feelings I am an utter
+stranger to. Whatever sorrows I have undergone, whatever unprofitable
+or cheerless meditations I have indulged in, still I have never
+strayed into these deserts, which lie, it would seem, at the horizon
+of all such as abandon themselves with too passionate intensity to
+captious inquiries. I have heard and read of strong minds, who in the
+recklessness of passion, or in the extravagancies of love, strove to
+burst the bolts of nature and of life, in order to become one with the
+universe and to possess it. Despair, self-loathing, hatred of God,
+have often been the doom and the unhappy lot of men thus under the
+mastery of their impulses. We feel no doubt that reason is not
+absolutely sufficient to reveal all that we wish to understand, to
+reconcile all that we wish to see in harmony with the workings of the
+deity. But it may be dangerous to seek for help in the regions of our
+feelings and imagination, to give ear to our visionary forebodings.
+They try to set up their own supremacy, and may easily fall out with
+reason, though at the outset they seem to uphold her. If they gain
+their aim, and this noble mediatorial power, which seated in the
+centre of all our spiritual powers, irradiating and swaying them,
+first converts them into true powers, is overthrown and cast into
+chains by them, then each of our higher impulses begets a giant as its
+son, that will war against God. For doubt, wit, unbelief, and scoffing
+are not the only faculties that fight against God: our imagination,
+our feelings, our enthusiasm do the same, though at first they seem to
+supply faith with so safe and mysterious an asylum. Consequently, my
+dear, my honoured friend, since our life is surrounded on all sides by
+these dizzying precipices, and every path, whatever course it takes,
+leads to them, what remains for us to do, except to trust with a
+certain kind of light-heartedness, which perhaps is also one among the
+noblest powers of our nature, with cheerfulness, gaiety, and humility,
+in the existence and the love of that infinite inexhaustible love, of
+that supreme wisdom, which puts on every shape, and can weave into its
+woof even what to us seems worthless and incongruous? so as to bear
+our life safely and easily, to take pleasure in our task-work, and to
+be happy, which we cannot else be, in the midst of affluence itself,
+making others happy as far as we are able. Is not this too piety and
+religion? I for my part have never met with them under any other
+form."
+
+"All this might be so," answered the old man breaking off the
+discussion, "if the root of life sprang out of love."
+
+"Does not every flower tell us so?" cried Edward, "every smile of a
+child, the meek thankful eye of the sufferer whom we relieve, the
+glance of the bride----"
+
+He stopt short suddenly; for Rose's bright childly glance beamed at
+these words with all its might through his soul. When he lookt up
+again, he was greatly surprised to see his old friend's eyes wet with
+tears.
+
+"Edward," said he greatly moved, "you shall know all. Rose is no
+adopted child; she is my own daughter, my own blood. Alas! this again
+is another deplorable story of human weakness and vanity. While I was
+living here alone, a young beautiful girl came as a maid-servant into
+my house. Her parents were exceedingly poor, but she had been well and
+religiously brought up. She was honest and virtuous. She was so fond
+of solitude that, when she had done her work, she used to withdraw
+from all society, especially from that of the young. In a very
+singular manner she attacht herself to me; her devotion or love had
+almost a superstitious character. She revered me, wretch as I am, like
+a supernatural being. Never yet had my passions been moved by any
+girl, and least of all were they so by her, beautiful as she was: I
+was an old man, and fancied I loved her like a father, and thought of
+looking out a husband for her. How it happened, I should not be able
+to tell you; everything might seem so untrue. She became pregnant. I
+had already long felt dismay at my own weakness and meanness. Shame,
+despair, dread of the world, waged war within my soul, and made me
+their recreant slave. I sent her away in my distress, provided for
+her, richly, prodigally; but my heart was turned to stone. Grief,
+sadness, doubts in herself and in God, bitter mortification that she
+had forfeited my love, or was unworthy of it, while she burst into
+fearful accusations against herself, as the most innocent are the
+readiest to do, snapt the thread of her life. Had I seduced her? Did I
+not really love her? No, a miserable seducer I was not; but I had not
+the courage to acknowledge my sin, and to reward the love of her
+innocent heart. And thus I was a base wretch. She died, and I regarded
+myself with still more hopeless scorn. The poor creature's parents,
+whom I placed in comfortable circumstances, blest me, old villain as I
+was, for not punishing their daughter's shame, and for bringing up her
+child in my house. This child, this fair girl, whom I love, beyond
+perhaps what is allowable--for her happiness is my thought day and
+night--will now perchance also be sacrificed to woe; for a destiny
+stronger than I constrains me to give her to Eleazar as his wife. Go
+now to him; he is to be my son-in-law; tell him the wedding will take
+place in a week; and if you cannot stay with me afterward, my dearest
+Edward, whom I also love as my own son, the fortune I designed for you
+shall be paid to you ... and we too shall never meet again. Go now."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He sobbed so violently that he could not say more; and Edward went
+away in a most strange state of feeling, to look for Eleazar, who
+lived in a house by himself lower down in a narrow valley, carrying on
+his favorite pursuits there.
+
+Eleazar was sitting in a loose flame-coloured bed-gown before a small
+furnace with a still. The room was but dimly lighted; the curtains had
+been let halfway down, and the lower panes were blockt up with large
+books. Everything was in the utmost disorder, so that Edward could
+scarcely find a place to sit down in. Vials and retorts, crucibles,
+pans, hooks, cylinders, and all sorts of chemical instruments were
+standing and lying about. A strange vapour from the fire filled the
+room. With a surly air Eleazar put down the bellows, and came out of
+his corner. He only half heard what Edward had to tell him, and said
+at length with his croaking voice: "In a week? so soon? I shall never
+have finisht my great work by that time. Could not the old fellow wait
+patiently for another month or two? Why the silly child has not even a
+notion yet what marriage means."
+
+Edward was utterly disgusted with these peevish words, and with the
+heartless ingratitude displayed in them. He called to mind how much
+Balthasar had been saying to him about madness as the real groundwork
+and substance of life; and it seemed to him as if this were actually
+the foundation on which both father and son-in-law were about to erect
+their melancholy dwelling. The fate of the innocent girl cut him to
+the heart.
+
+"Only lay your request before our master," he said indignantly, "and
+no doubt he will allow you to enjoy your freedom some time longer. If
+you were to be very pressing, perchance he might even give up the plan
+of the marriage altogether; for it seems to me, you have no very
+mighty anxiety about Rose's hand."
+
+"Softly!" said Eleazar, throwing off his bed-gown and putting on his
+coat very much at his ease; "softly!" He seated himself again before
+the furnace, and tasted the liquour while he clarified it: "Be it so;
+for then his fortune will all keep together, and thus I shall be able
+at length to carry on my operations on a grand scale. But the old man
+will never listen to what anybody says; what he has once determined
+and pronounced must be fulfilled, though reason itself were to go to
+the bottom. Still this should not annoy me a jot, unless that
+outlandish raggamuffin had put me out of all patience, and made my
+choler boil over. One ought to have the right of knocking such
+mischievous scoundrels on the head."
+
+"What is the matter with you?" askt Edward somewhat surprised.
+
+"Have you already forgotten that miserable vagabond," continued
+Eleazar with a ferocious look, "who played off his stupid trick upon
+us the other day at the forge? I am to die soon. This was the only
+thing wanting to set all our affairs in the most dismal confusion. But
+here, here at this furnace, I have it already preparing, the only sure
+safeguard against all such idle fears; and as I have succeeded with
+the help of wisdom in turning unsightly things into gold, so I shall
+not fail in producing that elixir for which so many mighty minds have
+heretofore sought and laboured, and often in vain."
+
+Edward went nearer to him. "In truth," he exclaimed, "you amaze me.
+You talk about these mysterious matters with such a careless security,
+as I have never yet met with; and it perplexes me the more since my
+reason tells me that your pursuit is a mere chimera, and the discovery
+of such an art a fable."
+
+"Reason!" cried the little man, drawing up his withered face into
+numberless wrinkles. "This reason methinks is the true chimera, and
+never spawned anything but fables. Take these gold bars, which I cast
+in this form yesterday, after extracting the metal last week from some
+lead: there lies a touchstone; scratch it; and then tell me whether it
+is not true genuine gold."
+
+Edward took up the bars, put them to the test, and found them genuine.
+"You must either fancy," continued the alchemist, "that I begin by
+getting a heap of ducats, and then melt them down like a fool, or else
+you cannot have another word to say. Will you keep these two bars as a
+remembrance? I make you a present of them."
+
+Edward lookt at the stunted figure with astonishment, then laid down
+the bars on the table again, and said: "No, I won't rob you; the
+present would be much too valuable. But you should not let these vast
+treasures lie about here at random thus mixt up with all the rest of
+your things: it is holding out a lure to thieves and robbers."
+
+"Nobody will look for gold in my house," answered the other, busying
+himself again at his furnace: "nobody will recognize gold under this
+ungainly form. Besides there are means after all for keeping off
+thieves and house-breakers, which none of you have ever yet dreamt of.
+If however you still doubt me, bring me a dollar next time, make a
+secret mark on it, and I will give it you back turned into gold. But
+the matter must not go further. And then you will no longer question
+my chance of discovering the elixir of life. Only I should like to
+punish that beggarly vagrant, that rascally herb-culler, and pitiful
+conjuror, as he deserves. Let him only come for once into my quarters!
+With all his contemptible jugglery, I would astound him! I am so
+enraged with the fellow, the blood runs into my head at the very
+thought of him."
+
+"How," interposed Edward, "came that paltry jest to make so deep an
+impression upon you?"
+
+"Jest!" screamed Eleazar; "Heavens! is it a jest that I have ever
+since been a prey all over to these hellish tortures, this ghastly
+fear of death? My own skeleton, my own rotting carcase is standing
+perpetually before my eyes. Old Conrad too over yonder has fallen
+sick, and is bewailing the loss of his reputation. Such a knave as
+this stranger is just as bad as a murderer: nay worse: for he pours
+the poison down ones throat in the midst of a large party without
+himself risking life or limb." He jumpt up.--"Hark you!" he cried and
+threw his arms round Edward: "Yes! the old man is right; the wedding
+must be very soon, as soon as possible, tomorrow, aftertomorrow, to
+make all safe. I can go on discovering my life-preserving elixir after
+the marriage: can't I? One shall not die all at once in a moment,
+friend Ned; flesh and bone still keep pretty tightly together."
+
+He laught so loud that he shook with it, and the writhings of his face
+squeezed the tears out of his goggle eyes. Edward who had never yet
+seen the sullen creature laugh, shuddered at the sight. When the old
+man grew calmer, he told him that he could not possibly now
+communicate this wish of his to Herr Balthasar; and that the affair
+would probably proceed in the way already settled. He felt glad, when
+he had left the room and house behind him, and could again breathe in
+the open air. His determination to quit the place was stronger than
+ever; he even resolved, if it would hasten his journey, to forgo the
+great reward which Herr Balthasar intended for him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After a restless and almost sleepless night, Edward next morning found
+the lovely charming girl on the grass plot before the house. She was
+very talkative, but he was in no mood to carry on a conversation.
+
+"O dear mister Edward," said Rose at length; "you don't seem to like
+me a morsel any more, you are making such sour faces at me."
+
+"I shall soon be forced to leave you and this country," answered the
+young man; "and that makes me so sorrowful."
+
+"You be forced! you leave us!" exclaimed Rose in dismay: "Can there be
+anything that should force you? Good heavens! it never yet struck me
+that such a thing could be possible. I always thought you belonged to
+us, just like the great house in which we live, or the steep green
+hill facing us."
+
+"I have now heard from your father also, what I could not have
+believed, that you are to marry Herr Eleazar, and that very soon."
+
+"Did not I tell you so?" answered Rose: "Ay, ay, that is to be my
+fate, and I only wish I could make the crabbed man a little merrier.
+Time will pass away terribly slowly with him. But perhaps I shall then
+be able to go to the town some time or other, see a bit of the world,
+hear some music and have a dance; for I think at all events an old
+husband must do something now and then to please his young wife. And
+for all these matters I had counted very much upon you."
+
+"No, my child," said Edward gravely and gloomily; "I am the very last
+person you must count upon; for to say the truth, this marriage of
+yours is the chief reason that forces me to quit the neighbourhood. It
+would break my heart to stay here."
+
+Edward repented of having been hurried so far by his passion, as
+thoughtlessly to allow these words to escape his lips; the more so,
+when he saw the lovely girl go away from him, starting back as if in
+affright, and then relieve her opprest heart by a flood of tears. He
+tried to take hold of her hand and comfort her; but she pusht his
+angrily back, and then said after a while, when she had got the better
+of her violent sobbing and was able to speak again: "No, leave me
+alone, for we are now separated from each other for ever. I could
+never have thought that you would have behaved to me so ill; for you
+had always been so kind to me. Oh God! how forlorn I am now! Yes I
+meant to love my husband Eleazar with all my heart, and to do
+everything to please him; for heaven must grant him thus much, since
+he is hated and shunned by all mankind just like a leper or an evil
+spirit. I too can't bear him, if I were merely to follow my own
+feelings; for he is a thoroughly utterly odious creature. But for his
+sake, and out of love to my father, and for your sake too, Edward, I
+had made up my mind so peaceably to all this; and therefore I thought
+that you too would perhaps be very willing to stay here now, or might
+even do so a little for my sake, in case everything was not just as
+you wisht it."
+
+"How so, Rose? is it partly for my sake that you have come to this
+determination?" askt Edward in amazement.
+
+"O yes!" answered the child, and her eyes had recovered their kind
+look; "but now I clearly see that I had reckoned without my host. You
+don't deserve it, indeed you don't like that I should be so fond of
+you. And now if you are really going away, it will then be indeed a
+shocking thing that I am to marry Eleazar: for in this lonely place,
+without you to help me and stand by me, he would seem just like a
+ghost."
+
+"But how is it possible?"--said Edward interrupting her--
+
+"Let me finish my speech!" exclaimed Rose hastily; "and then I will go
+away and cry again; for that will very often be the case now. I
+thought thus: if Eleazar is so cross, Edward is so goodnatured; and
+now I shall never be a day without seeing him, and he will talk to me,
+and perhaps give me books; for my father, people tell me, won't have
+so much authority over me when once I am married. In this way I might
+be better able to forget my woful husband, and might always think of
+you when you were away, and be glad and happy as soon as you came back
+to me. For thus do people live, and the parsons all order us to do so,
+with our hearts half in heaven, and the other half on this bad earth.
+Thus I should have kept my strength and spirits, so as even to make my
+unhappy Eleazar more cheerful at times; but if you go away ... then ... oh
+where shall I find any comfort! Then I shall soon die ... or only wish
+that my father ... or my plague of a husband would make haste and die.
+Alas! now that you don't love me any more, I am very very unhappy."
+
+She began crying anew, and still more violently than before. Edward
+eyed her for a long time with a searching glance, and lost himself in
+a maze of thought. Whenever men, thus he mused to himself, give
+themselves up to dark phantoms, and make caprices and extravagancies
+the main stock of their life, mishap and horrour will spring up of
+their own accord under their feet. Life is so tender and mysterious,
+so pliant and volatile, and so easily takes every shape, that there is
+no seed it will not readily receive. Evil sprouts up and runs wild in
+it; and brings up the intoxicating grape from the nether world, and
+the wine of horrour. Here in this childish innocence and simplicity
+are already slumbering the germs of the most fearful events and
+feelings, if time and opportunity should but forward and ripen them;
+and close at my side stands the fiend tempting me to become the
+gardener in this beauteous garden of the deadliest fruits.
+
+He awoke from his study and said mournfully; "Dear child, thou dost
+not yet understand thyself, thy destiny, or the world. I am not
+frivolous enough to enter into thy plans, or to encourage thee in them
+in the innocency of thy youth. What thou wishest cannot, must not be;
+and in another year, or less perhaps, thou wilt see thyself how
+impossible it is. We should both become wretched, and to deepen our
+misery should despise each other. May heaven guide thy steps: but I
+love and prize thee so much, that I cannot ruin thee. Pray to God: he
+will support thee."
+
+"He talks for all the world just like my father!" cried Rose, and
+walkt away, half in sorrow, half in anger; while Edward went musing to
+his room.
+
+"Is Balthasar right then after all?" he said to himself; "is human
+nature so utterly depraved? or is it not rather the business of
+energy, resolution, and reason, to transform those very qualities in
+us as in all other things into virtues and excellencies, which else if
+they are neglected would become malignant and base?"
+
+He then wrote a long letter to Herr Balthasar, and once more told him
+positively that he must quit his house and the country, if the
+marriage of Eleazar and Rose was irrevocably fixt; and that he would
+readily forgo his promist fortune, if Balthasar would only afford him
+some degree of support in his plans for his future life. He again
+however called upon him as a father to consider the unsuitable, nay
+the shocking nature of the projected match. He conjured him to look at
+the happiness of his child with a steadier, more impartial eye. At the
+same time he begged for another, a last interview, and said he had a
+request which the old man must needs grant him, if he would have him
+leave the mountains with honour, with peace of mind, and without
+repenting of the years he had past there.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was with a very heavy heart that Edward went to his old master. The
+whole destiny of mankind lay darkly and with a crushing weight upon
+his breast. Anguishing was the conviction he felt, that in the very
+sweetest and purest innocence all the roots of evil and sin were
+already lurking, and that there needed only chance and caprice to
+foster their growth, for them to put forth their calamitous fruits.
+His situation was so completely changed, his chief wish was that the
+house which had so long been his home, the country he was become so
+fond of, were but far behind him, that gradually and with a steady
+hand he might eraze all the recollections of the time he had spent
+there. He was resolved that at all events he would not be a witness of
+the disasters to which, he was persuaded, the dark spirits brooding
+there must infallibly give birth; that he would not stay to behold
+them; for he did not feel sure of being so firm, that his own passion
+and frailty might not lend a hand in bringing down the impending ruin.
+Heartily as at this moment he abhorred such a thought, he yet knew
+full well from observation and experience that no man is always the
+same, and that even the best are not braced with the same strength at
+all hours: he knew how the sophistry of our passions will come athwart
+all our good feelings and resolves, and that the more secure they feel
+the more easily it trips them up and overthrows them.
+
+He found the old man in a serious mood, but without the agitation he
+had feared. "Come and shake hands with me," cried Balthasar as he
+entered, "although you choose to leave me. How I shall support your
+absence I cannot yet conceive, anymore than I should know how I could
+live without light and warmth: but nevertheless I shall be forced to
+learn this lesson, if nothing can alter or upset your determination."
+
+"My fatherly friend," Edward began, "can you then persist in your
+determination, which to me is so utterly incomprehensible? Is it quite
+impossible for you to consent to what alone will make me happy, and
+assuredly will make your daughter so too?"
+
+"I had hoped, my dear friend," answered the old man very mildly, "you
+would not have toucht on this string again, which thrills far too
+painfully through my whole frame. Pray convince yourself that this
+long-formed resolution, which you if you please may term a whim, I
+cannot possibly revoke; it is much too firmly intertwined with my
+whole being. What we do from conviction as we call it, from pondering
+about a matter and balancing it first in one scale and then in the
+other, over and over again, is seldom worth much. Whatever is
+permanent, characteristic, genuine in our nature, is instinct,
+prejudice, call it superstition;--a conclusion without question or
+inquiry, an act because one cannot help it. Such is this of mine! You
+may look upon it as a vow, a solemn oath which I have sworn to myself,
+and which I cannot violate without the most atrocious perjury against
+my own heart. I owe my poor good Eleazar much amends for having let my
+soul entertain and cherish disgust, bitterness, and aversion toward
+him for so many years.--And as to the happiness of the pair!--on this
+point my opinion is just the reverse of yours. He is wise, sensible,
+virtuous; he is happy already, and will keep so, whether he marry or
+not. It is an act of condescension in a person of his grave character
+to take up with my daughter. A man who has got the philosopher's stone
+can never be harmed by any of earth's paltry troubles. And my Rose! O
+my dear friend, the truly dreadful thing would be, if I were to give
+her to you to wife: this being, this child, that I cannot help loving
+so dearly, that I fold up with remorse and sorrow in my heart, would
+go to wreck like others amid the pleasures of the world, in self-will
+and frivolity, in dissipation and recklessness. You would indulge her
+out of love in all sorts of follies, and so make her and yourself
+miserable. No, it cannot be on any terms; and you yourself will thank
+me hereafter for my reasonable refusal. And now not a word more,
+dearest Edward, on this subject: let us come to your other request,
+which I can safely promise to grant you."
+
+Edward began, with a cheerless spirit, to reckon up the damage his
+master had sustained from the robberies that were carried on in such
+an inexplicable manner, and urged the absolute necessity that, before
+he left the country, effective measures should at length be taken to
+get some trace of the thief. The old man wanted to break off the
+discussion; but Edward reminded him of his promise. Above all was
+Balthasar averse to a proposal made by his young friend, to set a
+spring-gun secretly in the warehouse, whereby the audacious robber
+might at length be caught and punisht. The old man regarded such a
+measure as impious, unlawful, and nearly akin to wilful murder.
+
+Edward tried to refute these notions, and at last said: "You owe it to
+yourself and to me to adopt this plan, which I too am far from
+approving unconditionally, but which in the present instance is the
+only remedy. I need not again state the amount of the sums which have
+been stolen from you time after time during the last three years and
+more; they would make a large fortune, so large a one that many a
+wealthy man would have been ruined by such losses. It is your
+unaccountable indifference that has thus emboldened the thief, who, it
+is clear, must be accurately acquainted with all our goings on.
+Whenever a watch has been set, nothing has happened. But as soon as we
+were off our guard again, no bolts, no bars however strong, no
+precautions however well-judged, availed us. William, and many other
+persons equally innocent, we have eyed with misdoubt. You cannot deny
+it; your suspicion must needs have lighted on everybody about you in
+turn. How can a heart so noble as yours hold fellowship with such a
+hateful feeling as to imagine now and then, for moments, that those on
+whom you bestow your friendship and esteem, may be capable of the most
+scandalous baseness? You are guilty of the most glaring injustice to
+hundreds of honest and honorable men, for the sake of screening a
+single villain with an indulgence which I cannot but call weakness,
+and a weakness under these circumstances quite unpardonable. In a few
+days I shall leave you. It is possible that the thief may not find any
+favorable opportunities hereafter, that another overseer may be more
+successful, that he may induce you to take stronger measures, and so
+to intimidate the offender: the robberies may cease: may not malicious
+persons, may not the offender himself perhaps, to secure himself
+against all chance of detection, and to frustrate every inquiry,
+spread a rumour that I am the heinous thief? Nay, might not such a
+report carry with it a very great show of probability, since assuredly
+no one could have got at your goods with so little risk as I? What
+will it profit me when far away, though you endeavour to vindicate me
+and to silence such a calumny? Will not your unwonted lenity, your
+present preposterous supineness, make the detestable rumour wear a
+look of the utmost speciousness, nay, of irrefragable truth? How, by
+what means, shall I then be able to clear myself? And, my loved, my
+honoured friend, who do nothing but good to mankind, and think nothing
+but evil of them, may not the same suspicion start up even in you, and
+strike deep root in the dark places of your soul, and by little and
+little grow into a conviction that I am the person?"
+
+Balthasar gazed at him, and walkt several times silently up and down
+the room. He was evidently struggling with himself, and seemed totally
+lost in thought.
+
+"You are not mistaken," he said after a long pause; "or rather you are
+perfectly right. You know my notions about wealth and property. I look
+on them with terrour. It seemed to me to be quite right, and to be a
+kind of slight amends to destiny for my incomprehensible luck, that
+what was flowing in so abundantly upon me from every side should at
+least have one outlet by which a part of it might run off. At times I
+have fancied that such a person or such another was thus making his
+fortune, who wanted it, and in a manner deserved it by his cleverness
+and sagacity in getting it. I took up a superstitious resolution to
+remain purposely in the dark, that I might not dissipate this strange
+dream and be deprived of this vague feeling. It gave me pain that I
+had to misdoubt so many of my people, nay all of them; but at the same
+time it was a pleasure that I could not feel certain about any. Yes,
+my friend, you too, you too have I wronged. You now know me pretty
+well, and I entreat your forgiveness. I have oftentimes thought in
+secret, without however feeling the least anger against you: 'Well, he
+is taking beforehand what he has richly earned, by labour, by
+sleepless nights, by diligence of every kind ... he cannot know for
+certain whether death may not snatch me away suddenly ... peradventure
+he has some poor relations ... he may wish to marry and set up with a
+handsome establishment ... he may perhaps have the same notions about
+property as I myself.' This has been the main ground of my lenity and
+weakness, as you call it; more especially when after the removal of
+William and several other doubtful characters all still went on just
+as before. Even your great anxiety, Edward, your indignation, even
+this turned my surmises against you. I have said to myself: 'Why does
+he talk so much about it, and make such a piece of work? I have given
+him the fullest powers in the matter: did he really take it so much to
+heart, he would have got hold of some clew long ago in one way or
+other by craft or by force. I could not possibly do otherwise than
+approve of whatever steps he took for my good.'"
+
+An overpowering pain seized on Edward during this speech; he felt on
+the point of fainting. With a look of utter despondency he threw
+himself into a chair, hid his face with his hands, and bent it down
+upon the table, till at length a flood of tears that streamed from his
+burning eyes, and a loud fit of convulsive sobbing a little relieved
+his heart, which seemed about to break.
+
+The old man was astonisht to see so great and unlookt for an effect
+produced by a speech which he had uttered with perfect calmness, and
+even with kindliness. He endeavoured to comfort and pacify his young
+friend, lifted up his head, and wiped the tears from his face, which
+still stared at him with an expression of the deepest grief and
+despair. He embraced him, he sought after words to heal the wound he
+had inflicted, to lull the storm he had called up.
+
+"O my heavens!" he at length cried, when he saw that all his efforts
+were in vain, "what shall I do? Edward! I did not really mean any ill.
+I only think of others what I believe of myself. I love thee in truth,
+young man, above anybody I have ever known; thou art to me as a son:
+hence my perverse supineness under my unjust suspicions: thou must
+forgive me all, all, dearest Edward. I will do everything, everything
+you ask of me."
+
+When Edward at length was somewhat recovered, he said with a broken
+voice, which was often checkt by violent sobs: "No, no, noblest, most
+upright of mankind, never, never could you have sunk down into a
+miserable thief! No want, not even hunger and nakedness, no
+opportunity however tempting, could have degraded your lofty mind so
+low. You only say it to quiet me. O heavens! this man, who treated me
+with the warmest affection and with unbounded confidence, who placed
+large sums in my hands, without ever inquiring about them, that I
+might become the dispenser of his bounty in feeding the hungry and
+taking care of the sick, this same friend could at the very same time
+deem me capable of such infamous wickedness. Observe now, observe what
+a dangerous thing it is, to admit such dark spirits and phantoms into
+ones soul, from which in time they utterly drive out all truth and
+love, and strength and faith. O thou bright pure form of Truth! O thou
+spotless beauty of Virtue! How changed does this man seem to me since
+that calamitous word, how changed am I myself! how fearfully, how
+dismally has the relation between us changed! It seems to me as though
+the very belief in the possibility of anything like what this man has
+believed possible of me, had cast a shade of vice and depravity over
+my whole life: for this noble being has hitherto been the mirror of my
+own worth, by looking at which I became conscious of my own
+well-meaning and integrity. Can everything, everything in our heart be
+thus transformed in a single moment? Yes, my dear, my fatherly friend,
+I shall evermore honour and love you; I admire you while I mourn over
+you; but even without any further cause this conversation would have
+parted us; this alone, without regard to my happiness or unhappiness,
+must drive me from you into the wide world."
+
+"So then we are now finally severed," said the old man very
+sorrowfully, "by destiny, not by my fault. One may master everything,
+except ones own innermost self. Suspicion in me is not that bad thing
+into which your overstrained sense of honour, such as I never saw in
+any man before, converts it by the meaning you assign to it. But, my
+dearest friend, without whom my life will long be a mere blank, you
+will stay at least a few days, until you can take away the papers that
+will secure your fortune to you. For this compensation you must accept
+from me as from a father, unless you would quite overwhelm me with
+shame."
+
+They embraced, and the old man gave Edward an unlimited permission to
+take whatever steps he thought proper for the sake of detecting and
+punishing the thief. Edward had regained his self-possession; and the
+old man was all kindness and gentleness. They talkt about other
+affairs; and Edward took some accountbooks under his arm to look over
+and correct.
+
+"Embrace me once more with all your heart," said the old man, "and
+forgive me too with all your heart."
+
+Edward turned back, and after embracing him said: "My dearest friend,
+what have I to forgive you for, thinking as you do? It is not the
+right word. What I have just endured I can never forget; and this
+shock will thrill through me to the latest day of my life. The human
+heart and soul, man and God, seem to have become totally different in
+my eyes since that terrific flash of lightning. Thinking as you do
+too, you cannot be angry with me, if I now say half in jest, that, had
+you not allowed me to take my measures, I might have fancied after I
+was gone that you had been thus ingeniously and cunningly robbing
+yourself, who knows with what subtle views, perchance for the very
+sake of throwing suspicion on some one or other."
+
+"You are not altogether in the wrong," said Balthasar. Edward was
+again standing at the door. "Wait another moment, young man!" cried
+his master. Edward once more turned back. But when he drew nearer to
+the old man, he was astonisht to find how totally his countenance and
+the expression of his eyes were changed. A quick firy glance was
+sparkling restlessly upon him.
+
+"You are fully convinced, I well know," the old man began, "of the
+truths of the Christian religion; you read your bible diligently and
+devoutly. You also believe in the historical parts of it, and regard
+the whole as an actual revelation: the rational, and allegorical, and
+learned philological interpretations do not satisfy your mind. Is it
+not so? you are a true Christian with all your heart and soul."
+
+"Certainly," answered Edward.
+
+"The story," continued the old man, "how the Saviour was tempted in
+the wilderness by the Evil One, is not in your opinion a parable, or
+an allegory, or mythical legend, without any substance? but you
+believe that this event actually befell Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
+along with the various circumstances and questions and answers
+recorded?"
+
+"What are you aiming at?" askt Edward hesitatingly after a pause.
+"Yes, I believe this story like a sincere and orthodox Christian."
+
+"Well!" the old man went on, while his pale closed lips wrinkled into
+a strange smile: "I have a double aim, though I should hardly need to
+say more, if you had ever thought deeply about this incident. In the
+first place, if our Saviour himself had to bear such things, if it was
+possible for him to be suspected though but by the Evil One, surely
+you might forgive me with all your heart, if with half or a quarter of
+mine I have now and then half misdoubted you. Meseems, this
+mysterious, marvellous story with its fathomless, untold meanings does
+not downrightly condemn my views of human nature. They are not mere
+spectres that have taken possession of my soul, unless indeed they
+belong to one and the same family with spirits. In the second place,
+do your eyes see much meaning in this wondrous story, if the success
+of the temptation was totally and absolutely impossible?--Now then
+what say you? appalling are the feelings that seize on one of us, and
+you too cannot escape them, when all this is brought home to the heart
+and mind.--There is still a third remark that I would close
+with:--what would have become of the world and of mankind, of heaven
+and earth, if the tempter had won the day? if love had faltered and
+been beguiled?--O young man, the doors are not closed in every place
+where we see them put to. You fancy you have made out everything, when
+you have hardly counted up to five.--I too believed, I too inquired,
+was absorbed in love and devotion, beheld love in my own soul and in
+the souls of my brethren, and this is the very delusion the breaking
+up of which snap my heart and life asunder, never, never to revive and
+reunite. Cast away your pride in your feelings, think not to soar on
+the wings of your imagination; but crawl along the ground like worms,
+and eat dust; for that is what befits you."
+
+The old man squeezed Edward's hand, and then with a bitter smile, and
+a sudden laugh that scared him, tore himself away. For a while Edward
+continued fixt in a stupour, and when at length he lifted up his eyes,
+Balthasar was again immerst in deep thought, and standing at his
+writing table with the gloomy suffering look which he usually wore.
+Edward felt as if he was leaving a dying man when he went away, and
+shut the heavy oaken door slowly and carefully after him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Edward had taken his measures with no less secrecy than judgement.
+None of the servants, foremen, or even of the overseers knew that he
+was doing anything out in the warehouse. Every interruption had been
+guarded against. He was quite alone, nor did anybody even know of his
+having left the house, when he made his arrangements; and it was dark
+before he came back. He could not tell whether a fresh robbery might
+not be committed on that very night, or not till a future one. All the
+watchmen had been removed from the warehouse in such a manner as not
+to excite suspicion.
+
+And now amid the solitude of the night he sat down to the account
+books, for the sake of bringing all his thoughts to bear on a single
+point, and thereby recovering from the agitation he had lately
+undergone. It was of importance to have these matters perfectly
+arranged before he went away. At length he succeeded in banishing what
+had happened from his thoughts for the time; and he became so much
+engaged in his employment, he forgot that these very hours might be
+unravelling that unpleasant affair, which had given them so much
+annoyance for years.
+
+When he had finisht and was turning over the leaves of an old book
+that he had taken up along with the rest, some written papers fell out
+of it: they were in Balthasar's hand, and had evidently been written
+many years. He read the following fragments.
+
+    Yes in truth weeping is a wonder, and, as they say, a gift sent
+    from heaven. A bliss spreads through our soul, as soon as our
+    flowing tears come, like the waters of a river, sweeping away
+    black sorrow, and disquietude, and trembling doubts. Ye are all
+    given back to me, ye spirits that once were mine, and that a cruel
+    destiny afterward severed from me.
+
+    For the sake of this, people will woo tears, and try to lure them
+    with coaxing when they will not come. Our day's work is over, and
+    now, as the rich man and the glutton will wind up his multifarious
+    meal with sweetmeats, so after our toil, after closing our
+    accounts, we court devotional thoughts and pathetical emotions, we
+    meditate on the dead, in order to entice this lifes-wine of tears
+    into our voluptuous eyes and our luxurious brain. Now a
+    sentimental melancholy inhaloes every ordinary object around us;
+    and amid the meek abasht feelings of a pining anguish and remorse,
+    suddenly starts up nauseous arrogance, vaunting the grandeur of a
+    spoilt capricious heart. O what poor wretches our fellow creatures
+    now seem to us in their commonplaceness, who yet all, as the
+    patient children and drudges of mother earth, are better than we.
+
+    But laughter! This earthquake which invisible powers heave up out
+    of the knotty entanglement of our dark enigmatical being! which in
+    boisterous senseless noises announces that within, in the unseen
+    world, the soul neither recks of nor knows truth or falsehood, and
+    has just been murdering the innocent herald who was bringing these
+    phantasms before it! These rude unmeaning sounds which will for a
+    long time distort even the best face, the most mechanically
+    regular mask!
+
+    How men long after this loathsome convulsion! While tears lie and
+    cheat by aping heavenly feelings, laughter is awkwardly trying to
+    let the craziness of evil demons skulk behind it, hides itself
+    from vulgarity for the sake of being seen, feigns terrour when our
+    unsubdued struggling feelings are detected, and saunters about in
+    the midst of whatever is disgusting and impure, perpetually
+    clapperclawing with some outcast among the rabble or other: one
+    moment our intelligent, and higher faculties, as they call them,
+    get the upper hand; the next they are beaten down and trod upon by
+    something base and profligate: and thus veering to and fro, now
+    toying now scolding, laughter clatters down the steps of idiocy,
+    which crumble with the decay of our bodily strength ... and man
+    grins, and is happy.
+
+    Blessed time, when there was a real existence, a life in life!
+    when the vast whole of eternity, being sufficient to itself, had
+    not splintered itself out into time! when the spirit did not need
+    a succession, measured out by the atoms of time and space, to
+    become conscious of its power and of its being! What a portentous
+    event was it, when eternity and life parted fellowship!--when the
+    band by which spirits were bound in one, burst, and that strange
+    creature, Death, rusht in through the chasm to domineer over all.
+    Now that which is firm, stedfast, enduring, has concentrated
+    itself in the depths of its own being, and has put on the
+    unvarying aspect of solid meditation. Stones, rocks, metals, bid
+    defiance to decay with their cold looks, and would make believe
+    that they know not of change. Drops of water dancing like tiny
+    elves along them, the sightless legions of the air, wherever they
+    spread, are eating into the limbs of the rigid haughty giant; the
+    dwarf, man, digs into his bones, and, if his strength were equal
+    to his fury, would reduce him to fleeting sand. May it not
+    peradventure be the same with the eternal stars? A little acid,
+    and the monster sneezes sillily, and roars, and yawns, and for the
+    moment remembers its spiritual nature.
+
+    And thou with thy butterfly wings in thy light summer garment,
+    thou that hoverest aloft, and flittest over the mountains, and
+    sweepest along the earth! from the airy changeling of the
+    caterpillar, up or down to the lion and to man, ye all of you,
+    fostering a brief momentary spark in you, like the glance from the
+    flint and steel ... gone is the red bubbling up of the spark ...
+    and again a mere slough is lying before us, after its short dream
+    of life and love, dust upon dust, rottenness upon decay ... the
+    great-grandfather beside his mouldering great-grandchild ... and
+    neither knows the other, neither has ever heard of the other.
+
+    The plants around you prick up their ears at you in a thousand
+    forms; the flowers smile roguishly and sadly, in the midst of the
+    masquerade; and dream mingles with dream, when the lover plucks
+    the rose, and blushing himself holds out the blushing blossom to
+    his blushing maiden.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    The beating of the pulse is not only a sign of life, it is life
+    itself. No feeling, no thought, no sight or hearing, no taste or
+    sensation flows along with a rushing stream, but all comes
+    skipping, wave upon wave, drop upon drop, and this is its being.
+    One thought is cast out by another; our feelings are only felt as
+    they shift between life and death: the kiss only thrills on our
+    lips when a chill void has already spread over them; our delight
+    in a picture, in music, merely gushes through us; one moment it
+    entrances us, the next it has vanisht. Thus the sea breathes in
+    its ebb and flow, time in its days and nights, its winters and
+    summers. If I do not forget myself this moment, I cannot recollect
+    myself the next.--And death....
+
+    Is this revulsion of the pulse, this alteration of strain, this
+    change of tune a prelude, a transition to a new piece of music?
+    Every living creature exists to be devoured by another; man alone
+    has apparently eluded these barrack-regulations, this military
+    duty, and fattens himself up for the earth, that shattered chaos
+    of stones and mould.
+
+    In love, in misfortune, in joy, in despondency, in labour and
+    rest, death has always been my uppermost, I might rather say my
+    only thought. Suicide in me would have been of all human actions
+    the most natural. I have never felt that any indescribable fear,
+    any overpowering shudder draws us back, and flings the knife from
+    our hands. If poor naked Joy, that is so meanly clad, she is
+    ashamed to walk about the earth, were once to enter our doors,
+    then the stab of the bright dagger would only be the last
+    glittering pinnacle of our joyous transport. For after that brief
+    pulsation is over, how bald is the earth, how black is life! It is
+    because I know not whither I am going, or whether I am going, or
+    whether there be a whither, that the act is so alluring. Only men
+    will not confess this, but give the name of cowardice and of
+    courage to what is neither the one nor the other. In dissipation,
+    in thoughtlessness, in indifference, the poor wretches lose both
+    life and death.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    A strange dream, that is to say, a dream, has visited me. The
+    commonest thing is quite as strange as the uncommonest, only habit
+    blunts our sense.
+
+    I was dead. I knew it distinctly; and yet I lived on in my
+    consciousness. All my forlorn doubts, my stiff-neckedness that
+    would not bow to the yoke, my hard heart that closed itself so
+    early against love, had shut me out, so my conscience told me,
+    from the place to which the good hope to go. The state in which I
+    found myself, and numberless others along with me, was one the
+    common ordinariness, the dull triviality of which was quite
+    appalling. I was utterly unable to recollect my friends and those
+    whom I had loved, however intensely I strained my memory and put
+    it to the rack. A longing, like that of one pining with thirst
+    after a stream of fresh clear water, tormented me, to call up the
+    forms and the ideas of those beloved beings in my imagination; I
+    felt a yearning after them like a heavy weight that was crushing
+    me in the hidden places of my heart. Just as little could I bring
+    back those actions which during my life I might have called good.
+    Every thing in this region of my thoughts was like a bare parcht
+    waste. But everything evil rolled in whirling circles wearyingly
+    and dizzyingly before my inward eye. My vices and errours, all the
+    faults and misdeeds of my life, every wretched moment of my
+    temporal existence gathered round me as it were with the cries and
+    croaking of fierce hungry birds of prey. O these sins how hugely
+    and gigantically they swelled out! How horrible it was to see
+    their consequences unfolding themselves far, far away in the
+    realms of the future! how they took root and grew up riotously in
+    after-generations! nothing but looks of anguish, of reproach, of
+    pain, of bitter despair was turned upon me from thence. In like
+    manner I easily called to mind all the persons who had ever been
+    objects of my hatred or dislike; every tedious hour, the
+    recollection of which tortured me afresh; all the folly and
+    absurdity that I had ever uttered myself, or heard from others.
+
+    In the numerous vast halls countless swarms of men were sitting,
+    standing, or walking about, all in the same state of deplorable
+    woe. And no variety, no division of time, no hour, no sun or night
+    disturbed or changed this melancholy monotonousness. One solitary
+    amusement was there. Now and then some one reminded us of our
+    former faith, how during our lives we had feared and worshipt a
+    God. Then a loud burst of laughter, as at a most portentous
+    absurdity, pealed through the hall. Afterward they all grew grave,
+    and I strove with all my faculties to call back the reverence, the
+    sanctity of my human feelings, but in vain.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+Edward had not observed that the morning was already dawning, so
+completely had he been wrapt up in these singular papers. Without
+doubt too he would have gone on reading much longer, unless he had now
+been interrupted by loud cries and a violent knocking at his door. He
+went to see what it was, and Conrad rusht into the room, heated,
+panting, and with a ferocious look.
+
+"Now we have him!" cried the miner furiously: "did not I say long ago
+that this vagabond is wickedness itself? Only let him instantly be
+bound, master overseer, hand and foot in the heaviest chains you can
+get, and then have the dog flogged till he is cut to pieces, that his
+life and his infernal soul may crawl out of him by inches."
+
+"What is the matter with you?" askt Edward. "I am afraid you must be
+in a fever, and are stark raving."
+
+"Hurrah!" screamed Conrad; "now my cruel illness will soon be gone,
+now that the miscreant has been caught at his wicked tricks. He will
+never carry me down again now into their rubbishy straw."
+
+"Whom are you talking of?" Edward again began: "surely not of the
+Hungarian miner?"
+
+"The very person," answered Conrad: "the monster has been stealing,
+and is in league with a whole gang of thieves. Hark you, to cut the
+matter short, I could not sleep last night, and so roamed about the
+woods, in part to get myself some herbs to cure my ailing. It was just
+beginning to dawn, when I heard something like wheels down below,
+along the lonely lane in the thick of the wood, and at the same time
+there was a moaning and groaning; for at night one hears and makes out
+every thing much plainlier. Off I ran. Two fellows were drawing a cart
+in great tribulation and fear, and the pale rascal was walking
+alongside, and driving them on. 'Scoundrels!' I shouted in their
+faces! and the word was hardly out of my throat, when the two thieves
+had already scampered off; but the pale skinny mountebank I held fast;
+the cart with the stolen goods is standing in the wood. They will soon
+bring it after me however; for I met a couple of workmen whom I sent
+for it; and the Hungarian waivode I have dragged hither with my own
+hand."
+
+Meanwhile the whole house was in an uprore. The stranger was sitting
+handcufft at the door; and miners, spinners, and weavers came
+crowding; others flockt from the mills; and all were shouting, all
+were staring with wonder at each other; everybody wanted to tell his
+story, and nobody seemed to know what it was that had happened; so
+that Edward and Conrad began with much perplexity and annoyance to
+question one after another, until the miner cried out with his
+thundering voice: "Hold your jaws all of you. Not a soul shall speak
+another word, except he whom your young master shall ask."
+
+One-eyed Michael was standing near them, and, as Edward turned to him,
+he said: "It may have been about three in the morning when I set off
+from the forge to deliver a message betimes at the smelting house up
+in the mountains. I was walking along the path through the wood,
+thinking no harm, save that when I got pretty near to the warehouse
+all the nightly robberies came across me which have been going on this
+many a long day there. 'I'd give the world to catch the rogue,' I said
+to myself, when all at once a gun went off. A gun! what ho! that put
+me to my wits. 'There are never any sportsmen hereabout,' I said, and
+began marching and bustling on with a little more haste and speed. In
+a few moments I hear cries and yells and shouts, and a pothering and
+squabbling. All this methinks can never be right. I get to the top,
+and now I see the whole business. The warehouse is open, several
+barrows and men are before it, they are piling up the goods: a short
+figure that I could not make out in the dark, panting and whining,
+screaming and grumbling, is shuffling and tumbling about. I make up to
+the fellows with the stolen goods. Then some of them seized me fast
+and prest down my eyes. The noise lessens, I can't cry out, nor would
+it do me much good. When they let me loose again, there was nothing to
+be seen. Even the limper, in spite of all my search, had got off and
+was not to be found. When I came nearer the houses I awoke every body
+with my shouts, telling them to go and watch the warehouse, and scour
+after the rogues."
+
+"And I," cried Conrad, "have lugged the commander in chief of the
+cutpurses by the throat, that sapient soothsayer that was playing off
+his pranks with his match the other day at your forge."
+
+Then they all set off again telling their stories, shouting and
+screaming, just as noisily as before. Edward however gave orders what
+all were to do; the stranger was to be watcht, the stolen goods to be
+taken into the house, and everybody was to be quiet, not to disturb
+their old master's rest, should he be still asleep. He himself
+hastened with a few others to the warehouse, to arrange matters there,
+and, if possible, to find out more about the thieves.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Edward found marks of blood in the warehouse and on the ground
+without, and he and his companions followed them. Anon they lost sight
+of them, then discovered them again in a thicket on one side, and a
+little after in one of the bypaths. Edward walkt on with anxious
+feelings; a boding prest upon his heart; he was unwilling to confess
+his misgivings even to himself. Ere long however they turned to
+certainty; for the traces led to the house of Eleazar, which lay on a
+green slope. When they got up to it they found all the neighbours
+already in motion; people were coming from the town; the priest of the
+parish was just passing through the door. Within everything was in
+confusion, and a physician and surgeon were busy upstairs.
+
+Edward left his companions without, and with a beating heart opened
+the chamber door. Eleazar was lying pale and with ghastly features in
+his bed. His wound had just been examined, and a bandage placed on it.
+Everybody in the room, the physician, surgeon, priest, and servants
+lookt frightened and distrest; for there was something in this
+accident so mysterious and terrible that no one could help being
+struck with awe by it.
+
+The surgeon, whom Edward took aside, shook his head, and assured him
+that all assistance was in vain; the patient would hardly live through
+the day. Eleazar now raised himself out of his stupour, lookt round,
+and perceived Edward. "Aha!" he cried with a strained and faint voice,
+"You too are already there! Well! You have at last got the better of
+me. This is what you have been driving at this long time. I am now
+lying here, and all is over, all is found out; there are no more
+questions and answers, no more todays and tomorrows. How it will fare
+with you remains to be seen hereafter. Not well most undoubtedly. So
+don't triumph in your imaginary virtue."
+
+He beckoned and made the priest bring him a paper that was lying in
+the window. "Give this to the old man of the mountain," he then went
+on; "he will see from it how I loved him; for it is my will."
+
+The priest now said a few words, begging to be left alone with the
+sick man. Edward was glad to leave the room and refresh himself in the
+open air. Here Conrad again ran up to him out of breath, and cried ...
+"Confusion worse confounded! Only think what he has been doing, our
+virtuous Eleazar! his last loaf has already been baked for him. Look
+you, this fellow, this lord and master of the country, this son-in-law
+of the old man of the mountain, is a scurvy thief ... Now I will
+forgive that white-faced Hungarian wretch for serving me as he did the
+other day; for what is all the reputation in the earth, all the honour
+in the world come to?"
+
+The whole neighbourhood, town and country, was in consternation at
+this event. The most incredible thing in the world had taken place, a
+crime that could neither be denied nor concealed, committed by a man
+whom all had been forced to regard with respect, whom all had lookt
+upon as their future master and protector; and they could not recover
+from their astonishment, or fall back into their ordinary occupations;
+for their minds in this turmoil had for a while lost every standard by
+which a man measures himself.
+
+The old man amid the general tumult had already learnt the whole
+story, in spite of the pains Edward had taken to prevent it. He had
+lockt himself up in his room and let nobody in.
+
+Edward now interrogated the stranger. This man had for a long time had
+dealings with Eleazar; he lived in a town a good many miles off, and
+had often sent agents up the mountains and helpt in selling the stolen
+goods. A tradesman in another small town was also a party in the
+affair. The Hungarian had quarelled with Eleazar, and had come up into
+these parts with a view of going to old Balthasar, sounding him, and,
+if he found him inclined to pay well for it, disclosing the whole
+history of the abominable transaction. But as the old man had not
+shewn any mind to have recourse to superstitious devices, still less
+to give ear to his covert hints, so that the stranger might have
+brought his own neck into the noose if he had betrayed too much, he
+drew off and remained faithful to his confederate Eleazar, who had
+quieted him with a sum of money, along with large promises for the
+future.
+
+The old man's great bell now rang, and Edward took up his papers and
+went to him. "You have lookt over and corrected all my accounts, my
+dear friend?" he began with outward calmness. Edward said yes, as he
+set down the books; but he hesitated and knew not whether to give in
+Eleazar's will along with them. The old man however took it himself
+out of his hand and cast his eyes over it.
+
+"It is now three months," he began, "since he made me heir to all he
+has, in case he should die before me. He has drawn up a list of all
+his effects, and points out where each thing may be found. The chief
+article is a number of gold bars, which he says are of his own making.
+Read it."
+
+Edward took the papers with some embarrassment. "Is it not true?" said
+the old man after some time, "does any thing but madness animate and
+rule the whole world? Can you understand this man and his character in
+any other way? To be sure this word itself does not help us to
+understand it. O young man, young man, do you not feel now how
+thoroughly right I was? I trusted this man unlimitedly, because he was
+not girt round with any delusive deceitful show; because nothing in my
+heart sallied forth to meet him, and I did not lie to myself in his
+behalf for the sake of pampering my own vanity. Ay, my friend, now
+everything is detected and noised abroad; he is going ... and in this
+will he gives me back what the lawyers would call my property. His
+will! Now forsooth it must also be time to make mine, and a different
+one from what I intended. Now your nice feelings of honour will no
+doubt condescend to stay with me a little longer ... and my child, my
+Rose! alas, how fearful it is that this darling of my heart is also a
+human being!"
+
+"At such an hour as this," answered Edward, "which must needs strike
+you with horrour, I will not again declare the wishes of my heart to
+you; you yourself have toucht upon them, or I should have refrained
+even from these words. But undoubtedly I must now stay with you:
+destiny compells me to do so, and imposes it as a sacred duty upon
+me."
+
+"Destiny with a vengeance!" said the old man with his bitter smile:
+"you take a fancy to Rose; you hear she is already engaged; this
+drives you away from me; but before you take leave, your honour must
+be cleared and furbisht up; and as a remembrance you shoot my most
+intimate friend, the man after my own soul, and tear him from my side.
+Now Rose is at liberty, you are your own master, your rival is got rid
+of; and destiny has managed the whole matter admirably. But whether
+this shot has not pierced through my heart, whether it has not rent
+and burst asunder the innermost sanctuary of my soul ... these
+questions are never thought of. There is as it were a huge chasm
+yawning in my spirit ... confidence, faith ... everything ... did not
+I say so? good is the only real evil ... Edward! don't look so sad ...
+methinks I am talking quite wildly."
+
+He took the young man's hand. "Bring me the mayor this evening, and
+the priest and bailiff as witnesses. You are now my son, and this is
+the spirit I shall now make my will in. I feel it is high time; for it
+would be horrible if Helbach were to fling all my fortune to the dogs.
+O if I could but totally forget this shot and Eleazar! if such wild
+thoughts did not keep rushing about in my brain! Now you and Rose will
+stay with me."
+
+Edward withdrew. He went to look for Rose in her room. She burst out
+a-crying, jumpt up from her chair, and threw herself into the young
+man's arms with an expression of the fondest affection. "Alas Edward!"
+she cried sobbing, and hid her face on his breast: "only look now at
+what I have to go through in my youth. This was never sung over me in
+my cradle, that I should lose my husband in so shocking a manner, and
+even before our wedding. And the last thing I should have thought of
+was that you were to shoot him dead, you, the dearest and kindest of
+all men.--Alas! poor, poor Eleazar! when he came from nature's hands,
+such an odious misshapen abortion of a man! And now into the bargain
+to steal, to lie, and to cheat! to rob my good father, who meant to
+give him everything! What will become of his poor soul now? Oh yes, he
+has perisht still more cruelly, he is much more unhappy than my cat
+with her kittens, that he shot so barbarously on the orange tree. Alas
+Edward! are you then in real truth such a good creature, as I have
+always believed you? or are you perchance very wicked too? You did not
+mean it, did you? that Eleazar should die so?"
+
+Edward took pains to explain the nature of the whole affair to her.
+"Be composed," he continued; "the course of our lives here has suddenly
+undergone a violent change; we must all overcome this shock, to get
+back again into the path of our ordinary duty. A few days since you
+were sorry that I was going away; if it can give you any comfort, let
+me assure you that for the present at least I shall and must stay
+here. Do you still wish that I should?"
+
+She gazed at him affectionately and seemed comforted. "So then that is
+settled now!" she exclaimed: "ah yes, I always thought you would stay;
+for I can't live without you; and my father can't live without you;
+and all our poor workmen and spinners, our good miners, for whom you
+are always saying and doing something, and who, when they come for
+their wages or for relief, look with their whole souls into your kind
+eyes, these above all can never live without you."
+
+"This calamity," said Edward, "may hereafter make you, your father,
+me, and all of us happy. The discovery was inevitable; and perhaps, if
+it had not taken place now, it would have come at a time when it would
+have plunged us all in misery."
+
+"If my father now," said Rose, "were to have no objection, I might
+perhaps in time accustom myself to look upon you as my future husband.
+If I could but feel a little more respect and awe for you! If you
+would behave very roughly to me now and then, not always so kindly,
+but angrily and savagely at times, I might by and by grow reconciled
+to it."
+
+Edward went to his business. The uprore had ceast, and the whole house
+was now quiet and silent: it seemed as if people were afraid of even
+breathing: all walkt about softly and on tiptoe. News came that
+Eleazar was dead.
+
+Toward evening Edward went with the mayor and witnesses into old
+Balthasar's room. He was surprised to find him in bed. On being spoken
+to by his visitors he lifted himself up, stared fixedly at them, and
+seemed to know no one. "Aha! reverend Sir," he cried out after a
+while, "you are come to fetch away a second poor sinner today. It is a
+busy time in your vocation. Is master Eleazar come with you?"
+
+He beckoned to Edward. "Thou yellow blockhead!" he whispered to him;
+"what am I to do with thy gold bars that thou hast left me? don't
+thrust thy stupid cheat into men's eyes so ... it is far too glaring.
+But beware of Edward, he is wise and good. If he should ever suspect
+thee, thou art lost."
+
+He talkt to the others, but still quite at random, and was taken up
+with the phantoms of his own brain. The mayor and witnesses retired,
+and Edward went after the physician. The business of drawing up the
+will was put off, until the sick man should have recovered and be
+restored to his perfect consciousness.
+
+The physician found the patient's state very alarming. Edward was
+called up in the night; but when he entered the room Herr Balthasar
+had already breathed his last.
+
+The dismay, the sorrow was universal. The mayor sent to have
+everything sealed up. In the midst of this confusion, it seemed a
+matter of very little moment that the Hungarian had found means to
+escape from his prison.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the town where the extravagant counsellor Helbach lived, there was
+a great feast at which all the epicures famous for their love of good
+eating and their knowledge of good dishes were assembled. The
+counsellor himself was the soul of such parties: his word was law in
+them; and he it was that had managed the present banquet.
+
+The dinner was nearly over; some of the guests, who had business to
+call them away, were gone: the company had grown quieter; and it was
+only at the upper end of the table, where the counsellor and some of
+the scientific eaters were sitting, that the conversation was carried
+on with any spirit.
+
+"Believe me, my friends," said the counsellor with great earnestness,
+"the art of eating, the skill men may attain in it, has its epochs,
+its classical ages, and its decline, corruption, and dark ages, just
+as much as every other art; and it seems to me that we are now again
+verging to a kind of barbarism in it. Luxury, profusion, rarities, new
+dishes, overpeppering, overspicing, all these, my good sirs, are the
+artifices now commonly made use of to obtain admiration for a dinner;
+and yet these are the very things from which a thinking eater will
+turn away with contemptuous slight. In the whole of this department
+indeed much still remains to be done; and the stories we read of the
+old gormandizer, Heliogabalus, and others who lived during the
+decrepitude of the Roman empire, stories at which many men stare with
+stupid astonishment, ought only to excite our pity."
+
+"It must always be difficult no doubt," said one of the guests, "to
+frame any distinct conception of the dishes and the delicacies of a
+former age. If we dress them by such receits as remain, the result
+will always have something absurd in it, like the dinner which
+Smollett describes so humourously in his _Peregrine Pickle_."
+
+"That tact on which after all everything depends," answered the
+counsellor, "is sure to be wanting, that nice knowledge of the exact
+limit between too much and too little which nothing but instinct can
+bestow; and even this instinct must be cultivated by studying the
+properties of fire, the culinary powers of which can never be
+described, and which a cook can only make himself master of by long
+experience, judgement, and observation, nor even then unless he was
+born a cook. The main point however is, that our tongue and palate
+have been trained and fashioned from our childhood to particular
+tastes, likings, and antipathies; so that often the very best, most
+judicious, and admirable thing, if it come across us on a sudden as a
+novelty, as something we have never set tooth on, and thus give a
+shock to all our prepossessions, will be disregarded and abused; until
+at length in course of time on our becoming familiar with the
+stranger's merits, he is naturalized: and then the new knowledge we
+have acquired will often exercise the most salutary influence and
+throw much light on other dishes, both old and lately invented ones,
+so that our palate is as it were strung with a new chord, which sends
+forth a variety of delicious notes. Moreover the ages that are gone
+and the ideas that prevailed among our forefathers are still acting
+upon this _tastature_ of mankind, as a race made to relish, to discern,
+and to enjoy; and as in philosophy and science, in politics and
+government, so here too there is an unbroken chain; the accumulated
+experience of centuries moulded us to be just such as we are; and this
+state of our taste can and must only be modified by degrees; nor could
+anything be more ruinous than a sudden revolution which should throw
+everything topsy turvy. In every field of human action history is
+man's best master."
+
+"You yourself," said the guest, "should write a history of the
+articles of food, the art of eating, and the progress of the human
+mind in it."
+
+"When one is oneself a practical artist," answered the counsellor,
+"and so devoted a one as I am, so diligent in working at my art, and
+so ready to try every new experiment in it, one must leave such
+matters to people of an idler and more contemplative turn. If you aim
+at doing everything, you will never do anything well and thoroughly."
+
+"Why," resumed the other, "do we hear this perpetual abuse of
+sensuality? why will men so seldom confess, and even then but
+reluctantly, the pleasure they take in eating and drinking?"
+
+"Because," said counsellor Helbach, "they never know what they are
+really at. It has always struck me as very remarkable and singular
+that, in the little round box in which all our finer senses are ranged
+and stored up, and in the top of which moreover our thinking powers,
+and all the noblest intellectual products of our soul are deposited,
+we should find that red-lined drawer close beneath, with the delicate
+little bosses set like jewels over the tremulous vocal tongue and
+palate, garnisht in front with teeth that toil and cut, and closed by
+the graceful mouth. Eating is only another mode of thinking. Thus this
+box is a coppel in which the essences of all created things, the
+finest and the grossest, vapours and juices, the soft soothing oils,
+the bitternesses and tartnesses which at first seem grating, the
+flavour which evaporates in a momentary enjoyment, are put to the
+test. First the teeth begin chopping and grinding; the tongue, at
+other times so talkative, silently and busily rolls about and makes
+much of the morsels it receives, presses them affectionately and
+benevolently against the palate, to double its pleasure by sharing it;
+and when this tender dalliance has been sufficiently indulged in, at
+length pushes them back almost unwillingly to its friend that swallows
+them down, and that indeed has the real enjoyment of them, the highest
+of all, though but for a moment, and then with heroic self-sacrifice
+makes them over to another power. Straightway the same game is
+repeated a second, a third, a thousandth time. I never yet heard it
+said that any self-tormenting anchoret had courage enough altogether
+to forgo the pleasure of eating, even though he stinted himself to
+bread. Indeed kind Nature has taken such good care of her children,
+that it is next to impossible."
+
+"A very just and profound remark!" exclaimed his neighbour.
+
+"We see too," continued the dissertator, "what high importance nature
+has attacht to these processes of devouring, eating, chewing, and
+swallowing, and how in every sphere of existence they have been her
+main end and aim. What would become of all the animals upon the earth,
+of all the birds that roam through the air, and all the swarms of
+greater and lesser creatures that people the waters and the sea,
+unless every one of them had received a bill, payable at sight, upon
+his neighbour. What would they live on, if they did not live on one
+another? or where forsooth would they find room to live? Is not the
+world perpetually oscillating between the two great works of producing
+and of devouring? The king of the creation, man, stands at the summit,
+as the crown and the final object of all these multiform guests. Those
+his subalterns, who have an assignment either one upon the other, or
+upon the vegetable world, look up to him with reverential awe: for it
+is not merely one thing or another, not merely beasts or vegetables,
+not merely fishes or birds, no, almost everything without exception
+he turns into food, making all classes of his subjects the sources of
+his happiness. It is only from his own kind, and from a few which
+serve him as his immediate vassals, or the flesh of which, whether
+from prejudice or in reality, does not taste agreeably, that he
+abstains. By means of fire, that performs his bidding, out of strong
+essences, butter, oil, and spices, vegetables and flesh, all artfully
+mingled and chemically prepared, he concocts the most extraordinary
+combinations to please his palate. While the eye is weeping at top,
+and the brain above it is brooding over touching thoughts, or kindling
+itself and the heart with inspiring ones, while the nose inhaling
+hyacinthine odours awakens visions of sweet desire in the imagination,
+the mouth below is already lusting and licking its lips after the
+venison or the liver pasty that is carried by. The sentimental young
+lady feeds her pigeons with pathetical grace; and the very mouth which
+lisps the prettiest verses and most moving idyls to them, will swallow
+the same innocent creatures by and by with exquisite relish. Could
+animals make observations as we do, and were a poet some day to rise
+up amongst them, in what strange colours would he represent man!"
+
+"Truly," said his friend, "such a jest, thus retorted upon mankind,
+would be extremely amusing."
+
+"We are fond of boasting of our universality," counsellor Helbach went
+on, "and yet in the very art in which Nature herself has so manifestly
+intended us to be universal, I mean in that of eating, many people
+scorn to become so, and fancy it is more dignified to treat this whole
+branch of knowledge with contempt. And yet the flocks of birds of
+passage, the shoals of wandering fishes, come from distant regions,
+flying and swimming into our nets, for the mere pleasure of our
+palates; and the fruits of every climate, of every soil, of every
+quarter of the globe, blend into enjoyment within us. Who does not
+perceive in an oyster, if at least he is gifted with a true sense for
+it, the might and the freshness of the sea! O asparagus, he that has
+not the wit to enjoy thee, can know nothing of the mysteries which the
+dreaming world of plants reveals to us! Can one understand anything of
+the history of the world or of poetry, if one is a stranger to all
+these natural elementary feelings, and incapable of doing justice to
+the worth of a snipe, or even of a turbot?"
+
+The other guests had already retired; the dinner was quite over; and
+only counsellor Helbach and his two nearest and most intimate friends
+were still sitting engaged in this and the like conversation.
+
+"I am quite surprised," one of them began, "at the buoyant youthful
+spirit which you still retain, at your jovial animation, your lively
+poetical playfulness. All the rest of us have grown so old, and the
+weight of years presses so heavily upon us, while you are still
+jesting, and pleasure has lost none of its freshness or charms with
+you."
+
+"We are all alone now," said the counsellor, "and I may therefore
+speak more from my heart to such old friends. It is true, this sensual
+enjoyment gives me pleasure, and will console me at times for the want
+of much: but I am not the frivolous person you take me for, perhaps
+never was so. Almost everybody has a mask; and this is mine. I move
+about in it lightly and with ease, and so most people take it for my
+real character. My youth was a very sad one: my parents displayed all
+their weaknesses, their extravagance and ostentation, so glaringly to
+me and to all the world, that I could not look upon them with esteem;
+and this to a young man is of all feelings the most terrible. Poverty
+and distress, privations of every kind may be borne much more easily:
+but a calamity like mine crushes the heart before it is yet grown up.
+I had to play the part of a rich man, to squander money, to give
+myself airs. When one puts on the semblance of anything for a time, it
+will soon become a portion of our nature. Imitate a stutterer for a
+while, and you will have to keep diligent watch over yourself not to
+stammer in earnest. I fell in love, and was on the point of changing
+into a totally different person; for my passion was sincere and
+ardent. But new distress. The noble being who soon became my wife,
+could never give me her heart. The strongest passion must die away
+when it finds no return; and in such a case a man has done enough, if
+this finest feeling of his nature do not turn into hatred and malice.
+For myself I was thrown back by this into my apparent frivolity: and
+not to make a show of my unhappiness, like my wife, who, though
+otherwise admirable, gave way too much to this weakness, I abandoned
+myself to riotous conviviality, turbulent pleasures, and unprofitable
+society. There is often a spirit of defiance in us, having something
+of nobleness in it, and not utterly condemnable, which withholds
+strong characters from reforming and improving, notwithstanding all
+the admonitions of conscience. The more unhappy I felt myself, the
+more I acted happiness. After my son was born, my wife began to shun
+me altogether, and would often wilfully misunderstand me. She devoted
+all her affection and care to her child, lived only for him, and
+brought him up to be so capricious and headstrong, that she herself
+was the greatest sufferer by his faults, and yet had not strength of
+mind enough to eradicate the fatal perverseness, which she herself had
+first fostered in him. My advice was not listened to: it had been
+taken for granted that I could no more love the child, than appreciate
+and esteem the mother. My heart bled; and yet I could not interfere
+authoritatively, unless I would consent to be regarded by her and by
+the whole world as a monster, being already called a tyrant,
+unfeeling, and frivolous, and having been so long wont to give up the
+point that I often lookt on myself as such. Thus my son was bred up as
+a stranger to me, with all his feelings purposely and studiously
+alienated from me: but his over-weak, too passionately fond mother was
+no gainer thereby; for she likewise lost his depraved heart, over
+which, when the boy was grown up, she had not the slightest influence.
+How reckless and unmanageable he has been, you well know; how wretched
+his mother has become, is notorious; but my life too, my friends, is a
+lost one."
+
+A servant came hastily in, and told the counsellor he must go home
+immediately: for something of great importance had happened.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The wife of counsellor Helbach was sitting in her bedroom, which only
+let in a faint dim light from the court. Her tear-worn eyes were
+stedfastly fixt on an open gospel; she read devoutly, and prayed.
+Suddenly she heard a noise; her servant was pusht forcibly back by
+some one whom he was trying to keep away; the door was thrust open,
+and a young man threw himself impetuously at her feet, seized her hand
+in her fright and covered it with kisses, while a hot flood of tears
+gusht from his eyes. It was not till after a while that the mother
+recognized the son whom she had deemed lost. Her strong emotions
+overcame her: she askt: "Whence comest thou?... stand up ... my
+unhappy child come to my arms...." More she could not say.
+
+"You do not cast me off, you do not abhor me?" cried the youth in a
+trance of grief: "Oh God! have I deserved that a single spark of love
+for me should yet linger in this noble heart! Am I worthy of a single
+look from her!"
+
+They continued long closely embraced, and quite unable to speak. "But
+mother," the young man said at length, "can you hold the monster in
+your arms, to your heart, who, when he last saw you--"
+
+"No, my son, my beloved son, do not call back that horrible moment,
+which we must forget;" so the mother stammered out. "I too know now
+that I did you injustice then; the girl you loved is worthy of your
+love, as has been proved since. I myself had not taught you
+sufficiently to controul your passions. Let that hour vanish for ever
+like a painful dream from our lives. But whence comest thou? where
+hast thou been living all this time?"
+
+They sat down; they both tried to regain their self-possession and
+calmness in this sudden change from sorrow to joy. The young man
+related--while from time to time he again embraced his beloved mother,
+or kist her hands--how after that fearful moment he had roamed about
+in despair without any plan or view; how, when he was destitute of all
+means of subsistence, finding himself near the mountains, he had made
+up his mind to apply to Herr Balthasar, in the chance of obtaining
+support from him. Hearing however of his singular peculiarities, and
+how difficult it was to gain admittance to him, he had altered his
+plan, formed an acquaintance with his overseer, Edward, under the
+assumed name of William Lorenz, and been taken into the house as
+secretary. To see his beloved, who was travelling in the
+neighbourhood, he had left his post, returned, and again gone away on
+being alarmed by hearing that his mother was coming to visit her
+kinsman.
+
+"This very day," he concluded, "I met a traveller, a Hungarian, who
+was come in haste from the mountains, and who told me a very important
+piece of news. I was on my way hither to throw myself at your feet,
+whether you would forgive me or no, when I met him in the next town.
+Do not be too much shockt ... Herr Balthasar is no more ... he died
+suddenly in a fit, without having made a will, as the stranger said he
+knew for certain. The house, the little town, the whole neighbourhood
+are in the utmost confusion. O my mother, we may all be happy, we may
+all live affectionately together, if you will believe in my repentance
+and reformation, if we can persuade my father to assent to the plan I
+have to propose to him. I know you will now no longer refuse your
+consent to my marriage with Caroline: the objection that we were both
+of us so poor, is now done away: we are become too rich, far too much
+so, to trust ourselves with all this wealth."
+
+When their spirits were grown calm, and every thing had been
+explained, a servant was sent after the counsellor, who came home in a
+more serious and susceptible mood than was his wont. How great was his
+astonishment at having to embrace his lost son, reformed and become a
+reasonable being! He was quite unprepared for so joyful a shock. His
+wife too received him with more confidence and affection: the death of
+the beloved of her youth had affected her deeply.
+
+Thus for the first time this family was united and happy, and amid
+their sorrow felt a pure joy in the prospect of a comfortable and
+prosperous future. The old man, who resolved to amend after the
+example of his son, and to pass the remainder of his life more
+decorously, agreed, even without any persuasion, to make over the
+uncontrouled management of the property legally to his son, who was
+now of age. It was settled that the mother and son should go first to
+their new estate, to arrange every thing, and that Caroline should
+follow soon after, and become his bride: the counsellor himself
+preferred living still in his native town, and merely visiting his
+family occasionally in the summer.
+
+"Thus," he concluded, "we may still restore a household that was
+almost lost, and raise it above what it ever was by mutual affection
+and unity. My annuity is more than enough to support me; and should it
+fall short, as I think can hardly happen, my son will assist me with a
+small contribution."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Up in the mountains everything was now quiet. Balthasar, as well as
+his treacherous old friend, was in his grave. William, as he had
+formerly been called, arrived there with his mother to take possession
+of the estate. The mayor and Edward gave everything up to him; and
+when the surrender was completed, and Edward was left alone with the
+mother and son, William thus interrupted their silent meditations:
+"Now we are all among friends, my dear Edward, and I may talk with
+perfect frankness to you, and shew my gratitude, if you choose so to
+call it, for your former kindness. One night, when I was here, and had
+been copying papers till very late, I was lockt into the anteroom; the
+door had been fastened on the outside, and I did not like to make a
+noise and call up the servants, more especially as Herr Balthasar used
+to be much annoyed and worried by any disturbance. During the night,
+while I kept perfectly still, I heard the unhappy old man walking to
+and fro in his room, sometimes sighing heavily, sometimes moaning and
+wailing as he talkt to himself. They were not merely broken sounds and
+exclamations; but it seemed to be his custom to talk over sundry
+events of his life, as if he was speaking to some invisible person.
+Thus I heard the story of his youth, of his intolerable woes, but at
+the same time of his love for Edward, and what part of his fortune he
+meant to leave him. The chief thing however, and what toucht me most,
+was to learn that Rose was not his adopted, but his real daughter. His
+self-reproaches, his lamentations over her deceast mother, his bursts
+of pity for Rose, were heart-rending. Now then, my beloved mother and
+my dear Edward, what remains for us to do? Our conscience, if we
+consult it honestly, declares that Rose is his true rightful heir, and
+ought to have the largest part of his fortune."
+
+After this declaration his mother treated the lovely girl as a beloved
+daughter; and on the same day on which William celebrated his wedding,
+Edward had also the happiness of receiving Rose as his bride. The
+fortune was divided; Edward continued to manage all the most important
+affairs; and a happy joyful family inhabited and enlivened the old
+house, which lost its gloomy character, and often resounded with
+music, songs, and dancing, to the delight of all the inhabitants of
+the little town.
+
+
+
+
+                            THE LOVECHARM.
+
+
+Emilius was sitting in deep thought at his table, awaiting his friend
+Roderick. A light was burning before him; the winter-evening was cold;
+and today he wisht for the presence of his fellow traveller, though at
+other times wont to avoid his society; for on this evening he purpost
+to disclose a secret to him and ask his advice. The timid, shy Emilius
+found so many difficulties, such insurmountable hinderances, in every
+affair he was engaged in, and in every event that befell him, that it
+almost seemed as if his destiny had been in an ironical mood when it
+threw him and Roderick together, Roderick being in all things the
+reverse of his friend. Fickle, flighty, always determined and fixt by
+the first impression, he attempted everything, had a plan for every
+emergency; no undertaking was too arduous for him, no obstacles could
+deter him. But in the midst of the pursuit he wearied and broke down
+just as suddenly as at first he had kindled and sprung forward:
+whatever then opposed him did not act as a spur to urge him more
+eagerly onward, but only made him abandon and despise what he had so
+hotly rusht into; and thus Roderick was evermore thoughtlessly
+beginning something new, and with no better reason relinquishing and
+carelessly forgetting what he had begun just before. Hence no day ever
+passed but the friends got into a quarrel, which threatened to be a
+death blow to their friendship: and yet what to all appearance thus
+divided them, was perhaps the very thing that bound them most closely
+together: each loved the other heartily; but each found passing
+satisfaction in being able to discharge the most justly deserved
+reproaches upon his friend.
+
+Emilius, a rich young man of a sensitive and melancholy temperament,
+had become master of his fortune on his father's death, and had set
+out on his travels for the sake of cultivating his mind: he had
+already been spending several months however in a large town, to enjoy
+the pleasures of the carnival, about which he never gave himself the
+slightest trouble, and to make certain important arrangements
+concerning his fortune with some relations, whom he had scarcely yet
+visited. On his journey he had fallen in with the restless,
+ever-shifting and veering Roderick, who was living at variance with
+his guardians, and who, to get rid altogether of them and their
+troublesome admonitions, had caught eagerly at his new friend's offer
+to take him with him on his travels.
+
+On their road they had already been often on the point of separating;
+but after every dispute both had only felt the more forcibly that
+neither could live without the other. Scarcely had they got out of
+their carriage in any town, when Roderick had already seen everything
+remarkable in it, to forget it all again on the morrow: while Emilius
+took a week to study thoroughly whatever was said in books about it,
+that he might not leave anything unnoticed; and after all out of
+indolence thought there was hardly anything worth going to look at.
+Roderick had immediately made a thousand acquaintances, and been to
+every public place of entertainment; and he would often bring his
+new-made friends to Emilius in his solitary chamber, where, as soon as
+he began to be tired of them, he left him alone with them. At other
+times he would confound the modest Emilius by heaping extravagant
+praises on his talents and acquirements in the presence of learned and
+intelligent men, and by telling them how much information they might
+derive from his friend with regard to languages, antiquities, or the
+fine arts, though he himself could never find leisure to listen to him
+on these subjects when the conversation happened to turn on them. But
+if Emilius ever chanced to be in a more active mood, he might almost
+make sure that his truant friend would have caught cold the night
+before at some ball or sledge-party, and be forced to keep his bed; so
+that, with the liveliest, most restless, and most communicative of men
+for his companion, Emilius lived in the greatest solitude.
+
+On this day he confidently expected him, having made Roderick give him
+a solemn promise to spend the evening with him, in order to hear what
+it was that for several weeks had been depressing and agitating his
+pensive friend. Meanwhile Emilius wrote down the following lines:
+
+'Tis sweet when spring its choir assembles,
+   And every nightingale is steeping
+   The trees in his melodious weeping,
+Till leaf and bloom with rapture trembles.
+
+Fair is the net that moonlight weaves;
+   Fair are the breezes gambolings
+   As with lime-odours on their wings
+They chase each other through the leaves.
+
+Bright is the glory of the rose,
+   When Love's rich magic decks the earth,
+   From countless roses Love peeps forth,
+Those stars wherewith Love's heaven glows.
+
+But sweeter, fairer, brighter far
+   To me that little lamp's pale gleaming,
+   When, through the narrow casement streaming
+It bids me hail my evening star;
+
+As from their braids she flings her tresses,
+   Then twines them in a flowery band,
+   While at each motion of her hand
+The light robe to her fair form presses;
+
+Or when she wakes her lute's deep slumbers,
+   And, as at morning's touch updarting,
+   The notes beneath her fingers starting,
+Trip o'er the strings in playful numbers.
+
+To stop their flight her voice she pours
+   Full after them; they laugh, and fly,
+   And to my heart for refuge hie:
+Her voice pursues them through its doors.
+
+Leave me, ye mischiefs! hence remove!
+   They bar themselves within, and say:
+   Till this be broken here we stay,
+That thou mayst know what 'tis to love.
+
+Emilius stood up fretfully. It grew darker, but no Roderick came; and
+he was wishing to tell him of his love for an unknown fair one, who
+dwelt in the opposite house, and who kept him at home all day long,
+and waking through many a night.
+
+At length footsteps sounded on the stairs; the door opened without
+anybody knocking at it: and in came two gay masks with ugly visages,
+one of them a Turk, drest in red and blue silk, the other a Spaniard,
+in pale yellow and pink, with a plume of feathers waving on his hat.
+When Emilius was losing patience, Roderick took off his mask, shewed
+his well-known laughing countenance, and cried: "Heyday, my good
+friend, what a drowned puppy of a face! Is this the way to look in the
+carnival? I am come with my dear young officer here to carry you off:
+there is a grand ball tonight at the masquerade-rooms; and, as I know
+you have forsworn ever putting on any other suit than that which you
+always wear of the devil's own colour, come with us black as you are;
+for it is getting somewhat late."
+
+Emilius felt angry, and said: "It seems that according to custom you
+have totally forgotten your engagement. I am extremely sorry," (he
+added, turning to the stranger) "that I cannot possibly be of your
+party: my friend has been overhasty in promising for me; indeed I
+cannot go out at all, having some matters of importance to talk over
+with him."
+
+The stranger, who was well-bred and saw Emiliuses meaning, withdrew:
+but Roderick with the utmost indifference put on his mask again, took
+his stand before the glass, and exclaimed: "Verily, I am a most
+hideous figure, am I not? After all my pains it is a tasteless,
+disgusting device."
+
+"That there can be no question about!" answered Emilius in vehement
+displeasure. "Making a caricature of yourself, and stupefying your
+senses, are among the pleasures you are the fondest of driving at."
+
+"Because you don't like dancing," said the other, "and look upon it as
+a pernicious invention, not a soul in the world is to be merry. How
+tiresome it is when a man is made up of nothing but whims!"
+
+"Doubtless!" replied his irritated friend; "and you afford me ample
+opportunity for finding that it is so. I fancied that after our
+agreement you would have given me this one evening; but--"
+
+"But it is the carnival, you know," interposed the other; "and all my
+acquaintances, and divers fair ladies are expecting me at the grand
+ball tonight. Rely upon it, my dear friend, it is mere disease in you
+that makes you so unreasonably averse to all such amusements."
+
+"Which of us has the fairest claim to be called diseased," said
+Emilius, "I will not examine. But I cannot think that your
+incomprehensible frivolousness, your hunger and thirst for
+dissipation, your restless chase after pleasures that leave the heart
+empty, are altogether the healthiest state of human nature. On certain
+points at all events you might make a little allowance for my
+weakness, if you are determined to call it so; and you know there is
+nothing in the world that so sets my whole soul on edge as a ball with
+its frightful music. Somebody has said, that to a deaf person who
+cannot hear the music a party of dancers must look like so many
+patients for a madhouse: but to my mind this detestable music itself,
+this twirling and whirling and pirouetting of half a dozen notes, each
+treading on its own heels, in those odious tunes, which ram themselves
+into our memory, nay, I might say, mix themselves up with our very
+blood, so that one cannot get rid of the taint for many a woful day
+after,--this to me is the very trance of madness: and if I could ever
+bring myself to think dancing endurable, it would be dancing to the
+tune of silence."
+
+"Bravo, signor paradox-monger!" exclaimed the mask: "You are so far
+gone, that you choose to think the most natural, the most innocent,
+and the merriest thing in the world unnatural, ay, and shocking."
+
+"I cannot change my feelings," said his grave friend. "From my very
+childhood these tunes have made me unhappy, and have often all but
+driven me out of my senses. They are to me the ghosts and spectres and
+furies in the world of sound, and they come and buz round my head, and
+grin at me with horrid laughter."
+
+"Sheer nervousness!" returned the other; "just like your extravagant
+abhorrence of spiders and divers other harmless insects."
+
+"Harmless you call them!" cried Emilius indignantly, "because you have
+no repugnance to such things. To him however that feels the same
+disgust and loathing, the same unutterable shuddering, as I feel,
+start up within him and shoot through his whole frame at the sight of
+them, these miscreate deformities, such as toads, beetles, or that
+most nauseous of all Nature's abortions, the bat, are not indifferent
+or insignificant: their very existence is a state of direct enmity and
+warfare against his. In good truth one might smile at the unbelievers
+whose imagination is too barren for ghosts and fearful goblins, and
+such births of night as we see in sickness, to grow up in it, or who
+stare and marvel at Dante's descriptions; when the commonest everyday
+life is perpetually paralysing our eyesight with some of these
+portentous distorted masterpieces among the works of horrour. Yet how
+can we have a real feeling and love for beauty, without detesting and
+recoiling from such monstrosities?"
+
+"Why recoil from them?" askt Roderick: "why should we see nothing in
+the vast realm of water, in lakes, rivers, and seas, but those dismal
+objects which you have taught yourself to find there? why not rather
+look on such creatures as queer, amusing, and ludicrous mummers? so
+that the deep might be called a kind of large maskt ballroom. But your
+caprices go still further; for while you love roses with a sort of
+idolatry, there are other flowers for which you have a no less
+passionate hatred: yet what harm has the dear bright tulip ever done
+you? or all the other gay children of summer that you persecute? Thus
+again you have an antipathy to sundry colours, to sundry scents, and
+to a number of thoughts; and you never take any pains to strengthen
+yourself against these moods, but give way to them and sink down into
+them as into a luxurious feather bed; so that I often fear I shall
+lose you altogether some day, and find nothing but a patchwork of
+whims and prejudices sitting at that table instead of my Emilius."
+
+Emilius was wroth to the bottom of his heart, and answered not a word.
+He had now given up all thought of making his intended confession; nor
+did the thoughtless Roderick shew the least wish to hear the secret
+which his melancholy companion had announced to him with such an air
+of solemnity. He was sitting carelessly in the armchair, playing with
+his mask, when on a sudden he cried: "Be so kind, Emilius, as to lend
+me your large cloak."
+
+"What for?" askt the other.
+
+"I hear music in the church over the way," answered Roderick; "and
+some how or other I have mist this hour every evening since we have
+been here. Today it comes just in the nick: I can cover my dress with
+your cloak, hiding my mask and turban under it; and so, when the music
+is over, I may go straight to the ball."
+
+Emilius muttered between his teeth as he went for the cloak to his
+wardrobe, and then, forcing himself to put on an ironical smile, he
+gave it to Roderick who was already on his legs.
+
+"There, I'll leave you my Turkish dagger that I bought yesterday,"
+said the mask, as he wrapt himself up: "Take care of it for me; it is
+a bad habit, this carrying about toys of cold steel: one can never
+tell what ill use may not be made of them, should a quarrel arise, or
+any other knot that it is easier to cut than untie. We shall meet
+again tomorrow; good bye; a pleasant evening to you." He did not wait
+for an answer, but ran down stairs.
+
+When Emilius was alone, he tried to forget his anger, and to look only
+at the laughable side of his friend's behaviour. His eyes rested on
+the shining, finely wrought dagger, and he said: "What must be the
+feelings of a man who could thrust this sharp iron into the breast of
+an enemy! but oh, what must be his who should hurt a beloved object
+with it!"
+
+He lockt it up, then gently folded back the window shutters, and lookt
+across the narrow street. But no light was stirring; the opposite
+house was quite dark; the dear form that dwelt in it, and that was
+wont to appear there about this time engaged in divers household
+affairs, seemed to be absent. 'Perhaps she may be at the ball,'
+thought Emilius, little as it sorted with her retired way of life. Ere
+long however a light came in: the little girl whom his beloved unknown
+had about her, and with whom she used to pass a great part of the day
+and of the evening, carried a candle through the room and closed the
+shutters. A chink still let the light through, wide enough for
+Emilius, where he stood, to overlook a part of the little room: and
+there the happy youth would often stay till after midnight as if
+charmed to the spot, watching every motion of her hand, every look of
+her beloved face. It was a joy to see her teaching the child to read,
+or giving her lessons in sewing and knitting. On inquiry he had learnt
+that the little girl was a poor orphan, whom his fair maiden had
+charitably taken into the house, to educate her.
+
+Emiliuses friends could not conceive why he lived in this narrow
+street, in this comfortless lodging, why he was so little to be seen
+in society, or how he employed himself. Without employment, in
+solitude, he was happy: only he felt out of humour with himself at his
+own bashfulness, which withheld him from trying to become nearer
+acquainted with this beauteous being, notwithstanding the friendliness
+with which she had several times greeted and thankt him. He knew not
+that she would often gaze over at him with eyes no less lovesick than
+his own: he guessed not what wishes were forming in her heart, of what
+an effort, what a sacrifice she felt herself capable, so she might but
+attain the possession of his love.
+
+After walking a few times up and down the room, the light having gone
+away again with the child, he suddenly made up his mind, in spite of
+all his feelings and inclinations, to go to the ball; for it struck
+him that his unknown might have made an exception for once to her
+usual secluded habits, for the sake of enjoying the world and its
+gaieties.
+
+The streets were brilliantly lighted up; the snow crackled under his
+feet; carriages rolled by him; and masks in every variety of dress
+whistled and twittered as they passed him. Many of the houses
+resounded with the dancing music which he so much abhorred; and he
+could not bring himself to take the nearest way to the ballroom, to
+which people from all quarters were streaming and flocking.
+
+He walkt round the old church, gazed at its high tower rising
+majestically into the dark sky, and enjoyed the stillness and solitude
+of this deserted place. Within the recess of a large doorway, the
+varied sculptures of which he had often contemplated with pleasure,
+while calling up visions of the olden times and the arts that adorned
+them, he now again took his stand, to give himself up for a few
+moments to his musings.
+
+He had not been there long, when his attention was attracted by a
+figure that was pacing restlessly to and fro, and seemed to be waiting
+for somebody. By the light of a lamp burning before an image of the
+Virgin, he distinctly made out the face, as well as the strange dress.
+It was an old woman of the uttermost hideousness, which struck the eye
+the more from her being grotesquely clad in a scarlet bodice
+embroidered with gold. Emilius fancied at first it must be some
+extravagant mask that had lost its way: but the bright light soon
+convinced him that the old brown wrinkled face was one of Nature's
+ploughing, and no mimic exaggeration.
+
+In a few minutes two men made their appearance, wrapt up in cloaks,
+who seemed to approach the spot with cautious steps, often turning
+their heads aside to see whether anybody was following. The old woman
+went up to them.
+
+"Have you got the candles?" she askt hastily and with a gruff voice.
+
+"Here they are," said one of the men: "you know the price; let us
+settle the matter and have done with it."
+
+The old woman seemed to be giving him some money, which he counted
+over beneath his cloak. "I rely upon you," she again began, "that they
+are made exactly according to rule, at the right time and place, so
+that they cannot fail of their effect."
+
+"You need not be uneasy on that score," returned the man, and hurried
+away.
+
+His companion, who staid behind, was a youth: he took the old woman by
+the hand, and said: "Can it be true, Alexia, that certain rites and
+spells, as those old wild stories, in which I could never put faith,
+tell us, can fetter the free will of man, and make love and hatred grow
+up in the heart?"
+
+"Ay forsooth!" answered the scarlet woman; "but one and one must make
+two, and many a one must be added thereto, before such mighty things
+come to pass. It is not these candles alone, moulded beneath the
+midnight darkness of the new moon, and drencht with human blood, it is
+not the mere uttering magical words and incantations, that can give
+you the mastery over the soul of another: there is much more belonging
+to such works, as the initiated well know."
+
+"I may depend upon you then!" cried the stranger.
+
+"Tomorrow after midnight I am at your service," replied the old woman.
+"You shall not be the first person that ever was dissatisfied with my
+skill. Tonight, as you have heard, I have some one else in hand, one
+whose senses and soul our art shall twist about whichever way we
+choose, just as easily as I twist this hair out of my head."
+
+These last words she uttered with a half grin; and they separated,
+walking off in different directions.
+
+Emilius came forth from the dark niche shuddering, and lifted his
+looks to the image of the Virgin with the Child. "Before thine eyes,
+thou mild and blessed one," he said half aloud, "are these miscreants
+audaciously holding their market and trafficking in their infernal
+drugs. But as thou embracest thy child with thy love, so doth heavenly
+Love encircle us all with its protecting arms; we feel their touch;
+and our poor hearts beat joyously and tremulously toward a greater
+heart that will never forsake us."
+
+Clouds were rolling along over the pinnacles of the tower and the high
+roof of the church; the everlasting stars lookt down through the midst
+of them gleaming with mild serenity; and Emilius drew his thoughts
+resolutely away from these nightly abominations, and mused on the
+beauty of his unknown. He again entered the peopled streets, and bent
+his steps toward the brightly illuminated ballroom, from which voices,
+and the rattling of carriages, and now and then, when there was a
+pause, the clamorous music, came sounding to his ears.
+
+In the ballroom he was instantly lost amid the streaming throng:
+dancers ran round him; masks darted by him to and fro; kettledrums and
+trumpets stunned his ears; and it seemed to him as if human life had
+melted away into a dream. He walkt along one row after another, and
+his eye alone was wakeful, seeking after those beloved eyes and that
+fair head with its brown locks, for the sight of which he yearned this
+evening more intensely than ever, at the same time that he inwardly
+reproacht their adored possessor, for allowing herself to plunge and
+be lost in this stormy sea of confusion and folly. 'No!' he said to
+himself; 'no heart that loves can willingly expose itself to this
+dreary hubbub of noise, in which every longing and every tear is scoft
+and mockt at by the wild laughter of pealing trumpets. The whispering
+of trees, the murmuring of brooks, the soft notes of the harp, and the
+song that gushes forth in all its richness and sweetness from an
+overflowing bosom, are the sounds in which love dwells. But this is
+the very thundering and shouting of hell in the frenzy of its
+despair....'
+
+He saw nothing like her whom he was seeking for; and he could not
+possibly give enterance to the notion that her beloved face might
+perhaps be lurking behind some odious mask.
+
+He had already ranged up and down the room three times over, and had
+in vain run his eyes along all the ladies that were sitting and
+unmaskt, when the Spaniard joined him and said: "I am glad you are
+come after all; are you looking for your friend?"
+
+Emilius had quite forgotten him; he said however somewhat embarrast:
+"In truth I wonder I have not met him here, for his mask is not to be
+mistaken."
+
+"Can you guess what the harum-scarum fellow is about?" answered the
+young officer. "He never danced at all, and hardly staid ten minutes
+in the ballroom: for he soon fell in with his friend Anderson, who is
+just come up from the country: their conversation turned upon books;
+and as Anderson has never seen the new poem, Roderick would not rest
+till he had made them open one of the back rooms for him; and there he
+is now sitting beside a solitary taper, holding his companion fast,
+and declaiming the whole poem to him, not omitting even the invocation
+to the muse."
+
+"It's just like him," said Emilius; "he is always the child of the
+moment. I have done all in my power, and even run the risk of some
+amicable quarrels, to cure him of this habit of for ever living
+extempore, and playing out his whole life in impromptus, card after
+card, as it chances to turn up, without once looking over his hand.
+But these follies have struck such deep root in his heart, he would
+sooner part with his best friend than with them. That very same poem,
+which he is so fond of that he always carries it about in his pocket,
+he wanted to read to me a few days ago, and I had earnestly begged him
+to do so: but he had scarcely got beyond the first description of the
+moon, when, just as I had resigned myself to the enjoyment of its
+beauties, he suddenly jumpt up, ran out of the room, came back with
+the cook's apron round his waist, tore down the bell-rope in ringing
+to have the fire lighted, and insisted on broiling me some beefsteaks,
+for which I had not the least appetite, and which he fancies nobody in
+Europe dresses so well, though, if he is in luck, he does not spoil
+them above nine times in ten."
+
+The Spaniard laught, and askt: "Has he never been in love?"
+
+"After his fashion," replied Emilius very gravely; "as if he were
+making game of love and of himself, with a dozen women at a time, and,
+if you would believe his words, raving after every one of them: but
+ere a week passes over his head, they are all spunged out of it, and
+not even a blot is left behind."
+
+They parted in the crowd, and Emilius walkt toward the remote
+apartment, from which, long before he reacht it, he caught his
+friend's loud recitative.
+
+"Ah, so you are here too!" exclaimed Roderick, as he entered: "you
+have just hit the right moment; I am at the very passage where we were
+interrupted the other day: sit down, and you may hear the remainder."
+
+"I am not in a humour for it now," said Emilius: "besides the time and
+place do not seem to me exactly suited to such an employment."
+
+"And why not?" answered Roderick. "Time and place are made for us, not
+we for time and place. Is not good poetry just as good at one hour as
+at another? Is not it right to read it? and can that which is right
+ever become wrong? Or would you rather dance? There is a lack of men;
+and you need only jump about for a few hours, at the mere risk of
+tiring your legs, to lay strong siege to the hearts of as many
+grateful beauties as you choose."
+
+"Good night!" cried the other with his hand on the door; "I am going
+home."
+
+Roderick called out to him: "Only one word! I shall set off tomorrow
+at daybreak with my friend here, to spend a few days in the country,
+but will look in upon you to say goodbye before we start. Should you
+be asleep, as is most likely, you need not take the trouble of waking;
+for, before a week is out, I shall be back again.--The strangest being
+upon earth!" he continued, turning to his neighbour; "so moping and
+fretful, such a splitter of thoughts, that he turns all his pleasures
+sour; or rather there is no such thing as pleasure for him. Instead of
+walking about with his fellow creatures in broad daylight and enjoying
+himself, he gets down to the bottom of the well of his fancies, in the
+hope of now and then catching a glimpse of a star. Everything must be
+in the superlative for him: everything must be pure, and majestic, and
+etherial, and celestial: his heart must be always throbbing and
+heaving, even when he is standing before a puppet show. He never
+laughs or cries, but can only smile and weep; and forsooth there is
+mighty little difference between his weeping and his smiling. When
+anything, be it what it may, falls short of his anticipations and
+preconceptions, which are always flying up out of reach and sight, he
+puts on a tragical face, and complains that it is a base and soulless
+world. At this very moment, I make no doubt, he is requiring that
+under the masks of a Pantaloon or a Punch there should be a soul
+glowing with unearthly desires and ideal aspirations, and that
+Harlequin should outmoralize Hamlet on the nothingness of sublunary
+things: and if these expectations are disappointed, as they can never
+fail to be, the dew is sure to rise into his eyes, and he will turn
+his back on the whole motley scene in desponding contempt."
+
+"He must be atrabilious then?" askt his hearer.
+
+"Not that exactly," answered Roderick: "he has only been spoilt by the
+indulgence of his overfond parents and by his own. He has accustomed
+himself to let his heart ebb and flow as regularly as the sea; and if
+this motion is ever at a stop, he cries out _a miracle!_ and would
+offer a prize to the philosopher who should give a satisfactory
+explanation of so marvellous a phenomenon. He is the best fellow under
+the sun; but all my painstaking to break him of this perverseness has
+been utterly vain and thrown away; and if I would not earn scurvy
+thanks for my goodwill, I must even let him follow his own devices."
+
+"Might not a physician do him good?" remarkt Anderson.
+
+"It is one of his whims," replied Roderick, "to entertain a supreme
+contempt for the whole medical art. He will have it that every disease
+is something different and distinct in every particular patient, that
+there is no arranging it under any class, and that it is absurd to
+think of healing it by attending to ancient practice, and still more
+so by what is called theory: he would much rather apply to an old
+woman, and make use of sympathetic cures. In like manner he despises
+all foresight in other matters, and everything like regularity,
+moderation, and common sense: the last above all he holds in special
+abhorrence, as the antipode and arch-enemy to all enthusiasm. While
+yet a child he framed for himself an ideal of a noble character; and
+his constant aim is to make himself what he considers such, that is to
+say, a being who shews his superiority to all earthly things by his
+scorn for riches. Merely to avoid being suspected of stinginess, or of
+giving unwillingly, or of caring about money, he flings it right and
+left by handfuls; with all his large fortune he is for ever poor and
+distrest, and is the bubble of all such as are not gifted with
+precisely the same sort of magnanimity which for himself he is
+determined to attain to. To be his friend is the task of all tasks:
+for he is so touchy, you need only cough, or eat with your knife, or
+not sip your drink as delicately as a cow, or even pick your teeth, to
+offend him mortally."
+
+"Was he never in love?" askt his country friend.
+
+"Whom should he love? whom could he love?" answered Roderick. "He
+despises all the daughters of earth; and if he had a favorite, and
+were ever to suspect that she had not an angelical contempt for dress,
+or liked dancing at times as well as star-gazing, it would break his
+heart: still more tremendous would it be, if she were ever so unlucky
+as to sneeze."
+
+Meanwhile Emilius was again standing among the crowd: but on a sudden
+he was seized by that heart-burning, that shivering, which had already
+so often come over him in the midst of a multitude in a like state of
+excitement. It drove him out of the ballroom, out of the house, and
+along the desolate streets; nor did he recover and regain the quiet
+possession of his senses, till he reacht his lonely chamber. The night
+light was already burning; he sent his servant to bed: everything over
+the way was silent and dark, and he sat down to pour forth the
+feelings which the ball had aroused, in verse.
+
+    Within the heart 'tis still;
+Sleep each wild thought encages:
+    Now stirs a wicked will,
+Would see how madness rages,
+    And cries: Wild spirit awake!
+Loud cymbals catch the cry,
+    And back its echoes shake;
+And, shouting peals of laughter,
+The trumpet rushes after,
+    And cries: Wild spirit awake!
+Amid them flute-tones fly,
+Like arrows, keen and numberless;
+    And with bloodhound yell
+    Pipes the onset swell;
+And violins and violoncellos,
+    Creaking, clattering,
+    Shrieking, shattering;
+And horns whence thunder bellows;
+To leave the victim slumberless,
+And drag forth prisoned madness,
+And cruelly murder all quiet and innocent gladness.
+
+What will be the end of this commotion?
+Where the shore to this turmoiling ocean?
+What seeks the tossing throng,
+As it wheels and whirls along?
+On! on! the lustres
+    Like hellstars bicker:
+Let us twine in closer clusters,
+    On! on! ever closer and quicker!
+How the silly things throb, throb amain!
+    Hence all quiet!
+    Hither riot!
+    Peal more proudly,
+    Squeal more loudly,
+Ye cymbals, ye trumpets! bedull all pain,
+Till it laugh again.
+
+Thou beckonest to me, beauty's daughter;
+    Smiles ripple o'er thy lips,
+And o'er thine eye's blue water;
+    O let me breathe on thee,
+    Ere parted hence we flee,
+    Ere aught that light eclipse!
+I know that beauty's flowers soon wither:
+    Those lips, within whose rosy cells
+    Thy spirit warbles its sweet spells,
+Death's clammy kiss ere long will press together.
+I know, that face so fair and full
+Is but a masquerading skull:
+But hail to thee skull so fair and so fresh!
+    Why should I weep and whine and wail,
+    That what blooms now must soon grow pale,
+And that worms must batten on that sweet flesh?
+Let me laugh but today and tomorrow,
+And what care I for sorrow,
+    While thus on the waves of the dance by
+         each other we sail?
+
+Now thou art mine,
+And I am thine:
+And what though pain and trouble wait
+To seize thee at the gate,
+    And sob, and tear, and groan, and sigh,
+Stand ranged in state
+    On thee to fly,
+Blithely let us look and cheerily
+On death that grins so drearily!
+What would grief with us, or anguish?
+They are foes that we know how to vanquish.
+I press thine answering fingers,
+Thy look upon me lingers,
+    Or the fringe of thy garment will waft me
+         a kiss:
+Thou rollest on in light;
+I fall back into night;
+    Even despair is bliss.
+
+From this delight,
+    From this wild revel's surge
+    Perchance there may emerge
+Foul jealousy, and scorn, and envious spite.
+But this is our glory and pride;
+    When thee I despise,
+    I turn but my eyes,
+    And the fair one beside thee will welcome
+         my gaze,
+And she is my bride!
+    O happy, happy maze!
+Or shall it be her neighbour?
+Whose eyes, like a sabre,
+Flash and pierce,
+Their glance is so fierce.
+
+Thus jumping and prancing,
+All together go dancing
+    Adown life's giddy cave;
+Nor living, nor loving,
+But dizzily roving
+    Through dreams to a grave.
+There below 'tis yet worse:
+    Earth's flowers and its clay
+    Roof a gloomier day,
+Hide a still deeper curse.
+Ring then, ye cymbals, enliven this dream!
+Ye horns shout a fiercer, more vulture-like scream!
+    And frisk caper skip prance dance yourselves
+         out of breath!
+For your life is all art,
+Love has given you no heart:
+    So hurrah till you plunge into bottomless
+         death.
+
+He had ended, and was standing by the window. Then she came into the
+opposite chamber, lovely, as he had never yet seen her: her brown hair
+floated freely, and played in wanton ringlets about the whitest of
+necks; she was but lightly clad, and seemed as if she meant to finish
+some little household matters at this late hour of the night before
+she went to bed: for she placed two candles in two corners of the
+room, set the green cloth on the table to rights, and withdrew again.
+
+Emilius was still sunk in his sweet dreams, and gazing on the image
+which his beloved had left in his mind, when to his horrour the
+frightful, the scarlet old woman walkt through the chamber: the gold
+on her head and breast glared ghastlily as it threw back the light.
+
+She had vanisht again. Was he to believe his eyes? Was it not some
+delusive phantom of the night that his own feverish imagination had
+conjured up before him?
+
+But no! she returned, still more hideous than before, with a long grey
+and black mane flying wildly and haggardly about her breast and back.
+The beauteous maiden followed her, pale, stiff; her lovely bosom was
+all bared, but her whole form was like a marble statue.
+
+Betwixt them they led the sweet little child, crying and clinging
+imploringly to the fair maiden, who lookt not down upon it. The child
+lifted up and claspt its little beseeching hands, and stroakt the pale
+neck and cheeks of the marble beauty. But she held it fast by the
+hair, and in the other hand a silver basin.
+
+Then the old woman growled, and pulled out a long knife, and drew it
+across the white neck of the child. Here something crawled forth from
+behind that they seemed not to perceive, or it must have struck them
+with the same thrilling terrour as Emilius. A serpent curled its
+loathsome neck, scale after scale, lengthening and still lengthening,
+out of the darkness, and stoopt down over the child, whose lifeless
+limbs hung from the old woman's arms: its black tongue lickt up the
+spirting red blood, and a green sparkling eye shot over into the eye,
+and brain, and heart of Emilius, who instantly dropt on the ground.
+
+He was senseless when found by Roderick some hours after.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A party of friends were sitting on the brightest summer morning in a
+green arbour, assembled at an excellent breakfast. Laughter and jests
+passed round; and many a time did the glasses kiss with a merry health
+to the young couple, and a wish that they might be the happiest of the
+happy. The bride and bridegroom were not present; she being still
+engaged in dressing, while the young husband was sauntering by himself
+down an avenue some way off, musing upon his happiness.
+
+"What a pity it is," said Anderson, "that we are to have no music! All
+our ladies are beclouded at the thought, and never in their whole
+lives longed for a dance so much as today, when it is quite out of the
+question: it is far too painful to his feelings."
+
+"I can tell you a secret though," exclaimed a young officer, "that we
+are to have a dance after all; and a rare riotous and madcap one it
+will be. Everything is already arranged; the musicians are come
+secretly and quartered out of sight. Roderick has managed the whole
+business; for he says one ought not to let him always have his own
+way, or to humour his strange caprices overmuch, especially on such a
+day as this."
+
+"Besides," observed another young man, "he is already become much more
+tractable and sociable than he used to be; so that I think he himself
+will not be sorry at the alteration. Indeed the whole wedding has been
+brought about all on the sudden, and has taken everybody by surprise."
+
+"His whole history," resumed Anderson, "is just as extraordinary as
+his character. You must all remember how, being on his travels last
+autumn, he arrived in our city, and spent the winter there, living
+like a melancholy man almost entirely in his own room, and never
+visiting our theatre or taking part in any other amusement. He all but
+quarrelled with Roderick, his most intimate friend, for trying to
+divert him, and refusing to pamper all his moping fantasies. In fact
+this overstrained irritability and moroseness must have been a disease
+that was gathering in his body: for you know he was attackt four
+months ago by such a violent nervous fever, that his life was for a
+long time despaired of. After his frenzy had raved itself out, and he
+returned to his senses, he had almost entirely lost his memory:
+nothing but his childhood and early youth kept its hold on his mind;
+and he was totally unable to recollect anything that had happened
+during his journey, or immediately before his illness. He had to begin
+his acquaintance afresh with all his friends, even with Roderick; and
+it is only by little and little that his thoughts have grown lighter,
+and that the past with all that had befallen him has come back, though
+still in dim colours, into his memory. He had been removed into his
+uncle's house, that better care might be taken of him; and he was just
+like a child, letting them do whatever they chose with him. The first
+time he went out to enjoy the warmth of the spring in the park, he saw
+a girl sitting pensively by the roadside. She lookt up; her eye met
+his; and seized with an inexplicable yearning he stopt the carriage,
+got out, sat down by her, took hold of her hands, and burst into a
+flood of tears. His friends were again alarmed for his intellects: but
+he grew calm, cheerful, and conversable, got introduced to the girl's
+parents, and at his very first visit askt for her hand, which, with
+her parents consent, she granted him. Since that time he has been
+happy, and a new life has sprung up within him: day after day he has
+become healthier and more contented. A week ago he paid me a visit at
+this country house, and was above measure delighted with it; indeed so
+much so that he would not rest till he had made me sell it to him. I
+might easily have turned his passionate desire to my own advantage,
+and his loss; for when he once sets his heart on a thing, he will have
+it, and that too forthwith. He immediately let it be got ready, sent
+furniture that he may spend the summer months here; and thus it has
+come to pass that we are all met for his wedding in my old garden."
+
+The house was large, and in a very lovely country. One side of it
+lookt on a river and some woody hills beyond; shrubs and trees of
+various kinds were scattered about the lawn; and immediately before
+the windows lay a flower garden sweetening the air. The orange and
+lemon trees were ranged in a large open hall, from which small doors
+led to the store rooms, cellars, and pantries. On the other side a
+meadow spread out its green floor, opening immediately into the park.
+The two long wings of the house formed a spacious court; and broad
+open galleries, borne by three rows of pillars standing one above the
+other, ran round it, connecting all the rooms in the house, and giving
+it a singular and interesting character: for figures were perpetually
+moving along these arcades, some engaged in one employment, some in
+another; new forms kept stepping forth between the pillars and out of
+the various rooms, which anon vanisht and then reappeared above or
+below, to be lost behind one of the doors: parties too would often
+assemble there for tea or for some game; and thus from below the whole
+had the look of a theatre, before which everybody was glad to stop
+awhile, with a foreboding that something strange or pleasing was sure
+to meet his eyes ere long.
+
+The party of young people were just rising, when the bride came in her
+full dress through the garden walking toward them. She was clad in
+violet-coloured velvet: a sparkling necklace lay cradled on her
+glittering neck; the costly lace just allowed her white swelling bosom
+to glimmer through; and her wreath of myrtle and white roses gave her
+brown hair a still more beautiful tint.
+
+She greeted them all graciously, and the young men were astonisht at
+her surpassing beauty. She had been gathering flowers in the garden,
+and was going back into the house to see after the arrangements for
+dinner.
+
+The tables had been set out in the lower open gallery, and shone
+dazzlingly with their white coverings and their load of sparkling
+crystal: rich clusters of many-coloured flowers rose from the graceful
+necks of alabaster vases; green garlands, starred with white blossoms,
+twined round the columns: and it was a lovely sight to behold the
+bride gliding along with gentle motion between the tables and the
+pillars, amid the light of the flowers, overlooking the whole with a
+searching glance, and then vanishing; and reappearing a moment after
+above, to pass into her chamber.
+
+"She is the loveliest, most enchanting creature I ever saw!" cried
+Anderson: "our friend is indeed a happy man."
+
+"Her very paleness," added the officer, "hightens her beauty. Her
+hazel eyes only sparkle the more intensely above those white cheeks
+and beneath those dark locks; and the singular, almost burning redness
+of her lips gives her face a truly magical appearance."
+
+"The air of silent melancholy that surrounds her," said Anderson,
+"sheds a noble majesty over her."
+
+The bridegroom joined them, and askt after Roderick: he had been
+missing for some time, and they could not conceive what he was about.
+All set off in search of him.
+
+"He is down in the hall," said at length a young man whom they
+happened to ask, "in the midst of the coachmen, footmen, and grooms,
+shewing off tricks at cards, which make them stare till their wits
+ache."
+
+They walkt in, and interrupted the boisterous admiration of the
+servants, without however disturbing Roderick, who quietly went on
+conjuring. When he had finisht, he returned with the others into the
+garden, and said: "I do it only to strengthen the fellows in their
+faith: these puzzles give a hard blow to their groomships'
+free-thinking inclinations, and help to make 'em true believers."
+
+"I see," said the bridegroom, "my all-sufficing friend, among his
+other talents, does not think that of a mountebank beneath his
+cultivation."
+
+"We live in strange times," replied the other; "who knows whether
+mountebanks may not come to rule the roast in their turn? One ought to
+despise nothing nowadays: the veriest straw of a talent may be that
+which is to break the camel's back."
+
+When the two friends found themselves alone, Emilius again turned down
+the dark avenue and said: "Why am I in such a gloomy mood on this the
+happiest day of my life? But I assure you, Roderick, though you will
+not believe me, I am not made for moving about amid such a mob of
+human beings,--for this parade of heartless courtesy,--for keeping my
+attention on the _qui vive_ to every letter of the alphabet, so that
+neither A nor Z may complain of being treated with disrespect,--for
+making low bows to her tenth cousin, and shaking hands warmly with my
+twentieth,--for this formal reverence to her parents,--for handing a
+flower from my nosegay of compliments to every lady that crosses the
+room,--for waiting to receive the tide of new-comers as wave after
+wave rushes over me, and then turning to give orders that their
+servants and horses may each have a full trough and pail set before
+them."
+
+"That is a watch that goes of its own accord;" answered Roderick.
+"Only look at your house! it was just built for such an occasion: and
+your head-butler, with his right hand taking up at the same time that
+his left hand is setting down, and one leg running north while the
+other seems to be making for south, was begotten and born for the very
+purpose of putting confusion in order. He would set my brains to
+rights if he could get at 'em: were the whole city to come, he would
+find room for all; and he'll make your hospitality the proverb of
+fifty miles round. Leave all such matters to him, and to your lovely
+bride; and where will you find so sweet a lightener of this world's
+cares?"
+
+"This morning before sunrise," said Emilius, "I was walking through
+the wood; my thoughts were solemnly tuned; I felt to the bottom of my
+soul that my life is now taking a determinate cast, that it is become
+a serious thing, and that this passion has created me a home and a
+calling. In passing by that arbour yonder I heard sounds: it was my
+beloved in close conversation. 'Has not it turned out now as I told
+you?' said a strange voice; 'just as I knew it would turn out? You
+have got your wish; so cheer up and be merry.' I did not like to go in
+to them: as I came back I walkt nearer to the arbour; they had both
+left it. But I have been musing and musing ever since, what can these
+words mean?"
+
+Roderick answered: "Perhaps she may have been in love with you this
+long time without your knowing it: this should make you all the
+happier."
+
+A late nightingale now lifted up her song, and seemed to be wishing
+the lover health and bliss. Emilius sank still deeper in thought.
+
+"Come with me to clear up your spirits," said Roderick, "down to the
+village, where you will find another couple; for you must not fancy
+that yours is the only wedding on which today's sun is to shine. A
+young clown, finding his time lag heavily in the house with an ugly
+old maid, for want of something better to do did what makes the booby
+think himself bound in honour to turn her into his wife. They must
+both be drest out by this time; so don't let us miss the sight; for
+doubtless it will be overpoweringly interesting."
+
+The melancholy man let himself be dragged along by his merry talkative
+friend, and they soon got to the cottage. The procession was just
+sallying forth on its way to church. The young countryman was in his
+usual linen frock; all his finery consisted in a pair of leather
+breeches, which he had polisht till they shone like a field of
+dandelions: he had a very simple look, and was a good deal ashamed.
+
+The bride was tanned by the sun, and had only a few farewell leaves of
+youth still hanging about her: she was coarsely and poorly but cleanly
+drest: some red and blue silk ribbons, already somewhat faded,
+flaunted from her stomacher; but what chiefly disfigured her was, that
+her hair, after being stiffened with lard, flour, and pins, had been
+swept back from her forehead and piled up at the top of her head in a
+mound, on the summit of which lay the bridal chaplet. She smiled, and
+seemed glad at heart, but was bashful and downcast.
+
+Next came the aged parents: her father too was only a labourer on the
+farm; and the hovel, the furniture, the clothing, all bore witness
+that their poverty was extreme. A dirty squinting musician followed
+the train, grinning and screaming and scratching his fiddle, which was
+patcht up of wood and pasteboard, and instead of strings had three
+bits of packthread.
+
+The procession halted when his honour, their new master, came up to
+them. Some mischief-loving servants, lads and girls, tittered and
+laught, and jeered the bridal couple, especially the ladies' maids,
+who thought themselves far handsomer, and saw themselves infinitely
+better drest, and wondered how people could be so vulgar.
+
+A shudder came over Emilius: he lookt round for Roderick; but the
+latter as usual had already run away. An impertinent fop, with a head
+pilloried in a high starcht neckcloth, a footman to one of the
+visitors, eager to shew off his wit, shoved up to Emilius, giggling,
+and cried: "There your honour, what says your honour to this grand
+couple? They can neither of 'em guess where they are to find bread for
+tomorrow; and yet they mean to give a ball this afternoon, and that
+famous performer is already engaged."
+
+"No bread!" said Emilius; "can such things be?"
+
+"Their wretchedness," continued the chatterbox, "is notorious to the
+whole neighbourhood; but the fellow says he bears the creature the
+same goodwill, though she has nothing to boast of but her charms. Ay
+verily, as the song says, love can make black white! The brace of
+beggars have not even a bed, and must pass their wedding-night on the
+straw: they have just been round to every cottage, begging a pint of
+small beer, with which they mean to get royally drunk: a brave treat
+for a wedding, your honour!"
+
+Everybody around burst out a-laughing, and the unhappy despised pair
+hung down their heads. Emilius pusht the coxcomb indignantly away, and
+cried: "Here, take this!" tossing a hundred ducats, which he had
+received that morning, into the hands of the amazed bridegroom.
+
+The betrothed couple and their parents wept aloud, threw themselves
+clumsily on their knees, and kist his hands and the skirts of his
+coat.
+
+He struggled to break loose from them. "Let that keep hunger out of
+doors as long as you can make it last!" he exclaimed, quite stunned by
+his feelings.
+
+"Oh!" they all screamed, "oh your honour! we shall be rich and happy
+till the day of our deaths, and longer too, if we live longer."
+
+He did not know how he got away, but he found himself alone, and
+hastened with tremulous steps into the wood. There he sought out the
+thickest loneliest spot, and threw himself down on a grassy knoll, no
+longer keeping in the bursting flood of his tears.
+
+"I am sick of life!" he cried: "I cannot be gay and happy; I will not.
+Make haste to receive me, dear kind mother earth, and shelter me with
+thy cool refreshing arms from the wild beasts that trample on thee and
+call themselves men. Oh God in heaven! how have I deserved that I
+should lie upon down, and be clothed in silk, that the grape should
+pour forth her precious heart's blood for me, and that all should
+throng around me with offerings of homage and love! This poor wretch
+is better and worthier than I; and misery is his nurse, and mockery
+and venomous scorn alone wish him joy on his wedding. Every delicacy
+that is placed before me, every draught out of my costly goblets, the
+soft luxury of my bed, my wearing gold and rich garments, will seem to
+me like so many sins, now that my eyes have seen how the world hunts
+down many thousand thousand miserable beings, who are hungering after
+the dry bread I throw away, and who never know what a good meal is. Oh
+now I can fully enter into your feelings, ye holy saints, whom the
+world scorns and scoffs at, ye who did scatter your all, even down to
+your very raiment, among the poor, and did gird your loins with
+sackcloth, and did resolve as beggars to undergo the gibes and the
+kicks wherewith brutal insolence and swilling voluptuousness drive the
+needy from their doors, that by so doing you might thoroughly purge
+yourselves from the foul sin of wealth."
+
+The world with all its inhabitants floated in a mist before his eyes:
+he resolved to look upon the destitute as his brethren, and to depart
+from the communion of the happy.
+
+They had been waiting a long time for him in the hall, that the
+ceremony might be performed; the bride had grown uneasy; her parents
+had gone in search of him through the garden and park: at length he
+returned, lighter for having wept away his agitation; and the solemn
+knot was tied.
+
+The company then walkt from the hall on the ground floor to the open
+gallery, to sit down to dinner. The bride and bridegroom led the way,
+and the rest followed in their train. Roderick offered his arm to a
+young girl who was lively and talkative.
+
+"Why does a bride always cry, and look so serious and sad during the
+ceremony?" said she, as they mounted the stairs.
+
+"Because it is the first time that she ever thoroughly feels what a
+momentous and mysterious thing life is:" answered Roderick.
+
+"But our bride," continued the girl, "in her gravity goes far beyond
+all I have ever yet seen. Indeed there is always something melancholy
+about her, and one can never catch her in a downright merry laugh."
+
+"This does the more honour to her heart," replied Roderick, himself
+more serious than usual. "You don't know perhaps that the bride a few
+years ago took a lovely little orphan girl into her house, to educate
+her. All her time was devoted to this child, and the gentle creature's
+love was her sweetest reward. When the girl was seven years old, she
+was lost on a walk about the town; and in spite of all the pains that
+have been used, nobody has ever found out what became of her. Our
+noble-minded hostess has taken this misfortune so much to heart, that
+she has been a prey ever since to silent grief, and nothing can win
+her mind away from longing after her little playfellow."
+
+"A most interesting adventure indeed!" said the young lady. "One might
+see a whole romance in three volumes growing out of this seed. It will
+be a strange sight, and it will not be for nothing, when this lost
+star reappears. What a pretty poem it would make! Don't you think so,
+sir?"
+
+The party took their seats: the bride and bridegroom were in the
+centre, looking out on the gay landscape. Everybody talkt and drank
+healths, and all was mirth and good humour: the bride's parents were
+perfectly happy: the bridegroom alone was reserved and thoughtful, ate
+but little, and took no part in the conversation.
+
+He started on hearing musical sounds roll down through the air from
+above, but grew calm again when he found they were only the soft notes
+of some bugles, travelling along with a pleasant murmur over the
+shrubs and through the park, and dying away on the distant hills.
+Roderick had placed the musicians in the gallery overhead, and Emilius
+was satisfied with this arrangement.
+
+Toward the end of the dinner he called the butler, and, turning to
+his bride, said: "My love, let poverty also have a share of our
+superfluities."
+
+He then ordered him to send a number of bottles of wine, and abundance
+of pastry as well as other dishes, to the poor couple, that with them
+too this might be a day of rejoicing, to which in aftertimes they
+might look back with pleasure.
+
+"See my friend," exclaimed Roderick, "how beautifully all things in
+this world hang together! My idle trick of busying myself in other
+folks' concerns, and chattering about whatever comes uppermost, though
+you will never give over finding fault with it, has at all events been
+the cause of this good deed."
+
+Several persons began making pretty speeches to their host on his kind
+and charitable heart; and Roderick's neighbour lispt about the
+sweetness of romantic compassion and sentimental magnanimity.
+
+"O say no more!" cried Emilius indignantly: "this is no good action;
+it is no action at all; it is nothing. When swallows and linnets feed
+on the crumbs that are thrown away from the waste of this meal, and
+carry them to their young in their nest, shall not I remember a poor
+brother, who needs my help? If I might follow my heart, ye would laugh
+and jeer at me, just as ye have laught and jeered at many others, who
+have gone forth into the wilderness that they might hear no more of
+this world and its generosity."
+
+Everybody was silent; and Roderick, perceiving from his friend's
+glowing eyes how vehemently he was displeased, was afraid that in his
+present irritation he might forget himself still further, and tried to
+give the conversation a rapid turn on other subjects.
+
+But Emilius was become restless and absent; his eyes wandered, more
+especially toward the upper gallery, where the servants who lived in
+the top story were engaged in a variety of occupations.
+
+"Who is that ugly old woman?" he at length askt, "that is so busy up
+there, and is coming back again every moment in her grey cloak?"
+
+"She is one of my servants," said his bride; "she is to overlook and
+manage my chambermaids and other girls."
+
+"How can you endure to have anything so hideous perpetually at your
+elbow?" replied Emilius.
+
+"Let her alone," answered the young lady: "God meant the ugly to live
+as well as the handsome; and she is such a good honest creature, she
+may be of great use to us."
+
+On rising from table everybody gathered round the bridegroom, again
+wisht him joy, and urgently begged him to let them have a ball. The
+bride too said, breathing a gentle kiss on his forehead: "You will not
+deny your wife's first request, my beloved; we have all been
+delighting in the hope of this. It is so long since I danced last; and
+you have never yet seen me dance. Have you no curiosity how I shall
+acquit myself in this new character? my mother tells me I look better
+than at any other time."
+
+"I never saw you in such gay spirits before," said Emilius. "I will
+not throw a damp over your mirth; do as you please: only don't let
+anybody ask me to make a laughing stock of myself by trying to cut
+clumsy capers."
+
+"Oh, if you are a bad dancer," she answered laughing, "you may feel
+quite safe; we shall all readily consent to your sitting still." The
+bride then retired to put on her ball dress.
+
+"She does not know," whispered Emilius to Roderick, as he withdrew,
+"that there is a secret door by which I can get from the next room
+into hers: I will surprise her while she is dressing."
+
+When Emilius had left them, and many of the ladies were also gone to
+make such changes in their attire as were requisite for the ball,
+Roderick took the young men aside and led the way to his own room.
+
+"It is wearing toward evening," he said, "and will soon be dark; so
+make haste all of you and mask yourselves, that we may render this
+night glorious in the annals of merriment and madness. Give your
+fancies free range in choosing your characters; the wilder and uglier
+the better. Try every combination of shaggy mane, and squinting eye,
+and mouth gaping like a volcano; pile mountains atop of your
+shoulders, or plump yourselves out into Falstaffs; and as a whet to
+your inventions I promise a kiss from the bride to the figure that
+would be the likeliest to make her miscarry. A wedding is such an
+out-of-the-way event in ones life; the bride and bridegroom are so
+suddenly plunged, by a sort of magic, head over heels into a new
+unaccustomed element, that it is impossible to throw too much madness
+and folly into this festival, in order to keep pace with the whirlpool
+that is bearing a brace of human beings from the state where they were
+two to the state where they become one, and that all things round
+about may be fitting accompaniments for the dizzy dream on the wings
+of which they are floating toward a new life. So let us rave away the
+night, making all sail before the breeze; and a fig for such as look
+twice on the dull sour faces that, would bid you behave rationally and
+soberly."
+
+"Don't be afraid," said the young officer; "we have brought a large
+chest full of masks and mad carnival dresses from town with us, such
+as would make even you stare."
+
+"But see here," returned Roderick, "what a gem I have got from my
+tailor, who was on the point of cutting up this peerless treasure into
+strips. He had bought it of an old crone who must doubtless have worn
+it on gala-days, when she went to Lucifer's drawing room on the
+Blocksberg. Look at this scarlet bodice with its gold tassels and
+fringe, at this cap besmeared with the last fee the hag got from
+Beelzebub or his imps! it will give me a right worshipful air. To
+match these choice morsels I have this green velvet petticoat, with
+its saffron lining, and this mask which would melt even Medusa to a
+grin. Thus accoutred I mean to lead the chorus of anti-graces, myself
+their mother-queen, to the bedroom. Make the best speed you can, and
+we will then go in solemn procession to fetch the bride."
+
+The bugles were still playing: the company were strolling about the
+garden, or sitting before the house. The sun had gone down behind
+thick murky clouds, and the country was lying in the grey dusk, when a
+parting gleam suddenly burst athwart the cloudy veil, and flooded
+every spot around, but above all the building, its galleries and
+pillars and wreaths of flowers, as it were with red blood.
+
+At this moment the parents of the bride and the other visitors saw a
+train of the most grotesque figures move toward the upper corridor.
+Roderick led the way as the scarlet old woman, and was followed by
+humpbacks, bulging paunches, cumbrous wigs, Scaramouches, Punches,
+shrivelled Pantaloons, curtsying women embankt by enormous hoops, and
+overcanopied with a yard of horsehair, powder, and pomatum, and by
+every disgusting shape that can be imagined, as if a nightmair had
+been unrolling her stores. They jumpt, and twirled, and tottered, and
+stumbled, and straddled, and strutted, and swaggered along the
+gallery, and then vanisht behind one of the doors. But few of the
+beholders had been able to laugh, so utterly were they astounded by
+the strange sight.
+
+Suddenly a piercing shriek burst from one of the rooms, and forth into
+the bloodred glow of the sunset rusht the pale bride, in a short white
+frock, about which wreaths of flowers were dangling, with her lovely
+bosom all naked, and her rich locks streaming through the air. As
+though mad, with rolling eyes and wrencht face, she darted along the
+gallery, and blinded by terrour could find neither door nor staircase;
+and immediately after dasht Emilius in chase of her, with the
+sparkling Turkish dagger in his high-uplifted hand.
+
+Now she was at the end of the passage ... she could go no further ...
+he reacht her. His maskt friends and the grey old woman were running
+after him. But in his fury he had already pierced her bosom, and cut
+across her white neck; her blood spouted forth into the radiance of
+the setting sun.
+
+The old woman had claspt her arms round him to tear him back; he
+struggled fiercely, hurled himself along with her over the railing,
+and they both fell almost lifeless at the feet of the relations who
+had been staring in dumb horrour at the bloody scene.
+
+Above, and in the court, or hurrying down the steps or along the
+galleries, were seen the hideous masks, standing or running about, in
+various clusters, like fiends of hell.
+
+Roderick took his dying friend in his arms. He had found him in his
+wife's room, playing with the dagger. She was almost drest when he
+entered. At the sight of the detested red bodice his memory had
+rekindled; the horrid vision of that night had risen up before his
+eyes; and gnashing his teeth he had darted after his trembling, flying
+bride, to avenge that murder and all those devilish doings.
+
+The old woman, ere she died, confest the crime that had been
+perpetrated; and the gladness and mirth of the whole house were
+suddenly changed into sorrow and lamentation and dismay.
+
+
+
+
+PIETRO OF ABANO.
+
+
+The setting sun was flinging its red rays upon the towers and over the
+houses of Padua, when a young stranger, newly arrived, had his
+attention excited by a throng of people who were hurrying and running
+along, and was carried by them out of his way. He askt a girl who was
+passing quickly by him, what had set the whole town in such an
+extraordinary commotion.
+
+"Don't you know then?" answered she: "the beautiful Crescentia, the
+young thing, is just going to be buried; everybody wishes to have one
+more sight of her; for she has always been counted the sweetest maiden
+in the whole city. Her parents are heartbroken." The last words she
+called back to him, from some distance beyond him.
+
+The stranger turned round the dark palace into the great street, and
+his ears were now met by the funeral hymn, and his eyes by the
+flickering light of the pale-red torches. On drawing nearer, pusht
+forward by the crowding of the people, he saw a scaffold covered with
+black cloth. Around it were raised seats, likewise black, on which the
+sorrowing parents and relations were sitting, all in stern gloom, some
+faces with the look of despair. Figures now began to move forth from
+the door of the house; priests and black forms bore an open coffin,
+out of which wreaths of flowers and green garlands were hanging down.
+
+In the midst of the blooming gay plants lay the maidenly form raised
+upon cushions, pale, in a white robe, her lovely slender hands folded
+and holding a crucifix, her eyes closed, dark black tresses hanging
+full and heavy round her head, on which a wreath of roses and cypress
+and myrtle was gleaming.
+
+The coffin with its beautiful corpse was placed upon the scaffold; the
+priests cast themselves down to pray; the parents gave yet louder vent
+to their grief; yet more wailing grew the sound of the hymns; and
+everybody around, even the strangers, sobbed and wept. The traveller
+thought he had never yet seen so lovely a creature, as this corpse
+that thus mournfully reminded him how fleeting life is, how vain and
+perishable its charms.
+
+Now sounded the solemn tolling of the bells, and the bearers were on
+the point of taking up the coffin, to carry the corpse into the
+burial-vault of the great church, when loud riotous shouts of
+exultation and pealing laughter and the cries of an unrestrained joy
+disturbed and alarmed the parents and kinsfolk, the priests and
+mourners. All lookt indignantly round, when out of the next street a
+merry troop of young men came boisterously toward them, singing and
+huzzaing, and evermore again and again crying a long life! to their
+venerable teacher. They were the students of the university, carrying
+an aged man of the noblest aspect on a chair raised atop of their
+shoulders, where he sat as on a throne, covered with a purple cloak,
+his head adorned with a doctor's hat, from beneath which white silver
+locks hung forth, while a long white beard flowed down majestically
+over his black velvet doublet. Beside him came a fool with bells and
+in a motley dress, jumping about, and striving by blows and by jests
+to make way for the train through the people and the line of mourners:
+but on a sign from the venerable old man the students lowered his
+chair; he descended, and approacht the weeping parents, much moved and
+with a solemn demeanour.
+
+"Forgive me," said he mournfully and with a tear in his eye, "that
+this wild tumult thus breaks in upon your burial rites, which grieve
+and shock me to the heart. I am just come back at length from my
+journey; my scholars wisht to celebrate my enterance by their joy; I
+yielded to their entreaties and preparations; and I now find ... how?
+your Crescentia, that fairest emblem of all loveliness and virtue,
+here before you in her coffin. And all around there is this dark pomp
+and these forms of sorrow, accompanying her with tears and the heart's
+woe to her place of rest."
+
+He beckoned to his companions, and spake a few words. All had long
+since become quiet and silent, and most of them now withdrew, that
+they might not interrupt the funeral.
+
+Then the mother came nearer tottering, and sank down before the form
+of the old man, while she embraced his knee in convulsive grief. "Ah!
+why were you not here?" she cried despairingly; "your art, your
+knowledge would have saved her. O Pietro! Pietro! you, the friend of
+our house! how could you thus let your darling, the apple of your eye,
+perish? But come! Awaken her even now! Pour into her even now one of
+those wonderworking elixirs which you know how to compound; and in
+return take all that we possess, so she be but again here, walking
+about among us and talking to us."
+
+"Let not despair guide your tongue," answered Pietro: "the Lord had
+lent her to you; he has demanded her back from you; let not man
+presume to arrest the arm of his wise counsels. Who are we, that we
+should murmur against him? Shall the child of the dust, that is
+scattered to nought by the wind, puff forth its weak breath in anger
+against the eternal decrees? No, my dear friends, as Crescentia's
+parents, as having loved her and been loved by her, cherish the
+feeling of your grief; let none of it escape you. Grief should be as
+familiar an inmate in our hearts as Pleasure and Gladness; for he too
+is sent us by our Father, who beholds all our tears, and well
+understands and tries our hearts, and knows what frail mortals can
+bear. Bear then this great overwhelming woe for his sake, out of love
+to him; for it is all love, whatsoever burthen he may cast upon you.
+Is not grief, is not the heart in its wringing agony, the soul that
+would melt away in sorrow, a holy and godly offering, which amid your
+burning tears you lay, as the most precious of your possessions,
+before the everlasting Love of the Most High? As such too is it
+considered by Him above, who numbers all your sighs and tears. But our
+wicked enemy, who is always lurking at our side, grudges us the
+holiness of this heavenly sorrow: it is he who would foment and stir
+it up in you into despair, into rage against the Father of love and of
+grief, that you may not in your anguish become yet more thoroughly the
+children of Love, but may plunge and sink into the abyss of Hatred.
+He, this Spirit of Lies, is now beguiling you and maliciously
+whispering his tales in your ears, as though you had for ever lost
+her, who yet was one with you only in spirit and soul and love, and
+belonged to you only so far as she was invisible. He would have you
+forget that this beauteous covering was only her garment, akin to the
+dust, and now going back to the dust. Cast him back from you, this
+lying Spirit; shame and confound him with the eternal almighty truth
+which you hold up before him, that she is still yours, still near you,
+still at your side, yea far more, far entirelier yours, than when
+these party walls of mortal flesh kept you asunder, and in the midst
+of all your love estranged you from each other. From this day forward
+she is all your memory and hope and sorrow and joy; she shines upon
+you in every gladdening light; she cheers you in the flowers of
+spring; she kisses you in the gentle airs that breathe on your cheeks:
+and every delight that henceforth blossoms in your hearts, is her
+heart and her love to you; and this delight and this everlasting
+deathless love are one with God. Carry her then to her resting-place,
+and follow her in silent humble resignation, that her soul in the
+abode of everlasting peace may not be disturbed and made uneasy by
+you."
+
+All seemed to have become calmer; the father speechlessly held forth
+his hand to him with an expression of cordial friendship and of a
+comforted heart. They drew up in order; the procession set itself in
+motion; the masks, the fraternities that made it their duty to attend
+corpses, ranged themselves in their white gowns, with hooded faces, of
+which nothing could be seen but the eyes.
+
+Silently the train moved on: they had now nearly reacht the church,
+when a rider on a foaming horse gallopt toward them.
+
+"What is the matter?" cried the youth.
+
+He threw a look into the coffin, and with a shriek of despair turned
+his horse, darted away, and in his wild speed lost his hat, so that
+his long hair waved about behind him in the evening breeze. He was the
+bridegroom, come to the wedding.
+
+Darkness gathered round the train of mourners, and their husht rites,
+as the beauteous corpse sank down into the vault of her family.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When the crowd had disperst, the young stranger, who had followed the
+procession in wonder mixt with sadness, went up to an old priest who
+remained alone praying by the grave. He longed to learn who that
+majestic old man was, that had seemed to him gifted with god-like
+powers and more than earthly wisdom.
+
+When the youth had laid his question modestly before the priest, the
+latter stood up and, by the light of a lamp that shone upon them from
+a window, lookt sharply into his eye.
+
+The old man had a little spare form; his pale narrow face hightened
+the fire of his eyes yet more; and his pincht lips quivered, as with
+hoarse voice he answered: "How! you don't know him? our far-famed
+Petrus of Apone, or Abano, of whom people talk in Paris, and London,
+and in the German Empire, and throughout all Italy? You know not the
+greatest of philosophers and physicians, of astronomers and
+astrologers, to learn from whom and to see whom the wild youth flock
+hither from the far parts of Poland?"
+
+The young Spaniard, Alfonso, had moved back a step in delighted
+surprise; for the renown of this great teacher had driven him too from
+Barcelona over the sea. "Then it was he, it was himself!" he cried
+enthusiastically: "this too was why my heart felt so deeply moved. My
+spirit recognized his. O generous, pious man, how I love you for
+honouring him no less than do all the noble-minded and good in the
+Christian world!"
+
+"You too mean perchance to study under him?" askt the priest with a
+bitter tone.
+
+"Certainly," answered the other, "if he will vouchsafe to receive me
+among his scholars."
+
+The old man stood still, laid his hand on the youth's shoulder, and
+then said mildly: "My dear young friend, there is yet time; listen
+even now to my fatherly warning, before it is too late. Do not deceive
+yourself, as so many, even without number, have done already; be on
+your guard, and watch over your soul. Are you then at your age thus
+beforehand aweary of your peace and future blessedness? would you
+requite your Saviour's love by becoming a runagate from him, and
+denying him, and taking up arms as a rebel against him?"
+
+"I understand you not, old man," replied Alfonso: "did not you
+yourself see and hear how piously, how christianly, with what a
+heart-stirring majesty, the glorious man spake, and led back the
+erring footsteps of sorrowing love by his heavenly comfort into the
+right path?"
+
+"What is there that he cannot, that he will not do, the trickster, the
+magician!" exclaimed the old priest warmly.
+
+"Magician!" returned Alfonso. "So you too would take part in the folly
+of the rabble that is unable to appreciate the knowledge of lofty
+spirits, and would rather credit any absurdity than strengthen their
+own souls by gazing upon the grandeur of a fellow-creature.
+
+"Only go on in this way," said the priest indignantly, "and you
+scarcely need go into his vaunted school. It is clear his magic has
+you already in its snares, just as he subdues every heart that but
+beats within his reach. Yes forsooth, the heathen, he has spoken and
+prophesied today like a priest, and has for once besmeared his lies
+with this varnish. In the same manner he is lord and master in the
+house of the Podesta. Poor Crescentia could hardly in her last hours
+find her way back to holy church: so bound and held fast was her soul
+by the false doctrines the wicked hypocrite had flung like poisonous
+nets around her young spirit. Now she has escaped him; the Lord has
+called her to himself, and has sent this disease to save her soul with
+the loss of her body."
+
+The speakers were come into the large square before the church. The
+youth was irritated, and, to give his feelings vent, exclaimed: "What
+boots all this fierce envy, my ghostly sir? Do you not see, can you
+not perceive, how the world only falls away from you more and more,
+the more you by your excommunications and anathemas and persecutions
+strive to quench and stifle the new spirit? that spirit of eternal
+truth which is now awakening all nations from their sleep, and which
+in spite of your arts will never sink upon the pillow again to swallow
+your legends in submissive faith."
+
+"Bravo!" said the old man in high wrath: "Have we not Averroes now
+instead of Christ, and Aristoteles instead of the Almighty, and this
+Pietro of yours, this Iscariot, instead of the Holy Ghost? And verily
+the spirit of the earth has built up a high and stately body for him,
+and has crowned it with a noble brow, and has set an eye of fire in it
+and the sweet mouth of persuasion, and has poured grace and majesty
+over his motions, that he may juggle and delude: while I, the unworthy
+servant of the Lord, walk about here sickly and weak and without all
+comeliness of feature, and have only my own confession, only my faith,
+to give assurance that I am a christian. I cannot descend like him
+into the depths of dazzling knowledge, nor measure the course of the
+stars, nor foretell good and evil fortune; I am reviled and scorned by
+the overwise; but I bear it humbly, for the love of him who has laid
+all this upon me. Wait however until the end, and see whether his
+seven spirits whom he holds under his magical spell, can save him
+then; whether his Familiar, that spawn of hell, will then assist him."
+
+"Was his Familiar with him?" askt Alfonso eagerly.
+
+"Did not you observe the monster," answered the monk, "that had trickt
+itself out like a clown? the abortion with that hump, those twisted
+hands and arms, those crooked legs, those squinting eyes, and that
+enormous nose jutting out from its unsightly face."
+
+"I took all that for a mask;" said the youth.
+
+"No, this creature," replied the old man, "need not put on a mask.
+Such as he is, he is mask enough, and spectre, and imp of hell, this
+Beresynth, as they call him.... Will you pass the night in our
+convent, young man, until you have found a lodging?"
+
+"No," rejoined he very positively; "I will be indebted for no
+hospitality to a man thus unjust and slanderous toward the noble being
+whose name I heard with rapture while yet in my own country, and who
+shall walk and shine before me here as my guide and model. It is bad
+enough that I have been forced to hear such language from you, from a
+man whose condition and age forbid my calling him to account for it.
+If he alone is to be esteemed godly, who despises science and
+knowledge, he alone a christian, who in a waking slumber dozes away
+the days of his life and the powers of his soul, I depart out of the
+dull communion. But it is not so; nor is it the man, the christian, or
+the priest, that has been speaking from your lips, but your guild and
+fraternity. Farewell, if with such feelings you can."
+
+They parted, both much out of temper.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The young Florentine who had met the funeral procession in the city,
+dasht like a madman through the gate, and then gallopt with reckless
+vehemence across field and wood. When he found himself in the open
+country, he hurled forth imprecations against the world and fate, tore
+his hair, curst his stars and his youth, and then rusht almost
+unconsciously onward. He spurred in the face of the wind that arose at
+nightfall, as though seeking to cool the fire in his cheeks.
+
+When it grew later, his horse, which had often stumbled already, and
+which he had pulled up furiously every time, dropt exhausted to the
+ground, and he was forced to pursue his way on foot. He knew not where
+he was, still less whither he should go; only there stood before him
+with inextinguishable features his own misery, and the vanity of the
+world, and the treacherous inconstancy of all happiness.
+
+"Accursed madness of life!" cried he in his despair through the
+darkness: "thus, thus cruelly dost thou awaken me out of my slumber! I
+cannot choose but hate thee mortally for thy jugglings, thy
+presumption, and for all those senseless hopes which smile upon our
+youth and go along with us so like friends upon our journey, and, when
+they have beguiled us into the wilderness, fly away from us and grin
+and make mows at us. Life! what is this web of folly, this silly dream
+of a feversick heart? One faint shivering-fit follows another; one
+crazy phantom drives another out; our wishes caper around in the bald
+waste, and do not even know themselves again. O death! O rest! O
+nothingness! come to me, let me embrace thee, and set this stormy
+heart free. O that I could but gasp out my last convulsive breath this
+very instant! that tomorrow's sun might no more find my place upon
+earth, that no thought might rise within me to greet its returning
+ray! Am I not the very wretchedest creature that breathes? and so much
+the poorer, for that a few hours since I deemed myself the happiest.
+Woe be to youth! woe to love! Woe to the feelings of the heart, that
+let themselves be so readily, so grossly deceived!"
+
+A shower now drizzled through the cold air, and soon the drops grew
+larger and thicker. The youth knew not whither he had strayed; the
+wood lay already far behind him; no shelter was near. He began to
+gather up his recollections; his grief became gentler; tears flowed
+from his eyes. He already hated life less; it seemed to him as though
+the night itself wisht to comfort him and to soothe his sorrow.
+Uncertain whether to seek for his fallen horse again, or to hide
+himself in some hollow from the rain, he lookt once more around, and
+at length far below him across a valley and at the back of some trees
+discovered a little dancing light, that like a friendly eye winkt to
+him through the thick darkness and called him to approach it. He
+hastened toward the dubious gleam, which now vanisht, and now again
+shone forth. All his powers, all his feelings were bound as in sleep;
+his whole being had as it were past away into a dream.
+
+A storm now got up, and heavy low-hanging thunderclouds were rolling
+slowly along. He was already approaching some trees, as it appeared to
+him; but the darkness made it impossible to distinguish anything
+whatever. A flash of lightning here dazzled him and a loud clap of
+thunder stunned him, so that he fell into a ditch.
+
+On lifting himself up again, the light which had allured him was close
+at hand. He knockt at the little window that peept through some trees,
+and begged for admittance and shelter from the rain and storm. A loud
+hoarse voice answered from within; but the youth did not catch a word;
+for the wind and thunder and rain, and the rustling of the trees, all
+now raged so violently at once, that every sound beside them fell
+dead.
+
+The door of the little house opened into the garden: he had to hasten
+through it; a female hand then took hold of him, led him along a dark
+passage, and into a little room, from which the light of a lamp and
+the fire on the hearth shone in his eyes. In the corner by the lamp
+sat a hideous old woman spinning; the girl who had conducted him in
+set to work over the fire; and for a long time he was unable to
+examine the figures closelier by the doubtful quivering light; for a
+long time no conversation could be carried on, the roaring of the
+thunder overpowering every other sound.
+
+"This is a cruel storm!" said the old woman during a pause with a
+croaking voice. "Whence do you come hither, young man?"
+
+"I come from Padua since this evening."
+
+"Far indeed," cried the old woman: "it lies six good leagues from
+here. And whither are you going? for there is no public road
+hereabout."
+
+"I know not, and care not to know. The wretched cannot frame any plan
+or think about the future. Indeed how happy should I feel, were there
+no future at all for me!"
+
+"You are talking nonsense, young man; and that must not be. Heyday!"
+she exclaimed, as she lifted up the lamp and lookt at him more
+narrowly, "why he is a Florentine! That doublet and cape is what I
+have not seen this many a day. Well now, this must surely bode me some
+good. So the ugly weather has made me a present of a dear guest; for
+you must know, my young gentleman, I too am from that blessed land. Ay
+Florence! Ah, if one might but once more tread on thy ground and see
+thy dear hills and gardens again! And your name, my dear young
+gentleman?"
+
+"Antonio Cavalcanti," said the youth, who felt more confidence in the
+old dame on finding that she was his countrywoman.
+
+"O what an accent!" cried she almost rapturously: "Cavalcanti! such a
+one I too knew some years since, one Guido."
+
+"He was my father," said Antonio.
+
+"And is he no longer alive?"
+
+"No," answered the young man; "my mother too was taken from me a long
+time ago."
+
+"I know it, I know it, my dear pretty boy. Ay, ay, it must now be full
+fifteen years since she died. Alas yes, it was then, in those
+troublous times, that she had to give up the ghost. And your dear
+worthy father, he is the only person I have to thank for the judges
+not having treated me just like a faggot some years after: they had
+somehow got it into their pates that I was a witch, and there was no
+avail in denying it. But Signor Guido fought my battle, what with
+reason and what with ranting, what with entreaties and what with
+threats: so they merely banisht me out of the dear land. And now this
+thunderstorm brings me the son of my benefactor into my poor little
+cottage. Come, give me your hand on the strength of it, youngster."
+
+Antonio gave it to the old woman shuddering; for now at length he was
+able to observe her more distinctly. She grinned at him friendly, and
+displayed two long black teeth standing out between her bristly lips;
+her eyes were small and sharp, her brow furrowed, her chin long; she
+stretcht out two gaunt shrivelled arms toward him; and being
+compelled, however loth, to embrace her, he felt the hump which made
+her ugliness still more disgusting.
+
+"True!" she said with a forced laugh, "I am not remarkably pretty; I
+was not so even in my younger days. There is something whimsical about
+beauty; one can never tell or describe downrightly in what it
+consists; it is always only the want of certain things which, when you
+have them at their full size, make up what folks call ugliness. Come
+now, tell me, such as I am, what do you think the most hideous thing
+about me?"
+
+"My dear old dame," said the youth in confusion....
+
+"No," she cried, "plump out with the truth, and without any flattery.
+Everybody, you know, has some odd maggot or other; and as for me, I
+pride myself no little on being utterly without all those things which
+in the world they christen handsome. Now let me see your taste! speak
+out!"
+
+"If I must," stammered Antonio, while in spite of his grief a smile
+curled his lips, "those two teeth are ... to my mind...."
+
+"Ha, ha!" cried the old woman laughing aloud, "my two dear good old
+black teeth are what pleases you the least about me. I can well
+believe it: they stand like two scorcht palisades among the ruins of a
+fortress in the wide empty space there. But you should have seen me
+ten years back; then matters were much worse still. In those days I
+had a whole mouth full of such portentous grinders; and they who loved
+me would say it lookt frightful. Well, one by one they fell out, and
+these two alone are left behind the last of all their race. When they
+are once gone, my jaws will clap together like two doors, the upper
+lip will grow just thrice as long, and again one can't tell what sort
+of a face will come of it. Time, my dear young friend, is, as somebody
+found out many many years ago, a bungling workman; he makes a creature
+pretty enough; then he daubs and trims and pares and pulls and
+squeezes the thing about, draws the nose and chin out of their
+sheaths, knocks in the cheeks, eats ruts into the forehead, till he
+has turned it into a scarecrow; and then at last he gets ashamed,
+smashes the whole wretched concern to pieces, and shovels it over with
+earth that all the world may not see his disgrace. Your cheeks too,
+smooth and polisht as they are, will not be so like a roseleaf by and
+by. Here! let me look! verily you have the rarest pearls of
+toothikins! a pity they must be used in chewing bread and roast beef.
+Hey, hey! shew them to me ... wider open with the mouth ... but they
+stand very oddly ... hem! and that eyetooth! there is meaning in all
+that."
+
+Antonio knew not whether to scold or laugh; however he constrained
+himself to be calm, and to let the old woman have her chatter; for
+owing, as it seemed, to her former acquaintance with his family, she
+possest a strange power over him. But how did he start with amazement
+when she suddenly cried out: "Crescentia!"
+
+"For Heaven's sake!" he said, almost breathlessly: "do you know her?
+can you see her? can you tell me anything about her?"
+
+"What's the matter with you?" howled the old woman: "how can I help
+knowing her, seeing she is my own daughter? Only look yourself how the
+lazy slut has fallen asleep in her chair there, and lets the fire go
+out and the soup get cold."
+
+She took up the lamp and went to the chimney; but what were the
+youth's feelings, when again for the second time on that day he beheld
+his beloved, almost the same as in the evening? Her pale head lay
+dropt back; her eyes were closed; every feature, even the dark
+tresses, were those of his bride; just so were her little hands
+folded, and just so did she too clasp a crucifix between them. Her
+white dress helpt to increase the illusion; the flowers alone were
+wanting; but the dusk wove something like wreaths of dark heavy
+foliage around her hair.
+
+"She is dead!" sighed Antonio gazing fixedly upon her.
+
+"Sluggish is she, the lazy jade," said the old woman, and shook the
+fair slumberer awake: "she can do nothing but pray and sleep, the
+useless baggage."
+
+Crescentia roused herself, and her confusion still hightened her
+beauty. Antonio felt on the brink of madness at thus again seeing
+before him one whom he had yet lost for ever.
+
+"Old witch!" he cried out vehemently: "where am I? and what forms art
+thou bringing before my wandering senses? Speak, who is this lovely
+being? Crescentia, art thou alive again? Dost thou still acknowledge
+me as thine own! How camest thou hither?"
+
+"Holla! my young prince," screamed the old woman; "you are gabbling
+away there, as though you had quite lost your little bit of an
+understanding. Is the storm beating about inside of your pate? has the
+lightning perchance singed your brains? She is my daughter, and always
+has been so."
+
+"I do not know you," said the pale Crescentia, blushing sweetly: "I
+was never in the city."
+
+"Sit down," the old woman interposed; "and eat and drink what I have
+to give you."
+
+The soup was placed on the table, along with some fruit; and the old
+woman going to a small cupboard took out a flask of excellent
+Florentine wine.
+
+Antonio could eat but little; his eye was spellbound upon Crescentia;
+and his disturbed and shattered imagination was evermore persuading
+him anew that this was his lost bride. Then again he often fancied he
+was lying enchained by a heavy dream, or had been seized by a trance
+of madness which was transforming every object around him, so that he
+was perhaps still in Padua, or at his own home, and saw nothing but
+phantasmal forms, and could not recognize or understand any of the
+friends who might be round about consoling him or mourning over him.
+
+The storm had raved itself out, and the stars were shining in the
+pacified dark sky. The old woman ate greedily, and drank still more
+plenteously of the sweet wine.
+
+"Now at length, young Antonio," she began after some time, "tell us,
+prithee, what brought you to Padua, and what has driven you hither?"
+
+Antonio started as from sleep. "You may well," he replied, "demand
+some account of your guest, since, beside that reason, you knew my
+father, and it may be my mother too."
+
+"To be sure I knew her," said the old woman sniggering; "nobody so
+well as I. Yes, yes, she died just six months before your father
+celebrated his second marriage with the Marchesa Manfredi."
+
+"So you know that too?"
+
+"Why, it seems to me," she continued, "as though I could see the
+dainty trim doll at this very moment before me. Well, is your
+beautiful stepmother still living? When they drove me out of the
+country she was just in her prime full bloom."
+
+"I cannot again go through," said Antonio with a sigh, "what I
+suffered from that alien mother. She held my father as under
+enchantment; and he was readier to wrong all his old friends, readier
+to wrong his own son, than in anywise to offend her. At last however
+their behaviour to each other altered; but my heart almost broke at
+the sight of their hatred, while before it had only bled at the
+insults I had to endure."
+
+"So there was plenty of bitter malice," askt the old hag with a
+nauseous grin, "throughout the whole family?"
+
+Antonio eyed her with a sharp look, and said confusedly: "I know not
+how I have come to be talking here about my own and my parents
+misery."
+
+The old woman swallowed a bumper of red wine, which stood like blood
+in the glass. Then with a loud laugh she said: "Faith, I know no such
+glorious pleasure, nothing, I mean, so like what one may call perfect
+rapture and bliss, as when such a wedded couple, who in earlier days
+were once a pair of fond lovers, fall out in this way, and snarl and
+snap at each other, like cat and dog, or two tiger-beasts, and scold
+and curse each other, and would each give up heart and soul to Satan,
+only to hurt and pain or to get rid of the other. This, my young lad,
+is the true glory of mortal life: but more especially, if the two
+yoke-fellows have of yore gone stark mad with love, if they have done
+everything, even what is a little bit out of the way, for each other,
+if they have waded through much of what certain good pious folks would
+call crimes and sins, merely for the sake of getting at one another,
+merely for the sake of at last tying the knot, which they now so
+cordially abhor. Trust me, this is a grand feast for Satan and all his
+comrades, and it makes those below keep jubilee and sing psalms. And
+here now even ... but I'll hold my tongue; I might easily say too
+much."
+
+Crescentia lookt mournfully at the astonisht youth. "Forgive her," she
+whispered: "you see she has drunk too much; pity her."
+
+But in Antonio's soul there now rose up with fresh power the image of
+former times and all their dark scenes. The sorrowful day came back
+upon him, when he saw his stepmother on her deathbed, when his father
+was in despair and curst himself and the hour of his birth, and called
+upon the spirit of his first wife and prayed for forgiveness.
+
+"Have you nothing else to tell?" askt the old woman, and thereby
+awakened him from his dreamy amaze.
+
+"What shall I tell?" said Antonio, with the deepest anguish: "do not
+you seem to know everything, or else to have learnt it by soothsay?
+Need I tell you that an old servant, Roberto, poisoned her, having
+been persecuted by her hatred and thus spurred on to revenge himself?
+that this accursed villain attempted to throw the crime upon my
+father? He escapes from prison, scales the garden-wall, and in the
+grotto thrusts his dagger into my father's breast."
+
+"What old Roberto! Roberto!" cried the old woman almost with a shout
+of triumph: "hey, only see how strangely some people will turn out!
+Ay, ay, the sneak in his younger days was such a straitlaced
+hypocrite, such a holy-seeming dog; afterward however he grew a fine
+spirited fellow, as they tell me. It was in the grotto then? How
+cunningly things fit together, and shell off till one gets at the
+kernel! In that grotto your father in earlier days sat time after time
+with his first wife; there at their betrothal he first swore eternal
+love to her. In those times Roberto doubtless already wore that
+dagger; but he knew not what an odd use he was to make of it some
+twenty years after. In that grotto too the second spouse would often
+slumber beside the cool fountain; and again the husband would lie
+there at her feet. Well, Antonio, child, is not life a right merry,
+right silly, right absurd, and right horrible hodgepodge? No man can
+say: 'that's a thing I never will do'. The pangs and the feelings, the
+stings and the ravings, which the black crew forge in hell's smithy,
+all these keep coming on and coming on, slowly, wonderously, nearer
+and ever nearer: on a sudden Horrour is in the house, and the frantic
+victim sits with it in the corner, and gnaws at it as a dog gnaws a
+bone. Drink, drink, my darling; this grape-juice sets all things to
+rights when its spirits once get into the soul.... Now, and you? do
+tell me a little more."
+
+"I swore to revenge my father," said Antonio.
+
+"That's just right;" returned the old woman: "look you, my child, when
+such a firebrand has been once hurled into a house, it must never
+never go out again. From generation to generation down to grandchild
+and cousin the poison is entailed; the children rave already; the
+wound is always bleeding afresh; a new vein must be opened to save the
+disaster and set it upon its legs again, when but for that it might be
+in danger of breathing its last. O revenge, revenge is a goodly word!"
+
+"But Roberto," said Antonio, "had escaped, and was nowhere to be
+found."
+
+"A pity, a pity!" exclaimed the old woman. "Now of course thy revenge
+drives thee over the world?"
+
+"Yes in truth; I wandered through Italy, searcht in every town, but
+could find no trace of the murderer. At last the fame of Pietro of
+Abano fixt me at Padua. I wisht to learn wisdom from him; but when I
+came into the house of the Podesta...."
+
+"Well! speak out, child!"
+
+"What shall I say? I know not whether I am raving or dreaming. There I
+saw his daughter, the sweet, the lovely Crescentia. And I here see her
+again before me ... yes it is herself ... that funeral procession was
+a wicked, unseemly jest ... and this disguise, this flight hither into
+the desert, is again a most unseemly piece of mummery. Acknowledge
+thyself to me at length, at length, beloved, beautiful Crescentia.
+Thou knowest it well, my heart only lives within thy bosom. To what
+end these agonizing trials? Are thy parents perchance in the next room
+there, and listening to all we are saying? Let them come in now at
+last, at last; let us have done with this cruel probation, which will
+soon drive me mad."
+
+The pale Crescentia lookt at him with such an unutterable expression,
+such a weight of sadness over her face, that the tears gusht from his
+eyes.
+
+"Faith, he is drunk already!" howled the old woman. "Speak, tell me,
+is the Podesta's daughter dead then? Dead is she? and when?"
+
+"This evening," said the weeper, "I met her corpse."
+
+"So she too!" continued the old woman merrily, as she filled her glass
+again. "Well, now will the family of Marconi in Venice be right glad."
+
+"Why so?"
+
+"Because they are now the only heirs to their rich kinsman. This is
+what the long-sighted knaves have always wisht, but could never hope
+for."
+
+"Woman!" exclaimed Antonio with new horrour; "why thou knowest
+everything!"
+
+"Not everything," replied she, "but some little. And then a good deal
+more may perhaps be guessed at. And I will not deny it, a little
+witchcraft now and then helps on the game. Only don't be too much
+frightened at it. Nor in truth was it altogether for nothing that
+their Florentine worships would have built me a throne of faggots:
+some petty trifling bits of reasons for this wish they might fairly
+enough have brought forward.... Look me in the face, boy! stroak away
+the curls from thy forehead: good! now give me thy left hand: the
+right: heyday! strange and marvellous! That's it; some near misfortune
+is hanging over thee; but if thou outlivest it, thou wilt see thy
+beloved again."
+
+"In the next world!" sighed Antonio.
+
+"The next world? what is the next world?" cried the old hag in her
+drunkenness: "no, in this world, here, on what we call earth. What
+words the fools make use of! There is no next world, you silly
+ninnyhammer! he who does not skim off the fat from the broth while he
+is here, is a wretched gull. This however is what they clack to their
+simple brood, that they may behave prettily, and keep within bounds,
+and go the way one would lead them: but whosoever believes none of
+their fabling, he is free on the strength of this, and can do what his
+heart lusteth after."
+
+Antonio eyed her wrathfully, and was about to make an indignant reply;
+but the pale Crescentia interposed such a humble beseeching look for
+her mother that his anger was disarmed.
+
+The old woman yawned and rubbed her eyes, and it was not long before,
+stupefied as she was by the repeated draughts of strong wine, she fell
+fast asleep.
+
+The fire on the hearth was gone out, and the lamp now only cast a
+faint glimmer. Antonio sank into a deep study, and Crescentia sat by
+the window on a low stool.
+
+"Can I sleep anywhere?" the weary youth at length askt.
+
+"There is another room above," said Crescentia sobbing; and he now
+first observed that she had been crying bitterly all the time. She
+trimmed the lamp, to make it burn brighter, and walkt silently before
+him. He followed her up a narrow staircase, and after they were above
+in the low dark loft, the damsel set the light on a little table and
+was on the point of retiring. But when already at the door she turned
+back again, stared at the young man as with a look of death, stood
+tottering before him, and then fell sobbing aloud and with violent
+unintelligible lamentations as in a convulsion down at his feet.
+
+"What is the matter with thee, my sweet girl?" he exclaimed, and tried
+to lift her up: "hush thee; tell me thy sorrow."
+
+"No, let me lie here!" cried the weeper. "O that I might die here at
+your feet, might die this very instant. No, it is too horrible. And
+that I can do nothing, can hinder nothing, that I must behold the
+crime in silence and helplessly! But you must hear it."
+
+"Compose thyself then," said Antonio comforting her, "that thou mayst
+recover thy voice and thy words."
+
+"I look," she continued passionately and interrupted by her tears, "so
+like your lost love, and it is I who am to lead you by the hand into
+the house of murder. My mother may easily foretell that a near
+misfortune is hanging over you: she well knows the gang that assemble
+here nightly. No one has ever yet escaped alive from this hell. Every
+moment is bringing him nearer and nearer, the fierce Ildefonso, or the
+detestable Andrea, with their followers and comrades. Alas! and I can
+only be the herald of your death, can offer you no help, no safety."
+
+Antonio was horrour-struck. Pale and trembling he graspt after his
+sword, tried his dagger, and summoned courage and resolution again.
+Much as he had but now wisht for death, it was yet too frightful to be
+thus forced to end his life in a robber's den.
+
+"And thou," he began, "thou with this face, with this form, canst
+bring thyself to be a companion, a helpmate to the accursed?"
+
+"I cannot run away," she sighed despondingly: "how joyfully would I
+fly from this house! Alas! and this night, tomorrow, I am to be taken
+from hence, and dragged over the sea; I am to be made the wife of
+Andrea or Ildefonso. Is it not better to die now?"
+
+"Come," cried Antonio, "the door is open; escape with me; the night,
+the forest will lend us their shelter."
+
+"Only look around you," said the girl; "only see how both here and in
+the room below all the windows are secured with strong iron bars; the
+door of the house is fastened with a large key which my mother never
+parts with. Did you not perceive, sir, how she threw the door into the
+lock when you entered?"
+
+"Then let the old hag fall first," cried Antonio: "we'll tear the keys
+from her...."
+
+"What, kill my mother!" shriekt the pale maiden, and clambered
+forcibly round him, to hold him fast.
+
+Antonio quieted her. He proposed to her that, as the old woman was
+drunk and sleeping soundly, they should take the large house-key
+gently from her side, then open the door, and escape. From this plan
+Crescentia seemed to catch some hope: they both went silently down
+into the room below, and found the old woman still fast asleep.
+Crescentia crept trembling up to her, sought for the key, found it,
+and succeeded after a time in loosening it from the string at her
+girdle. She beckoned to the youth; they stept on tiptoe to the door;
+they cautiously fixt the iron key in the lock; Antonio was now
+straining his hand to draw back the bolt without noise; when he felt
+that some one else was working at the lock on the outside in the same
+noiseless manner. The door opened softly and in came face to face to
+Antonio a large wild-looking man.
+
+"Ildefonso!" screamed the damsel, and the youth at the first glance
+recognized the murderer Roberto.
+
+"What is this?" said he with a hollow voice. "Where got you that key?
+whither are you going?"
+
+"Roberto!" cried Antonio, and furiously seized the gigantic man by the
+throat. They wrestled violently; but the nimbler strength of the youth
+got the better and threw the villain upon the floor; he then knelt
+upon his breast and plunged his dagger into his heart.
+
+The old woman meanwhile had awaked with loud screams, had started up
+on seeing the battle, and howling and cursing had torn her daughter
+away; she dragged her up to the room overhead, and bolted the door
+from within.
+
+Antonio was now mounting to break into the loft, when several dark
+forms stalkt in, and were no little astounded at finding their leader
+dead on the ground.
+
+"I am your captain now!" cried a broad bearded figure, fiercely
+drawing his sword.
+
+"Provided Crescentia is mine!" answered a younger robber in a tone of
+defiance.
+
+Each persisting in having his own way, they began a murderous combat.
+The lamp was thrown over, and amid yells and imprecations the battle
+rolled in the darkness from corner to corner.
+
+"Have you lost your senses?" shouted another voice athwart them: "you
+are letting the stranger get off; knock him down first, and then fight
+your quarrel out."
+
+But blind with fury they heard him not. Already the first grey
+uncertain gleam of early morning was dawning. Antonio now felt a
+murderer's fist at his breast; but quickly and strongly he struck the
+assailer down.
+
+"I am slain!" cried he, falling upon the floor: "Madmen, blockade the
+doors; don't let him run away."
+
+Meanwhile Antonio had found the way out; he sprang through the little
+garden and over the fence; the robbers, who by this time had come to
+their senses, hurried after him. He was only a few paces before them,
+and they tried to cut him off. One of them threw stones after him; but
+they missed their mark. Amid hollowing and threatening they had reacht
+the wood.
+
+Here the path split into sundry directions, and Antonio was at a loss
+which to choose. He lookt back, and saw the robbers separated; he
+attackt the nearest, and wounded him so that he let his sword drop.
+But at the same moment he heard shouts, and saw new forms along a
+by-path hastening thither; his road would soon be blockt up.
+
+In this extremity of need he met with his horse again on a little plot
+of grass in the wood. It seemed to have recovered from yesterday's
+over-fatigue. He leapt upon it, after rapidly seizing and righting the
+bridle; and with its utmost speed, as if the animal had felt his
+danger, it bore him along a foot-track out of the forest.
+
+By degrees the cries of his pursuers sounded more and more distant;
+the wood grew lighter; and when he had reason to trust that there was
+nothing more to be afraid of, he saw the city lying before him in the
+glory of the rising sun.
+
+People met him; countrymen were going the same road toward the city;
+travellers joined company with him; and in this way he came back to
+Padua, making little answer to the manifold questions and inquiries,
+why his dress was in such disorder, and why he had no hat. The
+citizens stared in wonder at him as he dismounted before the great
+house of the Podesta.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the city on that same night strange things had been going on, which
+as yet were a secret to everybody. Scarcely had the darkness spread
+thickly abroad, when Pietro, whom people commonly called by the name
+of his birthplace, Apone or Abano, retiring into his secret study at
+the back of his house, set all his apparatus, all the instruments of
+his art, in due order, for some mysterious and extraordinary
+undertaking. He himself was clad in a long robe charactered with
+strange hieroglyphs; he had described the magical circles in the hall,
+and he arranged everything with his utmost skill, to be certain of the
+result. He had searcht diligently into the configuration of the stars,
+and was now awaiting the auspicious moment.
+
+His companion, the hideous Beresynth, was also drest in magical
+garments. He fetcht everything at his master's bidding, and set it
+down just as Pietro thought needful. Painted hangings were unrolled
+over the walls; the floor of the room was covered over; the great
+magical mirror was placed upright; and nearer and nearer came the
+moment which the magician deemed the most fortunate.
+
+"Hast thou put the crystals within the circles?" demanded Pietro.
+
+"Yes;" returned his busy mate, whose ugliness kept bustling to and fro
+merrily and unweariably amid the vials, mirrors, human skeletons, and
+all the other strange implements. The incense was now brought; a flame
+blazed upon the altar; and the magician cautiously, almost with
+trembling, took the great volume out of his most secret cabinet.
+
+"Do we start now?" cried Beresynth.
+
+"Silence!" answered the old man solemnly: "interrupt not these holy
+proceedings by any profane or any useless words."
+
+He read, at first in a low voice, then louder and more earnestly as he
+paced with measured steps to and fro, and then again round in a
+circle. After a while he paused and said: "Look out, how the heavens
+are shaping themselves."
+
+"Thick darkness," replied the servant on his return, "has enwrapt the
+sky; the clouds are driving along; rain is beginning to drip."
+
+"They favour me!" exclaimed the old man: "it must succeed."
+
+He now knelt down, and murmuring his incantations often toucht the
+ground with his forehead. His face was heated; his eyes sparkled. He
+was heard to pronounce the holy names which it is forbidden to utter;
+and after a long time he sent his servant out again to look at the
+firmament. Meanwhile the onrush of the storm was heard; lightning and
+thunder chased each other; and the house seemed to tremble to its
+lowest foundations.
+
+"Hearken to the tempest!" shouted Beresynth coming back hastily: "Hell
+has risen up from below, and is raging with fire and fierce cracking
+crashes of thunder; a whirlwind is raving through the midst of it; and
+the earth is quaking with fear. Hold with your conjuring, lest the
+spokes of the world splinter, and the rim that holds it together
+burst."
+
+"Fool! simpleton!" cried the magician: "have done with thy useless
+prating! Tear back all the doors; throw the house door wide open."
+
+The dwarf withdrew to perform his master's orders. Meanwhile Pietro
+lighted the consecrated tapers; with a shudder he walkt up to the
+great torch that stood upon the high candlestick; this too at last was
+burning; then he threw himself on the ground and conjured louder and
+louder. His eyes flasht; all his limbs shook and shrunk as in
+convulsions; and a cold sweat of agony trickled from his brow.
+
+With wild gestures, as if scared out of his senses, the dwarf rusht in
+again, and leapt for safety within the circles. "The world is at the
+last gasp," he shriekt, pale and with chattering teeth: "the storms
+are rolling onward; but all beneath the voiceless night is dismay and
+horrour; every living thing has fled into its closet, or crept beneath
+the pillows of its bed to skulk away from its fears."
+
+The old man lifted up a face of ghastly paleness from the floor, and
+with wrencht and indistinguishable features screamed in sounds not his
+own: "Be silent, wretch, and disturb not the work. Give heed, and keep
+a fast hold on thy senses. The greatest things are still behind."
+
+With a voice as if he would split his breast, he read and conjured
+again: his breath seemed often to fail him; it was as though the
+gigantic effort must kill him.
+
+Hereupon a medley of voices were suddenly heard as in a quarrel, then
+again as in talk: they whispered; they shouted and laught; songs
+darted from among them, together with the jumbled notes of strange
+instruments. All the vessels grew alive, and strode forward, and went
+back again; and out of the walls in every room gusht creatures of
+every kind, vermin and monsters and hideous abortions in the richest
+confusion.
+
+"Master!" screamed Beresynth: "the house is growing too tight. What
+shall we do with all these ghosts? they must eat one another. O woe! O
+woe! they are all with cub, and are come here to whelp: new brutes
+keep sprouting out of the old ones, and the child is always wilder and
+frightfuller than its dam. My wits are leaving me in the lurch. And
+then this music into the bargain, this ringing and piping, and
+laughter athwart it, and funeral hymns enough to make one cry! Look
+master! look! the walls, the rooms are stretching themselves, and
+spreading out into vast halls; the ceilings are running away out of
+sight; and the creatures are still shooting forth, and thicken as fast
+as the space grows. Have you no counsel? have you no help?"
+
+In complete exhaustion Pietro now raised himself; his whole form was
+changed, and he seemed to be dying. "Look out once more," he said
+faintly: "turn thine eyes toward the dome, and bring me tidings of
+what thou seest."
+
+"I am treading the rabble here on the head," roared Beresynth, totally
+bewildered; "they are disporting themselves in twining about me like
+serpents, and are laughing me to scorn. Are they ghosts? are they
+demons, or empty phantoms? Get away! Well, if you won't move out of my
+path, I'll stamp downright upon your green and blue snouts. Everybody
+must take care of number one, even if a devil is to be the sufferer."
+He stumbled out muttering.
+
+Things now grew tranquil, and Pietro stood up. He waved his arm, and
+all those strange forms which had been crawling about the floor and
+twisting around each other in the air, vanisht. He wiped off the sweat
+and tears, and drew his breath more freely.
+
+His servant came back and said: "Master, all is quiet and well; but
+sundry light forms flitted by me and lost themselves in the dark sky.
+Thereupon, while I kept staring immovably toward the dome, a mighty
+crash sounded, as if all the strings of a harp were breaking at once,
+and a clap came that made the streets and the houses all tremble. The
+great door of the church burst open; flutes warbled sweetly and
+lovelily; and a soft light brightness streamed forth from the heart of
+the church. Immediately after the form of a woman stept into the
+radiance, pale, but glancing, bedeckt with crowns of flowers; she
+glided through the door, and gleams of light strewed a path for her to
+tread along. Her head upright, her hands folded, she is floating
+hither toward our dwelling. Is this she for whom you have been
+waiting?"
+
+"Take the golden key," answered Pietro, "and unlock the innermost
+richest chamber of my house. See that the purple tapestries are spread
+out, that the perfumes are scattering their sweetness. Then away, and
+get thee to bed. Make no further inquiry into what happens. Be
+obedient and silent, as thou valuest thy life."
+
+"I know you too well," returned the dwarf, and walkt off with the key,
+casting back another look of something like mischievous delight.
+
+Meanwhile a lovely murmur approacht. Pietro went into the
+entrance-hall, and in glided the pale body of Crescentia, in her robe
+of death, still holding the crucifix in her folded hands. He stood
+still before her; she drew up the lids from her large eyes, and shrank
+back from him with such a quick start that the wreaths of flowers
+dropt down from her shaking head.
+
+Without speaking a word he wrested her fast-claspt hands asunder; but
+in the left she kept the crucifix tightly clencht. By the right hand
+he led her through room after room, and she moved by his side stiffly
+and with indifference, never looking around.
+
+They reacht the furthest chamber. Purple and gold, silk and velvet,
+were its costly garniture. The light only glimmered in faintly by day
+through the heavy curtains. He pointed to the couch; and the
+unconscious holder of a charmed life stoopt and bent down like a lily
+that the wind shakes; she sank upon the red coverlet and breathed
+painfully.
+
+From a golden vial the old man poured a precious essence into a little
+crystal cup, and set it before her mouth. Her pale lips sipt the
+wonderous draught; she again unfolded her eyes, fixt them on her
+former friend, turned away from him with an expression of loathing,
+and fell into a deep sleep.
+
+The old man carefully closed the chamber again. Everything in the
+house was quiet. He betook himself to his own room, there in the midst
+of his books and magical instruments to await the rising of the sun
+and the business of the day.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When the unhappy youth, Antonio, had rested, the Podesta rode forth on
+the following day with him and with a large train of armed followers,
+to seek for the hut with the hideous old woman and the robbers, and to
+take them prisoners. On hearing Antonio's story, the disconsolate
+father became very eager to see the damsel who was said to be so like
+his lost daughter. "Can it be," said the old man on their way, "that a
+dream to which I have only too often abandoned myself, is about to
+become true?"
+
+The father was in such haste that he gave the youth no further
+explanation. They came to the neighbouring wood; and here Antonio
+thought he recollected himself and had found his track again. But that
+night had so bewildered him, and excited such a turmoil throughout his
+whole frame, that he could not make out the way further on, which he
+had taken during the storm, half stunned by the roaring of the thunder,
+on foot, wandering over ploughed land and meadow.
+
+They crost the large plain in every quarter; wherever trees or bushes
+were to be seen, thither Antonio spurred his horse, in the hope of
+meeting with that den of robbers and the marvellous apparition within
+it; or at least, should the inhabitants have absconded, as he might
+well expect, of gaining some sort of tidings about them.
+
+At length the Podesta, after they had been roaming about thus for a
+great part of the day, began to fancy that the youth's heated
+imagination had merely beheld these phantoms in the wild ravings of
+his grief. "Such happiness," he exclaimed, "would be too great; and I
+am born only for misfortune."
+
+On reaching a village they were forced to let their horses and
+servants bait. The inhabitants said they knew nothing of any such
+suspicious neighbours, nor had the bodies of the slain been found
+anywhere round about. After a short pause Antonio again set off, but
+the Podesta now followed him more mistrustingly. Inquiries were made
+of every peasant they fell in with; but none could give them any
+certain information.
+
+Toward evening they got to a building that appeared to have been
+destroyed; ashes and rubbish lay around; some charred beams peered out
+from among the stones; the trees that stood near were scorcht.
+
+Here the youth seemed to recognize what he saw. This, he affirmed
+confidently, had been the abode of the murderers and of that wonderous
+Crescentia. They made halt. Far and wide through the waste country
+there was no house to be seen, no human being to call to.
+
+A servant rode to the next hamlet, and returned an hour after,
+bringing an old man on horseback. This old man said he knew that a
+good year since a hut had been burnt down there, having been set fire
+to by some soldiers; that the owner of the estate had already been ten
+years at Rome waiting for an office promist him in the church; and
+that his bailiff had taken a journey to Ravenna for the sake of
+getting in an old debt.
+
+Vext and wearied the travellers rode back to the city. The Podesta
+Ambrosio determined to give up his office, to withdraw from public
+life, and to leave Padua, where everything reminded him only of his
+misfortunes.
+
+Antonio resolved to learn in the school of the renowned Apone how to
+bear his wretchedness, and perchance to forget it. He removed into the
+house of that great man, who had long treated him with much kindness.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"So you too," said the little priest some time after to the melancholy
+Antonio, "have given yourself up to this ill-starred school, to this
+pernicious man who will ensnare your soul to its destruction."
+
+"Why are you angry," answered Antonio courteously, "my pious friend?
+May not religion and knowledge shake hands in amity, as they do in
+this admirable teacher? in him whom the whole world admires, whom
+princes esteem and cherish, whom our holy father himself means to
+raise to a spiritual dignity. Why are you incenst against him who
+comes forward to meet you and all mankind with his love? Did you know
+how his doctrine comforts me, how he lifts up my soul and guides it
+heavenward, how in his mouth piety and religion find the words and
+images of inspiration, which bear his scholars as with the wings of
+the spirit into the regions above the earth, you would not think and
+speak thus harshly of him. Learn to know him more nearly; seek his
+intercourse; and you will soon be moved by penitence and love to
+abjure your dislike and your over-hasty judgement against him."
+
+"Love him!" cried the priest: "no, never! Keep yourself safe, young
+man, from his clutches and those of his servant with hell's stamp upon
+him, who cannot gull any one with the same fair seeming as his
+master."
+
+"True," rejoined Antonio, "little Beresynth is a queer figure, and a
+hideous one too. I wonder myself that our noble Pietro can endure to
+have him perpetually at his side, wherever he is and whatever he is
+doing. But ought a hump or any other such ugly mark to render us cruel
+toward a poor wretch whom nature has neglected?"
+
+"Fine words! grand phrases!" exclaimed the priest impatiently: "such
+are the very sentiments to make conjurors and quacks thrive apace.
+See, there comes the abomination! I cannot even bear to look upon him,
+much less to have any dealings with him. A creature whom the Lord has
+markt in this wise, is knowable enough; and let everybody in whom all
+human feeling is not yet quencht, get out of his way."
+
+Beresynth, who had caught the last words, came up to them with divers
+ungainly jumps.
+
+"My very reverend sir," he exclaimed, "do you then yourself happen to
+be of such mightily exquisite beauty, that you have a right to judge
+thus intolerantly? My master from his youth up has been a majestic and
+stately man; and yet he thinks far otherwise of me and my fellows.
+What! you little stinted, stunted, stumpy, bile-faced animal, whose
+nose is for ever running crimson with spite! You with the crooked
+corners of your seesaw mouth, with the broken ridges and ditches in
+your shrivelled half-inch forehead, you would make an outcry about my
+ugliness! Why the bit of a dwarf can hardly peer out of its pulpit
+when it is hubbubbing there, and is so gossamer-shankt it durst not
+walk across the great square if the wind chance to be blowing strong;
+the congregation are hard put to find him out when he is grimacing and
+gesticulating before the altar, and need all their christian faith and
+hope to believe him actually corporeally present; and such a
+hop-o'-my-thumb, such a ghostly ne'er-to-be-seen, would take the tone
+of a Goliah here. With thy leave, thou most invisible man of
+godliness, one might cut out of my nose alone as stout a pillar of the
+faith as thou art; and I won't reckon in the brace of humps which my
+backbone and breastbone have built up in rivalry of each other."
+
+The priest Theodore had already left them in anger before the end of
+this speech; and the melancholy Antonio chid the little dwarf for his
+wantonness. But the latter cried; "Now pray don't you also begin to
+preach. Once for all I will bear that from no one else than my master;
+for he came into the world on special purpose to teach morality and
+philosophy and their kin. But this weathercock of a priest here, that
+is driven round with such a creaking merely by his envy and malice,
+because he fancies that my noble master is lowering both his authority
+and his purse, he shall not unkennel his tongue from his toothless
+jaws, where I can but thrust in my unwasht mouth. And from a young
+student too I will brook no contradiction; for I used to have my beard
+shaved, while your father was still carried about in his
+chrisom-cloth; I was earning stripes at school and getting the fool's
+cap hung round my ears, when they put your worshipful grandfather into
+his first pair of breeches: so shew respect where it is due, and never
+forget whom you have before you."
+
+"Don't be angry, little man," said Antonio: "I meant it well with
+thee."
+
+"Mean it just as you please," returned the other. "My master is to be
+a prelate, do you know that yet? and lord rector of the university.
+And he has received a new gold chain as a token of royal favour from
+Paris. And you must come to him; for he is going away from Padua, and
+wants to speak to you once more before he sets off. And don't crawl
+about so among the parsons, if you mean to be a philosopher."
+
+Hopping and jumping to and fro from side to side he ran down the
+street again; and Antonio said to Alfonso, who now came up to him, and
+who for some time past had been forming a friendship with him: "I
+never know, when talking to that little abortion, whether it means its
+words in earnest or only in jest. He seems always to be scoffing at
+himself and at everything else in the world."
+
+"This," answered Alfonso, "is a kind of necessary amends to him, a way
+of comforting himself for his deformity: by his sneers he to his own
+fancy makes all other creatures just like himself. But have you heard
+of the new honours that have been bestowed on our illustrious teacher
+and master?"
+
+"The world," replied Antonio, "acknowledges his high worth; and now
+that even our holy father, the pope, is making him a prelate, this
+will at length silence the envious priests and monks who are for ever
+trying to charge the virtuous and pious man with heresy."
+
+They parted; and Antonio hurried home, to take leave of his teacher
+for some days. The little dwarf Beresynth was awaiting him in the
+doorway with a friendly grin.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was already growing dark within the house; and as Beresynth left
+the youth to himself, he walkt, on not finding his teacher in the hall
+or even in the library, through a number of rooms, and thus advanced
+even to the innermost, which he had never yet entered. Here beside a
+dim lamp Pietro was sitting, and was no little surprised to see the
+Florentine come in; who on his part was astonisht at the skeletons,
+the strange instruments, and extraordinary machinery around the old
+man. Not without confusion the latter came up to him.
+
+"I did not expect you here," said he, "but thought to find you
+without, or to look for you up in your own room. I must set off to
+meet the legate of our holy father, the pope, that with due humility
+and gratitude I may receive the letter and the new dignity which his
+grace and paternal kindness have vouchsafed to confer upon me."
+
+Antonio was embarrast, and seemed to be examining the instruments,
+having never seen any thing like them.
+
+"You are wondering," said the old man after a while, "at all these
+things, which are necessary for my studies. When you have attended
+a course of my lectures on natural philosophy, I shall be able
+hereafter to explain everything which now perhaps you may deem
+incomprehensible."
+
+But at this moment something happened that drew away Antonio's
+attention from all these objects. A door that seemed shut was only
+ajar; it opened, and he saw into a room filled with a red purplish
+light; and at the door in the midst of this roseate glow was standing
+a pale ghost that winkt and smiled.
+
+With the speed of lightning the old man turned round, dasht the door
+thunderingly to, and fastened it with a gold key. Trembling and pale
+as a corpse he then threw himself into a chair, while large drops of
+sweat ran down from his forehead.
+
+When he was somewhat recovered, he beckoned to Antonio, still
+trembling and said with a faltering voice: "This mystery also, my
+young friend, will hereafter become clear to you; think, my dearest
+son, the best of me. Thee above all, thou child of many sorrows and of
+my love, will I lead into the lowest depths of my knowledge; thou
+shalt be my true scholar, my heir. But leave me at present; go up to
+thy lonely chamber, and call in fervent prayer upon heaven and its
+holy powers to support thee."
+
+Antonio could make no answer, so amazed and horrourstruck was he by
+the apparition, so perplext by his honoured teacher's speech; for it
+seemed to him as though Pietro was struggling to check a burst of
+anger, as if represt rage were flashing from his firy eyes, which
+after their sudden dimness rapidly shot forth fiercer glances.
+
+He went away; and in the antechamber he found Beresynth, who with
+grinning mouth was catching flies and then tossing them to a monkey.
+Both seemed engaged in a match which could make the most portentous
+faces. His master now called aloud for the servant, and the monster
+hopt in. Antonio heard a loud squabble, and Pietro appeared to be
+violently angry. Whining and yelling Beresynth came out of the room; a
+stream of blood was rushing down from his enormous nose.
+
+"Can't he keep his doors shut himself," howled the abortion,
+"allsapient and allpotent as he is? When the master is a blockhead,
+the servant must bear the blame. Betake you yourself, most honorablest
+sir, up to your most attic study, and leave me with my good friend, my
+dear Pavian here, in peace. He has still a human heart, the dear
+faithful creature. Merry comrade as he is, in his tender moments he is
+the most exquisite fellow. Come march! Pylades would feast on some
+more flies, which his Orestes must catch for him."
+
+Antonio left the room almost stupefied.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Florentine youth had taken up his abode in his teacher's house,
+for the sake of giving himself up without any interruption to his
+sorrows and his studies. He had chosen the most retired and highest
+room in the whole building, to be quite alone and unvisited by
+anybody. When he lookt from hence over the beautiful and fruitful
+fields about the city, and followed the course of the river with his
+eyes, he thought the more intensely of his, lost love. He had got her
+picture from her parents, as well as some toys she had played with in
+her childhood; above all he delighted in a nightingale, that in its
+moving plaints seemed to him to be only pouring forth the woes of his
+own heart. This bird had been fostered by Crescentia with the utmost
+care and fondness; and Antonio preserved it like something holy, as
+the last relic of his earthly happiness.
+
+With other young men of his own age he never mingled, excepting the
+Spaniard Alfonso, to whom he was united by their equally enthusiastic
+admiration of Pietro Abano. The Podesta Ambrosio had resigned his
+office and left the city: he meant to spend the rest of his life at
+Rome, for the sake of getting beyond the reach of his relations at
+Venice. He had given up the thought of ever again finding the twin
+daughter who had been stolen from him in her infancy; and his grief
+had been embittered by Antonio's calling back this hope with such a
+shock into his soul. He was convinced the young man had misled him and
+himself been deceived by the fevered dreams of that night.
+
+In the morning Pietro set off with his trusty servant. Antonio was
+left alone in the large house, the rooms of which were all lockt up.
+The night had past over him in sleeplessness. That terrific figure was
+evermore standing before his eyes, which, greatly as it had appalled
+him, had yet reawakened all his most delightful feelings. It was as
+though all power of thinking had died away within him; visions which
+he could not hold fast kept moving in ever-rolling circles before his
+imagination. It was a frightful feeling to him, that he knew not what
+to think of his venerated teacher, that he had a boding of lawless
+mysteries, and of a horrour which since that look into the chamber
+seemed to be awaiting him, to strip him of all optimism, and to
+deliver him up to madness and despair.
+
+The nightingale began singing before his window, and he saw that it
+was blowing hard and raining. His fondness for the bird made him take
+it in and set it atop of a high old wardrobe. He clambered up and was
+leaning over to place the cage steadily, when the chain from which the
+portrait of his beloved was hanging broke, and the picture slid to the
+wall and down behind the old oak chest. The unhappy are terrified by
+the veriest trifles. He got down hastily to seek for his darling
+treasure. He stoopt down to the ground, but his search was vain; it
+was not to be seen beneath the large heavy cabinet. Everything,
+whether of great or little moment, in his life seemed to be
+persecuting him as it were under some spell. He shoved at the old
+piece of furniture and tried to push it out of its place; but it was
+fastened to the wall. His impatience grew more vehement with every
+hinderance. He seized an old iron bar which he found in the anteroom,
+and laboured with all his strength to move the wardrobe; and at last,
+after much heaving and wrenching and a hundred fruitless efforts, it
+gave way with a loud cracking as if an iron cramp or chain had snapt.
+The cabinet now by degrees came forward, and Antonio was at length
+able to squeeze himself in between it and the wall. He immediately saw
+his beloved portrait. It was lying upon the broad knob of a door,
+which jutted out of the wall. He kist it, and turned the handle, which
+yielded. A door opened; and he resolved to push the great wardrobe
+somewhat further away, and to explore this strange matter; for he
+thought the owner of the house himself could hardly be acquainted with
+this secret passage, which had been concealed with so much care, and,
+as it appeared, for so long a time.
+
+When he had gained a little more room, he saw that behind the door
+there was a narrow winding staircase. He went down a few steps; the
+thickest darkness came round him. He descended lower and still lower;
+the stairs seemed to lead down almost to the bottom of the house. He
+was on the point of returning, when he struck against a stoppage; for
+the flight of steps was now at an end. As he groped up and down in the
+darkness, his hand hit on a brass ring, which he pulled, and instantly
+the wall opened, and a red glow streamed into his face. Before he
+passed through, he examined the door, and found that a spring which
+the ring had set in motion, had driven it back. He put it to and stept
+cautiously into the room.
+
+It was covered with costly red tapestry; purple curtains of heavy silk
+hung down before the windows: a bed of brilliant scarlet embroidered
+with gold rose in the middle of the room. Everything was still; no
+sound was heard from the street; the windows lookt into a small
+garden.
+
+A painful anxiety came over the youth as he stood in the midst of the
+chamber; he listened attentively, and at length seemed to hear the low
+whisper of a breath, as from a sleeper. With throbbing heart he turned
+round, and went forward, to spy whether any one was upon the bed; he
+spread open the silken hangings, and ... he thought he must be in a
+dream; for before him lay, pale as a corpse, but in a sweet slumber,
+the form of his beloved Crescentia. Her bosom heaved visibly;
+something like a slight blush had tinged her pale lips, which were
+softly closed, quivering imperceptibly as a gentle smile ever and anon
+flitted over them. Her hair was loose and lay in its dark heavy locks
+upon her shoulders. Her dress was white, with a golden clasp at her
+girdle. For a long time Antonio stood lost in gazing; at last as if
+driven by a supernatural power he snatcht the lovely white hand, and
+began to pull up the sleeper by force. She darted a plaintive cry
+forth; and frightened by it he let go the arm again, which dropt
+languidly upon the pillow.
+
+But the dream, so seemed it, had flown away; the net of sleep which
+had held the wonderous form inclosed, was rent asunder: and as clouds
+and mists move along the side of the hills on the gentle morning
+breeze in wavy forms and now rise and now sink again, so the slumberer
+began to stir, stretcht herself as if powerless, and in slow and
+graceful motions seemed striving to emerge from her sleep. Her arms
+raised themselves, so that the broad sleeves fell back and displayed
+their full beauteous roundness; her hands folded themselves, and then
+dropt down again; the head arose, and the bright neck lifted itself
+freely up; but the eyes were still fast closed; the black tresses fell
+over the face, but the long taper fingers stroaked them back; now the
+fair one was sitting quite upright; she crost her arms over her
+breast, heaved a hard sigh, and on a sudden her large eyes stood wide
+open and glancing.
+
+She gazed at the youth; but it was as though she saw him not; she
+shook her head; then she graspt the gold tassel which was fastened to
+the top of the bed, lifted herself strongly up, and the tall slender
+form was now standing on its feet raised up on high in the midst of
+the scarlet drapery. She then stept safely and firmly down from the
+couch, walkt a few paces up to Antonio who had drawn back, and with a
+childish exclamation of surprise, as when children are suddenly
+gladdened by a new plaything, she laid her hand upon his shoulder,
+smiled lovelily upon him, and cried with a soft voice: "Antonio!"
+
+But he, pierced through and through with fear and horrour and joy and
+amazement and the deepest pity, knew not whether to fly from her, to
+embrace her, to cast himself at her feet, or to melt away in tears and
+die. That was the selfsame sound which of yore he had heard so often
+and with such delight, at which his whole heart had turned round.
+
+"Thou livest?" he cried with a voice which the swell of his feelings
+stifled.
+
+The sweet smile that had mounted from her pale lips over her cheeks
+even into her radiant eyes, suddenly split, and froze into a stiff
+expression of the deepest most unutterable woe.
+
+Antonio could not endure the glance of those eyes; he covered his face
+with his hands, and shriekt: "Art thou a ghost?"
+
+The figure came still closer, prest down his arms with her hands, so
+that his face lay bare, and said with a gently fluttering voice: "No,
+look at me; I am not dead; and yet I live not. Give me that cup
+there."
+
+A fragrant liquid was floating in the crystal vessel; he held it out
+to her trembling; she set it to her mouth and sipt the drink by slow
+draughts. "Alas! my poor Antonio!" she then said: "I will only borrow
+these earthly powers that I may disclose the most monstrous of crimes
+to thee, that I may beseech thy aid, that I may prevail on thee to
+help me to that rest after which all my feelings so fervently yearn."
+
+She had sunk back into the arm-chair, and Antonio was sitting at her
+feet. "Hellish arts," she again began, "have seemingly awakened me
+from death. The same man whom my inexperienced youth honoured as an
+apostle, is a spirit of darkness. He gave me this shadow of life. He
+loves me, as he says. How my heart shrank back from him when my
+awakening eye beheld him. I sleep, I breathe; I may, if I choose, be
+restored to life altogether, so that wicked man has promist me, if I
+will give myself up to him with my whole heart, if in secret
+concealment I will let him become my husband.... O Antonio, how hard
+is every word to me, every thought! All his art crumbles before my
+longing for death. It was frightful, when my spirit, already at rest,
+with new visions already unfolding before it, was summoned back so
+cruelly out of its calm peace. My body was already a stranger to me, a
+hostile and hateful thing. I came back like the freed slave to chains
+and a dungeon. Help me, my true lover; save me."
+
+"How!" said Antonio: "Oh God in Heaven! what have I lived to! in what
+a state do I find thee again! And thou canst not, mayst not return to
+life altogether? thou canst not again be mine, again be thy parents'
+dear child?"
+
+"Impossible!" cried Crescentia with a tone of anguish, and her
+paleness became yet whiter from dismay. "Alas! Life! How can any one
+seek it again, who has once been set free from it? Thou, my poor
+Antonio, conceivest not the deep longing, the love, the rapture,
+wherewith I think upon death and pant for it. Even more intensely than
+of yore I loved thee, even more fervently than my lips at the Easter
+festival pined for the holy wafer, do I now yearn for death. Then I
+shall love thee more freely and more wholly in God; then I shall be
+given back to my parents. Then I shall live; formerly I was dead; now
+I am a cloud and a shadow, a riddle to myself and to thee. Alas, when
+thy love and our youth have gleamed in upon me in my present state,
+when I have heard my well-known nightingale from above pouring her
+song into my loneliness, what a sweet shuddering, what a dark joy and
+pain have then rippled through the dusk of my being! O help me to get
+loose from this chain."
+
+"What can I do for thee?" askt Antonio.
+
+Her talking had again broken the strength of the apparition: she
+paused awhile with closed eyelids; then she spake faintly: "Alas! if I
+could go into a church, if I could be present when the Lord is lifted
+up and appears to the congregation in the sacrament, then in that
+blessed moment I should die of rapture."
+
+"What should hinder me," said Antonio, "from informing against the
+villain, and delivering him up to the tribunals and to the
+inquisition?"
+
+"No! no! no!" groaned the figure in the greatest terrour: "thou dost
+not know him; he is too mighty; he would make his escape, and again
+tear me to him within the circle of his wickedness. Quietly and by
+silence alone can we succeed; he must feel secure. A chance has
+brought thee to me. Thou must make him believe himself quite safe, and
+keep everything secret."
+
+The youth collected his senses; he talkt much with his former
+betrothed; but speaking became more and more difficult to her; her
+eyelids dropt down; she drank once more of the wonderous potion; then
+she made him lead her to the couch.
+
+"Farewell!" she said, as if already in a dream; "do not forget me."
+
+She mounted upon the bed, laid herself gently down; her hands searcht
+for the crucifix, which she kist with her eyes closed; then she held
+out her hand to her lover, and beckoned him away as she stretcht
+herself out to sleep.
+
+Antonio gazed at her awhile; then with the spring he shut the
+invisible door again, crept back up the narrow winding stairs to his
+chamber, fixt the wardrobe in its old place, and burst into hot tears
+as the song of the nightingale welcomed him with the swell of its
+mournful notes. He too longed for death, and only wisht beforehand to
+release her, who but a few days since was to have been his earthly
+bride, from her marvellous and awful state.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In order to be out of the way when his teacher returned from his
+journey, Antonio had bent his steps toward the loneliest part of the
+wood. It was an annoyance to him to meet his friend, the Spaniard,
+here; for he was in no mood to carry on a conversation. However, as
+there was no avoiding his comrade, he resigned himself in silent
+sadness to the society which at other times had been a pleasure to him
+and a comfort. He only half listened to what his friend said, and
+answered but sparingly. As was almost always the case, Pietro was
+again the theme of Alfonso's boundless admiration.
+
+"Why are you thus stingy of your words today?" he at length began,
+somewhat vext: "is my company troublesome to you? or are you no longer
+as capable as you used to be of honouring our great teacher and giving
+him the glory he deserves?"
+
+Antonio was forced to collect himself, not to sink away entirely into
+his dreamy state.
+
+"What is the matter with you?" askt Alfonso again: "it seems I have
+offended you."
+
+"No, you have not;" cried the Florentine; "but if you have any regard
+for me, if you would not excite my anger, if you would not have the
+bitterest feelings rend my heart, do give over chaunting the praises
+of your idolized Pietro for today. Let us talk on some other subject."
+
+"Ha! by Heaven!" exclaimed Alfonso: "so the parsons have twisted your
+feeble senses round at last. Go your own way henceforward, young man;
+wisdom, I now well see, is too lofty a prize for you. Your head is too
+weak for this fare; and you are longing again for the pap you were
+wont to get from the former fathers of your soul. You will do better
+to stay with them, at least till your milk teeth have dropt out."
+
+"You are talking overweeningly," cried Antonio in wrath; "or rather
+you are utterly ignorant of what you are saying, and I deserve not
+this language from you."
+
+"How has our teacher deserved," said the Spaniard hastily, "he who has
+taken you in like a father, he who favours you so highly above all the
+young men of our university, who allows you to dwell in his house, who
+entrusts you with all the thoughts of his heart, by what offense has
+he deserved, that you should thus mean-spiritedly deny him?"
+
+"If I were to answer now," returned Antonio angrily, "that you do not
+know him, that I have reasons, and the fullest, to think otherwise of
+him, again you would not understand me."
+
+"Verily," said Alfonso with a sneer, "you have already scaled so high
+into the most secret places of his philosophy, that the common
+unfavoured child of earth is unable to follow you. Here again one sees
+that half-merit and quarter-merit puff themselves up the most. Pietro
+Abano is more lowly-minded than you, his feeble mimic."
+
+"You are unmannerly!" exclaimed the young Florentine irritated to the
+utmost. "If I were now to assure you by my honour, by my faith, by
+heaven, and by everything which must needs be holy and venerable to
+you and me, that in all Italy, in all Europe, there is no such wicked
+villain, no so atrocious hypocrite as this...."
+
+"Who?" shouted Alfonso.
+
+"Pietro Abano," said Antonio now grown calm: "what would you say
+then?"
+
+"Nothing!" furiously cried the other, who had not allowed him to
+finish: "save that you, and everybody else who dares to speak in that
+way, are the paltriest knaves that ever had the audacity to blaspheme
+holy things. Draw, if you would not be called a mean coward as well as
+a base slanderer."
+
+Antonio's drawn sword met the challenger with the same speed; and it
+was in vain that a hoarse anxious voice cried out to them: "Hold!"
+Alfonso was wounded in the breast; and the blood at the same time ran
+from Antonio's arm.
+
+The old priest, who had wisht to separate the quarrellers, now
+hastened forward; bound up their wounds and stancht the blood; then he
+called to some students that he had seen a little way off, and told
+them to carry the wounded Alfonso to the city.
+
+Before he was removed, Antonio went up to him and whispered in his
+ear: "If you are a man of honour, not a word about the cause of our
+fray will pass over your lips. In four days time we will meet again:
+and if you are not of my way of thinking then, I am ready to give you
+any satisfaction."
+
+Alfonso pledged his solemn promise; all the bystanders too assured
+Antonio that the wound as well as the whole affair should be kept a
+secret, not to expose him to any danger.
+
+When they were all gone Antonio walkt with the priest Theodore deeper
+into the wood.
+
+"Why," began the latter, "will you, for a fiend's sake, make over your
+own soul to hell? I see, you are now of a different opinion; but is
+the sword the spokesman that should preach truth to a brother?"
+
+Antonio felt in doubt how much he should disclose to the monk; however
+he said nothing about the wonderful event that had befallen him, and
+only entreated that, at the approaching festival of Easter, he might
+be allowed to enter the great church during high mass through the
+sacristy, near the altar.
+
+After some objections Theodore complied, though he could not conceive
+what was the youth's purpose in asking for this permission. All
+Antonio said further was: "I wish to bring a friend into the church
+that way, whose entrance at the great door might perhaps be stopt."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+All the bells in the city were ringing, that the holy feast of Easter
+might be kept with gladness and devotion. The people flockt toward the
+dome, to celebrate the most joyous of Christian festivals, and also to
+behold the renowned Apone in his new dignity. The students escorted
+their illustrious teacher, who walkt along amid the reverent
+salutations of the nobles, the council, and the citizens, in seeming
+piety and humility, an example to all, the pride of the city, the
+inspiring model of the youth. At the door of the cathedral the crowd
+shrank back in timid respect, to make way for their honoured bishop,
+who, in the garb of a prelate, with the golden chain round his neck,
+with his white beard and the white locks on his head, might be
+compared to an emperor or an ancient doctor of the church in his
+majestic demeanour.
+
+A seat had been raised up on high for the great man near the altar,
+that the students and the people might see him; and when the multitude
+of the devout had poured into the church, the service began.
+
+Theodore, the little priest, read mass on this day; and young and old,
+gentle and simple, all rejoiced to keep the festival of their Lord's
+resurrection in a worthy manner, and to behold the pomp of worship
+returning, glad that after the days of severe fasting, after the
+saddening representations of suffering and sorrow, they might now
+comfort themselves with the feeling of a new life springing forth from
+the grave.
+
+The first part of the divine service was already over, when people
+were astonisht to see Antonio Cavalcanti stepping into the church by
+the side of the altar, leading a thickly veiled figure in his hand. He
+placed the figure on the raised pavement just in face of Pietro, and
+then threw himself down before the altar praying. The muffled form
+remained standing stiff and high, and beneath the covering one saw the
+firy black eyes. Pietro lifted himself from his seat, and sank back
+into it pale and trembling. The music of the mass now gusht and rolled
+in fuller symphonies; the muffled form disentangled itself slowly from
+its veils; the face became free; and those who were nearest with
+horrour recognized the dead Crescentia. A shudder passed through the
+whole church; even over those who were furthest off a secret shivering
+crept, to see the image pale as death standing so tall there, and
+praying so fervently, and never turning her large burning eyes from
+the priest at the altar. Even the great mighty Pietro himself seemed
+changed into a corpse; from his distorted features one might have held
+him to be dead, but that his life betrayed itself in his violent
+trembling.
+
+Now the priest turned round and lifted up the consecrated host;
+trumpets announced the renewed presence of the Lord; and with a voice
+of triumph, with a face of high transport, her arms widely outspread,
+as she cried aloud "Hosannah!" so that the church resounded with it,
+the pale apparition dropt down, and lay dead, stiff, and motionless,
+before Pietro's feet.
+
+The people rusht forward; the music stopt; curiosity, astonishment,
+horrour, and affright spake from every asking countenance; the nobles
+and students went up to comfort and support the venerable old man, who
+appeared so deeply shockt; when Antonio with a yelling sound shouted:
+"Murder! Murder!" and began the most fearful charge, the most
+appalling tale, unfolded the hellish arts, the accursed magic of the
+dismayed sinner, spake of himself and of Crescentia and of their awful
+meeting again, until anger and rage and imprecations and loathing and
+curses raved like a stormy sea around the criminal, and threatened to
+annihilate him, to tear him to pieces in the madness of their fury.
+They talkt of gaolers and chains; the inquisitors drew near; when
+Pietro started up as in a frenzy, thrust and struck about him with
+clencht fists, and seemed to spread himself out to a gigantic size. He
+walkt up to Crescentia's body that lay smiling like the picture of a
+saint, gazed at her once more, and then passed roaring and with
+flashing eyes through the crowd.
+
+A new horrour seized the people; they made room for the huge form; all
+moved out of his way. Thus Pietro came to the open street: but the mob
+now bethought themselves, and with cries and curses and revilings
+pursued the fugitive, who ran hastily onward, while his long robes
+flew far behind him, and the gold chain beat and rattled upon his
+breast and shoulders. The rabble, as they could not catch him, tore up
+the stones from the pavement, and threw them after him; and wounded,
+bleeding, dripping with sweat, his teeth chattering from fear, Pietro
+at last reacht the threshold of his house.
+
+He hid himself in the innermost apartments; and Beresynth came forward
+inquisitively, asking all sorts of questions, to meet the mob and the
+rush of the people.
+
+"Fall upon the maskt devil! the familiar!" they all shouted: "tear in
+pieces the profane creature who never yet set foot in a church!"
+
+He was dragged and pusht into the street; no answer was made to his
+inquiries and intreaties, to his howls and shrieks, nor indeed was
+anything heard through the stormy tumult except curses and threats of
+death. "Bring me before the magistrate!" at length screamed the dwarf;
+"there my innocence will be made clear as day."
+
+The constables were summoned, and seizing him led him toward the
+prison. All the people prest after him. "In here with him!" cried the
+chief of the officers: "chains and faggots are waiting for thee."
+
+He tried to tear himself away from them; the constables laid hold on
+him and shoved him to and fro: one seized him by the collar, another
+by the arm, the next clung round his leg to hold him fast, a fourth
+caught his head to make quite sure of him.
+
+While they were pulling him backward and forward in this way amid
+shouts and curses and laughter, on the sudden they all started off
+from one another; for each had got nothing but a piece of clothing, a
+sleeve, cap, or shoe of the monster; he himself was nowhere to be
+seen. He could not have run away; he seemed to have vanisht; but
+nobody could tell how.
+
+When they had broken into Apone's chamber, those who rusht in found
+him lying on his bed, lifeless, having bled to death. They plundered
+the house; the magical implements, the books, the strange furniture,
+were all made over to the flames; and throughout the whole city
+nothing resounded except curses on the man whom but this morning all
+had honoured as a messenger from Heaven. This only embittered the
+loathing with which they now revolted from the phantom.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When the turmoil by which the people were agitated was somewhat
+allayed, the body of Pietro was silently buried at night, without the
+consecrated churchyard. Antonio and Alfonso renewed their friendship,
+and attacht themselves to the pious Theodore, who, after going through
+the solemn rites and pronouncing a devout oration, had the body of the
+beautiful Crescentia laid a second time in the vault designed for her.
+Antonio however could not bear to stay any longer at Padua; he
+resolved to revisit his native city, that he might settle his affairs,
+and then perhaps get admitted into a convent. Alfonso on the other
+hand determined to make a pilgrimage to Rome, where the holy Father
+had just been proclaiming a year of jubilee with a plenary indulgence
+for sins. Not only throughout Italy was every one in motion; but from
+France too, and Germany, and Spain, came numerous trains of pilgrims,
+to celebrate this till then unheard of solemnity, this great festival
+of the church, in the holy city.
+
+After the friends had parted, Antonio pursued his lonely path,
+shunning the great road, partly for the sake of brooding
+uninterruptedly over his sorrows, and partly to avoid the swarms that
+were flocking along the highway, and were often troublesome at the
+nightly resting-places.
+
+Thus following his own mood, he roamed through the plains and through
+the vallies of the Apennines. One evening the sun set and no inn was
+to be seen. As the shades were deepening, he heard a hermit's little
+bell tinkling in a wood on one side. He bent his steps toward the
+sound, and when the darkness of night was already closing, he arrived
+at a small hut, to which a narrow plank led across a brook, surrounded
+by bushes.
+
+He found an aged infirm man praying with the deepest devotion before a
+crucifix. The hermit received the youth, who greeted him courteously,
+with kindness made up a couch of moss for him in a recess of the rock
+which was separated by a door from his cell, and placed some of his
+fruit, some water, and a little wine before him. When Antonio was
+refresht, he was greatly pleased with the conversation of the monk,
+who in earlier times had lived in the world, and served as a soldier
+in many campaigns. In this way it had grown late in the night, and the
+youth betook himself to his bed, just as another weak and sickly monk
+entered, who meant to pass the night with the hermit in prayer.
+
+When Antonio had rested about an hour he started suddenly out of his
+sleep. It seemed to him as though loud voices were disputing. He sat
+up; and all doubt about the quarelling and squabbling was removed. The
+tones too struck him as if he knew them; and he askt himself whether
+he was not dreaming. He went to the door, and found a crevice through
+which he could pry into the front room.
+
+How was he amazed at beholding Pietro Abano, whom he could not but
+deem dead, speaking loudly, with eyes of rage and a red face, and
+striding about with violent gestures! Over against him stood little
+Beresynth's hideous carcase.
+
+"So you have got your persecutor," cried the latter with a croaking
+voice, "who has made you thus wretched, the lovesick godly fool, here
+under your roof! he has run of his own accord like a silly rabbit into
+the snare: and you are shillishallying about cutting his throat."
+
+"Silence!" cried the large figure: "I have already taken counsel with
+my spirits; they will not consent; I have no hold upon him; for he is
+imprisoned in no sin."
+
+"Smite him dead then," said the little one, "without your spirits,
+with your own gracious hands: so his virtue and his sinlessness will
+not avail him much; and I should be a sorry servant if I were not to
+stand by you in so praiseworthy an exploit."
+
+"Well then!" said Pietro: "let us go to work; take thou the hammer;
+I'll carry the axe; he is fast asleep now."
+
+They advanced toward the door; but Antonio tore it back, to meet the
+villains boldly in the face. He had drawn his sword; but he remained
+like a statue, standing with uplifted arm, when he saw two sickly
+decrepit hermits lying on their knees before the cross, mumbling their
+prayers.
+
+"Do you want anything?" askt his host, rising toilsomely from the
+floor. Antonio was so astounded, he could make no answer.
+
+"Why that drawn sword?" askt the weak stooping hermit; "and wherefore
+these menacing looks?"
+
+Antonio drew back with the excuse that a frightful dream had scared
+and worried him. He could not fall asleep again; his senses were in
+such a tumult. Ere long he again plainly heard Beresynth's croaking
+voice; and Pietro said with a full clear tone: "Have done; thou seest
+he is armed and warned; he will not trust himself to sleep again."
+
+"We must overpower him then;" screamed the little one: "now that he
+has recognized us, we are quite undone every way. The pious slave will
+go and give us up to the inquisition tomorrow; and the pious rabble
+will then be at hand in a trice with their faggots and flames."
+
+Through the chink in the door he perceived the two magicians. He again
+rusht in with his sword drawn, and again found two decrepit old men
+lying on the ground and whining their prayers. Enraged at the cheating
+forms, he seized them in his arms and wrestled violently with them;
+they defended themselves desperately; it was now Pietro, now the
+hermit, one moment the imp Beresynth, the next a crippled old monk.
+
+After much screaming and raving, cursing and wailing, he at last
+succeeded in thrusting them out of the cell, which he then carefully
+fastened. He now heard a whining without and entreaties and groans,
+mixt up with the whispering of many voices, and with songs and yells;
+afterward rain and wind seemed to be stirring, and a storm afar off
+rolled athwart the multitudinous sound. Stunned at length by all this,
+Antonio fell asleep, leaning on his sword as he sat before the
+crucifix; and when the cold morning breeze awakened him, he found
+himself on the highest peak of a narrow ridge in the midst of a thick
+forest, and thought he heard bursts of scornful laughter behind him.
+
+It was at the peril of his life that he climbed down the steep
+precipice, tearing his clothes, and wounding his face and hands and
+feet. He had then to wander wearisomely through the forest: there was
+not a soul to call to, not a hut to be discovered far around, often as
+he mounted the hights to explore. When it was almost night, faint with
+fatigue, hunger, and exhaustion, he fell in with an old collier who
+refresht him in his little hut. He learnt that he must be some twelve
+miles and upward from the hermitage he had met with the evening
+before. It was only late on the following day that, somewhat
+strengthened and cheered, he could pursue his journey toward Florence.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Antonio had returned to Florence for the sake of visiting his kindred
+and his paternal house again. He could not make up his mind on what
+course of life to enter, since all the happiness of existence had
+proved so treacherous, and even realities had shewn themselves to him
+under the aspect of a mad dream.
+
+He settled his affairs, and gave himself up to his sorrow in the great
+palace of his fathers; where that fatal grotto and every well-known
+room only harast his mind with the liveliest images of his own and his
+parents misfortunes. He thought too of that hateful witch who was so
+entangled in his fate, and of that Crescentia who had appeared to him
+and then vanisht again in a way scarcely less marvellous than his
+bride. If he could have caught the slightest glimmering of hope, he
+might in time have grown reconciled to life again.
+
+At last there rose up within his soul, like a pale star, the wish of
+making a pilgrimage to Rome, which he had never yet seen, there to
+partake in the graces bestowed upon the faithful, to visit the famous
+churches and holy relics, to divert his thoughts from himself in the
+midst of the streaming multitude, the throng of numberless strangers
+who had journied thither from all quarters of the earth, and to seek
+out his friend Alfonso. He also expected that he should find old
+Ambrosio in the great city, should receive comfort from this mourner
+who had meant to become his father, and might perhaps afford him too
+some comfort in his affliction. With these feelings and views he set
+out on his way, and after some time arrived at Rome.
+
+He was astonisht when he entered the great city. He had framed no
+conception of her grandeur, her ancient monuments, or of such a
+concourse of innumerable strangers. It might well be deemed matter of
+wonder if one found out any friend or acquaintance, without being able
+beforehand to give an accurate account of where he lived. And yet this
+wonderful chance befell him in his suddenly meeting Ambrosio, as he
+was going up to the Capitol from which the old man was coming down.
+The Podesta carried him to his house, where Antonio greeted the
+sorrowing mother. The rumour of Pietro's strange end, of Crescentia's
+return to life and second departure from it, had already been bruited
+as far as Rome: this marvellous story was in the mouth of every
+pilgrim, disfigured with confused additions and contradictions, and
+drest out by frequent repeating into the very reverse of the truth.
+The parents listened with alternations of joy and woe to the story as
+Antonio told it, awestruck as they both were, especially the mother,
+who gave vent to her loathing in execrations against the old
+hypocritical magician, and in her rage more than half believed that he
+had himself been the cause of her daughter's death, having perhaps
+taken a bribe for that purpose from the family of Marconi, that he had
+poisoned her for the sake of awakening her corpse again to gratify his
+frantic abominations.
+
+"Let us leave all this to heaven;" said the old man. "What happened
+and was notorious to the whole city and country, was quite horrible
+enough, without involving others, who may perhaps have been innocent,
+in this enormous wickedness. However, let the matter with regard to
+the Marconis stand as it may, I am perfectly resolved that they shall
+never be the better off for my fortune. By the help of my patrons here
+I shall obtain leave to make over my property to some convents or
+charitable foundations; and perhaps my weariness of life may lead me
+to end my own days as a monk or hermit."
+
+"But what," threw in the mother weeping, "if it were possible after
+all to find out that second Crescentia again, of whom Antonio has told
+us! The child was stolen from me during your absence in a most
+incomprehensible manner; the witch who named the Marconis on that
+night, the likeness, all, all agrees so wonderfully, that surely we
+ought not to cast away hope, that first and chief good of life, too
+early, not too hastily, in our despair."
+
+"Good Eudoxia," said the father, "have done, have done with all these
+dreams and stories and wild fancies: for us there remains in this
+world nothing that is certain, except death; and that ours may be
+pious and easy, is what we must wish and pray to heaven for."
+
+"And if hereafter, when it is already too late," exclaimed the mother,
+"our poor orphan child should be found again, may not the unhappy girl
+justly reproach us for not relying on the bounty and mercy of Heaven,
+and waiting for her return with a little more calmness and patience?"
+
+Ambrosio cast a dark frown on the youth, and then said: "This too has
+come in over and above all the rest to deepen our wretchedness: you
+have infected my poor wife with your sick fancies, and have thereby
+robbed her of her peace, the only, the last blessing of life."
+
+"What mean you by these words?" askt Antonio.
+
+"Young man," answered the father, "ever since that ride of yours
+through field and forest, when you pinned that wild tale upon me about
+the events which you said had befallen you the night before...."
+
+"Signor Ambrosio!" cried Antonio, and his hand fell involuntarily on
+his sword.
+
+"Leave that alone," continued the old man calmly: "far be from me the
+wish to accuse you of a falsehood; I have too long known your noble
+character, and your love for truth. But has it never struck you, my
+poor young friend, without my putting it into your head, that ever
+since the night when you met my daughter's coffin, having come with
+the thought to carry her home with you the next day as your bride,
+your senses have got into disorder, your reason has been much
+weakened? During that lonely night, beneath that storm, in the
+strongly excited state of your passions, you fancied you saw my lost
+child again; and the recollections of your unfortunate father, of your
+long-lost mother, connected themselves with her image. In this way
+were those visions bred, and fixt themselves firmly in your brain. Did
+we find a single trace of the hut? Was a human creature in the
+neighbourhood able to tell us a word about the robbers you killed?
+That awful meeting again with my real daughter, in which I perforce
+must believe, is of itself enough to fever the very coldest feelings
+into madness; and need one marvel then at your talking of having
+encountered another impossibility, at your story about finding the
+dead Pietro come to life among the mountains, and not knowing him
+again, and about those almost farcical tricks of jugglery that were
+played you, all which you have related to us with the very same
+assurance? No, my good Antonio, pain and grief have distracted your
+sounder senses, so that you see and believe in things which have no
+real existence."
+
+Antonio was perplext and knew not what to reply. Greatly as the loss
+of his beloved had shaken all the faculties of his soul, he still was
+too clearly conscious of the events he had past through, to bring
+their reality thus in question.
+
+He now felt a new motive to activity: he wisht at least to prove that
+the story of that night was no dreamy phantom, that his second
+Crescentia was an actual being; and thus it became his liveliest
+desire to find her again, and to restore her to her afflicted parents,
+or at least make Ambrosio acknowledge that he had misjudged him.
+
+In this mood he left his old friend, and wandered about the city to
+and fro, prest by the concourse of people, and half stunned by shouts,
+and questions, and stories in all the languages of the earth. Thus,
+shoved and pusht about, he had been driven on as far as the Lateran,
+when he fancied that, as the crowd now and then opened a little, he
+distinctly perceived, though some way off, that selfsame hideous old
+woman, the mother of the beautiful maiden, who bore the name of his
+Crescentia.
+
+He endeavoured to get up to her, and seemed to be succeeding, when a
+train of pilgrims came pouring from a cross street, who cut him off
+entirely, and made all further advance impossible. While he was
+struggling with all his might, and working his way up the steps of St
+John's Church, that he might be able to overlook the multitude, he
+felt a friendly slap on his shoulder, and a wellknown voice pronounced
+his name. It was the Spaniard Alfonso.
+
+"So I find you exactly in the place," said he joyfully, "where I lookt
+for you."
+
+"What do you mean by that?" askt Antonio.
+
+"First let us get out of the way of this torrent of human flesh,"
+cried the other: "in this place, from the myriads of tongues that are
+wagging, from the ceaseless buz of this monstrous Babylonian beehive,
+one can't hear a single word."
+
+They took a walk out into the country; and here Alfonso confest to his
+friend that, since he had been at Rome, he had devoted himself to the
+science of astrology, divination, and other like things, which he had
+formerly held in abhorrence, having been of opinion that they could
+only be acquired by accursed means and by the help of evil spirits.
+"But since the day," he continued, "when I made acquaintance with the
+incomparable Castalio, this knowledge appears to me in a far higher
+and purer light."
+
+"And is it possible," exclaimed Antonio, "that after all those fearful
+events at Padua, you can again expose your soul to such perils? Do you
+not clearly see that whatsoever is to be attained in a natural way and
+by means of our own reason does not repay the trouble, being nothing
+more than a set of petty tricks that can only excite merriment and
+laughter! that everything beyond on the other hand, which does not
+turn upon empty delusion, cannot possibly be called into being, unless
+by evil and damnable powers?"
+
+"Declaiming," said the Spaniard, "is not proving. We are far too young
+to understand the whole of our own nature; much less can we comprehend
+the rest of the world and all its unexplored mysteries. When you once
+see the man whom I have so much to thank for, all your doubts will
+vanish. Pious, simple-hearted, nay childlike, as he is, every look of
+his eye pours the light of confidence into you."
+
+"And how was it with Apone?" Antonio threw in.
+
+"He," replied his friend, "always wanted to be coming forward in the
+light of a supernatural being: he was evermore labouring, consciously
+and purposely, to appear as a messenger from Heaven, and with
+counterfeit splendour to dazzle the ordinary sons of men. He delighted
+in pomp; he would indeed be condescending at times, but it was only to
+make the enormous distance between him and us more palpably felt. Did
+he not revel in the admiration which the nobles and citizens, the
+young and old, were all forced to pay him? But my present friend (for
+such he is, because he renders himself altogether my equal) has no
+wish to seem great and sublime: he smiles at the endeavours of so many
+men to do so, and considers this of itself as an assurance that there
+is something spurious and hollow to be concealed; since a clear
+consciousness of worth would only wish to pass for what it feels
+itself to be, and the wisest of mortals must after all acknowledge
+that he too, as well as the most ignorant vagabond, is merely a child
+of the dust."
+
+"You make me curious;" said Antonio: "so he knows both what is past
+and what is to come? the destinies of men? and could tell me how happy
+or unhappy the cast of my future life is to be? whether certain secret
+wishes can be accomplisht? Would he then be able to decipher and
+divine such parts of my history as are obscure even to myself?"
+
+"It is in this very thing that his wisdom lies," answered Alfonso with
+enthusiasm; "by means of letters and numbers, in the simplest and most
+harmless way, he finds out everything for which those wretches have to
+employ conjurations and charms and yells and screams and the agonies
+of death. Hence too you will find none of that odious magical
+apparatus about him, no crystals with spirits blockt up in them, no
+mirrors and skeletons, no incense, and no nauseous imps: he has all
+his stores in himself. I told him about you; and he found out by his
+calculations that I was quite sure of meeting you today at this hour
+on the steps of the Lateran church. And so it has turned out at the
+very instant he foretold."
+
+Antonio was desirous of becoming acquainted with this wonderfully
+gifted old man, in the hope of learning his destiny from him. They
+dined in a garden, and toward evening went back to the city. The
+streets had grown somewhat quieter; they could pursue their way with
+less hinderance. At dusk they came into the allies which pass close
+behind the tomb of Augustus. They walkt through a little garden; a
+friendly light glimmered upon them from the windows of a small house.
+They pulled the bell; the door opened; and full of the strangest and
+highest expectations Antonio entered with his friend into the hall.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Antonio was surprised at seeing before him a simple-mannered
+middle-sized young man, who from his appearance could not be much
+above thirty years old. With an unaffected air he greeted the youth on
+his entrance like an old acquaintance.
+
+"Be welcome!" said he with a pleasing voice: "your Spanish friend has
+told me much good of you, so that I have long lookt forward with
+pleasure to becoming acquainted with you. Only you must by no means
+fancy that you are come to one of the sages, to an adept, or forsooth
+to a man before whom hell trembles in its foundations: you will find
+me a mere mortal, such as you yourself are and may become, as may
+every man whom such graver studies, and retirement from the vain
+tumult of the world, do not scare away."
+
+Antonio felt comfortable and at ease, greatly as he was astonisht: he
+cast his eyes round the room, which beside a few books and a lute
+displayed nothing out of the way. In his own mind he compared this
+little house and its straightforward inmate with the palace and the
+pomp, the instruments and the mysteries, of his former teacher, and
+said: "In truth one sees no traces here of that high and hidden
+knowledge which my friend has been extolling to me, and in which you
+are said to be infallible."
+
+Castalio laught heartily, and then replied: "No, my young friend, not
+infallible; no mortal can go so far as that. Only look around you;
+this is my sitting-room; there in that little chamber stands my bed: I
+have neither space nor means for hiding any instruments of fraud, or
+setting any artificial machinery in action. All those circles and
+glasses, those celestial globes and maps of the stars, which your
+conjurers need for their tricks, would find no room here: and those
+poor creatures after all are only deluded by the spirit of falsehood,
+because they will not labour to learn the powers of their own minds.
+He however who descends into the depths of his own soul, with humility
+and a pious disposition to guide him, he who is in earnest in wishing
+to know himself, will at the same time find every thing here which he
+would vainly strive by desperate means and devices to extort from
+Heaven and Hell. _Become like children._ In this exhortation the whole
+mystery lies hidden. Only let our feelings be pure, and we may again,
+even though it be but for hours or moments, cast off all that our
+first parents drew down upon themselves by their wanton disobedience;
+we walk again as in paradise; and Nature with all her powers comes
+forward as she did then, in the youthful bridal age of the world, to
+meet the transfigured man. Is not this the very thing which proves our
+spirit to be a spirit, that bodily hinderances, space and time, with
+the confusion they breed, cannot confine it? It soars even now on the
+wings of yearning and devotion far above all the circles of the stars:
+nothing checks its flight, save that earthly power which, when sin
+entered, pounced upon it and enslaved it. This however we can and
+ought to subdue, by prayer, by self-abasement before the Lord, by
+confessing our vast guilt, and by boundless gratitude to him for his
+unfathomable love; and then we see and hear the things that are
+curtained from us by space and time; we are here and there; the future
+comes forward and, like the past, pours out its secrets before us; the
+whole realm of knowledge, of comprehension, lies open to us; the
+powers of heaven become our willing servants: and yet to the truly
+wise man one glimpse into the mysteries of the Godhead, one emotion of
+his own heart when toucht by God's love, is far higher, and far more
+precious knowledge, than all the treasures which do homage to the
+inquiring mind, than the revealed soul of history or of the present
+time, than the bending knees of a thousand angels who are ready to
+call him their master."
+
+Alfonso cast a look of enthusiasm upon his friend; and Antonio could
+not refrain from acknowledging to himself that here in the garb of
+lowly simplicity he found more than had ever delighted him from
+Apone's mouth, even at the time of his greatest admiration for that
+ostentatious philosopher. Indeed he was already become fully convinced
+that the knowledge which people call supernatural may be easily united
+with piety and a thorough resignation to the Lord.
+
+"Do you know now what my fate has been?" askt the youth with emotion:
+"can you tell me anything about the events that are hereafter to
+befall me?"
+
+"If I learn the year, the day, and the hour of your birth," answered
+Castalio, "compare the horoscope I shall then draw with the lines of
+your face and the marks on your hands, and afterward give free range
+to my mind in contemplating the results, I hardly doubt my being able
+to tell you something about your destinies."
+
+Antonio gave him a pocket-book, in which his father had himself noted
+down the hour of his birth. Castalio placed some wine before the young
+men, himself partaking a little of it, turned over a few books, and
+then sat down to calculate, without however entirely breaking off his
+conversation with his guests. It only seemed as if the cheerful young
+man had some common business in hand, which was far from requiring the
+whole of his attention. Thus amid laughing and lively talk an hour may
+have past away, when Castalio stood up and beckoned to Antonio to go
+with him to the window.
+
+"I know not, he began, how far you trust your friend there, or what
+you may wish to keep secret from him."
+
+Hereupon he examined Antonio's face and hands very minutely, and then
+in regular connexion told him the story of his parents and their
+misfortunes, the early violent death of his mother, and his father's
+sinful passion, together with his murder by the hand of his wicked
+complice. Afterward he came to Antonio's own affairs, how he had
+sought for the murderer and pursued him, and had been detained at
+Padua by love.
+
+"So you," he concluded, "as not without astonishment I have learnt,
+are the very young man who a short time since detected the wickedness
+of the abominable Apone in such a wonderful way, and who delivered the
+shameless villain over to his punishment, although you yourself only
+became still unhappier than before, from having to lose your beloved a
+second time in so horrible a manner."
+
+Antonio confirmed all that the friendly man said, and had gained such
+confidence in him, that he felt just as if he was talking to himself.
+He then went on to tell him about the adventures of that night, about
+the second Crescentia, and the odious witch, who, he could not help
+fancying, had appeared to him a second time on that day.
+
+"Can you inform me now," he askt eagerly, "whether this is all true,
+who that Crescentia is, and whether I shall ever see her again and
+carry her back to her parents?"
+
+Castalio became more thoughtful than before. "Unless that strange
+creature Beresynth," he answered, "the imp that used to be at the
+magician's side, has been disguising himself as a woman, to escape
+from his pursuers, I feel assured that I shall find the hag out. Only
+have patience till tomorrow, and I will then give you your answer.
+Meanwhile you may be satisfied that the occurrences of that night were
+no phantoms of your mind, but realities; thus far you may set yourself
+and your elderly friend at rest."
+
+The young people were lost in thought as they left the wonderful man,
+and Antonio thankt the Spaniard heartily for having procured him this
+acquaintance.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Antonio had not been mistaken. It was in fact the old woman that he
+had caught sight of in the crowd. She was living in a little hut,
+behind some ruinous houses, not far from the Lateran. Persecuted,
+destitute, deserted and hated and dreaded by all the world, she was
+here, in the abode of wretchedness, reduced to the brink of despair.
+She seldom ventured to shew herself abroad, and on this day too had
+only gone out from necessity, to bring her Crescentia, who had run
+away from her, back again.
+
+As everybody shrank out of her path, as it was hard work for her even
+to obtain here and there an alms, and as her former arts found few
+lovers, she was no little astonisht that evening to hear a knock at
+her door, while cries and shouts were tossing without. She took her
+lamp, and, opening the door, saw a swarm of street-boys and of the
+lowest rabble at the heels of a little crooked figure fantastically
+clad in red velvet and gold.
+
+"Does not the worthy Pancrazia live here?" screamed the deformed
+dwarf.
+
+"Ay, to be sure!" said the old woman, as she forcibly banged the door
+to, and tried to drive away the people on the outside by abuse. "Who
+are you, worthy Sir? what do you seek from an old forlorn lady?"
+
+"Set yourself down," said the little stranger, "and kindle some more
+light, that we may spy and look at one another; and whereas you call
+yourself poor, take these gold pieces, and we will sip a glass of wine
+together to our better acquaintance."
+
+The old woman smirkt, lighted some wax-candles which she kept lockt up
+in a drawer, and said: "I have still a flask of good Florence,
+worshipful sir, that shall warm our insides." She opened a little
+cupboard and placed the red comforter upon the table, pouring out the
+first glass for her unknown guest.
+
+"Why do you call me worshipful?" askt he.
+
+"Don't the pieces of gold declare it?" answered she: "and your
+doublet, and the lace upon it, and the feather in your hat? Are you
+not a prince, not a magnate?"
+
+"No!" howled the little one: "what, odds bodikins! cousin, don't you
+know me in the least? and yet in my younger days people wanted to
+flatter me by assuring me that we in some degree resembled each other:
+and faith! when I come to look thus closely at your figure, your
+physiognomy, your expression, your sweet smile, and those twinkling
+stars in your eyes there, and when I weigh all this with scrupulous
+impartiality, why, cousin Pancrazia of the house of Posaterrena in
+Florence, and little Beresynth of the family of Fuocoterrestro in
+Milan, are for such degrees of kin, as cousinhood, like each other
+enough."
+
+"O gemini!" screamed the old woman in delight: "so you are the
+Beresynth of Milan about whom I heard so much talk in my childhood.
+Hey! Hey! so am I at this late hour in the day, in the depth of old
+age, to become acquainted with such a lovely cousin face to face!"
+
+"Ay!" said the dwarf: "just nose to nose; for that great bastion
+thrown up there is certainly the biggest piece of bonework in our
+faces. For curiosity's sake, dear coz, let us make an experiment for
+once, whether we can manage to give each other a cousinly kiss.... No,
+purely impossible! the far outjutting promontories immediately begin
+rattling against each other, and forclose our lowly lips from
+everything like a soft meeting. We must force our noble Roman noses
+aside with our two fists. So! Don't let it fly, my lady cousin! I
+might come by a box on the ears that would make my last teeth tumble
+out."
+
+With a hearty laugh the hag cried: "Hey! I have not been so merry this
+long time. But what did they want with you before the door there,
+cousin?"
+
+"What!" screamed the little one: "to look at me, to delight their eyes
+with me, nothing more. Is not man, my highly esteemed cousin gossip, a
+thoroughly silly animal? Here in Rome now have hundreds of thousands
+been assembled whole months, for their Redeemer's honour, as they give
+out, and to do penance for their sins and get rid of them; and the
+moment I peep out of the window (I only arrived here the day before
+yesterday) be it merely in my nightcap, and still more when I come
+forth at full length and in my Sunday suit into the marketplace, one
+can't help swearing that the whole gang of them have started out of
+every hole and corner in Europe merely for my sake: they so leer, and
+ogle me, and whisper, and ask questions, and laugh, and are in
+ecstacies. I might grow rich, meseems, were I to let myself be stared
+at for money while I stay here; and if I chance to give them all this
+pleasure gratis, forthwith a pack of blockheads begin barking and
+hallooing at my tail. To see a long-tailed monkey, apes or seals, the
+dogs must put themselves to some expense; yet instead of enjoying my
+magnanimity quietly and like sensible people, they rave and revile me
+all round, and hunt for every expression of loathing they can root out
+of the animal creation, to display their gross ignorance."
+
+"Very true! very true!" sighed the old woman: "it fares no better with
+me. Are the beasts such sheer fools then? Only let a body have a
+regular, average, commonplace nose, eyes, and chin, and all goes on
+quietly."
+
+"Look at the fish," continued Beresynth, "who are dunces in many
+things. What philosophical tolerance! and yet among them many a fellow
+is all snout, and confronts the learned physiognomists of the ocean
+with a countenance, grave, cold, calm in the consciousness of its
+originality: nay, the whole deep brims and swims with one can't count
+how many eccentric faces, and gills, and teeth, and eyes astart from
+their sockets, and every other kind of striking contour: but every
+monster there floats his own way quietly and peaceably, without having
+his sleeve twitcht or any other annoyance. Man alone is so absurd as
+to laugh and sneer at his fellow creatures."
+
+"And on what," said the beldam, "after all does this mighty difference
+turn? I am sure I never yet saw a nose that was but a single yard
+long: an inch, at most two, hardly ever three, make the vast
+distinction between what they call monsters, and what they are pleased
+in their modesty to style beauty. And now to come to a hump. If it
+were not in one's way sometimes in bed, as you know, coz, it is in
+itself far more agreeable to the eye than those dull flats by way of
+backs, where in many a lank lathy booby the tiresome straight line
+stretches up as far as one can see without a single twist, or curl, or
+flourish."
+
+"You are in the right, my dame cousin!" cried Beresynth already drunk
+to his drunken hostess. "What can Nature be about when she turns off
+the things they christen beauties from her pottery-wheel? Why, they
+are hardly worth the trouble of setting to work at them. But such
+cabinet pieces as you and I! there the creative power, or the
+principle of nature, or the soul of the world, or the mundane animal,
+or whatever title one chooses to give the thing, can look at its
+product with a certain degree of complacency and satisfaction. For it
+has your curved lines: it starts off into noticeable angles; it is
+jagged like corals; it darts forward like crystals; it agglomerates
+like basalt; nay, there is no conceivable line that does not hop,
+skip, and jump about our bodies. We, coz, are the spoilt, the cockered
+children of the formation: and this is why the common rabble of nature
+are so malicious and envious toward us. Their slim wretched fashion is
+next door to the slimy eel: there is nothing edifying in such an
+edifice. From that piece of monotony to the prawn is already a good
+step; and how far above that is the seal! how do we surpass them both,
+as well as the seastar, the crab, and the lobster, my trustiest
+cousin, in our excursive irregularities, which defy all the
+mathematicians in the world to find an expression for their law. But
+coz, pray where did you get those two gorgeous teeth? the incomparable
+couple cut a grand and gloomy figure there across the chasm ... of
+your unfathomable mouth, and form a capital bridge over the gulf that
+gapes between the dark cliffs of your gums."
+
+"O you rogue! O you flatterer!" laught the old woman: "but your
+darling chin that comes forward so complaisantly, and is so ready to
+wait upon you and spread itself out like a table. Don't you think you
+could put a good-sized platter upon it comfortably, where your mouth
+might then quietly nibble away, while your hands were seeking work
+elsewhere. This I call an economical arrangement."
+
+"We won't spoil ourselves by too much praise;" said the dwarf: "we are
+already, it seems, vain enough of our advantages; and after all we did
+not give them to ourselves."
+
+"You are right," said she. "But what profession are you of, cousin?
+where do you live?"
+
+"Oddly enough;" answered Beresynth: "sometimes here, sometimes there,
+like a vagabond: however I now mean to settle quietly; and as I heard
+there was still a near kinswoman of mine living, I resolved to seek
+her out and beg her to come and live with me. This is what brought me
+hither. In my youth I was an apothecary in Calabria; there they drove
+me away, because they fancied I manufactured love-powders. O dear, as
+if there was any need of 'em nowadays. Then once upon a time I was a
+tailor; the outcry was, I thieved too much: a pastrycook; all accused
+me of thinning the cat and dog population. I wanted to put on a monk's
+cowl; but no convent would let me in. Then came my doctoring days, and
+I was to be burnt; for they muttered about, what think you?
+witchcraft. I became a scholar, wrote essays, systems of philosophy,
+poems: those who could not read were sure I was blaspheming God and
+Christianity, and that was too bad. After many long years I betook
+myself to the man who was making such a pother in the world, Pietro
+Apone, and became his familiar, next a hermit, and what not? The best
+is that in every state of life I have made money and hoarded it up; so
+that I can now lay down my grey head free from want and care. And now,
+coz, for your history."
+
+"Just like yours;" answered she: "the innocent are always persecuted.
+I have had a few times to stand in the pillory; have been banisht out
+of half a dozen countries; among other things they even wanted to burn
+me; they would have it I conjured, I stole children, I bewitcht
+people, I fabricated poisons."
+
+"And coz," said Beresynth in the openness of his heart, "there was
+some truth in all this, was not there? innocent as you are. I at least
+must confess it as to myself, and perhaps it may lie in the family,
+that I have given in to more than one of the aforesaid practices. My
+amiable gossip, he who has once swallowed a titbit of dear witchcraft,
+can never keep his fingers from it afterward as long as he lives. The
+thing is just like dram-drinking: once get the taste for it, and
+tongue, and throat, and gums, and marry! even lungs and liver, will
+never let it go."
+
+"You know human nature, I see, my dear cousin;" said the hag, with a
+grin that tried to be a simper. "Such trifles as a little murder and
+witchcraft, poisoning and stealing, run in the blood even of the
+innocentest. Bawding was a thing in which I could never hit the mark.
+And what shall one say when one has to endure thanklessness and woe
+from one's own children? My daughter, though she has seen how I suffer
+hunger and trouble, and how I have stinted and starved my old mouth,
+merely to put her into fine clothes, the graceless wench would never
+let me coax her into earning but a single half-crown. Some time since
+she might have made a good match of it! there was Ildefonso and
+Andrea, and many other brave fellows besides, who supported our whole
+house, herself among the rest; but she set up the paltry pretense that
+the gentry were robbers and murderers, and that she could not let them
+into her heart. The gallants were such generous spirits, they meant to
+have the baggage actually tied to them in church; but silly youth has
+neither sense nor truth. Now they are lying in their graves, those
+worthy men, and have been turned out of life's doors in a most
+scandalous way. But this does not move her a whit more than my sorrow
+and distress; so that I can't make her consent to live with a rich
+young noble cavalier, the nephew of a cardinal, who could floor this
+whole room with gold. The silly jade has run away, and they absolutely
+won't give her up to me again. Such is the respect shewn to a mother
+in these days."
+
+"Let her go, the worthless trumpery!" cried Beresynth: "we shall live
+happily together without her, I warrant; our ways of thinking and
+feeling are so well paired."
+
+"But why should she run away," continued the old woman, "like a
+faithless cat after a flogging? We might have parted as if we loved
+each other, and like two rational beings. Surely some occasion would
+have turned up before long of selling the greensick minx
+advantageously to an old lover or a young one; and this might have
+succeeded too, why should not it? if she had not lockt up a silly
+young fellow in her heart, whom she loves, as she tells me."
+
+"O have done, gammer!" screamed Beresynth, reeling and already half
+asleep. "If you begin to talk about love, coz, I shall tumble into
+such a laughing convulsion that I shall not recover from it for this
+next three days. Love! that stupid word broke the neck of my famous
+master, Pietro. But for this tarantula-dance the great hawk-nose would
+still be sitting as professor at his lecturing desk, and tickling the
+young goslings with philosophy and wisdom as they perkt up their
+yellow beaks to catch the crumbs he dropt into them. Marry! old
+beldam, this monkey-trick of love, this Platonic drunkenness of the
+soul, was the only thing wanting to us, to me as well as you, and then
+the miracle of our heroic existence would have been quite perfect....
+Well, goodbye, old dame; tomorrow night about this time I'll come to
+fetch you, and then we never part more."
+
+"Cousin," said Pancrazia, "goodbye, till we meet again. Since you came
+through my door, I have grown quite a different creature. We will make
+a royal housekeeping of it hereafter."
+
+"So we too have had our jubilee now!" stammered Beresynth, who was
+already standing in the street, and who reeled through the dark night
+to his lodging.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Antonio meanwhile had already been to prepare old Ambrosio and his
+wife, telling them he was now sure of finding out the hideous old
+woman again, and no doubt her daughter Crescentia also. The mother
+readily believed him; but the father persisted in his doubts.
+
+Even before the sun had set, the youth was again with his friend at
+the door of the wise Castalio. The latter met them smiling, and said:
+"Here, Antonio, take this paper: you will find noted down on it, in
+what street, in what house, you may meet with the old crone. When you
+have discovered her, you will no longer entertain any doubts about my
+science."
+
+"I am already convinced;" replied Antonio: "I was so even yesterday:
+you are the wisest of mortals, and by the help of your art will make
+me the happiest. I will go to seek for the old woman: and if
+Crescentia is not dead or lost, I shall carry her to the arms of her
+parents."
+
+Powerfully excited and full of expectation he was about to depart in
+haste; his hand was already on the door-knob; when a low timid knock
+was heard on the outside, accompanied by a hoarse coughing and a
+scraping of feet.
+
+"Who's there?" cried Castalio; and, when the friends opened the door,
+in came Beresynth, who immediately stationed himself in the middle of
+the room, and with sundry antick bows and writhings of his features,
+offered his services to the wise man.
+
+"Who are you?" exclaimed Castalio, who had changed colour, and pale
+and trembling had shrunk back a few steps.
+
+"A villain he is, the fiend!" cried Antonio: "a magician, whom we must
+put into the inquisition's hands. It is the accursed Beresynth
+himself, whose name, my honoured friend, you have already heard, and
+of whom I have told you."
+
+"Think you so, young jackanapes?" said Beresynth with a sneer of the
+deepest contempt. "With you, children, I have no business. Do you not
+know me?" cried he turning to Castalio: "perhaps you have nothing for
+me to do."
+
+"How should I?" said Castalio with a faltering voice: "I never saw you
+before. Leave me; I must decline your services. In this little house
+of mine I have no room for any stranger."
+
+Beresynth paced with his biggest strides up and down. "So, you don't
+know me? It may be; folks alter a good deal sometimes; for no man is
+always in his bloom. But, it strikes me, people ought not to forget
+me, or to mistake me for any one else, quite so soon as they might
+many of your smooth nicely painted ninnies.... And you too," as he
+turned round to the youths, "you perchance don't know that
+wisdommonger there."
+
+"O yes!" said Antonio: "he is our best friend, the excellent
+Castalio."
+
+Here the dwarf raised such an enormous shout of laughter, that the
+walls and windows of the room clattered and echoed it back. "Castalio!
+Castalio!" screamed he as if possest: "why not Aganippe too, or
+Hippocrene? So, you have got spectacles before your eyes, and your
+souls stare stupidly with a calf's look out of your round pumpkins of
+heads! Rub your noses, and see, and recognize, I pray you, your
+honoured Pietro of Abano, the great jack-of-all-trades from Padua!"
+
+He who called himself Castalio had sunk as if fainting into a chair:
+his trembling was so violent that all his limbs fluttered; the muscles
+of his face quivered with such force that no feature in it could be
+distinguisht; and after the young men had gazed on it for some time
+amazedly, they thought with horrour they perceived that from this
+distortion of all the lineaments came forth the well-known countenance
+of the aged Apone.
+
+With a loud scream the magician started from his seat, clencht his
+fists, and foamed at the mouth; he seemed in his fury of a gigantic
+size. "Well, yes!" he roared in a tone of thunder: "it is I, I,
+Pietro! and thou slave, thou art spoiling my game, as I was destroying
+those young brats after a new fashion. What wouldst thou, worm, of me,
+who am thy master, and who have cast thee off? Tremblest thou not
+through all thy bones at the thought of my vengeance and punishment?"
+
+Beresynth again raised the same pealing horrid laugh. "Vengeance!
+Punishment!" he repeated grinning. "Fool! matchless fool! art thou now
+for the first time to find out that such language toward me does not
+beseem thee? that thou juggler, must crawl in the dust before me? that
+a glance of my eye, a grasp of my iron arm, will dash thee to pieces,
+thou earth-born mummery with thy wretched tricks, which only prospered
+through my countenance."
+
+A spectre stood in the hall. His eyes shot forth sparks of fire; his
+arms spread themselves out like an eagle's wings; his head toucht the
+ceiling: Pietro lay whining and howling at his feet. "It was I," so
+the demon spake on, "who furthered thy paltry tricks; who deluded the
+people; who made thee sin and thrive in thy sins. Thou troddest me
+under foot; I was thy scorn; thy high-minded wisdom triumpht over my
+silliness. Now I am thy master. Now thou shalt follow me as my
+bondslave into my kingdom.... Depart hence, ye poor wretches!" he
+cried to the youths: "what more we have still to settle, it befits not
+you to behold!" and a tremendous clap of thunder shook the house to the
+bottom.
+
+Dazzled, horrour-struck, Antonio and Alfonso rusht out; their knees
+tottered; their teeth chattered. Without knowing how, they found
+themselves again in the street; they fled into a neighbouring church;
+for a howling whirlwind now arose, with thunder and lightning, and the
+house, when they lookt behind them, was burning and had fallen in
+ruins.
+
+Two dark shadows hovered over the flame, fighting, as it seemed, and
+twining round each other, and wrestling and dashing each other to and
+fro: yells of despair and peals of scornful laughter resounded
+alternately between the pauses of the loudly raving storm.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was a long time before Antonio could collect calmness enough to go
+and seek for the house of the old woman according to the directions he
+had received. He found her drest out; and she cried to him merrily:
+"What! Florentine! are you too come to see me again at last?"
+
+"Where is your daughter?" askt Antonio, trembling with anxiety.
+
+"If you wish to have her now," replied the old woman, "I won't keep
+her from you. But you must pay honestly for her, you or the Podesta of
+Padua, if he still lives; for she is his child, whom I stole from him
+long since, because the Marconis vouchsafed me a round sum of money
+for doing so."
+
+"If you can prove it," said the youth, "you shall have whatever you
+ask."
+
+"Proofs, as many as you please," cried the beldam: "trinkets with arms
+on them, clothes she had on at the time, a mole on her right shoulder,
+which of course her mother must know best. But you shall also have
+letters from the Marconis, writings which I carried off with her from
+Padua in my hurry, everything ... only money must be forthcoming."
+
+Antonio paid her all that he had about him, and then gave her the
+jewels from his hat and clothes, some pearls, and a gold chain. She
+swept it all in laughing, while she said: "Don't be surprised that I
+am in such haste, and so easily satisfied. The wench has run away from
+me, because she was determined not to have any lover, and has stuck
+herself into the nunnery beside Trajan's column: the abbess would not
+give her up to me; but only send in your name, and the young chit will
+jump into your arms; for she dreams and thinks of nothing but you; you
+have so bewitcht her silly heart, that ever since that night, which
+you will probably remember, she has not spoken a single word of sense,
+and can't bear to hear the mention of a lover or a husband. I am glad
+to be quit of her in this way; I am going with my noble cousin, Signor
+Beresynth, who came of his own accord to invite me, this very night to
+his villa. Fare thee well young man! good luck attend you with your
+Crescentia!"
+
+Antonio took all the letters, the baby clothes, and every proof of
+Crescentia's birth. At the door he was met by the terrible being that
+called itself Beresynth. He hastened on, and was so light of heart, so
+winged on his way, that he did not notice the storm behind him, which
+threatened to lay the country waste, and to heave the houses from
+their foundations.
+
+During the night the overhappy parents examined the letters; and
+these, as well as the clothes, convinced them that this second
+Crescentia was their child, the twin sister of her that died, whom at
+her christening they had named Cecilia. In the morning the father
+fetcht the lovely pale girl from the convent; and she felt as though
+in heaven at belonging to such noble parents, and at having again
+found a youth who adored her, and to whom on that perilous night she
+could not help giving up her whole heart for ever.
+
+Rome talkt for some time of the two unfortunate persons whom the storm
+had slain: and Ambrosio lived thenceforward with his wife, his
+recovered daughter, and his son-in-law, Antonio, in the neighbourhood
+of Naples. The youth amid the bliss of love ceast to mourn over the
+sorrows of his younger days; and the parents were comforted by their
+children and grandchildren for the loss of their beautiful and most
+dearly loved Crescentia.
+
+
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+                         TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:
+
+Contemporary spellings were retained, especially past tense endings on
+t rather than ed.
+
+The translation was checked against the 1853 German edition of Tieck's
+collected works. The following sentence was missing from the original
+translation:
+
+    Er war überzeugt, der Jüngling habe ihn und sich selbst mit den
+    Fieber-Phantasien jener Nacht getäuscht.
+
+It has been added as:
+
+    He was convinced the young man had misled him and himself been
+    deceived by the fevered dreams of that night.
+
+The following sentence is not present in the 1853 German edition and
+has been omitted:
+
+    (...like two rational beings.) I might have discharged a mother's
+    duty, and settled her where she should be in no danger of
+    starving. (Surely some occasion...)
+
+In addition, the following corrections and amendments have been made:
+
+Almost everybody has a mask; and this is mime.
+    changed to
+Almost everybody has a mask; and this is mine.
+
+when you have them at their full size.
+    changed to
+when they are present and pronounced.
+
+they who loved me never would say it lookt.
+    changed to
+they who loved me would say it lookt.
+
+chewing bread and bullock's flesh.
+    changed to
+chewing bread and roast beef.
+
+Antonio had found the outlet;
+    changed to
+Antonio had found the way out;
+
+cried a broad massy figure,
+    changed to
+cried a broad bearded figure,
+
+Antonio preserved it like something holy.
+    changed to
+the adoring Antonio preserved it like something holy.
+
+to strip him of everything like hope.
+    changed to
+to strip him of all optimism.
+
+behind the old chest
+    changed to
+behind the old oak chest
+
+they now revolted from the impostor.
+    changed to
+they now revolted from the phantom.
+
+his youth and his sinlessness will not avail him.
+    changed to
+his virtue and his sinlessness will not avail him.
+
+some fifty miles and upward from the hermitage,
+    changed to
+some twelve miles and upward from the hermitage,
+
+no smokework
+    changed to
+no incense
+
+Welcome to me.
+    changed to
+Be welcome.
+
+Unless that mischievous Beresynth
+    changed to
+Unless that strange creature Beresynth
+
+Iuocoterrestro
+    changed to
+Fuocoterrestro
+
+To see a porpoise, a baboon, or an otter.
+    changed to
+To see a long-tailed monkey, apes or seals.
+
+hunt for every filthy name
+    changed to
+hunt for every expression of loathing
+
+forcing the sun to look on their gross ignorance.
+    changed to
+forcing the sun to display their gross ignorance.
+
+lying in their graves, poor perishable mortals,
+    changed to
+lying in their graves, those worthy men,
+
+This I call economical bodykeeping.
+    changed to
+This I call an economical arrangement.
+
+already on the lock of the door.
+    changed to
+already on the door-knob.
+
+or the Podesta of Padua; for she is his child,
+    changed to
+or the Podesta of Padua, if he still lives; for she is his child,
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN, THE
+LOVECHARM AND PIETRO OF ABANO***
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+<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano, by Ludwig Tieck</title>
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+<body>
+<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm
+and Pietro of Abano, by Ludwig Tieck</h1>
+<pre>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre>
+<p>Title: The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano</p>
+<p>       Tales from the German of Tieck</p>
+<p>Author: Ludwig Tieck</p>
+<p>Release Date: August 19, 2008  [eBook #26360]</p>
+<p>Language: English</p>
+<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p>
+<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN, THE LOVECHARM AND PIETRO OF ABANO***</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>E-text prepared by Delphine Lettau</h3>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<table border="0" style="background-color: #dddddd; margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="10">
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <b>Note:</b>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>
+      This work contains three novellas. Links to each novella
+      are provided here:
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td align="center">
+      <a href="#nov1">The Old Man of the Mountain</a><br />
+      <br />
+      <a href="#nov2">The Lovecharm</a><br />
+      <br />
+      <a href="#nov3">Pietro of Abano</a>
+    </td>
+   </tr>
+ </table>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h1>THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN,</h1>
+<h1>THE LOVECHARM,</h1>
+<h4>AND</h4>
+<h1>PIETRO OF ABANO.</h1>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>TALES FROM THE GERMAN OF TIECK.</h3>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h6>LONDON:</h6>
+<h6>EDWARD MOXON, 64, NEW BOND STREET.</h6>
+<h6>1831.</h6>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><a name="nov1" id="nov1"></a></p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN.</h2>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>The name of Herr Balthasar was well known throughout the whole
+hill-country: not a child but had heard of his vast riches, and had
+some story to tell of him. Everybody too loved and honoured him; for
+his bounty was as great as his wealth: but at the same time he was
+viewed with fear; for he harast both himself and others by a number of
+strange whims which no one could understand; and his moodiness, his
+silent reserve, were especially irksome to those who were nearest
+about him. No person had seen him smile for many years; he scarcely
+ever came out of his large house on the hill above the little
+mountain-town, nearly the whole of which belonged to him: its
+inhabitants too were almost all his dependents, whom he had drawn
+thither to work in his manufactories, his mines, and his alum pits.
+Thus through his means this small spot was very thickly peopled, and
+enlivened by the greatest activity. Waggons and horses were
+continually moving to and fro; and the clatter of the working
+machinery was mixt up with the roar of waters, and with the various
+noises from the pounding and smelting-houses. The smoke of the coals
+however, the steam from the pits, and the black heaps of dross and
+slag piled up on high all around, gave the gloomy sequestered valley a
+still more dismal appearance; so that no one who travelled for the
+sake of seeking out and enjoying the beauties of nature, would have
+any mind to linger there.</p>
+
+<p>Among the multitude of persons who in consequence of his large
+undertakings and the variety of his concerns were employed by old Herr
+Balthasar, none seemed to enjoy his confidence in so high a degree as
+Edward, the head overseer of his mines and manufactories, and the
+manager of his accounts. He was about thirty years old, tall and of a
+fine figure, had always something sprightly and good-humoured on his
+lips, and thus formed a striking contrast to his morose monosyllabic
+master, who had grown old before his time, and whose withered,
+wrinkled features, with the faint sad look from his hollow eyes, were
+no less repulsive to all, than Edward's cheerful frankness was
+attractive of confidence and affection.</p>
+
+<p>It was still very early on a summer morning when Edward was looking
+thoughtfully down into the smoking valley: the sun lay behind a thick
+mass of clouds; and the mists that were travelling along the bottom,
+and mingled with the black vapours from the steaming pits, checkt his
+view, and wrapt the landscape in a kind of grey veil. He mused over
+his youth, over the plans he had once formed, and then thought how,
+contrary to them all, he had become fixt in this melancholy solitude,
+which, as he was already verging on the maturity of manhood, he
+probably would never quit again. While he was thus losing himself in
+his meditations, young William hurried by him, fully equipt as it
+seemed for a journey, without even bidding him goodbye. The young man
+started as in passing he observed Edward standing there, and he looked
+very loth to meet his questions.</p>
+
+<p>"How now?" said Edward; "are you already leaving us again, young man,
+after all the entreaties and persuasions it cost us both but three
+weeks ago to prevail on our master to take you into his house, and
+after he has just forgiven you your sudden departure the other day?"</p>
+
+<p>"I must begone!" cried the young man: "do not stop me! I must submit
+to appear ungrateful; but I cannot help it."</p>
+
+<p>"Without speaking to our master?" replied Edward; "without leave of
+absence? What are we to think of you? Besides Herr Balthasar will want
+you; for there is no one here just now to take your post of
+secretary."</p>
+
+<p>"My dearest sir," exclaimed the young man uneasily, "if you knew my
+situation, you would not blame or think ill of me."</p>
+
+<p>"Has our master offended you? have you any ground of complaint?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no! quite the contrary!" cried the young man impetuously; "the
+old gentleman is kindness itself; I appear to be base and
+good-for-nothing; but I have no other choice. Make the best excuse for
+me that your good nature and your conscience will let you."</p>
+
+<p>"Be a man!" said Edward, giving him his hand and holding him fast:
+"you may earn a maintenance here, and may lay the foundations of your
+fortune hereafter: do not a second time thus wantonly trifle away your
+master's confidence and mine. We took you in, when you came to us
+without a character, without any recommendation, almost without a
+name: Herr Balthasar departed for your sake from all his rules, which
+till then had always been inviolable; I have in a manner pledged
+myself for you: are you resolved to reward our confidence in this way,
+and to run thus rashly into suspicion? And can you hope that a month
+hence or later you will be received among us again?"</p>
+
+<p>The young man was much distrest, but tore himself forcibly away, and
+cried: "I know it too well, that I am closing this home, in which
+everything has gone so well with me, in which I have felt so happy,
+for ever against me. Misery and want await me, and the bitterest
+punishments for the thoughtlessness of my youth. But who can avoid his
+destiny? When a chariot is rushing headlong down a precipice, no human
+strength can arrest it."</p>
+
+<p>"But if you have any sense of honour," answered Edward, "if you would
+not leave us all at a loss what to make of you, you ought to stay now
+at all events; for I am quite unable to conceive what power can be
+driving you away from us thus suddenly. You know, the most expensive
+and valuable cloths in our magazine have been purloined day after day;
+and though this has been going on so long we have not been able to get
+any trace of the offender."</p>
+
+<p>"I must put up even this suspicion," said William with a quick blush.
+"There is no saving me now, and I have nothing more to lose: nor do I
+deserve the good opinion of any honest man, be he even the meanest of
+my brethren."</p>
+
+<p>After these mysterious words the young man hurried away, without even
+looking round again. Edward followed him with his eyes, and observed
+how he bent his steps hastily toward the little town, ran almost at
+full speed through the streets, and turned into a footpath on the
+other side, to climb up a steep rock. He there lost sight of him in
+the mountain solitude.</p>
+
+<p>The mist meanwhile had somewhat broken, and the little dells with
+their trees and bushes were seen rising out of it, like green ilands,
+illumined by the morning sun, with ever and anon a house or hut half
+hidden by leaves leaning against the side of the hill.</p>
+
+<p>An old miner, who worked a good way off in the pits belonging to the
+prince, came up now very much out of humour to Edward. "Another run
+over here to no purpose!" he cried peevishly: "I wanted to speak to
+the young shatter-brained jackanapes; and now I hear from the
+smelting-lads down in the town, that he has just been scampering
+through it, and not a soul can tell where he is gone."</p>
+
+<p>"What business have you with him, friend Conrad?" asked Edward.</p>
+
+<p>"What business should one have with young chaps such as he!" replied
+the cross old man. "There have I had to buy him a wonderful book about
+mines over yonder, of the white-headed master miner who is as old as
+the hills, and who has been blind these three years: the marvellous
+grey-beard copied the book ages ago, when he was young and had a
+younker's itching for knowing more than his neighbours, from the
+manuscript of a travelling Tyrolese, and took the trouble of
+scratching likenesses of all the foolish pictures in it. Now however
+that he is blind, he can't see to read it; so I have bought it for
+young master Lorenz, our William here; and lo! the coxcomb is clean
+over the mountains."</p>
+
+<p>"What does the little book contain?" said Edward.</p>
+
+<p>"Only look into it yourself," continued the other: "all sorts of
+stories about ghosts and spectres; clews for finding out the places
+over there in the high mountains, where one meets with gold and
+diamonds at the bottom of caves and sand pits in spots which mortal
+man has seldom set foot in. There are a number of marks, they say,
+which in ages of yore were carved on the hard rocks or written on the
+banks of the brooks: certain knowing Italians notcht and scored the
+places some two or three hundred years ago, and stuck in pieces of tin
+and pebbles which they laid after a fashion of their own: now however,
+the old man tells me, they are hard to find; for the mountain-spirits
+and goblins, who hate being disturbed, have shoved away many of the
+stones that might have served for signposts, and have utterly deranged
+their order."</p>
+
+<p>Edward laught as he turned over the leaves of the strange book.</p>
+
+<p>"None of your scoffing, young gentleman!" cried the old man: "so you
+too are one of their super-clever new-fangled wiseacres. But if you
+were once to see what I have seen, when all alone far down
+underground, cut off from the heavens and the whole world, with no
+light but my lamp, and no sound but my own hammer within hearing, and
+the terrible tall spirit of the mountain came to me; I'd wager you
+would twist your face into some other look, and would not laugh as you
+do here where the merry morning sun is shining on you. Everybody can
+grin; but seeing is the lot of few; and still fewer can behave like
+men, when their eyes are thrown open."</p>
+
+<p>"I will pay you for the book, my good old man," replied Edward kindly,
+"and keep it for our William till he comes back again."</p>
+
+<p>"Ha ha!" cried the miner, laughing heartily and putting up the money;
+"and read it too, and pore over it by yourself, and go on Sundays and
+holidays to look out for the marks and the secret passages. Only don't
+let them befool you, young man, or cajole, or frighten you; and when
+you have found anything, keep a fast hold. Look you, the lord of these
+hills, or the old man of the mountain, as many choose to call him,
+knows all about the matter: he has thrust his hands into the pockets
+of all the richest ghosts and elves and goblins; and they have been
+forced to empty them out for him."</p>
+
+<p>"Whom do you mean?" asked Edward a good deal surprised; and at the
+same time he wanted to give the besmeared book back again to the old
+man, saying with some irritation: "since you cannot trust me, or
+rather hold me to be such a fool, keep the treasure-casket yourself
+for our friend, and only give the master miner his money."</p>
+
+<p>"No," exclaimed the old man; "what has once been made over and paid
+for, must stay in the hands of the buyer: that is a sacred law, and if
+we break it, the maste rminer and I shall be under a ban. But whom do
+I mean, ask you, by the old man of the mountain, or by the lord of
+these hills? Are you ignorant of that? and have already been here a
+round dozen of years and more. Why, this is the name all the world
+gives to your high and mighty manufacturer, mine-holder, merchant,
+gold-maker, ghost-seer, your all-powerful man of millions, your
+Balthasar. And perhaps you would make believe into the bargain that
+you don't know how he comes by all his unnatural riches. Ay, ay,
+friend, the pale old sour-faced growler has them all in
+leading-strings, the whole posse of spirits: he is often absent for
+weeks, and tarrying with them in their secret chambers: then they pay
+away to him; then they break their old crowns in bits, and pour out
+the diamonds into his skinny hands; then they strike with their
+magical rods against the stone walls, and the water-damsels must needs
+swim up from the bottom of the brooks, and bring him gifts, corals,
+and pearls, and turkisses. As for gold he scarce heeds it now: he has
+a tribe of little elves that wash it out of the sand for him, and
+gather it up, like bees, into balls and grains, and then carry it like
+honey, and stuff his cane with it. Ay, ay, my worthy smooth-faced
+pedlar of all wisdom's small wares! this is why the old man is for
+ever moping so, and never dares laugh; this is why he loses his wits
+if he chances to hear music, which gladdens the heart of every godly
+man; this is why he never goes into company, and is always fretful and
+cross-grained: for he knows full well what end he must come to, and
+that all his earthly grandeur cannot buy him off; because he has
+forsaken his God, and no human being ever saw him in a church."</p>
+
+<p>"This is the hateful part of superstition," exclaimed Edward
+indignantly, "which otherwise would only deserve our contempt, and
+which, if it did not thus deprave the understanding and the heart,
+might delight us by its poetical features, and furnish the imagination
+with much fantastical amusement. Are you not ashamed, old man, to
+think and prate in this way of the most virtuous, the most beneficent
+of men? How many human beings are fed and supplied with comforts by
+his extensive transactions? is he not always giving the needy a share
+in the blessings with which heaven rewards his industry? He spends his
+life in thought, in watching, in care, in writing, in toil, for the
+sake of nourishing thousands, who but for him would perish without
+employment; and as whatever he undertakes with so much judgement is
+favoured by fortune, fools are audacious enough to slander his
+understanding which they cannot comprehend, and his virtues which they
+are unable to appreciate, with their stupid impertinent
+extravagances."</p>
+
+<p>"Fortune!" laught the miner: "you talk of fortune, and fancy that in
+using the silliest word in the world you have said something: why, it
+is the very same thing that I mean and believe; only that you don't
+understand what you say, nor can anybody make any sense of it. My
+jewel, the earth, the water, the air, mountains, forests, and vallies,
+are no dead lifeless dogs, as you mayhap think them. All sorts of
+things dwell and bustle about in them, things that you call powers and
+the like: these can't endure to have their old quiet abodes turned
+topsy-turvy in this manner, and dug away and blown up with gunpowder
+under their very feet. The whole country for miles and miles round is
+smoking and steaming, and clattering, and hammering; people are
+shovelling and poking, and digging, and blasting, and laying waste
+with fire and water even into the entrails of the earth; not a forest
+finds mercy; there are glass-houses, and alum works, and copper mines,
+and bleaching-grounds, and spinning-jennies: look you, this must bring
+mishap or goodhap to the man who sets such a sight of things a-going;
+it can't all end in nothing. Where there are no human beings, there
+dwell the silent spirits of the mountains and woods: but if they are
+too much squeezed,&mdash;for when not prest for room and left in peace they
+will live on good terms with man and beast,&mdash;but when one elbows them
+too close, and into their very ribs, they grow pettish and
+mischievous: then come deaths, earthquakes, floods, conflagrations,
+landslips, and all the other things they bring to pass; or else you
+must put a stiff yoke on them, and then they will serve you indeed,
+but against the grain, and the more toll they have to pay to anybody,
+the worse friends are they to him at the last. Now this, young master,
+is what you are pleased to call fortune."</p>
+
+<p>The dispute would probably have lasted some time longer, unless an
+elderly man had now approacht them, whom Edward, whenever he was able,
+was glad to avoid. On this occasion however Eleazar came too quickly
+upon him, and besides had so much business to talk over, that the head
+overseer was compelled to stay and hear what the manager of the looms
+had to say. Eleazar was a little sickly man, self-willed and sullen,
+even more so than his master, the old man of the mountain, as Conrad,
+after the custom of the neighbourhood, had called him.</p>
+
+<p>"I heard yesterday," said Eleazar, "of a carriage that was to stop the
+night in the next town; as I went by I told William of it; and now the
+fellow, who seemed aghast at the tidings, is up and off. My master
+will as usual have to endure loss and vexation from these vagabond
+knaves, whom he is so fond of trusting before his old tried friends."</p>
+
+<p>His eyes fell on the curious book, he looked into it, and seemed
+delighted. "If you like the nonsensical stuff," said Edward, "I will
+make you a present of it, in case William, for whom I have bought it,
+does not return."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, thank you, from my heart!" cried Eleazar, sniggering, as
+he lifted his sharp little eyes, and a strange smirking grin made his
+yellow crampt face still uglier than before.</p>
+
+<p>"So you really meant what you said!" exclaimed the old miner: "well!
+the revelations of the spirit of the earth are in better keeping under
+the guard of that sickly gentleman, than with such a merry
+care-for-nought." He then turned down the hill on the side opposite to
+that which led toward the town, to betake himself to his mine; while
+Eleazar seemed buried in thought as he read with great eagerness in
+his newly acquired treasure.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Edward was watching a carriage that was toiling up the hill
+from the valley, and had just come through the wood. "Are we to have a
+visit?" he exclaimed with some surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Heyday! what!" returned Eleazar: "it is our old master's carriage to
+be sure, which he has again been lending to the folks over yonder for
+a wedding; and his other coach has been sent off to a christening in
+the village at the further end of the mountains. Two such equipages!
+and he never uses either himself, since he never stirs out of the
+house; and coachmen and lacquies always on their legs to wait on some
+beggarly strangers, who don't even thank him when his carriages and
+horses go to wreck, and new ones are to be bought at the end of every
+four years."</p>
+
+<p>"Can you really find fault with this bountiful kindness?" replied
+Edward: but Eleazar relieved him from the trouble of prolonging the
+dispute, by carrying off his book in great haste, without once looking
+at him. Edward breathed more freely when delivered from the presence
+of this odious misanthrope, who took every opportunity of loading his
+benefactor with the bitterest abuse.</p>
+
+<p>The coach meanwhile was labouring up the second hill; and from the
+slow and unsteady footing of the horses it was evident they must have
+come out of the plain. The carriage too, Edward now saw clearly, was a
+strange one, and must probably be bringing some unexpected visitant.
+With much panting and straining at length the horses dragged the coach
+up the last slope; and an elderly lady got out at the door of the
+great house, and sent her maid and servant with the carriage to the
+inn in the town.</p>
+
+<p>Edward was surprised; for the lady, whose face still betrayed that she
+had once been handsome, was entirely unknown to him. "You will allow
+me," she said with a sweet-toned voice, "to rest here under the
+portico for a moment; after which I should wish to speak to Herr
+Balthasar."</p>
+
+<p>Edward felt at a loss what to do, and led the lady with evident
+uneasiness to a chair in the entrance hall. "If you will give me
+leave," he then said, "I will attend you into the parlour, and order
+you some breakfast."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you for all your kindness," she cried: "the only thing I wish
+for, is an interview with the master of the house. Is he up yet? In
+what room shall I find him?"</p>
+
+<p>"That none of us knows," answered Edward: "until he himself opens his
+door, nobody ventures to go to him; and it is still shut. His wont
+however is to rise early, and he says he sleeps but little. Whether he
+employs these early solitary hours in reading, or in prayer and
+devotion, no one can tell; so great is his reserve toward everybody.
+But as to announcing you&mdash;even by and by&mdash;I know not: for we all have
+the strictest orders, never to let in any stranger to him: he speaks
+to no one, except his managers and servants on business at stated
+hours; and from this rule during the twelve years that I have known
+him he has not once departed. Strangers who have anything to request
+of him must declare their wishes to me or to master Eleazar; and we
+either settle the matter directly ourselves, or, if it does not lie
+immediately in our power, we make a report to him on the subject,
+without his ever setting eyes on the person. These whimsical rules, if
+you choose so to call them, render his solitude unapproachable; and
+that is the very thing he wishes."</p>
+
+<p>"O God!" cried the lady with a tone of anguish: "and must this journey
+then, this hard effort of mine, be all utterly in vain? For how could
+I ever find words to express my wishes and requests to a perfect
+stranger? O dear good Sir, your eye bespeaks and reveals the kindness
+of your heart: for my sake, for the sake of a miserable, deeply
+afflicted woman, make an exception this once to the strict custom of
+the house, and tell your master that I am here."</p>
+
+<p>At this moment they heard the sound of a large bell. "That is the
+sign," said Edward, "that we may go and speak to him, and that his
+room is open. I will say everything for you that you wish; but I know
+beforehand it is to no purpose, and I shall bring down his anger on my
+own head, without doing you any service."</p>
+
+<p>He went dejectedly down the long passage: for it pained him that he
+could not assist the lady whose noble form moved and interested him.
+Old Balthasar was sitting in deep thought, his head leaning on his
+arm, at his writing-table: he looked up cheerfully and kindly at
+Edward's greeting, and held out his hand. When the young man, after
+making a long preface to excuse himself and conciliate his master,
+mentioned the wife of a privy-counsellor, whose maiden name was
+Fernich, the old man started up suddenly from his desk as if struck by
+lightning, with a frightful cry.</p>
+
+<p>"Fernich! Elizabeth!" he then exclaimed, with fearful vehemence; "she,
+she here? in my house! O God, O heaven, quickly, quickly let her come
+in! O do make haste, my dear friend;" he cried out again, and his
+voice failed him.</p>
+
+<p>Edward was almost terrified, and went back to bring the stranger to
+Balthasar. In the mean time she had been joined by the young lady of
+the house, an adopted child, but whom the old man loved with the same
+tenderness and treated just as if she had been his own. The stranger
+trembled, and when she reacht the old man's apartment was near
+fainting: Balthasar dried his tears, and was unable to find words, as
+he led the pale lady to a chair: he made a sign, and Edward left the
+room, in great anxiety about his old friend, whom he had never seen so
+strongly moved, and with whom owing to this singular scene he stood on
+an entirely new footing.</p>
+
+<p>"It was very good of you, Rose," he said to the young blooming girl,
+"to entertain the stranger lady while she was waiting."</p>
+
+<p>"It was all to very little purpose," answered she, blushing: "for she
+was so faint and exhausted that, whatever I could say, she did nothing
+but weep. She must surely be sick, or have some heavy load on her
+heart. It has made me quite sorrowful, and I too have been crying.
+These eyes in our head are certainly very funny creatures, just like
+little children. They run about, and stare, and gaze at every thing
+new, shining and twinkling with joy; and then they grow so serious and
+sad, and when the pain at one's heart is very sore, they bubble with
+tears and overflow, and anon they become bright and glad again. There
+must be a vast number of sorrows in the world, my dear Edward."</p>
+
+<p>"May heaven preserve you from any very melancholy trials!" replied he:
+"hitherto your young life has glided along as peacefully as a swan
+over a silent pool."</p>
+
+<p>"You fancy," cried she laughing, "that such a thing as I cannot have
+had any sorrows of its own, much less very bitter and painful ones.
+You are mightily mistaken."</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" asked Edward earnestly.</p>
+
+<p>"One can't remember all in a moment what one's sorrows are," said the
+good-natured girl: "wait a little. When I think of sundry great
+misfortunes in the world, about which I have heard people talking at
+times, then indeed there does not seem to be very much in what I have
+had to go through: yet for little things like me a little misfortune
+is quite big enough. Now is not it a real grievance that I must never
+hear music? that I don't know how people look, or how they feel, when
+they are dancing? Ah, dearest Edward, the other day, when we were
+taking a drive, we passed by the little inn over yonder on the other
+side of the town, where the country folks were having a dance: their
+jumping about, the sound of the fiddles, the strange glee in the airs
+made such an odd impression on me, I cannot tell whether I felt glad,
+or sad to the very bottom of my heart. Here in our neighbourhood we
+must never have any music, either in the inn or anywhere else. Then
+when I hear of plays and operas, I cannot quite persuade myself that
+such wonderful things are really and truly to be found in the world.
+The lights, the numbers of finely drest people, and then a real stage,
+and a whole story acted upon it, which I am to believe to be true: can
+there be anything more curious? And is not it then a grievous
+affliction, that I am to grow old here, without ever in my whole life
+catching a single short glimpse of all these grand doings? Tell me,
+dear Edward, you too are a good man, is this wish of mine, are those
+sights themselves very sinful? Herr Eleazar indeed says they are, and
+my dear fatherly uncle thinks the same of them, and hates everything
+of the sort: but the king and the magistrates allow them, and learned
+people approve them, and write and compose the things that are to be
+acted: can all this then be so very wicked?"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear child," said Edward with the utmost friendliness, "how sorry
+I am that I cannot procure you even this innocent pleasure! But you
+know yourself how strict Herr Balthasar is in all these matters."</p>
+
+<p>"O yes," she replied: "why the miners in our town here must never even
+hum a tune; we must never drive more than just two miles from the
+gate; and no amusing book, no poem, no novel is ever let come into the
+house. And added to all this we are perpetually frightened with being
+told that such a number of thoughts and fancies, and all that one is
+fond of dreaming about in many a lonesome hour, are impious sins. At
+such times I muse over all sorts of little stories about the loveliest
+spirits, and beautiful vallies, and how the miller finds his love in
+the mill-stream, who by and by turns out to be a princess and makes
+him a king, or how the fisherman jumps into the river, and at the
+bottom finds the most glittering and gorgeous wonders. Or a little
+shepherdess is playing with her lambs on the meadow, and a handsome
+prince, sitting upon a great horse, rides by and falls in love with
+her. And then, if the evening bells chance to peal through the dusk,
+and the wind brings the noise of the hammering and knocking from yon
+black mountain, or I hear the sledge-hammer from afar, I could cry,
+and yet in fact am glad at my very heart. But our surly gloomy
+Eleazar, one day that I was telling him of this, abused me bitterly,
+and said that busying oneself with such thoughts is the very pitch of
+sin and wickedness. And yet I can't help it; for it all comes into my
+head just of its own accord."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear innocent creature!" said Edward, and seized the blooming girl's
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>"To you," she went on, "one may talk of all this, and you understand
+everything in the right way: but other people immediately begin
+scolding me, because they put a wrong meaning into everything. It was
+just the same with my old nurse, who is now dead. You had been a long
+time in the house before I ever thought I could tell you anything or
+trust you; I was so very little then and used to play with my doll.
+Dear Heaven, it is now full ten years since the last time I dandled my
+Clary, as we called her. To my old Bridget, and my father, and
+Eleazar, and the cook, I thought I might say everything, because they
+were so grave: you were always laughing; and this made me fancy that
+you did not rightly belong to us. Now when prayer time came, they would
+not let me look at Clary, or carry her with me; but she was shut up in
+the cupboard. This made me very sorry; for I fancied she must be
+crying after me. So I found out a way, and took her along with me hid
+under my pinafore, and held her close to my heart to keep her warm;
+and when we came into the prayer-room I began by praying in private to
+God that he would forgive me if I was too fond of my Clary, that he
+would pardon me too, great and mighty as he was, for having brought
+her in secret into his high presence, and that he would not think I
+meant to deceive him or to treat him with disrespect, for he knew it
+was not so. After this preface I fancied I had made my peace, and
+repeated my usual prayers very devoutly. Thus all went on well for a
+week: then Bridget found me out. O gracious! then there was a great to
+do: even my good father said, this shewed how the human heart from its
+very infancy is so corrupt and wicked as to give itself up to the
+idolatry of worthless and contemptible things. I cannot understand
+even now what he meant by these words. Whenever one loves anything, is
+it not very beautiful and perfectly right that one does not pry into
+it and finger it too closely? What is a rose, when I pull it to
+pieces? It is so perishable, and therefore so dear. Was it my poor
+Clary's fault, that she was only a leather doll? Last week I was
+looking at her again one day, and could not make out myself how I came
+to be so fond of her formerly; and yet I could almost have cried to
+think that none of the feelings of those days will ever come back to
+me again. But surely this cannot be fickleness in me now, any more
+than my love ten years ago was idolatry and wickedness."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear angel," said Edward tenderly, "our heart is trained by the love
+of visible perishable objects for the love of the invisible and
+eternal. When I see a child playing thus fondly and innocently with
+puppets of its own making, and crying for love and delight over the
+lifeless toy, I could fancy that at such hours angels gather about the
+little creature and sport lovingly around it."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah," exclaimed Rose, "that is a beautiful notion!"</p>
+
+<p>"When however," continued Edward, "heart truly bends to heart, when
+two souls meet and give up themselves to each other in love, this
+faith and feeling of theirs invests the invisible with a palpable
+reality, and brings it for all eternity before them."</p>
+
+<p>"That again I don't understand," said the maiden pondering; "but if
+you mean that sort of love which is necessary for a wedding, and to
+make a truly happy marriage, I think very differently on that score."</p>
+
+<p>"How so?" asked the young man.</p>
+
+<p>"That is a hard matter to explain," answered the girl, putting on a
+look of deep thought.</p>
+
+<p>"Supposing now," said Edward, forcing himself to laugh, that he might
+hide his emotion, "you had to marry tomorrow, whom would you choose?
+Which of all the men you have hitherto met with, do you like the best?
+Have you enough confidence in me to answer me this question honestly?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why should not I?" she replied: "for I need not even spend a moment
+in considering the point."</p>
+
+<p>"And &#8230; and the man you have already chosen?"</p>
+
+<p>"Is of course our Eleazar."</p>
+
+<p>Edward started back in utter amazement. "A moment ago you did not
+understand me, he said after a pause; and now you have told me a
+riddle that terrifies me."</p>
+
+<p>"And yet," she answered with perfect simplicity, "it is the most
+natural thing in the world. My father too, I fancy, has already made
+up his mind, that our honest Eleazar is to be my future husband. Were
+I to love and choose you, there would be nothing remarkable in it; for
+I like you, and so does every body else; no one can help feeling
+confidence in you; and at the same time you are very handsome, and
+always friendly and good-humoured, so that, when one has once become
+acquainted with you, one hardly knows how to live without you. Such
+persons as our William would find a thousand girls to grow fond of
+them; and it is a pity that he has already run away from us again.
+Even old Conrad, and my father himself, must have been good-looking
+when they were younger: but only look at poor Eleazar, who is not so
+very old yet, and whom not a creature in the house, nay in the whole
+world can endure;&mdash;what is to become of him, if I do not marry him."</p>
+
+<p>"How!" said Edward interrupting her; "is your fair life to fall a
+victim to this fantastical delusion? Can the perplexity in which dark
+spirits involve themselves, entangle the purity of innocence in its
+snares? and must love itself devise a robe to deck out the most
+frantic extravagance as an act of noble self-sacrifice and reasonable
+resignation?"</p>
+
+<p>"We are quite at cross purposes today," she continued calmly. "It is
+not that I really love him: I have not even a notion yet what this
+love they talk of is, or what it means. Let me tell you again about
+the sorrows of my youth, with which we began. In the days when I was
+still very fond of my Clary, I had also a cat in the house here, that
+was no less dear to my childish heart. I even fancied to myself that
+the doll and the little white playful creature must be very jealous of
+each other on my account. Now Herr Eleazar detested and persecuted
+everything that even looked like a cat; for he says they are
+malicious. This seems to be a general superstition. Wherever the sleek
+animals shew their faces, everybody, even the best-natured people,
+will begin shouting, <i>puss! puss!</i> and will worry and hunt them, as if,
+in pursuing the harmless things, they were driving away Antichrist
+himself. And this it is that makes them, as no doubt they are, so
+mistrustful and wary. My cat had kittens, which were just nine days
+old, and opening their little blue eyes. What fun and pleasure it is
+for children, to see the mother with her young ones, and the droll
+sports of the kittens, and their skipping and tumbling and jumping
+about, nobody who is grown up can understand. On the very same day
+master Eleazar had just got a new airgun, which he wanted to try.
+Complaints had for some time been made to my father, that my cat used
+to hunt the singing birds and eat them. It was taking the air behind
+the house, in the garden, and amusing itself by running up and down
+the big orange-tree. On the sudden Eleazar shot at it and it fell
+dead; and now the kittens too were to be drowned. Never before had I
+thought him so brown and nasty, so unlike a human being. In the night
+I prayed that God would let him too die; but the very next morning,
+though I was still such a mere child, it struck me to the heart, how
+very, very unhappy he must be, that there was no creature he could
+love, and neither man nor beast could love him; and so I think still.
+Such an odious creature as he is, he will never find a heart on earth,
+if I were to blot him out of mine."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear little Rose," said Edward, somewhat calmer, "you must not be too
+hasty, and assuredly you will change your mind on this point by and
+by."</p>
+
+<p>"My fate," she again began, while the tears mounted into her bright
+eyes, "has in fact been just like that of the poor little kittens;
+only that God Almighty did not let me be drowned in the same wretched
+manner. But I too never knew my mother; she had never the happiness of
+bringing me up; she died shortly after my birth. My foster-father here
+is very kind to me; still it must be quite a different feeling to have
+a real father; but he too is in his grave. Now, reckoning up all this,
+methinks we have here made out quite unhappiness enough for so young a
+thing."</p>
+
+<p>"Dearest Rose," said Edward after a pause, "would it give you any
+pain, if you knew that I too was very unhappy? or if I too were gone?"</p>
+
+<p>"Alas! my dear good friend," she exclaimed, "don't make me cry. I tell
+you, I never liked anybody so well as you. But happy and gay as you
+are, with all the world so fond of you, you can do very well without
+my love. But I cannot do without yours."</p>
+
+<p>A servant now came and called Edward away to the old man. The
+conversation must have been of deep interest; for Balthasar as well as
+the stranger seemed dissolved in tears, though both were trying hard
+to collect themselves.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear friend," said the old man with a broken voice, "my good
+gentle Edward, will you conduct the stranger lady to the inn; but at
+the same time take along with you four thousand dollars in gold and
+bills out of my strong-box. No human being however, I trust and charge
+you, must know of this affair, least of all Eleazar. Only conceive,
+the savage has left three letters of the highest importance from this
+poor woman to me without an answer. His not shewing them to me I can
+forgive, since on that point he has full powers from me."</p>
+
+<p>His wishes were executed, and the stranger set off again in the
+afternoon in better spirits, without paying her old friend another
+visit.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="narrow" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>The next day Balthasar sent Edward a summons to his room. When he had
+lockt the door he began: "You are the only person entrusted with a
+circumstance and a connexion, which agitated me so deeply yesterday
+that I was unable to tell you anything about it. As however I look
+upon you quite in the light of my son, I feel myself bound to disclose
+something more of myself and my story to you, than any mortal man has
+ever yet heard."</p>
+
+<p>They sat down: the old man gave his young friend his hand, which the
+latter prest cordially, and then said: "You cannot doubt my affection
+and friendship; and what you confide to me will in my hands be as
+secret as in the silent grave."</p>
+
+<p>"I have watcht you this long time," said the old man, "and know you
+well. Hitherto we have had but little talk together; I am now forced
+to change and break through my usage with regard to you, and I am
+anxious besides that there should be a being who knows and understands
+me."</p>
+
+<p>Edward's curiosity was roused; and the old man went on with a
+tremulous voice: "I am still so much moved, my whole frame is still so
+much disordered by yesterday's shock, that you must have patience with
+my weakness. That my life is a cheerless one, that I have long
+renounced all those recreations and enjoyments, which are in fact the
+only things most men live for, you must long ago have remarkt. From my
+youth up I have got out of the way of pleasure, with a feeling which I
+might almost call dread. Educated by a rigid father, who lived in the
+greatest penury, my childhood and youth were merely suffering and
+sorrow. When I grew bigger, my ripening understanding only enabled me
+more distinctly to perceive the misery of my parents and the
+wretchedness of the whole earth. Often for many nights together no
+sleep visited my eyes, which were flowing with tears. Thus my
+imagination accustomed itself to view the whole world as nothing but a
+place of punishment, where sorrow and need were the lot of all, and
+such as were raised above the sordid wants of life were but in a yet
+sadder state of silly delusion, in which they neither recognized their
+own calling nor the destiny of mankind, but giving themselves up to
+vapid pleasures and pitiful comforts reeled along toward the grave.
+One single star shed its light through this dark gloom,&mdash;but it was as
+far beyond my reach as if it had stood in the heavens,&mdash;my relation
+Elizabeth, whom you saw: she was rich, highborn, and bred to a life of
+splendour and luxury. A cousin of mine, Helbach, who was still richer
+and haughtier, was designed for her husband: our family scarcely ever
+saw these proud relations of theirs; and my stern father had a special
+hatred for them, and never spake but with rancour of their
+extravagance. This hatred he also transferred to me, when he
+discovered my secret and strong affection. He gave me his curse, if I
+ever dared to think of that lovely and beloved being. Nor was it long
+before she was married to her overbearing kinsman; one stream of
+wealth flowed into the other, and produced such a splendid way of
+living that the whole town felt envy at it. My mother's brother, who
+gave his son this large fortune, was so much ashamed of our poverty,
+that he did not even invite my parents to the wedding; which so
+greatly increast the vexation and annoyance of my father, already a
+prey to bitter mortification, that the after-throes of this insult
+brought him to the grave. My poor mother soon followed him. Of myself
+I will say nothing. If life had hitherto worn a dark aspect in my
+eyes, it now changed into a spectre, whose ghastly, distorted features
+and looks at first struck me with horrour, and afterward, when use
+made me cold and indifferent, taught me to despise everything, above
+all myself. Elizabeth had known of my passion. Rarely as we saw each
+other, she had taken no pains to conceal the affection with which she
+answered mine. Though she was not like me utterly dead to all joy, yet
+a shade was cast over her whole existence, and heavy clouds covered
+it. She has suffered enough since. Her husband was a profligate
+spendthrift; he squandered thousands from vanity, and for paltry,
+contemptible purposes. It would look as if a number of ill-starred
+men bore a kind of malice and hatred against money, so that they have
+recourse to the strangest devices to drive it away from them on every
+side, while the miser hugs and cherishes it with a blind devotion, and
+lets himself be crusht by his idol. Elizabeth was weak enough to give
+up her property to him unconditionally, and, when his credit had
+already fallen, to declare herself bound by his debts; and thus the
+very house into which all the gods of Olympus had seemed to enter,
+bringing eternal joy as their gift, became a scene of misery,
+confusion, hatred, and strife. The wretched husband, counsellor
+Helbach, has sold his last shilling for an annuity, without a thought
+about his wife and son. This son of his is as it were possest by the
+furies, unruly, headstrong, and without feeling: he ran into debt,
+then took to swindling, and finally, two years ago, when his weeping
+mother was trying to admonish him, abused and even struck her in his
+brutal rage. After this grand feat he set off into the wide world. His
+father meanwhile revels and laughs, devouring his income, which must
+still be large, at well-stored tables. This made her come to me,
+subduing her pride and her feelings, in order that I might relieve her
+from a debt, which would have brought her to shame and to a prison.
+These twenty years past she has been longing to die, but still lives,
+an object of horrour to herself, and of pleasure to nobody.&mdash;Send her
+a thousand dollars every quarter: she has promist me that her
+abandoned husband shall know nothing of this assistance either now or
+hereafter."</p>
+
+<p>Edward saw the old man's deep anguish, and was long silent: at last he
+began: "But how could Eleazar be so cruel as not to tell you of those
+letters?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was in the wrong," replied the old man, "to find fault with him for
+it yesterday. He acts in my name, and knows well that I am weak and
+soft-hearted: the particulars he was not aware of, and so only did his
+duty. Indeed I know not myself after all whether I have done rightly
+in following my torn and deeply agitated heart: for perhaps still she
+may have too little firmness to keep the wretch in ignorance of what
+has happened; in spite of everything he is her husband, and of all her
+ties his are the closest. You no doubt, because you love me, but are
+of a tender disposition so that distress affects you, would have acted
+otherwise, and better; and yet probably were I to put myself entirely
+in your hands, you would spoil me and ruin me: for no quality a man
+can have is so dangerous as vanity, which draws food from everything."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean by vanity?" asked Edward.</p>
+
+<p>"All our feelings," answered the old man, "the best and honestest, the
+gentlest and blissfullest, are rooted in this poisonous soil. But more
+of this another time. I only wanted to tell you briefly, how I
+acquired my fortune, how my character took that cast under which you
+have learnt to know me. After my parents death I fulfilled my father's
+last wish by uniting myself to a girl who was also a distant relation
+of our family. She was poor, unprovided, unprotected, had grown up
+amid straits without any kind of education; at the same time she was
+hideously ugly, and her temper was so morose and quarrelsome, that I
+never spent a pleasant hour with her, and had very few peaceful ones
+so long as she lived. My situation was horrible."</p>
+
+<p>"But how came you to marry her?" said Edward.</p>
+
+<p>"Because I had given my word to my father," continued Balthasar; "and
+because it is a principle of mine, that man must never gratify his
+passions, least of all that of love. My conviction is, that our life
+is a state of torment and woe; and the more we try to escape from
+these feelings, the more awful vengeance do our terrours afterward
+take upon us. As to why this is so, who can fathom that question?"</p>
+
+<p>"This belief," answered Edward, "is extremely strange, and at variance
+with all our wishes, nay with everyday experience."</p>
+
+<p>"O how scanty then must your experience have been hitherto!" replied
+the old man. "Everything lives and moves, only to die and to rot:
+everything feels, only to feel pangs. Our inward agony spurs us on to
+what we call joy; and all wherewith spring and hope and love and
+pleasure beguile mankind, is only the inverted sting of pain. Life is
+woe, hope sadness, thought and reflexion despair."</p>
+
+<p>"And supposing all to be so," said Edward somewhat timidly, "do we not
+find comfort and help in religion?"</p>
+
+<p>The old man lifted up his eyes and gazed fixedly in his young
+companion's face: his dark look grew brighter, not however with
+pleasure or any soft emotion; but so strange a smile ran across his
+pale furrowed features, that it lookt very much like scorn; and Edward
+involuntarily thought of the miner's words.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us turn aside from this theme for today," said the old man with
+his usual gloomy air; "we shall probably find time hereafter to speak
+of it. Thus I lived on in my state of damnation, and the thought of
+Elizabeth shone with a friendly but heart-piercing light into the hell
+around me. Still the frenzy of life had laid fast hold on me, and made
+me too take my place in the vast bedlam, and go through my part under
+the great task-master. People tell you that death cures all; others
+again look forward to being transported from one workhouse to another,
+where they shall keep on playing the fool through all eternity and
+evaporating in an endless succession of illusions. With a little
+money&mdash;it would be ridiculous were I to mention the sum; many take so
+much merely to fill their bellies&mdash;I engaged in a small line of
+business. It succeeded. I made a petty mercantile speculation. It
+turned out well. I entered into partnership with a man of considerable
+property. It seemed as if I had a talent of always guessing and
+foreboding where gain and profit were lying hid in distant countries,
+in uninviting, or hazardous undertakings; something like what is said
+of the divining rod, that it will hit upon metals and upon water. As
+many gardeners have a lucky hand, so in trade I prospered in every,
+even the most unpromising speculation. It was neither strength of
+understanding nor extent of knowledge, but mere luck. One becomes a
+man of understanding however, so soon as one has luck. My partner was
+astonisht; and, as he had a small estate here, we removed into this
+country, where till the time of his death we went on enlarging the
+number of our houses of business and manufactories. When he died, and
+I had settled my accounts with his heir, I might already have been
+accounted a rich man. But a feeling of awe came upon me along with
+this property as they call it. For how great is the responsibility for
+managing it rightly! And why were so many honest men unfortunate,
+while with me everything throve so unaccountably? After a number of
+painful years my wife also died: without children, without friends, I
+was again alone. How singularly that blind being, that men call
+fortune, pampered me, you may see from the following story. I always
+felt an aversion to play at cards or any other game for money. For
+what does a gambler do, but declare that he will exalt the wretched
+stuff, to which even as money he attaches such an inordinate value,
+into an oracle and a promulgation of the divine will? And then he
+stakes his heart and soul on this delusion: the freaks of chance,
+things utterly without meaning, are to calculate and make out for him
+by certain fantastical combinations, what he is worth, how he is
+favoured: his dark passions start up when he supposes that this chance
+neglects him; he triumphs when he fancies it sides with him; his blood
+flows more rapidly, his head is in an uprore, his heart throbs
+tumultuously, and he is more wretched than the madman that is lying in
+chains, when every card, down to the very last, turns up against him.
+Look you, this is the king of the creation in his patcht beggar's
+garb, which he takes to be a royal robe."</p>
+
+<p>The old man almost laught, and Edward replied: "Such is the case with
+all life; it runs along on a narrow line between truth and fancy,
+between reality and delusion."</p>
+
+<p>"Be it so!" cried Balthasar. "But no more of this. I was only going to
+tell you how I let myself be persuaded by my partner in the last year
+of his life to put for once into the neighbouring lottery. I did so
+against my own feelings; because these institutions appear to me
+deserving of the severest punishment. By them the state sanctions
+highway-robbery and murder. Even without such things ill-fated man is
+immoderately inflamed by the lust of gain. I had already forgotten the
+paltry concern, when I heard I had gained the great prize: after
+receiving the payment it never let me rest. What the vulgar fable of
+evil spirits, had come into my house along with these money-bags. This
+unblest sum supplied the funds for the hospital for sick old women in
+the valley a couple of leagues off, the building of which has been
+made such a merit of by senseless newspaper-scribes. What had I
+contributed toward it? Not even a stroke of the pen. Now you will
+understand how my perpetual gains, and the sums that flowed in to me
+from every venture, compelled me to plunge into fresh speculations,
+and how this has been going on year after year upon an ever-widening
+scale. And thus there is neither rest nor pause, until death will at
+length put the last full stop to the matter for this bout. Then some
+one else will of course begin to rave on just where I left off, and
+the same invisible power will perhaps meet his folly under the shape
+of misfortune."</p>
+
+<p>Edward knew not what to say. "You are not yet used," the old man
+continued, "to my words and expressions, because we have never yet
+talked upon these matters; you do not yet know my way of thinking; and
+as these feelings, these views of life are still new to you, you are
+surprised. Believe me, my good fellow, the only thing that keeps one
+from going mad, is swimming silently along with the stream, letting
+five always pass for even, and fitting oneself to that which cannot be
+changed. At the same time there is also another remedy that may serve
+to keep one afloat. One may lay down certain fixt unshakable
+principles, a line of conduct from which one never swerves. Money,
+wealth, gain, the circulation and the flowing of property and of the
+precious metals toward every quarter, through every relation of life,
+and every region of the earth, are one of the very strangest devices
+the world ever hit upon. It is a creature of necessity like every
+thing else; and as there is nothing on which passion has seized with
+such force, it has bred it up to be a monster more chimerical and wild
+than anything the fever of a heated fancy ever dreamt of. This monster
+is incessantly devouring and preying on all that comes within its
+reach; nothing satiates it; it gnaws and crunches the bones of the
+destitute, and laps up their tears. That in London and Paris before a
+palace, where a single banquet costs a thousand pieces of gold, a poor
+man should die of starvation, when the hundredth part of a piece of
+gold might save him,&mdash;that families should perish in frantic
+despair,&mdash;that there should be madness and suicide in the very room
+where a couple of paces off gamblers are rioting in gold,&mdash;all this
+seems so natural to us, such a matter of course, that we no longer
+feel any surprise at it; and everybody takes for granted with
+cold-blooded apathy, that it all must be so, and cannot be otherwise.
+How every state pampers this money-monster!&mdash;indeed it cannot help
+doing so&mdash;and trains it up to be more ferocious! In many countries
+wealth can no longer increase except among the rich, whereby the poor
+will be still more impoverisht, until at length Time will cast up the
+dismal sum, and then draw a bloody pen across the appalling amount.
+When I found myself thus rich, I held it to be my duty to keep this
+wealth in controul, so far as man can, and to tame the wild beast.
+Unquestionably the creation has been doomed to woe; else war, disease,
+famine, pain, and passion would not run riot and lay waste so.
+Existence and torment are one and the same word: nevertheless every
+one who does not mean wantonly to play the fiend, is bound to
+alleviate misery wherever he can. There is no property in the sense
+which most people put on the word; there ought not to be any, and the
+attempt to keep hold of it is godless. Still worse is it to spread
+calamity by the influence of wealth. Thus then I administer mine, so
+as to help my neighbours, to find work for the poor, care and remedies
+for the sick; and by an ever-increasing activity I strive to bring
+things into such a state, that as many as possible shall eat their
+bread without tears and anguish, shall gather pleasure from their
+children and their occupations, and that, so far as my eye and arm can
+reach, the creation may not be the object of as many curses here, as
+in other villages and towns."</p>
+
+<p>"The blessings you diffuse," Edward threw in, "must make you also
+happy."</p>
+
+<p>"Blessings!" repeated the old man and shook his head. "It is all a
+mere drop in the ocean. How short is the time within which even the
+child that is now sucking at the breast must needs die! This time,
+these hundreds and thousands of years, how they mock at our frail
+edifices! how Oblivion triumphs in every part of the earth, with ruins
+crumbling beneath her feet! and Destruction, while with unfeeling
+malignity she tramples every form of life in the dust! I have just
+been comforting my good Elizabeth today. But can I really comfort her?
+She is for ever haunted by the thought of her destiny, of her life, of
+her lost youth, of her having flung herself away on a worthless being,
+of her having brought a tiger as her son into the world. In her dreams
+she is visited by the feeling, whether asleep or waking it pursues
+her, and thrills through every fibre, that she once loved me, perhaps
+loves me still; and so her heart has to bear my wretchedness along
+with her own. True she may now and then relish a morsel somewhat
+better; she may now and then forget herself, perhaps over some silly
+book, delighting in the good fortune of others, and feeling interest
+in afflictions which are merely faint shadows of her own; and this
+sentimental folly may help her over half a dozen minutes a little more
+at her ease. Verily it is a grand achievement that I have been able to
+do this for her. The consciousness however, that neither her husband
+nor her son, the offspring of her own blood and body, and surely of
+her soul too, is to know anything of my bounty, as it would be called,
+or else her sufferings will increase&mdash;do you not perceive how pitiful
+this, and the whole of life is? But let us break off, and tell me
+instead what news you have heard."</p>
+
+<p>Edward informed him that William had again gone off suddenly and
+without assigning any cause. "I am glad of it," answered the old man;
+"I always took him for our thief, and winkt hard in looking at him,
+that I might not ruin him utterly: this indulgence however must have
+come to an end. I was exceedingly fond of him, and for that very
+reason only hated him the more."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you mean?" asked the young man.</p>
+
+<p>"Why," replied the other, "foolishly enough I felt charmed by his
+countenance, by the soft sound of his voice, by his whole look and
+air: this perverse sympathy will keep following us everywhere. I took
+a liking to him: and catching my heart in this piece of folly, I
+punisht myself by conceiving a downright aversion to the fellow, as we
+should and must do to everything we are greatly delighted with."</p>
+
+<p>Edward wanted to ask further questions, but the striking of the clock
+called him to his business, and being dismist by the old man he went
+away, with a multitude of thoughts concerning this singular
+conversation, to meditate further upon it at leisure.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="narrow" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>Whenever Edward's thoughts now recurred, as they often did, to the
+nature of his situation, that and every thing connected with it, the
+appointment which had fixt him in this secluded spot, the business he
+was engaged in, as well as the persons with whom he had to hold
+intercourse, appeared to him in a light totally different from before.
+He was loth to acknowledge to himself how forcibly and singularly his
+imagination had been wrought upon by his late discourse with Rose.
+Hitherto he had only lookt on her as a pleasing child; but now the
+lovely girl became an object to which expectations and silent hopes
+attacht themselves: he watcht her more attentively; he talked oftener
+to her and more at length; and the budding of her youthful soul, the
+frank artlessness of her thoughts, interested his heart more and more.
+And then, when he recollected the hideous, sallow-faced Eleazar, with
+his surly morose temper, and thought that this tender flower had
+already in secret devoted herself as a sacrifice to so odious a
+creature, his anger was moved by this absurd project, which at other
+times again he could not help smiling at. Eleazar had been absent for
+some days past. He had not taken much pains to conceal that he was
+going into the lonely, remote parts of the mountains in search of
+those marks which he had read of in the master miner's book. This
+absurdity sorted well with his strange dreamy character; for he was
+perpetually poring over books of magic and alchemical treatises, had a
+laboratory in his room, and would often boast in pretty intelligible
+hints that he had found the philosopher's stone. When Edward bethought
+himself of his singular conversation with his old master, and of the
+sentiments he had given vent to during that confidential hour, he no
+longer regarded it as improbable that Balthasar should have been led
+by his wild moody whims to design his blooming foster-daughter for the
+wife of the gloomy Eleazar. A shudder came over him to think with what
+dark and perplext spirits he was so closely linkt; his head went round
+with the giddiness of all about him, and he seemed almost to lose his
+hold on himself. This made him still more regret the loss of young
+William: at the same time his annoyances were increast by the
+robberies of the warehouse, which instead of ceasing were carried on
+with more audacity than ever. He himself had entertained a slight
+suspicion of William, and was quite unable to make out how the crime
+was perpetrated.</p>
+
+<p>In this mood it was with no very friendly welcome that he met Eleazar
+on his return from his wild-goose chace. Eleazar too grew highly
+indignant, when he heard that the robberies had been continued during
+his absence with the greatest impudence; and as he could not justly
+charge Edward with any negligence or supineness, this first
+conversation between them, little as they had ever been disposed to
+agree, took a tone of still more bitterness than usual. As soon as his
+hateful companion was gone, Edward determined to do what he now could
+not help regarding as his indispensable duty, by speaking more
+seriously than ever to Herr Balthasar on this subject.</p>
+
+<p>These depredations, which were prosecuted with so much security,
+excited the wonder of the whole neighbourhood; and at the public-house
+in the town there was often much talk about them. Old Conrad was
+sitting in the wooden arm-chair beside the stove, and was just telling
+the fat thriving landlord the details of the last robbery, when a
+stranger came in, who immediately gave himself out to be a travelling
+miner. The stranger was much younger than Conrad, and therefore at
+first modestly said but little, and merely asked a few questions,
+insinuating however that there might probably be means of soon
+bringing the matter to light, if his advice were but to be followed.
+By these hints the curiosity of some peasants who happened to be
+present, having come with corn from the plain several miles off to
+this town high up among the mountains, was vehemently aroused. Conrad,
+who lookt upon himself as the wisest person in the company, became
+grave and monosyllabic, waiting to hear what this new device or scheme
+for detecting the thief, would end in.</p>
+
+<p>"You must lay a charm," said the stranger, "which the thief, when he
+has once set foot within it, will not be able to escape from; and so,
+as soon as the sun rises, you are sure to find him."</p>
+
+<p>"And what is such a charm to be made of?" asked Andrew, who was the
+forwardest of the peasants.</p>
+
+<p>Conrad laught aloud and scornfully, while he said: "Clownish dolts,
+don't thrust in your tongues, when people are debating about matters
+of art and science; stick to your straw and your chaff; they are
+things you are better skilled in handling. Proceed, knowing sir," he
+added, looking with suspicious graciousness toward the stranger; "how
+do you mean that such a charm or spell is to be prepared, so as to be
+certain of its effect?"</p>
+
+<p>The stranger, whose pale face formed a singular contrast with the
+stout dusky-hued Conrad, the fat host, and the puffy cheeks of the
+peasants, said with a somewhat stifled voice: "Yew twigs cut and
+peeled beneath the new moon, and then boiled at the first quarter in a
+decoction of wolf's milk and hemlock, which itself must have been
+previously made on the selfsame night, are to be stuck in the earth,
+while some words that I know are repeated, at certain distances round
+the spot where the robbery is committed; and the thief, be he ever so
+daring, and ever so learned in laying spells and breaking them, will
+be unable to step out of this circle, and will stand in fear and
+trembling, till the persons who set the magical trap pounce upon him
+in the morning. I have often seen this practist in Hungary and
+Transylvania, and it has always succeeded."</p>
+
+<p>Conrad was about to answer, but the pert Andrew was beforehand with
+him and cried: "My grandfather, the smith, had a spell with
+abracadabra, which was to be repeated backward and forward, along with
+certain verses of the Bible; and when he had said these words, every
+thief, whether he was in the wood, on the high road, or in the field,
+was forced to halt on the sudden in the middle of his running,&mdash;or, if
+he was riding on horseback, it was just the same&mdash;and to wait in
+terrour and affright, so that even children if they chose might seize
+hold of him."</p>
+
+<p>Conrad gave the peasant a look of inexpressible contempt, and then
+turning with ambiguous courtesy to the strange miner, said: "You are a
+man of experience and knowledge, as it seems; nevertheless your
+well-meant advice will hardly meet with acceptance here. For first the
+old man of the mountain will never have anything to do with sorcery
+and witchcraft, because he hates every kind of superstition, even that
+which is pious and unavoidable, much more then one of this sort, which
+he must needs hold to be utterly accurst. Besides you don't even know
+in what way the thief goes to work, so as to take proper measures
+against him."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?" asked the stranger, somewhat abasht, but whose
+curiosity was stirred.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you never heard," continued Conrad, "or read of those wonderful
+persons, or, as you have been such a great traveller, have you
+yourself never stumbled upon such, whose eyes can pierce through a
+board, through wainscot and wall, nay down into the depths of the
+earth and into the heart of a mountain?"</p>
+
+<p>"In Spain," replied the stranger, "there are said to be men, who
+without the help of a divining-rod can find out treasures and metals
+with their bodily eyes, even though they should be lying ever so deep
+under rocks or forests."</p>
+
+<p>"Just so," proceeded Conrad; "Zahori, or Zahuri is the name borne, as
+I have heard tell, by the people who have carried their power and
+knowledge to this pitch. Only nobody knows whether one man can learn
+this of another, or whether it is a natural gift, or proceeds from a
+league with the evil one."</p>
+
+<p>"From the devil certainly!" cried Andrew interrupting him, having been
+gradually poking in his face nearer and nearer.</p>
+
+<p>"I am not talking to you, lowland lubber," said Conrad; "you would do
+better to seat yourself behind the stove; that is your right place
+when people are canvassing grave questions of science."</p>
+
+<p>Andrew muttered, and angrily drew back his chair a little; whereupon
+Conrad went on; "Look you man, this art in many countries is not the
+only one, nor even the highest, profitable as it may be for
+discovering veins of metal, or even gold and silver. Of much greater
+weight however, and far more formidable are those who have a power in
+their eyes to do one an injury, and with a single glance can infect
+one with a disease, a fever, a jaundice, a fit of madness, or even
+look one dead. The better and godlier part of these persons hence
+always of their own accord wear a bandage before one of their
+eyes&mdash;for this power will often exist only on one side&mdash;so that they
+may walk about and deal with their neighbours, without harming them."</p>
+
+<p>"Of these I have never heard," replied the stranger.</p>
+
+<p>"That is matter of surprise to me," continued the old miner with the
+most perfect gravity: "for since you come from Hungary, and probably
+were born there, where you have such a sight of vampires, or
+blood-sucking corpses, such swarms of goblins and manikins of the
+mountains, dwarfs and subterraneous creatures, that will often come
+across you even by broad daylight, I fancied everything belonging to
+witchcraft must be in high vogue there and generally notorious."</p>
+
+<p>"No," answered the traveller, "I never up to this present instant
+heard anything of these prodigies, much as I have seen and myself
+experienced that by such as have not been so far from home may be
+deemed remarkable enough."</p>
+
+<p>"Now then," said Conrad taking up his word again, "when the Zahori, as
+they call him, has once got so far that with his naked eye, instead of
+quietly seeing the treasures beneath his feet, he can give anyone a
+fit of sickness or put him to death, he has only one step further to
+become perfect and a master in his art. Look you, my good stranger,
+when he has thus reacht the highest degree, he will set himself down
+before a dish of baked meat, while it is still standing in the oven
+covered up and shut down, and without anybody being able to observe
+him will with his mere eyes devour you a goose, or a hare, or whatever
+it may be, swallowing it up so clean and neat, that, if he chooses,
+not a bone will be left. Place some nuts before him or melons, he will
+eat up all the kernel or pulp out of them, without making even a
+single scratch on the shell or rind, but leaving them undamaged just
+as if everything was still within. He has had a good meal; nobody can
+prove, or even suspect what he has done; and others have nothing left
+them but a fruitless search."</p>
+
+<p>"The devil again!" cried Andrew; "that's the trick I should like, if I
+could learn the art."</p>
+
+<p>"An artist of this sort," continued the old miner, "may however ascend
+a great deal higher; for such things after all would be merely a jest.
+If he has a spite against any one, he can pluck his heart out of his
+body with a look, just as easily as his money out of his pocket. The
+enemy he sets eye on will waste away and die miserably, or will sink
+into beggary, while he himself becomes as rich as ever he pleases."</p>
+
+<p>"It makes ones mouth water!" cried Andrew unconsciously, so completely
+was he carried away by the visions presented to him.</p>
+
+<p>Conrad turned his back upon him, drew his chair nearer to the miner,
+and then said: "If we had not this rabble so close at our side, I
+could explain the matter to you with greater tranquillity of mind. The
+truth is this. When the Zahuri has been promoted from being an
+apprentice or pounding-lad, to be a brother, and then a master or
+mine-surveyor, he will seat himself on his chair in his room, here
+overhead in this inn, or wherever it may be, will think of the
+warehouse of our old man of the mountain, or of the London docks, or
+of some place down in Spain where he knows that some banker, jeweller,
+or ship-master has valuable goods in his hands, and so soon as ever he
+thinks of them with his eyes, he has them before him, and nobody knows
+of it or can hinder it. In like manner by merely willing it he can
+also send them forthwith from the place whence he takes them, to
+Russia, or Calcutta, or anywhere else, and bring back the money he
+asks for them. Now should there be a man of this class living here, in
+the neighbourhood, or even in America, and he took a fancy to rob the
+warehouse, you will easily understand, with your unassisted reason,
+that then your peeled and boiled twigs would be of just as much avail,
+as a basin of well-made water gruel to cure an earthquake."</p>
+
+<p>The stranger had wit enough to perceive that Conrad was making a fool
+of him; but the peasants, though there were some things that puzzled
+them, swallowed all these nonsensical stories. Conrad exulted in his
+superiority, and went on: "Look you man, if there were no conjurers of
+this kind, how would all the contraband goods get in, which we find in
+every part of the world? and this is the reason why the preventive
+service can do so little, however strict and vigilant they may be. The
+learning the art indeed must probably cost some trouble; and this no
+doubt is why so very few seem to reach any mastery in it."</p>
+
+<p>"All that you have been telling me," answered the traveller, is mighty
+strange; "and perhaps the neatest way of winding up our dialogue would
+be, if I were to affirm that I am one of the masters in this art.
+However you would immediately require some specimen of my skill; and
+at that indeed I might boggle a little. Nevertheless be it in earnest
+or in jest that you have been talking all this while, there is most
+unquestionably, as no rational being will dispute, a number of
+incomprehensible and marvellous things in the world."</p>
+
+<p>Conrad, who in the mean time had been regaling himself with some
+strong beer, and fancied he had gained a complete victory over his
+unknown antagonist, was irritated by this rejoinder, and the more so
+because the peasants, who had heard the conversation, were not capable
+of undertaking the part of arbitrators.</p>
+
+<p>"Heyday!" he now exclaimed; "you seem to me to be one of those people
+who have hardly a notion as to what is marvellous or what natural.
+Have you ever seen spirits with your own eyes, as I have? Have you
+ever held conversations with goblins, with the little creatures that
+go into and come out of the mountain-lord's great house there? Have
+you ever seen metals and precious stones a-growing? or gold and silver
+trees waving and tossing about, all alive and vegetating?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you believe then," asked the stranger, "that stones grow and
+decay, that metals shoot up and propagate their species? Do you fancy
+that the beds under the earth sprout up just like a potatoe-field?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know nothing about potatoes and all such vermin!" cried Conrad in a
+passion,&mdash;it being something new to him to have an unknown, and, as it
+seemed, an insignificant person lord it over him: "But that metals and
+rocks have life and motion in them every body is aware, that they grow
+up and die away, and that, as there is sunshine and moonshine here
+above, rain and mist, frost and heat, so there are vapours and blasts
+there below, which burst in and rush out, and boil invisibly in the
+dark there, and mould themselves into shape. One of these blasts will
+curdle into a mist, and then it trickles down, and intermarries with
+the essences of the hills and of the regions under the earth; and
+according to the course and form the steam takes then, it begets
+metals or stones, it quickens into silver or gold, or runs along as
+iron and copper branching out or cleft asunder in veins that strike
+far and near."</p>
+
+<p>"What then, are you so far behind all the rest of the world here!"
+asked the stranger with every mark of astonishment. "O my good friend,
+with your leave, ever since the creation, or at all events ever since
+the deluge, the mountains, and stones, and rocks, and metals, and
+gems, have been lockt up in their houses and never gadded abroad. We
+dig and delve in here at top, and hardly get even at deepest below the
+upper skin of the warts, as the mountains are in comparison to the
+whole earth, much such a part as a nail-paring is of a man. Wherever
+we can set foot, we grub up these primeval stores, so far as we need
+them; and nothing ever shoots forth again, neither coal nor diamond,
+neither copper nor lead; and your notion of the matter is a mere
+superstition. In Africa, they tell us a story, people used from time
+to time to find little grains of gold in a sandpit, which they had to
+deliver up to the poor black king as his property. With the help of
+these he would then buy all sorts of things from foreiners. One day
+going a little deeper they fell in with two good-sized lumps of massy
+solid gold. The slaves in great delight carried the fruit of their
+labours to their black master, it being more than they had found for
+ten years past, and they thought how overjoyed the poor man would be
+at becoming rich thus all at once. But they were mistaken. The wise
+old king said: 'Look ye, my friends, these pieces are the father and
+mother of that little brood of gold grains which we have constantly
+been finding for ages: carry them back immediately and set them in the
+very same place, that they may be able to go on producing fresh ones.
+Unless you do so, we should get a vast gain for the moment, but should
+lose a lasting source of profit for ever hereafter.' The moor was a
+goosecap, was not he?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very far from it," cried Conrad, growing more and more enraged; "he
+was quite right not to meddle with that which goes on in secret;
+although we, as miners, cannot see the matter exactly in the same
+light as he did. Solid masses have grown like the rest of us; and who
+can say whether they may not enliven and further the shooting and
+coalescing of the metallic particles round about them?"</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you however," replied the stranger, "that sprouting and
+growing, and spreading out into the regions of the air, or in the form
+of roots underground, are the properties of plants only. Stones rest
+in themselves; vegetables feed on light and warmth and moisture, and
+transform the particles of the earth they stand on into means of
+growth and enlargement. Then animals start off and break loose from
+the elements; but they move within them, and carry their roots about
+with them in their entrails."</p>
+
+<p>"No! no!" screamed Conrad, still more violently: "In this way the
+whole world, and above all my glorious mountains, with their
+glittering subterraneous chambers, will be hocus-pocust into mere
+store-houses, wretcheder ones than if they were made of wood, into
+miserable wareshops and stalls. What then would the dwarfish sprites,
+and the mighty mountain-spirit, and all the goblins and elvish imps,
+and the swarm of gnomes there below have to do? and yet they are
+always, some of them cleverly, some of them clumsily, putting their
+hands to the wheel. And the waters! and the vapours! O thou blind and
+deaf generation, that wilt not see and understand, what is yet much
+more easily comprehensible than your dead, lifeless world! If life and
+growth, and the workings by which life is propagated and multiplied,
+can ever come to a standstill, then in your own realm too, in the
+places where you fancy you see life, it is a sheer illusion and cheat.
+The solid earth is alive, but in a different manner; and when it
+happens to draw in its breath, when the old giant yawns and stretches
+his tired limbs, and tries to arrange them more comfortably, you are
+all aghast, and set up a howl about earthquakes, while your walled
+hovels are running after you for variety's sake, and your towers are
+tumbling into your pockets and slippers."</p>
+
+<p>"You are a strange man," said the other, "and much too hot-headed to
+listen to reason. Surely we ought to love truth above our puerile
+prejudices. We do not make nature, but she is already such as she is,
+spread out before us, for us to watch her ways and learn from her
+teaching."</p>
+
+<p>"Nature!" exclaimed the old miner; "that is just another of their
+stupid words! My mountain has nothing to do with nature; it is my
+mountain. About that I know everything; of your nature I know nothing
+at all. Just as if a tailor, who had a coat to make, were to keep on
+prating about nothing but wool, and merino sheep! To such a pitch have
+people already brought matters, that they can't look at anything as
+what it is, but search out some great big generality to which they may
+tie it and slay it and embowel it. What say you to this? I once talked
+to a man out of Hungary, a fellow-countryman of yours, but he had his
+wits more about him; and he told me of a vine, I believe not far from
+Tokay, which must have stood upon a vein of gold, and in which a
+stream of gold brancht out and ran through all the wood. He shewed me
+a bit of this vine, and I could clearly see and distinguish the
+gleaming of the gold that had grown up with it. He gave me his word
+that in some of the biggest and juiciest grapes seeds had been found
+at times which were of pure gold."</p>
+
+<p>"Now only look!" rejoined the stranger; "Can one wish for more than
+this? Gold not only grows as a mineral, but even as a plant. However I
+know a still better story. Once upon a time, when the weather was very
+damp, a man dropt some ducats in the rocky ground at a short distance
+from Cremnitz. In spite of every search they were not to be found.
+They must have fallen down among the stones, and have been buried in
+the rubbish. What came of it? Some years after, when no human being,
+not even the owner himself, thought any more of the loss, a strange
+sort of shrub was seen, which not a soul in the country had over met
+with. It flowered with wonderful beauty, and then formed a number of
+little pods. The pods soon after split like the fruit of the
+winter-cherry; and, when people went to look at it closelier, every
+skin contained a bright new Cremnitz ducat. Some fifty came to
+perfection; a good many, that had been nipt by the frost, were mere
+thin gold leaf. The oddest thing of all was that the ducats were
+always markt&mdash;for they took good care not to root up the beautiful
+weed&mdash;with the date of the year in which they ripened. Of late a wish
+has been entertained, if it were but possible, to graft a branch of a
+tree which peradventure might bear doubloons, on this lucrative bush,
+with a view of ennobling the fruit."</p>
+
+<p>The very peasants laught at this; for they fancied they saw the jest:
+Conrad, however, though he perceived it, misunderstood it so far that
+he did not answer a single word, but drunk with beer and rage only
+lifted up his fist, and thrust it so violently into the storyteller's
+face, that he instantly tumbled from his stool to the ground, and a
+stream of blood gusht out from his mouth and nostrils. On getting up
+again the stranger, though evidently the weaker, wanted to take his
+revenge; but the peasants rusht in between, and brought about a peace
+at least for the moment. This was the easier, as some travelling
+musicians were just come with their instruments into the inn, where
+Conrad in his drunkenness immediately took them into his pay.
+Notwithstanding the remonstrances of the host and hostess, he made
+them first play some songs, then some dances, and gave no ear to those
+who admonisht and reminded him that the music might be heard up in the
+great house.</p>
+
+<p>"Why should I trouble myself," he cried, "about the old man of the
+mountain? He may for once let his evil conscience be sung to sleep a
+little."</p>
+
+<p>He now began dancing, first alone, then with the hostess; and as the
+noise soon got abroad, several men and girls walkt in, who were glad
+to take part in this unexpected public ball. When the younger peasants
+however also stood up, Conrad rusht suddenly upon them, shoved them
+violently back, and imperiously commanded the musicians to be silent.</p>
+
+<p>"When clod-hoppers and such scum mingle with their betters," he bawled
+out, "one of us must retire from the foul contamination. But this I
+tell you, the first of you that budges, or even growls, I'll break
+every bone in his skin."</p>
+
+<p>The peasants, whether alarmed by his drunken fury, or perhaps only
+unwilling to incense him still more, drew back to their table. Conrad
+seated himself, after all the victories he had achieved, majestically
+in his armchair again, and rolled his eyes round with a look of
+defiance. As nobody uttered a word, he said with a loud voice: "Look
+ye, fellow miners, I am one of the oldest men about the works here
+above; see here, comrades, and ye ragamuffins there, host and peasants
+I mean, these dollars my prince and lord has gained from our pit."</p>
+
+<p>He threw a handful of silver on the table.</p>
+
+<p>"And old as I am, fellows, I was born and bred here in the mountains,
+and I never yet crawled down into the vallies and the plain. I can
+boast (and very few can say as much) I never yet saw any grain in the
+field, never yet saw corn growing or ripe atop of its pitiful straw.
+We work in gold and silver, are expert in mysteries and deep lore, hew
+blocks, amalgamate metals, fuse ores,&mdash;and the miserable louts there
+have to go about, as people have told me, hand and glove with rank
+dung, and to carry the stinking stuff into the fields and spread it
+out; and therefore I have a right to look upon their foul frocks as
+scandalous and vile; at all events no miner should ever shake hands
+with 'em, or drink out of the same mug. I am determined too to die a
+man of honour, as I have grown old, without ever setting foot under
+their thatch roofs, or on their threshing-floors; I have preserved
+myself four and fifty years from this disgrace, and heaven will
+continue to guard me from it while I live."</p>
+
+<p>Thus he went on prating, till at length he was so stupefied and
+exhausted that he fell asleep. The peasants, who now felt still
+sorelier affronted than before, had more than once cast significant
+looks on their cudgels. With these feelings they listened the more
+readily to the advice of the stranger, who had been washing himself in
+the meanwhile, to lift their insolent enemy, as he was fast asleep and
+seemed quite senseless, upon the top of one of their waggons, and to
+lay him, when they got to the bottom, in a corn field, that he might
+find himself there when he awoke from his fit. There was no difficulty
+in doing this, as the musicians had been paid and were gone, and the
+landlord was busied in the kitchen.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="narrow" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>In the depths of the forest, where the iron forges were at work, and
+where in the midst of dark rocks by the side of a waterfall the shouts
+and the hammering of the workmen resounded far and wide in rivalry
+with the roar of the torrent, Edward the next evening met the
+inspector of the mines, to talk over some business of importance with
+him, and to give him some instructions from Herr Balthasar. The fire
+in the vast furnace glared wildly through the dusk: the brighter glow
+of the half-molten iron, the myriads of dazzling sparks that spurted
+up from the anvil beneath the sledges of the sturdy smiths, the dark
+forms moving through the large boarded shed, into which the trunk of a
+tree in full leaf had forced its way, overshadowing the bellows in the
+corner with its branches&mdash;this singular night piece attracted all
+Edward's attention, when loud talking and laughter arose among the
+workmen. Some one had just been telling them how Conrad, when he was
+drunk, had been treated by the peasants the day before, and how to his
+extreme annoyance he had awaked that morning in the midst of a corn
+field. The story seemed to interest everybody so much, that their work
+was suffered to stand still for a while.</p>
+
+<p>"It serves him right," cried one of the broad-shouldered journeymen,
+"the vapouring coxcomb! He is the most insufferable and rudest miner
+in the whole country for miles round; and fancies he knows everything
+better than his neighbours, and is the cleverest fellow in the world."</p>
+
+<p>"They say he is running about like a madman, and as if the fiend had
+got hold of him," continued the narrator; "for now the very thing of
+which he has bragged from morning to night, is at an end: he has not
+only been forced to see corn growing in the field, he has lain in the
+midst of it."</p>
+
+<p>Edward turned to the speaker and askt: "Michael, are you quite well
+again already, that you come out thus into the open air?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Sir," answered the smith; "thanks to you and our old master. My
+eye is gone of course; but how many of us have to work with but one!
+The spark of iron that burnt it out might have been still bigger. It
+was great pain, to be sure: that could not be otherwise; but with
+God's help I am become quite stout again after all. Herr Balthasar
+indeed has also done much toward helping me, and I owe a world of
+thanks to his care, his kindness, and his charity. And so we do all,
+everybody that belongs to him."</p>
+
+<p>Another man with one eye chimed in with these praises, and added: "It
+will fall out now and then that one or other of us gets maimed in this
+way; for fire is not a thing to be jested with: but God has blest us
+in giving us our old master; for even if a fellow were to become stark
+blind, he would never let him starve or want."</p>
+
+<p>The workmen were gone back to the anvil, and Edward then first
+observed that Eleazar had come into the hut, and was talking to a
+stranger. This was the travelling miner, the planner of the disgrace
+inflicted upon old Conrad, which of all mortifications he could have
+endured was the bitterest. Eleazar was scolding vehemently, and said
+it was quite impious to drive an old man by such tricks into a
+passion, nay to the brink of despair; for he had heard that Conrad was
+running franticly about the mountains, utterly deaf to all advice and
+consolation.</p>
+
+<p>The stranger excused and defended himself as well as he could; and as
+the sledges had now begun hammering again, while the roar of the
+bellows mingled with that of the waters, the quarrel was lost sound
+of, and only grew somewhat more audible, when Conrad himself in a fury
+rusht howling with swollen face and red starting eyes up to the
+disputants.</p>
+
+<p>"My honour!" he screamed, "my honour as a noble miner! my glory and
+my pride! all are gone, irrevocably and for ever! And by a pack of
+base boors, by a puny, cream-faced, chicken-breasted, outlandish
+starveling, have I been robbed of it. Amid all the mountains round,
+and doubtless in many others likewise, there was not a miner nor a
+mine-surveyor who could boast that he had never in his life been down
+in the beggarly plain. I awoke in the straw, in the corn, such was the
+rascals plot to ruin me. The ears were sticking in my nose and eyes
+when I came to myself, the sorry, brittle, bristly stuff, that I had
+never yet seen except in the pallet of my bed. Scandal and shame!
+Murder and house-breaking are not so detestable! and no law against
+it, no remedy, no mortal skill in the whole wide world."</p>
+
+<p>The others had enough to do to tear the strong old man away from the
+weakly stranger, on whom he wanted to take personal vengeance.</p>
+
+<p>As Conrad could not get satisfaction in this way, he sat down on the
+ground in a corner of the hut; and it being a holiday evening, the
+journeymen lay down round about him, some trying to comfort him,
+others jeering him. "Be pacified," said the man with one eye, "the
+whole affair is mere child's play. Had the fire burnt out your eye,
+had you had to endure unspeakable torments in your brain, and to toss
+through sleepless feverish nights, then indeed you would have
+something to complain of. But as it is, the whole matter is a sheer
+trifle, and all fancy."</p>
+
+<p>"That is your notion!" cried Conrad: "there never was a fool that
+could not talk and chatter like one. Your having lost your eye in your
+vocation is an honour to you, and you may be proud of it, and glory in
+it. But their sticking me down in the middle of their dung, where I
+was forced to lie like a tumble-down sheaf, or a truss of hay,&mdash;it has
+knockt half a dozen nails into my coffin. 'Conrad! Conrad! ninnyhammer!
+sack of straw!' so it seemed that everything was shouting in my ears.
+I have now seen the miserable, dirty ploughed land, in which the
+scurvy clowns have to breed up their bread. It's so flat down there,
+you can see nothing, far as eye can reach; and one hears no
+sledgehammers, no rush of waters, not even a boy pounding. It looks
+just like the end of the world; and I could never have fancied that
+the corn country and the plains, where more than half the world have
+to live, were so utterly mean and despicable."</p>
+
+<p>Thus they went on talking and squabbling, till some one for the sake
+of starting another subject began telling about the robberies, which
+their master, the old man of the mountain, was so incomprehensibly
+allowing to go on, doing next to nothing to find out the offender,
+although his losses, rich as he might be, must have amounted to very
+large sums. The stranger miner again spoke of his contrivances for
+making sure of catching the thief; and Conrad, who recollected the
+former conversation, shook his fist at him in silence.</p>
+
+<p>Eleazar seemed to enter into these strange schemes, and exulted with
+vulgar glee at the thought of thus at length getting hold of the
+rascal. As Edward eyed him in the dusky glare of the hut, and saw his
+face with its brown and yellow features unsteadily lit by the
+flickering flames, he thought that this disgusting and to him hateful
+monster had never lookt so hideous before: a secret shudder crept over
+him when he thought of Rose, and that this was the confident and
+bosom friend of a man whom he could not but honour, although his
+weaknesses and caprices formed so strong a contrast with his virtues.</p>
+
+<p>The smiths listened to the conversation with great earnestness: they
+believed the stranger; yet every one of them brought forward some
+superstitious device of his own, in which the speaker himself always
+put still greater reliance. Edward, in spite of the disgust this
+gossiping excited in him, was almost unconsciously held fast within
+the circle. Ghost stories were told; the wild huntsman was talkt of,
+and several said they had seen him; others had met with mountain
+sprites and goblins; then they got to forebodings and omens; and the
+conversation kept on growing livelier, the storytellers more eager,
+and the hearers more attentive.</p>
+
+<p>"Goblins," said Michael, "there are assuredly: for I myself ten years
+ago was well acquainted with one; and he was a very passable fellow to
+have to do with. The urchin foretold too in those days that I should
+lose my right eye about this very time."</p>
+
+<p>"What sort of a chap was that?" cried one of his comrades; "and why
+have you never told us this story before?"</p>
+
+<p>"When I had got through my apprenticeship," said Michael, "at the
+mountain-town twenty miles from here, and was now come to work at old
+master Berenger's forge, I used to be plagued at first and quizzed by
+the other journeymen, as every younker is when he is fresh. When I
+grew tired of laughing and grumbled, we came to blows; I gave and got
+my share, as in such cases always must happen. Among the rest there
+was a grizzly-bearded journeyman who worried and annoyed me most of
+all, a giant of a fellow, and all along with it so cunning, with such
+a sharp sting in his tongue, that one could not possibly help being
+vext, however stedfastly one might have made up ones mind and
+determined with oneself at morning prayers, not to allow the gall to
+mount into ones throat. In my distress I often cried with anger; for
+in the town I had fancied myself a clever fellow, and my unruly tongue
+had made many a one tremble. One night when I was thoroughly harast
+and woebegone, I was lying over there on the jutting crag all alone in
+a little bit of a room&mdash;the only other person in the house was a woman
+as old as the mountains&mdash;on the sudden I heard something stirring and
+scraping near me. I opened the window shutter at my head a little, and
+as the half moon peept into the room, I saw a tiny creature brushing
+away at my shoes. 'Who are you?' I askt the mite; for he lookt much
+like a boy of eleven years old.&mdash;'Hush!' said the little thing, and
+brusht away busily. 'I am Silly, the good comrade.'&mdash;'Silly?' askt I;
+'he's one whom I know nothing of.'&mdash;'Dame knows him, Ursul knows him,'
+said the little one, and put my shoes on the floor.&mdash;'Leave my things
+alone,' cried I.&mdash;'Make 'em clean, dust 'em, brush 'em neat,' answered
+the creature, and set to work at my Sunday hat.&mdash;'Is this farce never
+to end?' I called out to him; 'brush your own nose.'&mdash;He laught, and
+seemed to have no notion that I had any right to give orders in my own
+room. 'Art afraid, he then giggled out, of big Ulric? Need not be
+afraid. Ask him to morrow, when he sets at you again, where he got the
+brown fire scar atop of his head over the right eyebrow; he'll soon be
+meek as a lamb.' The creature was gone. I listened; there was nothing.
+I closed the window shutter again and fell asleep. In the morning it
+seemed to me as if the whole had been merely a dream. My shoes however
+were clean, my hat brusht. At length I askt old Ursul about the
+unknown boy. She was very deaf; and it was long before I could make
+her understand what I meant. 'Ah! she at last cried, has the little
+boy been with thee? Well, well, good betide thee, my tall lad. The
+tiny thing harms nobody, and brings luck to everyone he takes notice
+of. I have known him now well-nigh these forty years. He goes round to
+the houses where he likes the folks, and helps them in their
+housekeeping, now in one thing, now in another. Cleaning everything is
+his darling employment. He can't bear dust; dirty sooty pots and other
+kitchenware are his aversion; and he will often scrub at 'em with all
+his might. Bright brass vessels, shining copper pans, are things he is
+quite bewitcht with; pewter plates too he likes very well. Many a time
+has he brought me a groschen, bright and new, as if it had come from
+the mint.'&mdash;'But where does the imp live?' I cried.&mdash;'Where does the
+child live?' she said: 'people choose to call it goblin, or manikin;
+he himself signs himself Silly; that is his christen-name. But he is a
+kind good-natured sprite; and so thou must do nothing to hurt him,
+that he may not fall out with thee.' I had heard of such fellows, but
+before this could never believe in them. In the smithy the baiting
+began as usual; old Ulric put me quite in a fury; for they had remarkt
+my soreness, and this made them think it the better sport to badger
+me. I was just going to dash a redhot iron at the grizzly-bearded
+lubber's snow-white head, when Silly came across my thoughts. 'And the
+brown fire scar up there!' I said; 'you know, Ulric!' Thus I cried,
+without thinking there was anything in it, when on the sudden the old
+giant became so quiet, timid, and meek, that it made me stare my eyes
+out. From that moment forward the fierce fellow became my friend. Nay
+he was so humble in his behaviour to me, that I rose mightily in
+everybody's opinion, and thenceforth stood near the top of the board.
+When we grew better acquainted, he told me in confidence that in his
+youth he had once let himself be misled into engaging in an attempt to
+steal with the help of a servant maid. He had already crept into the
+room, supposing that everybody was asleep; but the smith being still
+awake had rusht against him with a fire brand snatcht up from the
+hearth; and thus his head and hair had been singed. He fancied that no
+mortal creature knew the story, of which he was heartily ashamed; and
+therefore he entreated me by all my hopes of heaven never to tell any
+one of it; indeed he was unable to make out how I could have learnt
+the affair. On this point however he was mistaken; for without his own
+confession I had never known a word of it. After this my life flowed
+along very peaceably, and the little creature came every now and then,
+and helpt me in what I had to do. Before long however we quarrelled.
+He often came upon me so suddenly, so unexpectedly, and many a time
+when nothing was further from my thoughts, that I was frightened to
+the very core. Whenever I said a word to him about this, he grew very
+pettish, and told me, I was an ungrateful fellow, not to acknowledge
+his manifold services. Now I had heard a little before from an English
+traveller, that the name of my goblin in his language meant _foolish_,
+and that in England such a creature was called Puck, or Robin
+Goodfellow; and when in the openness of my heart I told all this to my
+little guest, and at the same time, because he had just frightened me
+again, wanted to hang a bell about his neck, that I might always hear
+him when he was coming, the urchin became angry and furious beyond all
+measure, prophesied that I should lose my eye about this time, and
+vanisht with a great rumbling. Nor have I ever seen the brat again
+since."</p>
+
+<p>"Thou prince of all babbling braggarts!" cried Conrad, when the story
+was ended: "Can't you open your mouth, man, without lying? and yet you
+are already come to years. Folks that hold traffic for any time with
+spirits, grow shar-pwitted. The dealings of these creatures are with
+supernatural out-of-the-way things; and when they pay us a visit, the
+very terrour they arouse, till one grows used to them a bit, gives one
+something impressive and dignified."</p>
+
+<p>"More especially," cried Michael somewhat angered, "when one has been
+sleeping a night in a potato field."</p>
+
+<p>"That night," answered Conrad, "and that abominable mischance, that
+foul scandalous deed of a vagabond, will be the death of me; I know it
+as well as you. I shall not hold out much longer."</p>
+
+<p>"May be so," said the pale stranger; "yet you can't tell all this
+while whether I too may not be one of these goblins, who has been
+trying to cure you of your follies. To be good friends with you, my
+rough-spoken, overbearing sir, it was verily requisite that you should
+have treated me with a little more civility. Wisdom, experience,
+strength of mind, may often be learnt from those in whom one is the
+slowest to look for them. If however, my good companions, you would
+like to know which of you all will die first, I have a way of telling
+you that in a moment."</p>
+
+<p>They all seated themselves in a circle on benches and stools. The
+stranger pulled a plated box out of his pocket, while he continued:
+"When this little chip which I am going to light is burning, you must
+pass it quickly from hand to hand, and the person in whose hold it
+goes out will be the first of us to see the next world."</p>
+
+<p>All lookt at the stranger in anxious expectation. He thrust a little
+bit of wood down into the box, while he muttered some sounds, and then
+he drew it out again burning and flickering. Eleazar, who sat next to
+him, received it, gave it to his neighbour, and thus the match went on
+spitting sparks from one hand to another. It had finisht the round,
+and come back to Eleazar, who was very loth to take it, and was
+hastily passing it on, when on the sudden it flared brightly and then
+went out between his fingers. "Stupid stuff!" he cried sulkily, as he
+threw the bit of wood on the ground and jumpt up in a passion;
+"Nothing but empty superstition! And we are so good-natured as to let
+ourselves be made the tools of such nonsense."</p>
+
+<p>He lookt sharply at the stranger with his glaring eyes, then slapt him
+on the shoulder, and withdrew with him. Meanwhile the moon had arisen,
+and was pouring its bright light over the forests and rocks: the party
+went each his own way, and Edward too bent his steps homeward. As he
+was walking up the narrow footpath, he heard a warm discussion; it
+sounded like a quarrel; and when he drew nearer he fancied he
+distinguisht Eleazar and the stranger. He struck off therefore into
+another path, partly for the sake of avoiding them and not being
+forced to return in their company, partly too that he might not have
+the air of wishing to overhear what they were disputing about; for
+Eleazar was of a very suspicious temper, and mistrusted everybody,
+though he took it extremely ill if any one did not place an unlimited
+confidence in him.</p>
+
+<p>In the house everything was quiet: except that Rose was singing a
+simple air with a supprest voice, scarce audibly in her remote
+chamber. Edward was moved by it, and so strongly, that he could not
+help being surprised at his extreme susceptibility. Before he fell
+asleep, his melancholy had so increast, that he could hardly refrain
+from shedding tears.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="narrow" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>A few days after this Edward observed the stranger coming out of Herr
+Balthasar's apartment. He wondered what such a person could have had
+to do there; and, when he entered the old man's room, he found him
+violently disturbed and enraged.</p>
+
+<p>"Always the same wild irrational feelings, the same superstitious
+foolery, ruling over mankind!" he cried, as Edward came in: "That
+miserable fellow there whom you met flatters himself he shall gain a
+large sum of money from me, if he can detect our thief by means of
+some senseless artifice. He won't come back again, the blockhead! for
+I have at length given vent for once to my feelings. There is nothing
+in the world so insufferable to me, as when people try, by means of
+certain phrases fabricated at random, or of certain traditional
+ceremonies, most of them a misgrowth out of historical blunders, or
+out of ancient usages which formerly had a very different meaning, to
+put themselves in connexion with what they call the invisible world,
+nay fancy, though they deem it an object of terrour, that they can
+master it thereby. In fact the greater part of mankind are crazed,
+without choosing to confess it: nay, the very wisdom of thousands is
+arrant madness."</p>
+
+<p>It seemed as if the worthy old man himself felt ashamed of his
+passionate vehemence; for he immediately began talking on other
+subjects. He made Edward sit down by him, and had some breakfast
+brought, which was quite against his usual custom. "Thus we shall be
+able," he then continued, "to settle a number of matters this morning,
+which on other days we may perhaps hardly find leisure for."</p>
+
+<p>The door was again lockt, and the servant was ordered not to interrupt
+their conversation on any account. "I feel," Herr Balthasar then
+began, "that I am growing old; I must take thought and provide for the
+future, as I know not whether I am doomed to die a slow lingering
+death, or a sudden unforeseen one. If I draw up no settlement of my
+property, if I die without a will, that spendthrift in my native town,
+who has made the beloved of my youth so unhappy, will be my next
+natural heir: and verily it appalls me to think that my large fortune
+may hereafter be misused to maintain that despicable glutton in his
+rioting. All my poor people, all the hands now actively employed in
+this spot, would again pine away and be condemned to beggary and
+sloth. It is a sacred duty to forestall this. What are your views, my
+young friend, for your future life?"</p>
+
+<p>Edward was a good deal embarrast by this address. Some time back
+indeed he had formed certain plans, and had even meant to speak to the
+old man about them, in the hope of profiting by his experience: but
+since his lovely foster-daughter had appeared to him in so different a
+light, since he had felt so strongly attracted toward her, he was no
+longer equally forward and confident. He could not make up his mind
+whether to declare or conceal his affection; for notwithstanding the
+familiarity with which Balthasar treated him, by many of the old man's
+feelings and views he found himself estranged and perplext.</p>
+
+<p>"You are hesitating," said the old man after a while; "you have not
+enough reliance in me, because you do not know me. I look upon it as
+one of my duties to provide as a father for you: you are honest,
+sensible, diligent, and kind-hearted; you are perfectly verst in the
+various branches of my business; and I feel a confidence in you such
+as I have seldom been able to put in anybody. Your exertions for me
+and my establishments, your prudence and integrity, everything obliges
+me, even though I entertained no affection for you, to leave you well
+and very richly provided, since I have so much to thank you for. But I
+should be glad to know, and I beg you to be perfectly candid to me,
+whether you could be prevailed upon by the possession of a large
+fortune to fix your abode in this country, in this house, or perhaps
+would prefer settling after my death as a rich man in the neighbouring
+town, engaging in some other occupation, and marrying, or, it may be,
+travelling about in search of the home which you may like the best.
+Tell me your thoughts on this subject now with entire sincerity: since
+you have a claim, which I will take care shall be a valid one, to a
+third of my property, I cannot well make my final arrangements till I
+have learnt your intentions: for my establishments here and up the
+mountains, my manufactories, machines, mines, and various
+institutions, I also look upon as my children, and they must not be
+left orphans at my death."</p>
+
+<p>Edward sank still deeper in thought. Never could he have expected this
+generosity and fatherly love from the old man; never had it occurred
+to him that this friend might one day make him rich and independent.
+This speech had changed the footing on which he stood with Herr
+Balthasar; he thought he should now be better able to confess boldly
+what for some days had been busying and disquieting his mind. He led
+the way by an assurance of his gratitude, saying that what the old man
+meant to do for him was far too much, that his relations after all had
+still a title to his affection, and that a great deal less would make
+him happy and as rich as he could desire.</p>
+
+<p>"I am aware of all that you can urge to me on this score," said the
+old man interrupting him: "these relations of mine, even the
+scapegrace son and the good-for-nothing father, will be taken care of,
+so that they shall not have any reasonable ground of complaint. But I
+know that you have sacrificed the best years of your youth and
+strength to me. To a gay spirit like yours, to a person of your lively
+friendly temper, your long residence amid these joyless mountains must
+have been anything but pleasant. You many years since bade adieu to
+every sort of merriment and amusement: everything that charms youth,
+music, dancing, even society, plays, travelling, the literature of the
+day, you have given up for my sake; because you resolved, as I well
+markt, and that too very early, to suit yourself entirely to my
+inclinations. Scarce one man in a thousand could have done this; and
+you were this one: you have done it too without losing anything of
+your good nature, and kindly obliging disposition. If therefore you
+would like to settle elsewhere hereafter and in a totally different
+line of life, I cannot have the slightest objection to it, nor will it
+occasion the least curtailment of your fortune. But you must tell me
+your determination frankly, if you have already made up your mind, or
+can make it up on the instant: for in case you choose to remain here
+and carry on my business, I must secure you the means of exerting
+yourself usefully, by a number of arrangements and explicit
+incontrovertible injunctions in my will; therefore speak."</p>
+
+<p>Edward replied with emotion: "Heaven grant you may long remain as a
+father amongst us! Whether however I am to look on this country as my
+home or no, depends solely upon you: a word from you, and I can
+immediately resolve to spend the whole of my life here, even if you
+should be spared to us many years longer. But if you cannot or will
+not speak that word, I must sooner or later seek out another home; and
+I fear that in that case even your noble bequest will fail to procure
+me that happiness, which I must needs value higher than riches."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't understand you, my young friend," answered Balthasar; "your
+words are a riddle to me."</p>
+
+<p>"Your generosity," continued Edward, "and your affectionate
+benevolence have brought up a poor orphan girl; you have behaved like
+a father to her; and her fate must therefore be decided by you and
+none else. Give me that dear maiden, give me Rose for my wife, and I
+will live and die on this mountain, without a wish beyond it."</p>
+
+<p>The old man's face suddenly darkened and put on an expression which
+might be called terrific. He started up hastily, walkt several times
+up and down the room, then sat down again sighing, and began in a
+bitter tone: "So! this is it! You are in love! Is it not so? I am
+doomed again to hear this ill-omened, this calamitous word! I am
+doomed to witness this frenzy, this dark, heart-rending, heart-sickening
+absurdity, even in you, in a man of your sense! And all, all that one
+might otherwise esteem, and look upon as reasonable, is swallowed up
+in this whirlpool, in which horrour, madness, wild passions, carnal
+lust, and capricious folly are frothing and boiling all at once. This
+marriage however, Edward, can never, never be."</p>
+
+<p>"I have said too much," answered Edward calmly, "to be satisfied with
+a bare refusal. Tell me what are your plans for the dear girl, and I
+shall learn to bear them with resignation."</p>
+
+<p>"And she, the little fool!" interposed the old man hastily, "has she
+too tumbled in love with you? Has the luckless word already past to
+and fro betwixt you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," replied Edward; "her pure youth is still hovering in that happy
+state of simplicity, which only desires that tomorrow may be just like
+today and yesterday. She has no wishes but the simple ones of a
+child."</p>
+
+<p>"So much the better," said Balthasar; "she will be ready to act
+rationally then, and will not throw any hinderance in the way of my
+plan. Surely you, who are tolerably well acquainted with me, ought to
+have perceived long ago that I had designed the child for Eleazar. I
+mean her to marry, to live in sober wedlock, not to dream away and
+dote in what you call love."</p>
+
+<p>"And will she," askt Edward, "be happy with him for her husband?"</p>
+
+<p>"Happy!" cried the old man, bursting into a kind of loud laugh;
+"happy! What is a man to think of when he hears that word? There is no
+happiness; there is no unhappiness; only pain, which we are to welcome
+to our arms, only self-contempt, beneath which we must bow our necks,
+only hopelessness, which we must make the partner of our table and of
+our bed. Everything else is a lie and a trick. Life is a spectre,
+before which, whenever I pause to look upon it, I stand shuddering:
+and nothing but toil and activity, and straining all my faculties, can
+enable me to endure and to despise it. I could envy the loom and the
+spinning-jenny, if such a feeling, such a wish had any sense in it:
+for what is our consciousness but a consciousness of misery? what is
+our existence but an unveiling of the madness, the frenzy of all life?
+to which we either abandon ourselves in chill patience, or weep and
+struggle against it convulsively, or play through a caricature of
+happiness and joy, while in our dreary heart we are fully aware that
+it is all a wanton lie."</p>
+
+<p>"Neither then must I ask you," continued Edward quietly and
+sorrowfully, "whether you love Eleazar as a friend, whether he is
+truly worthy of friendship and esteem; for all freedom of will, every
+movement of feeling is crusht by these dark thoughts."</p>
+
+<p>"As if I had not felt," said Balthasar, "and wept and laught, like
+other men. The difference is only, that I soon stript truth naked, and
+that I acknowledged and felt my own baseness, and that of all mankind,
+of the world, and everything in it. Eleazar! he and you! If we are to
+make use of such words, my friend, I love you; all the fibres of my
+heart twine fast around you; awake and in my dreams you stand before
+me: your being miserable might reduce me to despair. And this
+raw-boned, loathsome Eleazar! If I am to give a name to this folly of
+my nature, I hate him; he is quite nauseous to me, whenever he stands
+before my eye or before my imagination: the bile which has tainted his
+eyes and face, his squinting glances, the twitches of his nose when he
+is speaking, while his long teeth stare out as if he were grinning,
+his shrugging up his shoulders at every word, whereby his odious
+snuff-coloured coat is every moment dragged upward and lays bare the
+skinny bones of his wrists, all this, his way of drawing in his
+breath, his hissing voice, is so revolting to my bodily senses, and
+always excites my wrath so strongly, so painfully, that no other
+created being ever gave me the same torment; and for this very reason,
+because there is so much I have to make amends to him for, because
+heaven and nature have so utterly neglected him, must he become my
+chief heir, my son. Besides he has long known of it, and is pleased
+with the prospect of this union."</p>
+
+<p>"I only half understand you," answered Edward: "you are fighting
+against your own feelings, you are wilfully putting yourself on the
+rack. I am not arguing now against your promise, since you have
+already given it to that man: but why do you cling to this image of
+life, that harasses and tortures you? Why not open your mind to those
+joyous feelings, to those sunny thoughts, which lie just as near, nay
+nearer?"</p>
+
+<p>"As you please," said the old man,&mdash;"for you, but not for me. Day
+after day has taught me that very few men really live. Most of them
+are in a state of ceaseless dissipation: nay what they call thought
+and reflexion is itself the very same thing, a mere attempt to raise a
+mist around the nature and inborn feelings of their hearts, and to
+keep themselves from discerning them. And arrogance starts up, the
+consciousness of their dignity and strength goads and spurs them on,
+till they rave with ungovernable pride. This too I have known in my
+youth, and outlived it. Then I loved, as I deemed. How clear and
+rosy-hued, how bright and smiling the world lay before me! My heart
+too was as it were bathed in pure ether, blue, boundless, with sweet
+hope, like morning clouds, floating and scattering freshness through
+it. And the primary stock of this love, what is it? Silliness, animal
+passion, which intertwines itself with our seemingly tender feelings,
+which tricks itself out with blossoms, and then eats canker-like into
+them, to make them too shed their leaves, to trample that, which it
+called heavenly, in the mire, and&mdash;far worse than the comparatively
+innocent beasts of the field, that are driven by a blind instinct
+without anything of volition&mdash;to deface and spoil everything which but
+now it worshipt as holy. From this conflagration then shoot forth ever
+and anon those disasterous sparks, which again grow into children, and
+again awaken to the consciousness of woe, if not of sin. And so the
+wheel goes evermore round and round, through a measureless viewless
+eternity. And the charm, the beauty of the world! the fresh bloom of
+its appearances! Is not everything here again grounded upon that which
+nature teaches me to loathe and abhor? It is perhaps by this feeling
+alone, as an invisible inward prompter, that I understand what people
+mean by beauty. This, wheresoever it is found, in flower or tree, in
+human being, animal, or plant, takes its rise always out of filth and
+abominations. The lily and the rose falls to pieces in your hand, your
+touch withers it, and it leaves only rottenness behind: the youth's,
+the virgin's beauty and loveliness&mdash;look at it without any
+self-imposed illusion, without the brutish sting of the senses&mdash;is
+horrour and putridity and everything we revolt from! a few hours of
+death, a corpse dug out of its tomb, make this woe manifest to
+all.&mdash;And I myself! what is there within me but death? a ghost and a
+skeleton! the stench of my own corpse haunts me; and in all my
+feelings there is madness, in all my thoughts despair."</p>
+
+<p>"Cannot religion then," replied Edward, "cannot philosophy, cannot the
+sight of the happiness you spread around you, lighten this gloomy
+mood, this melancholy, which is wasting your life away?"</p>
+
+<p>"Alas, my dear good friend," continued the old man, "I assure you that
+all I have read of those christian anchorets and self-tormentors, who
+out of overheated zeal transformed their life into a never-ending
+martyrdom, for the sake of stifling every impulse and thought save the
+highest of all, is less, far less, than what I have practist on myself
+since I became conscious of the cheerlessness of my existence. I too
+had once found a home for my whole soul in those regions in which the
+faithful feel the presence and the love of the deity, full of
+confidence and a blessed serenity. My spirit was transfigured; all my
+feelings were purified; my whole nature seemed as it were unfolding
+itself in a single blossom; all within me was bliss and calm; and in
+this heavenly tranquillity there was a sweet impulse to new
+contemplations, a ravishing excitement to plunge yet deeper into the
+flood of joy. And what was the end of it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Pray go on," said Edward.</p>
+
+<p>"I discovered,"&mdash;thus the old man after a pause resumed his
+speech&mdash;"that here too sensuality, delusion, and folly, had again made
+me their captive. Those voluptuous tears which I often shed in my
+seemingly fervent devotion, which I took for the purest gush from my
+heart, even they sprang only out of sensuality and a state of bodily
+intoxication. My animal impulses had put on the mask of spirit; and
+the deliciousness of those tears soon seduced me into endeavouring to
+stir up such emotions artificially, into abusing this mysterious close
+relation to infinite love as a stimulus of the most refined sensual
+excitement, which I then extinguisht in a rapture of tears. I was
+appalled by this lie in my soul, when I detected and could no more
+deny it; and the fearfullest desolation of despair, the dismallest
+solitude of death closed round me again, when the deception had been
+broken, and the vision would no more descend among the apish toys of
+my imagination. When after this I wisht to pursue my inquiries beneath
+the light of truth, horrour itself met me in the very spot where but
+now, like a scene-painting, my rapture had been standing. I no longer
+felt doubt, for even in this there is still joy; I had no certainty,
+for even in the most terrible there is life; but the dead blank of the
+uttermost indifference, a barren enmity to everything holy, a scorn of
+all emotion, as being sheer foppishness and silliness, lay like a large
+field of snow in the wildernesses of my soul.&mdash;'Soul! spirit!'&mdash;thus
+I often cried to myself laughing, and even now I cannot refrain from
+laughter,&mdash;'can there be anything else? And if this be so, in what
+does spirit differ from matter? where is the party wall between life
+and death?' In the spectral phantom of life, in the sphinx-born riddle
+of being, in that terrific fiat out of which the worlds sprang forth,
+to roll convulsively onward and evermore onward, till they can drop
+back into rest and nothingness&mdash;in this all contradictions and
+contrarieties are mixt up and confounded, to petrify into an
+indissoluble curse."</p>
+
+<p>Edward was silent at first for a while: then not without emotion he
+spake the following words: "I cannot understand what you say except in
+part; for the bent of your thoughts and feelings I am an utter
+stranger to. Whatever sorrows I have undergone, whatever unprofitable
+or cheerless meditations I have indulged in, still I have never
+strayed into these deserts, which lie, it would seem, at the horizon
+of all such as abandon themselves with too passionate intensity to
+captious inquiries. I have heard and read of strong minds, who in the
+recklessness of passion, or in the extravagancies of love, strove to
+burst the bolts of nature and of life, in order to become one with the
+universe and to possess it. Despair, self-loathing, hatred of God,
+have often been the doom and the unhappy lot of men thus under the
+mastery of their impulses. We feel no doubt that reason is not
+absolutely sufficient to reveal all that we wish to understand, to
+reconcile all that we wish to see in harmony with the workings of the
+deity. But it may be dangerous to seek for help in the regions of our
+feelings and imagination, to give ear to our visionary forebodings.
+They try to set up their own supremacy, and may easily fall out with
+reason, though at the outset they seem to uphold her. If they gain
+their aim, and this noble mediatorial power, which seated in the
+centre of all our spiritual powers, irradiating and swaying them,
+first converts them into true powers, is overthrown and cast into
+chains by them, then each of our higher impulses begets a giant as its
+son, that will war against God. For doubt, wit, unbelief, and scoffing
+are not the only faculties that fight against God: our imagination,
+our feelings, our enthusiasm do the same, though at first they seem to
+supply faith with so safe and mysterious an asylum. Consequently, my
+dear, my honoured friend, since our life is surrounded on all sides by
+these dizzying precipices, and every path, whatever course it takes,
+leads to them, what remains for us to do, except to trust with a
+certain kind of light-heartedness, which perhaps is also one among the
+noblest powers of our nature, with cheerfulness, gaiety, and humility,
+in the existence and the love of that infinite inexhaustible love, of
+that supreme wisdom, which puts on every shape, and can weave into its
+woof even what to us seems worthless and incongruous? so as to bear
+our life safely and easily, to take pleasure in our task-work, and to
+be happy, which we cannot else be, in the midst of affluence itself,
+making others happy as far as we are able. Is not this too piety and
+religion? I for my part have never met with them under any other
+form."</p>
+
+<p>"All this might be so," answered the old man breaking off the
+discussion, "if the root of life sprang out of love."</p>
+
+<p>"Does not every flower tell us so?" cried Edward, "every smile of a
+child, the meek thankful eye of the sufferer whom we relieve, the
+glance of the <span class="nowrap">bride&mdash;&mdash;</span>"</p>
+
+<p>He stopt short suddenly; for Rose's bright childly glance beamed at
+these words with all its might through his soul. When he lookt up
+again, he was greatly surprised to see his old friend's eyes wet with
+tears.</p>
+
+<p>"Edward," said he greatly moved, "you shall know all. Rose is no
+adopted child; she is my own daughter, my own blood. Alas! this again
+is another deplorable story of human weakness and vanity. While I was
+living here alone, a young beautiful girl came as a maid-servant into
+my house. Her parents were exceedingly poor, but she had been well and
+religiously brought up. She was honest and virtuous. She was so fond
+of solitude that, when she had done her work, she used to withdraw
+from all society, especially from that of the young. In a very
+singular manner she attacht herself to me; her devotion or love had
+almost a superstitious character. She revered me, wretch as I am, like
+a supernatural being. Never yet had my passions been moved by any
+girl, and least of all were they so by her, beautiful as she was: I
+was an old man, and fancied I loved her like a father, and thought of
+looking out a husband for her. How it happened, I should not be able
+to tell you; everything might seem so untrue. She became pregnant. I
+had already long felt dismay at my own weakness and meanness. Shame,
+despair, dread of the world, waged war within my soul, and made me
+their recreant slave. I sent her away in my distress, provided for
+her, richly, prodigally; but my heart was turned to stone. Grief,
+sadness, doubts in herself and in God, bitter mortification that she
+had forfeited my love, or was unworthy of it, while she burst into
+fearful accusations against herself, as the most innocent are the
+readiest to do, snapt the thread of her life. Had I seduced her? Did I
+not really love her? No, a miserable seducer I was not; but I had not
+the courage to acknowledge my sin, and to reward the love of her
+innocent heart. And thus I was a base wretch. She died, and I regarded
+myself with still more hopeless scorn. The poor creature's parents,
+whom I placed in comfortable circumstances, blest me, old villain as I
+was, for not punishing their daughter's shame, and for bringing up her
+child in my house. This child, this fair girl, whom I love, beyond
+perhaps what is allowable&mdash;for her happiness is my thought day and
+night&mdash;will now perchance also be sacrificed to woe; for a destiny
+stronger than I constrains me to give her to Eleazar as his wife. Go
+now to him; he is to be my son-in-law; tell him the wedding will take
+place in a week; and if you cannot stay with me afterward, my dearest
+Edward, whom I also love as my own son, the fortune I designed for you
+shall be paid to you &#8230; and we too shall never meet again. Go now."</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="narrow" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>He sobbed so violently that he could not say more; and Edward went
+away in a most strange state of feeling, to look for Eleazar, who
+lived in a house by himself lower down in a narrow valley, carrying on
+his favorite pursuits there.</p>
+
+<p>Eleazar was sitting in a loose flame-coloured bed-gown before a small
+furnace with a still. The room was but dimly lighted; the curtains had
+been let halfway down, and the lower panes were blockt up with large
+books. Everything was in the utmost disorder, so that Edward could
+scarcely find a place to sit down in. Vials and retorts, crucibles,
+pans, hooks, cylinders, and all sorts of chemical instruments were
+standing and lying about. A strange vapour from the fire filled the
+room. With a surly air Eleazar put down the bellows, and came out of
+his corner. He only half heard what Edward had to tell him, and said
+at length with his croaking voice: "In a week? so soon? I shall never
+have finisht my great work by that time. Could not the old fellow wait
+patiently for another month or two? Why the silly child has not even a
+notion yet what marriage means."</p>
+
+<p>Edward was utterly disgusted with these peevish words, and with the
+heartless ingratitude displayed in them. He called to mind how much
+Balthasar had been saying to him about madness as the real groundwork
+and substance of life; and it seemed to him as if this were actually
+the foundation on which both father and son-in-law were about to erect
+their melancholy dwelling. The fate of the innocent girl cut him to
+the heart.</p>
+
+<p>"Only lay your request before our master," he said indignantly, "and
+no doubt he will allow you to enjoy your freedom some time longer. If
+you were to be very pressing, perchance he might even give up the plan
+of the marriage altogether; for it seems to me, you have no very
+mighty anxiety about Rose's hand."</p>
+
+<p>"Softly!" said Eleazar, throwing off his bed-gown and putting on his
+coat very much at his ease; "softly!" He seated himself again before
+the furnace, and tasted the liquour while he clarified it: "Be it so;
+for then his fortune will all keep together, and thus I shall be able
+at length to carry on my operations on a grand scale. But the old man
+will never listen to what anybody says; what he has once determined
+and pronounced must be fulfilled, though reason itself were to go to
+the bottom. Still this should not annoy me a jot, unless that
+outlandish raggamuffin had put me out of all patience, and made my
+choler boil over. One ought to have the right of knocking such
+mischievous scoundrels on the head."</p>
+
+<p>"What is the matter with you?" askt Edward somewhat surprised.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you already forgotten that miserable vagabond," continued
+Eleazar with a ferocious look, "who played off his stupid trick upon
+us the other day at the forge? I am to die soon. This was the only
+thing wanting to set all our affairs in the most dismal confusion. But
+here, here at this furnace, I have it already preparing, the only sure
+safeguard against all such idle fears; and as I have succeeded with
+the help of wisdom in turning unsightly things into gold, so I shall
+not fail in producing that elixir for which so many mighty minds have
+heretofore sought and laboured, and often in vain."</p>
+
+<p>Edward went nearer to him. "In truth," he exclaimed, "you amaze me.
+You talk about these mysterious matters with such a careless security,
+as I have never yet met with; and it perplexes me the more since my
+reason tells me that your pursuit is a mere chimera, and the discovery
+of such an art a fable."</p>
+
+<p>"Reason!" cried the little man, drawing up his withered face into
+numberless wrinkles. "This reason methinks is the true chimera, and
+never spawned anything but fables. Take these gold bars, which I cast
+in this form yesterday, after extracting the metal last week from some
+lead: there lies a touchstone; scratch it; and then tell me whether it
+is not true genuine gold."</p>
+
+<p>Edward took up the bars, put them to the test, and found them genuine.
+"You must either fancy," continued the alchemist, "that I begin by
+getting a heap of ducats, and then melt them down like a fool, or else
+you cannot have another word to say. Will you keep these two bars as a
+remembrance? I make you a present of them."</p>
+
+<p>Edward lookt at the stunted figure with astonishment, then laid down
+the bars on the table again, and said: "No, I won't rob you; the
+present would be much too valuable. But you should not let these vast
+treasures lie about here at random thus mixt up with all the rest of
+your things: it is holding out a lure to thieves and robbers."</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody will look for gold in my house," answered the other, busying
+himself again at his furnace: "nobody will recognize gold under this
+ungainly form. Besides there are means after all for keeping off
+thieves and house-breakers, which none of you have ever yet dreamt of.
+If however you still doubt me, bring me a dollar next time, make a
+secret mark on it, and I will give it you back turned into gold. But
+the matter must not go further. And then you will no longer question
+my chance of discovering the elixir of life. Only I should like to
+punish that beggarly vagrant, that rascally herb-culler, and pitiful
+conjuror, as he deserves. Let him only come for once into my quarters!
+With all his contemptible jugglery, I would astound him! I am so
+enraged with the fellow, the blood runs into my head at the very
+thought of him."</p>
+
+<p>"How," interposed Edward, "came that paltry jest to make so deep an
+impression upon you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Jest!" screamed Eleazar; "Heavens! is it a jest that I have ever
+since been a prey all over to these hellish tortures, this ghastly
+fear of death? My own skeleton, my own rotting carcase is standing
+perpetually before my eyes. Old Conrad too over yonder has fallen
+sick, and is bewailing the loss of his reputation. Such a knave as
+this stranger is just as bad as a murderer: nay worse: for he pours
+the poison down ones throat in the midst of a large party without
+himself risking life or limb." He jumpt up.&mdash;"Hark you!" he cried and
+threw his arms round Edward: "Yes! the old man is right; the wedding
+must be very soon, as soon as possible, tomorrow, aftertomorrow, to
+make all safe. I can go on discovering my life-preserving elixir after
+the marriage: can't I? One shall not die all at once in a moment,
+friend Ned; flesh and bone still keep pretty tightly together."</p>
+
+<p>He laught so loud that he shook with it, and the writhings of his face
+squeezed the tears out of his goggle eyes. Edward who had never yet
+seen the sullen creature laugh, shuddered at the sight. When the old
+man grew calmer, he told him that he could not possibly now
+communicate this wish of his to Herr Balthasar; and that the affair
+would probably proceed in the way already settled. He felt glad, when
+he had left the room and house behind him, and could again breathe in
+the open air. His determination to quit the place was stronger than
+ever; he even resolved, if it would hasten his journey, to forgo the
+great reward which Herr Balthasar intended for him.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="narrow" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>After a restless and almost sleepless night, Edward next morning found
+the lovely charming girl on the grass plot before the house. She was
+very talkative, but he was in no mood to carry on a conversation.</p>
+
+<p>"O dear mister Edward," said Rose at length; "you don't seem to like
+me a morsel any more, you are making such sour faces at me."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall soon be forced to leave you and this country," answered the
+young man; "and that makes me so sorrowful."</p>
+
+<p>"You be forced! you leave us!" exclaimed Rose in dismay: "Can there be
+anything that should force you? Good heavens! it never yet struck me
+that such a thing could be possible. I always thought you belonged to
+us, just like the great house in which we live, or the steep green
+hill facing us."</p>
+
+<p>"I have now heard from your father also, what I could not have
+believed, that you are to marry Herr Eleazar, and that very soon."</p>
+
+<p>"Did not I tell you so?" answered Rose: "Ay, ay, that is to be my
+fate, and I only wish I could make the crabbed man a little merrier.
+Time will pass away terribly slowly with him. But perhaps I shall then
+be able to go to the town some time or other, see a bit of the world,
+hear some music and have a dance; for I think at all events an old
+husband must do something now and then to please his young wife. And
+for all these matters I had counted very much upon you."</p>
+
+<p>"No, my child," said Edward gravely and gloomily; "I am the very last
+person you must count upon; for to say the truth, this marriage of
+yours is the chief reason that forces me to quit the neighbourhood. It
+would break my heart to stay here."</p>
+
+<p>Edward repented of having been hurried so far by his passion, as
+thoughtlessly to allow these words to escape his lips; the more so,
+when he saw the lovely girl go away from him, starting back as if in
+affright, and then relieve her opprest heart by a flood of tears. He
+tried to take hold of her hand and comfort her; but she pusht his
+angrily back, and then said after a while, when she had got the better
+of her violent sobbing and was able to speak again: "No, leave me
+alone, for we are now separated from each other for ever. I could
+never have thought that you would have behaved to me so ill; for you
+had always been so kind to me. Oh God! how forlorn I am now! Yes I
+meant to love my husband Eleazar with all my heart, and to do
+everything to please him; for heaven must grant him thus much, since
+he is hated and shunned by all mankind just like a leper or an evil
+spirit. I too can't bear him, if I were merely to follow my own
+feelings; for he is a thoroughly utterly odious creature. But for his
+sake, and out of love to my father, and for your sake too, Edward, I
+had made up my mind so peaceably to all this; and therefore I thought
+that you too would perhaps be very willing to stay here now, or might
+even do so a little for my sake, in case everything was not just as
+you wisht it."</p>
+
+<p>"How so, Rose? is it partly for my sake that you have come to this
+determination?" askt Edward in amazement.</p>
+
+<p>"O yes!" answered the child, and her eyes had recovered their kind
+look; "but now I clearly see that I had reckoned without my host. You
+don't deserve it, indeed you don't like that I should be so fond of
+you. And now if you are really going away, it will then be indeed a
+shocking thing that I am to marry Eleazar: for in this lonely place,
+without you to help me and stand by me, he would seem just like a
+ghost."</p>
+
+<p>"But how is it possible?"&mdash;said Edward interrupting her&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Let me finish my speech!" exclaimed Rose hastily; "and then I will go
+away and cry again; for that will very often be the case now. I
+thought thus: if Eleazar is so cross, Edward is so goodnatured; and
+now I shall never be a day without seeing him, and he will talk to me,
+and perhaps give me books; for my father, people tell me, won't have
+so much authority over me when once I am married. In this way I might
+be better able to forget my woful husband, and might always think of
+you when you were away, and be glad and happy as soon as you came back
+to me. For thus do people live, and the parsons all order us to do so,
+with our hearts half in heaven, and the other half on this bad earth.
+Thus I should have kept my strength and spirits, so as even to make my
+unhappy Eleazar more cheerful at times; but if you go away &#8230; then &#8230; oh
+where shall I find any comfort! Then I shall soon die &#8230; or only wish
+that my father &#8230; or my plague of a husband would make haste and die.
+Alas! now that you don't love me any more, I am very very unhappy."</p>
+
+<p>She began crying anew, and still more violently than before. Edward
+eyed her for a long time with a searching glance, and lost himself in
+a maze of thought. Whenever men, thus he mused to himself, give
+themselves up to dark phantoms, and make caprices and extravagancies
+the main stock of their life, mishap and horrour will spring up of
+their own accord under their feet. Life is so tender and mysterious,
+so pliant and volatile, and so easily takes every shape, that there is
+no seed it will not readily receive. Evil sprouts up and runs wild in
+it; and brings up the intoxicating grape from the nether world, and
+the wine of horrour. Here in this childish innocence and simplicity
+are already slumbering the germs of the most fearful events and
+feelings, if time and opportunity should but forward and ripen them;
+and close at my side stands the fiend tempting me to become the
+gardener in this beauteous garden of the deadliest fruits.</p>
+
+<p>He awoke from his study and said mournfully; "Dear child, thou dost
+not yet understand thyself, thy destiny, or the world. I am not
+frivolous enough to enter into thy plans, or to encourage thee in them
+in the innocency of thy youth. What thou wishest cannot, must not be;
+and in another year, or less perhaps, thou wilt see thyself how
+impossible it is. We should both become wretched, and to deepen our
+misery should despise each other. May heaven guide thy steps: but I
+love and prize thee so much, that I cannot ruin thee. Pray to God: he
+will support thee."</p>
+
+<p>"He talks for all the world just like my father!" cried Rose, and
+walkt away, half in sorrow, half in anger; while Edward went musing to
+his room.</p>
+
+<p>"Is Balthasar right then after all?" he said to himself; "is human
+nature so utterly depraved? or is it not rather the business of
+energy, resolution, and reason, to transform those very qualities in
+us as in all other things into virtues and excellencies, which else if
+they are neglected would become malignant and base?"</p>
+
+<p>He then wrote a long letter to Herr Balthasar, and once more told him
+positively that he must quit his house and the country, if the
+marriage of Eleazar and Rose was irrevocably fixt; and that he would
+readily forgo his promist fortune, if Balthasar would only afford him
+some degree of support in his plans for his future life. He again
+however called upon him as a father to consider the unsuitable, nay
+the shocking nature of the projected match. He conjured him to look at
+the happiness of his child with a steadier, more impartial eye. At the
+same time he begged for another, a last interview, and said he had a
+request which the old man must needs grant him, if he would have him
+leave the mountains with honour, with peace of mind, and without
+repenting of the years he had past there.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="narrow" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>It was with a very heavy heart that Edward went to his old master. The
+whole destiny of mankind lay darkly and with a crushing weight upon
+his breast. Anguishing was the conviction he felt, that in the very
+sweetest and purest innocence all the roots of evil and sin were
+already lurking, and that there needed only chance and caprice to
+foster their growth, for them to put forth their calamitous fruits.
+His situation was so completely changed, his chief wish was that the
+house which had so long been his home, the country he was become so
+fond of, were but far behind him, that gradually and with a steady
+hand he might eraze all the recollections of the time he had spent
+there. He was resolved that at all events he would not be a witness of
+the disasters to which, he was persuaded, the dark spirits brooding
+there must infallibly give birth; that he would not stay to behold
+them; for he did not feel sure of being so firm, that his own passion
+and frailty might not lend a hand in bringing down the impending ruin.
+Heartily as at this moment he abhorred such a thought, he yet knew
+full well from observation and experience that no man is always the
+same, and that even the best are not braced with the same strength at
+all hours: he knew how the sophistry of our passions will come athwart
+all our good feelings and resolves, and that the more secure they feel
+the more easily it trips them up and overthrows them.</p>
+
+<p>He found the old man in a serious mood, but without the agitation he
+had feared. "Come and shake hands with me," cried Balthasar as he
+entered, "although you choose to leave me. How I shall support your
+absence I cannot yet conceive, anymore than I should know how I could
+live without light and warmth: but nevertheless I shall be forced to
+learn this lesson, if nothing can alter or upset your determination."</p>
+
+<p>"My fatherly friend," Edward began, "can you then persist in your
+determination, which to me is so utterly incomprehensible? Is it quite
+impossible for you to consent to what alone will make me happy, and
+assuredly will make your daughter so too?"</p>
+
+<p>"I had hoped, my dear friend," answered the old man very mildly, "you
+would not have toucht on this string again, which thrills far too
+painfully through my whole frame. Pray convince yourself that this
+long-formed resolution, which you if you please may term a whim, I
+cannot possibly revoke; it is much too firmly intertwined with my
+whole being. What we do from conviction as we call it, from pondering
+about a matter and balancing it first in one scale and then in the
+other, over and over again, is seldom worth much. Whatever is
+permanent, characteristic, genuine in our nature, is instinct,
+prejudice, call it superstition;&mdash;a conclusion without question or
+inquiry, an act because one cannot help it. Such is this of mine! You
+may look upon it as a vow, a solemn oath which I have sworn to myself,
+and which I cannot violate without the most atrocious perjury against
+my own heart. I owe my poor good Eleazar much amends for having let my
+soul entertain and cherish disgust, bitterness, and aversion toward
+him for so many years.&mdash;And as to the happiness of the pair!&mdash;on this
+point my opinion is just the reverse of yours. He is wise, sensible,
+virtuous; he is happy already, and will keep so, whether he marry or
+not. It is an act of condescension in a person of his grave character
+to take up with my daughter. A man who has got the philosopher's stone
+can never be harmed by any of earth's paltry troubles. And my Rose! O
+my dear friend, the truly dreadful thing would be, if I were to give
+her to you to wife: this being, this child, that I cannot help loving
+so dearly, that I fold up with remorse and sorrow in my heart, would
+go to wreck like others amid the pleasures of the world, in self-will
+and frivolity, in dissipation and recklessness. You would indulge her
+out of love in all sorts of follies, and so make her and yourself
+miserable. No, it cannot be on any terms; and you yourself will thank
+me hereafter for my reasonable refusal. And now not a word more,
+dearest Edward, on this subject: let us come to your other request,
+which I can safely promise to grant you."</p>
+
+<p>Edward began, with a cheerless spirit, to reckon up the damage his
+master had sustained from the robberies that were carried on in such
+an inexplicable manner, and urged the absolute necessity that, before
+he left the country, effective measures should at length be taken to
+get some trace of the thief. The old man wanted to break off the
+discussion; but Edward reminded him of his promise. Above all was
+Balthasar averse to a proposal made by his young friend, to set a
+spring-gun secretly in the warehouse, whereby the audacious robber
+might at length be caught and punisht. The old man regarded such a
+measure as impious, unlawful, and nearly akin to wilful murder.</p>
+
+<p>Edward tried to refute these notions, and at last said: "You owe it to
+yourself and to me to adopt this plan, which I too am far from
+approving unconditionally, but which in the present instance is the
+only remedy. I need not again state the amount of the sums which have
+been stolen from you time after time during the last three years and
+more; they would make a large fortune, so large a one that many a
+wealthy man would have been ruined by such losses. It is your
+unaccountable indifference that has thus emboldened the thief, who, it
+is clear, must be accurately acquainted with all our goings on.
+Whenever a watch has been set, nothing has happened. But as soon as we
+were off our guard again, no bolts, no bars however strong, no
+precautions however well-judged, availed us. William, and many other
+persons equally innocent, we have eyed with misdoubt. You cannot deny
+it; your suspicion must needs have lighted on everybody about you in
+turn. How can a heart so noble as yours hold fellowship with such a
+hateful feeling as to imagine now and then, for moments, that those on
+whom you bestow your friendship and esteem, may be capable of the most
+scandalous baseness? You are guilty of the most glaring injustice to
+hundreds of honest and honorable men, for the sake of screening a
+single villain with an indulgence which I cannot but call weakness,
+and a weakness under these circumstances quite unpardonable. In a few
+days I shall leave you. It is possible that the thief may not find any
+favorable opportunities hereafter, that another overseer may be more
+successful, that he may induce you to take stronger measures, and so
+to intimidate the offender: the robberies may cease: may not malicious
+persons, may not the offender himself perhaps, to secure himself
+against all chance of detection, and to frustrate every inquiry,
+spread a rumour that I am the heinous thief? Nay, might not such a
+report carry with it a very great show of probability, since assuredly
+no one could have got at your goods with so little risk as I? What
+will it profit me when far away, though you endeavour to vindicate me
+and to silence such a calumny? Will not your unwonted lenity, your
+present preposterous supineness, make the detestable rumour wear a
+look of the utmost speciousness, nay, of irrefragable truth? How, by
+what means, shall I then be able to clear myself? And, my loved, my
+honoured friend, who do nothing but good to mankind, and think nothing
+but evil of them, may not the same suspicion start up even in you, and
+strike deep root in the dark places of your soul, and by little and
+little grow into a conviction that I am the person?"</p>
+
+<p>Balthasar gazed at him, and walkt several times silently up and down
+the room. He was evidently struggling with himself, and seemed totally
+lost in thought.</p>
+
+<p>"You are not mistaken," he said after a long pause; "or rather you are
+perfectly right. You know my notions about wealth and property. I look
+on them with terrour. It seemed to me to be quite right, and to be a
+kind of slight amends to destiny for my incomprehensible luck, that
+what was flowing in so abundantly upon me from every side should at
+least have one outlet by which a part of it might run off. At times I
+have fancied that such a person or such another was thus making his
+fortune, who wanted it, and in a manner deserved it by his cleverness
+and sagacity in getting it. I took up a superstitious resolution to
+remain purposely in the dark, that I might not dissipate this strange
+dream and be deprived of this vague feeling. It gave me pain that I
+had to misdoubt so many of my people, nay all of them; but at the same
+time it was a pleasure that I could not feel certain about any. Yes,
+my friend, you too, you too have I wronged. You now know me pretty
+well, and I entreat your forgiveness. I have oftentimes thought in
+secret, without however feeling the least anger against you: 'Well, he
+is taking beforehand what he has richly earned, by labour, by
+sleepless nights, by diligence of every kind &#8230; he cannot know for
+certain whether death may not snatch me away suddenly &#8230; peradventure
+he has some poor relations &#8230; he may wish to marry and set up with a
+handsome establishment &#8230; he may perhaps have the same notions about
+property as I myself.' This has been the main ground of my lenity and
+weakness, as you call it; more especially when after the removal of
+William and several other doubtful characters all still went on just
+as before. Even your great anxiety, Edward, your indignation, even
+this turned my surmises against you. I have said to myself: 'Why does
+he talk so much about it, and make such a piece of work? I have given
+him the fullest powers in the matter: did he really take it so much to
+heart, he would have got hold of some clew long ago in one way or
+other by craft or by force. I could not possibly do otherwise than
+approve of whatever steps he took for my good.'"</p>
+
+<p>An overpowering pain seized on Edward during this speech; he felt on
+the point of fainting. With a look of utter despondency he threw
+himself into a chair, hid his face with his hands, and bent it down
+upon the table, till at length a flood of tears that streamed from his
+burning eyes, and a loud fit of convulsive sobbing a little relieved
+his heart, which seemed about to break.</p>
+
+<p>The old man was astonisht to see so great and unlookt for an effect
+produced by a speech which he had uttered with perfect calmness, and
+even with kindliness. He endeavoured to comfort and pacify his young
+friend, lifted up his head, and wiped the tears from his face, which
+still stared at him with an expression of the deepest grief and
+despair. He embraced him, he sought after words to heal the wound he
+had inflicted, to lull the storm he had called up.</p>
+
+<p>"O my heavens!" he at length cried, when he saw that all his efforts
+were in vain, "what shall I do? Edward! I did not really mean any ill.
+I only think of others what I believe of myself. I love thee in truth,
+young man, above anybody I have ever known; thou art to me as a son:
+hence my perverse supineness under my unjust suspicions: thou must
+forgive me all, all, dearest Edward. I will do everything, everything
+you ask of me."</p>
+
+<p>When Edward at length was somewhat recovered, he said with a broken
+voice, which was often checkt by violent sobs: "No, no, noblest, most
+upright of mankind, never, never could you have sunk down into a
+miserable thief! No want, not even hunger and nakedness, no
+opportunity however tempting, could have degraded your lofty mind so
+low. You only say it to quiet me. O heavens! this man, who treated me
+with the warmest affection and with unbounded confidence, who placed
+large sums in my hands, without ever inquiring about them, that I
+might become the dispenser of his bounty in feeding the hungry and
+taking care of the sick, this same friend could at the very same time
+deem me capable of such infamous wickedness. Observe now, observe what
+a dangerous thing it is, to admit such dark spirits and phantoms into
+ones soul, from which in time they utterly drive out all truth and
+love, and strength and faith. O thou bright pure form of Truth! O thou
+spotless beauty of Virtue! How changed does this man seem to me since
+that calamitous word, how changed am I myself! how fearfully, how
+dismally has the relation between us changed! It seems to me as though
+the very belief in the possibility of anything like what this man has
+believed possible of me, had cast a shade of vice and depravity over
+my whole life: for this noble being has hitherto been the mirror of my
+own worth, by looking at which I became conscious of my own
+well-meaning and integrity. Can everything, everything in our heart be
+thus transformed in a single moment? Yes, my dear, my fatherly friend,
+I shall evermore honour and love you; I admire you while I mourn over
+you; but even without any further cause this conversation would have
+parted us; this alone, without regard to my happiness or unhappiness,
+must drive me from you into the wide world."</p>
+
+<p>"So then we are now finally severed," said the old man very
+sorrowfully, "by destiny, not by my fault. One may master everything,
+except ones own innermost self. Suspicion in me is not that bad thing
+into which your overstrained sense of honour, such as I never saw in
+any man before, converts it by the meaning you assign to it. But, my
+dearest friend, without whom my life will long be a mere blank, you
+will stay at least a few days, until you can take away the papers that
+will secure your fortune to you. For this compensation you must accept
+from me as from a father, unless you would quite overwhelm me with
+shame."</p>
+
+<p>They embraced, and the old man gave Edward an unlimited permission to
+take whatever steps he thought proper for the sake of detecting and
+punishing the thief. Edward had regained his self-possession; and the
+old man was all kindness and gentleness. They talkt about other
+affairs; and Edward took some accountbooks under his arm to look over
+and correct.</p>
+
+<p>"Embrace me once more with all your heart," said the old man, "and
+forgive me too with all your heart."</p>
+
+<p>Edward turned back, and after embracing him said: "My dearest friend,
+what have I to forgive you for, thinking as you do? It is not the
+right word. What I have just endured I can never forget; and this
+shock will thrill through me to the latest day of my life. The human
+heart and soul, man and God, seem to have become totally different in
+my eyes since that terrific flash of lightning. Thinking as you do
+too, you cannot be angry with me, if I now say half in jest, that, had
+you not allowed me to take my measures, I might have fancied after I
+was gone that you had been thus ingeniously and cunningly robbing
+yourself, who knows with what subtle views, perchance for the very
+sake of throwing suspicion on some one or other."</p>
+
+<p>"You are not altogether in the wrong," said Balthasar. Edward was
+again standing at the door. "Wait another moment, young man!" cried
+his master. Edward once more turned back. But when he drew nearer to
+the old man, he was astonisht to find how totally his countenance and
+the expression of his eyes were changed. A quick firy glance was
+sparkling restlessly upon him.</p>
+
+<p>"You are fully convinced, I well know," the old man began, "of the
+truths of the Christian religion; you read your bible diligently and
+devoutly. You also believe in the historical parts of it, and regard
+the whole as an actual revelation: the rational, and allegorical, and
+learned philological interpretations do not satisfy your mind. Is it
+not so? you are a true Christian with all your heart and soul."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," answered Edward.</p>
+
+<p>"The story," continued the old man, "how the Saviour was tempted in
+the wilderness by the Evil One, is not in your opinion a parable, or
+an allegory, or mythical legend, without any substance? but you
+believe that this event actually befell Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
+along with the various circumstances and questions and answers
+recorded?"</p>
+
+<p>"What are you aiming at?" askt Edward hesitatingly after a pause.
+"Yes, I believe this story like a sincere and orthodox Christian."</p>
+
+<p>"Well!" the old man went on, while his pale closed lips wrinkled into
+a strange smile: "I have a double aim, though I should hardly need to
+say more, if you had ever thought deeply about this incident. In the
+first place, if our Saviour himself had to bear such things, if it was
+possible for him to be suspected though but by the Evil One, surely
+you might forgive me with all your heart, if with half or a quarter of
+mine I have now and then half misdoubted you. Meseems, this
+mysterious, marvellous story with its fathomless, untold meanings does
+not downrightly condemn my views of human nature. They are not mere
+spectres that have taken possession of my soul, unless indeed they
+belong to one and the same family with spirits. In the second place,
+do your eyes see much meaning in this wondrous story, if the success
+of the temptation was totally and absolutely impossible?&mdash;Now then
+what say you? appalling are the feelings that seize on one of us, and
+you too cannot escape them, when all this is brought home to the heart
+and mind.&mdash;There is still a third remark that I would close
+with:&mdash;what would have become of the world and of mankind, of heaven
+and earth, if the tempter had won the day? if love had faltered and
+been beguiled?&mdash;O young man, the doors are not closed in every place
+where we see them put to. You fancy you have made out everything, when
+you have hardly counted up to five.&mdash;I too believed, I too inquired,
+was absorbed in love and devotion, beheld love in my own soul and in
+the souls of my brethren, and this is the very delusion the breaking
+up of which snap my heart and life asunder, never, never to revive and
+reunite. Cast away your pride in your feelings, think not to soar on
+the wings of your imagination; but crawl along the ground like worms,
+and eat dust; for that is what befits you."</p>
+
+<p>The old man squeezed Edward's hand, and then with a bitter smile, and
+a sudden laugh that scared him, tore himself away. For a while Edward
+continued fixt in a stupour, and when at length he lifted up his eyes,
+Balthasar was again immerst in deep thought, and standing at his
+writing table with the gloomy suffering look which he usually wore.
+Edward felt as if he was leaving a dying man when he went away, and
+shut the heavy oaken door slowly and carefully after him.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="narrow" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>Edward had taken his measures with no less secrecy than judgement.
+None of the servants, foremen, or even of the overseers knew that he
+was doing anything out in the warehouse. Every interruption had been
+guarded against. He was quite alone, nor did anybody even know of his
+having left the house, when he made his arrangements; and it was dark
+before he came back. He could not tell whether a fresh robbery might
+not be committed on that very night, or not till a future one. All the
+watchmen had been removed from the warehouse in such a manner as not
+to excite suspicion.</p>
+
+<p>And now amid the solitude of the night he sat down to the account
+books, for the sake of bringing all his thoughts to bear on a single
+point, and thereby recovering from the agitation he had lately
+undergone. It was of importance to have these matters perfectly
+arranged before he went away. At length he succeeded in banishing what
+had happened from his thoughts for the time; and he became so much
+engaged in his employment, he forgot that these very hours might be
+unravelling that unpleasant affair, which had given them so much
+annoyance for years.</p>
+
+<p>When he had finisht and was turning over the leaves of an old book
+that he had taken up along with the rest, some written papers fell out
+of it: they were in Balthasar's hand, and had evidently been written
+many years. He read the following fragments.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>Yes in truth weeping is a wonder, and, as they say, a gift sent
+from heaven. A bliss spreads through our soul, as soon as our
+flowing tears come, like the waters of a river, sweeping away
+black sorrow, and disquietude, and trembling doubts. Ye are all
+given back to me, ye spirits that once were mine, and that a cruel
+destiny afterward severed from me.</p>
+
+<p>For the sake of this, people will woo tears, and try to lure them
+with coaxing when they will not come. Our day's work is over, and
+now, as the rich man and the glutton will wind up his multifarious
+meal with sweetmeats, so after our toil, after closing our
+accounts, we court devotional thoughts and pathetical emotions, we
+meditate on the dead, in order to entice this lifes-wine of tears
+into our voluptuous eyes and our luxurious brain. Now a
+sentimental melancholy inhaloes every ordinary object around us;
+and amid the meek abasht feelings of a pining anguish and remorse,
+suddenly starts up nauseous arrogance, vaunting the grandeur of a
+spoilt capricious heart. O what poor wretches our fellow creatures
+now seem to us in their commonplaceness, who yet all, as the
+patient children and drudges of mother earth, are better than we.</p>
+
+<p>But laughter! This earthquake which invisible powers heave up out
+of the knotty entanglement of our dark enigmatical being! which in
+boisterous senseless noises announces that within, in the unseen
+world, the soul neither recks of nor knows truth or falsehood, and
+has just been murdering the innocent herald who was bringing these
+phantasms before it! These rude unmeaning sounds which will for a
+long time distort even the best face, the most mechanically
+regular mask!</p>
+
+<p>How men long after this loathsome convulsion! While tears lie and
+cheat by aping heavenly feelings, laughter is awkwardly trying to
+let the craziness of evil demons skulk behind it, hides itself
+from vulgarity for the sake of being seen, feigns terrour when our
+unsubdued struggling feelings are detected, and saunters about in
+the midst of whatever is disgusting and impure, perpetually
+clapperclawing with some outcast among the rabble or other: one
+moment our intelligent, and higher faculties, as they call them,
+get the upper hand; the next they are beaten down and trod upon by
+something base and profligate: and thus veering to and fro, now
+toying now scolding, laughter clatters down the steps of idiocy,
+which crumble with the decay of our bodily strength &#8230; and man
+grins, and is happy.</p>
+
+<p>Blessed time, when there was a real existence, a life in life!
+when the vast whole of eternity, being sufficient to itself, had
+not splintered itself out into time! when the spirit did not need
+a succession, measured out by the atoms of time and space, to
+become conscious of its power and of its being! What a portentous
+event was it, when eternity and life parted fellowship!&mdash;when the
+band by which spirits were bound in one, burst, and that strange
+creature, Death, rusht in through the chasm to domineer over all.
+Now that which is firm, stedfast, enduring, has concentrated
+itself in the depths of its own being, and has put on the
+unvarying aspect of solid meditation. Stones, rocks, metals, bid
+defiance to decay with their cold looks, and would make believe
+that they know not of change. Drops of water dancing like tiny
+elves along them, the sightless legions of the air, wherever they
+spread, are eating into the limbs of the rigid haughty giant; the
+dwarf, man, digs into his bones, and, if his strength were equal
+to his fury, would reduce him to fleeting sand. May it not
+peradventure be the same with the eternal stars? A little acid,
+and the monster sneezes sillily, and roars, and yawns, and for the
+moment remembers its spiritual nature.</p>
+
+<p>And thou with thy butterfly wings in thy light summer garment,
+thou that hoverest aloft, and flittest over the mountains, and
+sweepest along the earth! from the airy changeling of the
+caterpillar, up or down to the lion and to man, ye all of you,
+fostering a brief momentary spark in you, like the glance from the
+flint and steel &#8230; gone is the red bubbling up of the spark &#8230;
+and again a mere slough is lying before us, after its short dream
+of life and love, dust upon dust, rottenness upon decay &#8230; the
+great-grandfather beside his mouldering great-grandchild &#8230; and
+neither knows the other, neither has ever heard of the other.</p>
+
+<p>The plants around you prick up their ears at you in a thousand
+forms; the flowers smile roguishly and sadly, in the midst of the
+masquerade; and dream mingles with dream, when the lover plucks
+the rose, and blushing himself holds out the blushing blossom to
+his blushing maiden.</p></blockquote>
+
+<hr class="narrow" />
+
+<blockquote><p>The beating of the pulse is not only a sign of life, it is life
+itself. No feeling, no thought, no sight or hearing, no taste or
+sensation flows along with a rushing stream, but all comes
+skipping, wave upon wave, drop upon drop, and this is its being.
+One thought is cast out by another; our feelings are only felt as
+they shift between life and death: the kiss only thrills on our
+lips when a chill void has already spread over them; our delight
+in a picture, in music, merely gushes through us; one moment it
+entrances us, the next it has vanisht. Thus the sea breathes in
+its ebb and flow, time in its days and nights, its winters and
+summers. If I do not forget myself this moment, I cannot recollect
+myself the next.&mdash;And death&#8230;.</p>
+
+<p>Is this revulsion of the pulse, this alteration of strain, this
+change of tune a prelude, a transition to a new piece of music?
+Every living creature exists to be devoured by another; man alone
+has apparently eluded these barrack-regulations, this military
+duty, and fattens himself up for the earth, that shattered chaos
+of stones and mould.</p>
+
+<p>In love, in misfortune, in joy, in despondency, in labour and
+rest, death has always been my uppermost, I might rather say my
+only thought. Suicide in me would have been of all human actions
+the most natural. I have never felt that any indescribable fear,
+any overpowering shudder draws us back, and flings the knife from
+our hands. If poor naked Joy, that is so meanly clad, she is
+ashamed to walk about the earth, were once to enter our doors,
+then the stab of the bright dagger would only be the last
+glittering pinnacle of our joyous transport. For after that brief
+pulsation is over, how bald is the earth, how black is life! It is
+because I know not whither I am going, or whether I am going, or
+whether there be a whither, that the act is so alluring. Only men
+will not confess this, but give the name of cowardice and of
+courage to what is neither the one nor the other. In dissipation,
+in thoughtlessness, in indifference, the poor wretches lose both
+life and death.</p></blockquote>
+
+<hr class="narrow" />
+
+<blockquote><p>A strange dream, that is to say, a dream, has visited me. The
+commonest thing is quite as strange as the uncommonest, only habit
+blunts our sense.</p>
+
+<p>I was dead. I knew it distinctly; and yet I lived on in my
+consciousness. All my forlorn doubts, my stiff-neckedness that
+would not bow to the yoke, my hard heart that closed itself so
+early against love, had shut me out, so my conscience told me,
+from the place to which the good hope to go. The state in which I
+found myself, and numberless others along with me, was one the
+common ordinariness, the dull triviality of which was quite
+appalling. I was utterly unable to recollect my friends and those
+whom I had loved, however intensely I strained my memory and put
+it to the rack. A longing, like that of one pining with thirst
+after a stream of fresh clear water, tormented me, to call up the
+forms and the ideas of those beloved beings in my imagination; I
+felt a yearning after them like a heavy weight that was crushing
+me in the hidden places of my heart. Just as little could I bring
+back those actions which during my life I might have called good.
+Every thing in this region of my thoughts was like a bare parcht
+waste. But everything evil rolled in whirling circles wearyingly
+and dizzyingly before my inward eye. My vices and errours, all the
+faults and misdeeds of my life, every wretched moment of my
+temporal existence gathered round me as it were with the cries and
+croaking of fierce hungry birds of prey. O these sins how hugely
+and gigantically they swelled out! How horrible it was to see
+their consequences unfolding themselves far, far away in the
+realms of the future! how they took root and grew up riotously in
+after-generations! nothing but looks of anguish, of reproach, of
+pain, of bitter despair was turned upon me from thence. In like
+manner I easily called to mind all the persons who had ever been
+objects of my hatred or dislike; every tedious hour, the
+recollection of which tortured me afresh; all the folly and
+absurdity that I had ever uttered myself, or heard from others.</p>
+
+<p>In the numerous vast halls countless swarms of men were sitting,
+standing, or walking about, all in the same state of deplorable
+woe. And no variety, no division of time, no hour, no sun or night
+disturbed or changed this melancholy monotonousness. One solitary
+amusement was there. Now and then some one reminded us of our
+former faith, how during our lives we had feared and worshipt a
+God. Then a loud burst of laughter, as at a most portentous
+absurdity, pealed through the hall. Afterward they all grew grave,
+and I strove with all my faculties to call back the reverence, the
+sanctity of my human feelings, but in vain.</p></blockquote>
+
+<hr class="narrow" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>Edward had not observed that the morning was already dawning, so
+completely had he been wrapt up in these singular papers. Without
+doubt too he would have gone on reading much longer, unless he had now
+been interrupted by loud cries and a violent knocking at his door. He
+went to see what it was, and Conrad rusht into the room, heated,
+panting, and with a ferocious look.</p>
+
+<p>"Now we have him!" cried the miner furiously: "did not I say long ago
+that this vagabond is wickedness itself? Only let him instantly be
+bound, master overseer, hand and foot in the heaviest chains you can
+get, and then have the dog flogged till he is cut to pieces, that his
+life and his infernal soul may crawl out of him by inches."</p>
+
+<p>"What is the matter with you?" askt Edward. "I am afraid you must be
+in a fever, and are stark raving."</p>
+
+<p>"Hurrah!" screamed Conrad; "now my cruel illness will soon be gone,
+now that the miscreant has been caught at his wicked tricks. He will
+never carry me down again now into their rubbishy straw."</p>
+
+<p>"Whom are you talking of?" Edward again began: "surely not of the
+Hungarian miner?"</p>
+
+<p>"The very person," answered Conrad: "the monster has been stealing,
+and is in league with a whole gang of thieves. Hark you, to cut the
+matter short, I could not sleep last night, and so roamed about the
+woods, in part to get myself some herbs to cure my ailing. It was just
+beginning to dawn, when I heard something like wheels down below,
+along the lonely lane in the thick of the wood, and at the same time
+there was a moaning and groaning; for at night one hears and makes out
+every thing much plainlier. Off I ran. Two fellows were drawing a cart
+in great tribulation and fear, and the pale rascal was walking
+alongside, and driving them on. 'Scoundrels!' I shouted in their
+faces! and the word was hardly out of my throat, when the two thieves
+had already scampered off; but the pale skinny mountebank I held fast;
+the cart with the stolen goods is standing in the wood. They will soon
+bring it after me however; for I met a couple of workmen whom I sent
+for it; and the Hungarian waivode I have dragged hither with my own
+hand."</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the whole house was in an uprore. The stranger was sitting
+handcufft at the door; and miners, spinners, and weavers came
+crowding; others flockt from the mills; and all were shouting, all
+were staring with wonder at each other; everybody wanted to tell his
+story, and nobody seemed to know what it was that had happened; so
+that Edward and Conrad began with much perplexity and annoyance to
+question one after another, until the miner cried out with his
+thundering voice: "Hold your jaws all of you. Not a soul shall speak
+another word, except he whom your young master shall ask."</p>
+
+<p>One-eyed Michael was standing near them, and, as Edward turned to him,
+he said: "It may have been about three in the morning when I set off
+from the forge to deliver a message betimes at the smelting house up
+in the mountains. I was walking along the path through the wood,
+thinking no harm, save that when I got pretty near to the warehouse
+all the nightly robberies came across me which have been going on this
+many a long day there. 'I'd give the world to catch the rogue,' I said
+to myself, when all at once a gun went off. A gun! what ho! that put
+me to my wits. 'There are never any sportsmen hereabout,' I said, and
+began marching and bustling on with a little more haste and speed. In
+a few moments I hear cries and yells and shouts, and a pothering and
+squabbling. All this methinks can never be right. I get to the top,
+and now I see the whole business. The warehouse is open, several
+barrows and men are before it, they are piling up the goods: a short
+figure that I could not make out in the dark, panting and whining,
+screaming and grumbling, is shuffling and tumbling about. I make up to
+the fellows with the stolen goods. Then some of them seized me fast
+and prest down my eyes. The noise lessens, I can't cry out, nor would
+it do me much good. When they let me loose again, there was nothing to
+be seen. Even the limper, in spite of all my search, had got off and
+was not to be found. When I came nearer the houses I awoke every body
+with my shouts, telling them to go and watch the warehouse, and scour
+after the rogues."</p>
+
+<p>"And I," cried Conrad, "have lugged the commander in chief of the
+cutpurses by the throat, that sapient soothsayer that was playing off
+his pranks with his match the other day at your forge."</p>
+
+<p>Then they all set off again telling their stories, shouting and
+screaming, just as noisily as before. Edward however gave orders what
+all were to do; the stranger was to be watcht, the stolen goods to be
+taken into the house, and everybody was to be quiet, not to disturb
+their old master's rest, should he be still asleep. He himself
+hastened with a few others to the warehouse, to arrange matters there,
+and, if possible, to find out more about the thieves.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="narrow" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>Edward found marks of blood in the warehouse and on the ground
+without, and he and his companions followed them. Anon they lost sight
+of them, then discovered them again in a thicket on one side, and a
+little after in one of the bypaths. Edward walkt on with anxious
+feelings; a boding prest upon his heart; he was unwilling to confess
+his misgivings even to himself. Ere long however they turned to
+certainty; for the traces led to the house of Eleazar, which lay on a
+green slope. When they got up to it they found all the neighbours
+already in motion; people were coming from the town; the priest of the
+parish was just passing through the door. Within everything was in
+confusion, and a physician and surgeon were busy upstairs.</p>
+
+<p>Edward left his companions without, and with a beating heart opened
+the chamber door. Eleazar was lying pale and with ghastly features in
+his bed. His wound had just been examined, and a bandage placed on it.
+Everybody in the room, the physician, surgeon, priest, and servants
+lookt frightened and distrest; for there was something in this
+accident so mysterious and terrible that no one could help being
+struck with awe by it.</p>
+
+<p>The surgeon, whom Edward took aside, shook his head, and assured him
+that all assistance was in vain; the patient would hardly live through
+the day. Eleazar now raised himself out of his stupour, lookt round,
+and perceived Edward. "Aha!" he cried with a strained and faint voice,
+"You too are already there! Well! You have at last got the better of
+me. This is what you have been driving at this long time. I am now
+lying here, and all is over, all is found out; there are no more
+questions and answers, no more todays and tomorrows. How it will fare
+with you remains to be seen hereafter. Not well most undoubtedly. So
+don't triumph in your imaginary virtue."</p>
+
+<p>He beckoned and made the priest bring him a paper that was lying in
+the window. "Give this to the old man of the mountain," he then went
+on; "he will see from it how I loved him; for it is my will."</p>
+
+<p>The priest now said a few words, begging to be left alone with the
+sick man. Edward was glad to leave the room and refresh himself in the
+open air. Here Conrad again ran up to him out of breath, and cried &#8230;
+"Confusion worse confounded! Only think what he has been doing, our
+virtuous Eleazar! his last loaf has already been baked for him. Look
+you, this fellow, this lord and master of the country, this son-in-law
+of the old man of the mountain, is a scurvy thief &#8230; Now I will
+forgive that white-faced Hungarian wretch for serving me as he did the
+other day; for what is all the reputation in the earth, all the honour
+in the world come to?"</p>
+
+<p>The whole neighbourhood, town and country, was in consternation at
+this event. The most incredible thing in the world had taken place, a
+crime that could neither be denied nor concealed, committed by a man
+whom all had been forced to regard with respect, whom all had lookt
+upon as their future master and protector; and they could not recover
+from their astonishment, or fall back into their ordinary occupations;
+for their minds in this turmoil had for a while lost every standard by
+which a man measures himself.</p>
+
+<p>The old man amid the general tumult had already learnt the whole
+story, in spite of the pains Edward had taken to prevent it. He had
+lockt himself up in his room and let nobody in.</p>
+
+<p>Edward now interrogated the stranger. This man had for a long time had
+dealings with Eleazar; he lived in a town a good many miles off, and
+had often sent agents up the mountains and helpt in selling the stolen
+goods. A tradesman in another small town was also a party in the
+affair. The Hungarian had quarelled with Eleazar, and had come up into
+these parts with a view of going to old Balthasar, sounding him, and,
+if he found him inclined to pay well for it, disclosing the whole
+history of the abominable transaction. But as the old man had not
+shewn any mind to have recourse to superstitious devices, still less
+to give ear to his covert hints, so that the stranger might have
+brought his own neck into the noose if he had betrayed too much, he
+drew off and remained faithful to his confederate Eleazar, who had
+quieted him with a sum of money, along with large promises for the
+future.</p>
+
+<p>The old man's great bell now rang, and Edward took up his papers and
+went to him. "You have lookt over and corrected all my accounts, my
+dear friend?" he began with outward calmness. Edward said yes, as he
+set down the books; but he hesitated and knew not whether to give in
+Eleazar's will along with them. The old man however took it himself
+out of his hand and cast his eyes over it.</p>
+
+<p>"It is now three months," he began, "since he made me heir to all he
+has, in case he should die before me. He has drawn up a list of all
+his effects, and points out where each thing may be found. The chief
+article is a number of gold bars, which he says are of his own making.
+Read it."</p>
+
+<p>Edward took the papers with some embarrassment. "Is it not true?" said
+the old man after some time, "does any thing but madness animate and
+rule the whole world? Can you understand this man and his character in
+any other way? To be sure this word itself does not help us to
+understand it. O young man, young man, do you not feel now how
+thoroughly right I was? I trusted this man unlimitedly, because he was
+not girt round with any delusive deceitful show; because nothing in my
+heart sallied forth to meet him, and I did not lie to myself in his
+behalf for the sake of pampering my own vanity. Ay, my friend, now
+everything is detected and noised abroad; he is going &#8230; and in this
+will he gives me back what the lawyers would call my property. His
+will! Now forsooth it must also be time to make mine, and a different
+one from what I intended. Now your nice feelings of honour will no
+doubt condescend to stay with me a little longer &#8230; and my child, my
+Rose! alas, how fearful it is that this darling of my heart is also a
+human being!"</p>
+
+<p>"At such an hour as this," answered Edward, "which must needs strike
+you with horrour, I will not again declare the wishes of my heart to
+you; you yourself have toucht upon them, or I should have refrained
+even from these words. But undoubtedly I must now stay with you:
+destiny compells me to do so, and imposes it as a sacred duty upon
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"Destiny with a vengeance!" said the old man with his bitter smile:
+"you take a fancy to Rose; you hear she is already engaged; this
+drives you away from me; but before you take leave, your honour must
+be cleared and furbisht up; and as a remembrance you shoot my most
+intimate friend, the man after my own soul, and tear him from my side.
+Now Rose is at liberty, you are your own master, your rival is got rid
+of; and destiny has managed the whole matter admirably. But whether
+this shot has not pierced through my heart, whether it has not rent
+and burst asunder the innermost sanctuary of my soul &#8230; these
+questions are never thought of. There is as it were a huge chasm
+yawning in my spirit &#8230; confidence, faith &#8230; everything &#8230; did not
+I say so? good is the only real evil &#8230; Edward! don't look so sad &#8230;
+methinks I am talking quite wildly."</p>
+
+<p>He took the young man's hand. "Bring me the mayor this evening, and
+the priest and bailiff as witnesses. You are now my son, and this is
+the spirit I shall now make my will in. I feel it is high time; for it
+would be horrible if Helbach were to fling all my fortune to the dogs.
+O if I could but totally forget this shot and Eleazar! if such wild
+thoughts did not keep rushing about in my brain! Now you and Rose will
+stay with me."</p>
+
+<p>Edward withdrew. He went to look for Rose in her room. She burst out
+a-crying, jumpt up from her chair, and threw herself into the young
+man's arms with an expression of the fondest affection. "Alas Edward!"
+she cried sobbing, and hid her face on his breast: "only look now at
+what I have to go through in my youth. This was never sung over me in
+my cradle, that I should lose my husband in so shocking a manner, and
+even before our wedding. And the last thing I should have thought of
+was that you were to shoot him dead, you, the dearest and kindest of
+all men.&mdash;Alas! poor, poor Eleazar! when he came from nature's hands,
+such an odious misshapen abortion of a man! And now into the bargain
+to steal, to lie, and to cheat! to rob my good father, who meant to
+give him everything! What will become of his poor soul now? Oh yes, he
+has perisht still more cruelly, he is much more unhappy than my cat
+with her kittens, that he shot so barbarously on the orange tree. Alas
+Edward! are you then in real truth such a good creature, as I have
+always believed you? or are you perchance very wicked too? You did not
+mean it, did you? that Eleazar should die so?"</p>
+
+<p>Edward took pains to explain the nature of the whole affair to her.
+"Be composed," he continued; "the course of our lives here has suddenly
+undergone a violent change; we must all overcome this shock, to get
+back again into the path of our ordinary duty. A few days since you
+were sorry that I was going away; if it can give you any comfort, let
+me assure you that for the present at least I shall and must stay
+here. Do you still wish that I should?"</p>
+
+<p>She gazed at him affectionately and seemed comforted. "So then that is
+settled now!" she exclaimed: "ah yes, I always thought you would stay;
+for I can't live without you; and my father can't live without you;
+and all our poor workmen and spinners, our good miners, for whom you
+are always saying and doing something, and who, when they come for
+their wages or for relief, look with their whole souls into your kind
+eyes, these above all can never live without you."</p>
+
+<p>"This calamity," said Edward, "may hereafter make you, your father,
+me, and all of us happy. The discovery was inevitable; and perhaps, if
+it had not taken place now, it would have come at a time when it would
+have plunged us all in misery."</p>
+
+<p>"If my father now," said Rose, "were to have no objection, I might
+perhaps in time accustom myself to look upon you as my future husband.
+If I could but feel a little more respect and awe for you! If you
+would behave very roughly to me now and then, not always so kindly,
+but angrily and savagely at times, I might by and by grow reconciled
+to it."</p>
+
+<p>Edward went to his business. The uprore had ceast, and the whole house
+was now quiet and silent: it seemed as if people were afraid of even
+breathing: all walkt about softly and on tiptoe. News came that
+Eleazar was dead.</p>
+
+<p>Toward evening Edward went with the mayor and witnesses into old
+Balthasar's room. He was surprised to find him in bed. On being spoken
+to by his visitors he lifted himself up, stared fixedly at them, and
+seemed to know no one. "Aha! reverend Sir," he cried out after a
+while, "you are come to fetch away a second poor sinner today. It is a
+busy time in your vocation. Is master Eleazar come with you?"</p>
+
+<p>He beckoned to Edward. "Thou yellow blockhead!" he whispered to him;
+"what am I to do with thy gold bars that thou hast left me? don't
+thrust thy stupid cheat into men's eyes so &#8230; it is far too glaring.
+But beware of Edward, he is wise and good. If he should ever suspect
+thee, thou art lost."</p>
+
+<p>He talkt to the others, but still quite at random, and was taken up
+with the phantoms of his own brain. The mayor and witnesses retired,
+and Edward went after the physician. The business of drawing up the
+will was put off, until the sick man should have recovered and be
+restored to his perfect consciousness.</p>
+
+<p>The physician found the patient's state very alarming. Edward was
+called up in the night; but when he entered the room Herr Balthasar
+had already breathed his last.</p>
+
+<p>The dismay, the sorrow was universal. The mayor sent to have
+everything sealed up. In the midst of this confusion, it seemed a
+matter of very little moment that the Hungarian had found means to
+escape from his prison.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="narrow" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>In the town where the extravagant counsellor Helbach lived, there was
+a great feast at which all the epicures famous for their love of good
+eating and their knowledge of good dishes were assembled. The
+counsellor himself was the soul of such parties: his word was law in
+them; and he it was that had managed the present banquet.</p>
+
+<p>The dinner was nearly over; some of the guests, who had business to
+call them away, were gone: the company had grown quieter; and it was
+only at the upper end of the table, where the counsellor and some of
+the scientific eaters were sitting, that the conversation was carried
+on with any spirit.</p>
+
+<p>"Believe me, my friends," said the counsellor with great earnestness,
+"the art of eating, the skill men may attain in it, has its epochs,
+its classical ages, and its decline, corruption, and dark ages, just
+as much as every other art; and it seems to me that we are now again
+verging to a kind of barbarism in it. Luxury, profusion, rarities, new
+dishes, overpeppering, overspicing, all these, my good sirs, are the
+artifices now commonly made use of to obtain admiration for a dinner;
+and yet these are the very things from which a thinking eater will
+turn away with contemptuous slight. In the whole of this department
+indeed much still remains to be done; and the stories we read of the
+old gormandizer, Heliogabalus, and others who lived during the
+decrepitude of the Roman empire, stories at which many men stare with
+stupid astonishment, ought only to excite our pity."</p>
+
+<p>"It must always be difficult no doubt," said one of the guests, "to
+frame any distinct conception of the dishes and the delicacies of a
+former age. If we dress them by such receits as remain, the result
+will always have something absurd in it, like the dinner which
+Smollett describes so humourously in his <i>Peregrine Pickle</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"That tact on which after all everything depends," answered the
+counsellor, "is sure to be wanting, that nice knowledge of the exact
+limit between too much and too little which nothing but instinct can
+bestow; and even this instinct must be cultivated by studying the
+properties of fire, the culinary powers of which can never be
+described, and which a cook can only make himself master of by long
+experience, judgement, and observation, nor even then unless he was
+born a cook. The main point however is, that our tongue and palate
+have been trained and fashioned from our childhood to particular
+tastes, likings, and antipathies; so that often the very best, most
+judicious, and admirable thing, if it come across us on a sudden as a
+novelty, as something we have never set tooth on, and thus give a
+shock to all our prepossessions, will be disregarded and abused; until
+at length in course of time on our becoming familiar with the
+stranger's merits, he is naturalized: and then the new knowledge we
+have acquired will often exercise the most salutary influence and
+throw much light on other dishes, both old and lately invented ones,
+so that our palate is as it were strung with a new chord, which sends
+forth a variety of delicious notes. Moreover the ages that are gone
+and the ideas that prevailed among our forefathers are still acting
+upon this _tastature_ of mankind, as a race made to relish, to discern,
+and to enjoy; and as in philosophy and science, in politics and
+government, so here too there is an unbroken chain; the accumulated
+experience of centuries moulded us to be just such as we are; and this
+state of our taste can and must only be modified by degrees; nor could
+anything be more ruinous than a sudden revolution which should throw
+everything topsy turvy. In every field of human action history is
+man's best master."</p>
+
+<p>"You yourself," said the guest, "should write a history of the
+articles of food, the art of eating, and the progress of the human
+mind in it."</p>
+
+<p>"When one is oneself a practical artist," answered the counsellor,
+"and so devoted a one as I am, so diligent in working at my art, and
+so ready to try every new experiment in it, one must leave such
+matters to people of an idler and more contemplative turn. If you aim
+at doing everything, you will never do anything well and thoroughly."</p>
+
+<p>"Why," resumed the other, "do we hear this perpetual abuse of
+sensuality? why will men so seldom confess, and even then but
+reluctantly, the pleasure they take in eating and drinking?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because," said counsellor Helbach, "they never know what they are
+really at. It has always struck me as very remarkable and singular
+that, in the little round box in which all our finer senses are ranged
+and stored up, and in the top of which moreover our thinking powers,
+and all the noblest intellectual products of our soul are deposited,
+we should find that red-lined drawer close beneath, with the delicate
+little bosses set like jewels over the tremulous vocal tongue and
+palate, garnisht in front with teeth that toil and cut, and closed by
+the graceful mouth. Eating is only another mode of thinking. Thus this
+box is a coppel in which the essences of all created things, the
+finest and the grossest, vapours and juices, the soft soothing oils,
+the bitternesses and tartnesses which at first seem grating, the
+flavour which evaporates in a momentary enjoyment, are put to the
+test. First the teeth begin chopping and grinding; the tongue, at
+other times so talkative, silently and busily rolls about and makes
+much of the morsels it receives, presses them affectionately and
+benevolently against the palate, to double its pleasure by sharing it;
+and when this tender dalliance has been sufficiently indulged in, at
+length pushes them back almost unwillingly to its friend that swallows
+them down, and that indeed has the real enjoyment of them, the highest
+of all, though but for a moment, and then with heroic self-sacrifice
+makes them over to another power. Straightway the same game is
+repeated a second, a third, a thousandth time. I never yet heard it
+said that any self-tormenting anchoret had courage enough altogether
+to forgo the pleasure of eating, even though he stinted himself to
+bread. Indeed kind Nature has taken such good care of her children,
+that it is next to impossible."</p>
+
+<p>"A very just and profound remark!" exclaimed his neighbour.</p>
+
+<p>"We see too," continued the dissertator, "what high importance nature
+has attacht to these processes of devouring, eating, chewing, and
+swallowing, and how in every sphere of existence they have been her
+main end and aim. What would become of all the animals upon the earth,
+of all the birds that roam through the air, and all the swarms of
+greater and lesser creatures that people the waters and the sea,
+unless every one of them had received a bill, payable at sight, upon
+his neighbour. What would they live on, if they did not live on one
+another? or where forsooth would they find room to live? Is not the
+world perpetually oscillating between the two great works of producing
+and of devouring? The king of the creation, man, stands at the summit,
+as the crown and the final object of all these multiform guests. Those
+his subalterns, who have an assignment either one upon the other, or
+upon the vegetable world, look up to him with reverential awe: for it
+is not merely one thing or another, not merely beasts or vegetables,
+not merely fishes or birds, no, almost everything without exception
+he turns into food, making all classes of his subjects the sources of
+his happiness. It is only from his own kind, and from a few which
+serve him as his immediate vassals, or the flesh of which, whether
+from prejudice or in reality, does not taste agreeably, that he
+abstains. By means of fire, that performs his bidding, out of strong
+essences, butter, oil, and spices, vegetables and flesh, all artfully
+mingled and chemically prepared, he concocts the most extraordinary
+combinations to please his palate. While the eye is weeping at top,
+and the brain above it is brooding over touching thoughts, or kindling
+itself and the heart with inspiring ones, while the nose inhaling
+hyacinthine odours awakens visions of sweet desire in the imagination,
+the mouth below is already lusting and licking its lips after the
+venison or the liver pasty that is carried by. The sentimental young
+lady feeds her pigeons with pathetical grace; and the very mouth which
+lisps the prettiest verses and most moving idyls to them, will swallow
+the same innocent creatures by and by with exquisite relish. Could
+animals make observations as we do, and were a poet some day to rise
+up amongst them, in what strange colours would he represent man!"</p>
+
+<p>"Truly," said his friend, "such a jest, thus retorted upon mankind,
+would be extremely amusing."</p>
+
+<p>"We are fond of boasting of our universality," counsellor Helbach went
+on, "and yet in the very art in which Nature herself has so manifestly
+intended us to be universal, I mean in that of eating, many people
+scorn to become so, and fancy it is more dignified to treat this whole
+branch of knowledge with contempt. And yet the flocks of birds of
+passage, the shoals of wandering fishes, come from distant regions,
+flying and swimming into our nets, for the mere pleasure of our
+palates; and the fruits of every climate, of every soil, of every
+quarter of the globe, blend into enjoyment within us. Who does not
+perceive in an oyster, if at least he is gifted with a true sense for
+it, the might and the freshness of the sea! O asparagus, he that has
+not the wit to enjoy thee, can know nothing of the mysteries which the
+dreaming world of plants reveals to us! Can one understand anything of
+the history of the world or of poetry, if one is a stranger to all
+these natural elementary feelings, and incapable of doing justice to
+the worth of a snipe, or even of a turbot?"</p>
+
+<p>The other guests had already retired; the dinner was quite over; and
+only counsellor Helbach and his two nearest and most intimate friends
+were still sitting engaged in this and the like conversation.</p>
+
+<p>"I am quite surprised," one of them began, "at the buoyant youthful
+spirit which you still retain, at your jovial animation, your lively
+poetical playfulness. All the rest of us have grown so old, and the
+weight of years presses so heavily upon us, while you are still
+jesting, and pleasure has lost none of its freshness or charms with
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"We are all alone now," said the counsellor, "and I may therefore
+speak more from my heart to such old friends. It is true, this sensual
+enjoyment gives me pleasure, and will console me at times for the want
+of much: but I am not the frivolous person you take me for, perhaps
+never was so. Almost everybody has a mask; and this is mine. I move
+about in it lightly and with ease, and so most people take it for my
+real character. My youth was a very sad one: my parents displayed all
+their weaknesses, their extravagance and ostentation, so glaringly to
+me and to all the world, that I could not look upon them with esteem;
+and this to a young man is of all feelings the most terrible. Poverty
+and distress, privations of every kind may be borne much more easily:
+but a calamity like mine crushes the heart before it is yet grown up.
+I had to play the part of a rich man, to squander money, to give
+myself airs. When one puts on the semblance of anything for a time, it
+will soon become a portion of our nature. Imitate a stutterer for a
+while, and you will have to keep diligent watch over yourself not to
+stammer in earnest. I fell in love, and was on the point of changing
+into a totally different person; for my passion was sincere and
+ardent. But new distress. The noble being who soon became my wife,
+could never give me her heart. The strongest passion must die away
+when it finds no return; and in such a case a man has done enough, if
+this finest feeling of his nature do not turn into hatred and malice.
+For myself I was thrown back by this into my apparent frivolity: and
+not to make a show of my unhappiness, like my wife, who, though
+otherwise admirable, gave way too much to this weakness, I abandoned
+myself to riotous conviviality, turbulent pleasures, and unprofitable
+society. There is often a spirit of defiance in us, having something
+of nobleness in it, and not utterly condemnable, which withholds
+strong characters from reforming and improving, notwithstanding all
+the admonitions of conscience. The more unhappy I felt myself, the
+more I acted happiness. After my son was born, my wife began to shun
+me altogether, and would often wilfully misunderstand me. She devoted
+all her affection and care to her child, lived only for him, and
+brought him up to be so capricious and headstrong, that she herself
+was the greatest sufferer by his faults, and yet had not strength of
+mind enough to eradicate the fatal perverseness, which she herself had
+first fostered in him. My advice was not listened to: it had been
+taken for granted that I could no more love the child, than appreciate
+and esteem the mother. My heart bled; and yet I could not interfere
+authoritatively, unless I would consent to be regarded by her and by
+the whole world as a monster, being already called a tyrant,
+unfeeling, and frivolous, and having been so long wont to give up the
+point that I often lookt on myself as such. Thus my son was bred up as
+a stranger to me, with all his feelings purposely and studiously
+alienated from me: but his over-weak, too passionately fond mother was
+no gainer thereby; for she likewise lost his depraved heart, over
+which, when the boy was grown up, she had not the slightest influence.
+How reckless and unmanageable he has been, you well know; how wretched
+his mother has become, is notorious; but my life too, my friends, is a
+lost one."</p>
+
+<p>A servant came hastily in, and told the counsellor he must go home
+immediately: for something of great importance had happened.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="narrow" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>The wife of counsellor Helbach was sitting in her bedroom, which only
+let in a faint dim light from the court. Her tear-worn eyes were
+stedfastly fixt on an open gospel; she read devoutly, and prayed.
+Suddenly she heard a noise; her servant was pusht forcibly back by
+some one whom he was trying to keep away; the door was thrust open,
+and a young man threw himself impetuously at her feet, seized her hand
+in her fright and covered it with kisses, while a hot flood of tears
+gusht from his eyes. It was not till after a while that the mother
+recognized the son whom she had deemed lost. Her strong emotions
+overcame her: she askt: "Whence comest thou?&#8230; stand up &#8230; my
+unhappy child come to my arms&#8230;." More she could not say.</p>
+
+<p>"You do not cast me off, you do not abhor me?" cried the youth in a
+trance of grief: "Oh God! have I deserved that a single spark of love
+for me should yet linger in this noble heart! Am I worthy of a single
+look from her!"</p>
+
+<p>They continued long closely embraced, and quite unable to speak. "But
+mother," the young man said at length, "can you hold the monster in
+your arms, to your heart, who, when he last saw you&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, my son, my beloved son, do not call back that horrible moment,
+which we must forget;" so the mother stammered out. "I too know now
+that I did you injustice then; the girl you loved is worthy of your
+love, as has been proved since. I myself had not taught you
+sufficiently to controul your passions. Let that hour vanish for ever
+like a painful dream from our lives. But whence comest thou? where
+hast thou been living all this time?"</p>
+
+<p>They sat down; they both tried to regain their self-possession and
+calmness in this sudden change from sorrow to joy. The young man
+related&mdash;while from time to time he again embraced his beloved mother,
+or kist her hands&mdash;how after that fearful moment he had roamed about
+in despair without any plan or view; how, when he was destitute of all
+means of subsistence, finding himself near the mountains, he had made
+up his mind to apply to Herr Balthasar, in the chance of obtaining
+support from him. Hearing however of his singular peculiarities, and
+how difficult it was to gain admittance to him, he had altered his
+plan, formed an acquaintance with his overseer, Edward, under the
+assumed name of William Lorenz, and been taken into the house as
+secretary. To see his beloved, who was travelling in the
+neighbourhood, he had left his post, returned, and again gone away on
+being alarmed by hearing that his mother was coming to visit her
+kinsman.</p>
+
+<p>"This very day," he concluded, "I met a traveller, a Hungarian, who
+was come in haste from the mountains, and who told me a very important
+piece of news. I was on my way hither to throw myself at your feet,
+whether you would forgive me or no, when I met him in the next town.
+Do not be too much shockt &#8230; Herr Balthasar is no more &#8230; he died
+suddenly in a fit, without having made a will, as the stranger said he
+knew for certain. The house, the little town, the whole neighbourhood
+are in the utmost confusion. O my mother, we may all be happy, we may
+all live affectionately together, if you will believe in my repentance
+and reformation, if we can persuade my father to assent to the plan I
+have to propose to him. I know you will now no longer refuse your
+consent to my marriage with Caroline: the objection that we were both
+of us so poor, is now done away: we are become too rich, far too much
+so, to trust ourselves with all this wealth."</p>
+
+<p>When their spirits were grown calm, and every thing had been
+explained, a servant was sent after the counsellor, who came home in a
+more serious and susceptible mood than was his wont. How great was his
+astonishment at having to embrace his lost son, reformed and become a
+reasonable being! He was quite unprepared for so joyful a shock. His
+wife too received him with more confidence and affection: the death of
+the beloved of her youth had affected her deeply.</p>
+
+<p>Thus for the first time this family was united and happy, and amid
+their sorrow felt a pure joy in the prospect of a comfortable and
+prosperous future. The old man, who resolved to amend after the
+example of his son, and to pass the remainder of his life more
+decorously, agreed, even without any persuasion, to make over the
+uncontrouled management of the property legally to his son, who was
+now of age. It was settled that the mother and son should go first to
+their new estate, to arrange every thing, and that Caroline should
+follow soon after, and become his bride: the counsellor himself
+preferred living still in his native town, and merely visiting his
+family occasionally in the summer.</p>
+
+<p>"Thus," he concluded, "we may still restore a household that was
+almost lost, and raise it above what it ever was by mutual affection
+and unity. My annuity is more than enough to support me; and should it
+fall short, as I think can hardly happen, my son will assist me with a
+small contribution."</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="narrow" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>Up in the mountains everything was now quiet. Balthasar, as well as
+his treacherous old friend, was in his grave. William, as he had
+formerly been called, arrived there with his mother to take possession
+of the estate. The mayor and Edward gave everything up to him; and
+when the surrender was completed, and Edward was left alone with the
+mother and son, William thus interrupted their silent meditations:
+"Now we are all among friends, my dear Edward, and I may talk with
+perfect frankness to you, and shew my gratitude, if you choose so to
+call it, for your former kindness. One night, when I was here, and had
+been copying papers till very late, I was lockt into the anteroom; the
+door had been fastened on the outside, and I did not like to make a
+noise and call up the servants, more especially as Herr Balthasar used
+to be much annoyed and worried by any disturbance. During the night,
+while I kept perfectly still, I heard the unhappy old man walking to
+and fro in his room, sometimes sighing heavily, sometimes moaning and
+wailing as he talkt to himself. They were not merely broken sounds and
+exclamations; but it seemed to be his custom to talk over sundry
+events of his life, as if he was speaking to some invisible person.
+Thus I heard the story of his youth, of his intolerable woes, but at
+the same time of his love for Edward, and what part of his fortune he
+meant to leave him. The chief thing however, and what toucht me most,
+was to learn that Rose was not his adopted, but his real daughter. His
+self-reproaches, his lamentations over her deceast mother, his bursts
+of pity for Rose, were heart-rending. Now then, my beloved mother and
+my dear Edward, what remains for us to do? Our conscience, if we
+consult it honestly, declares that Rose is his true rightful heir, and
+ought to have the largest part of his fortune."</p>
+
+<p>After this declaration his mother treated the lovely girl as a beloved
+daughter; and on the same day on which William celebrated his wedding,
+Edward had also the happiness of receiving Rose as his bride. The
+fortune was divided; Edward continued to manage all the most important
+affairs; and a happy joyful family inhabited and enlivened the old
+house, which lost its gloomy character, and often resounded with
+music, songs, and dancing, to the delight of all the inhabitants of
+the little town.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><a name="nov2" id="nov2"></a></p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>THE LOVECHARM.</h2>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>Emilius was sitting in deep thought at his table, awaiting his friend
+Roderick. A light was burning before him; the winter-evening was cold;
+and today he wisht for the presence of his fellow traveller, though at
+other times wont to avoid his society; for on this evening he purpost
+to disclose a secret to him and ask his advice. The timid, shy Emilius
+found so many difficulties, such insurmountable hinderances, in every
+affair he was engaged in, and in every event that befell him, that it
+almost seemed as if his destiny had been in an ironical mood when it
+threw him and Roderick together, Roderick being in all things the
+reverse of his friend. Fickle, flighty, always determined and fixt by
+the first impression, he attempted everything, had a plan for every
+emergency; no undertaking was too arduous for him, no obstacles could
+deter him. But in the midst of the pursuit he wearied and broke down
+just as suddenly as at first he had kindled and sprung forward:
+whatever then opposed him did not act as a spur to urge him more
+eagerly onward, but only made him abandon and despise what he had so
+hotly rusht into; and thus Roderick was evermore thoughtlessly
+beginning something new, and with no better reason relinquishing and
+carelessly forgetting what he had begun just before. Hence no day ever
+passed but the friends got into a quarrel, which threatened to be a
+death blow to their friendship: and yet what to all appearance thus
+divided them, was perhaps the very thing that bound them most closely
+together: each loved the other heartily; but each found passing
+satisfaction in being able to discharge the most justly deserved
+reproaches upon his friend.</p>
+
+<p>Emilius, a rich young man of a sensitive and melancholy temperament,
+had become master of his fortune on his father's death, and had set
+out on his travels for the sake of cultivating his mind: he had
+already been spending several months however in a large town, to enjoy
+the pleasures of the carnival, about which he never gave himself the
+slightest trouble, and to make certain important arrangements
+concerning his fortune with some relations, whom he had scarcely yet
+visited. On his journey he had fallen in with the restless,
+ever-shifting and veering Roderick, who was living at variance with
+his guardians, and who, to get rid altogether of them and their
+troublesome admonitions, had caught eagerly at his new friend's offer
+to take him with him on his travels.</p>
+
+<p>On their road they had already been often on the point of separating;
+but after every dispute both had only felt the more forcibly that
+neither could live without the other. Scarcely had they got out of
+their carriage in any town, when Roderick had already seen everything
+remarkable in it, to forget it all again on the morrow: while Emilius
+took a week to study thoroughly whatever was said in books about it,
+that he might not leave anything unnoticed; and after all out of
+indolence thought there was hardly anything worth going to look at.
+Roderick had immediately made a thousand acquaintances, and been to
+every public place of entertainment; and he would often bring his
+new-made friends to Emilius in his solitary chamber, where, as soon as
+he began to be tired of them, he left him alone with them. At other
+times he would confound the modest Emilius by heaping extravagant
+praises on his talents and acquirements in the presence of learned and
+intelligent men, and by telling them how much information they might
+derive from his friend with regard to languages, antiquities, or the
+fine arts, though he himself could never find leisure to listen to him
+on these subjects when the conversation happened to turn on them. But
+if Emilius ever chanced to be in a more active mood, he might almost
+make sure that his truant friend would have caught cold the night
+before at some ball or sledge-party, and be forced to keep his bed; so
+that, with the liveliest, most restless, and most communicative of men
+for his companion, Emilius lived in the greatest solitude.</p>
+
+<p>On this day he confidently expected him, having made Roderick give him
+a solemn promise to spend the evening with him, in order to hear what
+it was that for several weeks had been depressing and agitating his
+pensive friend. Meanwhile Emilius wrote down the following lines:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p class="noindent">'Tis sweet when spring its choir assembles,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And every nightingale is steeping<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The trees in his melodious weeping,<br />
+Till leaf and bloom with rapture trembles.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">Fair is the net that moonlight weaves;<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Fair are the breezes gambolings<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;As with lime-odours on their wings<br />
+They chase each other through the leaves.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">Bright is the glory of the rose,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;When Love's rich magic decks the earth,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;From countless roses Love peeps forth,<br />
+Those stars wherewith Love's heaven glows.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">But sweeter, fairer, brighter far<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;To me that little lamp's pale gleaming,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;When, through the narrow casement streaming<br />
+It bids me hail my evening star;</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">As from their braids she flings her tresses,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Then twines them in a flowery band,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;While at each motion of her hand<br />
+The light robe to her fair form presses;</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">Or when she wakes her lute's deep slumbers,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And, as at morning's touch updarting,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The notes beneath her fingers starting,<br />
+Trip o'er the strings in playful numbers.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">To stop their flight her voice she pours<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Full after them; they laugh, and fly,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And to my heart for refuge hie:<br />
+Her voice pursues them through its doors.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">Leave me, ye mischiefs! hence remove!<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;They bar themselves within, and say:<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Till this be broken here we stay,<br />
+That thou mayst know what 'tis to love.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Emilius stood up fretfully. It grew darker, but no Roderick came; and
+he was wishing to tell him of his love for an unknown fair one, who
+dwelt in the opposite house, and who kept him at home all day long,
+and waking through many a night.</p>
+
+<p>At length footsteps sounded on the stairs; the door opened without
+anybody knocking at it: and in came two gay masks with ugly visages,
+one of them a Turk, drest in red and blue silk, the other a Spaniard,
+in pale yellow and pink, with a plume of feathers waving on his hat.
+When Emilius was losing patience, Roderick took off his mask, shewed
+his well-known laughing countenance, and cried: "Heyday, my good
+friend, what a drowned puppy of a face! Is this the way to look in the
+carnival? I am come with my dear young officer here to carry you off:
+there is a grand ball tonight at the masquerade-rooms; and, as I know
+you have forsworn ever putting on any other suit than that which you
+always wear of the devil's own colour, come with us black as you are;
+for it is getting somewhat late."</p>
+
+<p>Emilius felt angry, and said: "It seems that according to custom you
+have totally forgotten your engagement. I am extremely sorry," (he
+added, turning to the stranger) "that I cannot possibly be of your
+party: my friend has been overhasty in promising for me; indeed I
+cannot go out at all, having some matters of importance to talk over
+with him."</p>
+
+<p>The stranger, who was well-bred and saw Emiliuses meaning, withdrew:
+but Roderick with the utmost indifference put on his mask again, took
+his stand before the glass, and exclaimed: "Verily, I am a most
+hideous figure, am I not? After all my pains it is a tasteless,
+disgusting device."</p>
+
+<p>"That there can be no question about!" answered Emilius in vehement
+displeasure. "Making a caricature of yourself, and stupefying your
+senses, are among the pleasures you are the fondest of driving at."</p>
+
+<p>"Because you don't like dancing," said the other, "and look upon it as
+a pernicious invention, not a soul in the world is to be merry. How
+tiresome it is when a man is made up of nothing but whims!"</p>
+
+<p>"Doubtless!" replied his irritated friend; "and you afford me ample
+opportunity for finding that it is so. I fancied that after our
+agreement you would have given me this one evening; but&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But it is the carnival, you know," interposed the other; "and all my
+acquaintances, and divers fair ladies are expecting me at the grand
+ball tonight. Rely upon it, my dear friend, it is mere disease in you
+that makes you so unreasonably averse to all such amusements."</p>
+
+<p>"Which of us has the fairest claim to be called diseased," said
+Emilius, "I will not examine. But I cannot think that your
+incomprehensible frivolousness, your hunger and thirst for
+dissipation, your restless chase after pleasures that leave the heart
+empty, are altogether the healthiest state of human nature. On certain
+points at all events you might make a little allowance for my
+weakness, if you are determined to call it so; and you know there is
+nothing in the world that so sets my whole soul on edge as a ball with
+its frightful music. Somebody has said, that to a deaf person who
+cannot hear the music a party of dancers must look like so many
+patients for a madhouse: but to my mind this detestable music itself,
+this twirling and whirling and pirouetting of half a dozen notes, each
+treading on its own heels, in those odious tunes, which ram themselves
+into our memory, nay, I might say, mix themselves up with our very
+blood, so that one cannot get rid of the taint for many a woful day
+after,&mdash;this to me is the very trance of madness: and if I could ever
+bring myself to think dancing endurable, it would be dancing to the
+tune of silence."</p>
+
+<p>"Bravo, signor paradox-monger!" exclaimed the mask: "You are so far
+gone, that you choose to think the most natural, the most innocent,
+and the merriest thing in the world unnatural, ay, and shocking."</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot change my feelings," said his grave friend. "From my very
+childhood these tunes have made me unhappy, and have often all but
+driven me out of my senses. They are to me the ghosts and spectres and
+furies in the world of sound, and they come and buz round my head, and
+grin at me with horrid laughter."</p>
+
+<p>"Sheer nervousness!" returned the other; "just like your extravagant
+abhorrence of spiders and divers other harmless insects."</p>
+
+<p>"Harmless you call them!" cried Emilius indignantly, "because you have
+no repugnance to such things. To him however that feels the same
+disgust and loathing, the same unutterable shuddering, as I feel,
+start up within him and shoot through his whole frame at the sight of
+them, these miscreate deformities, such as toads, beetles, or that
+most nauseous of all Nature's abortions, the bat, are not indifferent
+or insignificant: their very existence is a state of direct enmity and
+warfare against his. In good truth one might smile at the unbelievers
+whose imagination is too barren for ghosts and fearful goblins, and
+such births of night as we see in sickness, to grow up in it, or who
+stare and marvel at Dante's descriptions; when the commonest everyday
+life is perpetually paralysing our eyesight with some of these
+portentous distorted masterpieces among the works of horrour. Yet how
+can we have a real feeling and love for beauty, without detesting and
+recoiling from such monstrosities?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why recoil from them?" askt Roderick: "why should we see nothing in
+the vast realm of water, in lakes, rivers, and seas, but those dismal
+objects which you have taught yourself to find there? why not rather
+look on such creatures as queer, amusing, and ludicrous mummers? so
+that the deep might be called a kind of large maskt ballroom. But your
+caprices go still further; for while you love roses with a sort of
+idolatry, there are other flowers for which you have a no less
+passionate hatred: yet what harm has the dear bright tulip ever done
+you? or all the other gay children of summer that you persecute? Thus
+again you have an antipathy to sundry colours, to sundry scents, and
+to a number of thoughts; and you never take any pains to strengthen
+yourself against these moods, but give way to them and sink down into
+them as into a luxurious feather bed; so that I often fear I shall
+lose you altogether some day, and find nothing but a patchwork of
+whims and prejudices sitting at that table instead of my Emilius."</p>
+
+<p>Emilius was wroth to the bottom of his heart, and answered not a word.
+He had now given up all thought of making his intended confession; nor
+did the thoughtless Roderick shew the least wish to hear the secret
+which his melancholy companion had announced to him with such an air
+of solemnity. He was sitting carelessly in the armchair, playing with
+his mask, when on a sudden he cried: "Be so kind, Emilius, as to lend
+me your large cloak."</p>
+
+<p>"What for?" askt the other.</p>
+
+<p>"I hear music in the church over the way," answered Roderick; "and
+some how or other I have mist this hour every evening since we have
+been here. Today it comes just in the nick: I can cover my dress with
+your cloak, hiding my mask and turban under it; and so, when the music
+is over, I may go straight to the ball."</p>
+
+<p>Emilius muttered between his teeth as he went for the cloak to his
+wardrobe, and then, forcing himself to put on an ironical smile, he
+gave it to Roderick who was already on his legs.</p>
+
+<p>"There, I'll leave you my Turkish dagger that I bought yesterday,"
+said the mask, as he wrapt himself up: "Take care of it for me; it is
+a bad habit, this carrying about toys of cold steel: one can never
+tell what ill use may not be made of them, should a quarrel arise, or
+any other knot that it is easier to cut than untie. We shall meet
+again tomorrow; good bye; a pleasant evening to you." He did not wait
+for an answer, but ran down stairs.</p>
+
+<p>When Emilius was alone, he tried to forget his anger, and to look only
+at the laughable side of his friend's behaviour. His eyes rested on
+the shining, finely wrought dagger, and he said: "What must be the
+feelings of a man who could thrust this sharp iron into the breast of
+an enemy! but oh, what must be his who should hurt a beloved object
+with it!"</p>
+
+<p>He lockt it up, then gently folded back the window shutters, and lookt
+across the narrow street. But no light was stirring; the opposite
+house was quite dark; the dear form that dwelt in it, and that was
+wont to appear there about this time engaged in divers household
+affairs, seemed to be absent. 'Perhaps she may be at the ball,'
+thought Emilius, little as it sorted with her retired way of life. Ere
+long however a light came in: the little girl whom his beloved unknown
+had about her, and with whom she used to pass a great part of the day
+and of the evening, carried a candle through the room and closed the
+shutters. A chink still let the light through, wide enough for
+Emilius, where he stood, to overlook a part of the little room: and
+there the happy youth would often stay till after midnight as if
+charmed to the spot, watching every motion of her hand, every look of
+her beloved face. It was a joy to see her teaching the child to read,
+or giving her lessons in sewing and knitting. On inquiry he had learnt
+that the little girl was a poor orphan, whom his fair maiden had
+charitably taken into the house, to educate her.</p>
+
+<p>Emiliuses friends could not conceive why he lived in this narrow
+street, in this comfortless lodging, why he was so little to be seen
+in society, or how he employed himself. Without employment, in
+solitude, he was happy: only he felt out of humour with himself at his
+own bashfulness, which withheld him from trying to become nearer
+acquainted with this beauteous being, notwithstanding the friendliness
+with which she had several times greeted and thankt him. He knew not
+that she would often gaze over at him with eyes no less lovesick than
+his own: he guessed not what wishes were forming in her heart, of what
+an effort, what a sacrifice she felt herself capable, so she might but
+attain the possession of his love.</p>
+
+<p>After walking a few times up and down the room, the light having gone
+away again with the child, he suddenly made up his mind, in spite of
+all his feelings and inclinations, to go to the ball; for it struck
+him that his unknown might have made an exception for once to her
+usual secluded habits, for the sake of enjoying the world and its
+gaieties.</p>
+
+<p>The streets were brilliantly lighted up; the snow crackled under his
+feet; carriages rolled by him; and masks in every variety of dress
+whistled and twittered as they passed him. Many of the houses
+resounded with the dancing music which he so much abhorred; and he
+could not bring himself to take the nearest way to the ballroom, to
+which people from all quarters were streaming and flocking.</p>
+
+<p>He walkt round the old church, gazed at its high tower rising
+majestically into the dark sky, and enjoyed the stillness and solitude
+of this deserted place. Within the recess of a large doorway, the
+varied sculptures of which he had often contemplated with pleasure,
+while calling up visions of the olden times and the arts that adorned
+them, he now again took his stand, to give himself up for a few
+moments to his musings.</p>
+
+<p>He had not been there long, when his attention was attracted by a
+figure that was pacing restlessly to and fro, and seemed to be waiting
+for somebody. By the light of a lamp burning before an image of the
+Virgin, he distinctly made out the face, as well as the strange dress.
+It was an old woman of the uttermost hideousness, which struck the eye
+the more from her being grotesquely clad in a scarlet bodice
+embroidered with gold. Emilius fancied at first it must be some
+extravagant mask that had lost its way: but the bright light soon
+convinced him that the old brown wrinkled face was one of Nature's
+ploughing, and no mimic exaggeration.</p>
+
+<p>In a few minutes two men made their appearance, wrapt up in cloaks,
+who seemed to approach the spot with cautious steps, often turning
+their heads aside to see whether anybody was following. The old woman
+went up to them.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you got the candles?" she askt hastily and with a gruff voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Here they are," said one of the men: "you know the price; let us
+settle the matter and have done with it."</p>
+
+<p>The old woman seemed to be giving him some money, which he counted
+over beneath his cloak. "I rely upon you," she again began, "that they
+are made exactly according to rule, at the right time and place, so
+that they cannot fail of their effect."</p>
+
+<p>"You need not be uneasy on that score," returned the man, and hurried
+away.</p>
+
+<p>His companion, who staid behind, was a youth: he took the old woman by
+the hand, and said: "Can it be true, Alexia, that certain rites and
+spells, as those old wild stories, in which I could never put faith,
+tell us, can fetter the free will of man, and make love and hatred grow
+up in the heart?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay forsooth!" answered the scarlet woman; "but one and one must make
+two, and many a one must be added thereto, before such mighty things
+come to pass. It is not these candles alone, moulded beneath the
+midnight darkness of the new moon, and drencht with human blood, it is
+not the mere uttering magical words and incantations, that can give
+you the mastery over the soul of another: there is much more belonging
+to such works, as the initiated well know."</p>
+
+<p>"I may depend upon you then!" cried the stranger.</p>
+
+<p>"Tomorrow after midnight I am at your service," replied the old woman.
+"You shall not be the first person that ever was dissatisfied with my
+skill. Tonight, as you have heard, I have some one else in hand, one
+whose senses and soul our art shall twist about whichever way we
+choose, just as easily as I twist this hair out of my head."</p>
+
+<p>These last words she uttered with a half grin; and they separated,
+walking off in different directions.</p>
+
+<p>Emilius came forth from the dark niche shuddering, and lifted his
+looks to the image of the Virgin with the Child. "Before thine eyes,
+thou mild and blessed one," he said half aloud, "are these miscreants
+audaciously holding their market and trafficking in their infernal
+drugs. But as thou embracest thy child with thy love, so doth heavenly
+Love encircle us all with its protecting arms; we feel their touch;
+and our poor hearts beat joyously and tremulously toward a greater
+heart that will never forsake us."</p>
+
+<p>Clouds were rolling along over the pinnacles of the tower and the high
+roof of the church; the everlasting stars lookt down through the midst
+of them gleaming with mild serenity; and Emilius drew his thoughts
+resolutely away from these nightly abominations, and mused on the
+beauty of his unknown. He again entered the peopled streets, and bent
+his steps toward the brightly illuminated ballroom, from which voices,
+and the rattling of carriages, and now and then, when there was a
+pause, the clamorous music, came sounding to his ears.</p>
+
+<p>In the ballroom he was instantly lost amid the streaming throng:
+dancers ran round him; masks darted by him to and fro; kettledrums and
+trumpets stunned his ears; and it seemed to him as if human life had
+melted away into a dream. He walkt along one row after another, and
+his eye alone was wakeful, seeking after those beloved eyes and that
+fair head with its brown locks, for the sight of which he yearned this
+evening more intensely than ever, at the same time that he inwardly
+reproacht their adored possessor, for allowing herself to plunge and
+be lost in this stormy sea of confusion and folly. 'No!' he said to
+himself; 'no heart that loves can willingly expose itself to this
+dreary hubbub of noise, in which every longing and every tear is scoft
+and mockt at by the wild laughter of pealing trumpets. The whispering
+of trees, the murmuring of brooks, the soft notes of the harp, and the
+song that gushes forth in all its richness and sweetness from an
+overflowing bosom, are the sounds in which love dwells. But this is
+the very thundering and shouting of hell in the frenzy of its
+despair&#8230;.'</p>
+
+<p>He saw nothing like her whom he was seeking for; and he could not
+possibly give enterance to the notion that her beloved face might
+perhaps be lurking behind some odious mask.</p>
+
+<p>He had already ranged up and down the room three times over, and had
+in vain run his eyes along all the ladies that were sitting and
+unmaskt, when the Spaniard joined him and said: "I am glad you are
+come after all; are you looking for your friend?"</p>
+
+<p>Emilius had quite forgotten him; he said however somewhat embarrast:
+"In truth I wonder I have not met him here, for his mask is not to be
+mistaken."</p>
+
+<p>"Can you guess what the harum-scarum fellow is about?" answered the
+young officer. "He never danced at all, and hardly staid ten minutes
+in the ballroom: for he soon fell in with his friend Anderson, who is
+just come up from the country: their conversation turned upon books;
+and as Anderson has never seen the new poem, Roderick would not rest
+till he had made them open one of the back rooms for him; and there he
+is now sitting beside a solitary taper, holding his companion fast,
+and declaiming the whole poem to him, not omitting even the invocation
+to the muse."</p>
+
+<p>"It's just like him," said Emilius; "he is always the child of the
+moment. I have done all in my power, and even run the risk of some
+amicable quarrels, to cure him of this habit of for ever living
+extempore, and playing out his whole life in impromptus, card after
+card, as it chances to turn up, without once looking over his hand.
+But these follies have struck such deep root in his heart, he would
+sooner part with his best friend than with them. That very same poem,
+which he is so fond of that he always carries it about in his pocket,
+he wanted to read to me a few days ago, and I had earnestly begged him
+to do so: but he had scarcely got beyond the first description of the
+moon, when, just as I had resigned myself to the enjoyment of its
+beauties, he suddenly jumpt up, ran out of the room, came back with
+the cook's apron round his waist, tore down the bell-rope in ringing
+to have the fire lighted, and insisted on broiling me some beefsteaks,
+for which I had not the least appetite, and which he fancies nobody in
+Europe dresses so well, though, if he is in luck, he does not spoil
+them above nine times in ten."</p>
+
+<p>The Spaniard laught, and askt: "Has he never been in love?"</p>
+
+<p>"After his fashion," replied Emilius very gravely; "as if he were
+making game of love and of himself, with a dozen women at a time, and,
+if you would believe his words, raving after every one of them: but
+ere a week passes over his head, they are all spunged out of it, and
+not even a blot is left behind."</p>
+
+<p>They parted in the crowd, and Emilius walkt toward the remote
+apartment, from which, long before he reacht it, he caught his
+friend's loud recitative.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, so you are here too!" exclaimed Roderick, as he entered: "you
+have just hit the right moment; I am at the very passage where we were
+interrupted the other day: sit down, and you may hear the remainder."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not in a humour for it now," said Emilius: "besides the time and
+place do not seem to me exactly suited to such an employment."</p>
+
+<p>"And why not?" answered Roderick. "Time and place are made for us, not
+we for time and place. Is not good poetry just as good at one hour as
+at another? Is not it right to read it? and can that which is right
+ever become wrong? Or would you rather dance? There is a lack of men;
+and you need only jump about for a few hours, at the mere risk of
+tiring your legs, to lay strong siege to the hearts of as many
+grateful beauties as you choose."</p>
+
+<p>"Good night!" cried the other with his hand on the door; "I am going
+home."</p>
+
+<p>Roderick called out to him: "Only one word! I shall set off tomorrow
+at daybreak with my friend here, to spend a few days in the country,
+but will look in upon you to say goodbye before we start. Should you
+be asleep, as is most likely, you need not take the trouble of waking;
+for, before a week is out, I shall be back again.&mdash;The strangest being
+upon earth!" he continued, turning to his neighbour; "so moping and
+fretful, such a splitter of thoughts, that he turns all his pleasures
+sour; or rather there is no such thing as pleasure for him. Instead of
+walking about with his fellow creatures in broad daylight and enjoying
+himself, he gets down to the bottom of the well of his fancies, in the
+hope of now and then catching a glimpse of a star. Everything must be
+in the superlative for him: everything must be pure, and majestic, and
+etherial, and celestial: his heart must be always throbbing and
+heaving, even when he is standing before a puppet show. He never
+laughs or cries, but can only smile and weep; and forsooth there is
+mighty little difference between his weeping and his smiling. When
+anything, be it what it may, falls short of his anticipations and
+preconceptions, which are always flying up out of reach and sight, he
+puts on a tragical face, and complains that it is a base and soulless
+world. At this very moment, I make no doubt, he is requiring that
+under the masks of a Pantaloon or a Punch there should be a soul
+glowing with unearthly desires and ideal aspirations, and that
+Harlequin should outmoralize Hamlet on the nothingness of sublunary
+things: and if these expectations are disappointed, as they can never
+fail to be, the dew is sure to rise into his eyes, and he will turn
+his back on the whole motley scene in desponding contempt."</p>
+
+<p>"He must be atrabilious then?" askt his hearer.</p>
+
+<p>"Not that exactly," answered Roderick: "he has only been spoilt by the
+indulgence of his overfond parents and by his own. He has accustomed
+himself to let his heart ebb and flow as regularly as the sea; and if
+this motion is ever at a stop, he cries out _a miracle!_ and would
+offer a prize to the philosopher who should give a satisfactory
+explanation of so marvellous a phenomenon. He is the best fellow under
+the sun; but all my painstaking to break him of this perverseness has
+been utterly vain and thrown away; and if I would not earn scurvy
+thanks for my goodwill, I must even let him follow his own devices."</p>
+
+<p>"Might not a physician do him good?" remarkt Anderson.</p>
+
+<p>"It is one of his whims," replied Roderick, "to entertain a supreme
+contempt for the whole medical art. He will have it that every disease
+is something different and distinct in every particular patient, that
+there is no arranging it under any class, and that it is absurd to
+think of healing it by attending to ancient practice, and still more
+so by what is called theory: he would much rather apply to an old
+woman, and make use of sympathetic cures. In like manner he despises
+all foresight in other matters, and everything like regularity,
+moderation, and common sense: the last above all he holds in special
+abhorrence, as the antipode and arch-enemy to all enthusiasm. While
+yet a child he framed for himself an ideal of a noble character; and
+his constant aim is to make himself what he considers such, that is to
+say, a being who shews his superiority to all earthly things by his
+scorn for riches. Merely to avoid being suspected of stinginess, or of
+giving unwillingly, or of caring about money, he flings it right and
+left by handfuls; with all his large fortune he is for ever poor and
+distrest, and is the bubble of all such as are not gifted with
+precisely the same sort of magnanimity which for himself he is
+determined to attain to. To be his friend is the task of all tasks:
+for he is so touchy, you need only cough, or eat with your knife, or
+not sip your drink as delicately as a cow, or even pick your teeth, to
+offend him mortally."</p>
+
+<p>"Was he never in love?" askt his country friend.</p>
+
+<p>"Whom should he love? whom could he love?" answered Roderick. "He
+despises all the daughters of earth; and if he had a favorite, and
+were ever to suspect that she had not an angelical contempt for dress,
+or liked dancing at times as well as star-gazing, it would break his
+heart: still more tremendous would it be, if she were ever so unlucky
+as to sneeze."</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Emilius was again standing among the crowd: but on a sudden
+he was seized by that heart-burning, that shivering, which had already
+so often come over him in the midst of a multitude in a like state of
+excitement. It drove him out of the ballroom, out of the house, and
+along the desolate streets; nor did he recover and regain the quiet
+possession of his senses, till he reacht his lonely chamber. The night
+light was already burning; he sent his servant to bed: everything over
+the way was silent and dark, and he sat down to pour forth the
+feelings which the ball had aroused, in verse.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p class="noindent">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Within the heart 'tis still;<br />
+Sleep each wild thought encages:<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Now stirs a wicked will,<br />
+Would see how madness rages,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And cries: Wild spirit awake!<br />
+Loud cymbals catch the cry,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And back its echoes shake;<br />
+And, shouting peals of laughter,<br />
+The trumpet rushes after,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And cries: Wild spirit awake!<br />
+Amid them flute-tones fly,<br />
+Like arrows, keen and numberless;<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And with bloodhound yell<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Pipes the onset swell;<br />
+And violins and violoncellos,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Creaking, clattering,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Shrieking, shattering;<br />
+And horns whence thunder bellows;<br />
+To leave the victim slumberless,<br />
+And drag forth prisoned madness,<br />
+And cruelly murder all quiet and innocent gladness.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">What will be the end of this commotion?<br />
+Where the shore to this turmoiling ocean?<br />
+What seeks the tossing throng,<br />
+As it wheels and whirls along?<br />
+On! on! the lustres<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Like hellstars bicker:<br />
+Let us twine in closer clusters,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;On! on! ever closer and quicker!<br />
+How the silly things throb, throb amain!<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Hence all quiet!<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Hither riot!<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Peal more proudly,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Squeal more loudly,<br />
+Ye cymbals, ye trumpets! bedull all pain,<br />
+Till it laugh again.<br /></p>
+
+<p class="noindent">Thou beckonest to me, beauty's daughter;<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Smiles ripple o'er thy lips,<br />
+And o'er thine eye's blue water;<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;O let me breathe on thee,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Ere parted hence we flee,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Ere aught that light eclipse!<br />
+I know that beauty's flowers soon wither:<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Those lips, within whose rosy cells<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Thy spirit warbles its sweet spells,<br />
+Death's clammy kiss ere long will press together.<br />
+I know, that face so fair and full<br />
+Is but a masquerading skull:<br />
+But hail to thee skull so fair and so fresh!<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Why should I weep and whine and wail,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;That what blooms now must soon grow pale,<br />
+And that worms must batten on that sweet flesh?<br />
+Let me laugh but today and tomorrow,<br />
+And what care I for sorrow,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;While thus on the waves of the dance by<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;each other we sail?</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">Now thou art mine,<br />
+And I am thine:<br />
+And what though pain and trouble wait<br />
+To seize thee at the gate,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And sob, and tear, and groan, and sigh,<br />
+Stand ranged in state<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;On thee to fly,<br />
+Blithely let us look and cheerily<br />
+On death that grins so drearily!<br />
+What would grief with us, or anguish?<br />
+They are foes that we know how to vanquish.<br />
+I press thine answering fingers,<br />
+Thy look upon me lingers,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Or the fringe of thy garment will waft me<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;a kiss:<br />
+Thou rollest on in light;<br />
+I fall back into night;<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Even despair is bliss.<br /></p>
+
+<p class="noindent">From this delight,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;From this wild revel's surge<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Perchance there may emerge<br />
+Foul jealousy, and scorn, and envious spite.<br />
+But this is our glory and pride;<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;When thee I despise,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;I turn but my eyes,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And the fair one beside thee will welcome<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;my gaze,<br />
+And she is my bride!<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;O happy, happy maze!<br />
+Or shall it be her neighbour?<br />
+Whose eyes, like a sabre,<br />
+Flash and pierce,<br />
+Their glance is so fierce.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">Thus jumping and prancing,<br />
+All together go dancing<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Adown life's giddy cave;<br />
+Nor living, nor loving,<br />
+But dizzily roving<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Through dreams to a grave.<br />
+There below 'tis yet worse:<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Earth's flowers and its clay<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Roof a gloomier day,<br />
+Hide a still deeper curse.<br />
+Ring then, ye cymbals, enliven this dream!<br />
+Ye horns shout a fiercer, more vulture-like scream!<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And frisk caper skip prance dance yourselves<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;out of breath!<br />
+For your life is all art,<br />
+Love has given you no heart:<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;So hurrah till you plunge into bottomless<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;death.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>He had ended, and was standing by the window. Then she came into the
+opposite chamber, lovely, as he had never yet seen her: her brown hair
+floated freely, and played in wanton ringlets about the whitest of
+necks; she was but lightly clad, and seemed as if she meant to finish
+some little household matters at this late hour of the night before
+she went to bed: for she placed two candles in two corners of the
+room, set the green cloth on the table to rights, and withdrew again.</p>
+
+<p>Emilius was still sunk in his sweet dreams, and gazing on the image
+which his beloved had left in his mind, when to his horrour the
+frightful, the scarlet old woman walkt through the chamber: the gold
+on her head and breast glared ghastlily as it threw back the light.</p>
+
+<p>She had vanisht again. Was he to believe his eyes? Was it not some
+delusive phantom of the night that his own feverish imagination had
+conjured up before him?</p>
+
+<p>But no! she returned, still more hideous than before, with a long grey
+and black mane flying wildly and haggardly about her breast and back.
+The beauteous maiden followed her, pale, stiff; her lovely bosom was
+all bared, but her whole form was like a marble statue.</p>
+
+<p>Betwixt them they led the sweet little child, crying and clinging
+imploringly to the fair maiden, who lookt not down upon it. The child
+lifted up and claspt its little beseeching hands, and stroakt the pale
+neck and cheeks of the marble beauty. But she held it fast by the
+hair, and in the other hand a silver basin.</p>
+
+<p>Then the old woman growled, and pulled out a long knife, and drew it
+across the white neck of the child. Here something crawled forth from
+behind that they seemed not to perceive, or it must have struck them
+with the same thrilling terrour as Emilius. A serpent curled its
+loathsome neck, scale after scale, lengthening and still lengthening,
+out of the darkness, and stoopt down over the child, whose lifeless
+limbs hung from the old woman's arms: its black tongue lickt up the
+spirting red blood, and a green sparkling eye shot over into the eye,
+and brain, and heart of Emilius, who instantly dropt on the ground.</p>
+
+<p>He was senseless when found by Roderick some hours after.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="narrow" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>A party of friends were sitting on the brightest summer morning in a
+green arbour, assembled at an excellent breakfast. Laughter and jests
+passed round; and many a time did the glasses kiss with a merry health
+to the young couple, and a wish that they might be the happiest of the
+happy. The bride and bridegroom were not present; she being still
+engaged in dressing, while the young husband was sauntering by himself
+down an avenue some way off, musing upon his happiness.</p>
+
+<p>"What a pity it is," said Anderson, "that we are to have no music! All
+our ladies are beclouded at the thought, and never in their whole
+lives longed for a dance so much as today, when it is quite out of the
+question: it is far too painful to his feelings."</p>
+
+<p>"I can tell you a secret though," exclaimed a young officer, "that we
+are to have a dance after all; and a rare riotous and madcap one it
+will be. Everything is already arranged; the musicians are come
+secretly and quartered out of sight. Roderick has managed the whole
+business; for he says one ought not to let him always have his own
+way, or to humour his strange caprices overmuch, especially on such a
+day as this."</p>
+
+<p>"Besides," observed another young man, "he is already become much more
+tractable and sociable than he used to be; so that I think he himself
+will not be sorry at the alteration. Indeed the whole wedding has been
+brought about all on the sudden, and has taken everybody by surprise."</p>
+
+<p>"His whole history," resumed Anderson, "is just as extraordinary as
+his character. You must all remember how, being on his travels last
+autumn, he arrived in our city, and spent the winter there, living
+like a melancholy man almost entirely in his own room, and never
+visiting our theatre or taking part in any other amusement. He all but
+quarrelled with Roderick, his most intimate friend, for trying to
+divert him, and refusing to pamper all his moping fantasies. In fact
+this overstrained irritability and moroseness must have been a disease
+that was gathering in his body: for you know he was attackt four
+months ago by such a violent nervous fever, that his life was for a
+long time despaired of. After his frenzy had raved itself out, and he
+returned to his senses, he had almost entirely lost his memory:
+nothing but his childhood and early youth kept its hold on his mind;
+and he was totally unable to recollect anything that had happened
+during his journey, or immediately before his illness. He had to begin
+his acquaintance afresh with all his friends, even with Roderick; and
+it is only by little and little that his thoughts have grown lighter,
+and that the past with all that had befallen him has come back, though
+still in dim colours, into his memory. He had been removed into his
+uncle's house, that better care might be taken of him; and he was just
+like a child, letting them do whatever they chose with him. The first
+time he went out to enjoy the warmth of the spring in the park, he saw
+a girl sitting pensively by the roadside. She lookt up; her eye met
+his; and seized with an inexplicable yearning he stopt the carriage,
+got out, sat down by her, took hold of her hands, and burst into a
+flood of tears. His friends were again alarmed for his intellects: but
+he grew calm, cheerful, and conversable, got introduced to the girl's
+parents, and at his very first visit askt for her hand, which, with
+her parents consent, she granted him. Since that time he has been
+happy, and a new life has sprung up within him: day after day he has
+become healthier and more contented. A week ago he paid me a visit at
+this country house, and was above measure delighted with it; indeed so
+much so that he would not rest till he had made me sell it to him. I
+might easily have turned his passionate desire to my own advantage,
+and his loss; for when he once sets his heart on a thing, he will have
+it, and that too forthwith. He immediately let it be got ready, sent
+furniture that he may spend the summer months here; and thus it has
+come to pass that we are all met for his wedding in my old garden."</p>
+
+<p>The house was large, and in a very lovely country. One side of it
+lookt on a river and some woody hills beyond; shrubs and trees of
+various kinds were scattered about the lawn; and immediately before
+the windows lay a flower garden sweetening the air. The orange and
+lemon trees were ranged in a large open hall, from which small doors
+led to the store rooms, cellars, and pantries. On the other side a
+meadow spread out its green floor, opening immediately into the park.
+The two long wings of the house formed a spacious court; and broad
+open galleries, borne by three rows of pillars standing one above the
+other, ran round it, connecting all the rooms in the house, and giving
+it a singular and interesting character: for figures were perpetually
+moving along these arcades, some engaged in one employment, some in
+another; new forms kept stepping forth between the pillars and out of
+the various rooms, which anon vanisht and then reappeared above or
+below, to be lost behind one of the doors: parties too would often
+assemble there for tea or for some game; and thus from below the whole
+had the look of a theatre, before which everybody was glad to stop
+awhile, with a foreboding that something strange or pleasing was sure
+to meet his eyes ere long.</p>
+
+<p>The party of young people were just rising, when the bride came in her
+full dress through the garden walking toward them. She was clad in
+violet-coloured velvet: a sparkling necklace lay cradled on her
+glittering neck; the costly lace just allowed her white swelling bosom
+to glimmer through; and her wreath of myrtle and white roses gave her
+brown hair a still more beautiful tint.</p>
+
+<p>She greeted them all graciously, and the young men were astonisht at
+her surpassing beauty. She had been gathering flowers in the garden,
+and was going back into the house to see after the arrangements for
+dinner.</p>
+
+<p>The tables had been set out in the lower open gallery, and shone
+dazzlingly with their white coverings and their load of sparkling
+crystal: rich clusters of many-coloured flowers rose from the graceful
+necks of alabaster vases; green garlands, starred with white blossoms,
+twined round the columns: and it was a lovely sight to behold the
+bride gliding along with gentle motion between the tables and the
+pillars, amid the light of the flowers, overlooking the whole with a
+searching glance, and then vanishing; and reappearing a moment after
+above, to pass into her chamber.</p>
+
+<p>"She is the loveliest, most enchanting creature I ever saw!" cried
+Anderson: "our friend is indeed a happy man."</p>
+
+<p>"Her very paleness," added the officer, "hightens her beauty. Her
+hazel eyes only sparkle the more intensely above those white cheeks
+and beneath those dark locks; and the singular, almost burning redness
+of her lips gives her face a truly magical appearance."</p>
+
+<p>"The air of silent melancholy that surrounds her," said Anderson,
+"sheds a noble majesty over her."</p>
+
+<p>The bridegroom joined them, and askt after Roderick: he had been
+missing for some time, and they could not conceive what he was about.
+All set off in search of him.</p>
+
+<p>"He is down in the hall," said at length a young man whom they
+happened to ask, "in the midst of the coachmen, footmen, and grooms,
+shewing off tricks at cards, which make them stare till their wits
+ache."</p>
+
+<p>They walkt in, and interrupted the boisterous admiration of the
+servants, without however disturbing Roderick, who quietly went on
+conjuring. When he had finisht, he returned with the others into the
+garden, and said: "I do it only to strengthen the fellows in their
+faith: these puzzles give a hard blow to their groomships'
+free-thinking inclinations, and help to make 'em true believers."</p>
+
+<p>"I see," said the bridegroom, "my all-sufficing friend, among his
+other talents, does not think that of a mountebank beneath his
+cultivation."</p>
+
+<p>"We live in strange times," replied the other; "who knows whether
+mountebanks may not come to rule the roast in their turn? One ought to
+despise nothing nowadays: the veriest straw of a talent may be that
+which is to break the camel's back."</p>
+
+<p>When the two friends found themselves alone, Emilius again turned down
+the dark avenue and said: "Why am I in such a gloomy mood on this the
+happiest day of my life? But I assure you, Roderick, though you will
+not believe me, I am not made for moving about amid such a mob of
+human beings,&mdash;for this parade of heartless courtesy,&mdash;for keeping my
+attention on the _qui vive_ to every letter of the alphabet, so that
+neither A nor Z may complain of being treated with disrespect,&mdash;for
+making low bows to her tenth cousin, and shaking hands warmly with my
+twentieth,&mdash;for this formal reverence to her parents,&mdash;for handing a
+flower from my nosegay of compliments to every lady that crosses the
+room,&mdash;for waiting to receive the tide of new-comers as wave after
+wave rushes over me, and then turning to give orders that their
+servants and horses may each have a full trough and pail set before
+them."</p>
+
+<p>"That is a watch that goes of its own accord;" answered Roderick.
+"Only look at your house! it was just built for such an occasion: and
+your head-butler, with his right hand taking up at the same time that
+his left hand is setting down, and one leg running north while the
+other seems to be making for south, was begotten and born for the very
+purpose of putting confusion in order. He would set my brains to
+rights if he could get at 'em: were the whole city to come, he would
+find room for all; and he'll make your hospitality the proverb of
+fifty miles round. Leave all such matters to him, and to your lovely
+bride; and where will you find so sweet a lightener of this world's
+cares?"</p>
+
+<p>"This morning before sunrise," said Emilius, "I was walking through
+the wood; my thoughts were solemnly tuned; I felt to the bottom of my
+soul that my life is now taking a determinate cast, that it is become
+a serious thing, and that this passion has created me a home and a
+calling. In passing by that arbour yonder I heard sounds: it was my
+beloved in close conversation. 'Has not it turned out now as I told
+you?' said a strange voice; 'just as I knew it would turn out? You
+have got your wish; so cheer up and be merry.' I did not like to go in
+to them: as I came back I walkt nearer to the arbour; they had both
+left it. But I have been musing and musing ever since, what can these
+words mean?"</p>
+
+<p>Roderick answered: "Perhaps she may have been in love with you this
+long time without your knowing it: this should make you all the
+happier."</p>
+
+<p>A late nightingale now lifted up her song, and seemed to be wishing
+the lover health and bliss. Emilius sank still deeper in thought.</p>
+
+<p>"Come with me to clear up your spirits," said Roderick, "down to the
+village, where you will find another couple; for you must not fancy
+that yours is the only wedding on which today's sun is to shine. A
+young clown, finding his time lag heavily in the house with an ugly
+old maid, for want of something better to do did what makes the booby
+think himself bound in honour to turn her into his wife. They must
+both be drest out by this time; so don't let us miss the sight; for
+doubtless it will be overpoweringly interesting."</p>
+
+<p>The melancholy man let himself be dragged along by his merry talkative
+friend, and they soon got to the cottage. The procession was just
+sallying forth on its way to church. The young countryman was in his
+usual linen frock; all his finery consisted in a pair of leather
+breeches, which he had polisht till they shone like a field of
+dandelions: he had a very simple look, and was a good deal ashamed.</p>
+
+<p>The bride was tanned by the sun, and had only a few farewell leaves of
+youth still hanging about her: she was coarsely and poorly but cleanly
+drest: some red and blue silk ribbons, already somewhat faded,
+flaunted from her stomacher; but what chiefly disfigured her was, that
+her hair, after being stiffened with lard, flour, and pins, had been
+swept back from her forehead and piled up at the top of her head in a
+mound, on the summit of which lay the bridal chaplet. She smiled, and
+seemed glad at heart, but was bashful and downcast.</p>
+
+<p>Next came the aged parents: her father too was only a labourer on the
+farm; and the hovel, the furniture, the clothing, all bore witness
+that their poverty was extreme. A dirty squinting musician followed
+the train, grinning and screaming and scratching his fiddle, which was
+patcht up of wood and pasteboard, and instead of strings had three
+bits of packthread.</p>
+
+<p>The procession halted when his honour, their new master, came up to
+them. Some mischief-loving servants, lads and girls, tittered and
+laught, and jeered the bridal couple, especially the ladies' maids,
+who thought themselves far handsomer, and saw themselves infinitely
+better drest, and wondered how people could be so vulgar.</p>
+
+<p>A shudder came over Emilius: he lookt round for Roderick; but the
+latter as usual had already run away. An impertinent fop, with a head
+pilloried in a high starcht neckcloth, a footman to one of the
+visitors, eager to shew off his wit, shoved up to Emilius, giggling,
+and cried: "There your honour, what says your honour to this grand
+couple? They can neither of 'em guess where they are to find bread for
+tomorrow; and yet they mean to give a ball this afternoon, and that
+famous performer is already engaged."</p>
+
+<p>"No bread!" said Emilius; "can such things be?"</p>
+
+<p>"Their wretchedness," continued the chatterbox, "is notorious to the
+whole neighbourhood; but the fellow says he bears the creature the
+same goodwill, though she has nothing to boast of but her charms. Ay
+verily, as the song says, love can make black white! The brace of
+beggars have not even a bed, and must pass their wedding-night on the
+straw: they have just been round to every cottage, begging a pint of
+small beer, with which they mean to get royally drunk: a brave treat
+for a wedding, your honour!"</p>
+
+<p>Everybody around burst out a-laughing, and the unhappy despised pair
+hung down their heads. Emilius pusht the coxcomb indignantly away, and
+cried: "Here, take this!" tossing a hundred ducats, which he had
+received that morning, into the hands of the amazed bridegroom.</p>
+
+<p>The betrothed couple and their parents wept aloud, threw themselves
+clumsily on their knees, and kist his hands and the skirts of his
+coat.</p>
+
+<p>He struggled to break loose from them. "Let that keep hunger out of
+doors as long as you can make it last!" he exclaimed, quite stunned by
+his feelings.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" they all screamed, "oh your honour! we shall be rich and happy
+till the day of our deaths, and longer too, if we live longer."</p>
+
+<p>He did not know how he got away, but he found himself alone, and
+hastened with tremulous steps into the wood. There he sought out the
+thickest loneliest spot, and threw himself down on a grassy knoll, no
+longer keeping in the bursting flood of his tears.</p>
+
+<p>"I am sick of life!" he cried: "I cannot be gay and happy; I will not.
+Make haste to receive me, dear kind mother earth, and shelter me with
+thy cool refreshing arms from the wild beasts that trample on thee and
+call themselves men. Oh God in heaven! how have I deserved that I
+should lie upon down, and be clothed in silk, that the grape should
+pour forth her precious heart's blood for me, and that all should
+throng around me with offerings of homage and love! This poor wretch
+is better and worthier than I; and misery is his nurse, and mockery
+and venomous scorn alone wish him joy on his wedding. Every delicacy
+that is placed before me, every draught out of my costly goblets, the
+soft luxury of my bed, my wearing gold and rich garments, will seem to
+me like so many sins, now that my eyes have seen how the world hunts
+down many thousand thousand miserable beings, who are hungering after
+the dry bread I throw away, and who never know what a good meal is. Oh
+now I can fully enter into your feelings, ye holy saints, whom the
+world scorns and scoffs at, ye who did scatter your all, even down to
+your very raiment, among the poor, and did gird your loins with
+sackcloth, and did resolve as beggars to undergo the gibes and the
+kicks wherewith brutal insolence and swilling voluptuousness drive the
+needy from their doors, that by so doing you might thoroughly purge
+yourselves from the foul sin of wealth."</p>
+
+<p>The world with all its inhabitants floated in a mist before his eyes:
+he resolved to look upon the destitute as his brethren, and to depart
+from the communion of the happy.</p>
+
+<p>They had been waiting a long time for him in the hall, that the
+ceremony might be performed; the bride had grown uneasy; her parents
+had gone in search of him through the garden and park: at length he
+returned, lighter for having wept away his agitation; and the solemn
+knot was tied.</p>
+
+<p>The company then walkt from the hall on the ground floor to the open
+gallery, to sit down to dinner. The bride and bridegroom led the way,
+and the rest followed in their train. Roderick offered his arm to a
+young girl who was lively and talkative.</p>
+
+<p>"Why does a bride always cry, and look so serious and sad during the
+ceremony?" said she, as they mounted the stairs.</p>
+
+<p>"Because it is the first time that she ever thoroughly feels what a
+momentous and mysterious thing life is:" answered Roderick.</p>
+
+<p>"But our bride," continued the girl, "in her gravity goes far beyond
+all I have ever yet seen. Indeed there is always something melancholy
+about her, and one can never catch her in a downright merry laugh."</p>
+
+<p>"This does the more honour to her heart," replied Roderick, himself
+more serious than usual. "You don't know perhaps that the bride a few
+years ago took a lovely little orphan girl into her house, to educate
+her. All her time was devoted to this child, and the gentle creature's
+love was her sweetest reward. When the girl was seven years old, she
+was lost on a walk about the town; and in spite of all the pains that
+have been used, nobody has ever found out what became of her. Our
+noble-minded hostess has taken this misfortune so much to heart, that
+she has been a prey ever since to silent grief, and nothing can win
+her mind away from longing after her little playfellow."</p>
+
+<p>"A most interesting adventure indeed!" said the young lady. "One might
+see a whole romance in three volumes growing out of this seed. It will
+be a strange sight, and it will not be for nothing, when this lost
+star reappears. What a pretty poem it would make! Don't you think so,
+sir?"</p>
+
+<p>The party took their seats: the bride and bridegroom were in the
+centre, looking out on the gay landscape. Everybody talkt and drank
+healths, and all was mirth and good humour: the bride's parents were
+perfectly happy: the bridegroom alone was reserved and thoughtful, ate
+but little, and took no part in the conversation.</p>
+
+<p>He started on hearing musical sounds roll down through the air from
+above, but grew calm again when he found they were only the soft notes
+of some bugles, travelling along with a pleasant murmur over the
+shrubs and through the park, and dying away on the distant hills.
+Roderick had placed the musicians in the gallery overhead, and Emilius
+was satisfied with this arrangement.</p>
+
+<p>Toward the end of the dinner he called the butler, and, turning to
+his bride, said: "My love, let poverty also have a share of our
+superfluities."</p>
+
+<p>He then ordered him to send a number of bottles of wine, and abundance
+of pastry as well as other dishes, to the poor couple, that with them
+too this might be a day of rejoicing, to which in aftertimes they
+might look back with pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>"See my friend," exclaimed Roderick, "how beautifully all things in
+this world hang together! My idle trick of busying myself in other
+folks' concerns, and chattering about whatever comes uppermost, though
+you will never give over finding fault with it, has at all events been
+the cause of this good deed."</p>
+
+<p>Several persons began making pretty speeches to their host on his kind
+and charitable heart; and Roderick's neighbour lispt about the
+sweetness of romantic compassion and sentimental magnanimity.</p>
+
+<p>"O say no more!" cried Emilius indignantly: "this is no good action;
+it is no action at all; it is nothing. When swallows and linnets feed
+on the crumbs that are thrown away from the waste of this meal, and
+carry them to their young in their nest, shall not I remember a poor
+brother, who needs my help? If I might follow my heart, ye would laugh
+and jeer at me, just as ye have laught and jeered at many others, who
+have gone forth into the wilderness that they might hear no more of
+this world and its generosity."</p>
+
+<p>Everybody was silent; and Roderick, perceiving from his friend's
+glowing eyes how vehemently he was displeased, was afraid that in his
+present irritation he might forget himself still further, and tried to
+give the conversation a rapid turn on other subjects.</p>
+
+<p>But Emilius was become restless and absent; his eyes wandered, more
+especially toward the upper gallery, where the servants who lived in
+the top story were engaged in a variety of occupations.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is that ugly old woman?" he at length askt, "that is so busy up
+there, and is coming back again every moment in her grey cloak?"</p>
+
+<p>"She is one of my servants," said his bride; "she is to overlook and
+manage my chambermaids and other girls."</p>
+
+<p>"How can you endure to have anything so hideous perpetually at your
+elbow?" replied Emilius.</p>
+
+<p>"Let her alone," answered the young lady: "God meant the ugly to live
+as well as the handsome; and she is such a good honest creature, she
+may be of great use to us."</p>
+
+<p>On rising from table everybody gathered round the bridegroom, again
+wisht him joy, and urgently begged him to let them have a ball. The
+bride too said, breathing a gentle kiss on his forehead: "You will not
+deny your wife's first request, my beloved; we have all been
+delighting in the hope of this. It is so long since I danced last; and
+you have never yet seen me dance. Have you no curiosity how I shall
+acquit myself in this new character? my mother tells me I look better
+than at any other time."</p>
+
+<p>"I never saw you in such gay spirits before," said Emilius. "I will
+not throw a damp over your mirth; do as you please: only don't let
+anybody ask me to make a laughing stock of myself by trying to cut
+clumsy capers."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, if you are a bad dancer," she answered laughing, "you may feel
+quite safe; we shall all readily consent to your sitting still." The
+bride then retired to put on her ball dress.</p>
+
+<p>"She does not know," whispered Emilius to Roderick, as he withdrew,
+"that there is a secret door by which I can get from the next room
+into hers: I will surprise her while she is dressing."</p>
+
+<p>When Emilius had left them, and many of the ladies were also gone to
+make such changes in their attire as were requisite for the ball,
+Roderick took the young men aside and led the way to his own room.</p>
+
+<p>"It is wearing toward evening," he said, "and will soon be dark; so
+make haste all of you and mask yourselves, that we may render this
+night glorious in the annals of merriment and madness. Give your
+fancies free range in choosing your characters; the wilder and uglier
+the better. Try every combination of shaggy mane, and squinting eye,
+and mouth gaping like a volcano; pile mountains atop of your
+shoulders, or plump yourselves out into Falstaffs; and as a whet to
+your inventions I promise a kiss from the bride to the figure that
+would be the likeliest to make her miscarry. A wedding is such an
+out-of-the-way event in ones life; the bride and bridegroom are so
+suddenly plunged, by a sort of magic, head over heels into a new
+unaccustomed element, that it is impossible to throw too much madness
+and folly into this festival, in order to keep pace with the whirlpool
+that is bearing a brace of human beings from the state where they were
+two to the state where they become one, and that all things round
+about may be fitting accompaniments for the dizzy dream on the wings
+of which they are floating toward a new life. So let us rave away the
+night, making all sail before the breeze; and a fig for such as look
+twice on the dull sour faces that, would bid you behave rationally and
+soberly."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be afraid," said the young officer; "we have brought a large
+chest full of masks and mad carnival dresses from town with us, such
+as would make even you stare."</p>
+
+<p>"But see here," returned Roderick, "what a gem I have got from my
+tailor, who was on the point of cutting up this peerless treasure into
+strips. He had bought it of an old crone who must doubtless have worn
+it on gala-days, when she went to Lucifer's drawing room on the
+Blocksberg. Look at this scarlet bodice with its gold tassels and
+fringe, at this cap besmeared with the last fee the hag got from
+Beelzebub or his imps! it will give me a right worshipful air. To
+match these choice morsels I have this green velvet petticoat, with
+its saffron lining, and this mask which would melt even Medusa to a
+grin. Thus accoutred I mean to lead the chorus of anti-graces, myself
+their mother-queen, to the bedroom. Make the best speed you can, and
+we will then go in solemn procession to fetch the bride."</p>
+
+<p>The bugles were still playing: the company were strolling about the
+garden, or sitting before the house. The sun had gone down behind
+thick murky clouds, and the country was lying in the grey dusk, when a
+parting gleam suddenly burst athwart the cloudy veil, and flooded
+every spot around, but above all the building, its galleries and
+pillars and wreaths of flowers, as it were with red blood.</p>
+
+<p>At this moment the parents of the bride and the other visitors saw a
+train of the most grotesque figures move toward the upper corridor.
+Roderick led the way as the scarlet old woman, and was followed by
+humpbacks, bulging paunches, cumbrous wigs, Scaramouches, Punches,
+shrivelled Pantaloons, curtsying women embankt by enormous hoops, and
+overcanopied with a yard of horsehair, powder, and pomatum, and by
+every disgusting shape that can be imagined, as if a nightmair had
+been unrolling her stores. They jumpt, and twirled, and tottered, and
+stumbled, and straddled, and strutted, and swaggered along the
+gallery, and then vanisht behind one of the doors. But few of the
+beholders had been able to laugh, so utterly were they astounded by
+the strange sight.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly a piercing shriek burst from one of the rooms, and forth into
+the bloodred glow of the sunset rusht the pale bride, in a short white
+frock, about which wreaths of flowers were dangling, with her lovely
+bosom all naked, and her rich locks streaming through the air. As
+though mad, with rolling eyes and wrencht face, she darted along the
+gallery, and blinded by terrour could find neither door nor staircase;
+and immediately after dasht Emilius in chase of her, with the
+sparkling Turkish dagger in his high-uplifted hand.</p>
+
+<p>Now she was at the end of the passage &#8230; she could go no further &#8230;
+he reacht her. His maskt friends and the grey old woman were running
+after him. But in his fury he had already pierced her bosom, and cut
+across her white neck; her blood spouted forth into the radiance of
+the setting sun.</p>
+
+<p>The old woman had claspt her arms round him to tear him back; he
+struggled fiercely, hurled himself along with her over the railing,
+and they both fell almost lifeless at the feet of the relations who
+had been staring in dumb horrour at the bloody scene.</p>
+
+<p>Above, and in the court, or hurrying down the steps or along the
+galleries, were seen the hideous masks, standing or running about, in
+various clusters, like fiends of hell.</p>
+
+<p>Roderick took his dying friend in his arms. He had found him in his
+wife's room, playing with the dagger. She was almost drest when he
+entered. At the sight of the detested red bodice his memory had
+rekindled; the horrid vision of that night had risen up before his
+eyes; and gnashing his teeth he had darted after his trembling, flying
+bride, to avenge that murder and all those devilish doings.</p>
+
+<p>The old woman, ere she died, confest the crime that had been
+perpetrated; and the gladness and mirth of the whole house were
+suddenly changed into sorrow and lamentation and dismay.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><a name="nov3" id="nov3"></a></p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>PIETRO OF ABANO.</h2>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>The setting sun was flinging its red rays upon the towers and over the
+houses of Padua, when a young stranger, newly arrived, had his
+attention excited by a throng of people who were hurrying and running
+along, and was carried by them out of his way. He askt a girl who was
+passing quickly by him, what had set the whole town in such an
+extraordinary commotion.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you know then?" answered she: "the beautiful Crescentia, the
+young thing, is just going to be buried; everybody wishes to have one
+more sight of her; for she has always been counted the sweetest maiden
+in the whole city. Her parents are heartbroken." The last words she
+called back to him, from some distance beyond him.</p>
+
+<p>The stranger turned round the dark palace into the great street, and
+his ears were now met by the funeral hymn, and his eyes by the
+flickering light of the pale-red torches. On drawing nearer, pusht
+forward by the crowding of the people, he saw a scaffold covered with
+black cloth. Around it were raised seats, likewise black, on which the
+sorrowing parents and relations were sitting, all in stern gloom, some
+faces with the look of despair. Figures now began to move forth from
+the door of the house; priests and black forms bore an open coffin,
+out of which wreaths of flowers and green garlands were hanging down.</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of the blooming gay plants lay the maidenly form raised
+upon cushions, pale, in a white robe, her lovely slender hands folded
+and holding a crucifix, her eyes closed, dark black tresses hanging
+full and heavy round her head, on which a wreath of roses and cypress
+and myrtle was gleaming.</p>
+
+<p>The coffin with its beautiful corpse was placed upon the scaffold; the
+priests cast themselves down to pray; the parents gave yet louder vent
+to their grief; yet more wailing grew the sound of the hymns; and
+everybody around, even the strangers, sobbed and wept. The traveller
+thought he had never yet seen so lovely a creature, as this corpse
+that thus mournfully reminded him how fleeting life is, how vain and
+perishable its charms.</p>
+
+<p>Now sounded the solemn tolling of the bells, and the bearers were on
+the point of taking up the coffin, to carry the corpse into the
+burial-vault of the great church, when loud riotous shouts of
+exultation and pealing laughter and the cries of an unrestrained joy
+disturbed and alarmed the parents and kinsfolk, the priests and
+mourners. All lookt indignantly round, when out of the next street a
+merry troop of young men came boisterously toward them, singing and
+huzzaing, and evermore again and again crying a long life! to their
+venerable teacher. They were the students of the university, carrying
+an aged man of the noblest aspect on a chair raised atop of their
+shoulders, where he sat as on a throne, covered with a purple cloak,
+his head adorned with a doctor's hat, from beneath which white silver
+locks hung forth, while a long white beard flowed down majestically
+over his black velvet doublet. Beside him came a fool with bells and
+in a motley dress, jumping about, and striving by blows and by jests
+to make way for the train through the people and the line of mourners:
+but on a sign from the venerable old man the students lowered his
+chair; he descended, and approacht the weeping parents, much moved and
+with a solemn demeanour.</p>
+
+<p>"Forgive me," said he mournfully and with a tear in his eye, "that
+this wild tumult thus breaks in upon your burial rites, which grieve
+and shock me to the heart. I am just come back at length from my
+journey; my scholars wisht to celebrate my enterance by their joy; I
+yielded to their entreaties and preparations; and I now find &#8230; how?
+your Crescentia, that fairest emblem of all loveliness and virtue,
+here before you in her coffin. And all around there is this dark pomp
+and these forms of sorrow, accompanying her with tears and the heart's
+woe to her place of rest."</p>
+
+<p>He beckoned to his companions, and spake a few words. All had long
+since become quiet and silent, and most of them now withdrew, that
+they might not interrupt the funeral.</p>
+
+<p>Then the mother came nearer tottering, and sank down before the form
+of the old man, while she embraced his knee in convulsive grief. "Ah!
+why were you not here?" she cried despairingly; "your art, your
+knowledge would have saved her. O Pietro! Pietro! you, the friend of
+our house! how could you thus let your darling, the apple of your eye,
+perish? But come! Awaken her even now! Pour into her even now one of
+those wonderworking elixirs which you know how to compound; and in
+return take all that we possess, so she be but again here, walking
+about among us and talking to us."</p>
+
+<p>"Let not despair guide your tongue," answered Pietro: "the Lord had
+lent her to you; he has demanded her back from you; let not man
+presume to arrest the arm of his wise counsels. Who are we, that we
+should murmur against him? Shall the child of the dust, that is
+scattered to nought by the wind, puff forth its weak breath in anger
+against the eternal decrees? No, my dear friends, as Crescentia's
+parents, as having loved her and been loved by her, cherish the
+feeling of your grief; let none of it escape you. Grief should be as
+familiar an inmate in our hearts as Pleasure and Gladness; for he too
+is sent us by our Father, who beholds all our tears, and well
+understands and tries our hearts, and knows what frail mortals can
+bear. Bear then this great overwhelming woe for his sake, out of love
+to him; for it is all love, whatsoever burthen he may cast upon you.
+Is not grief, is not the heart in its wringing agony, the soul that
+would melt away in sorrow, a holy and godly offering, which amid your
+burning tears you lay, as the most precious of your possessions,
+before the everlasting Love of the Most High? As such too is it
+considered by Him above, who numbers all your sighs and tears. But our
+wicked enemy, who is always lurking at our side, grudges us the
+holiness of this heavenly sorrow: it is he who would foment and stir
+it up in you into despair, into rage against the Father of love and of
+grief, that you may not in your anguish become yet more thoroughly the
+children of Love, but may plunge and sink into the abyss of Hatred.
+He, this Spirit of Lies, is now beguiling you and maliciously
+whispering his tales in your ears, as though you had for ever lost
+her, who yet was one with you only in spirit and soul and love, and
+belonged to you only so far as she was invisible. He would have you
+forget that this beauteous covering was only her garment, akin to the
+dust, and now going back to the dust. Cast him back from you, this
+lying Spirit; shame and confound him with the eternal almighty truth
+which you hold up before him, that she is still yours, still near you,
+still at your side, yea far more, far entirelier yours, than when
+these party walls of mortal flesh kept you asunder, and in the midst
+of all your love estranged you from each other. From this day forward
+she is all your memory and hope and sorrow and joy; she shines upon
+you in every gladdening light; she cheers you in the flowers of
+spring; she kisses you in the gentle airs that breathe on your cheeks:
+and every delight that henceforth blossoms in your hearts, is her
+heart and her love to you; and this delight and this everlasting
+deathless love are one with God. Carry her then to her resting-place,
+and follow her in silent humble resignation, that her soul in the
+abode of everlasting peace may not be disturbed and made uneasy by
+you."</p>
+
+<p>All seemed to have become calmer; the father speechlessly held forth
+his hand to him with an expression of cordial friendship and of a
+comforted heart. They drew up in order; the procession set itself in
+motion; the masks, the fraternities that made it their duty to attend
+corpses, ranged themselves in their white gowns, with hooded faces, of
+which nothing could be seen but the eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Silently the train moved on: they had now nearly reacht the church,
+when a rider on a foaming horse gallopt toward them.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the matter?" cried the youth.</p>
+
+<p>He threw a look into the coffin, and with a shriek of despair turned
+his horse, darted away, and in his wild speed lost his hat, so that
+his long hair waved about behind him in the evening breeze. He was the
+bridegroom, come to the wedding.</p>
+
+<p>Darkness gathered round the train of mourners, and their husht rites,
+as the beauteous corpse sank down into the vault of her family.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="narrow" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>When the crowd had disperst, the young stranger, who had followed the
+procession in wonder mixt with sadness, went up to an old priest who
+remained alone praying by the grave. He longed to learn who that
+majestic old man was, that had seemed to him gifted with god-like
+powers and more than earthly wisdom.</p>
+
+<p>When the youth had laid his question modestly before the priest, the
+latter stood up and, by the light of a lamp that shone upon them from
+a window, lookt sharply into his eye.</p>
+
+<p>The old man had a little spare form; his pale narrow face hightened
+the fire of his eyes yet more; and his pincht lips quivered, as with
+hoarse voice he answered: "How! you don't know him? our far-famed
+Petrus of Apone, or Abano, of whom people talk in Paris, and London,
+and in the German Empire, and throughout all Italy? You know not the
+greatest of philosophers and physicians, of astronomers and
+astrologers, to learn from whom and to see whom the wild youth flock
+hither from the far parts of Poland?"</p>
+
+<p>The young Spaniard, Alfonso, had moved back a step in delighted
+surprise; for the renown of this great teacher had driven him too from
+Barcelona over the sea. "Then it was he, it was himself!" he cried
+enthusiastically: "this too was why my heart felt so deeply moved. My
+spirit recognized his. O generous, pious man, how I love you for
+honouring him no less than do all the noble-minded and good in the
+Christian world!"</p>
+
+<p>"You too mean perchance to study under him?" askt the priest with a
+bitter tone.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," answered the other, "if he will vouchsafe to receive me
+among his scholars."</p>
+
+<p>The old man stood still, laid his hand on the youth's shoulder, and
+then said mildly: "My dear young friend, there is yet time; listen
+even now to my fatherly warning, before it is too late. Do not deceive
+yourself, as so many, even without number, have done already; be on
+your guard, and watch over your soul. Are you then at your age thus
+beforehand aweary of your peace and future blessedness? would you
+requite your Saviour's love by becoming a runagate from him, and
+denying him, and taking up arms as a rebel against him?"</p>
+
+<p>"I understand you not, old man," replied Alfonso: "did not you
+yourself see and hear how piously, how christianly, with what a
+heart-stirring majesty, the glorious man spake, and led back the
+erring footsteps of sorrowing love by his heavenly comfort into the
+right path?"</p>
+
+<p>"What is there that he cannot, that he will not do, the trickster, the
+magician!" exclaimed the old priest warmly.</p>
+
+<p>"Magician!" returned Alfonso. "So you too would take part in the folly
+of the rabble that is unable to appreciate the knowledge of lofty
+spirits, and would rather credit any absurdity than strengthen their
+own souls by gazing upon the grandeur of a fellow-creature.</p>
+
+<p>"Only go on in this way," said the priest indignantly, "and you
+scarcely need go into his vaunted school. It is clear his magic has
+you already in its snares, just as he subdues every heart that but
+beats within his reach. Yes forsooth, the heathen, he has spoken and
+prophesied today like a priest, and has for once besmeared his lies
+with this varnish. In the same manner he is lord and master in the
+house of the Podesta. Poor Crescentia could hardly in her last hours
+find her way back to holy church: so bound and held fast was her soul
+by the false doctrines the wicked hypocrite had flung like poisonous
+nets around her young spirit. Now she has escaped him; the Lord has
+called her to himself, and has sent this disease to save her soul with
+the loss of her body."</p>
+
+<p>The speakers were come into the large square before the church. The
+youth was irritated, and, to give his feelings vent, exclaimed: "What
+boots all this fierce envy, my ghostly sir? Do you not see, can you
+not perceive, how the world only falls away from you more and more,
+the more you by your excommunications and anathemas and persecutions
+strive to quench and stifle the new spirit? that spirit of eternal
+truth which is now awakening all nations from their sleep, and which
+in spite of your arts will never sink upon the pillow again to swallow
+your legends in submissive faith."</p>
+
+<p>"Bravo!" said the old man in high wrath: "Have we not Averroes now
+instead of Christ, and Aristoteles instead of the Almighty, and this
+Pietro of yours, this Iscariot, instead of the Holy Ghost? And verily
+the spirit of the earth has built up a high and stately body for him,
+and has crowned it with a noble brow, and has set an eye of fire in it
+and the sweet mouth of persuasion, and has poured grace and majesty
+over his motions, that he may juggle and delude: while I, the unworthy
+servant of the Lord, walk about here sickly and weak and without all
+comeliness of feature, and have only my own confession, only my faith,
+to give assurance that I am a christian. I cannot descend like him
+into the depths of dazzling knowledge, nor measure the course of the
+stars, nor foretell good and evil fortune; I am reviled and scorned by
+the overwise; but I bear it humbly, for the love of him who has laid
+all this upon me. Wait however until the end, and see whether his
+seven spirits whom he holds under his magical spell, can save him
+then; whether his Familiar, that spawn of hell, will then assist him."</p>
+
+<p>"Was his Familiar with him?" askt Alfonso eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>"Did not you observe the monster," answered the monk, "that had trickt
+itself out like a clown? the abortion with that hump, those twisted
+hands and arms, those crooked legs, those squinting eyes, and that
+enormous nose jutting out from its unsightly face."</p>
+
+<p>"I took all that for a mask;" said the youth.</p>
+
+<p>"No, this creature," replied the old man, "need not put on a mask.
+Such as he is, he is mask enough, and spectre, and imp of hell, this
+Beresynth, as they call him&#8230;. Will you pass the night in our
+convent, young man, until you have found a lodging?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," rejoined he very positively; "I will be indebted for no
+hospitality to a man thus unjust and slanderous toward the noble being
+whose name I heard with rapture while yet in my own country, and who
+shall walk and shine before me here as my guide and model. It is bad
+enough that I have been forced to hear such language from you, from a
+man whose condition and age forbid my calling him to account for it.
+If he alone is to be esteemed godly, who despises science and
+knowledge, he alone a christian, who in a waking slumber dozes away
+the days of his life and the powers of his soul, I depart out of the
+dull communion. But it is not so; nor is it the man, the christian, or
+the priest, that has been speaking from your lips, but your guild and
+fraternity. Farewell, if with such feelings you can."</p>
+
+<p>They parted, both much out of temper.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="narrow" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>The young Florentine who had met the funeral procession in the city,
+dasht like a madman through the gate, and then gallopt with reckless
+vehemence across field and wood. When he found himself in the open
+country, he hurled forth imprecations against the world and fate, tore
+his hair, curst his stars and his youth, and then rusht almost
+unconsciously onward. He spurred in the face of the wind that arose at
+nightfall, as though seeking to cool the fire in his cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>When it grew later, his horse, which had often stumbled already, and
+which he had pulled up furiously every time, dropt exhausted to the
+ground, and he was forced to pursue his way on foot. He knew not where
+he was, still less whither he should go; only there stood before him
+with inextinguishable features his own misery, and the vanity of the
+world, and the treacherous inconstancy of all happiness.</p>
+
+<p>"Accursed madness of life!" cried he in his despair through the
+darkness: "thus, thus cruelly dost thou awaken me out of my slumber! I
+cannot choose but hate thee mortally for thy jugglings, thy
+presumption, and for all those senseless hopes which smile upon our
+youth and go along with us so like friends upon our journey, and, when
+they have beguiled us into the wilderness, fly away from us and grin
+and make mows at us. Life! what is this web of folly, this silly dream
+of a feversick heart? One faint shivering-fit follows another; one
+crazy phantom drives another out; our wishes caper around in the bald
+waste, and do not even know themselves again. O death! O rest! O
+nothingness! come to me, let me embrace thee, and set this stormy
+heart free. O that I could but gasp out my last convulsive breath this
+very instant! that tomorrow's sun might no more find my place upon
+earth, that no thought might rise within me to greet its returning
+ray! Am I not the very wretchedest creature that breathes? and so much
+the poorer, for that a few hours since I deemed myself the happiest.
+Woe be to youth! woe to love! Woe to the feelings of the heart, that
+let themselves be so readily, so grossly deceived!"</p>
+
+<p>A shower now drizzled through the cold air, and soon the drops grew
+larger and thicker. The youth knew not whither he had strayed; the
+wood lay already far behind him; no shelter was near. He began to
+gather up his recollections; his grief became gentler; tears flowed
+from his eyes. He already hated life less; it seemed to him as though
+the night itself wisht to comfort him and to soothe his sorrow.
+Uncertain whether to seek for his fallen horse again, or to hide
+himself in some hollow from the rain, he lookt once more around, and
+at length far below him across a valley and at the back of some trees
+discovered a little dancing light, that like a friendly eye winkt to
+him through the thick darkness and called him to approach it. He
+hastened toward the dubious gleam, which now vanisht, and now again
+shone forth. All his powers, all his feelings were bound as in sleep;
+his whole being had as it were past away into a dream.</p>
+
+<p>A storm now got up, and heavy low-hanging thunderclouds were rolling
+slowly along. He was already approaching some trees, as it appeared to
+him; but the darkness made it impossible to distinguish anything
+whatever. A flash of lightning here dazzled him and a loud clap of
+thunder stunned him, so that he fell into a ditch.</p>
+
+<p>On lifting himself up again, the light which had allured him was close
+at hand. He knockt at the little window that peept through some trees,
+and begged for admittance and shelter from the rain and storm. A loud
+hoarse voice answered from within; but the youth did not catch a word;
+for the wind and thunder and rain, and the rustling of the trees, all
+now raged so violently at once, that every sound beside them fell
+dead.</p>
+
+<p>The door of the little house opened into the garden: he had to hasten
+through it; a female hand then took hold of him, led him along a dark
+passage, and into a little room, from which the light of a lamp and
+the fire on the hearth shone in his eyes. In the corner by the lamp
+sat a hideous old woman spinning; the girl who had conducted him in
+set to work over the fire; and for a long time he was unable to
+examine the figures closelier by the doubtful quivering light; for a
+long time no conversation could be carried on, the roaring of the
+thunder overpowering every other sound.</p>
+
+<p>"This is a cruel storm!" said the old woman during a pause with a
+croaking voice. "Whence do you come hither, young man?"</p>
+
+<p>"I come from Padua since this evening."</p>
+
+<p>"Far indeed," cried the old woman: "it lies six good leagues from
+here. And whither are you going? for there is no public road
+hereabout."</p>
+
+<p>"I know not, and care not to know. The wretched cannot frame any plan
+or think about the future. Indeed how happy should I feel, were there
+no future at all for me!"</p>
+
+<p>"You are talking nonsense, young man; and that must not be. Heyday!"
+she exclaimed, as she lifted up the lamp and lookt at him more
+narrowly, "why he is a Florentine! That doublet and cape is what I
+have not seen this many a day. Well now, this must surely bode me some
+good. So the ugly weather has made me a present of a dear guest; for
+you must know, my young gentleman, I too am from that blessed land. Ay
+Florence! Ah, if one might but once more tread on thy ground and see
+thy dear hills and gardens again! And your name, my dear young
+gentleman?"</p>
+
+<p>"Antonio Cavalcanti," said the youth, who felt more confidence in the
+old dame on finding that she was his countrywoman.</p>
+
+<p>"O what an accent!" cried she almost rapturously: "Cavalcanti! such a
+one I too knew some years since, one Guido."</p>
+
+<p>"He was my father," said Antonio.</p>
+
+<p>"And is he no longer alive?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," answered the young man; "my mother too was taken from me a long
+time ago."</p>
+
+<p>"I know it, I know it, my dear pretty boy. Ay, ay, it must now be full
+fifteen years since she died. Alas yes, it was then, in those
+troublous times, that she had to give up the ghost. And your dear
+worthy father, he is the only person I have to thank for the judges
+not having treated me just like a faggot some years after: they had
+somehow got it into their pates that I was a witch, and there was no
+avail in denying it. But Signor Guido fought my battle, what with
+reason and what with ranting, what with entreaties and what with
+threats: so they merely banisht me out of the dear land. And now this
+thunderstorm brings me the son of my benefactor into my poor little
+cottage. Come, give me your hand on the strength of it, youngster."</p>
+
+<p>Antonio gave it to the old woman shuddering; for now at length he was
+able to observe her more distinctly. She grinned at him friendly, and
+displayed two long black teeth standing out between her bristly lips;
+her eyes were small and sharp, her brow furrowed, her chin long; she
+stretcht out two gaunt shrivelled arms toward him; and being
+compelled, however loth, to embrace her, he felt the hump which made
+her ugliness still more disgusting.</p>
+
+<p>"True!" she said with a forced laugh, "I am not remarkably pretty; I
+was not so even in my younger days. There is something whimsical about
+beauty; one can never tell or describe downrightly in what it
+consists; it is always only the want of certain things which, when you
+have them at their full size, make up what folks call ugliness. Come
+now, tell me, such as I am, what do you think the most hideous thing
+about me?"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear old dame," said the youth in confusion&#8230;.</p>
+
+<p>"No," she cried, "plump out with the truth, and without any flattery.
+Everybody, you know, has some odd maggot or other; and as for me, I
+pride myself no little on being utterly without all those things which
+in the world they christen handsome. Now let me see your taste! speak
+out!"</p>
+
+<p>"If I must," stammered Antonio, while in spite of his grief a smile
+curled his lips, "those two teeth are &#8230; to my mind&#8230;."</p>
+
+<p>"Ha, ha!" cried the old woman laughing aloud, "my two dear good old
+black teeth are what pleases you the least about me. I can well
+believe it: they stand like two scorcht palisades among the ruins of a
+fortress in the wide empty space there. But you should have seen me
+ten years back; then matters were much worse still. In those days I
+had a whole mouth full of such portentous grinders; and they who loved
+me would say it lookt frightful. Well, one by one they fell out, and
+these two alone are left behind the last of all their race. When they
+are once gone, my jaws will clap together like two doors, the upper
+lip will grow just thrice as long, and again one can't tell what sort
+of a face will come of it. Time, my dear young friend, is, as somebody
+found out many many years ago, a bungling workman; he makes a creature
+pretty enough; then he daubs and trims and pares and pulls and
+squeezes the thing about, draws the nose and chin out of their
+sheaths, knocks in the cheeks, eats ruts into the forehead, till he
+has turned it into a scarecrow; and then at last he gets ashamed,
+smashes the whole wretched concern to pieces, and shovels it over with
+earth that all the world may not see his disgrace. Your cheeks too,
+smooth and polisht as they are, will not be so like a roseleaf by and
+by. Here! let me look! verily you have the rarest pearls of
+toothikins! a pity they must be used in chewing bread and roast beef.
+Hey, hey! shew them to me &#8230; wider open with the mouth &#8230; but they
+stand very oddly &#8230; hem! and that eyetooth! there is meaning in all
+that."</p>
+
+<p>Antonio knew not whether to scold or laugh; however he constrained
+himself to be calm, and to let the old woman have her chatter; for
+owing, as it seemed, to her former acquaintance with his family, she
+possest a strange power over him. But how did he start with amazement
+when she suddenly cried out: "Crescentia!"</p>
+
+<p>"For Heaven's sake!" he said, almost breathlessly: "do you know her?
+can you see her? can you tell me anything about her?"</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter with you?" howled the old woman: "how can I help
+knowing her, seeing she is my own daughter? Only look yourself how the
+lazy slut has fallen asleep in her chair there, and lets the fire go
+out and the soup get cold."</p>
+
+<p>She took up the lamp and went to the chimney; but what were the
+youth's feelings, when again for the second time on that day he beheld
+his beloved, almost the same as in the evening? Her pale head lay
+dropt back; her eyes were closed; every feature, even the dark
+tresses, were those of his bride; just so were her little hands
+folded, and just so did she too clasp a crucifix between them. Her
+white dress helpt to increase the illusion; the flowers alone were
+wanting; but the dusk wove something like wreaths of dark heavy
+foliage around her hair.</p>
+
+<p>"She is dead!" sighed Antonio gazing fixedly upon her.</p>
+
+<p>"Sluggish is she, the lazy jade," said the old woman, and shook the
+fair slumberer awake: "she can do nothing but pray and sleep, the
+useless baggage."</p>
+
+<p>Crescentia roused herself, and her confusion still hightened her
+beauty. Antonio felt on the brink of madness at thus again seeing
+before him one whom he had yet lost for ever.</p>
+
+<p>"Old witch!" he cried out vehemently: "where am I? and what forms art
+thou bringing before my wandering senses? Speak, who is this lovely
+being? Crescentia, art thou alive again? Dost thou still acknowledge
+me as thine own! How camest thou hither?"</p>
+
+<p>"Holla! my young prince," screamed the old woman; "you are gabbling
+away there, as though you had quite lost your little bit of an
+understanding. Is the storm beating about inside of your pate? has the
+lightning perchance singed your brains? She is my daughter, and always
+has been so."</p>
+
+<p>"I do not know you," said the pale Crescentia, blushing sweetly: "I
+was never in the city."</p>
+
+<p>"Sit down," the old woman interposed; "and eat and drink what I have
+to give you."</p>
+
+<p>The soup was placed on the table, along with some fruit; and the old
+woman going to a small cupboard took out a flask of excellent
+Florentine wine.</p>
+
+<p>Antonio could eat but little; his eye was spellbound upon Crescentia;
+and his disturbed and shattered imagination was evermore persuading
+him anew that this was his lost bride. Then again he often fancied he
+was lying enchained by a heavy dream, or had been seized by a trance
+of madness which was transforming every object around him, so that he
+was perhaps still in Padua, or at his own home, and saw nothing but
+phantasmal forms, and could not recognize or understand any of the
+friends who might be round about consoling him or mourning over him.</p>
+
+<p>The storm had raved itself out, and the stars were shining in the
+pacified dark sky. The old woman ate greedily, and drank still more
+plenteously of the sweet wine.</p>
+
+<p>"Now at length, young Antonio," she began after some time, "tell us,
+prithee, what brought you to Padua, and what has driven you hither?"</p>
+
+<p>Antonio started as from sleep. "You may well," he replied, "demand
+some account of your guest, since, beside that reason, you knew my
+father, and it may be my mother too."</p>
+
+<p>"To be sure I knew her," said the old woman sniggering; "nobody so
+well as I. Yes, yes, she died just six months before your father
+celebrated his second marriage with the Marchesa Manfredi."</p>
+
+<p>"So you know that too?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, it seems to me," she continued, "as though I could see the
+dainty trim doll at this very moment before me. Well, is your
+beautiful stepmother still living? When they drove me out of the
+country she was just in her prime full bloom."</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot again go through," said Antonio with a sigh, "what I
+suffered from that alien mother. She held my father as under
+enchantment; and he was readier to wrong all his old friends, readier
+to wrong his own son, than in anywise to offend her. At last however
+their behaviour to each other altered; but my heart almost broke at
+the sight of their hatred, while before it had only bled at the
+insults I had to endure."</p>
+
+<p>"So there was plenty of bitter malice," askt the old hag with a
+nauseous grin, "throughout the whole family?"</p>
+
+<p>Antonio eyed her with a sharp look, and said confusedly: "I know not
+how I have come to be talking here about my own and my parents
+misery."</p>
+
+<p>The old woman swallowed a bumper of red wine, which stood like blood
+in the glass. Then with a loud laugh she said: "Faith, I know no such
+glorious pleasure, nothing, I mean, so like what one may call perfect
+rapture and bliss, as when such a wedded couple, who in earlier days
+were once a pair of fond lovers, fall out in this way, and snarl and
+snap at each other, like cat and dog, or two tiger-beasts, and scold
+and curse each other, and would each give up heart and soul to Satan,
+only to hurt and pain or to get rid of the other. This, my young lad,
+is the true glory of mortal life: but more especially, if the two
+yoke-fellows have of yore gone stark mad with love, if they have done
+everything, even what is a little bit out of the way, for each other,
+if they have waded through much of what certain good pious folks would
+call crimes and sins, merely for the sake of getting at one another,
+merely for the sake of at last tying the knot, which they now so
+cordially abhor. Trust me, this is a grand feast for Satan and all his
+comrades, and it makes those below keep jubilee and sing psalms. And
+here now even &#8230; but I'll hold my tongue; I might easily say too
+much."</p>
+
+<p>Crescentia lookt mournfully at the astonisht youth. "Forgive her," she
+whispered: "you see she has drunk too much; pity her."</p>
+
+<p>But in Antonio's soul there now rose up with fresh power the image of
+former times and all their dark scenes. The sorrowful day came back
+upon him, when he saw his stepmother on her deathbed, when his father
+was in despair and curst himself and the hour of his birth, and called
+upon the spirit of his first wife and prayed for forgiveness.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you nothing else to tell?" askt the old woman, and thereby
+awakened him from his dreamy amaze.</p>
+
+<p>"What shall I tell?" said Antonio, with the deepest anguish: "do not
+you seem to know everything, or else to have learnt it by soothsay?
+Need I tell you that an old servant, Roberto, poisoned her, having
+been persecuted by her hatred and thus spurred on to revenge himself?
+that this accursed villain attempted to throw the crime upon my
+father? He escapes from prison, scales the garden-wall, and in the
+grotto thrusts his dagger into my father's breast."</p>
+
+<p>"What old Roberto! Roberto!" cried the old woman almost with a shout
+of triumph: "hey, only see how strangely some people will turn out!
+Ay, ay, the sneak in his younger days was such a straitlaced
+hypocrite, such a holy-seeming dog; afterward however he grew a fine
+spirited fellow, as they tell me. It was in the grotto then? How
+cunningly things fit together, and shell off till one gets at the
+kernel! In that grotto your father in earlier days sat time after time
+with his first wife; there at their betrothal he first swore eternal
+love to her. In those times Roberto doubtless already wore that
+dagger; but he knew not what an odd use he was to make of it some
+twenty years after. In that grotto too the second spouse would often
+slumber beside the cool fountain; and again the husband would lie
+there at her feet. Well, Antonio, child, is not life a right merry,
+right silly, right absurd, and right horrible hodgepodge? No man can
+say: 'that's a thing I never will do'. The pangs and the feelings, the
+stings and the ravings, which the black crew forge in hell's smithy,
+all these keep coming on and coming on, slowly, wonderously, nearer
+and ever nearer: on a sudden Horrour is in the house, and the frantic
+victim sits with it in the corner, and gnaws at it as a dog gnaws a
+bone. Drink, drink, my darling; this grape-juice sets all things to
+rights when its spirits once get into the soul&#8230;. Now, and you? do
+tell me a little more."</p>
+
+<p>"I swore to revenge my father," said Antonio.</p>
+
+<p>"That's just right;" returned the old woman: "look you, my child, when
+such a firebrand has been once hurled into a house, it must never
+never go out again. From generation to generation down to grandchild
+and cousin the poison is entailed; the children rave already; the
+wound is always bleeding afresh; a new vein must be opened to save the
+disaster and set it upon its legs again, when but for that it might be
+in danger of breathing its last. O revenge, revenge is a goodly word!"</p>
+
+<p>"But Roberto," said Antonio, "had escaped, and was nowhere to be
+found."</p>
+
+<p>"A pity, a pity!" exclaimed the old woman. "Now of course thy revenge
+drives thee over the world?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes in truth; I wandered through Italy, searcht in every town, but
+could find no trace of the murderer. At last the fame of Pietro of
+Abano fixt me at Padua. I wisht to learn wisdom from him; but when I
+came into the house of the Podesta&#8230;."</p>
+
+<p>"Well! speak out, child!"</p>
+
+<p>"What shall I say? I know not whether I am raving or dreaming. There I
+saw his daughter, the sweet, the lovely Crescentia. And I here see her
+again before me &#8230; yes it is herself &#8230; that funeral procession was
+a wicked, unseemly jest &#8230; and this disguise, this flight hither into
+the desert, is again a most unseemly piece of mummery. Acknowledge
+thyself to me at length, at length, beloved, beautiful Crescentia.
+Thou knowest it well, my heart only lives within thy bosom. To what
+end these agonizing trials? Are thy parents perchance in the next room
+there, and listening to all we are saying? Let them come in now at
+last, at last; let us have done with this cruel probation, which will
+soon drive me mad."</p>
+
+<p>The pale Crescentia lookt at him with such an unutterable expression,
+such a weight of sadness over her face, that the tears gusht from his
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Faith, he is drunk already!" howled the old woman. "Speak, tell me,
+is the Podesta's daughter dead then? Dead is she? and when?"</p>
+
+<p>"This evening," said the weeper, "I met her corpse."</p>
+
+<p>"So she too!" continued the old woman merrily, as she filled her glass
+again. "Well, now will the family of Marconi in Venice be right glad."</p>
+
+<p>"Why so?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because they are now the only heirs to their rich kinsman. This is
+what the long-sighted knaves have always wisht, but could never hope
+for."</p>
+
+<p>"Woman!" exclaimed Antonio with new horrour; "why thou knowest
+everything!"</p>
+
+<p>"Not everything," replied she, "but some little. And then a good deal
+more may perhaps be guessed at. And I will not deny it, a little
+witchcraft now and then helps on the game. Only don't be too much
+frightened at it. Nor in truth was it altogether for nothing that
+their Florentine worships would have built me a throne of faggots:
+some petty trifling bits of reasons for this wish they might fairly
+enough have brought forward&#8230;. Look me in the face, boy! stroak away
+the curls from thy forehead: good! now give me thy left hand: the
+right: heyday! strange and marvellous! That's it; some near misfortune
+is hanging over thee; but if thou outlivest it, thou wilt see thy
+beloved again."</p>
+
+<p>"In the next world!" sighed Antonio.</p>
+
+<p>"The next world? what is the next world?" cried the old hag in her
+drunkenness: "no, in this world, here, on what we call earth. What
+words the fools make use of! There is no next world, you silly
+ninnyhammer! he who does not skim off the fat from the broth while he
+is here, is a wretched gull. This however is what they clack to their
+simple brood, that they may behave prettily, and keep within bounds,
+and go the way one would lead them: but whosoever believes none of
+their fabling, he is free on the strength of this, and can do what his
+heart lusteth after."</p>
+
+<p>Antonio eyed her wrathfully, and was about to make an indignant reply;
+but the pale Crescentia interposed such a humble beseeching look for
+her mother that his anger was disarmed.</p>
+
+<p>The old woman yawned and rubbed her eyes, and it was not long before,
+stupefied as she was by the repeated draughts of strong wine, she fell
+fast asleep.</p>
+
+<p>The fire on the hearth was gone out, and the lamp now only cast a
+faint glimmer. Antonio sank into a deep study, and Crescentia sat by
+the window on a low stool.</p>
+
+<p>"Can I sleep anywhere?" the weary youth at length askt.</p>
+
+<p>"There is another room above," said Crescentia sobbing; and he now
+first observed that she had been crying bitterly all the time. She
+trimmed the lamp, to make it burn brighter, and walkt silently before
+him. He followed her up a narrow staircase, and after they were above
+in the low dark loft, the damsel set the light on a little table and
+was on the point of retiring. But when already at the door she turned
+back again, stared at the young man as with a look of death, stood
+tottering before him, and then fell sobbing aloud and with violent
+unintelligible lamentations as in a convulsion down at his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the matter with thee, my sweet girl?" he exclaimed, and tried
+to lift her up: "hush thee; tell me thy sorrow."</p>
+
+<p>"No, let me lie here!" cried the weeper. "O that I might die here at
+your feet, might die this very instant. No, it is too horrible. And
+that I can do nothing, can hinder nothing, that I must behold the
+crime in silence and helplessly! But you must hear it."</p>
+
+<p>"Compose thyself then," said Antonio comforting her, "that thou mayst
+recover thy voice and thy words."</p>
+
+<p>"I look," she continued passionately and interrupted by her tears, "so
+like your lost love, and it is I who am to lead you by the hand into
+the house of murder. My mother may easily foretell that a near
+misfortune is hanging over you: she well knows the gang that assemble
+here nightly. No one has ever yet escaped alive from this hell. Every
+moment is bringing him nearer and nearer, the fierce Ildefonso, or the
+detestable Andrea, with their followers and comrades. Alas! and I can
+only be the herald of your death, can offer you no help, no safety."</p>
+
+<p>Antonio was horrour-struck. Pale and trembling he graspt after his
+sword, tried his dagger, and summoned courage and resolution again.
+Much as he had but now wisht for death, it was yet too frightful to be
+thus forced to end his life in a robber's den.</p>
+
+<p>"And thou," he began, "thou with this face, with this form, canst
+bring thyself to be a companion, a helpmate to the accursed?"</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot run away," she sighed despondingly: "how joyfully would I
+fly from this house! Alas! and this night, tomorrow, I am to be taken
+from hence, and dragged over the sea; I am to be made the wife of
+Andrea or Ildefonso. Is it not better to die now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Come," cried Antonio, "the door is open; escape with me; the night,
+the forest will lend us their shelter."</p>
+
+<p>"Only look around you," said the girl; "only see how both here and in
+the room below all the windows are secured with strong iron bars; the
+door of the house is fastened with a large key which my mother never
+parts with. Did you not perceive, sir, how she threw the door into the
+lock when you entered?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then let the old hag fall first," cried Antonio: "we'll tear the keys
+from her&#8230;."</p>
+
+<p>"What, kill my mother!" shriekt the pale maiden, and clambered
+forcibly round him, to hold him fast.</p>
+
+<p>Antonio quieted her. He proposed to her that, as the old woman was
+drunk and sleeping soundly, they should take the large house-key
+gently from her side, then open the door, and escape. From this plan
+Crescentia seemed to catch some hope: they both went silently down
+into the room below, and found the old woman still fast asleep.
+Crescentia crept trembling up to her, sought for the key, found it,
+and succeeded after a time in loosening it from the string at her
+girdle. She beckoned to the youth; they stept on tiptoe to the door;
+they cautiously fixt the iron key in the lock; Antonio was now
+straining his hand to draw back the bolt without noise; when he felt
+that some one else was working at the lock on the outside in the same
+noiseless manner. The door opened softly and in came face to face to
+Antonio a large wild-looking man.</p>
+
+<p>"Ildefonso!" screamed the damsel, and the youth at the first glance
+recognized the murderer Roberto.</p>
+
+<p>"What is this?" said he with a hollow voice. "Where got you that key?
+whither are you going?"</p>
+
+<p>"Roberto!" cried Antonio, and furiously seized the gigantic man by the
+throat. They wrestled violently; but the nimbler strength of the youth
+got the better and threw the villain upon the floor; he then knelt
+upon his breast and plunged his dagger into his heart.</p>
+
+<p>The old woman meanwhile had awaked with loud screams, had started up
+on seeing the battle, and howling and cursing had torn her daughter
+away; she dragged her up to the room overhead, and bolted the door
+from within.</p>
+
+<p>Antonio was now mounting to break into the loft, when several dark
+forms stalkt in, and were no little astounded at finding their leader
+dead on the ground.</p>
+
+<p>"I am your captain now!" cried a broad bearded figure, fiercely
+drawing his sword.</p>
+
+<p>"Provided Crescentia is mine!" answered a younger robber in a tone of
+defiance.</p>
+
+<p>Each persisting in having his own way, they began a murderous combat.
+The lamp was thrown over, and amid yells and imprecations the battle
+rolled in the darkness from corner to corner.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you lost your senses?" shouted another voice athwart them: "you
+are letting the stranger get off; knock him down first, and then fight
+your quarrel out."</p>
+
+<p>But blind with fury they heard him not. Already the first grey
+uncertain gleam of early morning was dawning. Antonio now felt a
+murderer's fist at his breast; but quickly and strongly he struck the
+assailer down.</p>
+
+<p>"I am slain!" cried he, falling upon the floor: "Madmen, blockade the
+doors; don't let him run away."</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Antonio had found the way out; he sprang through the little
+garden and over the fence; the robbers, who by this time had come to
+their senses, hurried after him. He was only a few paces before them,
+and they tried to cut him off. One of them threw stones after him; but
+they missed their mark. Amid hollowing and threatening they had reacht
+the wood.</p>
+
+<p>Here the path split into sundry directions, and Antonio was at a loss
+which to choose. He lookt back, and saw the robbers separated; he
+attackt the nearest, and wounded him so that he let his sword drop.
+But at the same moment he heard shouts, and saw new forms along a
+by-path hastening thither; his road would soon be blockt up.</p>
+
+<p>In this extremity of need he met with his horse again on a little plot
+of grass in the wood. It seemed to have recovered from yesterday's
+over-fatigue. He leapt upon it, after rapidly seizing and righting the
+bridle; and with its utmost speed, as if the animal had felt his
+danger, it bore him along a foot-track out of the forest.</p>
+
+<p>By degrees the cries of his pursuers sounded more and more distant;
+the wood grew lighter; and when he had reason to trust that there was
+nothing more to be afraid of, he saw the city lying before him in the
+glory of the rising sun.</p>
+
+<p>People met him; countrymen were going the same road toward the city;
+travellers joined company with him; and in this way he came back to
+Padua, making little answer to the manifold questions and inquiries,
+why his dress was in such disorder, and why he had no hat. The
+citizens stared in wonder at him as he dismounted before the great
+house of the Podesta.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="narrow" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>In the city on that same night strange things had been going on, which
+as yet were a secret to everybody. Scarcely had the darkness spread
+thickly abroad, when Pietro, whom people commonly called by the name
+of his birthplace, Apone or Abano, retiring into his secret study at
+the back of his house, set all his apparatus, all the instruments of
+his art, in due order, for some mysterious and extraordinary
+undertaking. He himself was clad in a long robe charactered with
+strange hieroglyphs; he had described the magical circles in the hall,
+and he arranged everything with his utmost skill, to be certain of the
+result. He had searcht diligently into the configuration of the stars,
+and was now awaiting the auspicious moment.</p>
+
+<p>His companion, the hideous Beresynth, was also drest in magical
+garments. He fetcht everything at his master's bidding, and set it
+down just as Pietro thought needful. Painted hangings were unrolled
+over the walls; the floor of the room was covered over; the great
+magical mirror was placed upright; and nearer and nearer came the
+moment which the magician deemed the most fortunate.</p>
+
+<p>"Hast thou put the crystals within the circles?" demanded Pietro.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes;" returned his busy mate, whose ugliness kept bustling to and fro
+merrily and unweariably amid the vials, mirrors, human skeletons, and
+all the other strange implements. The incense was now brought; a flame
+blazed upon the altar; and the magician cautiously, almost with
+trembling, took the great volume out of his most secret cabinet.</p>
+
+<p>"Do we start now?" cried Beresynth.</p>
+
+<p>"Silence!" answered the old man solemnly: "interrupt not these holy
+proceedings by any profane or any useless words."</p>
+
+<p>He read, at first in a low voice, then louder and more earnestly as he
+paced with measured steps to and fro, and then again round in a
+circle. After a while he paused and said: "Look out, how the heavens
+are shaping themselves."</p>
+
+<p>"Thick darkness," replied the servant on his return, "has enwrapt the
+sky; the clouds are driving along; rain is beginning to drip."</p>
+
+<p>"They favour me!" exclaimed the old man: "it must succeed."</p>
+
+<p>He now knelt down, and murmuring his incantations often toucht the
+ground with his forehead. His face was heated; his eyes sparkled. He
+was heard to pronounce the holy names which it is forbidden to utter;
+and after a long time he sent his servant out again to look at the
+firmament. Meanwhile the onrush of the storm was heard; lightning and
+thunder chased each other; and the house seemed to tremble to its
+lowest foundations.</p>
+
+<p>"Hearken to the tempest!" shouted Beresynth coming back hastily: "Hell
+has risen up from below, and is raging with fire and fierce cracking
+crashes of thunder; a whirlwind is raving through the midst of it; and
+the earth is quaking with fear. Hold with your conjuring, lest the
+spokes of the world splinter, and the rim that holds it together
+burst."</p>
+
+<p>"Fool! simpleton!" cried the magician: "have done with thy useless
+prating! Tear back all the doors; throw the house door wide open."</p>
+
+<p>The dwarf withdrew to perform his master's orders. Meanwhile Pietro
+lighted the consecrated tapers; with a shudder he walkt up to the
+great torch that stood upon the high candlestick; this too at last was
+burning; then he threw himself on the ground and conjured louder and
+louder. His eyes flasht; all his limbs shook and shrunk as in
+convulsions; and a cold sweat of agony trickled from his brow.</p>
+
+<p>With wild gestures, as if scared out of his senses, the dwarf rusht in
+again, and leapt for safety within the circles. "The world is at the
+last gasp," he shriekt, pale and with chattering teeth: "the storms
+are rolling onward; but all beneath the voiceless night is dismay and
+horrour; every living thing has fled into its closet, or crept beneath
+the pillows of its bed to skulk away from its fears."</p>
+
+<p>The old man lifted up a face of ghastly paleness from the floor, and
+with wrencht and indistinguishable features screamed in sounds not his
+own: "Be silent, wretch, and disturb not the work. Give heed, and keep
+a fast hold on thy senses. The greatest things are still behind."</p>
+
+<p>With a voice as if he would split his breast, he read and conjured
+again: his breath seemed often to fail him; it was as though the
+gigantic effort must kill him.</p>
+
+<p>Hereupon a medley of voices were suddenly heard as in a quarrel, then
+again as in talk: they whispered; they shouted and laught; songs
+darted from among them, together with the jumbled notes of strange
+instruments. All the vessels grew alive, and strode forward, and went
+back again; and out of the walls in every room gusht creatures of
+every kind, vermin and monsters and hideous abortions in the richest
+confusion.</p>
+
+<p>"Master!" screamed Beresynth: "the house is growing too tight. What
+shall we do with all these ghosts? they must eat one another. O woe! O
+woe! they are all with cub, and are come here to whelp: new brutes
+keep sprouting out of the old ones, and the child is always wilder and
+frightfuller than its dam. My wits are leaving me in the lurch. And
+then this music into the bargain, this ringing and piping, and
+laughter athwart it, and funeral hymns enough to make one cry! Look
+master! look! the walls, the rooms are stretching themselves, and
+spreading out into vast halls; the ceilings are running away out of
+sight; and the creatures are still shooting forth, and thicken as fast
+as the space grows. Have you no counsel? have you no help?"</p>
+
+<p>In complete exhaustion Pietro now raised himself; his whole form was
+changed, and he seemed to be dying. "Look out once more," he said
+faintly: "turn thine eyes toward the dome, and bring me tidings of
+what thou seest."</p>
+
+<p>"I am treading the rabble here on the head," roared Beresynth, totally
+bewildered; "they are disporting themselves in twining about me like
+serpents, and are laughing me to scorn. Are they ghosts? are they
+demons, or empty phantoms? Get away! Well, if you won't move out of my
+path, I'll stamp downright upon your green and blue snouts. Everybody
+must take care of number one, even if a devil is to be the sufferer."
+He stumbled out muttering.</p>
+
+<p>Things now grew tranquil, and Pietro stood up. He waved his arm, and
+all those strange forms which had been crawling about the floor and
+twisting around each other in the air, vanisht. He wiped off the sweat
+and tears, and drew his breath more freely.</p>
+
+<p>His servant came back and said: "Master, all is quiet and well; but
+sundry light forms flitted by me and lost themselves in the dark sky.
+Thereupon, while I kept staring immovably toward the dome, a mighty
+crash sounded, as if all the strings of a harp were breaking at once,
+and a clap came that made the streets and the houses all tremble. The
+great door of the church burst open; flutes warbled sweetly and
+lovelily; and a soft light brightness streamed forth from the heart of
+the church. Immediately after the form of a woman stept into the
+radiance, pale, but glancing, bedeckt with crowns of flowers; she
+glided through the door, and gleams of light strewed a path for her to
+tread along. Her head upright, her hands folded, she is floating
+hither toward our dwelling. Is this she for whom you have been
+waiting?"</p>
+
+<p>"Take the golden key," answered Pietro, "and unlock the innermost
+richest chamber of my house. See that the purple tapestries are spread
+out, that the perfumes are scattering their sweetness. Then away, and
+get thee to bed. Make no further inquiry into what happens. Be
+obedient and silent, as thou valuest thy life."</p>
+
+<p>"I know you too well," returned the dwarf, and walkt off with the key,
+casting back another look of something like mischievous delight.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile a lovely murmur approacht. Pietro went into the
+entrance-hall, and in glided the pale body of Crescentia, in her robe
+of death, still holding the crucifix in her folded hands. He stood
+still before her; she drew up the lids from her large eyes, and shrank
+back from him with such a quick start that the wreaths of flowers
+dropt down from her shaking head.</p>
+
+<p>Without speaking a word he wrested her fast-claspt hands asunder; but
+in the left she kept the crucifix tightly clencht. By the right hand
+he led her through room after room, and she moved by his side stiffly
+and with indifference, never looking around.</p>
+
+<p>They reacht the furthest chamber. Purple and gold, silk and velvet,
+were its costly garniture. The light only glimmered in faintly by day
+through the heavy curtains. He pointed to the couch; and the
+unconscious holder of a charmed life stoopt and bent down like a lily
+that the wind shakes; she sank upon the red coverlet and breathed
+painfully.</p>
+
+<p>From a golden vial the old man poured a precious essence into a little
+crystal cup, and set it before her mouth. Her pale lips sipt the
+wonderous draught; she again unfolded her eyes, fixt them on her
+former friend, turned away from him with an expression of loathing,
+and fell into a deep sleep.</p>
+
+<p>The old man carefully closed the chamber again. Everything in the
+house was quiet. He betook himself to his own room, there in the midst
+of his books and magical instruments to await the rising of the sun
+and the business of the day.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="narrow" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>When the unhappy youth, Antonio, had rested, the Podesta rode forth on
+the following day with him and with a large train of armed followers,
+to seek for the hut with the hideous old woman and the robbers, and to
+take them prisoners. On hearing Antonio's story, the disconsolate
+father became very eager to see the damsel who was said to be so like
+his lost daughter. "Can it be," said the old man on their way, "that a
+dream to which I have only too often abandoned myself, is about to
+become true?"</p>
+
+<p>The father was in such haste that he gave the youth no further
+explanation. They came to the neighbouring wood; and here Antonio
+thought he recollected himself and had found his track again. But that
+night had so bewildered him, and excited such a turmoil throughout his
+whole frame, that he could not make out the way further on, which he
+had taken during the storm, half stunned by the roaring of the thunder,
+on foot, wandering over ploughed land and meadow.</p>
+
+<p>They crost the large plain in every quarter; wherever trees or bushes
+were to be seen, thither Antonio spurred his horse, in the hope of
+meeting with that den of robbers and the marvellous apparition within
+it; or at least, should the inhabitants have absconded, as he might
+well expect, of gaining some sort of tidings about them.</p>
+
+<p>At length the Podesta, after they had been roaming about thus for a
+great part of the day, began to fancy that the youth's heated
+imagination had merely beheld these phantoms in the wild ravings of
+his grief. "Such happiness," he exclaimed, "would be too great; and I
+am born only for misfortune."</p>
+
+<p>On reaching a village they were forced to let their horses and
+servants bait. The inhabitants said they knew nothing of any such
+suspicious neighbours, nor had the bodies of the slain been found
+anywhere round about. After a short pause Antonio again set off, but
+the Podesta now followed him more mistrustingly. Inquiries were made
+of every peasant they fell in with; but none could give them any
+certain information.</p>
+
+<p>Toward evening they got to a building that appeared to have been
+destroyed; ashes and rubbish lay around; some charred beams peered out
+from among the stones; the trees that stood near were scorcht.</p>
+
+<p>Here the youth seemed to recognize what he saw. This, he affirmed
+confidently, had been the abode of the murderers and of that wonderous
+Crescentia. They made halt. Far and wide through the waste country
+there was no house to be seen, no human being to call to.</p>
+
+<p>A servant rode to the next hamlet, and returned an hour after,
+bringing an old man on horseback. This old man said he knew that a
+good year since a hut had been burnt down there, having been set fire
+to by some soldiers; that the owner of the estate had already been ten
+years at Rome waiting for an office promist him in the church; and
+that his bailiff had taken a journey to Ravenna for the sake of
+getting in an old debt.</p>
+
+<p>Vext and wearied the travellers rode back to the city. The Podesta
+Ambrosio determined to give up his office, to withdraw from public
+life, and to leave Padua, where everything reminded him only of his
+misfortunes.</p>
+
+<p>Antonio resolved to learn in the school of the renowned Apone how to
+bear his wretchedness, and perchance to forget it. He removed into the
+house of that great man, who had long treated him with much kindness.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="narrow" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>"So you too," said the little priest some time after to the melancholy
+Antonio, "have given yourself up to this ill-starred school, to this
+pernicious man who will ensnare your soul to its destruction."</p>
+
+<p>"Why are you angry," answered Antonio courteously, "my pious friend?
+May not religion and knowledge shake hands in amity, as they do in
+this admirable teacher? in him whom the whole world admires, whom
+princes esteem and cherish, whom our holy father himself means to
+raise to a spiritual dignity. Why are you incenst against him who
+comes forward to meet you and all mankind with his love? Did you know
+how his doctrine comforts me, how he lifts up my soul and guides it
+heavenward, how in his mouth piety and religion find the words and
+images of inspiration, which bear his scholars as with the wings of
+the spirit into the regions above the earth, you would not think and
+speak thus harshly of him. Learn to know him more nearly; seek his
+intercourse; and you will soon be moved by penitence and love to
+abjure your dislike and your over-hasty judgement against him."</p>
+
+<p>"Love him!" cried the priest: "no, never! Keep yourself safe, young
+man, from his clutches and those of his servant with hell's stamp upon
+him, who cannot gull any one with the same fair seeming as his
+master."</p>
+
+<p>"True," rejoined Antonio, "little Beresynth is a queer figure, and a
+hideous one too. I wonder myself that our noble Pietro can endure to
+have him perpetually at his side, wherever he is and whatever he is
+doing. But ought a hump or any other such ugly mark to render us cruel
+toward a poor wretch whom nature has neglected?"</p>
+
+<p>"Fine words! grand phrases!" exclaimed the priest impatiently: "such
+are the very sentiments to make conjurors and quacks thrive apace.
+See, there comes the abomination! I cannot even bear to look upon him,
+much less to have any dealings with him. A creature whom the Lord has
+markt in this wise, is knowable enough; and let everybody in whom all
+human feeling is not yet quencht, get out of his way."</p>
+
+<p>Beresynth, who had caught the last words, came up to them with divers
+ungainly jumps.</p>
+
+<p>"My very reverend sir," he exclaimed, "do you then yourself happen to
+be of such mightily exquisite beauty, that you have a right to judge
+thus intolerantly? My master from his youth up has been a majestic and
+stately man; and yet he thinks far otherwise of me and my fellows.
+What! you little stinted, stunted, stumpy, bile-faced animal, whose
+nose is for ever running crimson with spite! You with the crooked
+corners of your seesaw mouth, with the broken ridges and ditches in
+your shrivelled half-inch forehead, you would make an outcry about my
+ugliness! Why the bit of a dwarf can hardly peer out of its pulpit
+when it is hubbubbing there, and is so gossamer-shankt it durst not
+walk across the great square if the wind chance to be blowing strong;
+the congregation are hard put to find him out when he is grimacing and
+gesticulating before the altar, and need all their christian faith and
+hope to believe him actually corporeally present; and such a
+hop-o'-my-thumb, such a ghostly ne'er-to-be-seen, would take the tone
+of a Goliah here. With thy leave, thou most invisible man of
+godliness, one might cut out of my nose alone as stout a pillar of the
+faith as thou art; and I won't reckon in the brace of humps which my
+backbone and breastbone have built up in rivalry of each other."</p>
+
+<p>The priest Theodore had already left them in anger before the end of
+this speech; and the melancholy Antonio chid the little dwarf for his
+wantonness. But the latter cried; "Now pray don't you also begin to
+preach. Once for all I will bear that from no one else than my master;
+for he came into the world on special purpose to teach morality and
+philosophy and their kin. But this weathercock of a priest here, that
+is driven round with such a creaking merely by his envy and malice,
+because he fancies that my noble master is lowering both his authority
+and his purse, he shall not unkennel his tongue from his toothless
+jaws, where I can but thrust in my unwasht mouth. And from a young
+student too I will brook no contradiction; for I used to have my beard
+shaved, while your father was still carried about in his
+chrisom-cloth; I was earning stripes at school and getting the fool's
+cap hung round my ears, when they put your worshipful grandfather into
+his first pair of breeches: so shew respect where it is due, and never
+forget whom you have before you."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be angry, little man," said Antonio: "I meant it well with
+thee."</p>
+
+<p>"Mean it just as you please," returned the other. "My master is to be
+a prelate, do you know that yet? and lord rector of the university.
+And he has received a new gold chain as a token of royal favour from
+Paris. And you must come to him; for he is going away from Padua, and
+wants to speak to you once more before he sets off. And don't crawl
+about so among the parsons, if you mean to be a philosopher."</p>
+
+<p>Hopping and jumping to and fro from side to side he ran down the
+street again; and Antonio said to Alfonso, who now came up to him, and
+who for some time past had been forming a friendship with him: "I
+never know, when talking to that little abortion, whether it means its
+words in earnest or only in jest. He seems always to be scoffing at
+himself and at everything else in the world."</p>
+
+<p>"This," answered Alfonso, "is a kind of necessary amends to him, a way
+of comforting himself for his deformity: by his sneers he to his own
+fancy makes all other creatures just like himself. But have you heard
+of the new honours that have been bestowed on our illustrious teacher
+and master?"</p>
+
+<p>"The world," replied Antonio, "acknowledges his high worth; and now
+that even our holy father, the pope, is making him a prelate, this
+will at length silence the envious priests and monks who are for ever
+trying to charge the virtuous and pious man with heresy."</p>
+
+<p>They parted; and Antonio hurried home, to take leave of his teacher
+for some days. The little dwarf Beresynth was awaiting him in the
+doorway with a friendly grin.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="narrow" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>It was already growing dark within the house; and as Beresynth left
+the youth to himself, he walkt, on not finding his teacher in the hall
+or even in the library, through a number of rooms, and thus advanced
+even to the innermost, which he had never yet entered. Here beside a
+dim lamp Pietro was sitting, and was no little surprised to see the
+Florentine come in; who on his part was astonisht at the skeletons,
+the strange instruments, and extraordinary machinery around the old
+man. Not without confusion the latter came up to him.</p>
+
+<p>"I did not expect you here," said he, "but thought to find you
+without, or to look for you up in your own room. I must set off to
+meet the legate of our holy father, the pope, that with due humility
+and gratitude I may receive the letter and the new dignity which his
+grace and paternal kindness have vouchsafed to confer upon me."</p>
+
+<p>Antonio was embarrast, and seemed to be examining the instruments,
+having never seen any thing like them.</p>
+
+<p>"You are wondering," said the old man after a while, "at all these
+things, which are necessary for my studies. When you have attended
+a course of my lectures on natural philosophy, I shall be able
+hereafter to explain everything which now perhaps you may deem
+incomprehensible."</p>
+
+<p>But at this moment something happened that drew away Antonio's
+attention from all these objects. A door that seemed shut was only
+ajar; it opened, and he saw into a room filled with a red purplish
+light; and at the door in the midst of this roseate glow was standing
+a pale ghost that winkt and smiled.</p>
+
+<p>With the speed of lightning the old man turned round, dasht the door
+thunderingly to, and fastened it with a gold key. Trembling and pale
+as a corpse he then threw himself into a chair, while large drops of
+sweat ran down from his forehead.</p>
+
+<p>When he was somewhat recovered, he beckoned to Antonio, still
+trembling and said with a faltering voice: "This mystery also, my
+young friend, will hereafter become clear to you; think, my dearest
+son, the best of me. Thee above all, thou child of many sorrows and of
+my love, will I lead into the lowest depths of my knowledge; thou
+shalt be my true scholar, my heir. But leave me at present; go up to
+thy lonely chamber, and call in fervent prayer upon heaven and its
+holy powers to support thee."</p>
+
+<p>Antonio could make no answer, so amazed and horrourstruck was he by
+the apparition, so perplext by his honoured teacher's speech; for it
+seemed to him as though Pietro was struggling to check a burst of
+anger, as if represt rage were flashing from his firy eyes, which
+after their sudden dimness rapidly shot forth fiercer glances.</p>
+
+<p>He went away; and in the antechamber he found Beresynth, who with
+grinning mouth was catching flies and then tossing them to a monkey.
+Both seemed engaged in a match which could make the most portentous
+faces. His master now called aloud for the servant, and the monster
+hopt in. Antonio heard a loud squabble, and Pietro appeared to be
+violently angry. Whining and yelling Beresynth came out of the room; a
+stream of blood was rushing down from his enormous nose.</p>
+
+<p>"Can't he keep his doors shut himself," howled the abortion,
+"allsapient and allpotent as he is? When the master is a blockhead,
+the servant must bear the blame. Betake you yourself, most honorablest
+sir, up to your most attic study, and leave me with my good friend, my
+dear Pavian here, in peace. He has still a human heart, the dear
+faithful creature. Merry comrade as he is, in his tender moments he is
+the most exquisite fellow. Come march! Pylades would feast on some
+more flies, which his Orestes must catch for him."</p>
+
+<p>Antonio left the room almost stupefied.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="narrow" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>The Florentine youth had taken up his abode in his teacher's house,
+for the sake of giving himself up without any interruption to his
+sorrows and his studies. He had chosen the most retired and highest
+room in the whole building, to be quite alone and unvisited by
+anybody. When he lookt from hence over the beautiful and fruitful
+fields about the city, and followed the course of the river with his
+eyes, he thought the more intensely of his, lost love. He had got her
+picture from her parents, as well as some toys she had played with in
+her childhood; above all he delighted in a nightingale, that in its
+moving plaints seemed to him to be only pouring forth the woes of his
+own heart. This bird had been fostered by Crescentia with the utmost
+care and fondness; and Antonio preserved it like something holy, as
+the last relic of his earthly happiness.</p>
+
+<p>With other young men of his own age he never mingled, excepting the
+Spaniard Alfonso, to whom he was united by their equally enthusiastic
+admiration of Pietro Abano. The Podesta Ambrosio had resigned his
+office and left the city: he meant to spend the rest of his life at
+Rome, for the sake of getting beyond the reach of his relations at
+Venice. He had given up the thought of ever again finding the twin
+daughter who had been stolen from him in her infancy; and his grief
+had been embittered by Antonio's calling back this hope with such a
+shock into his soul. He was convinced the young man had misled him and
+himself been deceived by the fevered dreams of that night.</p>
+
+<p>In the morning Pietro set off with his trusty servant. Antonio was
+left alone in the large house, the rooms of which were all lockt up.
+The night had past over him in sleeplessness. That terrific figure was
+evermore standing before his eyes, which, greatly as it had appalled
+him, had yet reawakened all his most delightful feelings. It was as
+though all power of thinking had died away within him; visions which
+he could not hold fast kept moving in ever-rolling circles before his
+imagination. It was a frightful feeling to him, that he knew not what
+to think of his venerated teacher, that he had a boding of lawless
+mysteries, and of a horrour which since that look into the chamber
+seemed to be awaiting him, to strip him of all optimism, and to
+deliver him up to madness and despair.</p>
+
+<p>The nightingale began singing before his window, and he saw that it
+was blowing hard and raining. His fondness for the bird made him take
+it in and set it atop of a high old wardrobe. He clambered up and was
+leaning over to place the cage steadily, when the chain from which the
+portrait of his beloved was hanging broke, and the picture slid to the
+wall and down behind the old oak chest. The unhappy are terrified by
+the veriest trifles. He got down hastily to seek for his darling
+treasure. He stoopt down to the ground, but his search was vain; it
+was not to be seen beneath the large heavy cabinet. Everything,
+whether of great or little moment, in his life seemed to be
+persecuting him as it were under some spell. He shoved at the old
+piece of furniture and tried to push it out of its place; but it was
+fastened to the wall. His impatience grew more vehement with every
+hinderance. He seized an old iron bar which he found in the anteroom,
+and laboured with all his strength to move the wardrobe; and at last,
+after much heaving and wrenching and a hundred fruitless efforts, it
+gave way with a loud cracking as if an iron cramp or chain had snapt.
+The cabinet now by degrees came forward, and Antonio was at length
+able to squeeze himself in between it and the wall. He immediately saw
+his beloved portrait. It was lying upon the broad knob of a door,
+which jutted out of the wall. He kist it, and turned the handle, which
+yielded. A door opened; and he resolved to push the great wardrobe
+somewhat further away, and to explore this strange matter; for he
+thought the owner of the house himself could hardly be acquainted with
+this secret passage, which had been concealed with so much care, and,
+as it appeared, for so long a time.</p>
+
+<p>When he had gained a little more room, he saw that behind the door
+there was a narrow winding staircase. He went down a few steps; the
+thickest darkness came round him. He descended lower and still lower;
+the stairs seemed to lead down almost to the bottom of the house. He
+was on the point of returning, when he struck against a stoppage; for
+the flight of steps was now at an end. As he groped up and down in the
+darkness, his hand hit on a brass ring, which he pulled, and instantly
+the wall opened, and a red glow streamed into his face. Before he
+passed through, he examined the door, and found that a spring which
+the ring had set in motion, had driven it back. He put it to and stept
+cautiously into the room.</p>
+
+<p>It was covered with costly red tapestry; purple curtains of heavy silk
+hung down before the windows: a bed of brilliant scarlet embroidered
+with gold rose in the middle of the room. Everything was still; no
+sound was heard from the street; the windows lookt into a small
+garden.</p>
+
+<p>A painful anxiety came over the youth as he stood in the midst of the
+chamber; he listened attentively, and at length seemed to hear the low
+whisper of a breath, as from a sleeper. With throbbing heart he turned
+round, and went forward, to spy whether any one was upon the bed; he
+spread open the silken hangings, and &#8230; he thought he must be in a
+dream; for before him lay, pale as a corpse, but in a sweet slumber,
+the form of his beloved Crescentia. Her bosom heaved visibly;
+something like a slight blush had tinged her pale lips, which were
+softly closed, quivering imperceptibly as a gentle smile ever and anon
+flitted over them. Her hair was loose and lay in its dark heavy locks
+upon her shoulders. Her dress was white, with a golden clasp at her
+girdle. For a long time Antonio stood lost in gazing; at last as if
+driven by a supernatural power he snatcht the lovely white hand, and
+began to pull up the sleeper by force. She darted a plaintive cry
+forth; and frightened by it he let go the arm again, which dropt
+languidly upon the pillow.</p>
+
+<p>But the dream, so seemed it, had flown away; the net of sleep which
+had held the wonderous form inclosed, was rent asunder: and as clouds
+and mists move along the side of the hills on the gentle morning
+breeze in wavy forms and now rise and now sink again, so the slumberer
+began to stir, stretcht herself as if powerless, and in slow and
+graceful motions seemed striving to emerge from her sleep. Her arms
+raised themselves, so that the broad sleeves fell back and displayed
+their full beauteous roundness; her hands folded themselves, and then
+dropt down again; the head arose, and the bright neck lifted itself
+freely up; but the eyes were still fast closed; the black tresses fell
+over the face, but the long taper fingers stroaked them back; now the
+fair one was sitting quite upright; she crost her arms over her
+breast, heaved a hard sigh, and on a sudden her large eyes stood wide
+open and glancing.</p>
+
+<p>She gazed at the youth; but it was as though she saw him not; she
+shook her head; then she graspt the gold tassel which was fastened to
+the top of the bed, lifted herself strongly up, and the tall slender
+form was now standing on its feet raised up on high in the midst of
+the scarlet drapery. She then stept safely and firmly down from the
+couch, walkt a few paces up to Antonio who had drawn back, and with a
+childish exclamation of surprise, as when children are suddenly
+gladdened by a new plaything, she laid her hand upon his shoulder,
+smiled lovelily upon him, and cried with a soft voice: "Antonio!"</p>
+
+<p>But he, pierced through and through with fear and horrour and joy and
+amazement and the deepest pity, knew not whether to fly from her, to
+embrace her, to cast himself at her feet, or to melt away in tears and
+die. That was the selfsame sound which of yore he had heard so often
+and with such delight, at which his whole heart had turned round.</p>
+
+<p>"Thou livest?" he cried with a voice which the swell of his feelings
+stifled.</p>
+
+<p>The sweet smile that had mounted from her pale lips over her cheeks
+even into her radiant eyes, suddenly split, and froze into a stiff
+expression of the deepest most unutterable woe.</p>
+
+<p>Antonio could not endure the glance of those eyes; he covered his face
+with his hands, and shriekt: "Art thou a ghost?"</p>
+
+<p>The figure came still closer, prest down his arms with her hands, so
+that his face lay bare, and said with a gently fluttering voice: "No,
+look at me; I am not dead; and yet I live not. Give me that cup
+there."</p>
+
+<p>A fragrant liquid was floating in the crystal vessel; he held it out
+to her trembling; she set it to her mouth and sipt the drink by slow
+draughts. "Alas! my poor Antonio!" she then said: "I will only borrow
+these earthly powers that I may disclose the most monstrous of crimes
+to thee, that I may beseech thy aid, that I may prevail on thee to
+help me to that rest after which all my feelings so fervently yearn."</p>
+
+<p>She had sunk back into the arm-chair, and Antonio was sitting at her
+feet. "Hellish arts," she again began, "have seemingly awakened me
+from death. The same man whom my inexperienced youth honoured as an
+apostle, is a spirit of darkness. He gave me this shadow of life. He
+loves me, as he says. How my heart shrank back from him when my
+awakening eye beheld him. I sleep, I breathe; I may, if I choose, be
+restored to life altogether, so that wicked man has promist me, if I
+will give myself up to him with my whole heart, if in secret
+concealment I will let him become my husband&#8230;. O Antonio, how hard
+is every word to me, every thought! All his art crumbles before my
+longing for death. It was frightful, when my spirit, already at rest,
+with new visions already unfolding before it, was summoned back so
+cruelly out of its calm peace. My body was already a stranger to me, a
+hostile and hateful thing. I came back like the freed slave to chains
+and a dungeon. Help me, my true lover; save me."</p>
+
+<p>"How!" said Antonio: "Oh God in Heaven! what have I lived to! in what
+a state do I find thee again! And thou canst not, mayst not return to
+life altogether? thou canst not again be mine, again be thy parents'
+dear child?"</p>
+
+<p>"Impossible!" cried Crescentia with a tone of anguish, and her
+paleness became yet whiter from dismay. "Alas! Life! How can any one
+seek it again, who has once been set free from it? Thou, my poor
+Antonio, conceivest not the deep longing, the love, the rapture,
+wherewith I think upon death and pant for it. Even more intensely than
+of yore I loved thee, even more fervently than my lips at the Easter
+festival pined for the holy wafer, do I now yearn for death. Then I
+shall love thee more freely and more wholly in God; then I shall be
+given back to my parents. Then I shall live; formerly I was dead; now
+I am a cloud and a shadow, a riddle to myself and to thee. Alas, when
+thy love and our youth have gleamed in upon me in my present state,
+when I have heard my well-known nightingale from above pouring her
+song into my loneliness, what a sweet shuddering, what a dark joy and
+pain have then rippled through the dusk of my being! O help me to get
+loose from this chain."</p>
+
+<p>"What can I do for thee?" askt Antonio.</p>
+
+<p>Her talking had again broken the strength of the apparition: she
+paused awhile with closed eyelids; then she spake faintly: "Alas! if I
+could go into a church, if I could be present when the Lord is lifted
+up and appears to the congregation in the sacrament, then in that
+blessed moment I should die of rapture."</p>
+
+<p>"What should hinder me," said Antonio, "from informing against the
+villain, and delivering him up to the tribunals and to the
+inquisition?"</p>
+
+<p>"No! no! no!" groaned the figure in the greatest terrour: "thou dost
+not know him; he is too mighty; he would make his escape, and again
+tear me to him within the circle of his wickedness. Quietly and by
+silence alone can we succeed; he must feel secure. A chance has
+brought thee to me. Thou must make him believe himself quite safe, and
+keep everything secret."</p>
+
+<p>The youth collected his senses; he talkt much with his former
+betrothed; but speaking became more and more difficult to her; her
+eyelids dropt down; she drank once more of the wonderous potion; then
+she made him lead her to the couch.</p>
+
+<p>"Farewell!" she said, as if already in a dream; "do not forget me."</p>
+
+<p>She mounted upon the bed, laid herself gently down; her hands searcht
+for the crucifix, which she kist with her eyes closed; then she held
+out her hand to her lover, and beckoned him away as she stretcht
+herself out to sleep.</p>
+
+<p>Antonio gazed at her awhile; then with the spring he shut the
+invisible door again, crept back up the narrow winding stairs to his
+chamber, fixt the wardrobe in its old place, and burst into hot tears
+as the song of the nightingale welcomed him with the swell of its
+mournful notes. He too longed for death, and only wisht beforehand to
+release her, who but a few days since was to have been his earthly
+bride, from her marvellous and awful state.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="narrow" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>In order to be out of the way when his teacher returned from his
+journey, Antonio had bent his steps toward the loneliest part of the
+wood. It was an annoyance to him to meet his friend, the Spaniard,
+here; for he was in no mood to carry on a conversation. However, as
+there was no avoiding his comrade, he resigned himself in silent
+sadness to the society which at other times had been a pleasure to him
+and a comfort. He only half listened to what his friend said, and
+answered but sparingly. As was almost always the case, Pietro was
+again the theme of Alfonso's boundless admiration.</p>
+
+<p>"Why are you thus stingy of your words today?" he at length began,
+somewhat vext: "is my company troublesome to you? or are you no longer
+as capable as you used to be of honouring our great teacher and giving
+him the glory he deserves?"</p>
+
+<p>Antonio was forced to collect himself, not to sink away entirely into
+his dreamy state.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the matter with you?" askt Alfonso again: "it seems I have
+offended you."</p>
+
+<p>"No, you have not;" cried the Florentine; "but if you have any regard
+for me, if you would not excite my anger, if you would not have the
+bitterest feelings rend my heart, do give over chaunting the praises
+of your idolized Pietro for today. Let us talk on some other subject."</p>
+
+<p>"Ha! by Heaven!" exclaimed Alfonso: "so the parsons have twisted your
+feeble senses round at last. Go your own way henceforward, young man;
+wisdom, I now well see, is too lofty a prize for you. Your head is too
+weak for this fare; and you are longing again for the pap you were
+wont to get from the former fathers of your soul. You will do better
+to stay with them, at least till your milk teeth have dropt out."</p>
+
+<p>"You are talking overweeningly," cried Antonio in wrath; "or rather
+you are utterly ignorant of what you are saying, and I deserve not
+this language from you."</p>
+
+<p>"How has our teacher deserved," said the Spaniard hastily, "he who has
+taken you in like a father, he who favours you so highly above all the
+young men of our university, who allows you to dwell in his house, who
+entrusts you with all the thoughts of his heart, by what offense has
+he deserved, that you should thus mean-spiritedly deny him?"</p>
+
+<p>"If I were to answer now," returned Antonio angrily, "that you do not
+know him, that I have reasons, and the fullest, to think otherwise of
+him, again you would not understand me."</p>
+
+<p>"Verily," said Alfonso with a sneer, "you have already scaled so high
+into the most secret places of his philosophy, that the common
+unfavoured child of earth is unable to follow you. Here again one sees
+that half-merit and quarter-merit puff themselves up the most. Pietro
+Abano is more lowly-minded than you, his feeble mimic."</p>
+
+<p>"You are unmannerly!" exclaimed the young Florentine irritated to the
+utmost. "If I were now to assure you by my honour, by my faith, by
+heaven, and by everything which must needs be holy and venerable to
+you and me, that in all Italy, in all Europe, there is no such wicked
+villain, no so atrocious hypocrite as this&#8230;."</p>
+
+<p>"Who?" shouted Alfonso.</p>
+
+<p>"Pietro Abano," said Antonio now grown calm: "what would you say
+then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing!" furiously cried the other, who had not allowed him to
+finish: "save that you, and everybody else who dares to speak in that
+way, are the paltriest knaves that ever had the audacity to blaspheme
+holy things. Draw, if you would not be called a mean coward as well as
+a base slanderer."</p>
+
+<p>Antonio's drawn sword met the challenger with the same speed; and it
+was in vain that a hoarse anxious voice cried out to them: "Hold!"
+Alfonso was wounded in the breast; and the blood at the same time ran
+from Antonio's arm.</p>
+
+<p>The old priest, who had wisht to separate the quarrellers, now
+hastened forward; bound up their wounds and stancht the blood; then he
+called to some students that he had seen a little way off, and told
+them to carry the wounded Alfonso to the city.</p>
+
+<p>Before he was removed, Antonio went up to him and whispered in his
+ear: "If you are a man of honour, not a word about the cause of our
+fray will pass over your lips. In four days time we will meet again:
+and if you are not of my way of thinking then, I am ready to give you
+any satisfaction."</p>
+
+<p>Alfonso pledged his solemn promise; all the bystanders too assured
+Antonio that the wound as well as the whole affair should be kept a
+secret, not to expose him to any danger.</p>
+
+<p>When they were all gone Antonio walkt with the priest Theodore deeper
+into the wood.</p>
+
+<p>"Why," began the latter, "will you, for a fiend's sake, make over your
+own soul to hell? I see, you are now of a different opinion; but is
+the sword the spokesman that should preach truth to a brother?"</p>
+
+<p>Antonio felt in doubt how much he should disclose to the monk; however
+he said nothing about the wonderful event that had befallen him, and
+only entreated that, at the approaching festival of Easter, he might
+be allowed to enter the great church during high mass through the
+sacristy, near the altar.</p>
+
+<p>After some objections Theodore complied, though he could not conceive
+what was the youth's purpose in asking for this permission. All
+Antonio said further was: "I wish to bring a friend into the church
+that way, whose entrance at the great door might perhaps be stopt."</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="narrow" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>All the bells in the city were ringing, that the holy feast of Easter
+might be kept with gladness and devotion. The people flockt toward the
+dome, to celebrate the most joyous of Christian festivals, and also to
+behold the renowned Apone in his new dignity. The students escorted
+their illustrious teacher, who walkt along amid the reverent
+salutations of the nobles, the council, and the citizens, in seeming
+piety and humility, an example to all, the pride of the city, the
+inspiring model of the youth. At the door of the cathedral the crowd
+shrank back in timid respect, to make way for their honoured bishop,
+who, in the garb of a prelate, with the golden chain round his neck,
+with his white beard and the white locks on his head, might be
+compared to an emperor or an ancient doctor of the church in his
+majestic demeanour.</p>
+
+<p>A seat had been raised up on high for the great man near the altar,
+that the students and the people might see him; and when the multitude
+of the devout had poured into the church, the service began.</p>
+
+<p>Theodore, the little priest, read mass on this day; and young and old,
+gentle and simple, all rejoiced to keep the festival of their Lord's
+resurrection in a worthy manner, and to behold the pomp of worship
+returning, glad that after the days of severe fasting, after the
+saddening representations of suffering and sorrow, they might now
+comfort themselves with the feeling of a new life springing forth from
+the grave.</p>
+
+<p>The first part of the divine service was already over, when people
+were astonisht to see Antonio Cavalcanti stepping into the church by
+the side of the altar, leading a thickly veiled figure in his hand. He
+placed the figure on the raised pavement just in face of Pietro, and
+then threw himself down before the altar praying. The muffled form
+remained standing stiff and high, and beneath the covering one saw the
+firy black eyes. Pietro lifted himself from his seat, and sank back
+into it pale and trembling. The music of the mass now gusht and rolled
+in fuller symphonies; the muffled form disentangled itself slowly from
+its veils; the face became free; and those who were nearest with
+horrour recognized the dead Crescentia. A shudder passed through the
+whole church; even over those who were furthest off a secret shivering
+crept, to see the image pale as death standing so tall there, and
+praying so fervently, and never turning her large burning eyes from
+the priest at the altar. Even the great mighty Pietro himself seemed
+changed into a corpse; from his distorted features one might have held
+him to be dead, but that his life betrayed itself in his violent
+trembling.</p>
+
+<p>Now the priest turned round and lifted up the consecrated host;
+trumpets announced the renewed presence of the Lord; and with a voice
+of triumph, with a face of high transport, her arms widely outspread,
+as she cried aloud "Hosannah!" so that the church resounded with it,
+the pale apparition dropt down, and lay dead, stiff, and motionless,
+before Pietro's feet.</p>
+
+<p>The people rusht forward; the music stopt; curiosity, astonishment,
+horrour, and affright spake from every asking countenance; the nobles
+and students went up to comfort and support the venerable old man, who
+appeared so deeply shockt; when Antonio with a yelling sound shouted:
+"Murder! Murder!" and began the most fearful charge, the most
+appalling tale, unfolded the hellish arts, the accursed magic of the
+dismayed sinner, spake of himself and of Crescentia and of their awful
+meeting again, until anger and rage and imprecations and loathing and
+curses raved like a stormy sea around the criminal, and threatened to
+annihilate him, to tear him to pieces in the madness of their fury.
+They talkt of gaolers and chains; the inquisitors drew near; when
+Pietro started up as in a frenzy, thrust and struck about him with
+clencht fists, and seemed to spread himself out to a gigantic size. He
+walkt up to Crescentia's body that lay smiling like the picture of a
+saint, gazed at her once more, and then passed roaring and with
+flashing eyes through the crowd.</p>
+
+<p>A new horrour seized the people; they made room for the huge form; all
+moved out of his way. Thus Pietro came to the open street: but the mob
+now bethought themselves, and with cries and curses and revilings
+pursued the fugitive, who ran hastily onward, while his long robes
+flew far behind him, and the gold chain beat and rattled upon his
+breast and shoulders. The rabble, as they could not catch him, tore up
+the stones from the pavement, and threw them after him; and wounded,
+bleeding, dripping with sweat, his teeth chattering from fear, Pietro
+at last reacht the threshold of his house.</p>
+
+<p>He hid himself in the innermost apartments; and Beresynth came forward
+inquisitively, asking all sorts of questions, to meet the mob and the
+rush of the people.</p>
+
+<p>"Fall upon the maskt devil! the familiar!" they all shouted: "tear in
+pieces the profane creature who never yet set foot in a church!"</p>
+
+<p>He was dragged and pusht into the street; no answer was made to his
+inquiries and intreaties, to his howls and shrieks, nor indeed was
+anything heard through the stormy tumult except curses and threats of
+death. "Bring me before the magistrate!" at length screamed the dwarf;
+"there my innocence will be made clear as day."</p>
+
+<p>The constables were summoned, and seizing him led him toward the
+prison. All the people prest after him. "In here with him!" cried the
+chief of the officers: "chains and faggots are waiting for thee."</p>
+
+<p>He tried to tear himself away from them; the constables laid hold on
+him and shoved him to and fro: one seized him by the collar, another
+by the arm, the next clung round his leg to hold him fast, a fourth
+caught his head to make quite sure of him.</p>
+
+<p>While they were pulling him backward and forward in this way amid
+shouts and curses and laughter, on the sudden they all started off
+from one another; for each had got nothing but a piece of clothing, a
+sleeve, cap, or shoe of the monster; he himself was nowhere to be
+seen. He could not have run away; he seemed to have vanisht; but
+nobody could tell how.</p>
+
+<p>When they had broken into Apone's chamber, those who rusht in found
+him lying on his bed, lifeless, having bled to death. They plundered
+the house; the magical implements, the books, the strange furniture,
+were all made over to the flames; and throughout the whole city
+nothing resounded except curses on the man whom but this morning all
+had honoured as a messenger from Heaven. This only embittered the
+loathing with which they now revolted from the phantom.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="narrow" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>When the turmoil by which the people were agitated was somewhat
+allayed, the body of Pietro was silently buried at night, without the
+consecrated churchyard. Antonio and Alfonso renewed their friendship,
+and attacht themselves to the pious Theodore, who, after going through
+the solemn rites and pronouncing a devout oration, had the body of the
+beautiful Crescentia laid a second time in the vault designed for her.
+Antonio however could not bear to stay any longer at Padua; he
+resolved to revisit his native city, that he might settle his affairs,
+and then perhaps get admitted into a convent. Alfonso on the other
+hand determined to make a pilgrimage to Rome, where the holy Father
+had just been proclaiming a year of jubilee with a plenary indulgence
+for sins. Not only throughout Italy was every one in motion; but from
+France too, and Germany, and Spain, came numerous trains of pilgrims,
+to celebrate this till then unheard of solemnity, this great festival
+of the church, in the holy city.</p>
+
+<p>After the friends had parted, Antonio pursued his lonely path,
+shunning the great road, partly for the sake of brooding
+uninterruptedly over his sorrows, and partly to avoid the swarms that
+were flocking along the highway, and were often troublesome at the
+nightly resting-places.</p>
+
+<p>Thus following his own mood, he roamed through the plains and through
+the vallies of the Apennines. One evening the sun set and no inn was
+to be seen. As the shades were deepening, he heard a hermit's little
+bell tinkling in a wood on one side. He bent his steps toward the
+sound, and when the darkness of night was already closing, he arrived
+at a small hut, to which a narrow plank led across a brook, surrounded
+by bushes.</p>
+
+<p>He found an aged infirm man praying with the deepest devotion before a
+crucifix. The hermit received the youth, who greeted him courteously,
+with kindness made up a couch of moss for him in a recess of the rock
+which was separated by a door from his cell, and placed some of his
+fruit, some water, and a little wine before him. When Antonio was
+refresht, he was greatly pleased with the conversation of the monk,
+who in earlier times had lived in the world, and served as a soldier
+in many campaigns. In this way it had grown late in the night, and the
+youth betook himself to his bed, just as another weak and sickly monk
+entered, who meant to pass the night with the hermit in prayer.</p>
+
+<p>When Antonio had rested about an hour he started suddenly out of his
+sleep. It seemed to him as though loud voices were disputing. He sat
+up; and all doubt about the quarelling and squabbling was removed. The
+tones too struck him as if he knew them; and he askt himself whether
+he was not dreaming. He went to the door, and found a crevice through
+which he could pry into the front room.</p>
+
+<p>How was he amazed at beholding Pietro Abano, whom he could not but
+deem dead, speaking loudly, with eyes of rage and a red face, and
+striding about with violent gestures! Over against him stood little
+Beresynth's hideous carcase.</p>
+
+<p>"So you have got your persecutor," cried the latter with a croaking
+voice, "who has made you thus wretched, the lovesick godly fool, here
+under your roof! he has run of his own accord like a silly rabbit into
+the snare: and you are shillishallying about cutting his throat."</p>
+
+<p>"Silence!" cried the large figure: "I have already taken counsel with
+my spirits; they will not consent; I have no hold upon him; for he is
+imprisoned in no sin."</p>
+
+<p>"Smite him dead then," said the little one, "without your spirits,
+with your own gracious hands: so his virtue and his sinlessness will
+not avail him much; and I should be a sorry servant if I were not to
+stand by you in so praiseworthy an exploit."</p>
+
+<p>"Well then!" said Pietro: "let us go to work; take thou the hammer;
+I'll carry the axe; he is fast asleep now."</p>
+
+<p>They advanced toward the door; but Antonio tore it back, to meet the
+villains boldly in the face. He had drawn his sword; but he remained
+like a statue, standing with uplifted arm, when he saw two sickly
+decrepit hermits lying on their knees before the cross, mumbling their
+prayers.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you want anything?" askt his host, rising toilsomely from the
+floor. Antonio was so astounded, he could make no answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Why that drawn sword?" askt the weak stooping hermit; "and wherefore
+these menacing looks?"</p>
+
+<p>Antonio drew back with the excuse that a frightful dream had scared
+and worried him. He could not fall asleep again; his senses were in
+such a tumult. Ere long he again plainly heard Beresynth's croaking
+voice; and Pietro said with a full clear tone: "Have done; thou seest
+he is armed and warned; he will not trust himself to sleep again."</p>
+
+<p>"We must overpower him then;" screamed the little one: "now that he
+has recognized us, we are quite undone every way. The pious slave will
+go and give us up to the inquisition tomorrow; and the pious rabble
+will then be at hand in a trice with their faggots and flames."</p>
+
+<p>Through the chink in the door he perceived the two magicians. He again
+rusht in with his sword drawn, and again found two decrepit old men
+lying on the ground and whining their prayers. Enraged at the cheating
+forms, he seized them in his arms and wrestled violently with them;
+they defended themselves desperately; it was now Pietro, now the
+hermit, one moment the imp Beresynth, the next a crippled old monk.</p>
+
+<p>After much screaming and raving, cursing and wailing, he at last
+succeeded in thrusting them out of the cell, which he then carefully
+fastened. He now heard a whining without and entreaties and groans,
+mixt up with the whispering of many voices, and with songs and yells;
+afterward rain and wind seemed to be stirring, and a storm afar off
+rolled athwart the multitudinous sound. Stunned at length by all this,
+Antonio fell asleep, leaning on his sword as he sat before the
+crucifix; and when the cold morning breeze awakened him, he found
+himself on the highest peak of a narrow ridge in the midst of a thick
+forest, and thought he heard bursts of scornful laughter behind him.</p>
+
+<p>It was at the peril of his life that he climbed down the steep
+precipice, tearing his clothes, and wounding his face and hands and
+feet. He had then to wander wearisomely through the forest: there was
+not a soul to call to, not a hut to be discovered far around, often as
+he mounted the hights to explore. When it was almost night, faint with
+fatigue, hunger, and exhaustion, he fell in with an old collier who
+refresht him in his little hut. He learnt that he must be some twelve
+miles and upward from the hermitage he had met with the evening
+before. It was only late on the following day that, somewhat
+strengthened and cheered, he could pursue his journey toward Florence.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="narrow" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>Antonio had returned to Florence for the sake of visiting his kindred
+and his paternal house again. He could not make up his mind on what
+course of life to enter, since all the happiness of existence had
+proved so treacherous, and even realities had shewn themselves to him
+under the aspect of a mad dream.</p>
+
+<p>He settled his affairs, and gave himself up to his sorrow in the great
+palace of his fathers; where that fatal grotto and every well-known
+room only harast his mind with the liveliest images of his own and his
+parents misfortunes. He thought too of that hateful witch who was so
+entangled in his fate, and of that Crescentia who had appeared to him
+and then vanisht again in a way scarcely less marvellous than his
+bride. If he could have caught the slightest glimmering of hope, he
+might in time have grown reconciled to life again.</p>
+
+<p>At last there rose up within his soul, like a pale star, the wish of
+making a pilgrimage to Rome, which he had never yet seen, there to
+partake in the graces bestowed upon the faithful, to visit the famous
+churches and holy relics, to divert his thoughts from himself in the
+midst of the streaming multitude, the throng of numberless strangers
+who had journied thither from all quarters of the earth, and to seek
+out his friend Alfonso. He also expected that he should find old
+Ambrosio in the great city, should receive comfort from this mourner
+who had meant to become his father, and might perhaps afford him too
+some comfort in his affliction. With these feelings and views he set
+out on his way, and after some time arrived at Rome.</p>
+
+<p>He was astonisht when he entered the great city. He had framed no
+conception of her grandeur, her ancient monuments, or of such a
+concourse of innumerable strangers. It might well be deemed matter of
+wonder if one found out any friend or acquaintance, without being able
+beforehand to give an accurate account of where he lived. And yet this
+wonderful chance befell him in his suddenly meeting Ambrosio, as he
+was going up to the Capitol from which the old man was coming down.
+The Podesta carried him to his house, where Antonio greeted the
+sorrowing mother. The rumour of Pietro's strange end, of Crescentia's
+return to life and second departure from it, had already been bruited
+as far as Rome: this marvellous story was in the mouth of every
+pilgrim, disfigured with confused additions and contradictions, and
+drest out by frequent repeating into the very reverse of the truth.
+The parents listened with alternations of joy and woe to the story as
+Antonio told it, awestruck as they both were, especially the mother,
+who gave vent to her loathing in execrations against the old
+hypocritical magician, and in her rage more than half believed that he
+had himself been the cause of her daughter's death, having perhaps
+taken a bribe for that purpose from the family of Marconi, that he had
+poisoned her for the sake of awakening her corpse again to gratify his
+frantic abominations.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us leave all this to heaven;" said the old man. "What happened
+and was notorious to the whole city and country, was quite horrible
+enough, without involving others, who may perhaps have been innocent,
+in this enormous wickedness. However, let the matter with regard to
+the Marconis stand as it may, I am perfectly resolved that they shall
+never be the better off for my fortune. By the help of my patrons here
+I shall obtain leave to make over my property to some convents or
+charitable foundations; and perhaps my weariness of life may lead me
+to end my own days as a monk or hermit."</p>
+
+<p>"But what," threw in the mother weeping, "if it were possible after
+all to find out that second Crescentia again, of whom Antonio has told
+us! The child was stolen from me during your absence in a most
+incomprehensible manner; the witch who named the Marconis on that
+night, the likeness, all, all agrees so wonderfully, that surely we
+ought not to cast away hope, that first and chief good of life, too
+early, not too hastily, in our despair."</p>
+
+<p>"Good Eudoxia," said the father, "have done, have done with all these
+dreams and stories and wild fancies: for us there remains in this
+world nothing that is certain, except death; and that ours may be
+pious and easy, is what we must wish and pray to heaven for."</p>
+
+<p>"And if hereafter, when it is already too late," exclaimed the mother,
+"our poor orphan child should be found again, may not the unhappy girl
+justly reproach us for not relying on the bounty and mercy of Heaven,
+and waiting for her return with a little more calmness and patience?"</p>
+
+<p>Ambrosio cast a dark frown on the youth, and then said: "This too has
+come in over and above all the rest to deepen our wretchedness: you
+have infected my poor wife with your sick fancies, and have thereby
+robbed her of her peace, the only, the last blessing of life."</p>
+
+<p>"What mean you by these words?" askt Antonio.</p>
+
+<p>"Young man," answered the father, "ever since that ride of yours
+through field and forest, when you pinned that wild tale upon me about
+the events which you said had befallen you the night before&#8230;."</p>
+
+<p>"Signor Ambrosio!" cried Antonio, and his hand fell involuntarily on
+his sword.</p>
+
+<p>"Leave that alone," continued the old man calmly: "far be from me the
+wish to accuse you of a falsehood; I have too long known your noble
+character, and your love for truth. But has it never struck you, my
+poor young friend, without my putting it into your head, that ever
+since the night when you met my daughter's coffin, having come with
+the thought to carry her home with you the next day as your bride,
+your senses have got into disorder, your reason has been much
+weakened? During that lonely night, beneath that storm, in the
+strongly excited state of your passions, you fancied you saw my lost
+child again; and the recollections of your unfortunate father, of your
+long-lost mother, connected themselves with her image. In this way
+were those visions bred, and fixt themselves firmly in your brain. Did
+we find a single trace of the hut? Was a human creature in the
+neighbourhood able to tell us a word about the robbers you killed?
+That awful meeting again with my real daughter, in which I perforce
+must believe, is of itself enough to fever the very coldest feelings
+into madness; and need one marvel then at your talking of having
+encountered another impossibility, at your story about finding the
+dead Pietro come to life among the mountains, and not knowing him
+again, and about those almost farcical tricks of jugglery that were
+played you, all which you have related to us with the very same
+assurance? No, my good Antonio, pain and grief have distracted your
+sounder senses, so that you see and believe in things which have no
+real existence."</p>
+
+<p>Antonio was perplext and knew not what to reply. Greatly as the loss
+of his beloved had shaken all the faculties of his soul, he still was
+too clearly conscious of the events he had past through, to bring
+their reality thus in question.</p>
+
+<p>He now felt a new motive to activity: he wisht at least to prove that
+the story of that night was no dreamy phantom, that his second
+Crescentia was an actual being; and thus it became his liveliest
+desire to find her again, and to restore her to her afflicted parents,
+or at least make Ambrosio acknowledge that he had misjudged him.</p>
+
+<p>In this mood he left his old friend, and wandered about the city to
+and fro, prest by the concourse of people, and half stunned by shouts,
+and questions, and stories in all the languages of the earth. Thus,
+shoved and pusht about, he had been driven on as far as the Lateran,
+when he fancied that, as the crowd now and then opened a little, he
+distinctly perceived, though some way off, that selfsame hideous old
+woman, the mother of the beautiful maiden, who bore the name of his
+Crescentia.</p>
+
+<p>He endeavoured to get up to her, and seemed to be succeeding, when a
+train of pilgrims came pouring from a cross street, who cut him off
+entirely, and made all further advance impossible. While he was
+struggling with all his might, and working his way up the steps of St
+John's Church, that he might be able to overlook the multitude, he
+felt a friendly slap on his shoulder, and a wellknown voice pronounced
+his name. It was the Spaniard Alfonso.</p>
+
+<p>"So I find you exactly in the place," said he joyfully, "where I lookt
+for you."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean by that?" askt Antonio.</p>
+
+<p>"First let us get out of the way of this torrent of human flesh,"
+cried the other: "in this place, from the myriads of tongues that are
+wagging, from the ceaseless buz of this monstrous Babylonian beehive,
+one can't hear a single word."</p>
+
+<p>They took a walk out into the country; and here Alfonso confest to his
+friend that, since he had been at Rome, he had devoted himself to the
+science of astrology, divination, and other like things, which he had
+formerly held in abhorrence, having been of opinion that they could
+only be acquired by accursed means and by the help of evil spirits.
+"But since the day," he continued, "when I made acquaintance with the
+incomparable Castalio, this knowledge appears to me in a far higher
+and purer light."</p>
+
+<p>"And is it possible," exclaimed Antonio, "that after all those fearful
+events at Padua, you can again expose your soul to such perils? Do you
+not clearly see that whatsoever is to be attained in a natural way and
+by means of our own reason does not repay the trouble, being nothing
+more than a set of petty tricks that can only excite merriment and
+laughter! that everything beyond on the other hand, which does not
+turn upon empty delusion, cannot possibly be called into being, unless
+by evil and damnable powers?"</p>
+
+<p>"Declaiming," said the Spaniard, "is not proving. We are far too young
+to understand the whole of our own nature; much less can we comprehend
+the rest of the world and all its unexplored mysteries. When you once
+see the man whom I have so much to thank for, all your doubts will
+vanish. Pious, simple-hearted, nay childlike, as he is, every look of
+his eye pours the light of confidence into you."</p>
+
+<p>"And how was it with Apone?" Antonio threw in.</p>
+
+<p>"He," replied his friend, "always wanted to be coming forward in the
+light of a supernatural being: he was evermore labouring, consciously
+and purposely, to appear as a messenger from Heaven, and with
+counterfeit splendour to dazzle the ordinary sons of men. He delighted
+in pomp; he would indeed be condescending at times, but it was only to
+make the enormous distance between him and us more palpably felt. Did
+he not revel in the admiration which the nobles and citizens, the
+young and old, were all forced to pay him? But my present friend (for
+such he is, because he renders himself altogether my equal) has no
+wish to seem great and sublime: he smiles at the endeavours of so many
+men to do so, and considers this of itself as an assurance that there
+is something spurious and hollow to be concealed; since a clear
+consciousness of worth would only wish to pass for what it feels
+itself to be, and the wisest of mortals must after all acknowledge
+that he too, as well as the most ignorant vagabond, is merely a child
+of the dust."</p>
+
+<p>"You make me curious;" said Antonio: "so he knows both what is past
+and what is to come? the destinies of men? and could tell me how happy
+or unhappy the cast of my future life is to be? whether certain secret
+wishes can be accomplisht? Would he then be able to decipher and
+divine such parts of my history as are obscure even to myself?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is in this very thing that his wisdom lies," answered Alfonso with
+enthusiasm; "by means of letters and numbers, in the simplest and most
+harmless way, he finds out everything for which those wretches have to
+employ conjurations and charms and yells and screams and the agonies
+of death. Hence too you will find none of that odious magical
+apparatus about him, no crystals with spirits blockt up in them, no
+mirrors and skeletons, no incense, and no nauseous imps: he has all
+his stores in himself. I told him about you; and he found out by his
+calculations that I was quite sure of meeting you today at this hour
+on the steps of the Lateran church. And so it has turned out at the
+very instant he foretold."</p>
+
+<p>Antonio was desirous of becoming acquainted with this wonderfully
+gifted old man, in the hope of learning his destiny from him. They
+dined in a garden, and toward evening went back to the city. The
+streets had grown somewhat quieter; they could pursue their way with
+less hinderance. At dusk they came into the allies which pass close
+behind the tomb of Augustus. They walkt through a little garden; a
+friendly light glimmered upon them from the windows of a small house.
+They pulled the bell; the door opened; and full of the strangest and
+highest expectations Antonio entered with his friend into the hall.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="narrow" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>Antonio was surprised at seeing before him a simple-mannered
+middle-sized young man, who from his appearance could not be much
+above thirty years old. With an unaffected air he greeted the youth on
+his entrance like an old acquaintance.</p>
+
+<p>"Be welcome!" said he with a pleasing voice: "your Spanish friend has
+told me much good of you, so that I have long lookt forward with
+pleasure to becoming acquainted with you. Only you must by no means
+fancy that you are come to one of the sages, to an adept, or forsooth
+to a man before whom hell trembles in its foundations: you will find
+me a mere mortal, such as you yourself are and may become, as may
+every man whom such graver studies, and retirement from the vain
+tumult of the world, do not scare away."</p>
+
+<p>Antonio felt comfortable and at ease, greatly as he was astonisht: he
+cast his eyes round the room, which beside a few books and a lute
+displayed nothing out of the way. In his own mind he compared this
+little house and its straightforward inmate with the palace and the
+pomp, the instruments and the mysteries, of his former teacher, and
+said: "In truth one sees no traces here of that high and hidden
+knowledge which my friend has been extolling to me, and in which you
+are said to be infallible."</p>
+
+<p>Castalio laught heartily, and then replied: "No, my young friend, not
+infallible; no mortal can go so far as that. Only look around you;
+this is my sitting-room; there in that little chamber stands my bed: I
+have neither space nor means for hiding any instruments of fraud, or
+setting any artificial machinery in action. All those circles and
+glasses, those celestial globes and maps of the stars, which your
+conjurers need for their tricks, would find no room here: and those
+poor creatures after all are only deluded by the spirit of falsehood,
+because they will not labour to learn the powers of their own minds.
+He however who descends into the depths of his own soul, with humility
+and a pious disposition to guide him, he who is in earnest in wishing
+to know himself, will at the same time find every thing here which he
+would vainly strive by desperate means and devices to extort from
+Heaven and Hell. _Become like children._ In this exhortation the whole
+mystery lies hidden. Only let our feelings be pure, and we may again,
+even though it be but for hours or moments, cast off all that our
+first parents drew down upon themselves by their wanton disobedience;
+we walk again as in paradise; and Nature with all her powers comes
+forward as she did then, in the youthful bridal age of the world, to
+meet the transfigured man. Is not this the very thing which proves our
+spirit to be a spirit, that bodily hinderances, space and time, with
+the confusion they breed, cannot confine it? It soars even now on the
+wings of yearning and devotion far above all the circles of the stars:
+nothing checks its flight, save that earthly power which, when sin
+entered, pounced upon it and enslaved it. This however we can and
+ought to subdue, by prayer, by self-abasement before the Lord, by
+confessing our vast guilt, and by boundless gratitude to him for his
+unfathomable love; and then we see and hear the things that are
+curtained from us by space and time; we are here and there; the future
+comes forward and, like the past, pours out its secrets before us; the
+whole realm of knowledge, of comprehension, lies open to us; the
+powers of heaven become our willing servants: and yet to the truly
+wise man one glimpse into the mysteries of the Godhead, one emotion of
+his own heart when toucht by God's love, is far higher, and far more
+precious knowledge, than all the treasures which do homage to the
+inquiring mind, than the revealed soul of history or of the present
+time, than the bending knees of a thousand angels who are ready to
+call him their master."</p>
+
+<p>Alfonso cast a look of enthusiasm upon his friend; and Antonio could
+not refrain from acknowledging to himself that here in the garb of
+lowly simplicity he found more than had ever delighted him from
+Apone's mouth, even at the time of his greatest admiration for that
+ostentatious philosopher. Indeed he was already become fully convinced
+that the knowledge which people call supernatural may be easily united
+with piety and a thorough resignation to the Lord.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know now what my fate has been?" askt the youth with emotion:
+"can you tell me anything about the events that are hereafter to
+befall me?"</p>
+
+<p>"If I learn the year, the day, and the hour of your birth," answered
+Castalio, "compare the horoscope I shall then draw with the lines of
+your face and the marks on your hands, and afterward give free range
+to my mind in contemplating the results, I hardly doubt my being able
+to tell you something about your destinies."</p>
+
+<p>Antonio gave him a pocket-book, in which his father had himself noted
+down the hour of his birth. Castalio placed some wine before the young
+men, himself partaking a little of it, turned over a few books, and
+then sat down to calculate, without however entirely breaking off his
+conversation with his guests. It only seemed as if the cheerful young
+man had some common business in hand, which was far from requiring the
+whole of his attention. Thus amid laughing and lively talk an hour may
+have past away, when Castalio stood up and beckoned to Antonio to go
+with him to the window.</p>
+
+<p>"I know not, he began, how far you trust your friend there, or what
+you may wish to keep secret from him."</p>
+
+<p>Hereupon he examined Antonio's face and hands very minutely, and then
+in regular connexion told him the story of his parents and their
+misfortunes, the early violent death of his mother, and his father's
+sinful passion, together with his murder by the hand of his wicked
+complice. Afterward he came to Antonio's own affairs, how he had
+sought for the murderer and pursued him, and had been detained at
+Padua by love.</p>
+
+<p>"So you," he concluded, "as not without astonishment I have learnt,
+are the very young man who a short time since detected the wickedness
+of the abominable Apone in such a wonderful way, and who delivered the
+shameless villain over to his punishment, although you yourself only
+became still unhappier than before, from having to lose your beloved a
+second time in so horrible a manner."</p>
+
+<p>Antonio confirmed all that the friendly man said, and had gained such
+confidence in him, that he felt just as if he was talking to himself.
+He then went on to tell him about the adventures of that night, about
+the second Crescentia, and the odious witch, who, he could not help
+fancying, had appeared to him a second time on that day.</p>
+
+<p>"Can you inform me now," he askt eagerly, "whether this is all true,
+who that Crescentia is, and whether I shall ever see her again and
+carry her back to her parents?"</p>
+
+<p>Castalio became more thoughtful than before. "Unless that strange
+creature Beresynth," he answered, "the imp that used to be at the
+magician's side, has been disguising himself as a woman, to escape
+from his pursuers, I feel assured that I shall find the hag out. Only
+have patience till tomorrow, and I will then give you your answer.
+Meanwhile you may be satisfied that the occurrences of that night were
+no phantoms of your mind, but realities; thus far you may set yourself
+and your elderly friend at rest."</p>
+
+<p>The young people were lost in thought as they left the wonderful man,
+and Antonio thankt the Spaniard heartily for having procured him this
+acquaintance.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="narrow" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>Antonio had not been mistaken. It was in fact the old woman that he
+had caught sight of in the crowd. She was living in a little hut,
+behind some ruinous houses, not far from the Lateran. Persecuted,
+destitute, deserted and hated and dreaded by all the world, she was
+here, in the abode of wretchedness, reduced to the brink of despair.
+She seldom ventured to shew herself abroad, and on this day too had
+only gone out from necessity, to bring her Crescentia, who had run
+away from her, back again.</p>
+
+<p>As everybody shrank out of her path, as it was hard work for her even
+to obtain here and there an alms, and as her former arts found few
+lovers, she was no little astonisht that evening to hear a knock at
+her door, while cries and shouts were tossing without. She took her
+lamp, and, opening the door, saw a swarm of street-boys and of the
+lowest rabble at the heels of a little crooked figure fantastically
+clad in red velvet and gold.</p>
+
+<p>"Does not the worthy Pancrazia live here?" screamed the deformed
+dwarf.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, to be sure!" said the old woman, as she forcibly banged the door
+to, and tried to drive away the people on the outside by abuse. "Who
+are you, worthy Sir? what do you seek from an old forlorn lady?"</p>
+
+<p>"Set yourself down," said the little stranger, "and kindle some more
+light, that we may spy and look at one another; and whereas you call
+yourself poor, take these gold pieces, and we will sip a glass of wine
+together to our better acquaintance."</p>
+
+<p>The old woman smirkt, lighted some wax-candles which she kept lockt up
+in a drawer, and said: "I have still a flask of good Florence,
+worshipful sir, that shall warm our insides." She opened a little
+cupboard and placed the red comforter upon the table, pouring out the
+first glass for her unknown guest.</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you call me worshipful?" askt he.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't the pieces of gold declare it?" answered she: "and your
+doublet, and the lace upon it, and the feather in your hat? Are you
+not a prince, not a magnate?"</p>
+
+<p>"No!" howled the little one: "what, odds bodikins! cousin, don't you
+know me in the least? and yet in my younger days people wanted to
+flatter me by assuring me that we in some degree resembled each other:
+and faith! when I come to look thus closely at your figure, your
+physiognomy, your expression, your sweet smile, and those twinkling
+stars in your eyes there, and when I weigh all this with scrupulous
+impartiality, why, cousin Pancrazia of the house of Posaterrena in
+Florence, and little Beresynth of the family of Fuocoterrestro in
+Milan, are for such degrees of kin, as cousinhood, like each other
+enough."</p>
+
+<p>"O gemini!" screamed the old woman in delight: "so you are the
+Beresynth of Milan about whom I heard so much talk in my childhood.
+Hey! Hey! so am I at this late hour in the day, in the depth of old
+age, to become acquainted with such a lovely cousin face to face!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay!" said the dwarf: "just nose to nose; for that great bastion
+thrown up there is certainly the biggest piece of bonework in our
+faces. For curiosity's sake, dear coz, let us make an experiment for
+once, whether we can manage to give each other a cousinly kiss&#8230;. No,
+purely impossible! the far outjutting promontories immediately begin
+rattling against each other, and forclose our lowly lips from
+everything like a soft meeting. We must force our noble Roman noses
+aside with our two fists. So! Don't let it fly, my lady cousin! I
+might come by a box on the ears that would make my last teeth tumble
+out."</p>
+
+<p>With a hearty laugh the hag cried: "Hey! I have not been so merry this
+long time. But what did they want with you before the door there,
+cousin?"</p>
+
+<p>"What!" screamed the little one: "to look at me, to delight their eyes
+with me, nothing more. Is not man, my highly esteemed cousin gossip, a
+thoroughly silly animal? Here in Rome now have hundreds of thousands
+been assembled whole months, for their Redeemer's honour, as they give
+out, and to do penance for their sins and get rid of them; and the
+moment I peep out of the window (I only arrived here the day before
+yesterday) be it merely in my nightcap, and still more when I come
+forth at full length and in my Sunday suit into the marketplace, one
+can't help swearing that the whole gang of them have started out of
+every hole and corner in Europe merely for my sake: they so leer, and
+ogle me, and whisper, and ask questions, and laugh, and are in
+ecstacies. I might grow rich, meseems, were I to let myself be stared
+at for money while I stay here; and if I chance to give them all this
+pleasure gratis, forthwith a pack of blockheads begin barking and
+hallooing at my tail. To see a long-tailed monkey, apes or seals, the
+dogs must put themselves to some expense; yet instead of enjoying my
+magnanimity quietly and like sensible people, they rave and revile me
+all round, and hunt for every expression of loathing they can root out
+of the animal creation, to display their gross ignorance."</p>
+
+<p>"Very true! very true!" sighed the old woman: "it fares no better with
+me. Are the beasts such sheer fools then? Only let a body have a
+regular, average, commonplace nose, eyes, and chin, and all goes on
+quietly."</p>
+
+<p>"Look at the fish," continued Beresynth, "who are dunces in many
+things. What philosophical tolerance! and yet among them many a fellow
+is all snout, and confronts the learned physiognomists of the ocean
+with a countenance, grave, cold, calm in the consciousness of its
+originality: nay, the whole deep brims and swims with one can't count
+how many eccentric faces, and gills, and teeth, and eyes astart from
+their sockets, and every other kind of striking contour: but every
+monster there floats his own way quietly and peaceably, without having
+his sleeve twitcht or any other annoyance. Man alone is so absurd as
+to laugh and sneer at his fellow creatures."</p>
+
+<p>"And on what," said the beldam, "after all does this mighty difference
+turn? I am sure I never yet saw a nose that was but a single yard
+long: an inch, at most two, hardly ever three, make the vast
+distinction between what they call monsters, and what they are pleased
+in their modesty to style beauty. And now to come to a hump. If it
+were not in one's way sometimes in bed, as you know, coz, it is in
+itself far more agreeable to the eye than those dull flats by way of
+backs, where in many a lank lathy booby the tiresome straight line
+stretches up as far as one can see without a single twist, or curl, or
+flourish."</p>
+
+<p>"You are in the right, my dame cousin!" cried Beresynth already drunk
+to his drunken hostess. "What can Nature be about when she turns off
+the things they christen beauties from her pottery-wheel? Why, they
+are hardly worth the trouble of setting to work at them. But such
+cabinet pieces as you and I! there the creative power, or the
+principle of nature, or the soul of the world, or the mundane animal,
+or whatever title one chooses to give the thing, can look at its
+product with a certain degree of complacency and satisfaction. For it
+has your curved lines: it starts off into noticeable angles; it is
+jagged like corals; it darts forward like crystals; it agglomerates
+like basalt; nay, there is no conceivable line that does not hop,
+skip, and jump about our bodies. We, coz, are the spoilt, the cockered
+children of the formation: and this is why the common rabble of nature
+are so malicious and envious toward us. Their slim wretched fashion is
+next door to the slimy eel: there is nothing edifying in such an
+edifice. From that piece of monotony to the prawn is already a good
+step; and how far above that is the seal! how do we surpass them both,
+as well as the seastar, the crab, and the lobster, my trustiest
+cousin, in our excursive irregularities, which defy all the
+mathematicians in the world to find an expression for their law. But
+coz, pray where did you get those two gorgeous teeth? the incomparable
+couple cut a grand and gloomy figure there across the chasm &#8230; of
+your unfathomable mouth, and form a capital bridge over the gulf that
+gapes between the dark cliffs of your gums."</p>
+
+<p>"O you rogue! O you flatterer!" laught the old woman: "but your
+darling chin that comes forward so complaisantly, and is so ready to
+wait upon you and spread itself out like a table. Don't you think you
+could put a good-sized platter upon it comfortably, where your mouth
+might then quietly nibble away, while your hands were seeking work
+elsewhere. This I call an economical arrangement."</p>
+
+<p>"We won't spoil ourselves by too much praise;" said the dwarf: "we are
+already, it seems, vain enough of our advantages; and after all we did
+not give them to ourselves."</p>
+
+<p>"You are right," said she. "But what profession are you of, cousin?
+where do you live?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oddly enough;" answered Beresynth: "sometimes here, sometimes there,
+like a vagabond: however I now mean to settle quietly; and as I heard
+there was still a near kinswoman of mine living, I resolved to seek
+her out and beg her to come and live with me. This is what brought me
+hither. In my youth I was an apothecary in Calabria; there they drove
+me away, because they fancied I manufactured love-powders. O dear, as
+if there was any need of 'em nowadays. Then once upon a time I was a
+tailor; the outcry was, I thieved too much: a pastrycook; all accused
+me of thinning the cat and dog population. I wanted to put on a monk's
+cowl; but no convent would let me in. Then came my doctoring days, and
+I was to be burnt; for they muttered about, what think you?
+witchcraft. I became a scholar, wrote essays, systems of philosophy,
+poems: those who could not read were sure I was blaspheming God and
+Christianity, and that was too bad. After many long years I betook
+myself to the man who was making such a pother in the world, Pietro
+Apone, and became his familiar, next a hermit, and what not? The best
+is that in every state of life I have made money and hoarded it up; so
+that I can now lay down my grey head free from want and care. And now,
+coz, for your history."</p>
+
+<p>"Just like yours;" answered she: "the innocent are always persecuted.
+I have had a few times to stand in the pillory; have been banisht out
+of half a dozen countries; among other things they even wanted to burn
+me; they would have it I conjured, I stole children, I bewitcht
+people, I fabricated poisons."</p>
+
+<p>"And coz," said Beresynth in the openness of his heart, "there was
+some truth in all this, was not there? innocent as you are. I at least
+must confess it as to myself, and perhaps it may lie in the family,
+that I have given in to more than one of the aforesaid practices. My
+amiable gossip, he who has once swallowed a titbit of dear witchcraft,
+can never keep his fingers from it afterward as long as he lives. The
+thing is just like dram-drinking: once get the taste for it, and
+tongue, and throat, and gums, and marry! even lungs and liver, will
+never let it go."</p>
+
+<p>"You know human nature, I see, my dear cousin;" said the hag, with a
+grin that tried to be a simper. "Such trifles as a little murder and
+witchcraft, poisoning and stealing, run in the blood even of the
+innocentest. Bawding was a thing in which I could never hit the mark.
+And what shall one say when one has to endure thanklessness and woe
+from one's own children? My daughter, though she has seen how I suffer
+hunger and trouble, and how I have stinted and starved my old mouth,
+merely to put her into fine clothes, the graceless wench would never
+let me coax her into earning but a single half-crown. Some time since
+she might have made a good match of it! there was Ildefonso and
+Andrea, and many other brave fellows besides, who supported our whole
+house, herself among the rest; but she set up the paltry pretense that
+the gentry were robbers and murderers, and that she could not let them
+into her heart. The gallants were such generous spirits, they meant to
+have the baggage actually tied to them in church; but silly youth has
+neither sense nor truth. Now they are lying in their graves, those
+worthy men, and have been turned out of life's doors in a most
+scandalous way. But this does not move her a whit more than my sorrow
+and distress; so that I can't make her consent to live with a rich
+young noble cavalier, the nephew of a cardinal, who could floor this
+whole room with gold. The silly jade has run away, and they absolutely
+won't give her up to me again. Such is the respect shewn to a mother
+in these days."</p>
+
+<p>"Let her go, the worthless trumpery!" cried Beresynth: "we shall live
+happily together without her, I warrant; our ways of thinking and
+feeling are so well paired."</p>
+
+<p>"But why should she run away," continued the old woman, "like a
+faithless cat after a flogging? We might have parted as if we loved
+each other, and like two rational beings. Surely some occasion would
+have turned up before long of selling the greensick minx
+advantageously to an old lover or a young one; and this might have
+succeeded too, why should not it? if she had not lockt up a silly
+young fellow in her heart, whom she loves, as she tells me."</p>
+
+<p>"O have done, gammer!" screamed Beresynth, reeling and already half
+asleep. "If you begin to talk about love, coz, I shall tumble into
+such a laughing convulsion that I shall not recover from it for this
+next three days. Love! that stupid word broke the neck of my famous
+master, Pietro. But for this tarantula-dance the great hawk-nose would
+still be sitting as professor at his lecturing desk, and tickling the
+young goslings with philosophy and wisdom as they perkt up their
+yellow beaks to catch the crumbs he dropt into them. Marry! old
+beldam, this monkey-trick of love, this Platonic drunkenness of the
+soul, was the only thing wanting to us, to me as well as you, and then
+the miracle of our heroic existence would have been quite perfect&#8230;.
+Well, goodbye, old dame; tomorrow night about this time I'll come to
+fetch you, and then we never part more."</p>
+
+<p>"Cousin," said Pancrazia, "goodbye, till we meet again. Since you came
+through my door, I have grown quite a different creature. We will make
+a royal housekeeping of it hereafter."</p>
+
+<p>"So we too have had our jubilee now!" stammered Beresynth, who was
+already standing in the street, and who reeled through the dark night
+to his lodging.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="narrow" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>Antonio meanwhile had already been to prepare old Ambrosio and his
+wife, telling them he was now sure of finding out the hideous old
+woman again, and no doubt her daughter Crescentia also. The mother
+readily believed him; but the father persisted in his doubts.</p>
+
+<p>Even before the sun had set, the youth was again with his friend at
+the door of the wise Castalio. The latter met them smiling, and said:
+"Here, Antonio, take this paper: you will find noted down on it, in
+what street, in what house, you may meet with the old crone. When you
+have discovered her, you will no longer entertain any doubts about my
+science."</p>
+
+<p>"I am already convinced;" replied Antonio: "I was so even yesterday:
+you are the wisest of mortals, and by the help of your art will make
+me the happiest. I will go to seek for the old woman: and if
+Crescentia is not dead or lost, I shall carry her to the arms of her
+parents."</p>
+
+<p>Powerfully excited and full of expectation he was about to depart in
+haste; his hand was already on the door-knob; when a low timid knock
+was heard on the outside, accompanied by a hoarse coughing and a
+scraping of feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Who's there?" cried Castalio; and, when the friends opened the door,
+in came Beresynth, who immediately stationed himself in the middle of
+the room, and with sundry antick bows and writhings of his features,
+offered his services to the wise man.</p>
+
+<p>"Who are you?" exclaimed Castalio, who had changed colour, and pale
+and trembling had shrunk back a few steps.</p>
+
+<p>"A villain he is, the fiend!" cried Antonio: "a magician, whom we must
+put into the inquisition's hands. It is the accursed Beresynth
+himself, whose name, my honoured friend, you have already heard, and
+of whom I have told you."</p>
+
+<p>"Think you so, young jackanapes?" said Beresynth with a sneer of the
+deepest contempt. "With you, children, I have no business. Do you not
+know me?" cried he turning to Castalio: "perhaps you have nothing for
+me to do."</p>
+
+<p>"How should I?" said Castalio with a faltering voice: "I never saw you
+before. Leave me; I must decline your services. In this little house
+of mine I have no room for any stranger."</p>
+
+<p>Beresynth paced with his biggest strides up and down. "So, you don't
+know me? It may be; folks alter a good deal sometimes; for no man is
+always in his bloom. But, it strikes me, people ought not to forget
+me, or to mistake me for any one else, quite so soon as they might
+many of your smooth nicely painted ninnies&#8230;. And you too," as he
+turned round to the youths, "you perchance don't know that
+wisdommonger there."</p>
+
+<p>"O yes!" said Antonio: "he is our best friend, the excellent
+Castalio."</p>
+
+<p>Here the dwarf raised such an enormous shout of laughter, that the
+walls and windows of the room clattered and echoed it back. "Castalio!
+Castalio!" screamed he as if possest: "why not Aganippe too, or
+Hippocrene? So, you have got spectacles before your eyes, and your
+souls stare stupidly with a calf's look out of your round pumpkins of
+heads! Rub your noses, and see, and recognize, I pray you, your
+honoured Pietro of Abano, the great jack-of-all-trades from Padua!"</p>
+
+<p>He who called himself Castalio had sunk as if fainting into a chair:
+his trembling was so violent that all his limbs fluttered; the muscles
+of his face quivered with such force that no feature in it could be
+distinguisht; and after the young men had gazed on it for some time
+amazedly, they thought with horrour they perceived that from this
+distortion of all the lineaments came forth the well-known countenance
+of the aged Apone.</p>
+
+<p>With a loud scream the magician started from his seat, clencht his
+fists, and foamed at the mouth; he seemed in his fury of a gigantic
+size. "Well, yes!" he roared in a tone of thunder: "it is I, I,
+Pietro! and thou slave, thou art spoiling my game, as I was destroying
+those young brats after a new fashion. What wouldst thou, worm, of me,
+who am thy master, and who have cast thee off? Tremblest thou not
+through all thy bones at the thought of my vengeance and punishment?"</p>
+
+<p>Beresynth again raised the same pealing horrid laugh. "Vengeance!
+Punishment!" he repeated grinning. "Fool! matchless fool! art thou now
+for the first time to find out that such language toward me does not
+beseem thee? that thou juggler, must crawl in the dust before me? that
+a glance of my eye, a grasp of my iron arm, will dash thee to pieces,
+thou earth-born mummery with thy wretched tricks, which only prospered
+through my countenance."</p>
+
+<p>A spectre stood in the hall. His eyes shot forth sparks of fire; his
+arms spread themselves out like an eagle's wings; his head toucht the
+ceiling: Pietro lay whining and howling at his feet. "It was I," so
+the demon spake on, "who furthered thy paltry tricks; who deluded the
+people; who made thee sin and thrive in thy sins. Thou troddest me
+under foot; I was thy scorn; thy high-minded wisdom triumpht over my
+silliness. Now I am thy master. Now thou shalt follow me as my
+bondslave into my kingdom&#8230;. Depart hence, ye poor wretches!" he
+cried to the youths: "what more we have still to settle, it befits not
+you to behold!" and a tremendous clap of thunder shook the house to the
+bottom.</p>
+
+<p>Dazzled, horrour-struck, Antonio and Alfonso rusht out; their knees
+tottered; their teeth chattered. Without knowing how, they found
+themselves again in the street; they fled into a neighbouring church;
+for a howling whirlwind now arose, with thunder and lightning, and the
+house, when they lookt behind them, was burning and had fallen in
+ruins.</p>
+
+<p>Two dark shadows hovered over the flame, fighting, as it seemed, and
+twining round each other, and wrestling and dashing each other to and
+fro: yells of despair and peals of scornful laughter resounded
+alternately between the pauses of the loudly raving storm.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="narrow" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>It was a long time before Antonio could collect calmness enough to go
+and seek for the house of the old woman according to the directions he
+had received. He found her drest out; and she cried to him merrily:
+"What! Florentine! are you too come to see me again at last?"</p>
+
+<p>"Where is your daughter?" askt Antonio, trembling with anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>"If you wish to have her now," replied the old woman, "I won't keep
+her from you. But you must pay honestly for her, you or the Podesta of
+Padua, if he still lives; for she is his child, whom I stole from him
+long since, because the Marconis vouchsafed me a round sum of money
+for doing so."</p>
+
+<p>"If you can prove it," said the youth, "you shall have whatever you
+ask."</p>
+
+<p>"Proofs, as many as you please," cried the beldam: "trinkets with arms
+on them, clothes she had on at the time, a mole on her right shoulder,
+which of course her mother must know best. But you shall also have
+letters from the Marconis, writings which I carried off with her from
+Padua in my hurry, everything &#8230; only money must be forthcoming."</p>
+
+<p>Antonio paid her all that he had about him, and then gave her the
+jewels from his hat and clothes, some pearls, and a gold chain. She
+swept it all in laughing, while she said: "Don't be surprised that I
+am in such haste, and so easily satisfied. The wench has run away from
+me, because she was determined not to have any lover, and has stuck
+herself into the nunnery beside Trajan's column: the abbess would not
+give her up to me; but only send in your name, and the young chit will
+jump into your arms; for she dreams and thinks of nothing but you; you
+have so bewitcht her silly heart, that ever since that night, which
+you will probably remember, she has not spoken a single word of sense,
+and can't bear to hear the mention of a lover or a husband. I am glad
+to be quit of her in this way; I am going with my noble cousin, Signor
+Beresynth, who came of his own accord to invite me, this very night to
+his villa. Fare thee well young man! good luck attend you with your
+Crescentia!"</p>
+
+<p>Antonio took all the letters, the baby clothes, and every proof of
+Crescentia's birth. At the door he was met by the terrible being that
+called itself Beresynth. He hastened on, and was so light of heart, so
+winged on his way, that he did not notice the storm behind him, which
+threatened to lay the country waste, and to heave the houses from
+their foundations.</p>
+
+<p>During the night the overhappy parents examined the letters; and
+these, as well as the clothes, convinced them that this second
+Crescentia was their child, the twin sister of her that died, whom at
+her christening they had named Cecilia. In the morning the father
+fetcht the lovely pale girl from the convent; and she felt as though
+in heaven at belonging to such noble parents, and at having again
+found a youth who adored her, and to whom on that perilous night she
+could not help giving up her whole heart for ever.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="narrow" />
+
+<h4>Transcriber's note:</h4>
+
+<p>Contemporary spellings were retained, especially past tense endings on
+t rather than ed.</p>
+
+<p>The translation has been checked against the 1853 German edition
+of Tieck's collected works.</p>
+
+<p>The following sentence was found to be missing from the English
+translation:<br />
+
+Er war &uuml;berzeugt, der J&uuml;ngling habe ihn und sich selbst mit den
+Fieber-Phantasien jener Nacht get&auml;uscht.</p>
+
+<p>It has been added as:<br />
+
+He was convinced the young man had misled him and himself been
+deceived by the fevered dreams of that night.</p>
+
+<p>The following sentence is not present in the 1853 German edition
+ and has been omitted here:<br />
+
+(...like two rational beings) I might have discharged a mother's duty,
+ and settled her where she should be in no danger of starving. (Surely
+ some occasion...)</p>
+
+<p>In addition, the following corrections and amendments have been made:</p>
+
+<table border="0" style="background-color: #dddddd; margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="10">
+
+  <tr>
+	 <td class="w50" valign="top">Almost everybody has a mask; and this is mime.</td>
+	 <td valign="top">Almost everybody has a mask; and this is mine.</td>
+ </tr>
+
+ <tr>
+	<td valign="top">when you have them at their full size</td>
+	<td valign="top">when they are present and pronounced</td>
+ </tr>
+
+ <tr>
+	<td valign="top">they who loved me never would say it lookt</td>
+  <td valign="top">they who loved me would say it lookt</td>
+ </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+	<td valign="top">chewing bread and bullock's flesh</td>
+  <td valign="top">chewing bread and roast beef.</td>
+ </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+	<td valign="top">Antonio had found the outlet;</td>
+  <td valign="top">Antonio had found the way out;</td>
+ </tr>
+
+ <tr>
+ <td valign="top">cried a broad massy figure,</td>
+  <td valign="top">cried a broad bearded figure,</td>
+ </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+ <td valign="top">Antonio preserved it like something holy</td>
+  <td valign="top">the adoring Antonio preserved it like something holy</td>
+ </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+ <td valign="top">to strip him of everything like hope.</td>
+  <td valign="top">to strip him of all optimism.</td>
+ </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+ <td valign="top">behind the old chest</td>
+  <td valign="top">behind the old oak chest</td>
+ </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+ <td valign="top">they now revolted from the impostor.</td>
+  <td valign="top">they now revolted from the phantom.</td>
+ </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+ <td valign="top">his youth and his sinlessness will not avail him</td>
+  <td valign="top">his virtue and his sinlessness will not avail him</td>
+ </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+ <td valign="top">some fifty miles and upward from the hermitage</td>
+  <td valign="top">some twelve miles and upward from the hermitage</td>
+ </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+ <td valign="top">no smokework</td>
+  <td valign="top">no incense</td>
+ </tr>
+
+ <tr>
+ <td valign="top">Welcome to me</td>
+  <td valign="top">Be welcome</td>
+ </tr>
+
+ <tr>
+ <td valign="top">Unless that mischievous Beresynth</td>
+  <td valign="top">Unless that strange creature Beresynth</td>
+ </tr>
+
+ <tr>
+ <td valign="top">Iuocoterrestro</td>
+  <td valign="top">Fuocoterrestro</td>
+ </tr>
+
+ <tr>
+ <td valign="top">To see a porpoise, a baboon, or an otter</td>
+  <td valign="top">To see a long-tailed monkey, apes or seals</td>
+ </tr>
+
+	<tr>
+ <td valign="top">hunt for every filthy name</td>
+  <td valign="top">hunt for every expression of loathing</td>
+  </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+ <td valign="top">forcing the sun to look on their gross ignorance.</td>
+  <td valign="top">forcing the sun to display their gross ignorance.</td>
+ </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+ <td valign="top">lying in their graves, poor perishable mortals,</td>
+  <td valign="top">lying in their graves, those worthy men,</td>
+ </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+ <td valign="top">This I call economical bodykeeping.</td>
+  <td valign="top">This I call an economical arrangement.</td>
+ </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+ <td valign="top">already on the lock of the door</td>
+  <td valign="top">already on the door-knob</td>
+ </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+ <td valign="top">or the Podesta of Padua; for she is his child,</td>
+  <td valign="top">or the Podesta of Padua, if he still lives; for she is his child,</td>
+ </tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN, THE LOVECHARM AND PIETRO OF ABANO***</p>
+<p>******* This file should be named 26360-h.txt or 26360-h.zip *******</p>
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm
+and Pietro of Abano, by Ludwig Tieck
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano
+       Tales from the German of Tieck
+
+
+Author: Ludwig Tieck
+
+
+
+Release Date: August 19, 2008  [eBook #26360]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN, THE
+LOVECHARM AND PIETRO OF ABANO***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Delphine Lettau
+
+
+
+THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN,
+THE LOVECHARM,
+AND
+PIETRO OF ABANO.
+
+Tales from the German of Tieck.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+London:
+Edward Moxon, 64, New Bond Street.
+1831.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN.
+
+
+The name of Herr Balthasar was well known throughout the whole
+hill-country: not a child but had heard of his vast riches, and had
+some story to tell of him. Everybody too loved and honoured him; for
+his bounty was as great as his wealth: but at the same time he was
+viewed with fear; for he harast both himself and others by a number of
+strange whims which no one could understand; and his moodiness, his
+silent reserve, were especially irksome to those who were nearest
+about him. No person had seen him smile for many years; he scarcely
+ever came out of his large house on the hill above the little
+mountain-town, nearly the whole of which belonged to him: its
+inhabitants too were almost all his dependents, whom he had drawn
+thither to work in his manufactories, his mines, and his alum pits.
+Thus through his means this small spot was very thickly peopled, and
+enlivened by the greatest activity. Waggons and horses were
+continually moving to and fro; and the clatter of the working
+machinery was mixt up with the roar of waters, and with the various
+noises from the pounding and smelting-houses. The smoke of the coals
+however, the steam from the pits, and the black heaps of dross and
+slag piled up on high all around, gave the gloomy sequestered valley a
+still more dismal appearance; so that no one who travelled for the
+sake of seeking out and enjoying the beauties of nature, would have
+any mind to linger there.
+
+Among the multitude of persons who in consequence of his large
+undertakings and the variety of his concerns were employed by old Herr
+Balthasar, none seemed to enjoy his confidence in so high a degree as
+Edward, the head overseer of his mines and manufactories, and the
+manager of his accounts. He was about thirty years old, tall and of a
+fine figure, had always something sprightly and good-humoured on his
+lips, and thus formed a striking contrast to his morose monosyllabic
+master, who had grown old before his time, and whose withered,
+wrinkled features, with the faint sad look from his hollow eyes, were
+no less repulsive to all, than Edward's cheerful frankness was
+attractive of confidence and affection.
+
+It was still very early on a summer morning when Edward was looking
+thoughtfully down into the smoking valley: the sun lay behind a thick
+mass of clouds; and the mists that were travelling along the bottom,
+and mingled with the black vapours from the steaming pits, checkt his
+view, and wrapt the landscape in a kind of grey veil. He mused over
+his youth, over the plans he had once formed, and then thought how,
+contrary to them all, he had become fixt in this melancholy solitude,
+which, as he was already verging on the maturity of manhood, he
+probably would never quit again. While he was thus losing himself in
+his meditations, young William hurried by him, fully equipt as it
+seemed for a journey, without even bidding him goodbye. The young man
+started as in passing he observed Edward standing there, and he looked
+very loth to meet his questions.
+
+"How now?" said Edward; "are you already leaving us again, young man,
+after all the entreaties and persuasions it cost us both but three
+weeks ago to prevail on our master to take you into his house, and
+after he has just forgiven you your sudden departure the other day?"
+
+"I must begone!" cried the young man: "do not stop me! I must submit
+to appear ungrateful; but I cannot help it."
+
+"Without speaking to our master?" replied Edward; "without leave of
+absence? What are we to think of you? Besides Herr Balthasar will want
+you; for there is no one here just now to take your post of
+secretary."
+
+"My dearest sir," exclaimed the young man uneasily, "if you knew my
+situation, you would not blame or think ill of me."
+
+"Has our master offended you? have you any ground of complaint?"
+
+"No, no! quite the contrary!" cried the young man impetuously; "the
+old gentleman is kindness itself; I appear to be base and
+good-for-nothing; but I have no other choice. Make the best excuse for
+me that your good nature and your conscience will let you."
+
+"Be a man!" said Edward, giving him his hand and holding him fast:
+"you may earn a maintenance here, and may lay the foundations of your
+fortune hereafter: do not a second time thus wantonly trifle away your
+master's confidence and mine. We took you in, when you came to us
+without a character, without any recommendation, almost without a
+name: Herr Balthasar departed for your sake from all his rules, which
+till then had always been inviolable; I have in a manner pledged
+myself for you: are you resolved to reward our confidence in this way,
+and to run thus rashly into suspicion? And can you hope that a month
+hence or later you will be received among us again?"
+
+The young man was much distrest, but tore himself forcibly away, and
+cried: "I know it too well, that I am closing this home, in which
+everything has gone so well with me, in which I have felt so happy,
+for ever against me. Misery and want await me, and the bitterest
+punishments for the thoughtlessness of my youth. But who can avoid his
+destiny? When a chariot is rushing headlong down a precipice, no human
+strength can arrest it."
+
+"But if you have any sense of honour," answered Edward, "if you would
+not leave us all at a loss what to make of you, you ought to stay now
+at all events; for I am quite unable to conceive what power can be
+driving you away from us thus suddenly. You know, the most expensive
+and valuable cloths in our magazine have been purloined day after day;
+and though this has been going on so long we have not been able to get
+any trace of the offender."
+
+"I must put up even this suspicion," said William with a quick blush.
+"There is no saving me now, and I have nothing more to lose: nor do I
+deserve the good opinion of any honest man, be he even the meanest of
+my brethren."
+
+After these mysterious words the young man hurried away, without even
+looking round again. Edward followed him with his eyes, and observed
+how he bent his steps hastily toward the little town, ran almost at
+full speed through the streets, and turned into a footpath on the
+other side, to climb up a steep rock. He there lost sight of him in
+the mountain solitude.
+
+The mist meanwhile had somewhat broken, and the little dells with
+their trees and bushes were seen rising out of it, like green ilands,
+illumined by the morning sun, with ever and anon a house or hut half
+hidden by leaves leaning against the side of the hill.
+
+An old miner, who worked a good way off in the pits belonging to the
+prince, came up now very much out of humour to Edward. "Another run
+over here to no purpose!" he cried peevishly: "I wanted to speak to
+the young shatter-brained jackanapes; and now I hear from the
+smelting-lads down in the town, that he has just been scampering
+through it, and not a soul can tell where he is gone."
+
+"What business have you with him, friend Conrad?" asked Edward.
+
+"What business should one have with young chaps such as he!" replied
+the cross old man. "There have I had to buy him a wonderful book about
+mines over yonder, of the white-headed master miner who is as old as
+the hills, and who has been blind these three years: the marvellous
+grey-beard copied the book ages ago, when he was young and had a
+younker's itching for knowing more than his neighbours, from the
+manuscript of a travelling Tyrolese, and took the trouble of
+scratching likenesses of all the foolish pictures in it. Now however
+that he is blind, he can't see to read it; so I have bought it for
+young master Lorenz, our William here; and lo! the coxcomb is clean
+over the mountains."
+
+"What does the little book contain?" said Edward.
+
+"Only look into it yourself," continued the other: "all sorts of
+stories about ghosts and spectres; clews for finding out the places
+over there in the high mountains, where one meets with gold and
+diamonds at the bottom of caves and sand pits in spots which mortal
+man has seldom set foot in. There are a number of marks, they say,
+which in ages of yore were carved on the hard rocks or written on the
+banks of the brooks: certain knowing Italians notcht and scored the
+places some two or three hundred years ago, and stuck in pieces of tin
+and pebbles which they laid after a fashion of their own: now however,
+the old man tells me, they are hard to find; for the mountain-spirits
+and goblins, who hate being disturbed, have shoved away many of the
+stones that might have served for signposts, and have utterly deranged
+their order."
+
+Edward laught as he turned over the leaves of the strange book.
+
+"None of your scoffing, young gentleman!" cried the old man: "so you
+too are one of their super-clever new-fangled wiseacres. But if you
+were once to see what I have seen, when all alone far down
+underground, cut off from the heavens and the whole world, with no
+light but my lamp, and no sound but my own hammer within hearing, and
+the terrible tall spirit of the mountain came to me; I'd wager you
+would twist your face into some other look, and would not laugh as you
+do here where the merry morning sun is shining on you. Everybody can
+grin; but seeing is the lot of few; and still fewer can behave like
+men, when their eyes are thrown open."
+
+"I will pay you for the book, my good old man," replied Edward kindly,
+"and keep it for our William till he comes back again."
+
+"Ha ha!" cried the miner, laughing heartily and putting up the money;
+"and read it too, and pore over it by yourself, and go on Sundays and
+holidays to look out for the marks and the secret passages. Only don't
+let them befool you, young man, or cajole, or frighten you; and when
+you have found anything, keep a fast hold. Look you, the lord of these
+hills, or the old man of the mountain, as many choose to call him,
+knows all about the matter: he has thrust his hands into the pockets
+of all the richest ghosts and elves and goblins; and they have been
+forced to empty them out for him."
+
+"Whom do you mean?" asked Edward a good deal surprised; and at the
+same time he wanted to give the besmeared book back again to the old
+man, saying with some irritation: "since you cannot trust me, or
+rather hold me to be such a fool, keep the treasure-casket yourself
+for our friend, and only give the master miner his money."
+
+"No," exclaimed the old man; "what has once been made over and paid
+for, must stay in the hands of the buyer: that is a sacred law, and if
+we break it, the maste rminer and I shall be under a ban. But whom do
+I mean, ask you, by the old man of the mountain, or by the lord of
+these hills? Are you ignorant of that? and have already been here a
+round dozen of years and more. Why, this is the name all the world
+gives to your high and mighty manufacturer, mine-holder, merchant,
+gold-maker, ghost-seer, your all-powerful man of millions, your
+Balthasar. And perhaps you would make believe into the bargain that
+you don't know how he comes by all his unnatural riches. Ay, ay,
+friend, the pale old sour-faced growler has them all in
+leading-strings, the whole posse of spirits: he is often absent for
+weeks, and tarrying with them in their secret chambers: then they pay
+away to him; then they break their old crowns in bits, and pour out
+the diamonds into his skinny hands; then they strike with their
+magical rods against the stone walls, and the water-damsels must needs
+swim up from the bottom of the brooks, and bring him gifts, corals,
+and pearls, and turkisses. As for gold he scarce heeds it now: he has
+a tribe of little elves that wash it out of the sand for him, and
+gather it up, like bees, into balls and grains, and then carry it like
+honey, and stuff his cane with it. Ay, ay, my worthy smooth-faced
+pedlar of all wisdom's small wares! this is why the old man is for
+ever moping so, and never dares laugh; this is why he loses his wits
+if he chances to hear music, which gladdens the heart of every godly
+man; this is why he never goes into company, and is always fretful and
+cross-grained: for he knows full well what end he must come to, and
+that all his earthly grandeur cannot buy him off; because he has
+forsaken his God, and no human being ever saw him in a church."
+
+"This is the hateful part of superstition," exclaimed Edward
+indignantly, "which otherwise would only deserve our contempt, and
+which, if it did not thus deprave the understanding and the heart,
+might delight us by its poetical features, and furnish the imagination
+with much fantastical amusement. Are you not ashamed, old man, to
+think and prate in this way of the most virtuous, the most beneficent
+of men? How many human beings are fed and supplied with comforts by
+his extensive transactions? is he not always giving the needy a share
+in the blessings with which heaven rewards his industry? He spends his
+life in thought, in watching, in care, in writing, in toil, for the
+sake of nourishing thousands, who but for him would perish without
+employment; and as whatever he undertakes with so much judgement is
+favoured by fortune, fools are audacious enough to slander his
+understanding which they cannot comprehend, and his virtues which they
+are unable to appreciate, with their stupid impertinent
+extravagances."
+
+"Fortune!" laught the miner: "you talk of fortune, and fancy that in
+using the silliest word in the world you have said something: why, it
+is the very same thing that I mean and believe; only that you don't
+understand what you say, nor can anybody make any sense of it. My
+jewel, the earth, the water, the air, mountains, forests, and vallies,
+are no dead lifeless dogs, as you mayhap think them. All sorts of
+things dwell and bustle about in them, things that you call powers and
+the like: these can't endure to have their old quiet abodes turned
+topsy-turvy in this manner, and dug away and blown up with gunpowder
+under their very feet. The whole country for miles and miles round is
+smoking and steaming, and clattering, and hammering; people are
+shovelling and poking, and digging, and blasting, and laying waste
+with fire and water even into the entrails of the earth; not a forest
+finds mercy; there are glass-houses, and alum works, and copper mines,
+and bleaching-grounds, and spinning-jennies: look you, this must bring
+mishap or goodhap to the man who sets such a sight of things a-going;
+it can't all end in nothing. Where there are no human beings, there
+dwell the silent spirits of the mountains and woods: but if they are
+too much squeezed,--for when not prest for room and left in peace they
+will live on good terms with man and beast,--but when one elbows them
+too close, and into their very ribs, they grow pettish and
+mischievous: then come deaths, earthquakes, floods, conflagrations,
+landslips, and all the other things they bring to pass; or else you
+must put a stiff yoke on them, and then they will serve you indeed,
+but against the grain, and the more toll they have to pay to anybody,
+the worse friends are they to him at the last. Now this, young master,
+is what you are pleased to call fortune."
+
+The dispute would probably have lasted some time longer, unless an
+elderly man had now approacht them, whom Edward, whenever he was able,
+was glad to avoid. On this occasion however Eleazar came too quickly
+upon him, and besides had so much business to talk over, that the head
+overseer was compelled to stay and hear what the manager of the looms
+had to say. Eleazar was a little sickly man, self-willed and sullen,
+even more so than his master, the old man of the mountain, as Conrad,
+after the custom of the neighbourhood, had called him.
+
+"I heard yesterday," said Eleazar, "of a carriage that was to stop the
+night in the next town; as I went by I told William of it; and now the
+fellow, who seemed aghast at the tidings, is up and off. My master
+will as usual have to endure loss and vexation from these vagabond
+knaves, whom he is so fond of trusting before his old tried friends."
+
+His eyes fell on the curious book, he looked into it, and seemed
+delighted. "If you like the nonsensical stuff," said Edward, "I will
+make you a present of it, in case William, for whom I have bought it,
+does not return."
+
+"Thank you, thank you, from my heart!" cried Eleazar, sniggering, as
+he lifted his sharp little eyes, and a strange smirking grin made his
+yellow crampt face still uglier than before.
+
+"So you really meant what you said!" exclaimed the old miner: "well!
+the revelations of the spirit of the earth are in better keeping under
+the guard of that sickly gentleman, than with such a merry
+care-for-nought." He then turned down the hill on the side opposite to
+that which led toward the town, to betake himself to his mine; while
+Eleazar seemed buried in thought as he read with great eagerness in
+his newly acquired treasure.
+
+Meanwhile Edward was watching a carriage that was toiling up the hill
+from the valley, and had just come through the wood. "Are we to have a
+visit?" he exclaimed with some surprise.
+
+"Heyday! what!" returned Eleazar: "it is our old master's carriage to
+be sure, which he has again been lending to the folks over yonder for
+a wedding; and his other coach has been sent off to a christening in
+the village at the further end of the mountains. Two such equipages!
+and he never uses either himself, since he never stirs out of the
+house; and coachmen and lacquies always on their legs to wait on some
+beggarly strangers, who don't even thank him when his carriages and
+horses go to wreck, and new ones are to be bought at the end of every
+four years."
+
+"Can you really find fault with this bountiful kindness?" replied
+Edward: but Eleazar relieved him from the trouble of prolonging the
+dispute, by carrying off his book in great haste, without once looking
+at him. Edward breathed more freely when delivered from the presence
+of this odious misanthrope, who took every opportunity of loading his
+benefactor with the bitterest abuse.
+
+The coach meanwhile was labouring up the second hill; and from the
+slow and unsteady footing of the horses it was evident they must have
+come out of the plain. The carriage too, Edward now saw clearly, was a
+strange one, and must probably be bringing some unexpected visitant.
+With much panting and straining at length the horses dragged the coach
+up the last slope; and an elderly lady got out at the door of the
+great house, and sent her maid and servant with the carriage to the
+inn in the town.
+
+Edward was surprised; for the lady, whose face still betrayed that she
+had once been handsome, was entirely unknown to him. "You will allow
+me," she said with a sweet-toned voice, "to rest here under the
+portico for a moment; after which I should wish to speak to Herr
+Balthasar."
+
+Edward felt at a loss what to do, and led the lady with evident
+uneasiness to a chair in the entrance hall. "If you will give me
+leave," he then said, "I will attend you into the parlour, and order
+you some breakfast."
+
+"Thank you for all your kindness," she cried: "the only thing I wish
+for, is an interview with the master of the house. Is he up yet? In
+what room shall I find him?"
+
+"That none of us knows," answered Edward: "until he himself opens his
+door, nobody ventures to go to him; and it is still shut. His wont
+however is to rise early, and he says he sleeps but little. Whether he
+employs these early solitary hours in reading, or in prayer and
+devotion, no one can tell; so great is his reserve toward everybody.
+But as to announcing you--even by and by--I know not: for we all have
+the strictest orders, never to let in any stranger to him: he speaks
+to no one, except his managers and servants on business at stated
+hours; and from this rule during the twelve years that I have known
+him he has not once departed. Strangers who have anything to request
+of him must declare their wishes to me or to master Eleazar; and we
+either settle the matter directly ourselves, or, if it does not lie
+immediately in our power, we make a report to him on the subject,
+without his ever setting eyes on the person. These whimsical rules, if
+you choose so to call them, render his solitude unapproachable; and
+that is the very thing he wishes."
+
+"O God!" cried the lady with a tone of anguish: "and must this journey
+then, this hard effort of mine, be all utterly in vain? For how could
+I ever find words to express my wishes and requests to a perfect
+stranger? O dear good Sir, your eye bespeaks and reveals the kindness
+of your heart: for my sake, for the sake of a miserable, deeply
+afflicted woman, make an exception this once to the strict custom of
+the house, and tell your master that I am here."
+
+At this moment they heard the sound of a large bell. "That is the
+sign," said Edward, "that we may go and speak to him, and that his
+room is open. I will say everything for you that you wish; but I know
+beforehand it is to no purpose, and I shall bring down his anger on my
+own head, without doing you any service."
+
+He went dejectedly down the long passage: for it pained him that he
+could not assist the lady whose noble form moved and interested him.
+Old Balthasar was sitting in deep thought, his head leaning on his
+arm, at his writing-table: he looked up cheerfully and kindly at
+Edward's greeting, and held out his hand. When the young man, after
+making a long preface to excuse himself and conciliate his master,
+mentioned the wife of a privy-counsellor, whose maiden name was
+Fernich, the old man started up suddenly from his desk as if struck by
+lightning, with a frightful cry.
+
+"Fernich! Elizabeth!" he then exclaimed, with fearful vehemence; "she,
+she here? in my house! O God, O heaven, quickly, quickly let her come
+in! O do make haste, my dear friend;" he cried out again, and his
+voice failed him.
+
+Edward was almost terrified, and went back to bring the stranger to
+Balthasar. In the mean time she had been joined by the young lady of
+the house, an adopted child, but whom the old man loved with the same
+tenderness and treated just as if she had been his own. The stranger
+trembled, and when she reacht the old man's apartment was near
+fainting: Balthasar dried his tears, and was unable to find words, as
+he led the pale lady to a chair: he made a sign, and Edward left the
+room, in great anxiety about his old friend, whom he had never seen so
+strongly moved, and with whom owing to this singular scene he stood on
+an entirely new footing.
+
+"It was very good of you, Rose," he said to the young blooming girl,
+"to entertain the stranger lady while she was waiting."
+
+"It was all to very little purpose," answered she, blushing: "for she
+was so faint and exhausted that, whatever I could say, she did nothing
+but weep. She must surely be sick, or have some heavy load on her
+heart. It has made me quite sorrowful, and I too have been crying.
+These eyes in our head are certainly very funny creatures, just like
+little children. They run about, and stare, and gaze at every thing
+new, shining and twinkling with joy; and then they grow so serious and
+sad, and when the pain at one's heart is very sore, they bubble with
+tears and overflow, and anon they become bright and glad again. There
+must be a vast number of sorrows in the world, my dear Edward."
+
+"May heaven preserve you from any very melancholy trials!" replied he:
+"hitherto your young life has glided along as peacefully as a swan
+over a silent pool."
+
+"You fancy," cried she laughing, "that such a thing as I cannot have
+had any sorrows of its own, much less very bitter and painful ones.
+You are mightily mistaken."
+
+"Well?" asked Edward earnestly.
+
+"One can't remember all in a moment what one's sorrows are," said the
+good-natured girl: "wait a little. When I think of sundry great
+misfortunes in the world, about which I have heard people talking at
+times, then indeed there does not seem to be very much in what I have
+had to go through: yet for little things like me a little misfortune
+is quite big enough. Now is not it a real grievance that I must never
+hear music? that I don't know how people look, or how they feel, when
+they are dancing? Ah, dearest Edward, the other day, when we were
+taking a drive, we passed by the little inn over yonder on the other
+side of the town, where the country folks were having a dance: their
+jumping about, the sound of the fiddles, the strange glee in the airs
+made such an odd impression on me, I cannot tell whether I felt glad,
+or sad to the very bottom of my heart. Here in our neighbourhood we
+must never have any music, either in the inn or anywhere else. Then
+when I hear of plays and operas, I cannot quite persuade myself that
+such wonderful things are really and truly to be found in the world.
+The lights, the numbers of finely drest people, and then a real stage,
+and a whole story acted upon it, which I am to believe to be true: can
+there be anything more curious? And is not it then a grievous
+affliction, that I am to grow old here, without ever in my whole life
+catching a single short glimpse of all these grand doings? Tell me,
+dear Edward, you too are a good man, is this wish of mine, are those
+sights themselves very sinful? Herr Eleazar indeed says they are, and
+my dear fatherly uncle thinks the same of them, and hates everything
+of the sort: but the king and the magistrates allow them, and learned
+people approve them, and write and compose the things that are to be
+acted: can all this then be so very wicked?"
+
+"My dear child," said Edward with the utmost friendliness, "how sorry
+I am that I cannot procure you even this innocent pleasure! But you
+know yourself how strict Herr Balthasar is in all these matters."
+
+"O yes," she replied: "why the miners in our town here must never even
+hum a tune; we must never drive more than just two miles from the
+gate; and no amusing book, no poem, no novel is ever let come into the
+house. And added to all this we are perpetually frightened with being
+told that such a number of thoughts and fancies, and all that one is
+fond of dreaming about in many a lonesome hour, are impious sins. At
+such times I muse over all sorts of little stories about the loveliest
+spirits, and beautiful vallies, and how the miller finds his love in
+the mill-stream, who by and by turns out to be a princess and makes
+him a king, or how the fisherman jumps into the river, and at the
+bottom finds the most glittering and gorgeous wonders. Or a little
+shepherdess is playing with her lambs on the meadow, and a handsome
+prince, sitting upon a great horse, rides by and falls in love with
+her. And then, if the evening bells chance to peal through the dusk,
+and the wind brings the noise of the hammering and knocking from yon
+black mountain, or I hear the sledge-hammer from afar, I could cry,
+and yet in fact am glad at my very heart. But our surly gloomy
+Eleazar, one day that I was telling him of this, abused me bitterly,
+and said that busying oneself with such thoughts is the very pitch of
+sin and wickedness. And yet I can't help it; for it all comes into my
+head just of its own accord."
+
+"Dear innocent creature!" said Edward, and seized the blooming girl's
+hand.
+
+"To you," she went on, "one may talk of all this, and you understand
+everything in the right way: but other people immediately begin
+scolding me, because they put a wrong meaning into everything. It was
+just the same with my old nurse, who is now dead. You had been a long
+time in the house before I ever thought I could tell you anything or
+trust you; I was so very little then and used to play with my doll.
+Dear Heaven, it is now full ten years since the last time I dandled my
+Clary, as we called her. To my old Bridget, and my father, and
+Eleazar, and the cook, I thought I might say everything, because they
+were so grave: you were always laughing; and this made me fancy that
+you did not rightly belong to us. Now when prayer time came, they would
+not let me look at Clary, or carry her with me; but she was shut up in
+the cupboard. This made me very sorry; for I fancied she must be
+crying after me. So I found out a way, and took her along with me hid
+under my pinafore, and held her close to my heart to keep her warm;
+and when we came into the prayer-room I began by praying in private to
+God that he would forgive me if I was too fond of my Clary, that he
+would pardon me too, great and mighty as he was, for having brought
+her in secret into his high presence, and that he would not think I
+meant to deceive him or to treat him with disrespect, for he knew it
+was not so. After this preface I fancied I had made my peace, and
+repeated my usual prayers very devoutly. Thus all went on well for a
+week: then Bridget found me out. O gracious! then there was a great to
+do: even my good father said, this shewed how the human heart from its
+very infancy is so corrupt and wicked as to give itself up to the
+idolatry of worthless and contemptible things. I cannot understand
+even now what he meant by these words. Whenever one loves anything, is
+it not very beautiful and perfectly right that one does not pry into
+it and finger it too closely? What is a rose, when I pull it to
+pieces? It is so perishable, and therefore so dear. Was it my poor
+Clary's fault, that she was only a leather doll? Last week I was
+looking at her again one day, and could not make out myself how I came
+to be so fond of her formerly; and yet I could almost have cried to
+think that none of the feelings of those days will ever come back to
+me again. But surely this cannot be fickleness in me now, any more
+than my love ten years ago was idolatry and wickedness."
+
+"Dear angel," said Edward tenderly, "our heart is trained by the love
+of visible perishable objects for the love of the invisible and
+eternal. When I see a child playing thus fondly and innocently with
+puppets of its own making, and crying for love and delight over the
+lifeless toy, I could fancy that at such hours angels gather about the
+little creature and sport lovingly around it."
+
+"Ah," exclaimed Rose, "that is a beautiful notion!"
+
+"When however," continued Edward, "heart truly bends to heart, when
+two souls meet and give up themselves to each other in love, this
+faith and feeling of theirs invests the invisible with a palpable
+reality, and brings it for all eternity before them."
+
+"That again I don't understand," said the maiden pondering; "but if
+you mean that sort of love which is necessary for a wedding, and to
+make a truly happy marriage, I think very differently on that score."
+
+"How so?" asked the young man.
+
+"That is a hard matter to explain," answered the girl, putting on a
+look of deep thought.
+
+"Supposing now," said Edward, forcing himself to laugh, that he might
+hide his emotion, "you had to marry tomorrow, whom would you choose?
+Which of all the men you have hitherto met with, do you like the best?
+Have you enough confidence in me to answer me this question honestly?"
+
+"Why should not I?" she replied: "for I need not even spend a moment
+in considering the point."
+
+"And ... and the man you have already chosen?"
+
+"Is of course our Eleazar."
+
+Edward started back in utter amazement. "A moment ago you did not
+understand me, he said after a pause; and now you have told me a
+riddle that terrifies me."
+
+"And yet," she answered with perfect simplicity, "it is the most
+natural thing in the world. My father too, I fancy, has already made
+up his mind, that our honest Eleazar is to be my future husband. Were
+I to love and choose you, there would be nothing remarkable in it; for
+I like you, and so does every body else; no one can help feeling
+confidence in you; and at the same time you are very handsome, and
+always friendly and good-humoured, so that, when one has once become
+acquainted with you, one hardly knows how to live without you. Such
+persons as our William would find a thousand girls to grow fond of
+them; and it is a pity that he has already run away from us again.
+Even old Conrad, and my father himself, must have been good-looking
+when they were younger: but only look at poor Eleazar, who is not so
+very old yet, and whom not a creature in the house, nay in the whole
+world can endure;--what is to become of him, if I do not marry him."
+
+"How!" said Edward interrupting her; "is your fair life to fall a
+victim to this fantastical delusion? Can the perplexity in which dark
+spirits involve themselves, entangle the purity of innocence in its
+snares? and must love itself devise a robe to deck out the most
+frantic extravagance as an act of noble self-sacrifice and reasonable
+resignation?"
+
+"We are quite at cross purposes today," she continued calmly. "It is
+not that I really love him: I have not even a notion yet what this
+love they talk of is, or what it means. Let me tell you again about
+the sorrows of my youth, with which we began. In the days when I was
+still very fond of my Clary, I had also a cat in the house here, that
+was no less dear to my childish heart. I even fancied to myself that
+the doll and the little white playful creature must be very jealous of
+each other on my account. Now Herr Eleazar detested and persecuted
+everything that even looked like a cat; for he says they are
+malicious. This seems to be a general superstition. Wherever the sleek
+animals shew their faces, everybody, even the best-natured people,
+will begin shouting, _puss! puss!_ and will worry and hunt them, as if,
+in pursuing the harmless things, they were driving away Antichrist
+himself. And this it is that makes them, as no doubt they are, so
+mistrustful and wary. My cat had kittens, which were just nine days
+old, and opening their little blue eyes. What fun and pleasure it is
+for children, to see the mother with her young ones, and the droll
+sports of the kittens, and their skipping and tumbling and jumping
+about, nobody who is grown up can understand. On the very same day
+master Eleazar had just got a new airgun, which he wanted to try.
+Complaints had for some time been made to my father, that my cat used
+to hunt the singing birds and eat them. It was taking the air behind
+the house, in the garden, and amusing itself by running up and down
+the big orange-tree. On the sudden Eleazar shot at it and it fell
+dead; and now the kittens too were to be drowned. Never before had I
+thought him so brown and nasty, so unlike a human being. In the night
+I prayed that God would let him too die; but the very next morning,
+though I was still such a mere child, it struck me to the heart, how
+very, very unhappy he must be, that there was no creature he could
+love, and neither man nor beast could love him; and so I think still.
+Such an odious creature as he is, he will never find a heart on earth,
+if I were to blot him out of mine."
+
+"Dear little Rose," said Edward, somewhat calmer, "you must not be too
+hasty, and assuredly you will change your mind on this point by and
+by."
+
+"My fate," she again began, while the tears mounted into her bright
+eyes, "has in fact been just like that of the poor little kittens;
+only that God Almighty did not let me be drowned in the same wretched
+manner. But I too never knew my mother; she had never the happiness of
+bringing me up; she died shortly after my birth. My foster-father here
+is very kind to me; still it must be quite a different feeling to have
+a real father; but he too is in his grave. Now, reckoning up all this,
+methinks we have here made out quite unhappiness enough for so young a
+thing."
+
+"Dearest Rose," said Edward after a pause, "would it give you any
+pain, if you knew that I too was very unhappy? or if I too were gone?"
+
+"Alas! my dear good friend," she exclaimed, "don't make me cry. I tell
+you, I never liked anybody so well as you. But happy and gay as you
+are, with all the world so fond of you, you can do very well without
+my love. But I cannot do without yours."
+
+A servant now came and called Edward away to the old man. The
+conversation must have been of deep interest; for Balthasar as well as
+the stranger seemed dissolved in tears, though both were trying hard
+to collect themselves.
+
+"My dear friend," said the old man with a broken voice, "my good
+gentle Edward, will you conduct the stranger lady to the inn; but at
+the same time take along with you four thousand dollars in gold and
+bills out of my strong-box. No human being however, I trust and charge
+you, must know of this affair, least of all Eleazar. Only conceive,
+the savage has left three letters of the highest importance from this
+poor woman to me without an answer. His not shewing them to me I can
+forgive, since on that point he has full powers from me."
+
+His wishes were executed, and the stranger set off again in the
+afternoon in better spirits, without paying her old friend another
+visit.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next day Balthasar sent Edward a summons to his room. When he had
+lockt the door he began: "You are the only person entrusted with a
+circumstance and a connexion, which agitated me so deeply yesterday
+that I was unable to tell you anything about it. As however I look
+upon you quite in the light of my son, I feel myself bound to disclose
+something more of myself and my story to you, than any mortal man has
+ever yet heard."
+
+They sat down: the old man gave his young friend his hand, which the
+latter prest cordially, and then said: "You cannot doubt my affection
+and friendship; and what you confide to me will in my hands be as
+secret as in the silent grave."
+
+"I have watcht you this long time," said the old man, "and know you
+well. Hitherto we have had but little talk together; I am now forced
+to change and break through my usage with regard to you, and I am
+anxious besides that there should be a being who knows and understands
+me."
+
+Edward's curiosity was roused; and the old man went on with a
+tremulous voice: "I am still so much moved, my whole frame is still so
+much disordered by yesterday's shock, that you must have patience with
+my weakness. That my life is a cheerless one, that I have long
+renounced all those recreations and enjoyments, which are in fact the
+only things most men live for, you must long ago have remarkt. From my
+youth up I have got out of the way of pleasure, with a feeling which I
+might almost call dread. Educated by a rigid father, who lived in the
+greatest penury, my childhood and youth were merely suffering and
+sorrow. When I grew bigger, my ripening understanding only enabled me
+more distinctly to perceive the misery of my parents and the
+wretchedness of the whole earth. Often for many nights together no
+sleep visited my eyes, which were flowing with tears. Thus my
+imagination accustomed itself to view the whole world as nothing but a
+place of punishment, where sorrow and need were the lot of all, and
+such as were raised above the sordid wants of life were but in a yet
+sadder state of silly delusion, in which they neither recognized their
+own calling nor the destiny of mankind, but giving themselves up to
+vapid pleasures and pitiful comforts reeled along toward the grave.
+One single star shed its light through this dark gloom,--but it was as
+far beyond my reach as if it had stood in the heavens,--my relation
+Elizabeth, whom you saw: she was rich, highborn, and bred to a life of
+splendour and luxury. A cousin of mine, Helbach, who was still richer
+and haughtier, was designed for her husband: our family scarcely ever
+saw these proud relations of theirs; and my stern father had a special
+hatred for them, and never spake but with rancour of their
+extravagance. This hatred he also transferred to me, when he
+discovered my secret and strong affection. He gave me his curse, if I
+ever dared to think of that lovely and beloved being. Nor was it long
+before she was married to her overbearing kinsman; one stream of
+wealth flowed into the other, and produced such a splendid way of
+living that the whole town felt envy at it. My mother's brother, who
+gave his son this large fortune, was so much ashamed of our poverty,
+that he did not even invite my parents to the wedding; which so
+greatly increast the vexation and annoyance of my father, already a
+prey to bitter mortification, that the after-throes of this insult
+brought him to the grave. My poor mother soon followed him. Of myself
+I will say nothing. If life had hitherto worn a dark aspect in my
+eyes, it now changed into a spectre, whose ghastly, distorted features
+and looks at first struck me with horrour, and afterward, when use
+made me cold and indifferent, taught me to despise everything, above
+all myself. Elizabeth had known of my passion. Rarely as we saw each
+other, she had taken no pains to conceal the affection with which she
+answered mine. Though she was not like me utterly dead to all joy, yet
+a shade was cast over her whole existence, and heavy clouds covered
+it. She has suffered enough since. Her husband was a profligate
+spendthrift; he squandered thousands from vanity, and for paltry,
+contemptible purposes. It would look as if a number of ill-starred
+men bore a kind of malice and hatred against money, so that they have
+recourse to the strangest devices to drive it away from them on every
+side, while the miser hugs and cherishes it with a blind devotion, and
+lets himself be crusht by his idol. Elizabeth was weak enough to give
+up her property to him unconditionally, and, when his credit had
+already fallen, to declare herself bound by his debts; and thus the
+very house into which all the gods of Olympus had seemed to enter,
+bringing eternal joy as their gift, became a scene of misery,
+confusion, hatred, and strife. The wretched husband, counsellor
+Helbach, has sold his last shilling for an annuity, without a thought
+about his wife and son. This son of his is as it were possest by the
+furies, unruly, headstrong, and without feeling: he ran into debt,
+then took to swindling, and finally, two years ago, when his weeping
+mother was trying to admonish him, abused and even struck her in his
+brutal rage. After this grand feat he set off into the wide world. His
+father meanwhile revels and laughs, devouring his income, which must
+still be large, at well-stored tables. This made her come to me,
+subduing her pride and her feelings, in order that I might relieve her
+from a debt, which would have brought her to shame and to a prison.
+These twenty years past she has been longing to die, but still lives,
+an object of horrour to herself, and of pleasure to nobody.--Send her
+a thousand dollars every quarter: she has promist me that her
+abandoned husband shall know nothing of this assistance either now or
+hereafter."
+
+Edward saw the old man's deep anguish, and was long silent: at last he
+began: "But how could Eleazar be so cruel as not to tell you of those
+letters?"
+
+"I was in the wrong," replied the old man, "to find fault with him for
+it yesterday. He acts in my name, and knows well that I am weak and
+soft-hearted: the particulars he was not aware of, and so only did his
+duty. Indeed I know not myself after all whether I have done rightly
+in following my torn and deeply agitated heart: for perhaps still she
+may have too little firmness to keep the wretch in ignorance of what
+has happened; in spite of everything he is her husband, and of all her
+ties his are the closest. You no doubt, because you love me, but are
+of a tender disposition so that distress affects you, would have acted
+otherwise, and better; and yet probably were I to put myself entirely
+in your hands, you would spoil me and ruin me: for no quality a man
+can have is so dangerous as vanity, which draws food from everything."
+
+"What do you mean by vanity?" asked Edward.
+
+"All our feelings," answered the old man, "the best and honestest, the
+gentlest and blissfullest, are rooted in this poisonous soil. But more
+of this another time. I only wanted to tell you briefly, how I
+acquired my fortune, how my character took that cast under which you
+have learnt to know me. After my parents death I fulfilled my father's
+last wish by uniting myself to a girl who was also a distant relation
+of our family. She was poor, unprovided, unprotected, had grown up
+amid straits without any kind of education; at the same time she was
+hideously ugly, and her temper was so morose and quarrelsome, that I
+never spent a pleasant hour with her, and had very few peaceful ones
+so long as she lived. My situation was horrible."
+
+"But how came you to marry her?" said Edward.
+
+"Because I had given my word to my father," continued Balthasar; "and
+because it is a principle of mine, that man must never gratify his
+passions, least of all that of love. My conviction is, that our life
+is a state of torment and woe; and the more we try to escape from
+these feelings, the more awful vengeance do our terrours afterward
+take upon us. As to why this is so, who can fathom that question?"
+
+"This belief," answered Edward, "is extremely strange, and at variance
+with all our wishes, nay with everyday experience."
+
+"O how scanty then must your experience have been hitherto!" replied
+the old man. "Everything lives and moves, only to die and to rot:
+everything feels, only to feel pangs. Our inward agony spurs us on to
+what we call joy; and all wherewith spring and hope and love and
+pleasure beguile mankind, is only the inverted sting of pain. Life is
+woe, hope sadness, thought and reflexion despair."
+
+"And supposing all to be so," said Edward somewhat timidly, "do we not
+find comfort and help in religion?"
+
+The old man lifted up his eyes and gazed fixedly in his young
+companion's face: his dark look grew brighter, not however with
+pleasure or any soft emotion; but so strange a smile ran across his
+pale furrowed features, that it lookt very much like scorn; and Edward
+involuntarily thought of the miner's words.
+
+"Let us turn aside from this theme for today," said the old man with
+his usual gloomy air; "we shall probably find time hereafter to speak
+of it. Thus I lived on in my state of damnation, and the thought of
+Elizabeth shone with a friendly but heart-piercing light into the hell
+around me. Still the frenzy of life had laid fast hold on me, and made
+me too take my place in the vast bedlam, and go through my part under
+the great task-master. People tell you that death cures all; others
+again look forward to being transported from one workhouse to another,
+where they shall keep on playing the fool through all eternity and
+evaporating in an endless succession of illusions. With a little
+money--it would be ridiculous were I to mention the sum; many take so
+much merely to fill their bellies--I engaged in a small line of
+business. It succeeded. I made a petty mercantile speculation. It
+turned out well. I entered into partnership with a man of considerable
+property. It seemed as if I had a talent of always guessing and
+foreboding where gain and profit were lying hid in distant countries,
+in uninviting, or hazardous undertakings; something like what is said
+of the divining rod, that it will hit upon metals and upon water. As
+many gardeners have a lucky hand, so in trade I prospered in every,
+even the most unpromising speculation. It was neither strength of
+understanding nor extent of knowledge, but mere luck. One becomes a
+man of understanding however, so soon as one has luck. My partner was
+astonisht; and, as he had a small estate here, we removed into this
+country, where till the time of his death we went on enlarging the
+number of our houses of business and manufactories. When he died, and
+I had settled my accounts with his heir, I might already have been
+accounted a rich man. But a feeling of awe came upon me along with
+this property as they call it. For how great is the responsibility for
+managing it rightly! And why were so many honest men unfortunate,
+while with me everything throve so unaccountably? After a number of
+painful years my wife also died: without children, without friends, I
+was again alone. How singularly that blind being, that men call
+fortune, pampered me, you may see from the following story. I always
+felt an aversion to play at cards or any other game for money. For
+what does a gambler do, but declare that he will exalt the wretched
+stuff, to which even as money he attaches such an inordinate value,
+into an oracle and a promulgation of the divine will? And then he
+stakes his heart and soul on this delusion: the freaks of chance,
+things utterly without meaning, are to calculate and make out for him
+by certain fantastical combinations, what he is worth, how he is
+favoured: his dark passions start up when he supposes that this chance
+neglects him; he triumphs when he fancies it sides with him; his blood
+flows more rapidly, his head is in an uprore, his heart throbs
+tumultuously, and he is more wretched than the madman that is lying in
+chains, when every card, down to the very last, turns up against him.
+Look you, this is the king of the creation in his patcht beggar's
+garb, which he takes to be a royal robe."
+
+The old man almost laught, and Edward replied: "Such is the case with
+all life; it runs along on a narrow line between truth and fancy,
+between reality and delusion."
+
+"Be it so!" cried Balthasar. "But no more of this. I was only going to
+tell you how I let myself be persuaded by my partner in the last year
+of his life to put for once into the neighbouring lottery. I did so
+against my own feelings; because these institutions appear to me
+deserving of the severest punishment. By them the state sanctions
+highway-robbery and murder. Even without such things ill-fated man is
+immoderately inflamed by the lust of gain. I had already forgotten the
+paltry concern, when I heard I had gained the great prize: after
+receiving the payment it never let me rest. What the vulgar fable of
+evil spirits, had come into my house along with these money-bags. This
+unblest sum supplied the funds for the hospital for sick old women in
+the valley a couple of leagues off, the building of which has been
+made such a merit of by senseless newspaper-scribes. What had I
+contributed toward it? Not even a stroke of the pen. Now you will
+understand how my perpetual gains, and the sums that flowed in to me
+from every venture, compelled me to plunge into fresh speculations,
+and how this has been going on year after year upon an ever-widening
+scale. And thus there is neither rest nor pause, until death will at
+length put the last full stop to the matter for this bout. Then some
+one else will of course begin to rave on just where I left off, and
+the same invisible power will perhaps meet his folly under the shape
+of misfortune."
+
+Edward knew not what to say. "You are not yet used," the old man
+continued, "to my words and expressions, because we have never yet
+talked upon these matters; you do not yet know my way of thinking; and
+as these feelings, these views of life are still new to you, you are
+surprised. Believe me, my good fellow, the only thing that keeps one
+from going mad, is swimming silently along with the stream, letting
+five always pass for even, and fitting oneself to that which cannot be
+changed. At the same time there is also another remedy that may serve
+to keep one afloat. One may lay down certain fixt unshakable
+principles, a line of conduct from which one never swerves. Money,
+wealth, gain, the circulation and the flowing of property and of the
+precious metals toward every quarter, through every relation of life,
+and every region of the earth, are one of the very strangest devices
+the world ever hit upon. It is a creature of necessity like every
+thing else; and as there is nothing on which passion has seized with
+such force, it has bred it up to be a monster more chimerical and wild
+than anything the fever of a heated fancy ever dreamt of. This monster
+is incessantly devouring and preying on all that comes within its
+reach; nothing satiates it; it gnaws and crunches the bones of the
+destitute, and laps up their tears. That in London and Paris before a
+palace, where a single banquet costs a thousand pieces of gold, a poor
+man should die of starvation, when the hundredth part of a piece of
+gold might save him,--that families should perish in frantic
+despair,--that there should be madness and suicide in the very room
+where a couple of paces off gamblers are rioting in gold,--all this
+seems so natural to us, such a matter of course, that we no longer
+feel any surprise at it; and everybody takes for granted with
+cold-blooded apathy, that it all must be so, and cannot be otherwise.
+How every state pampers this money-monster!--indeed it cannot help
+doing so--and trains it up to be more ferocious! In many countries
+wealth can no longer increase except among the rich, whereby the poor
+will be still more impoverisht, until at length Time will cast up the
+dismal sum, and then draw a bloody pen across the appalling amount.
+When I found myself thus rich, I held it to be my duty to keep this
+wealth in controul, so far as man can, and to tame the wild beast.
+Unquestionably the creation has been doomed to woe; else war, disease,
+famine, pain, and passion would not run riot and lay waste so.
+Existence and torment are one and the same word: nevertheless every
+one who does not mean wantonly to play the fiend, is bound to
+alleviate misery wherever he can. There is no property in the sense
+which most people put on the word; there ought not to be any, and the
+attempt to keep hold of it is godless. Still worse is it to spread
+calamity by the influence of wealth. Thus then I administer mine, so
+as to help my neighbours, to find work for the poor, care and remedies
+for the sick; and by an ever-increasing activity I strive to bring
+things into such a state, that as many as possible shall eat their
+bread without tears and anguish, shall gather pleasure from their
+children and their occupations, and that, so far as my eye and arm can
+reach, the creation may not be the object of as many curses here, as
+in other villages and towns."
+
+"The blessings you diffuse," Edward threw in, "must make you also
+happy."
+
+"Blessings!" repeated the old man and shook his head. "It is all a
+mere drop in the ocean. How short is the time within which even the
+child that is now sucking at the breast must needs die! This time,
+these hundreds and thousands of years, how they mock at our frail
+edifices! how Oblivion triumphs in every part of the earth, with ruins
+crumbling beneath her feet! and Destruction, while with unfeeling
+malignity she tramples every form of life in the dust! I have just
+been comforting my good Elizabeth today. But can I really comfort her?
+She is for ever haunted by the thought of her destiny, of her life, of
+her lost youth, of her having flung herself away on a worthless being,
+of her having brought a tiger as her son into the world. In her dreams
+she is visited by the feeling, whether asleep or waking it pursues
+her, and thrills through every fibre, that she once loved me, perhaps
+loves me still; and so her heart has to bear my wretchedness along
+with her own. True she may now and then relish a morsel somewhat
+better; she may now and then forget herself, perhaps over some silly
+book, delighting in the good fortune of others, and feeling interest
+in afflictions which are merely faint shadows of her own; and this
+sentimental folly may help her over half a dozen minutes a little more
+at her ease. Verily it is a grand achievement that I have been able to
+do this for her. The consciousness however, that neither her husband
+nor her son, the offspring of her own blood and body, and surely of
+her soul too, is to know anything of my bounty, as it would be called,
+or else her sufferings will increase--do you not perceive how pitiful
+this, and the whole of life is? But let us break off, and tell me
+instead what news you have heard."
+
+Edward informed him that William had again gone off suddenly and
+without assigning any cause. "I am glad of it," answered the old man;
+"I always took him for our thief, and winkt hard in looking at him,
+that I might not ruin him utterly: this indulgence however must have
+come to an end. I was exceedingly fond of him, and for that very
+reason only hated him the more."
+
+"How do you mean?" asked the young man.
+
+"Why," replied the other, "foolishly enough I felt charmed by his
+countenance, by the soft sound of his voice, by his whole look and
+air: this perverse sympathy will keep following us everywhere. I took
+a liking to him: and catching my heart in this piece of folly, I
+punisht myself by conceiving a downright aversion to the fellow, as we
+should and must do to everything we are greatly delighted with."
+
+Edward wanted to ask further questions, but the striking of the clock
+called him to his business, and being dismist by the old man he went
+away, with a multitude of thoughts concerning this singular
+conversation, to meditate further upon it at leisure.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Whenever Edward's thoughts now recurred, as they often did, to the
+nature of his situation, that and every thing connected with it, the
+appointment which had fixt him in this secluded spot, the business he
+was engaged in, as well as the persons with whom he had to hold
+intercourse, appeared to him in a light totally different from before.
+He was loth to acknowledge to himself how forcibly and singularly his
+imagination had been wrought upon by his late discourse with Rose.
+Hitherto he had only lookt on her as a pleasing child; but now the
+lovely girl became an object to which expectations and silent hopes
+attacht themselves: he watcht her more attentively; he talked oftener
+to her and more at length; and the budding of her youthful soul, the
+frank artlessness of her thoughts, interested his heart more and more.
+And then, when he recollected the hideous, sallow-faced Eleazar, with
+his surly morose temper, and thought that this tender flower had
+already in secret devoted herself as a sacrifice to so odious a
+creature, his anger was moved by this absurd project, which at other
+times again he could not help smiling at. Eleazar had been absent for
+some days past. He had not taken much pains to conceal that he was
+going into the lonely, remote parts of the mountains in search of
+those marks which he had read of in the master miner's book. This
+absurdity sorted well with his strange dreamy character; for he was
+perpetually poring over books of magic and alchemical treatises, had a
+laboratory in his room, and would often boast in pretty intelligible
+hints that he had found the philosopher's stone. When Edward bethought
+himself of his singular conversation with his old master, and of the
+sentiments he had given vent to during that confidential hour, he no
+longer regarded it as improbable that Balthasar should have been led
+by his wild moody whims to design his blooming foster-daughter for the
+wife of the gloomy Eleazar. A shudder came over him to think with what
+dark and perplext spirits he was so closely linkt; his head went round
+with the giddiness of all about him, and he seemed almost to lose his
+hold on himself. This made him still more regret the loss of young
+William: at the same time his annoyances were increast by the
+robberies of the warehouse, which instead of ceasing were carried on
+with more audacity than ever. He himself had entertained a slight
+suspicion of William, and was quite unable to make out how the crime
+was perpetrated.
+
+In this mood it was with no very friendly welcome that he met Eleazar
+on his return from his wild-goose chace. Eleazar too grew highly
+indignant, when he heard that the robberies had been continued during
+his absence with the greatest impudence; and as he could not justly
+charge Edward with any negligence or supineness, this first
+conversation between them, little as they had ever been disposed to
+agree, took a tone of still more bitterness than usual. As soon as his
+hateful companion was gone, Edward determined to do what he now could
+not help regarding as his indispensable duty, by speaking more
+seriously than ever to Herr Balthasar on this subject.
+
+These depredations, which were prosecuted with so much security,
+excited the wonder of the whole neighbourhood; and at the public-house
+in the town there was often much talk about them. Old Conrad was
+sitting in the wooden arm-chair beside the stove, and was just telling
+the fat thriving landlord the details of the last robbery, when a
+stranger came in, who immediately gave himself out to be a travelling
+miner. The stranger was much younger than Conrad, and therefore at
+first modestly said but little, and merely asked a few questions,
+insinuating however that there might probably be means of soon
+bringing the matter to light, if his advice were but to be followed.
+By these hints the curiosity of some peasants who happened to be
+present, having come with corn from the plain several miles off to
+this town high up among the mountains, was vehemently aroused. Conrad,
+who lookt upon himself as the wisest person in the company, became
+grave and monosyllabic, waiting to hear what this new device or scheme
+for detecting the thief, would end in.
+
+"You must lay a charm," said the stranger, "which the thief, when he
+has once set foot within it, will not be able to escape from; and so,
+as soon as the sun rises, you are sure to find him."
+
+"And what is such a charm to be made of?" asked Andrew, who was the
+forwardest of the peasants.
+
+Conrad laught aloud and scornfully, while he said: "Clownish dolts,
+don't thrust in your tongues, when people are debating about matters
+of art and science; stick to your straw and your chaff; they are
+things you are better skilled in handling. Proceed, knowing sir," he
+added, looking with suspicious graciousness toward the stranger; "how
+do you mean that such a charm or spell is to be prepared, so as to be
+certain of its effect?"
+
+The stranger, whose pale face formed a singular contrast with the
+stout dusky-hued Conrad, the fat host, and the puffy cheeks of the
+peasants, said with a somewhat stifled voice: "Yew twigs cut and
+peeled beneath the new moon, and then boiled at the first quarter in a
+decoction of wolf's milk and hemlock, which itself must have been
+previously made on the selfsame night, are to be stuck in the earth,
+while some words that I know are repeated, at certain distances round
+the spot where the robbery is committed; and the thief, be he ever so
+daring, and ever so learned in laying spells and breaking them, will
+be unable to step out of this circle, and will stand in fear and
+trembling, till the persons who set the magical trap pounce upon him
+in the morning. I have often seen this practist in Hungary and
+Transylvania, and it has always succeeded."
+
+Conrad was about to answer, but the pert Andrew was beforehand with
+him and cried: "My grandfather, the smith, had a spell with
+abracadabra, which was to be repeated backward and forward, along with
+certain verses of the Bible; and when he had said these words, every
+thief, whether he was in the wood, on the high road, or in the field,
+was forced to halt on the sudden in the middle of his running,--or, if
+he was riding on horseback, it was just the same--and to wait in
+terrour and affright, so that even children if they chose might seize
+hold of him."
+
+Conrad gave the peasant a look of inexpressible contempt, and then
+turning with ambiguous courtesy to the strange miner, said: "You are a
+man of experience and knowledge, as it seems; nevertheless your
+well-meant advice will hardly meet with acceptance here. For first the
+old man of the mountain will never have anything to do with sorcery
+and witchcraft, because he hates every kind of superstition, even that
+which is pious and unavoidable, much more then one of this sort, which
+he must needs hold to be utterly accurst. Besides you don't even know
+in what way the thief goes to work, so as to take proper measures
+against him."
+
+"What do you mean?" asked the stranger, somewhat abasht, but whose
+curiosity was stirred.
+
+"Have you never heard," continued Conrad, "or read of those wonderful
+persons, or, as you have been such a great traveller, have you
+yourself never stumbled upon such, whose eyes can pierce through a
+board, through wainscot and wall, nay down into the depths of the
+earth and into the heart of a mountain?"
+
+"In Spain," replied the stranger, "there are said to be men, who
+without the help of a divining-rod can find out treasures and metals
+with their bodily eyes, even though they should be lying ever so deep
+under rocks or forests."
+
+"Just so," proceeded Conrad; "Zahori, or Zahuri is the name borne, as
+I have heard tell, by the people who have carried their power and
+knowledge to this pitch. Only nobody knows whether one man can learn
+this of another, or whether it is a natural gift, or proceeds from a
+league with the evil one."
+
+"From the devil certainly!" cried Andrew interrupting him, having been
+gradually poking in his face nearer and nearer.
+
+"I am not talking to you, lowland lubber," said Conrad; "you would do
+better to seat yourself behind the stove; that is your right place
+when people are canvassing grave questions of science."
+
+Andrew muttered, and angrily drew back his chair a little; whereupon
+Conrad went on; "Look you man, this art in many countries is not the
+only one, nor even the highest, profitable as it may be for
+discovering veins of metal, or even gold and silver. Of much greater
+weight however, and far more formidable are those who have a power in
+their eyes to do one an injury, and with a single glance can infect
+one with a disease, a fever, a jaundice, a fit of madness, or even
+look one dead. The better and godlier part of these persons hence
+always of their own accord wear a bandage before one of their
+eyes--for this power will often exist only on one side--so that they
+may walk about and deal with their neighbours, without harming them."
+
+"Of these I have never heard," replied the stranger.
+
+"That is matter of surprise to me," continued the old miner with the
+most perfect gravity: "for since you come from Hungary, and probably
+were born there, where you have such a sight of vampires, or
+blood-sucking corpses, such swarms of goblins and manikins of the
+mountains, dwarfs and subterraneous creatures, that will often come
+across you even by broad daylight, I fancied everything belonging to
+witchcraft must be in high vogue there and generally notorious."
+
+"No," answered the traveller, "I never up to this present instant
+heard anything of these prodigies, much as I have seen and myself
+experienced that by such as have not been so far from home may be
+deemed remarkable enough."
+
+"Now then," said Conrad taking up his word again, "when the Zahori, as
+they call him, has once got so far that with his naked eye, instead of
+quietly seeing the treasures beneath his feet, he can give anyone a
+fit of sickness or put him to death, he has only one step further to
+become perfect and a master in his art. Look you, my good stranger,
+when he has thus reacht the highest degree, he will set himself down
+before a dish of baked meat, while it is still standing in the oven
+covered up and shut down, and without anybody being able to observe
+him will with his mere eyes devour you a goose, or a hare, or whatever
+it may be, swallowing it up so clean and neat, that, if he chooses,
+not a bone will be left. Place some nuts before him or melons, he will
+eat up all the kernel or pulp out of them, without making even a
+single scratch on the shell or rind, but leaving them undamaged just
+as if everything was still within. He has had a good meal; nobody can
+prove, or even suspect what he has done; and others have nothing left
+them but a fruitless search."
+
+"The devil again!" cried Andrew; "that's the trick I should like, if I
+could learn the art."
+
+"An artist of this sort," continued the old miner, "may however ascend
+a great deal higher; for such things after all would be merely a jest.
+If he has a spite against any one, he can pluck his heart out of his
+body with a look, just as easily as his money out of his pocket. The
+enemy he sets eye on will waste away and die miserably, or will sink
+into beggary, while he himself becomes as rich as ever he pleases."
+
+"It makes ones mouth water!" cried Andrew unconsciously, so completely
+was he carried away by the visions presented to him.
+
+Conrad turned his back upon him, drew his chair nearer to the miner,
+and then said: "If we had not this rabble so close at our side, I
+could explain the matter to you with greater tranquillity of mind. The
+truth is this. When the Zahuri has been promoted from being an
+apprentice or pounding-lad, to be a brother, and then a master or
+mine-surveyor, he will seat himself on his chair in his room, here
+overhead in this inn, or wherever it may be, will think of the
+warehouse of our old man of the mountain, or of the London docks, or
+of some place down in Spain where he knows that some banker, jeweller,
+or ship-master has valuable goods in his hands, and so soon as ever he
+thinks of them with his eyes, he has them before him, and nobody knows
+of it or can hinder it. In like manner by merely willing it he can
+also send them forthwith from the place whence he takes them, to
+Russia, or Calcutta, or anywhere else, and bring back the money he
+asks for them. Now should there be a man of this class living here, in
+the neighbourhood, or even in America, and he took a fancy to rob the
+warehouse, you will easily understand, with your unassisted reason,
+that then your peeled and boiled twigs would be of just as much avail,
+as a basin of well-made water gruel to cure an earthquake."
+
+The stranger had wit enough to perceive that Conrad was making a fool
+of him; but the peasants, though there were some things that puzzled
+them, swallowed all these nonsensical stories. Conrad exulted in his
+superiority, and went on: "Look you man, if there were no conjurers of
+this kind, how would all the contraband goods get in, which we find in
+every part of the world? and this is the reason why the preventive
+service can do so little, however strict and vigilant they may be. The
+learning the art indeed must probably cost some trouble; and this no
+doubt is why so very few seem to reach any mastery in it."
+
+"All that you have been telling me," answered the traveller, is mighty
+strange; "and perhaps the neatest way of winding up our dialogue would
+be, if I were to affirm that I am one of the masters in this art.
+However you would immediately require some specimen of my skill; and
+at that indeed I might boggle a little. Nevertheless be it in earnest
+or in jest that you have been talking all this while, there is most
+unquestionably, as no rational being will dispute, a number of
+incomprehensible and marvellous things in the world."
+
+Conrad, who in the mean time had been regaling himself with some
+strong beer, and fancied he had gained a complete victory over his
+unknown antagonist, was irritated by this rejoinder, and the more so
+because the peasants, who had heard the conversation, were not capable
+of undertaking the part of arbitrators.
+
+"Heyday!" he now exclaimed; "you seem to me to be one of those people
+who have hardly a notion as to what is marvellous or what natural.
+Have you ever seen spirits with your own eyes, as I have? Have you
+ever held conversations with goblins, with the little creatures that
+go into and come out of the mountain-lord's great house there? Have
+you ever seen metals and precious stones a-growing? or gold and silver
+trees waving and tossing about, all alive and vegetating?"
+
+"Do you believe then," asked the stranger, "that stones grow and
+decay, that metals shoot up and propagate their species? Do you fancy
+that the beds under the earth sprout up just like a potatoe-field?"
+
+"I know nothing about potatoes and all such vermin!" cried Conrad in a
+passion,--it being something new to him to have an unknown, and, as it
+seemed, an insignificant person lord it over him: "But that metals and
+rocks have life and motion in them every body is aware, that they grow
+up and die away, and that, as there is sunshine and moonshine here
+above, rain and mist, frost and heat, so there are vapours and blasts
+there below, which burst in and rush out, and boil invisibly in the
+dark there, and mould themselves into shape. One of these blasts will
+curdle into a mist, and then it trickles down, and intermarries with
+the essences of the hills and of the regions under the earth; and
+according to the course and form the steam takes then, it begets
+metals or stones, it quickens into silver or gold, or runs along as
+iron and copper branching out or cleft asunder in veins that strike
+far and near."
+
+"What then, are you so far behind all the rest of the world here!"
+asked the stranger with every mark of astonishment. "O my good friend,
+with your leave, ever since the creation, or at all events ever since
+the deluge, the mountains, and stones, and rocks, and metals, and
+gems, have been lockt up in their houses and never gadded abroad. We
+dig and delve in here at top, and hardly get even at deepest below the
+upper skin of the warts, as the mountains are in comparison to the
+whole earth, much such a part as a nail-paring is of a man. Wherever
+we can set foot, we grub up these primeval stores, so far as we need
+them; and nothing ever shoots forth again, neither coal nor diamond,
+neither copper nor lead; and your notion of the matter is a mere
+superstition. In Africa, they tell us a story, people used from time
+to time to find little grains of gold in a sandpit, which they had to
+deliver up to the poor black king as his property. With the help of
+these he would then buy all sorts of things from foreiners. One day
+going a little deeper they fell in with two good-sized lumps of massy
+solid gold. The slaves in great delight carried the fruit of their
+labours to their black master, it being more than they had found for
+ten years past, and they thought how overjoyed the poor man would be
+at becoming rich thus all at once. But they were mistaken. The wise
+old king said: 'Look ye, my friends, these pieces are the father and
+mother of that little brood of gold grains which we have constantly
+been finding for ages: carry them back immediately and set them in the
+very same place, that they may be able to go on producing fresh ones.
+Unless you do so, we should get a vast gain for the moment, but should
+lose a lasting source of profit for ever hereafter.' The moor was a
+goosecap, was not he?"
+
+"Very far from it," cried Conrad, growing more and more enraged; "he
+was quite right not to meddle with that which goes on in secret;
+although we, as miners, cannot see the matter exactly in the same
+light as he did. Solid masses have grown like the rest of us; and who
+can say whether they may not enliven and further the shooting and
+coalescing of the metallic particles round about them?"
+
+"I tell you however," replied the stranger, "that sprouting and
+growing, and spreading out into the regions of the air, or in the form
+of roots underground, are the properties of plants only. Stones rest
+in themselves; vegetables feed on light and warmth and moisture, and
+transform the particles of the earth they stand on into means of
+growth and enlargement. Then animals start off and break loose from
+the elements; but they move within them, and carry their roots about
+with them in their entrails."
+
+"No! no!" screamed Conrad, still more violently: "In this way the
+whole world, and above all my glorious mountains, with their
+glittering subterraneous chambers, will be hocus-pocust into mere
+store-houses, wretcheder ones than if they were made of wood, into
+miserable wareshops and stalls. What then would the dwarfish sprites,
+and the mighty mountain-spirit, and all the goblins and elvish imps,
+and the swarm of gnomes there below have to do? and yet they are
+always, some of them cleverly, some of them clumsily, putting their
+hands to the wheel. And the waters! and the vapours! O thou blind and
+deaf generation, that wilt not see and understand, what is yet much
+more easily comprehensible than your dead, lifeless world! If life and
+growth, and the workings by which life is propagated and multiplied,
+can ever come to a standstill, then in your own realm too, in the
+places where you fancy you see life, it is a sheer illusion and cheat.
+The solid earth is alive, but in a different manner; and when it
+happens to draw in its breath, when the old giant yawns and stretches
+his tired limbs, and tries to arrange them more comfortably, you are
+all aghast, and set up a howl about earthquakes, while your walled
+hovels are running after you for variety's sake, and your towers are
+tumbling into your pockets and slippers."
+
+"You are a strange man," said the other, "and much too hot-headed to
+listen to reason. Surely we ought to love truth above our puerile
+prejudices. We do not make nature, but she is already such as she is,
+spread out before us, for us to watch her ways and learn from her
+teaching."
+
+"Nature!" exclaimed the old miner; "that is just another of their
+stupid words! My mountain has nothing to do with nature; it is my
+mountain. About that I know everything; of your nature I know nothing
+at all. Just as if a tailor, who had a coat to make, were to keep on
+prating about nothing but wool, and merino sheep! To such a pitch have
+people already brought matters, that they can't look at anything as
+what it is, but search out some great big generality to which they may
+tie it and slay it and embowel it. What say you to this? I once talked
+to a man out of Hungary, a fellow-countryman of yours, but he had his
+wits more about him; and he told me of a vine, I believe not far from
+Tokay, which must have stood upon a vein of gold, and in which a
+stream of gold brancht out and ran through all the wood. He shewed me
+a bit of this vine, and I could clearly see and distinguish the
+gleaming of the gold that had grown up with it. He gave me his word
+that in some of the biggest and juiciest grapes seeds had been found
+at times which were of pure gold."
+
+"Now only look!" rejoined the stranger; "Can one wish for more than
+this? Gold not only grows as a mineral, but even as a plant. However I
+know a still better story. Once upon a time, when the weather was very
+damp, a man dropt some ducats in the rocky ground at a short distance
+from Cremnitz. In spite of every search they were not to be found.
+They must have fallen down among the stones, and have been buried in
+the rubbish. What came of it? Some years after, when no human being,
+not even the owner himself, thought any more of the loss, a strange
+sort of shrub was seen, which not a soul in the country had over met
+with. It flowered with wonderful beauty, and then formed a number of
+little pods. The pods soon after split like the fruit of the
+winter-cherry; and, when people went to look at it closelier, every
+skin contained a bright new Cremnitz ducat. Some fifty came to
+perfection; a good many, that had been nipt by the frost, were mere
+thin gold leaf. The oddest thing of all was that the ducats were
+always markt--for they took good care not to root up the beautiful
+weed--with the date of the year in which they ripened. Of late a wish
+has been entertained, if it were but possible, to graft a branch of a
+tree which peradventure might bear doubloons, on this lucrative bush,
+with a view of ennobling the fruit."
+
+The very peasants laught at this; for they fancied they saw the jest:
+Conrad, however, though he perceived it, misunderstood it so far that
+he did not answer a single word, but drunk with beer and rage only
+lifted up his fist, and thrust it so violently into the storyteller's
+face, that he instantly tumbled from his stool to the ground, and a
+stream of blood gusht out from his mouth and nostrils. On getting up
+again the stranger, though evidently the weaker, wanted to take his
+revenge; but the peasants rusht in between, and brought about a peace
+at least for the moment. This was the easier, as some travelling
+musicians were just come with their instruments into the inn, where
+Conrad in his drunkenness immediately took them into his pay.
+Notwithstanding the remonstrances of the host and hostess, he made
+them first play some songs, then some dances, and gave no ear to those
+who admonisht and reminded him that the music might be heard up in the
+great house.
+
+"Why should I trouble myself," he cried, "about the old man of the
+mountain? He may for once let his evil conscience be sung to sleep a
+little."
+
+He now began dancing, first alone, then with the hostess; and as the
+noise soon got abroad, several men and girls walkt in, who were glad
+to take part in this unexpected public ball. When the younger peasants
+however also stood up, Conrad rusht suddenly upon them, shoved them
+violently back, and imperiously commanded the musicians to be silent.
+
+"When clod-hoppers and such scum mingle with their betters," he bawled
+out, "one of us must retire from the foul contamination. But this I
+tell you, the first of you that budges, or even growls, I'll break
+every bone in his skin."
+
+The peasants, whether alarmed by his drunken fury, or perhaps only
+unwilling to incense him still more, drew back to their table. Conrad
+seated himself, after all the victories he had achieved, majestically
+in his armchair again, and rolled his eyes round with a look of
+defiance. As nobody uttered a word, he said with a loud voice: "Look
+ye, fellow miners, I am one of the oldest men about the works here
+above; see here, comrades, and ye ragamuffins there, host and peasants
+I mean, these dollars my prince and lord has gained from our pit."
+
+He threw a handful of silver on the table.
+
+"And old as I am, fellows, I was born and bred here in the mountains,
+and I never yet crawled down into the vallies and the plain. I can
+boast (and very few can say as much) I never yet saw any grain in the
+field, never yet saw corn growing or ripe atop of its pitiful straw.
+We work in gold and silver, are expert in mysteries and deep lore, hew
+blocks, amalgamate metals, fuse ores,--and the miserable louts there
+have to go about, as people have told me, hand and glove with rank
+dung, and to carry the stinking stuff into the fields and spread it
+out; and therefore I have a right to look upon their foul frocks as
+scandalous and vile; at all events no miner should ever shake hands
+with 'em, or drink out of the same mug. I am determined too to die a
+man of honour, as I have grown old, without ever setting foot under
+their thatch roofs, or on their threshing-floors; I have preserved
+myself four and fifty years from this disgrace, and heaven will
+continue to guard me from it while I live."
+
+Thus he went on prating, till at length he was so stupefied and
+exhausted that he fell asleep. The peasants, who now felt still
+sorelier affronted than before, had more than once cast significant
+looks on their cudgels. With these feelings they listened the more
+readily to the advice of the stranger, who had been washing himself in
+the meanwhile, to lift their insolent enemy, as he was fast asleep and
+seemed quite senseless, upon the top of one of their waggons, and to
+lay him, when they got to the bottom, in a corn field, that he might
+find himself there when he awoke from his fit. There was no difficulty
+in doing this, as the musicians had been paid and were gone, and the
+landlord was busied in the kitchen.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the depths of the forest, where the iron forges were at work, and
+where in the midst of dark rocks by the side of a waterfall the shouts
+and the hammering of the workmen resounded far and wide in rivalry
+with the roar of the torrent, Edward the next evening met the
+inspector of the mines, to talk over some business of importance with
+him, and to give him some instructions from Herr Balthasar. The fire
+in the vast furnace glared wildly through the dusk: the brighter glow
+of the half-molten iron, the myriads of dazzling sparks that spurted
+up from the anvil beneath the sledges of the sturdy smiths, the dark
+forms moving through the large boarded shed, into which the trunk of a
+tree in full leaf had forced its way, overshadowing the bellows in the
+corner with its branches--this singular night piece attracted all
+Edward's attention, when loud talking and laughter arose among the
+workmen. Some one had just been telling them how Conrad, when he was
+drunk, had been treated by the peasants the day before, and how to his
+extreme annoyance he had awaked that morning in the midst of a corn
+field. The story seemed to interest everybody so much, that their work
+was suffered to stand still for a while.
+
+"It serves him right," cried one of the broad-shouldered journeymen,
+"the vapouring coxcomb! He is the most insufferable and rudest miner
+in the whole country for miles round; and fancies he knows everything
+better than his neighbours, and is the cleverest fellow in the world."
+
+"They say he is running about like a madman, and as if the fiend had
+got hold of him," continued the narrator; "for now the very thing of
+which he has bragged from morning to night, is at an end: he has not
+only been forced to see corn growing in the field, he has lain in the
+midst of it."
+
+Edward turned to the speaker and askt: "Michael, are you quite well
+again already, that you come out thus into the open air?"
+
+"Yes, Sir," answered the smith; "thanks to you and our old master. My
+eye is gone of course; but how many of us have to work with but one!
+The spark of iron that burnt it out might have been still bigger. It
+was great pain, to be sure: that could not be otherwise; but with
+God's help I am become quite stout again after all. Herr Balthasar
+indeed has also done much toward helping me, and I owe a world of
+thanks to his care, his kindness, and his charity. And so we do all,
+everybody that belongs to him."
+
+Another man with one eye chimed in with these praises, and added: "It
+will fall out now and then that one or other of us gets maimed in this
+way; for fire is not a thing to be jested with: but God has blest us
+in giving us our old master; for even if a fellow were to become stark
+blind, he would never let him starve or want."
+
+The workmen were gone back to the anvil, and Edward then first
+observed that Eleazar had come into the hut, and was talking to a
+stranger. This was the travelling miner, the planner of the disgrace
+inflicted upon old Conrad, which of all mortifications he could have
+endured was the bitterest. Eleazar was scolding vehemently, and said
+it was quite impious to drive an old man by such tricks into a
+passion, nay to the brink of despair; for he had heard that Conrad was
+running franticly about the mountains, utterly deaf to all advice and
+consolation.
+
+The stranger excused and defended himself as well as he could; and as
+the sledges had now begun hammering again, while the roar of the
+bellows mingled with that of the waters, the quarrel was lost sound
+of, and only grew somewhat more audible, when Conrad himself in a fury
+rusht howling with swollen face and red starting eyes up to the
+disputants.
+
+"My honour!" he screamed, "my honour as a noble miner! my glory and
+my pride! all are gone, irrevocably and for ever! And by a pack of
+base boors, by a puny, cream-faced, chicken-breasted, outlandish
+starveling, have I been robbed of it. Amid all the mountains round,
+and doubtless in many others likewise, there was not a miner nor a
+mine-surveyor who could boast that he had never in his life been down
+in the beggarly plain. I awoke in the straw, in the corn, such was the
+rascals plot to ruin me. The ears were sticking in my nose and eyes
+when I came to myself, the sorry, brittle, bristly stuff, that I had
+never yet seen except in the pallet of my bed. Scandal and shame!
+Murder and house-breaking are not so detestable! and no law against
+it, no remedy, no mortal skill in the whole wide world."
+
+The others had enough to do to tear the strong old man away from the
+weakly stranger, on whom he wanted to take personal vengeance.
+
+As Conrad could not get satisfaction in this way, he sat down on the
+ground in a corner of the hut; and it being a holiday evening, the
+journeymen lay down round about him, some trying to comfort him,
+others jeering him. "Be pacified," said the man with one eye, "the
+whole affair is mere child's play. Had the fire burnt out your eye,
+had you had to endure unspeakable torments in your brain, and to toss
+through sleepless feverish nights, then indeed you would have
+something to complain of. But as it is, the whole matter is a sheer
+trifle, and all fancy."
+
+"That is your notion!" cried Conrad: "there never was a fool that
+could not talk and chatter like one. Your having lost your eye in your
+vocation is an honour to you, and you may be proud of it, and glory in
+it. But their sticking me down in the middle of their dung, where I
+was forced to lie like a tumble-down sheaf, or a truss of hay,--it has
+knockt half a dozen nails into my coffin. 'Conrad! Conrad! ninnyhammer!
+sack of straw!' so it seemed that everything was shouting in my ears.
+I have now seen the miserable, dirty ploughed land, in which the
+scurvy clowns have to breed up their bread. It's so flat down there,
+you can see nothing, far as eye can reach; and one hears no
+sledgehammers, no rush of waters, not even a boy pounding. It looks
+just like the end of the world; and I could never have fancied that
+the corn country and the plains, where more than half the world have
+to live, were so utterly mean and despicable."
+
+Thus they went on talking and squabbling, till some one for the sake
+of starting another subject began telling about the robberies, which
+their master, the old man of the mountain, was so incomprehensibly
+allowing to go on, doing next to nothing to find out the offender,
+although his losses, rich as he might be, must have amounted to very
+large sums. The stranger miner again spoke of his contrivances for
+making sure of catching the thief; and Conrad, who recollected the
+former conversation, shook his fist at him in silence.
+
+Eleazar seemed to enter into these strange schemes, and exulted with
+vulgar glee at the thought of thus at length getting hold of the
+rascal. As Edward eyed him in the dusky glare of the hut, and saw his
+face with its brown and yellow features unsteadily lit by the
+flickering flames, he thought that this disgusting and to him hateful
+monster had never lookt so hideous before: a secret shudder crept over
+him when he thought of Rose, and that this was the confident and
+bosom friend of a man whom he could not but honour, although his
+weaknesses and caprices formed so strong a contrast with his virtues.
+
+The smiths listened to the conversation with great earnestness: they
+believed the stranger; yet every one of them brought forward some
+superstitious device of his own, in which the speaker himself always
+put still greater reliance. Edward, in spite of the disgust this
+gossiping excited in him, was almost unconsciously held fast within
+the circle. Ghost stories were told; the wild huntsman was talkt of,
+and several said they had seen him; others had met with mountain
+sprites and goblins; then they got to forebodings and omens; and the
+conversation kept on growing livelier, the storytellers more eager,
+and the hearers more attentive.
+
+"Goblins," said Michael, "there are assuredly: for I myself ten years
+ago was well acquainted with one; and he was a very passable fellow to
+have to do with. The urchin foretold too in those days that I should
+lose my right eye about this very time."
+
+"What sort of a chap was that?" cried one of his comrades; "and why
+have you never told us this story before?"
+
+"When I had got through my apprenticeship," said Michael, "at the
+mountain-town twenty miles from here, and was now come to work at old
+master Berenger's forge, I used to be plagued at first and quizzed by
+the other journeymen, as every younker is when he is fresh. When I
+grew tired of laughing and grumbled, we came to blows; I gave and got
+my share, as in such cases always must happen. Among the rest there
+was a grizzly-bearded journeyman who worried and annoyed me most of
+all, a giant of a fellow, and all along with it so cunning, with such
+a sharp sting in his tongue, that one could not possibly help being
+vext, however stedfastly one might have made up ones mind and
+determined with oneself at morning prayers, not to allow the gall to
+mount into ones throat. In my distress I often cried with anger; for
+in the town I had fancied myself a clever fellow, and my unruly tongue
+had made many a one tremble. One night when I was thoroughly harast
+and woebegone, I was lying over there on the jutting crag all alone in
+a little bit of a room--the only other person in the house was a woman
+as old as the mountains--on the sudden I heard something stirring and
+scraping near me. I opened the window shutter at my head a little, and
+as the half moon peept into the room, I saw a tiny creature brushing
+away at my shoes. 'Who are you?' I askt the mite; for he lookt much
+like a boy of eleven years old.--'Hush!' said the little thing, and
+brusht away busily. 'I am Silly, the good comrade.'--'Silly?' askt I;
+'he's one whom I know nothing of.'--'Dame knows him, Ursul knows him,'
+said the little one, and put my shoes on the floor.--'Leave my things
+alone,' cried I.--'Make 'em clean, dust 'em, brush 'em neat,' answered
+the creature, and set to work at my Sunday hat.--'Is this farce never
+to end?' I called out to him; 'brush your own nose.'--He laught, and
+seemed to have no notion that I had any right to give orders in my own
+room. 'Art afraid, he then giggled out, of big Ulric? Need not be
+afraid. Ask him to morrow, when he sets at you again, where he got the
+brown fire scar atop of his head over the right eyebrow; he'll soon be
+meek as a lamb.' The creature was gone. I listened; there was nothing.
+I closed the window shutter again and fell asleep. In the morning it
+seemed to me as if the whole had been merely a dream. My shoes however
+were clean, my hat brusht. At length I askt old Ursul about the
+unknown boy. She was very deaf; and it was long before I could make
+her understand what I meant. 'Ah! she at last cried, has the little
+boy been with thee? Well, well, good betide thee, my tall lad. The
+tiny thing harms nobody, and brings luck to everyone he takes notice
+of. I have known him now well-nigh these forty years. He goes round to
+the houses where he likes the folks, and helps them in their
+housekeeping, now in one thing, now in another. Cleaning everything is
+his darling employment. He can't bear dust; dirty sooty pots and other
+kitchenware are his aversion; and he will often scrub at 'em with all
+his might. Bright brass vessels, shining copper pans, are things he is
+quite bewitcht with; pewter plates too he likes very well. Many a time
+has he brought me a groschen, bright and new, as if it had come from
+the mint.'--'But where does the imp live?' I cried.--'Where does the
+child live?' she said: 'people choose to call it goblin, or manikin;
+he himself signs himself Silly; that is his christen-name. But he is a
+kind good-natured sprite; and so thou must do nothing to hurt him,
+that he may not fall out with thee.' I had heard of such fellows, but
+before this could never believe in them. In the smithy the baiting
+began as usual; old Ulric put me quite in a fury; for they had remarkt
+my soreness, and this made them think it the better sport to badger
+me. I was just going to dash a redhot iron at the grizzly-bearded
+lubber's snow-white head, when Silly came across my thoughts. 'And the
+brown fire scar up there!' I said; 'you know, Ulric!' Thus I cried,
+without thinking there was anything in it, when on the sudden the old
+giant became so quiet, timid, and meek, that it made me stare my eyes
+out. From that moment forward the fierce fellow became my friend. Nay
+he was so humble in his behaviour to me, that I rose mightily in
+everybody's opinion, and thenceforth stood near the top of the board.
+When we grew better acquainted, he told me in confidence that in his
+youth he had once let himself be misled into engaging in an attempt to
+steal with the help of a servant maid. He had already crept into the
+room, supposing that everybody was asleep; but the smith being still
+awake had rusht against him with a fire brand snatcht up from the
+hearth; and thus his head and hair had been singed. He fancied that no
+mortal creature knew the story, of which he was heartily ashamed; and
+therefore he entreated me by all my hopes of heaven never to tell any
+one of it; indeed he was unable to make out how I could have learnt
+the affair. On this point however he was mistaken; for without his own
+confession I had never known a word of it. After this my life flowed
+along very peaceably, and the little creature came every now and then,
+and helpt me in what I had to do. Before long however we quarrelled.
+He often came upon me so suddenly, so unexpectedly, and many a time
+when nothing was further from my thoughts, that I was frightened to
+the very core. Whenever I said a word to him about this, he grew very
+pettish, and told me, I was an ungrateful fellow, not to acknowledge
+his manifold services. Now I had heard a little before from an English
+traveller, that the name of my goblin in his language meant _foolish_,
+and that in England such a creature was called Puck, or Robin
+Goodfellow; and when in the openness of my heart I told all this to my
+little guest, and at the same time, because he had just frightened me
+again, wanted to hang a bell about his neck, that I might always hear
+him when he was coming, the urchin became angry and furious beyond all
+measure, prophesied that I should lose my eye about this time, and
+vanisht with a great rumbling. Nor have I ever seen the brat again
+since."
+
+"Thou prince of all babbling braggarts!" cried Conrad, when the story
+was ended: "Can't you open your mouth, man, without lying? and yet you
+are already come to years. Folks that hold traffic for any time with
+spirits, grow shar-pwitted. The dealings of these creatures are with
+supernatural out-of-the-way things; and when they pay us a visit, the
+very terrour they arouse, till one grows used to them a bit, gives one
+something impressive and dignified."
+
+"More especially," cried Michael somewhat angered, "when one has been
+sleeping a night in a potato field."
+
+"That night," answered Conrad, "and that abominable mischance, that
+foul scandalous deed of a vagabond, will be the death of me; I know it
+as well as you. I shall not hold out much longer."
+
+"May be so," said the pale stranger; "yet you can't tell all this
+while whether I too may not be one of these goblins, who has been
+trying to cure you of your follies. To be good friends with you, my
+rough-spoken, overbearing sir, it was verily requisite that you should
+have treated me with a little more civility. Wisdom, experience,
+strength of mind, may often be learnt from those in whom one is the
+slowest to look for them. If however, my good companions, you would
+like to know which of you all will die first, I have a way of telling
+you that in a moment."
+
+They all seated themselves in a circle on benches and stools. The
+stranger pulled a plated box out of his pocket, while he continued:
+"When this little chip which I am going to light is burning, you must
+pass it quickly from hand to hand, and the person in whose hold it
+goes out will be the first of us to see the next world."
+
+All lookt at the stranger in anxious expectation. He thrust a little
+bit of wood down into the box, while he muttered some sounds, and then
+he drew it out again burning and flickering. Eleazar, who sat next to
+him, received it, gave it to his neighbour, and thus the match went on
+spitting sparks from one hand to another. It had finisht the round,
+and come back to Eleazar, who was very loth to take it, and was
+hastily passing it on, when on the sudden it flared brightly and then
+went out between his fingers. "Stupid stuff!" he cried sulkily, as he
+threw the bit of wood on the ground and jumpt up in a passion;
+"Nothing but empty superstition! And we are so good-natured as to let
+ourselves be made the tools of such nonsense."
+
+He lookt sharply at the stranger with his glaring eyes, then slapt him
+on the shoulder, and withdrew with him. Meanwhile the moon had arisen,
+and was pouring its bright light over the forests and rocks: the party
+went each his own way, and Edward too bent his steps homeward. As he
+was walking up the narrow footpath, he heard a warm discussion; it
+sounded like a quarrel; and when he drew nearer he fancied he
+distinguisht Eleazar and the stranger. He struck off therefore into
+another path, partly for the sake of avoiding them and not being
+forced to return in their company, partly too that he might not have
+the air of wishing to overhear what they were disputing about; for
+Eleazar was of a very suspicious temper, and mistrusted everybody,
+though he took it extremely ill if any one did not place an unlimited
+confidence in him.
+
+In the house everything was quiet: except that Rose was singing a
+simple air with a supprest voice, scarce audibly in her remote
+chamber. Edward was moved by it, and so strongly, that he could not
+help being surprised at his extreme susceptibility. Before he fell
+asleep, his melancholy had so increast, that he could hardly refrain
+from shedding tears.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A few days after this Edward observed the stranger coming out of Herr
+Balthasar's apartment. He wondered what such a person could have had
+to do there; and, when he entered the old man's room, he found him
+violently disturbed and enraged.
+
+"Always the same wild irrational feelings, the same superstitious
+foolery, ruling over mankind!" he cried, as Edward came in: "That
+miserable fellow there whom you met flatters himself he shall gain a
+large sum of money from me, if he can detect our thief by means of
+some senseless artifice. He won't come back again, the blockhead! for
+I have at length given vent for once to my feelings. There is nothing
+in the world so insufferable to me, as when people try, by means of
+certain phrases fabricated at random, or of certain traditional
+ceremonies, most of them a misgrowth out of historical blunders, or
+out of ancient usages which formerly had a very different meaning, to
+put themselves in connexion with what they call the invisible world,
+nay fancy, though they deem it an object of terrour, that they can
+master it thereby. In fact the greater part of mankind are crazed,
+without choosing to confess it: nay, the very wisdom of thousands is
+arrant madness."
+
+It seemed as if the worthy old man himself felt ashamed of his
+passionate vehemence; for he immediately began talking on other
+subjects. He made Edward sit down by him, and had some breakfast
+brought, which was quite against his usual custom. "Thus we shall be
+able," he then continued, "to settle a number of matters this morning,
+which on other days we may perhaps hardly find leisure for."
+
+The door was again lockt, and the servant was ordered not to interrupt
+their conversation on any account. "I feel," Herr Balthasar then
+began, "that I am growing old; I must take thought and provide for the
+future, as I know not whether I am doomed to die a slow lingering
+death, or a sudden unforeseen one. If I draw up no settlement of my
+property, if I die without a will, that spendthrift in my native town,
+who has made the beloved of my youth so unhappy, will be my next
+natural heir: and verily it appalls me to think that my large fortune
+may hereafter be misused to maintain that despicable glutton in his
+rioting. All my poor people, all the hands now actively employed in
+this spot, would again pine away and be condemned to beggary and
+sloth. It is a sacred duty to forestall this. What are your views, my
+young friend, for your future life?"
+
+Edward was a good deal embarrast by this address. Some time back
+indeed he had formed certain plans, and had even meant to speak to the
+old man about them, in the hope of profiting by his experience: but
+since his lovely foster-daughter had appeared to him in so different a
+light, since he had felt so strongly attracted toward her, he was no
+longer equally forward and confident. He could not make up his mind
+whether to declare or conceal his affection; for notwithstanding the
+familiarity with which Balthasar treated him, by many of the old man's
+feelings and views he found himself estranged and perplext.
+
+"You are hesitating," said the old man after a while; "you have not
+enough reliance in me, because you do not know me. I look upon it as
+one of my duties to provide as a father for you: you are honest,
+sensible, diligent, and kind-hearted; you are perfectly verst in the
+various branches of my business; and I feel a confidence in you such
+as I have seldom been able to put in anybody. Your exertions for me
+and my establishments, your prudence and integrity, everything obliges
+me, even though I entertained no affection for you, to leave you well
+and very richly provided, since I have so much to thank you for. But I
+should be glad to know, and I beg you to be perfectly candid to me,
+whether you could be prevailed upon by the possession of a large
+fortune to fix your abode in this country, in this house, or perhaps
+would prefer settling after my death as a rich man in the neighbouring
+town, engaging in some other occupation, and marrying, or, it may be,
+travelling about in search of the home which you may like the best.
+Tell me your thoughts on this subject now with entire sincerity: since
+you have a claim, which I will take care shall be a valid one, to a
+third of my property, I cannot well make my final arrangements till I
+have learnt your intentions: for my establishments here and up the
+mountains, my manufactories, machines, mines, and various
+institutions, I also look upon as my children, and they must not be
+left orphans at my death."
+
+Edward sank still deeper in thought. Never could he have expected this
+generosity and fatherly love from the old man; never had it occurred
+to him that this friend might one day make him rich and independent.
+This speech had changed the footing on which he stood with Herr
+Balthasar; he thought he should now be better able to confess boldly
+what for some days had been busying and disquieting his mind. He led
+the way by an assurance of his gratitude, saying that what the old man
+meant to do for him was far too much, that his relations after all had
+still a title to his affection, and that a great deal less would make
+him happy and as rich as he could desire.
+
+"I am aware of all that you can urge to me on this score," said the
+old man interrupting him: "these relations of mine, even the
+scapegrace son and the good-for-nothing father, will be taken care of,
+so that they shall not have any reasonable ground of complaint. But I
+know that you have sacrificed the best years of your youth and
+strength to me. To a gay spirit like yours, to a person of your lively
+friendly temper, your long residence amid these joyless mountains must
+have been anything but pleasant. You many years since bade adieu to
+every sort of merriment and amusement: everything that charms youth,
+music, dancing, even society, plays, travelling, the literature of the
+day, you have given up for my sake; because you resolved, as I well
+markt, and that too very early, to suit yourself entirely to my
+inclinations. Scarce one man in a thousand could have done this; and
+you were this one: you have done it too without losing anything of
+your good nature, and kindly obliging disposition. If therefore you
+would like to settle elsewhere hereafter and in a totally different
+line of life, I cannot have the slightest objection to it, nor will it
+occasion the least curtailment of your fortune. But you must tell me
+your determination frankly, if you have already made up your mind, or
+can make it up on the instant: for in case you choose to remain here
+and carry on my business, I must secure you the means of exerting
+yourself usefully, by a number of arrangements and explicit
+incontrovertible injunctions in my will; therefore speak."
+
+Edward replied with emotion: "Heaven grant you may long remain as a
+father amongst us! Whether however I am to look on this country as my
+home or no, depends solely upon you: a word from you, and I can
+immediately resolve to spend the whole of my life here, even if you
+should be spared to us many years longer. But if you cannot or will
+not speak that word, I must sooner or later seek out another home; and
+I fear that in that case even your noble bequest will fail to procure
+me that happiness, which I must needs value higher than riches."
+
+"I don't understand you, my young friend," answered Balthasar; "your
+words are a riddle to me."
+
+"Your generosity," continued Edward, "and your affectionate
+benevolence have brought up a poor orphan girl; you have behaved like
+a father to her; and her fate must therefore be decided by you and
+none else. Give me that dear maiden, give me Rose for my wife, and I
+will live and die on this mountain, without a wish beyond it."
+
+The old man's face suddenly darkened and put on an expression which
+might be called terrific. He started up hastily, walkt several times
+up and down the room, then sat down again sighing, and began in a
+bitter tone: "So! this is it! You are in love! Is it not so? I am
+doomed again to hear this ill-omened, this calamitous word! I am
+doomed to witness this frenzy, this dark, heart-rending, heart-sickening
+absurdity, even in you, in a man of your sense! And all, all that one
+might otherwise esteem, and look upon as reasonable, is swallowed up
+in this whirlpool, in which horrour, madness, wild passions, carnal
+lust, and capricious folly are frothing and boiling all at once. This
+marriage however, Edward, can never, never be."
+
+"I have said too much," answered Edward calmly, "to be satisfied with
+a bare refusal. Tell me what are your plans for the dear girl, and I
+shall learn to bear them with resignation."
+
+"And she, the little fool!" interposed the old man hastily, "has she
+too tumbled in love with you? Has the luckless word already past to
+and fro betwixt you?"
+
+"No," replied Edward; "her pure youth is still hovering in that happy
+state of simplicity, which only desires that tomorrow may be just like
+today and yesterday. She has no wishes but the simple ones of a
+child."
+
+"So much the better," said Balthasar; "she will be ready to act
+rationally then, and will not throw any hinderance in the way of my
+plan. Surely you, who are tolerably well acquainted with me, ought to
+have perceived long ago that I had designed the child for Eleazar. I
+mean her to marry, to live in sober wedlock, not to dream away and
+dote in what you call love."
+
+"And will she," askt Edward, "be happy with him for her husband?"
+
+"Happy!" cried the old man, bursting into a kind of loud laugh;
+"happy! What is a man to think of when he hears that word? There is no
+happiness; there is no unhappiness; only pain, which we are to welcome
+to our arms, only self-contempt, beneath which we must bow our necks,
+only hopelessness, which we must make the partner of our table and of
+our bed. Everything else is a lie and a trick. Life is a spectre,
+before which, whenever I pause to look upon it, I stand shuddering:
+and nothing but toil and activity, and straining all my faculties, can
+enable me to endure and to despise it. I could envy the loom and the
+spinning-jenny, if such a feeling, such a wish had any sense in it:
+for what is our consciousness but a consciousness of misery? what is
+our existence but an unveiling of the madness, the frenzy of all life?
+to which we either abandon ourselves in chill patience, or weep and
+struggle against it convulsively, or play through a caricature of
+happiness and joy, while in our dreary heart we are fully aware that
+it is all a wanton lie."
+
+"Neither then must I ask you," continued Edward quietly and
+sorrowfully, "whether you love Eleazar as a friend, whether he is
+truly worthy of friendship and esteem; for all freedom of will, every
+movement of feeling is crusht by these dark thoughts."
+
+"As if I had not felt," said Balthasar, "and wept and laught, like
+other men. The difference is only, that I soon stript truth naked, and
+that I acknowledged and felt my own baseness, and that of all mankind,
+of the world, and everything in it. Eleazar! he and you! If we are to
+make use of such words, my friend, I love you; all the fibres of my
+heart twine fast around you; awake and in my dreams you stand before
+me: your being miserable might reduce me to despair. And this
+raw-boned, loathsome Eleazar! If I am to give a name to this folly of
+my nature, I hate him; he is quite nauseous to me, whenever he stands
+before my eye or before my imagination: the bile which has tainted his
+eyes and face, his squinting glances, the twitches of his nose when he
+is speaking, while his long teeth stare out as if he were grinning,
+his shrugging up his shoulders at every word, whereby his odious
+snuff-coloured coat is every moment dragged upward and lays bare the
+skinny bones of his wrists, all this, his way of drawing in his
+breath, his hissing voice, is so revolting to my bodily senses, and
+always excites my wrath so strongly, so painfully, that no other
+created being ever gave me the same torment; and for this very reason,
+because there is so much I have to make amends to him for, because
+heaven and nature have so utterly neglected him, must he become my
+chief heir, my son. Besides he has long known of it, and is pleased
+with the prospect of this union."
+
+"I only half understand you," answered Edward: "you are fighting
+against your own feelings, you are wilfully putting yourself on the
+rack. I am not arguing now against your promise, since you have
+already given it to that man: but why do you cling to this image of
+life, that harasses and tortures you? Why not open your mind to those
+joyous feelings, to those sunny thoughts, which lie just as near, nay
+nearer?"
+
+"As you please," said the old man,--"for you, but not for me. Day
+after day has taught me that very few men really live. Most of them
+are in a state of ceaseless dissipation: nay what they call thought
+and reflexion is itself the very same thing, a mere attempt to raise a
+mist around the nature and inborn feelings of their hearts, and to
+keep themselves from discerning them. And arrogance starts up, the
+consciousness of their dignity and strength goads and spurs them on,
+till they rave with ungovernable pride. This too I have known in my
+youth, and outlived it. Then I loved, as I deemed. How clear and
+rosy-hued, how bright and smiling the world lay before me! My heart
+too was as it were bathed in pure ether, blue, boundless, with sweet
+hope, like morning clouds, floating and scattering freshness through
+it. And the primary stock of this love, what is it? Silliness, animal
+passion, which intertwines itself with our seemingly tender feelings,
+which tricks itself out with blossoms, and then eats canker-like into
+them, to make them too shed their leaves, to trample that, which it
+called heavenly, in the mire, and--far worse than the comparatively
+innocent beasts of the field, that are driven by a blind instinct
+without anything of volition--to deface and spoil everything which but
+now it worshipt as holy. From this conflagration then shoot forth ever
+and anon those disasterous sparks, which again grow into children, and
+again awaken to the consciousness of woe, if not of sin. And so the
+wheel goes evermore round and round, through a measureless viewless
+eternity. And the charm, the beauty of the world! the fresh bloom of
+its appearances! Is not everything here again grounded upon that which
+nature teaches me to loathe and abhor? It is perhaps by this feeling
+alone, as an invisible inward prompter, that I understand what people
+mean by beauty. This, wheresoever it is found, in flower or tree, in
+human being, animal, or plant, takes its rise always out of filth and
+abominations. The lily and the rose falls to pieces in your hand, your
+touch withers it, and it leaves only rottenness behind: the youth's,
+the virgin's beauty and loveliness--look at it without any
+self-imposed illusion, without the brutish sting of the senses--is
+horrour and putridity and everything we revolt from! a few hours of
+death, a corpse dug out of its tomb, make this woe manifest to
+all.--And I myself! what is there within me but death? a ghost and a
+skeleton! the stench of my own corpse haunts me; and in all my
+feelings there is madness, in all my thoughts despair."
+
+"Cannot religion then," replied Edward, "cannot philosophy, cannot the
+sight of the happiness you spread around you, lighten this gloomy
+mood, this melancholy, which is wasting your life away?"
+
+"Alas, my dear good friend," continued the old man, "I assure you that
+all I have read of those christian anchorets and self-tormentors, who
+out of overheated zeal transformed their life into a never-ending
+martyrdom, for the sake of stifling every impulse and thought save the
+highest of all, is less, far less, than what I have practist on myself
+since I became conscious of the cheerlessness of my existence. I too
+had once found a home for my whole soul in those regions in which the
+faithful feel the presence and the love of the deity, full of
+confidence and a blessed serenity. My spirit was transfigured; all my
+feelings were purified; my whole nature seemed as it were unfolding
+itself in a single blossom; all within me was bliss and calm; and in
+this heavenly tranquillity there was a sweet impulse to new
+contemplations, a ravishing excitement to plunge yet deeper into the
+flood of joy. And what was the end of it?"
+
+"Pray go on," said Edward.
+
+"I discovered,"--thus the old man after a pause resumed his
+speech--"that here too sensuality, delusion, and folly, had again made
+me their captive. Those voluptuous tears which I often shed in my
+seemingly fervent devotion, which I took for the purest gush from my
+heart, even they sprang only out of sensuality and a state of bodily
+intoxication. My animal impulses had put on the mask of spirit; and
+the deliciousness of those tears soon seduced me into endeavouring to
+stir up such emotions artificially, into abusing this mysterious close
+relation to infinite love as a stimulus of the most refined sensual
+excitement, which I then extinguisht in a rapture of tears. I was
+appalled by this lie in my soul, when I detected and could no more
+deny it; and the fearfullest desolation of despair, the dismallest
+solitude of death closed round me again, when the deception had been
+broken, and the vision would no more descend among the apish toys of
+my imagination. When after this I wisht to pursue my inquiries beneath
+the light of truth, horrour itself met me in the very spot where but
+now, like a scene-painting, my rapture had been standing. I no longer
+felt doubt, for even in this there is still joy; I had no certainty,
+for even in the most terrible there is life; but the dead blank of the
+uttermost indifference, a barren enmity to everything holy, a scorn of
+all emotion, as being sheer foppishness and silliness, lay like a large
+field of snow in the wildernesses of my soul.--'Soul! spirit!'--thus
+I often cried to myself laughing, and even now I cannot refrain from
+laughter,--'can there be anything else? And if this be so, in what
+does spirit differ from matter? where is the party wall between life
+and death?' In the spectral phantom of life, in the sphinx-born riddle
+of being, in that terrific fiat out of which the worlds sprang forth,
+to roll convulsively onward and evermore onward, till they can drop
+back into rest and nothingness--in this all contradictions and
+contrarieties are mixt up and confounded, to petrify into an
+indissoluble curse."
+
+Edward was silent at first for a while: then not without emotion he
+spake the following words: "I cannot understand what you say except in
+part; for the bent of your thoughts and feelings I am an utter
+stranger to. Whatever sorrows I have undergone, whatever unprofitable
+or cheerless meditations I have indulged in, still I have never
+strayed into these deserts, which lie, it would seem, at the horizon
+of all such as abandon themselves with too passionate intensity to
+captious inquiries. I have heard and read of strong minds, who in the
+recklessness of passion, or in the extravagancies of love, strove to
+burst the bolts of nature and of life, in order to become one with the
+universe and to possess it. Despair, self-loathing, hatred of God,
+have often been the doom and the unhappy lot of men thus under the
+mastery of their impulses. We feel no doubt that reason is not
+absolutely sufficient to reveal all that we wish to understand, to
+reconcile all that we wish to see in harmony with the workings of the
+deity. But it may be dangerous to seek for help in the regions of our
+feelings and imagination, to give ear to our visionary forebodings.
+They try to set up their own supremacy, and may easily fall out with
+reason, though at the outset they seem to uphold her. If they gain
+their aim, and this noble mediatorial power, which seated in the
+centre of all our spiritual powers, irradiating and swaying them,
+first converts them into true powers, is overthrown and cast into
+chains by them, then each of our higher impulses begets a giant as its
+son, that will war against God. For doubt, wit, unbelief, and scoffing
+are not the only faculties that fight against God: our imagination,
+our feelings, our enthusiasm do the same, though at first they seem to
+supply faith with so safe and mysterious an asylum. Consequently, my
+dear, my honoured friend, since our life is surrounded on all sides by
+these dizzying precipices, and every path, whatever course it takes,
+leads to them, what remains for us to do, except to trust with a
+certain kind of light-heartedness, which perhaps is also one among the
+noblest powers of our nature, with cheerfulness, gaiety, and humility,
+in the existence and the love of that infinite inexhaustible love, of
+that supreme wisdom, which puts on every shape, and can weave into its
+woof even what to us seems worthless and incongruous? so as to bear
+our life safely and easily, to take pleasure in our task-work, and to
+be happy, which we cannot else be, in the midst of affluence itself,
+making others happy as far as we are able. Is not this too piety and
+religion? I for my part have never met with them under any other
+form."
+
+"All this might be so," answered the old man breaking off the
+discussion, "if the root of life sprang out of love."
+
+"Does not every flower tell us so?" cried Edward, "every smile of a
+child, the meek thankful eye of the sufferer whom we relieve, the
+glance of the bride----"
+
+He stopt short suddenly; for Rose's bright childly glance beamed at
+these words with all its might through his soul. When he lookt up
+again, he was greatly surprised to see his old friend's eyes wet with
+tears.
+
+"Edward," said he greatly moved, "you shall know all. Rose is no
+adopted child; she is my own daughter, my own blood. Alas! this again
+is another deplorable story of human weakness and vanity. While I was
+living here alone, a young beautiful girl came as a maid-servant into
+my house. Her parents were exceedingly poor, but she had been well and
+religiously brought up. She was honest and virtuous. She was so fond
+of solitude that, when she had done her work, she used to withdraw
+from all society, especially from that of the young. In a very
+singular manner she attacht herself to me; her devotion or love had
+almost a superstitious character. She revered me, wretch as I am, like
+a supernatural being. Never yet had my passions been moved by any
+girl, and least of all were they so by her, beautiful as she was: I
+was an old man, and fancied I loved her like a father, and thought of
+looking out a husband for her. How it happened, I should not be able
+to tell you; everything might seem so untrue. She became pregnant. I
+had already long felt dismay at my own weakness and meanness. Shame,
+despair, dread of the world, waged war within my soul, and made me
+their recreant slave. I sent her away in my distress, provided for
+her, richly, prodigally; but my heart was turned to stone. Grief,
+sadness, doubts in herself and in God, bitter mortification that she
+had forfeited my love, or was unworthy of it, while she burst into
+fearful accusations against herself, as the most innocent are the
+readiest to do, snapt the thread of her life. Had I seduced her? Did I
+not really love her? No, a miserable seducer I was not; but I had not
+the courage to acknowledge my sin, and to reward the love of her
+innocent heart. And thus I was a base wretch. She died, and I regarded
+myself with still more hopeless scorn. The poor creature's parents,
+whom I placed in comfortable circumstances, blest me, old villain as I
+was, for not punishing their daughter's shame, and for bringing up her
+child in my house. This child, this fair girl, whom I love, beyond
+perhaps what is allowable--for her happiness is my thought day and
+night--will now perchance also be sacrificed to woe; for a destiny
+stronger than I constrains me to give her to Eleazar as his wife. Go
+now to him; he is to be my son-in-law; tell him the wedding will take
+place in a week; and if you cannot stay with me afterward, my dearest
+Edward, whom I also love as my own son, the fortune I designed for you
+shall be paid to you ... and we too shall never meet again. Go now."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He sobbed so violently that he could not say more; and Edward went
+away in a most strange state of feeling, to look for Eleazar, who
+lived in a house by himself lower down in a narrow valley, carrying on
+his favorite pursuits there.
+
+Eleazar was sitting in a loose flame-coloured bed-gown before a small
+furnace with a still. The room was but dimly lighted; the curtains had
+been let halfway down, and the lower panes were blockt up with large
+books. Everything was in the utmost disorder, so that Edward could
+scarcely find a place to sit down in. Vials and retorts, crucibles,
+pans, hooks, cylinders, and all sorts of chemical instruments were
+standing and lying about. A strange vapour from the fire filled the
+room. With a surly air Eleazar put down the bellows, and came out of
+his corner. He only half heard what Edward had to tell him, and said
+at length with his croaking voice: "In a week? so soon? I shall never
+have finisht my great work by that time. Could not the old fellow wait
+patiently for another month or two? Why the silly child has not even a
+notion yet what marriage means."
+
+Edward was utterly disgusted with these peevish words, and with the
+heartless ingratitude displayed in them. He called to mind how much
+Balthasar had been saying to him about madness as the real groundwork
+and substance of life; and it seemed to him as if this were actually
+the foundation on which both father and son-in-law were about to erect
+their melancholy dwelling. The fate of the innocent girl cut him to
+the heart.
+
+"Only lay your request before our master," he said indignantly, "and
+no doubt he will allow you to enjoy your freedom some time longer. If
+you were to be very pressing, perchance he might even give up the plan
+of the marriage altogether; for it seems to me, you have no very
+mighty anxiety about Rose's hand."
+
+"Softly!" said Eleazar, throwing off his bed-gown and putting on his
+coat very much at his ease; "softly!" He seated himself again before
+the furnace, and tasted the liquour while he clarified it: "Be it so;
+for then his fortune will all keep together, and thus I shall be able
+at length to carry on my operations on a grand scale. But the old man
+will never listen to what anybody says; what he has once determined
+and pronounced must be fulfilled, though reason itself were to go to
+the bottom. Still this should not annoy me a jot, unless that
+outlandish raggamuffin had put me out of all patience, and made my
+choler boil over. One ought to have the right of knocking such
+mischievous scoundrels on the head."
+
+"What is the matter with you?" askt Edward somewhat surprised.
+
+"Have you already forgotten that miserable vagabond," continued
+Eleazar with a ferocious look, "who played off his stupid trick upon
+us the other day at the forge? I am to die soon. This was the only
+thing wanting to set all our affairs in the most dismal confusion. But
+here, here at this furnace, I have it already preparing, the only sure
+safeguard against all such idle fears; and as I have succeeded with
+the help of wisdom in turning unsightly things into gold, so I shall
+not fail in producing that elixir for which so many mighty minds have
+heretofore sought and laboured, and often in vain."
+
+Edward went nearer to him. "In truth," he exclaimed, "you amaze me.
+You talk about these mysterious matters with such a careless security,
+as I have never yet met with; and it perplexes me the more since my
+reason tells me that your pursuit is a mere chimera, and the discovery
+of such an art a fable."
+
+"Reason!" cried the little man, drawing up his withered face into
+numberless wrinkles. "This reason methinks is the true chimera, and
+never spawned anything but fables. Take these gold bars, which I cast
+in this form yesterday, after extracting the metal last week from some
+lead: there lies a touchstone; scratch it; and then tell me whether it
+is not true genuine gold."
+
+Edward took up the bars, put them to the test, and found them genuine.
+"You must either fancy," continued the alchemist, "that I begin by
+getting a heap of ducats, and then melt them down like a fool, or else
+you cannot have another word to say. Will you keep these two bars as a
+remembrance? I make you a present of them."
+
+Edward lookt at the stunted figure with astonishment, then laid down
+the bars on the table again, and said: "No, I won't rob you; the
+present would be much too valuable. But you should not let these vast
+treasures lie about here at random thus mixt up with all the rest of
+your things: it is holding out a lure to thieves and robbers."
+
+"Nobody will look for gold in my house," answered the other, busying
+himself again at his furnace: "nobody will recognize gold under this
+ungainly form. Besides there are means after all for keeping off
+thieves and house-breakers, which none of you have ever yet dreamt of.
+If however you still doubt me, bring me a dollar next time, make a
+secret mark on it, and I will give it you back turned into gold. But
+the matter must not go further. And then you will no longer question
+my chance of discovering the elixir of life. Only I should like to
+punish that beggarly vagrant, that rascally herb-culler, and pitiful
+conjuror, as he deserves. Let him only come for once into my quarters!
+With all his contemptible jugglery, I would astound him! I am so
+enraged with the fellow, the blood runs into my head at the very
+thought of him."
+
+"How," interposed Edward, "came that paltry jest to make so deep an
+impression upon you?"
+
+"Jest!" screamed Eleazar; "Heavens! is it a jest that I have ever
+since been a prey all over to these hellish tortures, this ghastly
+fear of death? My own skeleton, my own rotting carcase is standing
+perpetually before my eyes. Old Conrad too over yonder has fallen
+sick, and is bewailing the loss of his reputation. Such a knave as
+this stranger is just as bad as a murderer: nay worse: for he pours
+the poison down ones throat in the midst of a large party without
+himself risking life or limb." He jumpt up.--"Hark you!" he cried and
+threw his arms round Edward: "Yes! the old man is right; the wedding
+must be very soon, as soon as possible, tomorrow, aftertomorrow, to
+make all safe. I can go on discovering my life-preserving elixir after
+the marriage: can't I? One shall not die all at once in a moment,
+friend Ned; flesh and bone still keep pretty tightly together."
+
+He laught so loud that he shook with it, and the writhings of his face
+squeezed the tears out of his goggle eyes. Edward who had never yet
+seen the sullen creature laugh, shuddered at the sight. When the old
+man grew calmer, he told him that he could not possibly now
+communicate this wish of his to Herr Balthasar; and that the affair
+would probably proceed in the way already settled. He felt glad, when
+he had left the room and house behind him, and could again breathe in
+the open air. His determination to quit the place was stronger than
+ever; he even resolved, if it would hasten his journey, to forgo the
+great reward which Herr Balthasar intended for him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After a restless and almost sleepless night, Edward next morning found
+the lovely charming girl on the grass plot before the house. She was
+very talkative, but he was in no mood to carry on a conversation.
+
+"O dear mister Edward," said Rose at length; "you don't seem to like
+me a morsel any more, you are making such sour faces at me."
+
+"I shall soon be forced to leave you and this country," answered the
+young man; "and that makes me so sorrowful."
+
+"You be forced! you leave us!" exclaimed Rose in dismay: "Can there be
+anything that should force you? Good heavens! it never yet struck me
+that such a thing could be possible. I always thought you belonged to
+us, just like the great house in which we live, or the steep green
+hill facing us."
+
+"I have now heard from your father also, what I could not have
+believed, that you are to marry Herr Eleazar, and that very soon."
+
+"Did not I tell you so?" answered Rose: "Ay, ay, that is to be my
+fate, and I only wish I could make the crabbed man a little merrier.
+Time will pass away terribly slowly with him. But perhaps I shall then
+be able to go to the town some time or other, see a bit of the world,
+hear some music and have a dance; for I think at all events an old
+husband must do something now and then to please his young wife. And
+for all these matters I had counted very much upon you."
+
+"No, my child," said Edward gravely and gloomily; "I am the very last
+person you must count upon; for to say the truth, this marriage of
+yours is the chief reason that forces me to quit the neighbourhood. It
+would break my heart to stay here."
+
+Edward repented of having been hurried so far by his passion, as
+thoughtlessly to allow these words to escape his lips; the more so,
+when he saw the lovely girl go away from him, starting back as if in
+affright, and then relieve her opprest heart by a flood of tears. He
+tried to take hold of her hand and comfort her; but she pusht his
+angrily back, and then said after a while, when she had got the better
+of her violent sobbing and was able to speak again: "No, leave me
+alone, for we are now separated from each other for ever. I could
+never have thought that you would have behaved to me so ill; for you
+had always been so kind to me. Oh God! how forlorn I am now! Yes I
+meant to love my husband Eleazar with all my heart, and to do
+everything to please him; for heaven must grant him thus much, since
+he is hated and shunned by all mankind just like a leper or an evil
+spirit. I too can't bear him, if I were merely to follow my own
+feelings; for he is a thoroughly utterly odious creature. But for his
+sake, and out of love to my father, and for your sake too, Edward, I
+had made up my mind so peaceably to all this; and therefore I thought
+that you too would perhaps be very willing to stay here now, or might
+even do so a little for my sake, in case everything was not just as
+you wisht it."
+
+"How so, Rose? is it partly for my sake that you have come to this
+determination?" askt Edward in amazement.
+
+"O yes!" answered the child, and her eyes had recovered their kind
+look; "but now I clearly see that I had reckoned without my host. You
+don't deserve it, indeed you don't like that I should be so fond of
+you. And now if you are really going away, it will then be indeed a
+shocking thing that I am to marry Eleazar: for in this lonely place,
+without you to help me and stand by me, he would seem just like a
+ghost."
+
+"But how is it possible?"--said Edward interrupting her--
+
+"Let me finish my speech!" exclaimed Rose hastily; "and then I will go
+away and cry again; for that will very often be the case now. I
+thought thus: if Eleazar is so cross, Edward is so goodnatured; and
+now I shall never be a day without seeing him, and he will talk to me,
+and perhaps give me books; for my father, people tell me, won't have
+so much authority over me when once I am married. In this way I might
+be better able to forget my woful husband, and might always think of
+you when you were away, and be glad and happy as soon as you came back
+to me. For thus do people live, and the parsons all order us to do so,
+with our hearts half in heaven, and the other half on this bad earth.
+Thus I should have kept my strength and spirits, so as even to make my
+unhappy Eleazar more cheerful at times; but if you go away ... then ... oh
+where shall I find any comfort! Then I shall soon die ... or only wish
+that my father ... or my plague of a husband would make haste and die.
+Alas! now that you don't love me any more, I am very very unhappy."
+
+She began crying anew, and still more violently than before. Edward
+eyed her for a long time with a searching glance, and lost himself in
+a maze of thought. Whenever men, thus he mused to himself, give
+themselves up to dark phantoms, and make caprices and extravagancies
+the main stock of their life, mishap and horrour will spring up of
+their own accord under their feet. Life is so tender and mysterious,
+so pliant and volatile, and so easily takes every shape, that there is
+no seed it will not readily receive. Evil sprouts up and runs wild in
+it; and brings up the intoxicating grape from the nether world, and
+the wine of horrour. Here in this childish innocence and simplicity
+are already slumbering the germs of the most fearful events and
+feelings, if time and opportunity should but forward and ripen them;
+and close at my side stands the fiend tempting me to become the
+gardener in this beauteous garden of the deadliest fruits.
+
+He awoke from his study and said mournfully; "Dear child, thou dost
+not yet understand thyself, thy destiny, or the world. I am not
+frivolous enough to enter into thy plans, or to encourage thee in them
+in the innocency of thy youth. What thou wishest cannot, must not be;
+and in another year, or less perhaps, thou wilt see thyself how
+impossible it is. We should both become wretched, and to deepen our
+misery should despise each other. May heaven guide thy steps: but I
+love and prize thee so much, that I cannot ruin thee. Pray to God: he
+will support thee."
+
+"He talks for all the world just like my father!" cried Rose, and
+walkt away, half in sorrow, half in anger; while Edward went musing to
+his room.
+
+"Is Balthasar right then after all?" he said to himself; "is human
+nature so utterly depraved? or is it not rather the business of
+energy, resolution, and reason, to transform those very qualities in
+us as in all other things into virtues and excellencies, which else if
+they are neglected would become malignant and base?"
+
+He then wrote a long letter to Herr Balthasar, and once more told him
+positively that he must quit his house and the country, if the
+marriage of Eleazar and Rose was irrevocably fixt; and that he would
+readily forgo his promist fortune, if Balthasar would only afford him
+some degree of support in his plans for his future life. He again
+however called upon him as a father to consider the unsuitable, nay
+the shocking nature of the projected match. He conjured him to look at
+the happiness of his child with a steadier, more impartial eye. At the
+same time he begged for another, a last interview, and said he had a
+request which the old man must needs grant him, if he would have him
+leave the mountains with honour, with peace of mind, and without
+repenting of the years he had past there.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was with a very heavy heart that Edward went to his old master. The
+whole destiny of mankind lay darkly and with a crushing weight upon
+his breast. Anguishing was the conviction he felt, that in the very
+sweetest and purest innocence all the roots of evil and sin were
+already lurking, and that there needed only chance and caprice to
+foster their growth, for them to put forth their calamitous fruits.
+His situation was so completely changed, his chief wish was that the
+house which had so long been his home, the country he was become so
+fond of, were but far behind him, that gradually and with a steady
+hand he might eraze all the recollections of the time he had spent
+there. He was resolved that at all events he would not be a witness of
+the disasters to which, he was persuaded, the dark spirits brooding
+there must infallibly give birth; that he would not stay to behold
+them; for he did not feel sure of being so firm, that his own passion
+and frailty might not lend a hand in bringing down the impending ruin.
+Heartily as at this moment he abhorred such a thought, he yet knew
+full well from observation and experience that no man is always the
+same, and that even the best are not braced with the same strength at
+all hours: he knew how the sophistry of our passions will come athwart
+all our good feelings and resolves, and that the more secure they feel
+the more easily it trips them up and overthrows them.
+
+He found the old man in a serious mood, but without the agitation he
+had feared. "Come and shake hands with me," cried Balthasar as he
+entered, "although you choose to leave me. How I shall support your
+absence I cannot yet conceive, anymore than I should know how I could
+live without light and warmth: but nevertheless I shall be forced to
+learn this lesson, if nothing can alter or upset your determination."
+
+"My fatherly friend," Edward began, "can you then persist in your
+determination, which to me is so utterly incomprehensible? Is it quite
+impossible for you to consent to what alone will make me happy, and
+assuredly will make your daughter so too?"
+
+"I had hoped, my dear friend," answered the old man very mildly, "you
+would not have toucht on this string again, which thrills far too
+painfully through my whole frame. Pray convince yourself that this
+long-formed resolution, which you if you please may term a whim, I
+cannot possibly revoke; it is much too firmly intertwined with my
+whole being. What we do from conviction as we call it, from pondering
+about a matter and balancing it first in one scale and then in the
+other, over and over again, is seldom worth much. Whatever is
+permanent, characteristic, genuine in our nature, is instinct,
+prejudice, call it superstition;--a conclusion without question or
+inquiry, an act because one cannot help it. Such is this of mine! You
+may look upon it as a vow, a solemn oath which I have sworn to myself,
+and which I cannot violate without the most atrocious perjury against
+my own heart. I owe my poor good Eleazar much amends for having let my
+soul entertain and cherish disgust, bitterness, and aversion toward
+him for so many years.--And as to the happiness of the pair!--on this
+point my opinion is just the reverse of yours. He is wise, sensible,
+virtuous; he is happy already, and will keep so, whether he marry or
+not. It is an act of condescension in a person of his grave character
+to take up with my daughter. A man who has got the philosopher's stone
+can never be harmed by any of earth's paltry troubles. And my Rose! O
+my dear friend, the truly dreadful thing would be, if I were to give
+her to you to wife: this being, this child, that I cannot help loving
+so dearly, that I fold up with remorse and sorrow in my heart, would
+go to wreck like others amid the pleasures of the world, in self-will
+and frivolity, in dissipation and recklessness. You would indulge her
+out of love in all sorts of follies, and so make her and yourself
+miserable. No, it cannot be on any terms; and you yourself will thank
+me hereafter for my reasonable refusal. And now not a word more,
+dearest Edward, on this subject: let us come to your other request,
+which I can safely promise to grant you."
+
+Edward began, with a cheerless spirit, to reckon up the damage his
+master had sustained from the robberies that were carried on in such
+an inexplicable manner, and urged the absolute necessity that, before
+he left the country, effective measures should at length be taken to
+get some trace of the thief. The old man wanted to break off the
+discussion; but Edward reminded him of his promise. Above all was
+Balthasar averse to a proposal made by his young friend, to set a
+spring-gun secretly in the warehouse, whereby the audacious robber
+might at length be caught and punisht. The old man regarded such a
+measure as impious, unlawful, and nearly akin to wilful murder.
+
+Edward tried to refute these notions, and at last said: "You owe it to
+yourself and to me to adopt this plan, which I too am far from
+approving unconditionally, but which in the present instance is the
+only remedy. I need not again state the amount of the sums which have
+been stolen from you time after time during the last three years and
+more; they would make a large fortune, so large a one that many a
+wealthy man would have been ruined by such losses. It is your
+unaccountable indifference that has thus emboldened the thief, who, it
+is clear, must be accurately acquainted with all our goings on.
+Whenever a watch has been set, nothing has happened. But as soon as we
+were off our guard again, no bolts, no bars however strong, no
+precautions however well-judged, availed us. William, and many other
+persons equally innocent, we have eyed with misdoubt. You cannot deny
+it; your suspicion must needs have lighted on everybody about you in
+turn. How can a heart so noble as yours hold fellowship with such a
+hateful feeling as to imagine now and then, for moments, that those on
+whom you bestow your friendship and esteem, may be capable of the most
+scandalous baseness? You are guilty of the most glaring injustice to
+hundreds of honest and honorable men, for the sake of screening a
+single villain with an indulgence which I cannot but call weakness,
+and a weakness under these circumstances quite unpardonable. In a few
+days I shall leave you. It is possible that the thief may not find any
+favorable opportunities hereafter, that another overseer may be more
+successful, that he may induce you to take stronger measures, and so
+to intimidate the offender: the robberies may cease: may not malicious
+persons, may not the offender himself perhaps, to secure himself
+against all chance of detection, and to frustrate every inquiry,
+spread a rumour that I am the heinous thief? Nay, might not such a
+report carry with it a very great show of probability, since assuredly
+no one could have got at your goods with so little risk as I? What
+will it profit me when far away, though you endeavour to vindicate me
+and to silence such a calumny? Will not your unwonted lenity, your
+present preposterous supineness, make the detestable rumour wear a
+look of the utmost speciousness, nay, of irrefragable truth? How, by
+what means, shall I then be able to clear myself? And, my loved, my
+honoured friend, who do nothing but good to mankind, and think nothing
+but evil of them, may not the same suspicion start up even in you, and
+strike deep root in the dark places of your soul, and by little and
+little grow into a conviction that I am the person?"
+
+Balthasar gazed at him, and walkt several times silently up and down
+the room. He was evidently struggling with himself, and seemed totally
+lost in thought.
+
+"You are not mistaken," he said after a long pause; "or rather you are
+perfectly right. You know my notions about wealth and property. I look
+on them with terrour. It seemed to me to be quite right, and to be a
+kind of slight amends to destiny for my incomprehensible luck, that
+what was flowing in so abundantly upon me from every side should at
+least have one outlet by which a part of it might run off. At times I
+have fancied that such a person or such another was thus making his
+fortune, who wanted it, and in a manner deserved it by his cleverness
+and sagacity in getting it. I took up a superstitious resolution to
+remain purposely in the dark, that I might not dissipate this strange
+dream and be deprived of this vague feeling. It gave me pain that I
+had to misdoubt so many of my people, nay all of them; but at the same
+time it was a pleasure that I could not feel certain about any. Yes,
+my friend, you too, you too have I wronged. You now know me pretty
+well, and I entreat your forgiveness. I have oftentimes thought in
+secret, without however feeling the least anger against you: 'Well, he
+is taking beforehand what he has richly earned, by labour, by
+sleepless nights, by diligence of every kind ... he cannot know for
+certain whether death may not snatch me away suddenly ... peradventure
+he has some poor relations ... he may wish to marry and set up with a
+handsome establishment ... he may perhaps have the same notions about
+property as I myself.' This has been the main ground of my lenity and
+weakness, as you call it; more especially when after the removal of
+William and several other doubtful characters all still went on just
+as before. Even your great anxiety, Edward, your indignation, even
+this turned my surmises against you. I have said to myself: 'Why does
+he talk so much about it, and make such a piece of work? I have given
+him the fullest powers in the matter: did he really take it so much to
+heart, he would have got hold of some clew long ago in one way or
+other by craft or by force. I could not possibly do otherwise than
+approve of whatever steps he took for my good.'"
+
+An overpowering pain seized on Edward during this speech; he felt on
+the point of fainting. With a look of utter despondency he threw
+himself into a chair, hid his face with his hands, and bent it down
+upon the table, till at length a flood of tears that streamed from his
+burning eyes, and a loud fit of convulsive sobbing a little relieved
+his heart, which seemed about to break.
+
+The old man was astonisht to see so great and unlookt for an effect
+produced by a speech which he had uttered with perfect calmness, and
+even with kindliness. He endeavoured to comfort and pacify his young
+friend, lifted up his head, and wiped the tears from his face, which
+still stared at him with an expression of the deepest grief and
+despair. He embraced him, he sought after words to heal the wound he
+had inflicted, to lull the storm he had called up.
+
+"O my heavens!" he at length cried, when he saw that all his efforts
+were in vain, "what shall I do? Edward! I did not really mean any ill.
+I only think of others what I believe of myself. I love thee in truth,
+young man, above anybody I have ever known; thou art to me as a son:
+hence my perverse supineness under my unjust suspicions: thou must
+forgive me all, all, dearest Edward. I will do everything, everything
+you ask of me."
+
+When Edward at length was somewhat recovered, he said with a broken
+voice, which was often checkt by violent sobs: "No, no, noblest, most
+upright of mankind, never, never could you have sunk down into a
+miserable thief! No want, not even hunger and nakedness, no
+opportunity however tempting, could have degraded your lofty mind so
+low. You only say it to quiet me. O heavens! this man, who treated me
+with the warmest affection and with unbounded confidence, who placed
+large sums in my hands, without ever inquiring about them, that I
+might become the dispenser of his bounty in feeding the hungry and
+taking care of the sick, this same friend could at the very same time
+deem me capable of such infamous wickedness. Observe now, observe what
+a dangerous thing it is, to admit such dark spirits and phantoms into
+ones soul, from which in time they utterly drive out all truth and
+love, and strength and faith. O thou bright pure form of Truth! O thou
+spotless beauty of Virtue! How changed does this man seem to me since
+that calamitous word, how changed am I myself! how fearfully, how
+dismally has the relation between us changed! It seems to me as though
+the very belief in the possibility of anything like what this man has
+believed possible of me, had cast a shade of vice and depravity over
+my whole life: for this noble being has hitherto been the mirror of my
+own worth, by looking at which I became conscious of my own
+well-meaning and integrity. Can everything, everything in our heart be
+thus transformed in a single moment? Yes, my dear, my fatherly friend,
+I shall evermore honour and love you; I admire you while I mourn over
+you; but even without any further cause this conversation would have
+parted us; this alone, without regard to my happiness or unhappiness,
+must drive me from you into the wide world."
+
+"So then we are now finally severed," said the old man very
+sorrowfully, "by destiny, not by my fault. One may master everything,
+except ones own innermost self. Suspicion in me is not that bad thing
+into which your overstrained sense of honour, such as I never saw in
+any man before, converts it by the meaning you assign to it. But, my
+dearest friend, without whom my life will long be a mere blank, you
+will stay at least a few days, until you can take away the papers that
+will secure your fortune to you. For this compensation you must accept
+from me as from a father, unless you would quite overwhelm me with
+shame."
+
+They embraced, and the old man gave Edward an unlimited permission to
+take whatever steps he thought proper for the sake of detecting and
+punishing the thief. Edward had regained his self-possession; and the
+old man was all kindness and gentleness. They talkt about other
+affairs; and Edward took some accountbooks under his arm to look over
+and correct.
+
+"Embrace me once more with all your heart," said the old man, "and
+forgive me too with all your heart."
+
+Edward turned back, and after embracing him said: "My dearest friend,
+what have I to forgive you for, thinking as you do? It is not the
+right word. What I have just endured I can never forget; and this
+shock will thrill through me to the latest day of my life. The human
+heart and soul, man and God, seem to have become totally different in
+my eyes since that terrific flash of lightning. Thinking as you do
+too, you cannot be angry with me, if I now say half in jest, that, had
+you not allowed me to take my measures, I might have fancied after I
+was gone that you had been thus ingeniously and cunningly robbing
+yourself, who knows with what subtle views, perchance for the very
+sake of throwing suspicion on some one or other."
+
+"You are not altogether in the wrong," said Balthasar. Edward was
+again standing at the door. "Wait another moment, young man!" cried
+his master. Edward once more turned back. But when he drew nearer to
+the old man, he was astonisht to find how totally his countenance and
+the expression of his eyes were changed. A quick firy glance was
+sparkling restlessly upon him.
+
+"You are fully convinced, I well know," the old man began, "of the
+truths of the Christian religion; you read your bible diligently and
+devoutly. You also believe in the historical parts of it, and regard
+the whole as an actual revelation: the rational, and allegorical, and
+learned philological interpretations do not satisfy your mind. Is it
+not so? you are a true Christian with all your heart and soul."
+
+"Certainly," answered Edward.
+
+"The story," continued the old man, "how the Saviour was tempted in
+the wilderness by the Evil One, is not in your opinion a parable, or
+an allegory, or mythical legend, without any substance? but you
+believe that this event actually befell Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
+along with the various circumstances and questions and answers
+recorded?"
+
+"What are you aiming at?" askt Edward hesitatingly after a pause.
+"Yes, I believe this story like a sincere and orthodox Christian."
+
+"Well!" the old man went on, while his pale closed lips wrinkled into
+a strange smile: "I have a double aim, though I should hardly need to
+say more, if you had ever thought deeply about this incident. In the
+first place, if our Saviour himself had to bear such things, if it was
+possible for him to be suspected though but by the Evil One, surely
+you might forgive me with all your heart, if with half or a quarter of
+mine I have now and then half misdoubted you. Meseems, this
+mysterious, marvellous story with its fathomless, untold meanings does
+not downrightly condemn my views of human nature. They are not mere
+spectres that have taken possession of my soul, unless indeed they
+belong to one and the same family with spirits. In the second place,
+do your eyes see much meaning in this wondrous story, if the success
+of the temptation was totally and absolutely impossible?--Now then
+what say you? appalling are the feelings that seize on one of us, and
+you too cannot escape them, when all this is brought home to the heart
+and mind.--There is still a third remark that I would close
+with:--what would have become of the world and of mankind, of heaven
+and earth, if the tempter had won the day? if love had faltered and
+been beguiled?--O young man, the doors are not closed in every place
+where we see them put to. You fancy you have made out everything, when
+you have hardly counted up to five.--I too believed, I too inquired,
+was absorbed in love and devotion, beheld love in my own soul and in
+the souls of my brethren, and this is the very delusion the breaking
+up of which snap my heart and life asunder, never, never to revive and
+reunite. Cast away your pride in your feelings, think not to soar on
+the wings of your imagination; but crawl along the ground like worms,
+and eat dust; for that is what befits you."
+
+The old man squeezed Edward's hand, and then with a bitter smile, and
+a sudden laugh that scared him, tore himself away. For a while Edward
+continued fixt in a stupour, and when at length he lifted up his eyes,
+Balthasar was again immerst in deep thought, and standing at his
+writing table with the gloomy suffering look which he usually wore.
+Edward felt as if he was leaving a dying man when he went away, and
+shut the heavy oaken door slowly and carefully after him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Edward had taken his measures with no less secrecy than judgement.
+None of the servants, foremen, or even of the overseers knew that he
+was doing anything out in the warehouse. Every interruption had been
+guarded against. He was quite alone, nor did anybody even know of his
+having left the house, when he made his arrangements; and it was dark
+before he came back. He could not tell whether a fresh robbery might
+not be committed on that very night, or not till a future one. All the
+watchmen had been removed from the warehouse in such a manner as not
+to excite suspicion.
+
+And now amid the solitude of the night he sat down to the account
+books, for the sake of bringing all his thoughts to bear on a single
+point, and thereby recovering from the agitation he had lately
+undergone. It was of importance to have these matters perfectly
+arranged before he went away. At length he succeeded in banishing what
+had happened from his thoughts for the time; and he became so much
+engaged in his employment, he forgot that these very hours might be
+unravelling that unpleasant affair, which had given them so much
+annoyance for years.
+
+When he had finisht and was turning over the leaves of an old book
+that he had taken up along with the rest, some written papers fell out
+of it: they were in Balthasar's hand, and had evidently been written
+many years. He read the following fragments.
+
+    Yes in truth weeping is a wonder, and, as they say, a gift sent
+    from heaven. A bliss spreads through our soul, as soon as our
+    flowing tears come, like the waters of a river, sweeping away
+    black sorrow, and disquietude, and trembling doubts. Ye are all
+    given back to me, ye spirits that once were mine, and that a cruel
+    destiny afterward severed from me.
+
+    For the sake of this, people will woo tears, and try to lure them
+    with coaxing when they will not come. Our day's work is over, and
+    now, as the rich man and the glutton will wind up his multifarious
+    meal with sweetmeats, so after our toil, after closing our
+    accounts, we court devotional thoughts and pathetical emotions, we
+    meditate on the dead, in order to entice this lifes-wine of tears
+    into our voluptuous eyes and our luxurious brain. Now a
+    sentimental melancholy inhaloes every ordinary object around us;
+    and amid the meek abasht feelings of a pining anguish and remorse,
+    suddenly starts up nauseous arrogance, vaunting the grandeur of a
+    spoilt capricious heart. O what poor wretches our fellow creatures
+    now seem to us in their commonplaceness, who yet all, as the
+    patient children and drudges of mother earth, are better than we.
+
+    But laughter! This earthquake which invisible powers heave up out
+    of the knotty entanglement of our dark enigmatical being! which in
+    boisterous senseless noises announces that within, in the unseen
+    world, the soul neither recks of nor knows truth or falsehood, and
+    has just been murdering the innocent herald who was bringing these
+    phantasms before it! These rude unmeaning sounds which will for a
+    long time distort even the best face, the most mechanically
+    regular mask!
+
+    How men long after this loathsome convulsion! While tears lie and
+    cheat by aping heavenly feelings, laughter is awkwardly trying to
+    let the craziness of evil demons skulk behind it, hides itself
+    from vulgarity for the sake of being seen, feigns terrour when our
+    unsubdued struggling feelings are detected, and saunters about in
+    the midst of whatever is disgusting and impure, perpetually
+    clapperclawing with some outcast among the rabble or other: one
+    moment our intelligent, and higher faculties, as they call them,
+    get the upper hand; the next they are beaten down and trod upon by
+    something base and profligate: and thus veering to and fro, now
+    toying now scolding, laughter clatters down the steps of idiocy,
+    which crumble with the decay of our bodily strength ... and man
+    grins, and is happy.
+
+    Blessed time, when there was a real existence, a life in life!
+    when the vast whole of eternity, being sufficient to itself, had
+    not splintered itself out into time! when the spirit did not need
+    a succession, measured out by the atoms of time and space, to
+    become conscious of its power and of its being! What a portentous
+    event was it, when eternity and life parted fellowship!--when the
+    band by which spirits were bound in one, burst, and that strange
+    creature, Death, rusht in through the chasm to domineer over all.
+    Now that which is firm, stedfast, enduring, has concentrated
+    itself in the depths of its own being, and has put on the
+    unvarying aspect of solid meditation. Stones, rocks, metals, bid
+    defiance to decay with their cold looks, and would make believe
+    that they know not of change. Drops of water dancing like tiny
+    elves along them, the sightless legions of the air, wherever they
+    spread, are eating into the limbs of the rigid haughty giant; the
+    dwarf, man, digs into his bones, and, if his strength were equal
+    to his fury, would reduce him to fleeting sand. May it not
+    peradventure be the same with the eternal stars? A little acid,
+    and the monster sneezes sillily, and roars, and yawns, and for the
+    moment remembers its spiritual nature.
+
+    And thou with thy butterfly wings in thy light summer garment,
+    thou that hoverest aloft, and flittest over the mountains, and
+    sweepest along the earth! from the airy changeling of the
+    caterpillar, up or down to the lion and to man, ye all of you,
+    fostering a brief momentary spark in you, like the glance from the
+    flint and steel ... gone is the red bubbling up of the spark ...
+    and again a mere slough is lying before us, after its short dream
+    of life and love, dust upon dust, rottenness upon decay ... the
+    great-grandfather beside his mouldering great-grandchild ... and
+    neither knows the other, neither has ever heard of the other.
+
+    The plants around you prick up their ears at you in a thousand
+    forms; the flowers smile roguishly and sadly, in the midst of the
+    masquerade; and dream mingles with dream, when the lover plucks
+    the rose, and blushing himself holds out the blushing blossom to
+    his blushing maiden.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    The beating of the pulse is not only a sign of life, it is life
+    itself. No feeling, no thought, no sight or hearing, no taste or
+    sensation flows along with a rushing stream, but all comes
+    skipping, wave upon wave, drop upon drop, and this is its being.
+    One thought is cast out by another; our feelings are only felt as
+    they shift between life and death: the kiss only thrills on our
+    lips when a chill void has already spread over them; our delight
+    in a picture, in music, merely gushes through us; one moment it
+    entrances us, the next it has vanisht. Thus the sea breathes in
+    its ebb and flow, time in its days and nights, its winters and
+    summers. If I do not forget myself this moment, I cannot recollect
+    myself the next.--And death....
+
+    Is this revulsion of the pulse, this alteration of strain, this
+    change of tune a prelude, a transition to a new piece of music?
+    Every living creature exists to be devoured by another; man alone
+    has apparently eluded these barrack-regulations, this military
+    duty, and fattens himself up for the earth, that shattered chaos
+    of stones and mould.
+
+    In love, in misfortune, in joy, in despondency, in labour and
+    rest, death has always been my uppermost, I might rather say my
+    only thought. Suicide in me would have been of all human actions
+    the most natural. I have never felt that any indescribable fear,
+    any overpowering shudder draws us back, and flings the knife from
+    our hands. If poor naked Joy, that is so meanly clad, she is
+    ashamed to walk about the earth, were once to enter our doors,
+    then the stab of the bright dagger would only be the last
+    glittering pinnacle of our joyous transport. For after that brief
+    pulsation is over, how bald is the earth, how black is life! It is
+    because I know not whither I am going, or whether I am going, or
+    whether there be a whither, that the act is so alluring. Only men
+    will not confess this, but give the name of cowardice and of
+    courage to what is neither the one nor the other. In dissipation,
+    in thoughtlessness, in indifference, the poor wretches lose both
+    life and death.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    A strange dream, that is to say, a dream, has visited me. The
+    commonest thing is quite as strange as the uncommonest, only habit
+    blunts our sense.
+
+    I was dead. I knew it distinctly; and yet I lived on in my
+    consciousness. All my forlorn doubts, my stiff-neckedness that
+    would not bow to the yoke, my hard heart that closed itself so
+    early against love, had shut me out, so my conscience told me,
+    from the place to which the good hope to go. The state in which I
+    found myself, and numberless others along with me, was one the
+    common ordinariness, the dull triviality of which was quite
+    appalling. I was utterly unable to recollect my friends and those
+    whom I had loved, however intensely I strained my memory and put
+    it to the rack. A longing, like that of one pining with thirst
+    after a stream of fresh clear water, tormented me, to call up the
+    forms and the ideas of those beloved beings in my imagination; I
+    felt a yearning after them like a heavy weight that was crushing
+    me in the hidden places of my heart. Just as little could I bring
+    back those actions which during my life I might have called good.
+    Every thing in this region of my thoughts was like a bare parcht
+    waste. But everything evil rolled in whirling circles wearyingly
+    and dizzyingly before my inward eye. My vices and errours, all the
+    faults and misdeeds of my life, every wretched moment of my
+    temporal existence gathered round me as it were with the cries and
+    croaking of fierce hungry birds of prey. O these sins how hugely
+    and gigantically they swelled out! How horrible it was to see
+    their consequences unfolding themselves far, far away in the
+    realms of the future! how they took root and grew up riotously in
+    after-generations! nothing but looks of anguish, of reproach, of
+    pain, of bitter despair was turned upon me from thence. In like
+    manner I easily called to mind all the persons who had ever been
+    objects of my hatred or dislike; every tedious hour, the
+    recollection of which tortured me afresh; all the folly and
+    absurdity that I had ever uttered myself, or heard from others.
+
+    In the numerous vast halls countless swarms of men were sitting,
+    standing, or walking about, all in the same state of deplorable
+    woe. And no variety, no division of time, no hour, no sun or night
+    disturbed or changed this melancholy monotonousness. One solitary
+    amusement was there. Now and then some one reminded us of our
+    former faith, how during our lives we had feared and worshipt a
+    God. Then a loud burst of laughter, as at a most portentous
+    absurdity, pealed through the hall. Afterward they all grew grave,
+    and I strove with all my faculties to call back the reverence, the
+    sanctity of my human feelings, but in vain.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+Edward had not observed that the morning was already dawning, so
+completely had he been wrapt up in these singular papers. Without
+doubt too he would have gone on reading much longer, unless he had now
+been interrupted by loud cries and a violent knocking at his door. He
+went to see what it was, and Conrad rusht into the room, heated,
+panting, and with a ferocious look.
+
+"Now we have him!" cried the miner furiously: "did not I say long ago
+that this vagabond is wickedness itself? Only let him instantly be
+bound, master overseer, hand and foot in the heaviest chains you can
+get, and then have the dog flogged till he is cut to pieces, that his
+life and his infernal soul may crawl out of him by inches."
+
+"What is the matter with you?" askt Edward. "I am afraid you must be
+in a fever, and are stark raving."
+
+"Hurrah!" screamed Conrad; "now my cruel illness will soon be gone,
+now that the miscreant has been caught at his wicked tricks. He will
+never carry me down again now into their rubbishy straw."
+
+"Whom are you talking of?" Edward again began: "surely not of the
+Hungarian miner?"
+
+"The very person," answered Conrad: "the monster has been stealing,
+and is in league with a whole gang of thieves. Hark you, to cut the
+matter short, I could not sleep last night, and so roamed about the
+woods, in part to get myself some herbs to cure my ailing. It was just
+beginning to dawn, when I heard something like wheels down below,
+along the lonely lane in the thick of the wood, and at the same time
+there was a moaning and groaning; for at night one hears and makes out
+every thing much plainlier. Off I ran. Two fellows were drawing a cart
+in great tribulation and fear, and the pale rascal was walking
+alongside, and driving them on. 'Scoundrels!' I shouted in their
+faces! and the word was hardly out of my throat, when the two thieves
+had already scampered off; but the pale skinny mountebank I held fast;
+the cart with the stolen goods is standing in the wood. They will soon
+bring it after me however; for I met a couple of workmen whom I sent
+for it; and the Hungarian waivode I have dragged hither with my own
+hand."
+
+Meanwhile the whole house was in an uprore. The stranger was sitting
+handcufft at the door; and miners, spinners, and weavers came
+crowding; others flockt from the mills; and all were shouting, all
+were staring with wonder at each other; everybody wanted to tell his
+story, and nobody seemed to know what it was that had happened; so
+that Edward and Conrad began with much perplexity and annoyance to
+question one after another, until the miner cried out with his
+thundering voice: "Hold your jaws all of you. Not a soul shall speak
+another word, except he whom your young master shall ask."
+
+One-eyed Michael was standing near them, and, as Edward turned to him,
+he said: "It may have been about three in the morning when I set off
+from the forge to deliver a message betimes at the smelting house up
+in the mountains. I was walking along the path through the wood,
+thinking no harm, save that when I got pretty near to the warehouse
+all the nightly robberies came across me which have been going on this
+many a long day there. 'I'd give the world to catch the rogue,' I said
+to myself, when all at once a gun went off. A gun! what ho! that put
+me to my wits. 'There are never any sportsmen hereabout,' I said, and
+began marching and bustling on with a little more haste and speed. In
+a few moments I hear cries and yells and shouts, and a pothering and
+squabbling. All this methinks can never be right. I get to the top,
+and now I see the whole business. The warehouse is open, several
+barrows and men are before it, they are piling up the goods: a short
+figure that I could not make out in the dark, panting and whining,
+screaming and grumbling, is shuffling and tumbling about. I make up to
+the fellows with the stolen goods. Then some of them seized me fast
+and prest down my eyes. The noise lessens, I can't cry out, nor would
+it do me much good. When they let me loose again, there was nothing to
+be seen. Even the limper, in spite of all my search, had got off and
+was not to be found. When I came nearer the houses I awoke every body
+with my shouts, telling them to go and watch the warehouse, and scour
+after the rogues."
+
+"And I," cried Conrad, "have lugged the commander in chief of the
+cutpurses by the throat, that sapient soothsayer that was playing off
+his pranks with his match the other day at your forge."
+
+Then they all set off again telling their stories, shouting and
+screaming, just as noisily as before. Edward however gave orders what
+all were to do; the stranger was to be watcht, the stolen goods to be
+taken into the house, and everybody was to be quiet, not to disturb
+their old master's rest, should he be still asleep. He himself
+hastened with a few others to the warehouse, to arrange matters there,
+and, if possible, to find out more about the thieves.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Edward found marks of blood in the warehouse and on the ground
+without, and he and his companions followed them. Anon they lost sight
+of them, then discovered them again in a thicket on one side, and a
+little after in one of the bypaths. Edward walkt on with anxious
+feelings; a boding prest upon his heart; he was unwilling to confess
+his misgivings even to himself. Ere long however they turned to
+certainty; for the traces led to the house of Eleazar, which lay on a
+green slope. When they got up to it they found all the neighbours
+already in motion; people were coming from the town; the priest of the
+parish was just passing through the door. Within everything was in
+confusion, and a physician and surgeon were busy upstairs.
+
+Edward left his companions without, and with a beating heart opened
+the chamber door. Eleazar was lying pale and with ghastly features in
+his bed. His wound had just been examined, and a bandage placed on it.
+Everybody in the room, the physician, surgeon, priest, and servants
+lookt frightened and distrest; for there was something in this
+accident so mysterious and terrible that no one could help being
+struck with awe by it.
+
+The surgeon, whom Edward took aside, shook his head, and assured him
+that all assistance was in vain; the patient would hardly live through
+the day. Eleazar now raised himself out of his stupour, lookt round,
+and perceived Edward. "Aha!" he cried with a strained and faint voice,
+"You too are already there! Well! You have at last got the better of
+me. This is what you have been driving at this long time. I am now
+lying here, and all is over, all is found out; there are no more
+questions and answers, no more todays and tomorrows. How it will fare
+with you remains to be seen hereafter. Not well most undoubtedly. So
+don't triumph in your imaginary virtue."
+
+He beckoned and made the priest bring him a paper that was lying in
+the window. "Give this to the old man of the mountain," he then went
+on; "he will see from it how I loved him; for it is my will."
+
+The priest now said a few words, begging to be left alone with the
+sick man. Edward was glad to leave the room and refresh himself in the
+open air. Here Conrad again ran up to him out of breath, and cried ...
+"Confusion worse confounded! Only think what he has been doing, our
+virtuous Eleazar! his last loaf has already been baked for him. Look
+you, this fellow, this lord and master of the country, this son-in-law
+of the old man of the mountain, is a scurvy thief ... Now I will
+forgive that white-faced Hungarian wretch for serving me as he did the
+other day; for what is all the reputation in the earth, all the honour
+in the world come to?"
+
+The whole neighbourhood, town and country, was in consternation at
+this event. The most incredible thing in the world had taken place, a
+crime that could neither be denied nor concealed, committed by a man
+whom all had been forced to regard with respect, whom all had lookt
+upon as their future master and protector; and they could not recover
+from their astonishment, or fall back into their ordinary occupations;
+for their minds in this turmoil had for a while lost every standard by
+which a man measures himself.
+
+The old man amid the general tumult had already learnt the whole
+story, in spite of the pains Edward had taken to prevent it. He had
+lockt himself up in his room and let nobody in.
+
+Edward now interrogated the stranger. This man had for a long time had
+dealings with Eleazar; he lived in a town a good many miles off, and
+had often sent agents up the mountains and helpt in selling the stolen
+goods. A tradesman in another small town was also a party in the
+affair. The Hungarian had quarelled with Eleazar, and had come up into
+these parts with a view of going to old Balthasar, sounding him, and,
+if he found him inclined to pay well for it, disclosing the whole
+history of the abominable transaction. But as the old man had not
+shewn any mind to have recourse to superstitious devices, still less
+to give ear to his covert hints, so that the stranger might have
+brought his own neck into the noose if he had betrayed too much, he
+drew off and remained faithful to his confederate Eleazar, who had
+quieted him with a sum of money, along with large promises for the
+future.
+
+The old man's great bell now rang, and Edward took up his papers and
+went to him. "You have lookt over and corrected all my accounts, my
+dear friend?" he began with outward calmness. Edward said yes, as he
+set down the books; but he hesitated and knew not whether to give in
+Eleazar's will along with them. The old man however took it himself
+out of his hand and cast his eyes over it.
+
+"It is now three months," he began, "since he made me heir to all he
+has, in case he should die before me. He has drawn up a list of all
+his effects, and points out where each thing may be found. The chief
+article is a number of gold bars, which he says are of his own making.
+Read it."
+
+Edward took the papers with some embarrassment. "Is it not true?" said
+the old man after some time, "does any thing but madness animate and
+rule the whole world? Can you understand this man and his character in
+any other way? To be sure this word itself does not help us to
+understand it. O young man, young man, do you not feel now how
+thoroughly right I was? I trusted this man unlimitedly, because he was
+not girt round with any delusive deceitful show; because nothing in my
+heart sallied forth to meet him, and I did not lie to myself in his
+behalf for the sake of pampering my own vanity. Ay, my friend, now
+everything is detected and noised abroad; he is going ... and in this
+will he gives me back what the lawyers would call my property. His
+will! Now forsooth it must also be time to make mine, and a different
+one from what I intended. Now your nice feelings of honour will no
+doubt condescend to stay with me a little longer ... and my child, my
+Rose! alas, how fearful it is that this darling of my heart is also a
+human being!"
+
+"At such an hour as this," answered Edward, "which must needs strike
+you with horrour, I will not again declare the wishes of my heart to
+you; you yourself have toucht upon them, or I should have refrained
+even from these words. But undoubtedly I must now stay with you:
+destiny compells me to do so, and imposes it as a sacred duty upon
+me."
+
+"Destiny with a vengeance!" said the old man with his bitter smile:
+"you take a fancy to Rose; you hear she is already engaged; this
+drives you away from me; but before you take leave, your honour must
+be cleared and furbisht up; and as a remembrance you shoot my most
+intimate friend, the man after my own soul, and tear him from my side.
+Now Rose is at liberty, you are your own master, your rival is got rid
+of; and destiny has managed the whole matter admirably. But whether
+this shot has not pierced through my heart, whether it has not rent
+and burst asunder the innermost sanctuary of my soul ... these
+questions are never thought of. There is as it were a huge chasm
+yawning in my spirit ... confidence, faith ... everything ... did not
+I say so? good is the only real evil ... Edward! don't look so sad ...
+methinks I am talking quite wildly."
+
+He took the young man's hand. "Bring me the mayor this evening, and
+the priest and bailiff as witnesses. You are now my son, and this is
+the spirit I shall now make my will in. I feel it is high time; for it
+would be horrible if Helbach were to fling all my fortune to the dogs.
+O if I could but totally forget this shot and Eleazar! if such wild
+thoughts did not keep rushing about in my brain! Now you and Rose will
+stay with me."
+
+Edward withdrew. He went to look for Rose in her room. She burst out
+a-crying, jumpt up from her chair, and threw herself into the young
+man's arms with an expression of the fondest affection. "Alas Edward!"
+she cried sobbing, and hid her face on his breast: "only look now at
+what I have to go through in my youth. This was never sung over me in
+my cradle, that I should lose my husband in so shocking a manner, and
+even before our wedding. And the last thing I should have thought of
+was that you were to shoot him dead, you, the dearest and kindest of
+all men.--Alas! poor, poor Eleazar! when he came from nature's hands,
+such an odious misshapen abortion of a man! And now into the bargain
+to steal, to lie, and to cheat! to rob my good father, who meant to
+give him everything! What will become of his poor soul now? Oh yes, he
+has perisht still more cruelly, he is much more unhappy than my cat
+with her kittens, that he shot so barbarously on the orange tree. Alas
+Edward! are you then in real truth such a good creature, as I have
+always believed you? or are you perchance very wicked too? You did not
+mean it, did you? that Eleazar should die so?"
+
+Edward took pains to explain the nature of the whole affair to her.
+"Be composed," he continued; "the course of our lives here has suddenly
+undergone a violent change; we must all overcome this shock, to get
+back again into the path of our ordinary duty. A few days since you
+were sorry that I was going away; if it can give you any comfort, let
+me assure you that for the present at least I shall and must stay
+here. Do you still wish that I should?"
+
+She gazed at him affectionately and seemed comforted. "So then that is
+settled now!" she exclaimed: "ah yes, I always thought you would stay;
+for I can't live without you; and my father can't live without you;
+and all our poor workmen and spinners, our good miners, for whom you
+are always saying and doing something, and who, when they come for
+their wages or for relief, look with their whole souls into your kind
+eyes, these above all can never live without you."
+
+"This calamity," said Edward, "may hereafter make you, your father,
+me, and all of us happy. The discovery was inevitable; and perhaps, if
+it had not taken place now, it would have come at a time when it would
+have plunged us all in misery."
+
+"If my father now," said Rose, "were to have no objection, I might
+perhaps in time accustom myself to look upon you as my future husband.
+If I could but feel a little more respect and awe for you! If you
+would behave very roughly to me now and then, not always so kindly,
+but angrily and savagely at times, I might by and by grow reconciled
+to it."
+
+Edward went to his business. The uprore had ceast, and the whole house
+was now quiet and silent: it seemed as if people were afraid of even
+breathing: all walkt about softly and on tiptoe. News came that
+Eleazar was dead.
+
+Toward evening Edward went with the mayor and witnesses into old
+Balthasar's room. He was surprised to find him in bed. On being spoken
+to by his visitors he lifted himself up, stared fixedly at them, and
+seemed to know no one. "Aha! reverend Sir," he cried out after a
+while, "you are come to fetch away a second poor sinner today. It is a
+busy time in your vocation. Is master Eleazar come with you?"
+
+He beckoned to Edward. "Thou yellow blockhead!" he whispered to him;
+"what am I to do with thy gold bars that thou hast left me? don't
+thrust thy stupid cheat into men's eyes so ... it is far too glaring.
+But beware of Edward, he is wise and good. If he should ever suspect
+thee, thou art lost."
+
+He talkt to the others, but still quite at random, and was taken up
+with the phantoms of his own brain. The mayor and witnesses retired,
+and Edward went after the physician. The business of drawing up the
+will was put off, until the sick man should have recovered and be
+restored to his perfect consciousness.
+
+The physician found the patient's state very alarming. Edward was
+called up in the night; but when he entered the room Herr Balthasar
+had already breathed his last.
+
+The dismay, the sorrow was universal. The mayor sent to have
+everything sealed up. In the midst of this confusion, it seemed a
+matter of very little moment that the Hungarian had found means to
+escape from his prison.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the town where the extravagant counsellor Helbach lived, there was
+a great feast at which all the epicures famous for their love of good
+eating and their knowledge of good dishes were assembled. The
+counsellor himself was the soul of such parties: his word was law in
+them; and he it was that had managed the present banquet.
+
+The dinner was nearly over; some of the guests, who had business to
+call them away, were gone: the company had grown quieter; and it was
+only at the upper end of the table, where the counsellor and some of
+the scientific eaters were sitting, that the conversation was carried
+on with any spirit.
+
+"Believe me, my friends," said the counsellor with great earnestness,
+"the art of eating, the skill men may attain in it, has its epochs,
+its classical ages, and its decline, corruption, and dark ages, just
+as much as every other art; and it seems to me that we are now again
+verging to a kind of barbarism in it. Luxury, profusion, rarities, new
+dishes, overpeppering, overspicing, all these, my good sirs, are the
+artifices now commonly made use of to obtain admiration for a dinner;
+and yet these are the very things from which a thinking eater will
+turn away with contemptuous slight. In the whole of this department
+indeed much still remains to be done; and the stories we read of the
+old gormandizer, Heliogabalus, and others who lived during the
+decrepitude of the Roman empire, stories at which many men stare with
+stupid astonishment, ought only to excite our pity."
+
+"It must always be difficult no doubt," said one of the guests, "to
+frame any distinct conception of the dishes and the delicacies of a
+former age. If we dress them by such receits as remain, the result
+will always have something absurd in it, like the dinner which
+Smollett describes so humourously in his _Peregrine Pickle_."
+
+"That tact on which after all everything depends," answered the
+counsellor, "is sure to be wanting, that nice knowledge of the exact
+limit between too much and too little which nothing but instinct can
+bestow; and even this instinct must be cultivated by studying the
+properties of fire, the culinary powers of which can never be
+described, and which a cook can only make himself master of by long
+experience, judgement, and observation, nor even then unless he was
+born a cook. The main point however is, that our tongue and palate
+have been trained and fashioned from our childhood to particular
+tastes, likings, and antipathies; so that often the very best, most
+judicious, and admirable thing, if it come across us on a sudden as a
+novelty, as something we have never set tooth on, and thus give a
+shock to all our prepossessions, will be disregarded and abused; until
+at length in course of time on our becoming familiar with the
+stranger's merits, he is naturalized: and then the new knowledge we
+have acquired will often exercise the most salutary influence and
+throw much light on other dishes, both old and lately invented ones,
+so that our palate is as it were strung with a new chord, which sends
+forth a variety of delicious notes. Moreover the ages that are gone
+and the ideas that prevailed among our forefathers are still acting
+upon this _tastature_ of mankind, as a race made to relish, to discern,
+and to enjoy; and as in philosophy and science, in politics and
+government, so here too there is an unbroken chain; the accumulated
+experience of centuries moulded us to be just such as we are; and this
+state of our taste can and must only be modified by degrees; nor could
+anything be more ruinous than a sudden revolution which should throw
+everything topsy turvy. In every field of human action history is
+man's best master."
+
+"You yourself," said the guest, "should write a history of the
+articles of food, the art of eating, and the progress of the human
+mind in it."
+
+"When one is oneself a practical artist," answered the counsellor,
+"and so devoted a one as I am, so diligent in working at my art, and
+so ready to try every new experiment in it, one must leave such
+matters to people of an idler and more contemplative turn. If you aim
+at doing everything, you will never do anything well and thoroughly."
+
+"Why," resumed the other, "do we hear this perpetual abuse of
+sensuality? why will men so seldom confess, and even then but
+reluctantly, the pleasure they take in eating and drinking?"
+
+"Because," said counsellor Helbach, "they never know what they are
+really at. It has always struck me as very remarkable and singular
+that, in the little round box in which all our finer senses are ranged
+and stored up, and in the top of which moreover our thinking powers,
+and all the noblest intellectual products of our soul are deposited,
+we should find that red-lined drawer close beneath, with the delicate
+little bosses set like jewels over the tremulous vocal tongue and
+palate, garnisht in front with teeth that toil and cut, and closed by
+the graceful mouth. Eating is only another mode of thinking. Thus this
+box is a coppel in which the essences of all created things, the
+finest and the grossest, vapours and juices, the soft soothing oils,
+the bitternesses and tartnesses which at first seem grating, the
+flavour which evaporates in a momentary enjoyment, are put to the
+test. First the teeth begin chopping and grinding; the tongue, at
+other times so talkative, silently and busily rolls about and makes
+much of the morsels it receives, presses them affectionately and
+benevolently against the palate, to double its pleasure by sharing it;
+and when this tender dalliance has been sufficiently indulged in, at
+length pushes them back almost unwillingly to its friend that swallows
+them down, and that indeed has the real enjoyment of them, the highest
+of all, though but for a moment, and then with heroic self-sacrifice
+makes them over to another power. Straightway the same game is
+repeated a second, a third, a thousandth time. I never yet heard it
+said that any self-tormenting anchoret had courage enough altogether
+to forgo the pleasure of eating, even though he stinted himself to
+bread. Indeed kind Nature has taken such good care of her children,
+that it is next to impossible."
+
+"A very just and profound remark!" exclaimed his neighbour.
+
+"We see too," continued the dissertator, "what high importance nature
+has attacht to these processes of devouring, eating, chewing, and
+swallowing, and how in every sphere of existence they have been her
+main end and aim. What would become of all the animals upon the earth,
+of all the birds that roam through the air, and all the swarms of
+greater and lesser creatures that people the waters and the sea,
+unless every one of them had received a bill, payable at sight, upon
+his neighbour. What would they live on, if they did not live on one
+another? or where forsooth would they find room to live? Is not the
+world perpetually oscillating between the two great works of producing
+and of devouring? The king of the creation, man, stands at the summit,
+as the crown and the final object of all these multiform guests. Those
+his subalterns, who have an assignment either one upon the other, or
+upon the vegetable world, look up to him with reverential awe: for it
+is not merely one thing or another, not merely beasts or vegetables,
+not merely fishes or birds, no, almost everything without exception
+he turns into food, making all classes of his subjects the sources of
+his happiness. It is only from his own kind, and from a few which
+serve him as his immediate vassals, or the flesh of which, whether
+from prejudice or in reality, does not taste agreeably, that he
+abstains. By means of fire, that performs his bidding, out of strong
+essences, butter, oil, and spices, vegetables and flesh, all artfully
+mingled and chemically prepared, he concocts the most extraordinary
+combinations to please his palate. While the eye is weeping at top,
+and the brain above it is brooding over touching thoughts, or kindling
+itself and the heart with inspiring ones, while the nose inhaling
+hyacinthine odours awakens visions of sweet desire in the imagination,
+the mouth below is already lusting and licking its lips after the
+venison or the liver pasty that is carried by. The sentimental young
+lady feeds her pigeons with pathetical grace; and the very mouth which
+lisps the prettiest verses and most moving idyls to them, will swallow
+the same innocent creatures by and by with exquisite relish. Could
+animals make observations as we do, and were a poet some day to rise
+up amongst them, in what strange colours would he represent man!"
+
+"Truly," said his friend, "such a jest, thus retorted upon mankind,
+would be extremely amusing."
+
+"We are fond of boasting of our universality," counsellor Helbach went
+on, "and yet in the very art in which Nature herself has so manifestly
+intended us to be universal, I mean in that of eating, many people
+scorn to become so, and fancy it is more dignified to treat this whole
+branch of knowledge with contempt. And yet the flocks of birds of
+passage, the shoals of wandering fishes, come from distant regions,
+flying and swimming into our nets, for the mere pleasure of our
+palates; and the fruits of every climate, of every soil, of every
+quarter of the globe, blend into enjoyment within us. Who does not
+perceive in an oyster, if at least he is gifted with a true sense for
+it, the might and the freshness of the sea! O asparagus, he that has
+not the wit to enjoy thee, can know nothing of the mysteries which the
+dreaming world of plants reveals to us! Can one understand anything of
+the history of the world or of poetry, if one is a stranger to all
+these natural elementary feelings, and incapable of doing justice to
+the worth of a snipe, or even of a turbot?"
+
+The other guests had already retired; the dinner was quite over; and
+only counsellor Helbach and his two nearest and most intimate friends
+were still sitting engaged in this and the like conversation.
+
+"I am quite surprised," one of them began, "at the buoyant youthful
+spirit which you still retain, at your jovial animation, your lively
+poetical playfulness. All the rest of us have grown so old, and the
+weight of years presses so heavily upon us, while you are still
+jesting, and pleasure has lost none of its freshness or charms with
+you."
+
+"We are all alone now," said the counsellor, "and I may therefore
+speak more from my heart to such old friends. It is true, this sensual
+enjoyment gives me pleasure, and will console me at times for the want
+of much: but I am not the frivolous person you take me for, perhaps
+never was so. Almost everybody has a mask; and this is mine. I move
+about in it lightly and with ease, and so most people take it for my
+real character. My youth was a very sad one: my parents displayed all
+their weaknesses, their extravagance and ostentation, so glaringly to
+me and to all the world, that I could not look upon them with esteem;
+and this to a young man is of all feelings the most terrible. Poverty
+and distress, privations of every kind may be borne much more easily:
+but a calamity like mine crushes the heart before it is yet grown up.
+I had to play the part of a rich man, to squander money, to give
+myself airs. When one puts on the semblance of anything for a time, it
+will soon become a portion of our nature. Imitate a stutterer for a
+while, and you will have to keep diligent watch over yourself not to
+stammer in earnest. I fell in love, and was on the point of changing
+into a totally different person; for my passion was sincere and
+ardent. But new distress. The noble being who soon became my wife,
+could never give me her heart. The strongest passion must die away
+when it finds no return; and in such a case a man has done enough, if
+this finest feeling of his nature do not turn into hatred and malice.
+For myself I was thrown back by this into my apparent frivolity: and
+not to make a show of my unhappiness, like my wife, who, though
+otherwise admirable, gave way too much to this weakness, I abandoned
+myself to riotous conviviality, turbulent pleasures, and unprofitable
+society. There is often a spirit of defiance in us, having something
+of nobleness in it, and not utterly condemnable, which withholds
+strong characters from reforming and improving, notwithstanding all
+the admonitions of conscience. The more unhappy I felt myself, the
+more I acted happiness. After my son was born, my wife began to shun
+me altogether, and would often wilfully misunderstand me. She devoted
+all her affection and care to her child, lived only for him, and
+brought him up to be so capricious and headstrong, that she herself
+was the greatest sufferer by his faults, and yet had not strength of
+mind enough to eradicate the fatal perverseness, which she herself had
+first fostered in him. My advice was not listened to: it had been
+taken for granted that I could no more love the child, than appreciate
+and esteem the mother. My heart bled; and yet I could not interfere
+authoritatively, unless I would consent to be regarded by her and by
+the whole world as a monster, being already called a tyrant,
+unfeeling, and frivolous, and having been so long wont to give up the
+point that I often lookt on myself as such. Thus my son was bred up as
+a stranger to me, with all his feelings purposely and studiously
+alienated from me: but his over-weak, too passionately fond mother was
+no gainer thereby; for she likewise lost his depraved heart, over
+which, when the boy was grown up, she had not the slightest influence.
+How reckless and unmanageable he has been, you well know; how wretched
+his mother has become, is notorious; but my life too, my friends, is a
+lost one."
+
+A servant came hastily in, and told the counsellor he must go home
+immediately: for something of great importance had happened.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The wife of counsellor Helbach was sitting in her bedroom, which only
+let in a faint dim light from the court. Her tear-worn eyes were
+stedfastly fixt on an open gospel; she read devoutly, and prayed.
+Suddenly she heard a noise; her servant was pusht forcibly back by
+some one whom he was trying to keep away; the door was thrust open,
+and a young man threw himself impetuously at her feet, seized her hand
+in her fright and covered it with kisses, while a hot flood of tears
+gusht from his eyes. It was not till after a while that the mother
+recognized the son whom she had deemed lost. Her strong emotions
+overcame her: she askt: "Whence comest thou?... stand up ... my
+unhappy child come to my arms...." More she could not say.
+
+"You do not cast me off, you do not abhor me?" cried the youth in a
+trance of grief: "Oh God! have I deserved that a single spark of love
+for me should yet linger in this noble heart! Am I worthy of a single
+look from her!"
+
+They continued long closely embraced, and quite unable to speak. "But
+mother," the young man said at length, "can you hold the monster in
+your arms, to your heart, who, when he last saw you--"
+
+"No, my son, my beloved son, do not call back that horrible moment,
+which we must forget;" so the mother stammered out. "I too know now
+that I did you injustice then; the girl you loved is worthy of your
+love, as has been proved since. I myself had not taught you
+sufficiently to controul your passions. Let that hour vanish for ever
+like a painful dream from our lives. But whence comest thou? where
+hast thou been living all this time?"
+
+They sat down; they both tried to regain their self-possession and
+calmness in this sudden change from sorrow to joy. The young man
+related--while from time to time he again embraced his beloved mother,
+or kist her hands--how after that fearful moment he had roamed about
+in despair without any plan or view; how, when he was destitute of all
+means of subsistence, finding himself near the mountains, he had made
+up his mind to apply to Herr Balthasar, in the chance of obtaining
+support from him. Hearing however of his singular peculiarities, and
+how difficult it was to gain admittance to him, he had altered his
+plan, formed an acquaintance with his overseer, Edward, under the
+assumed name of William Lorenz, and been taken into the house as
+secretary. To see his beloved, who was travelling in the
+neighbourhood, he had left his post, returned, and again gone away on
+being alarmed by hearing that his mother was coming to visit her
+kinsman.
+
+"This very day," he concluded, "I met a traveller, a Hungarian, who
+was come in haste from the mountains, and who told me a very important
+piece of news. I was on my way hither to throw myself at your feet,
+whether you would forgive me or no, when I met him in the next town.
+Do not be too much shockt ... Herr Balthasar is no more ... he died
+suddenly in a fit, without having made a will, as the stranger said he
+knew for certain. The house, the little town, the whole neighbourhood
+are in the utmost confusion. O my mother, we may all be happy, we may
+all live affectionately together, if you will believe in my repentance
+and reformation, if we can persuade my father to assent to the plan I
+have to propose to him. I know you will now no longer refuse your
+consent to my marriage with Caroline: the objection that we were both
+of us so poor, is now done away: we are become too rich, far too much
+so, to trust ourselves with all this wealth."
+
+When their spirits were grown calm, and every thing had been
+explained, a servant was sent after the counsellor, who came home in a
+more serious and susceptible mood than was his wont. How great was his
+astonishment at having to embrace his lost son, reformed and become a
+reasonable being! He was quite unprepared for so joyful a shock. His
+wife too received him with more confidence and affection: the death of
+the beloved of her youth had affected her deeply.
+
+Thus for the first time this family was united and happy, and amid
+their sorrow felt a pure joy in the prospect of a comfortable and
+prosperous future. The old man, who resolved to amend after the
+example of his son, and to pass the remainder of his life more
+decorously, agreed, even without any persuasion, to make over the
+uncontrouled management of the property legally to his son, who was
+now of age. It was settled that the mother and son should go first to
+their new estate, to arrange every thing, and that Caroline should
+follow soon after, and become his bride: the counsellor himself
+preferred living still in his native town, and merely visiting his
+family occasionally in the summer.
+
+"Thus," he concluded, "we may still restore a household that was
+almost lost, and raise it above what it ever was by mutual affection
+and unity. My annuity is more than enough to support me; and should it
+fall short, as I think can hardly happen, my son will assist me with a
+small contribution."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Up in the mountains everything was now quiet. Balthasar, as well as
+his treacherous old friend, was in his grave. William, as he had
+formerly been called, arrived there with his mother to take possession
+of the estate. The mayor and Edward gave everything up to him; and
+when the surrender was completed, and Edward was left alone with the
+mother and son, William thus interrupted their silent meditations:
+"Now we are all among friends, my dear Edward, and I may talk with
+perfect frankness to you, and shew my gratitude, if you choose so to
+call it, for your former kindness. One night, when I was here, and had
+been copying papers till very late, I was lockt into the anteroom; the
+door had been fastened on the outside, and I did not like to make a
+noise and call up the servants, more especially as Herr Balthasar used
+to be much annoyed and worried by any disturbance. During the night,
+while I kept perfectly still, I heard the unhappy old man walking to
+and fro in his room, sometimes sighing heavily, sometimes moaning and
+wailing as he talkt to himself. They were not merely broken sounds and
+exclamations; but it seemed to be his custom to talk over sundry
+events of his life, as if he was speaking to some invisible person.
+Thus I heard the story of his youth, of his intolerable woes, but at
+the same time of his love for Edward, and what part of his fortune he
+meant to leave him. The chief thing however, and what toucht me most,
+was to learn that Rose was not his adopted, but his real daughter. His
+self-reproaches, his lamentations over her deceast mother, his bursts
+of pity for Rose, were heart-rending. Now then, my beloved mother and
+my dear Edward, what remains for us to do? Our conscience, if we
+consult it honestly, declares that Rose is his true rightful heir, and
+ought to have the largest part of his fortune."
+
+After this declaration his mother treated the lovely girl as a beloved
+daughter; and on the same day on which William celebrated his wedding,
+Edward had also the happiness of receiving Rose as his bride. The
+fortune was divided; Edward continued to manage all the most important
+affairs; and a happy joyful family inhabited and enlivened the old
+house, which lost its gloomy character, and often resounded with
+music, songs, and dancing, to the delight of all the inhabitants of
+the little town.
+
+
+
+
+                            THE LOVECHARM.
+
+
+Emilius was sitting in deep thought at his table, awaiting his friend
+Roderick. A light was burning before him; the winter-evening was cold;
+and today he wisht for the presence of his fellow traveller, though at
+other times wont to avoid his society; for on this evening he purpost
+to disclose a secret to him and ask his advice. The timid, shy Emilius
+found so many difficulties, such insurmountable hinderances, in every
+affair he was engaged in, and in every event that befell him, that it
+almost seemed as if his destiny had been in an ironical mood when it
+threw him and Roderick together, Roderick being in all things the
+reverse of his friend. Fickle, flighty, always determined and fixt by
+the first impression, he attempted everything, had a plan for every
+emergency; no undertaking was too arduous for him, no obstacles could
+deter him. But in the midst of the pursuit he wearied and broke down
+just as suddenly as at first he had kindled and sprung forward:
+whatever then opposed him did not act as a spur to urge him more
+eagerly onward, but only made him abandon and despise what he had so
+hotly rusht into; and thus Roderick was evermore thoughtlessly
+beginning something new, and with no better reason relinquishing and
+carelessly forgetting what he had begun just before. Hence no day ever
+passed but the friends got into a quarrel, which threatened to be a
+death blow to their friendship: and yet what to all appearance thus
+divided them, was perhaps the very thing that bound them most closely
+together: each loved the other heartily; but each found passing
+satisfaction in being able to discharge the most justly deserved
+reproaches upon his friend.
+
+Emilius, a rich young man of a sensitive and melancholy temperament,
+had become master of his fortune on his father's death, and had set
+out on his travels for the sake of cultivating his mind: he had
+already been spending several months however in a large town, to enjoy
+the pleasures of the carnival, about which he never gave himself the
+slightest trouble, and to make certain important arrangements
+concerning his fortune with some relations, whom he had scarcely yet
+visited. On his journey he had fallen in with the restless,
+ever-shifting and veering Roderick, who was living at variance with
+his guardians, and who, to get rid altogether of them and their
+troublesome admonitions, had caught eagerly at his new friend's offer
+to take him with him on his travels.
+
+On their road they had already been often on the point of separating;
+but after every dispute both had only felt the more forcibly that
+neither could live without the other. Scarcely had they got out of
+their carriage in any town, when Roderick had already seen everything
+remarkable in it, to forget it all again on the morrow: while Emilius
+took a week to study thoroughly whatever was said in books about it,
+that he might not leave anything unnoticed; and after all out of
+indolence thought there was hardly anything worth going to look at.
+Roderick had immediately made a thousand acquaintances, and been to
+every public place of entertainment; and he would often bring his
+new-made friends to Emilius in his solitary chamber, where, as soon as
+he began to be tired of them, he left him alone with them. At other
+times he would confound the modest Emilius by heaping extravagant
+praises on his talents and acquirements in the presence of learned and
+intelligent men, and by telling them how much information they might
+derive from his friend with regard to languages, antiquities, or the
+fine arts, though he himself could never find leisure to listen to him
+on these subjects when the conversation happened to turn on them. But
+if Emilius ever chanced to be in a more active mood, he might almost
+make sure that his truant friend would have caught cold the night
+before at some ball or sledge-party, and be forced to keep his bed; so
+that, with the liveliest, most restless, and most communicative of men
+for his companion, Emilius lived in the greatest solitude.
+
+On this day he confidently expected him, having made Roderick give him
+a solemn promise to spend the evening with him, in order to hear what
+it was that for several weeks had been depressing and agitating his
+pensive friend. Meanwhile Emilius wrote down the following lines:
+
+'Tis sweet when spring its choir assembles,
+   And every nightingale is steeping
+   The trees in his melodious weeping,
+Till leaf and bloom with rapture trembles.
+
+Fair is the net that moonlight weaves;
+   Fair are the breezes gambolings
+   As with lime-odours on their wings
+They chase each other through the leaves.
+
+Bright is the glory of the rose,
+   When Love's rich magic decks the earth,
+   From countless roses Love peeps forth,
+Those stars wherewith Love's heaven glows.
+
+But sweeter, fairer, brighter far
+   To me that little lamp's pale gleaming,
+   When, through the narrow casement streaming
+It bids me hail my evening star;
+
+As from their braids she flings her tresses,
+   Then twines them in a flowery band,
+   While at each motion of her hand
+The light robe to her fair form presses;
+
+Or when she wakes her lute's deep slumbers,
+   And, as at morning's touch updarting,
+   The notes beneath her fingers starting,
+Trip o'er the strings in playful numbers.
+
+To stop their flight her voice she pours
+   Full after them; they laugh, and fly,
+   And to my heart for refuge hie:
+Her voice pursues them through its doors.
+
+Leave me, ye mischiefs! hence remove!
+   They bar themselves within, and say:
+   Till this be broken here we stay,
+That thou mayst know what 'tis to love.
+
+Emilius stood up fretfully. It grew darker, but no Roderick came; and
+he was wishing to tell him of his love for an unknown fair one, who
+dwelt in the opposite house, and who kept him at home all day long,
+and waking through many a night.
+
+At length footsteps sounded on the stairs; the door opened without
+anybody knocking at it: and in came two gay masks with ugly visages,
+one of them a Turk, drest in red and blue silk, the other a Spaniard,
+in pale yellow and pink, with a plume of feathers waving on his hat.
+When Emilius was losing patience, Roderick took off his mask, shewed
+his well-known laughing countenance, and cried: "Heyday, my good
+friend, what a drowned puppy of a face! Is this the way to look in the
+carnival? I am come with my dear young officer here to carry you off:
+there is a grand ball tonight at the masquerade-rooms; and, as I know
+you have forsworn ever putting on any other suit than that which you
+always wear of the devil's own colour, come with us black as you are;
+for it is getting somewhat late."
+
+Emilius felt angry, and said: "It seems that according to custom you
+have totally forgotten your engagement. I am extremely sorry," (he
+added, turning to the stranger) "that I cannot possibly be of your
+party: my friend has been overhasty in promising for me; indeed I
+cannot go out at all, having some matters of importance to talk over
+with him."
+
+The stranger, who was well-bred and saw Emiliuses meaning, withdrew:
+but Roderick with the utmost indifference put on his mask again, took
+his stand before the glass, and exclaimed: "Verily, I am a most
+hideous figure, am I not? After all my pains it is a tasteless,
+disgusting device."
+
+"That there can be no question about!" answered Emilius in vehement
+displeasure. "Making a caricature of yourself, and stupefying your
+senses, are among the pleasures you are the fondest of driving at."
+
+"Because you don't like dancing," said the other, "and look upon it as
+a pernicious invention, not a soul in the world is to be merry. How
+tiresome it is when a man is made up of nothing but whims!"
+
+"Doubtless!" replied his irritated friend; "and you afford me ample
+opportunity for finding that it is so. I fancied that after our
+agreement you would have given me this one evening; but--"
+
+"But it is the carnival, you know," interposed the other; "and all my
+acquaintances, and divers fair ladies are expecting me at the grand
+ball tonight. Rely upon it, my dear friend, it is mere disease in you
+that makes you so unreasonably averse to all such amusements."
+
+"Which of us has the fairest claim to be called diseased," said
+Emilius, "I will not examine. But I cannot think that your
+incomprehensible frivolousness, your hunger and thirst for
+dissipation, your restless chase after pleasures that leave the heart
+empty, are altogether the healthiest state of human nature. On certain
+points at all events you might make a little allowance for my
+weakness, if you are determined to call it so; and you know there is
+nothing in the world that so sets my whole soul on edge as a ball with
+its frightful music. Somebody has said, that to a deaf person who
+cannot hear the music a party of dancers must look like so many
+patients for a madhouse: but to my mind this detestable music itself,
+this twirling and whirling and pirouetting of half a dozen notes, each
+treading on its own heels, in those odious tunes, which ram themselves
+into our memory, nay, I might say, mix themselves up with our very
+blood, so that one cannot get rid of the taint for many a woful day
+after,--this to me is the very trance of madness: and if I could ever
+bring myself to think dancing endurable, it would be dancing to the
+tune of silence."
+
+"Bravo, signor paradox-monger!" exclaimed the mask: "You are so far
+gone, that you choose to think the most natural, the most innocent,
+and the merriest thing in the world unnatural, ay, and shocking."
+
+"I cannot change my feelings," said his grave friend. "From my very
+childhood these tunes have made me unhappy, and have often all but
+driven me out of my senses. They are to me the ghosts and spectres and
+furies in the world of sound, and they come and buz round my head, and
+grin at me with horrid laughter."
+
+"Sheer nervousness!" returned the other; "just like your extravagant
+abhorrence of spiders and divers other harmless insects."
+
+"Harmless you call them!" cried Emilius indignantly, "because you have
+no repugnance to such things. To him however that feels the same
+disgust and loathing, the same unutterable shuddering, as I feel,
+start up within him and shoot through his whole frame at the sight of
+them, these miscreate deformities, such as toads, beetles, or that
+most nauseous of all Nature's abortions, the bat, are not indifferent
+or insignificant: their very existence is a state of direct enmity and
+warfare against his. In good truth one might smile at the unbelievers
+whose imagination is too barren for ghosts and fearful goblins, and
+such births of night as we see in sickness, to grow up in it, or who
+stare and marvel at Dante's descriptions; when the commonest everyday
+life is perpetually paralysing our eyesight with some of these
+portentous distorted masterpieces among the works of horrour. Yet how
+can we have a real feeling and love for beauty, without detesting and
+recoiling from such monstrosities?"
+
+"Why recoil from them?" askt Roderick: "why should we see nothing in
+the vast realm of water, in lakes, rivers, and seas, but those dismal
+objects which you have taught yourself to find there? why not rather
+look on such creatures as queer, amusing, and ludicrous mummers? so
+that the deep might be called a kind of large maskt ballroom. But your
+caprices go still further; for while you love roses with a sort of
+idolatry, there are other flowers for which you have a no less
+passionate hatred: yet what harm has the dear bright tulip ever done
+you? or all the other gay children of summer that you persecute? Thus
+again you have an antipathy to sundry colours, to sundry scents, and
+to a number of thoughts; and you never take any pains to strengthen
+yourself against these moods, but give way to them and sink down into
+them as into a luxurious feather bed; so that I often fear I shall
+lose you altogether some day, and find nothing but a patchwork of
+whims and prejudices sitting at that table instead of my Emilius."
+
+Emilius was wroth to the bottom of his heart, and answered not a word.
+He had now given up all thought of making his intended confession; nor
+did the thoughtless Roderick shew the least wish to hear the secret
+which his melancholy companion had announced to him with such an air
+of solemnity. He was sitting carelessly in the armchair, playing with
+his mask, when on a sudden he cried: "Be so kind, Emilius, as to lend
+me your large cloak."
+
+"What for?" askt the other.
+
+"I hear music in the church over the way," answered Roderick; "and
+some how or other I have mist this hour every evening since we have
+been here. Today it comes just in the nick: I can cover my dress with
+your cloak, hiding my mask and turban under it; and so, when the music
+is over, I may go straight to the ball."
+
+Emilius muttered between his teeth as he went for the cloak to his
+wardrobe, and then, forcing himself to put on an ironical smile, he
+gave it to Roderick who was already on his legs.
+
+"There, I'll leave you my Turkish dagger that I bought yesterday,"
+said the mask, as he wrapt himself up: "Take care of it for me; it is
+a bad habit, this carrying about toys of cold steel: one can never
+tell what ill use may not be made of them, should a quarrel arise, or
+any other knot that it is easier to cut than untie. We shall meet
+again tomorrow; good bye; a pleasant evening to you." He did not wait
+for an answer, but ran down stairs.
+
+When Emilius was alone, he tried to forget his anger, and to look only
+at the laughable side of his friend's behaviour. His eyes rested on
+the shining, finely wrought dagger, and he said: "What must be the
+feelings of a man who could thrust this sharp iron into the breast of
+an enemy! but oh, what must be his who should hurt a beloved object
+with it!"
+
+He lockt it up, then gently folded back the window shutters, and lookt
+across the narrow street. But no light was stirring; the opposite
+house was quite dark; the dear form that dwelt in it, and that was
+wont to appear there about this time engaged in divers household
+affairs, seemed to be absent. 'Perhaps she may be at the ball,'
+thought Emilius, little as it sorted with her retired way of life. Ere
+long however a light came in: the little girl whom his beloved unknown
+had about her, and with whom she used to pass a great part of the day
+and of the evening, carried a candle through the room and closed the
+shutters. A chink still let the light through, wide enough for
+Emilius, where he stood, to overlook a part of the little room: and
+there the happy youth would often stay till after midnight as if
+charmed to the spot, watching every motion of her hand, every look of
+her beloved face. It was a joy to see her teaching the child to read,
+or giving her lessons in sewing and knitting. On inquiry he had learnt
+that the little girl was a poor orphan, whom his fair maiden had
+charitably taken into the house, to educate her.
+
+Emiliuses friends could not conceive why he lived in this narrow
+street, in this comfortless lodging, why he was so little to be seen
+in society, or how he employed himself. Without employment, in
+solitude, he was happy: only he felt out of humour with himself at his
+own bashfulness, which withheld him from trying to become nearer
+acquainted with this beauteous being, notwithstanding the friendliness
+with which she had several times greeted and thankt him. He knew not
+that she would often gaze over at him with eyes no less lovesick than
+his own: he guessed not what wishes were forming in her heart, of what
+an effort, what a sacrifice she felt herself capable, so she might but
+attain the possession of his love.
+
+After walking a few times up and down the room, the light having gone
+away again with the child, he suddenly made up his mind, in spite of
+all his feelings and inclinations, to go to the ball; for it struck
+him that his unknown might have made an exception for once to her
+usual secluded habits, for the sake of enjoying the world and its
+gaieties.
+
+The streets were brilliantly lighted up; the snow crackled under his
+feet; carriages rolled by him; and masks in every variety of dress
+whistled and twittered as they passed him. Many of the houses
+resounded with the dancing music which he so much abhorred; and he
+could not bring himself to take the nearest way to the ballroom, to
+which people from all quarters were streaming and flocking.
+
+He walkt round the old church, gazed at its high tower rising
+majestically into the dark sky, and enjoyed the stillness and solitude
+of this deserted place. Within the recess of a large doorway, the
+varied sculptures of which he had often contemplated with pleasure,
+while calling up visions of the olden times and the arts that adorned
+them, he now again took his stand, to give himself up for a few
+moments to his musings.
+
+He had not been there long, when his attention was attracted by a
+figure that was pacing restlessly to and fro, and seemed to be waiting
+for somebody. By the light of a lamp burning before an image of the
+Virgin, he distinctly made out the face, as well as the strange dress.
+It was an old woman of the uttermost hideousness, which struck the eye
+the more from her being grotesquely clad in a scarlet bodice
+embroidered with gold. Emilius fancied at first it must be some
+extravagant mask that had lost its way: but the bright light soon
+convinced him that the old brown wrinkled face was one of Nature's
+ploughing, and no mimic exaggeration.
+
+In a few minutes two men made their appearance, wrapt up in cloaks,
+who seemed to approach the spot with cautious steps, often turning
+their heads aside to see whether anybody was following. The old woman
+went up to them.
+
+"Have you got the candles?" she askt hastily and with a gruff voice.
+
+"Here they are," said one of the men: "you know the price; let us
+settle the matter and have done with it."
+
+The old woman seemed to be giving him some money, which he counted
+over beneath his cloak. "I rely upon you," she again began, "that they
+are made exactly according to rule, at the right time and place, so
+that they cannot fail of their effect."
+
+"You need not be uneasy on that score," returned the man, and hurried
+away.
+
+His companion, who staid behind, was a youth: he took the old woman by
+the hand, and said: "Can it be true, Alexia, that certain rites and
+spells, as those old wild stories, in which I could never put faith,
+tell us, can fetter the free will of man, and make love and hatred grow
+up in the heart?"
+
+"Ay forsooth!" answered the scarlet woman; "but one and one must make
+two, and many a one must be added thereto, before such mighty things
+come to pass. It is not these candles alone, moulded beneath the
+midnight darkness of the new moon, and drencht with human blood, it is
+not the mere uttering magical words and incantations, that can give
+you the mastery over the soul of another: there is much more belonging
+to such works, as the initiated well know."
+
+"I may depend upon you then!" cried the stranger.
+
+"Tomorrow after midnight I am at your service," replied the old woman.
+"You shall not be the first person that ever was dissatisfied with my
+skill. Tonight, as you have heard, I have some one else in hand, one
+whose senses and soul our art shall twist about whichever way we
+choose, just as easily as I twist this hair out of my head."
+
+These last words she uttered with a half grin; and they separated,
+walking off in different directions.
+
+Emilius came forth from the dark niche shuddering, and lifted his
+looks to the image of the Virgin with the Child. "Before thine eyes,
+thou mild and blessed one," he said half aloud, "are these miscreants
+audaciously holding their market and trafficking in their infernal
+drugs. But as thou embracest thy child with thy love, so doth heavenly
+Love encircle us all with its protecting arms; we feel their touch;
+and our poor hearts beat joyously and tremulously toward a greater
+heart that will never forsake us."
+
+Clouds were rolling along over the pinnacles of the tower and the high
+roof of the church; the everlasting stars lookt down through the midst
+of them gleaming with mild serenity; and Emilius drew his thoughts
+resolutely away from these nightly abominations, and mused on the
+beauty of his unknown. He again entered the peopled streets, and bent
+his steps toward the brightly illuminated ballroom, from which voices,
+and the rattling of carriages, and now and then, when there was a
+pause, the clamorous music, came sounding to his ears.
+
+In the ballroom he was instantly lost amid the streaming throng:
+dancers ran round him; masks darted by him to and fro; kettledrums and
+trumpets stunned his ears; and it seemed to him as if human life had
+melted away into a dream. He walkt along one row after another, and
+his eye alone was wakeful, seeking after those beloved eyes and that
+fair head with its brown locks, for the sight of which he yearned this
+evening more intensely than ever, at the same time that he inwardly
+reproacht their adored possessor, for allowing herself to plunge and
+be lost in this stormy sea of confusion and folly. 'No!' he said to
+himself; 'no heart that loves can willingly expose itself to this
+dreary hubbub of noise, in which every longing and every tear is scoft
+and mockt at by the wild laughter of pealing trumpets. The whispering
+of trees, the murmuring of brooks, the soft notes of the harp, and the
+song that gushes forth in all its richness and sweetness from an
+overflowing bosom, are the sounds in which love dwells. But this is
+the very thundering and shouting of hell in the frenzy of its
+despair....'
+
+He saw nothing like her whom he was seeking for; and he could not
+possibly give enterance to the notion that her beloved face might
+perhaps be lurking behind some odious mask.
+
+He had already ranged up and down the room three times over, and had
+in vain run his eyes along all the ladies that were sitting and
+unmaskt, when the Spaniard joined him and said: "I am glad you are
+come after all; are you looking for your friend?"
+
+Emilius had quite forgotten him; he said however somewhat embarrast:
+"In truth I wonder I have not met him here, for his mask is not to be
+mistaken."
+
+"Can you guess what the harum-scarum fellow is about?" answered the
+young officer. "He never danced at all, and hardly staid ten minutes
+in the ballroom: for he soon fell in with his friend Anderson, who is
+just come up from the country: their conversation turned upon books;
+and as Anderson has never seen the new poem, Roderick would not rest
+till he had made them open one of the back rooms for him; and there he
+is now sitting beside a solitary taper, holding his companion fast,
+and declaiming the whole poem to him, not omitting even the invocation
+to the muse."
+
+"It's just like him," said Emilius; "he is always the child of the
+moment. I have done all in my power, and even run the risk of some
+amicable quarrels, to cure him of this habit of for ever living
+extempore, and playing out his whole life in impromptus, card after
+card, as it chances to turn up, without once looking over his hand.
+But these follies have struck such deep root in his heart, he would
+sooner part with his best friend than with them. That very same poem,
+which he is so fond of that he always carries it about in his pocket,
+he wanted to read to me a few days ago, and I had earnestly begged him
+to do so: but he had scarcely got beyond the first description of the
+moon, when, just as I had resigned myself to the enjoyment of its
+beauties, he suddenly jumpt up, ran out of the room, came back with
+the cook's apron round his waist, tore down the bell-rope in ringing
+to have the fire lighted, and insisted on broiling me some beefsteaks,
+for which I had not the least appetite, and which he fancies nobody in
+Europe dresses so well, though, if he is in luck, he does not spoil
+them above nine times in ten."
+
+The Spaniard laught, and askt: "Has he never been in love?"
+
+"After his fashion," replied Emilius very gravely; "as if he were
+making game of love and of himself, with a dozen women at a time, and,
+if you would believe his words, raving after every one of them: but
+ere a week passes over his head, they are all spunged out of it, and
+not even a blot is left behind."
+
+They parted in the crowd, and Emilius walkt toward the remote
+apartment, from which, long before he reacht it, he caught his
+friend's loud recitative.
+
+"Ah, so you are here too!" exclaimed Roderick, as he entered: "you
+have just hit the right moment; I am at the very passage where we were
+interrupted the other day: sit down, and you may hear the remainder."
+
+"I am not in a humour for it now," said Emilius: "besides the time and
+place do not seem to me exactly suited to such an employment."
+
+"And why not?" answered Roderick. "Time and place are made for us, not
+we for time and place. Is not good poetry just as good at one hour as
+at another? Is not it right to read it? and can that which is right
+ever become wrong? Or would you rather dance? There is a lack of men;
+and you need only jump about for a few hours, at the mere risk of
+tiring your legs, to lay strong siege to the hearts of as many
+grateful beauties as you choose."
+
+"Good night!" cried the other with his hand on the door; "I am going
+home."
+
+Roderick called out to him: "Only one word! I shall set off tomorrow
+at daybreak with my friend here, to spend a few days in the country,
+but will look in upon you to say goodbye before we start. Should you
+be asleep, as is most likely, you need not take the trouble of waking;
+for, before a week is out, I shall be back again.--The strangest being
+upon earth!" he continued, turning to his neighbour; "so moping and
+fretful, such a splitter of thoughts, that he turns all his pleasures
+sour; or rather there is no such thing as pleasure for him. Instead of
+walking about with his fellow creatures in broad daylight and enjoying
+himself, he gets down to the bottom of the well of his fancies, in the
+hope of now and then catching a glimpse of a star. Everything must be
+in the superlative for him: everything must be pure, and majestic, and
+etherial, and celestial: his heart must be always throbbing and
+heaving, even when he is standing before a puppet show. He never
+laughs or cries, but can only smile and weep; and forsooth there is
+mighty little difference between his weeping and his smiling. When
+anything, be it what it may, falls short of his anticipations and
+preconceptions, which are always flying up out of reach and sight, he
+puts on a tragical face, and complains that it is a base and soulless
+world. At this very moment, I make no doubt, he is requiring that
+under the masks of a Pantaloon or a Punch there should be a soul
+glowing with unearthly desires and ideal aspirations, and that
+Harlequin should outmoralize Hamlet on the nothingness of sublunary
+things: and if these expectations are disappointed, as they can never
+fail to be, the dew is sure to rise into his eyes, and he will turn
+his back on the whole motley scene in desponding contempt."
+
+"He must be atrabilious then?" askt his hearer.
+
+"Not that exactly," answered Roderick: "he has only been spoilt by the
+indulgence of his overfond parents and by his own. He has accustomed
+himself to let his heart ebb and flow as regularly as the sea; and if
+this motion is ever at a stop, he cries out _a miracle!_ and would
+offer a prize to the philosopher who should give a satisfactory
+explanation of so marvellous a phenomenon. He is the best fellow under
+the sun; but all my painstaking to break him of this perverseness has
+been utterly vain and thrown away; and if I would not earn scurvy
+thanks for my goodwill, I must even let him follow his own devices."
+
+"Might not a physician do him good?" remarkt Anderson.
+
+"It is one of his whims," replied Roderick, "to entertain a supreme
+contempt for the whole medical art. He will have it that every disease
+is something different and distinct in every particular patient, that
+there is no arranging it under any class, and that it is absurd to
+think of healing it by attending to ancient practice, and still more
+so by what is called theory: he would much rather apply to an old
+woman, and make use of sympathetic cures. In like manner he despises
+all foresight in other matters, and everything like regularity,
+moderation, and common sense: the last above all he holds in special
+abhorrence, as the antipode and arch-enemy to all enthusiasm. While
+yet a child he framed for himself an ideal of a noble character; and
+his constant aim is to make himself what he considers such, that is to
+say, a being who shews his superiority to all earthly things by his
+scorn for riches. Merely to avoid being suspected of stinginess, or of
+giving unwillingly, or of caring about money, he flings it right and
+left by handfuls; with all his large fortune he is for ever poor and
+distrest, and is the bubble of all such as are not gifted with
+precisely the same sort of magnanimity which for himself he is
+determined to attain to. To be his friend is the task of all tasks:
+for he is so touchy, you need only cough, or eat with your knife, or
+not sip your drink as delicately as a cow, or even pick your teeth, to
+offend him mortally."
+
+"Was he never in love?" askt his country friend.
+
+"Whom should he love? whom could he love?" answered Roderick. "He
+despises all the daughters of earth; and if he had a favorite, and
+were ever to suspect that she had not an angelical contempt for dress,
+or liked dancing at times as well as star-gazing, it would break his
+heart: still more tremendous would it be, if she were ever so unlucky
+as to sneeze."
+
+Meanwhile Emilius was again standing among the crowd: but on a sudden
+he was seized by that heart-burning, that shivering, which had already
+so often come over him in the midst of a multitude in a like state of
+excitement. It drove him out of the ballroom, out of the house, and
+along the desolate streets; nor did he recover and regain the quiet
+possession of his senses, till he reacht his lonely chamber. The night
+light was already burning; he sent his servant to bed: everything over
+the way was silent and dark, and he sat down to pour forth the
+feelings which the ball had aroused, in verse.
+
+    Within the heart 'tis still;
+Sleep each wild thought encages:
+    Now stirs a wicked will,
+Would see how madness rages,
+    And cries: Wild spirit awake!
+Loud cymbals catch the cry,
+    And back its echoes shake;
+And, shouting peals of laughter,
+The trumpet rushes after,
+    And cries: Wild spirit awake!
+Amid them flute-tones fly,
+Like arrows, keen and numberless;
+    And with bloodhound yell
+    Pipes the onset swell;
+And violins and violoncellos,
+    Creaking, clattering,
+    Shrieking, shattering;
+And horns whence thunder bellows;
+To leave the victim slumberless,
+And drag forth prisoned madness,
+And cruelly murder all quiet and innocent gladness.
+
+What will be the end of this commotion?
+Where the shore to this turmoiling ocean?
+What seeks the tossing throng,
+As it wheels and whirls along?
+On! on! the lustres
+    Like hellstars bicker:
+Let us twine in closer clusters,
+    On! on! ever closer and quicker!
+How the silly things throb, throb amain!
+    Hence all quiet!
+    Hither riot!
+    Peal more proudly,
+    Squeal more loudly,
+Ye cymbals, ye trumpets! bedull all pain,
+Till it laugh again.
+
+Thou beckonest to me, beauty's daughter;
+    Smiles ripple o'er thy lips,
+And o'er thine eye's blue water;
+    O let me breathe on thee,
+    Ere parted hence we flee,
+    Ere aught that light eclipse!
+I know that beauty's flowers soon wither:
+    Those lips, within whose rosy cells
+    Thy spirit warbles its sweet spells,
+Death's clammy kiss ere long will press together.
+I know, that face so fair and full
+Is but a masquerading skull:
+But hail to thee skull so fair and so fresh!
+    Why should I weep and whine and wail,
+    That what blooms now must soon grow pale,
+And that worms must batten on that sweet flesh?
+Let me laugh but today and tomorrow,
+And what care I for sorrow,
+    While thus on the waves of the dance by
+         each other we sail?
+
+Now thou art mine,
+And I am thine:
+And what though pain and trouble wait
+To seize thee at the gate,
+    And sob, and tear, and groan, and sigh,
+Stand ranged in state
+    On thee to fly,
+Blithely let us look and cheerily
+On death that grins so drearily!
+What would grief with us, or anguish?
+They are foes that we know how to vanquish.
+I press thine answering fingers,
+Thy look upon me lingers,
+    Or the fringe of thy garment will waft me
+         a kiss:
+Thou rollest on in light;
+I fall back into night;
+    Even despair is bliss.
+
+From this delight,
+    From this wild revel's surge
+    Perchance there may emerge
+Foul jealousy, and scorn, and envious spite.
+But this is our glory and pride;
+    When thee I despise,
+    I turn but my eyes,
+    And the fair one beside thee will welcome
+         my gaze,
+And she is my bride!
+    O happy, happy maze!
+Or shall it be her neighbour?
+Whose eyes, like a sabre,
+Flash and pierce,
+Their glance is so fierce.
+
+Thus jumping and prancing,
+All together go dancing
+    Adown life's giddy cave;
+Nor living, nor loving,
+But dizzily roving
+    Through dreams to a grave.
+There below 'tis yet worse:
+    Earth's flowers and its clay
+    Roof a gloomier day,
+Hide a still deeper curse.
+Ring then, ye cymbals, enliven this dream!
+Ye horns shout a fiercer, more vulture-like scream!
+    And frisk caper skip prance dance yourselves
+         out of breath!
+For your life is all art,
+Love has given you no heart:
+    So hurrah till you plunge into bottomless
+         death.
+
+He had ended, and was standing by the window. Then she came into the
+opposite chamber, lovely, as he had never yet seen her: her brown hair
+floated freely, and played in wanton ringlets about the whitest of
+necks; she was but lightly clad, and seemed as if she meant to finish
+some little household matters at this late hour of the night before
+she went to bed: for she placed two candles in two corners of the
+room, set the green cloth on the table to rights, and withdrew again.
+
+Emilius was still sunk in his sweet dreams, and gazing on the image
+which his beloved had left in his mind, when to his horrour the
+frightful, the scarlet old woman walkt through the chamber: the gold
+on her head and breast glared ghastlily as it threw back the light.
+
+She had vanisht again. Was he to believe his eyes? Was it not some
+delusive phantom of the night that his own feverish imagination had
+conjured up before him?
+
+But no! she returned, still more hideous than before, with a long grey
+and black mane flying wildly and haggardly about her breast and back.
+The beauteous maiden followed her, pale, stiff; her lovely bosom was
+all bared, but her whole form was like a marble statue.
+
+Betwixt them they led the sweet little child, crying and clinging
+imploringly to the fair maiden, who lookt not down upon it. The child
+lifted up and claspt its little beseeching hands, and stroakt the pale
+neck and cheeks of the marble beauty. But she held it fast by the
+hair, and in the other hand a silver basin.
+
+Then the old woman growled, and pulled out a long knife, and drew it
+across the white neck of the child. Here something crawled forth from
+behind that they seemed not to perceive, or it must have struck them
+with the same thrilling terrour as Emilius. A serpent curled its
+loathsome neck, scale after scale, lengthening and still lengthening,
+out of the darkness, and stoopt down over the child, whose lifeless
+limbs hung from the old woman's arms: its black tongue lickt up the
+spirting red blood, and a green sparkling eye shot over into the eye,
+and brain, and heart of Emilius, who instantly dropt on the ground.
+
+He was senseless when found by Roderick some hours after.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A party of friends were sitting on the brightest summer morning in a
+green arbour, assembled at an excellent breakfast. Laughter and jests
+passed round; and many a time did the glasses kiss with a merry health
+to the young couple, and a wish that they might be the happiest of the
+happy. The bride and bridegroom were not present; she being still
+engaged in dressing, while the young husband was sauntering by himself
+down an avenue some way off, musing upon his happiness.
+
+"What a pity it is," said Anderson, "that we are to have no music! All
+our ladies are beclouded at the thought, and never in their whole
+lives longed for a dance so much as today, when it is quite out of the
+question: it is far too painful to his feelings."
+
+"I can tell you a secret though," exclaimed a young officer, "that we
+are to have a dance after all; and a rare riotous and madcap one it
+will be. Everything is already arranged; the musicians are come
+secretly and quartered out of sight. Roderick has managed the whole
+business; for he says one ought not to let him always have his own
+way, or to humour his strange caprices overmuch, especially on such a
+day as this."
+
+"Besides," observed another young man, "he is already become much more
+tractable and sociable than he used to be; so that I think he himself
+will not be sorry at the alteration. Indeed the whole wedding has been
+brought about all on the sudden, and has taken everybody by surprise."
+
+"His whole history," resumed Anderson, "is just as extraordinary as
+his character. You must all remember how, being on his travels last
+autumn, he arrived in our city, and spent the winter there, living
+like a melancholy man almost entirely in his own room, and never
+visiting our theatre or taking part in any other amusement. He all but
+quarrelled with Roderick, his most intimate friend, for trying to
+divert him, and refusing to pamper all his moping fantasies. In fact
+this overstrained irritability and moroseness must have been a disease
+that was gathering in his body: for you know he was attackt four
+months ago by such a violent nervous fever, that his life was for a
+long time despaired of. After his frenzy had raved itself out, and he
+returned to his senses, he had almost entirely lost his memory:
+nothing but his childhood and early youth kept its hold on his mind;
+and he was totally unable to recollect anything that had happened
+during his journey, or immediately before his illness. He had to begin
+his acquaintance afresh with all his friends, even with Roderick; and
+it is only by little and little that his thoughts have grown lighter,
+and that the past with all that had befallen him has come back, though
+still in dim colours, into his memory. He had been removed into his
+uncle's house, that better care might be taken of him; and he was just
+like a child, letting them do whatever they chose with him. The first
+time he went out to enjoy the warmth of the spring in the park, he saw
+a girl sitting pensively by the roadside. She lookt up; her eye met
+his; and seized with an inexplicable yearning he stopt the carriage,
+got out, sat down by her, took hold of her hands, and burst into a
+flood of tears. His friends were again alarmed for his intellects: but
+he grew calm, cheerful, and conversable, got introduced to the girl's
+parents, and at his very first visit askt for her hand, which, with
+her parents consent, she granted him. Since that time he has been
+happy, and a new life has sprung up within him: day after day he has
+become healthier and more contented. A week ago he paid me a visit at
+this country house, and was above measure delighted with it; indeed so
+much so that he would not rest till he had made me sell it to him. I
+might easily have turned his passionate desire to my own advantage,
+and his loss; for when he once sets his heart on a thing, he will have
+it, and that too forthwith. He immediately let it be got ready, sent
+furniture that he may spend the summer months here; and thus it has
+come to pass that we are all met for his wedding in my old garden."
+
+The house was large, and in a very lovely country. One side of it
+lookt on a river and some woody hills beyond; shrubs and trees of
+various kinds were scattered about the lawn; and immediately before
+the windows lay a flower garden sweetening the air. The orange and
+lemon trees were ranged in a large open hall, from which small doors
+led to the store rooms, cellars, and pantries. On the other side a
+meadow spread out its green floor, opening immediately into the park.
+The two long wings of the house formed a spacious court; and broad
+open galleries, borne by three rows of pillars standing one above the
+other, ran round it, connecting all the rooms in the house, and giving
+it a singular and interesting character: for figures were perpetually
+moving along these arcades, some engaged in one employment, some in
+another; new forms kept stepping forth between the pillars and out of
+the various rooms, which anon vanisht and then reappeared above or
+below, to be lost behind one of the doors: parties too would often
+assemble there for tea or for some game; and thus from below the whole
+had the look of a theatre, before which everybody was glad to stop
+awhile, with a foreboding that something strange or pleasing was sure
+to meet his eyes ere long.
+
+The party of young people were just rising, when the bride came in her
+full dress through the garden walking toward them. She was clad in
+violet-coloured velvet: a sparkling necklace lay cradled on her
+glittering neck; the costly lace just allowed her white swelling bosom
+to glimmer through; and her wreath of myrtle and white roses gave her
+brown hair a still more beautiful tint.
+
+She greeted them all graciously, and the young men were astonisht at
+her surpassing beauty. She had been gathering flowers in the garden,
+and was going back into the house to see after the arrangements for
+dinner.
+
+The tables had been set out in the lower open gallery, and shone
+dazzlingly with their white coverings and their load of sparkling
+crystal: rich clusters of many-coloured flowers rose from the graceful
+necks of alabaster vases; green garlands, starred with white blossoms,
+twined round the columns: and it was a lovely sight to behold the
+bride gliding along with gentle motion between the tables and the
+pillars, amid the light of the flowers, overlooking the whole with a
+searching glance, and then vanishing; and reappearing a moment after
+above, to pass into her chamber.
+
+"She is the loveliest, most enchanting creature I ever saw!" cried
+Anderson: "our friend is indeed a happy man."
+
+"Her very paleness," added the officer, "hightens her beauty. Her
+hazel eyes only sparkle the more intensely above those white cheeks
+and beneath those dark locks; and the singular, almost burning redness
+of her lips gives her face a truly magical appearance."
+
+"The air of silent melancholy that surrounds her," said Anderson,
+"sheds a noble majesty over her."
+
+The bridegroom joined them, and askt after Roderick: he had been
+missing for some time, and they could not conceive what he was about.
+All set off in search of him.
+
+"He is down in the hall," said at length a young man whom they
+happened to ask, "in the midst of the coachmen, footmen, and grooms,
+shewing off tricks at cards, which make them stare till their wits
+ache."
+
+They walkt in, and interrupted the boisterous admiration of the
+servants, without however disturbing Roderick, who quietly went on
+conjuring. When he had finisht, he returned with the others into the
+garden, and said: "I do it only to strengthen the fellows in their
+faith: these puzzles give a hard blow to their groomships'
+free-thinking inclinations, and help to make 'em true believers."
+
+"I see," said the bridegroom, "my all-sufficing friend, among his
+other talents, does not think that of a mountebank beneath his
+cultivation."
+
+"We live in strange times," replied the other; "who knows whether
+mountebanks may not come to rule the roast in their turn? One ought to
+despise nothing nowadays: the veriest straw of a talent may be that
+which is to break the camel's back."
+
+When the two friends found themselves alone, Emilius again turned down
+the dark avenue and said: "Why am I in such a gloomy mood on this the
+happiest day of my life? But I assure you, Roderick, though you will
+not believe me, I am not made for moving about amid such a mob of
+human beings,--for this parade of heartless courtesy,--for keeping my
+attention on the _qui vive_ to every letter of the alphabet, so that
+neither A nor Z may complain of being treated with disrespect,--for
+making low bows to her tenth cousin, and shaking hands warmly with my
+twentieth,--for this formal reverence to her parents,--for handing a
+flower from my nosegay of compliments to every lady that crosses the
+room,--for waiting to receive the tide of new-comers as wave after
+wave rushes over me, and then turning to give orders that their
+servants and horses may each have a full trough and pail set before
+them."
+
+"That is a watch that goes of its own accord;" answered Roderick.
+"Only look at your house! it was just built for such an occasion: and
+your head-butler, with his right hand taking up at the same time that
+his left hand is setting down, and one leg running north while the
+other seems to be making for south, was begotten and born for the very
+purpose of putting confusion in order. He would set my brains to
+rights if he could get at 'em: were the whole city to come, he would
+find room for all; and he'll make your hospitality the proverb of
+fifty miles round. Leave all such matters to him, and to your lovely
+bride; and where will you find so sweet a lightener of this world's
+cares?"
+
+"This morning before sunrise," said Emilius, "I was walking through
+the wood; my thoughts were solemnly tuned; I felt to the bottom of my
+soul that my life is now taking a determinate cast, that it is become
+a serious thing, and that this passion has created me a home and a
+calling. In passing by that arbour yonder I heard sounds: it was my
+beloved in close conversation. 'Has not it turned out now as I told
+you?' said a strange voice; 'just as I knew it would turn out? You
+have got your wish; so cheer up and be merry.' I did not like to go in
+to them: as I came back I walkt nearer to the arbour; they had both
+left it. But I have been musing and musing ever since, what can these
+words mean?"
+
+Roderick answered: "Perhaps she may have been in love with you this
+long time without your knowing it: this should make you all the
+happier."
+
+A late nightingale now lifted up her song, and seemed to be wishing
+the lover health and bliss. Emilius sank still deeper in thought.
+
+"Come with me to clear up your spirits," said Roderick, "down to the
+village, where you will find another couple; for you must not fancy
+that yours is the only wedding on which today's sun is to shine. A
+young clown, finding his time lag heavily in the house with an ugly
+old maid, for want of something better to do did what makes the booby
+think himself bound in honour to turn her into his wife. They must
+both be drest out by this time; so don't let us miss the sight; for
+doubtless it will be overpoweringly interesting."
+
+The melancholy man let himself be dragged along by his merry talkative
+friend, and they soon got to the cottage. The procession was just
+sallying forth on its way to church. The young countryman was in his
+usual linen frock; all his finery consisted in a pair of leather
+breeches, which he had polisht till they shone like a field of
+dandelions: he had a very simple look, and was a good deal ashamed.
+
+The bride was tanned by the sun, and had only a few farewell leaves of
+youth still hanging about her: she was coarsely and poorly but cleanly
+drest: some red and blue silk ribbons, already somewhat faded,
+flaunted from her stomacher; but what chiefly disfigured her was, that
+her hair, after being stiffened with lard, flour, and pins, had been
+swept back from her forehead and piled up at the top of her head in a
+mound, on the summit of which lay the bridal chaplet. She smiled, and
+seemed glad at heart, but was bashful and downcast.
+
+Next came the aged parents: her father too was only a labourer on the
+farm; and the hovel, the furniture, the clothing, all bore witness
+that their poverty was extreme. A dirty squinting musician followed
+the train, grinning and screaming and scratching his fiddle, which was
+patcht up of wood and pasteboard, and instead of strings had three
+bits of packthread.
+
+The procession halted when his honour, their new master, came up to
+them. Some mischief-loving servants, lads and girls, tittered and
+laught, and jeered the bridal couple, especially the ladies' maids,
+who thought themselves far handsomer, and saw themselves infinitely
+better drest, and wondered how people could be so vulgar.
+
+A shudder came over Emilius: he lookt round for Roderick; but the
+latter as usual had already run away. An impertinent fop, with a head
+pilloried in a high starcht neckcloth, a footman to one of the
+visitors, eager to shew off his wit, shoved up to Emilius, giggling,
+and cried: "There your honour, what says your honour to this grand
+couple? They can neither of 'em guess where they are to find bread for
+tomorrow; and yet they mean to give a ball this afternoon, and that
+famous performer is already engaged."
+
+"No bread!" said Emilius; "can such things be?"
+
+"Their wretchedness," continued the chatterbox, "is notorious to the
+whole neighbourhood; but the fellow says he bears the creature the
+same goodwill, though she has nothing to boast of but her charms. Ay
+verily, as the song says, love can make black white! The brace of
+beggars have not even a bed, and must pass their wedding-night on the
+straw: they have just been round to every cottage, begging a pint of
+small beer, with which they mean to get royally drunk: a brave treat
+for a wedding, your honour!"
+
+Everybody around burst out a-laughing, and the unhappy despised pair
+hung down their heads. Emilius pusht the coxcomb indignantly away, and
+cried: "Here, take this!" tossing a hundred ducats, which he had
+received that morning, into the hands of the amazed bridegroom.
+
+The betrothed couple and their parents wept aloud, threw themselves
+clumsily on their knees, and kist his hands and the skirts of his
+coat.
+
+He struggled to break loose from them. "Let that keep hunger out of
+doors as long as you can make it last!" he exclaimed, quite stunned by
+his feelings.
+
+"Oh!" they all screamed, "oh your honour! we shall be rich and happy
+till the day of our deaths, and longer too, if we live longer."
+
+He did not know how he got away, but he found himself alone, and
+hastened with tremulous steps into the wood. There he sought out the
+thickest loneliest spot, and threw himself down on a grassy knoll, no
+longer keeping in the bursting flood of his tears.
+
+"I am sick of life!" he cried: "I cannot be gay and happy; I will not.
+Make haste to receive me, dear kind mother earth, and shelter me with
+thy cool refreshing arms from the wild beasts that trample on thee and
+call themselves men. Oh God in heaven! how have I deserved that I
+should lie upon down, and be clothed in silk, that the grape should
+pour forth her precious heart's blood for me, and that all should
+throng around me with offerings of homage and love! This poor wretch
+is better and worthier than I; and misery is his nurse, and mockery
+and venomous scorn alone wish him joy on his wedding. Every delicacy
+that is placed before me, every draught out of my costly goblets, the
+soft luxury of my bed, my wearing gold and rich garments, will seem to
+me like so many sins, now that my eyes have seen how the world hunts
+down many thousand thousand miserable beings, who are hungering after
+the dry bread I throw away, and who never know what a good meal is. Oh
+now I can fully enter into your feelings, ye holy saints, whom the
+world scorns and scoffs at, ye who did scatter your all, even down to
+your very raiment, among the poor, and did gird your loins with
+sackcloth, and did resolve as beggars to undergo the gibes and the
+kicks wherewith brutal insolence and swilling voluptuousness drive the
+needy from their doors, that by so doing you might thoroughly purge
+yourselves from the foul sin of wealth."
+
+The world with all its inhabitants floated in a mist before his eyes:
+he resolved to look upon the destitute as his brethren, and to depart
+from the communion of the happy.
+
+They had been waiting a long time for him in the hall, that the
+ceremony might be performed; the bride had grown uneasy; her parents
+had gone in search of him through the garden and park: at length he
+returned, lighter for having wept away his agitation; and the solemn
+knot was tied.
+
+The company then walkt from the hall on the ground floor to the open
+gallery, to sit down to dinner. The bride and bridegroom led the way,
+and the rest followed in their train. Roderick offered his arm to a
+young girl who was lively and talkative.
+
+"Why does a bride always cry, and look so serious and sad during the
+ceremony?" said she, as they mounted the stairs.
+
+"Because it is the first time that she ever thoroughly feels what a
+momentous and mysterious thing life is:" answered Roderick.
+
+"But our bride," continued the girl, "in her gravity goes far beyond
+all I have ever yet seen. Indeed there is always something melancholy
+about her, and one can never catch her in a downright merry laugh."
+
+"This does the more honour to her heart," replied Roderick, himself
+more serious than usual. "You don't know perhaps that the bride a few
+years ago took a lovely little orphan girl into her house, to educate
+her. All her time was devoted to this child, and the gentle creature's
+love was her sweetest reward. When the girl was seven years old, she
+was lost on a walk about the town; and in spite of all the pains that
+have been used, nobody has ever found out what became of her. Our
+noble-minded hostess has taken this misfortune so much to heart, that
+she has been a prey ever since to silent grief, and nothing can win
+her mind away from longing after her little playfellow."
+
+"A most interesting adventure indeed!" said the young lady. "One might
+see a whole romance in three volumes growing out of this seed. It will
+be a strange sight, and it will not be for nothing, when this lost
+star reappears. What a pretty poem it would make! Don't you think so,
+sir?"
+
+The party took their seats: the bride and bridegroom were in the
+centre, looking out on the gay landscape. Everybody talkt and drank
+healths, and all was mirth and good humour: the bride's parents were
+perfectly happy: the bridegroom alone was reserved and thoughtful, ate
+but little, and took no part in the conversation.
+
+He started on hearing musical sounds roll down through the air from
+above, but grew calm again when he found they were only the soft notes
+of some bugles, travelling along with a pleasant murmur over the
+shrubs and through the park, and dying away on the distant hills.
+Roderick had placed the musicians in the gallery overhead, and Emilius
+was satisfied with this arrangement.
+
+Toward the end of the dinner he called the butler, and, turning to
+his bride, said: "My love, let poverty also have a share of our
+superfluities."
+
+He then ordered him to send a number of bottles of wine, and abundance
+of pastry as well as other dishes, to the poor couple, that with them
+too this might be a day of rejoicing, to which in aftertimes they
+might look back with pleasure.
+
+"See my friend," exclaimed Roderick, "how beautifully all things in
+this world hang together! My idle trick of busying myself in other
+folks' concerns, and chattering about whatever comes uppermost, though
+you will never give over finding fault with it, has at all events been
+the cause of this good deed."
+
+Several persons began making pretty speeches to their host on his kind
+and charitable heart; and Roderick's neighbour lispt about the
+sweetness of romantic compassion and sentimental magnanimity.
+
+"O say no more!" cried Emilius indignantly: "this is no good action;
+it is no action at all; it is nothing. When swallows and linnets feed
+on the crumbs that are thrown away from the waste of this meal, and
+carry them to their young in their nest, shall not I remember a poor
+brother, who needs my help? If I might follow my heart, ye would laugh
+and jeer at me, just as ye have laught and jeered at many others, who
+have gone forth into the wilderness that they might hear no more of
+this world and its generosity."
+
+Everybody was silent; and Roderick, perceiving from his friend's
+glowing eyes how vehemently he was displeased, was afraid that in his
+present irritation he might forget himself still further, and tried to
+give the conversation a rapid turn on other subjects.
+
+But Emilius was become restless and absent; his eyes wandered, more
+especially toward the upper gallery, where the servants who lived in
+the top story were engaged in a variety of occupations.
+
+"Who is that ugly old woman?" he at length askt, "that is so busy up
+there, and is coming back again every moment in her grey cloak?"
+
+"She is one of my servants," said his bride; "she is to overlook and
+manage my chambermaids and other girls."
+
+"How can you endure to have anything so hideous perpetually at your
+elbow?" replied Emilius.
+
+"Let her alone," answered the young lady: "God meant the ugly to live
+as well as the handsome; and she is such a good honest creature, she
+may be of great use to us."
+
+On rising from table everybody gathered round the bridegroom, again
+wisht him joy, and urgently begged him to let them have a ball. The
+bride too said, breathing a gentle kiss on his forehead: "You will not
+deny your wife's first request, my beloved; we have all been
+delighting in the hope of this. It is so long since I danced last; and
+you have never yet seen me dance. Have you no curiosity how I shall
+acquit myself in this new character? my mother tells me I look better
+than at any other time."
+
+"I never saw you in such gay spirits before," said Emilius. "I will
+not throw a damp over your mirth; do as you please: only don't let
+anybody ask me to make a laughing stock of myself by trying to cut
+clumsy capers."
+
+"Oh, if you are a bad dancer," she answered laughing, "you may feel
+quite safe; we shall all readily consent to your sitting still." The
+bride then retired to put on her ball dress.
+
+"She does not know," whispered Emilius to Roderick, as he withdrew,
+"that there is a secret door by which I can get from the next room
+into hers: I will surprise her while she is dressing."
+
+When Emilius had left them, and many of the ladies were also gone to
+make such changes in their attire as were requisite for the ball,
+Roderick took the young men aside and led the way to his own room.
+
+"It is wearing toward evening," he said, "and will soon be dark; so
+make haste all of you and mask yourselves, that we may render this
+night glorious in the annals of merriment and madness. Give your
+fancies free range in choosing your characters; the wilder and uglier
+the better. Try every combination of shaggy mane, and squinting eye,
+and mouth gaping like a volcano; pile mountains atop of your
+shoulders, or plump yourselves out into Falstaffs; and as a whet to
+your inventions I promise a kiss from the bride to the figure that
+would be the likeliest to make her miscarry. A wedding is such an
+out-of-the-way event in ones life; the bride and bridegroom are so
+suddenly plunged, by a sort of magic, head over heels into a new
+unaccustomed element, that it is impossible to throw too much madness
+and folly into this festival, in order to keep pace with the whirlpool
+that is bearing a brace of human beings from the state where they were
+two to the state where they become one, and that all things round
+about may be fitting accompaniments for the dizzy dream on the wings
+of which they are floating toward a new life. So let us rave away the
+night, making all sail before the breeze; and a fig for such as look
+twice on the dull sour faces that, would bid you behave rationally and
+soberly."
+
+"Don't be afraid," said the young officer; "we have brought a large
+chest full of masks and mad carnival dresses from town with us, such
+as would make even you stare."
+
+"But see here," returned Roderick, "what a gem I have got from my
+tailor, who was on the point of cutting up this peerless treasure into
+strips. He had bought it of an old crone who must doubtless have worn
+it on gala-days, when she went to Lucifer's drawing room on the
+Blocksberg. Look at this scarlet bodice with its gold tassels and
+fringe, at this cap besmeared with the last fee the hag got from
+Beelzebub or his imps! it will give me a right worshipful air. To
+match these choice morsels I have this green velvet petticoat, with
+its saffron lining, and this mask which would melt even Medusa to a
+grin. Thus accoutred I mean to lead the chorus of anti-graces, myself
+their mother-queen, to the bedroom. Make the best speed you can, and
+we will then go in solemn procession to fetch the bride."
+
+The bugles were still playing: the company were strolling about the
+garden, or sitting before the house. The sun had gone down behind
+thick murky clouds, and the country was lying in the grey dusk, when a
+parting gleam suddenly burst athwart the cloudy veil, and flooded
+every spot around, but above all the building, its galleries and
+pillars and wreaths of flowers, as it were with red blood.
+
+At this moment the parents of the bride and the other visitors saw a
+train of the most grotesque figures move toward the upper corridor.
+Roderick led the way as the scarlet old woman, and was followed by
+humpbacks, bulging paunches, cumbrous wigs, Scaramouches, Punches,
+shrivelled Pantaloons, curtsying women embankt by enormous hoops, and
+overcanopied with a yard of horsehair, powder, and pomatum, and by
+every disgusting shape that can be imagined, as if a nightmair had
+been unrolling her stores. They jumpt, and twirled, and tottered, and
+stumbled, and straddled, and strutted, and swaggered along the
+gallery, and then vanisht behind one of the doors. But few of the
+beholders had been able to laugh, so utterly were they astounded by
+the strange sight.
+
+Suddenly a piercing shriek burst from one of the rooms, and forth into
+the bloodred glow of the sunset rusht the pale bride, in a short white
+frock, about which wreaths of flowers were dangling, with her lovely
+bosom all naked, and her rich locks streaming through the air. As
+though mad, with rolling eyes and wrencht face, she darted along the
+gallery, and blinded by terrour could find neither door nor staircase;
+and immediately after dasht Emilius in chase of her, with the
+sparkling Turkish dagger in his high-uplifted hand.
+
+Now she was at the end of the passage ... she could go no further ...
+he reacht her. His maskt friends and the grey old woman were running
+after him. But in his fury he had already pierced her bosom, and cut
+across her white neck; her blood spouted forth into the radiance of
+the setting sun.
+
+The old woman had claspt her arms round him to tear him back; he
+struggled fiercely, hurled himself along with her over the railing,
+and they both fell almost lifeless at the feet of the relations who
+had been staring in dumb horrour at the bloody scene.
+
+Above, and in the court, or hurrying down the steps or along the
+galleries, were seen the hideous masks, standing or running about, in
+various clusters, like fiends of hell.
+
+Roderick took his dying friend in his arms. He had found him in his
+wife's room, playing with the dagger. She was almost drest when he
+entered. At the sight of the detested red bodice his memory had
+rekindled; the horrid vision of that night had risen up before his
+eyes; and gnashing his teeth he had darted after his trembling, flying
+bride, to avenge that murder and all those devilish doings.
+
+The old woman, ere she died, confest the crime that had been
+perpetrated; and the gladness and mirth of the whole house were
+suddenly changed into sorrow and lamentation and dismay.
+
+
+
+
+PIETRO OF ABANO.
+
+
+The setting sun was flinging its red rays upon the towers and over the
+houses of Padua, when a young stranger, newly arrived, had his
+attention excited by a throng of people who were hurrying and running
+along, and was carried by them out of his way. He askt a girl who was
+passing quickly by him, what had set the whole town in such an
+extraordinary commotion.
+
+"Don't you know then?" answered she: "the beautiful Crescentia, the
+young thing, is just going to be buried; everybody wishes to have one
+more sight of her; for she has always been counted the sweetest maiden
+in the whole city. Her parents are heartbroken." The last words she
+called back to him, from some distance beyond him.
+
+The stranger turned round the dark palace into the great street, and
+his ears were now met by the funeral hymn, and his eyes by the
+flickering light of the pale-red torches. On drawing nearer, pusht
+forward by the crowding of the people, he saw a scaffold covered with
+black cloth. Around it were raised seats, likewise black, on which the
+sorrowing parents and relations were sitting, all in stern gloom, some
+faces with the look of despair. Figures now began to move forth from
+the door of the house; priests and black forms bore an open coffin,
+out of which wreaths of flowers and green garlands were hanging down.
+
+In the midst of the blooming gay plants lay the maidenly form raised
+upon cushions, pale, in a white robe, her lovely slender hands folded
+and holding a crucifix, her eyes closed, dark black tresses hanging
+full and heavy round her head, on which a wreath of roses and cypress
+and myrtle was gleaming.
+
+The coffin with its beautiful corpse was placed upon the scaffold; the
+priests cast themselves down to pray; the parents gave yet louder vent
+to their grief; yet more wailing grew the sound of the hymns; and
+everybody around, even the strangers, sobbed and wept. The traveller
+thought he had never yet seen so lovely a creature, as this corpse
+that thus mournfully reminded him how fleeting life is, how vain and
+perishable its charms.
+
+Now sounded the solemn tolling of the bells, and the bearers were on
+the point of taking up the coffin, to carry the corpse into the
+burial-vault of the great church, when loud riotous shouts of
+exultation and pealing laughter and the cries of an unrestrained joy
+disturbed and alarmed the parents and kinsfolk, the priests and
+mourners. All lookt indignantly round, when out of the next street a
+merry troop of young men came boisterously toward them, singing and
+huzzaing, and evermore again and again crying a long life! to their
+venerable teacher. They were the students of the university, carrying
+an aged man of the noblest aspect on a chair raised atop of their
+shoulders, where he sat as on a throne, covered with a purple cloak,
+his head adorned with a doctor's hat, from beneath which white silver
+locks hung forth, while a long white beard flowed down majestically
+over his black velvet doublet. Beside him came a fool with bells and
+in a motley dress, jumping about, and striving by blows and by jests
+to make way for the train through the people and the line of mourners:
+but on a sign from the venerable old man the students lowered his
+chair; he descended, and approacht the weeping parents, much moved and
+with a solemn demeanour.
+
+"Forgive me," said he mournfully and with a tear in his eye, "that
+this wild tumult thus breaks in upon your burial rites, which grieve
+and shock me to the heart. I am just come back at length from my
+journey; my scholars wisht to celebrate my enterance by their joy; I
+yielded to their entreaties and preparations; and I now find ... how?
+your Crescentia, that fairest emblem of all loveliness and virtue,
+here before you in her coffin. And all around there is this dark pomp
+and these forms of sorrow, accompanying her with tears and the heart's
+woe to her place of rest."
+
+He beckoned to his companions, and spake a few words. All had long
+since become quiet and silent, and most of them now withdrew, that
+they might not interrupt the funeral.
+
+Then the mother came nearer tottering, and sank down before the form
+of the old man, while she embraced his knee in convulsive grief. "Ah!
+why were you not here?" she cried despairingly; "your art, your
+knowledge would have saved her. O Pietro! Pietro! you, the friend of
+our house! how could you thus let your darling, the apple of your eye,
+perish? But come! Awaken her even now! Pour into her even now one of
+those wonderworking elixirs which you know how to compound; and in
+return take all that we possess, so she be but again here, walking
+about among us and talking to us."
+
+"Let not despair guide your tongue," answered Pietro: "the Lord had
+lent her to you; he has demanded her back from you; let not man
+presume to arrest the arm of his wise counsels. Who are we, that we
+should murmur against him? Shall the child of the dust, that is
+scattered to nought by the wind, puff forth its weak breath in anger
+against the eternal decrees? No, my dear friends, as Crescentia's
+parents, as having loved her and been loved by her, cherish the
+feeling of your grief; let none of it escape you. Grief should be as
+familiar an inmate in our hearts as Pleasure and Gladness; for he too
+is sent us by our Father, who beholds all our tears, and well
+understands and tries our hearts, and knows what frail mortals can
+bear. Bear then this great overwhelming woe for his sake, out of love
+to him; for it is all love, whatsoever burthen he may cast upon you.
+Is not grief, is not the heart in its wringing agony, the soul that
+would melt away in sorrow, a holy and godly offering, which amid your
+burning tears you lay, as the most precious of your possessions,
+before the everlasting Love of the Most High? As such too is it
+considered by Him above, who numbers all your sighs and tears. But our
+wicked enemy, who is always lurking at our side, grudges us the
+holiness of this heavenly sorrow: it is he who would foment and stir
+it up in you into despair, into rage against the Father of love and of
+grief, that you may not in your anguish become yet more thoroughly the
+children of Love, but may plunge and sink into the abyss of Hatred.
+He, this Spirit of Lies, is now beguiling you and maliciously
+whispering his tales in your ears, as though you had for ever lost
+her, who yet was one with you only in spirit and soul and love, and
+belonged to you only so far as she was invisible. He would have you
+forget that this beauteous covering was only her garment, akin to the
+dust, and now going back to the dust. Cast him back from you, this
+lying Spirit; shame and confound him with the eternal almighty truth
+which you hold up before him, that she is still yours, still near you,
+still at your side, yea far more, far entirelier yours, than when
+these party walls of mortal flesh kept you asunder, and in the midst
+of all your love estranged you from each other. From this day forward
+she is all your memory and hope and sorrow and joy; she shines upon
+you in every gladdening light; she cheers you in the flowers of
+spring; she kisses you in the gentle airs that breathe on your cheeks:
+and every delight that henceforth blossoms in your hearts, is her
+heart and her love to you; and this delight and this everlasting
+deathless love are one with God. Carry her then to her resting-place,
+and follow her in silent humble resignation, that her soul in the
+abode of everlasting peace may not be disturbed and made uneasy by
+you."
+
+All seemed to have become calmer; the father speechlessly held forth
+his hand to him with an expression of cordial friendship and of a
+comforted heart. They drew up in order; the procession set itself in
+motion; the masks, the fraternities that made it their duty to attend
+corpses, ranged themselves in their white gowns, with hooded faces, of
+which nothing could be seen but the eyes.
+
+Silently the train moved on: they had now nearly reacht the church,
+when a rider on a foaming horse gallopt toward them.
+
+"What is the matter?" cried the youth.
+
+He threw a look into the coffin, and with a shriek of despair turned
+his horse, darted away, and in his wild speed lost his hat, so that
+his long hair waved about behind him in the evening breeze. He was the
+bridegroom, come to the wedding.
+
+Darkness gathered round the train of mourners, and their husht rites,
+as the beauteous corpse sank down into the vault of her family.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When the crowd had disperst, the young stranger, who had followed the
+procession in wonder mixt with sadness, went up to an old priest who
+remained alone praying by the grave. He longed to learn who that
+majestic old man was, that had seemed to him gifted with god-like
+powers and more than earthly wisdom.
+
+When the youth had laid his question modestly before the priest, the
+latter stood up and, by the light of a lamp that shone upon them from
+a window, lookt sharply into his eye.
+
+The old man had a little spare form; his pale narrow face hightened
+the fire of his eyes yet more; and his pincht lips quivered, as with
+hoarse voice he answered: "How! you don't know him? our far-famed
+Petrus of Apone, or Abano, of whom people talk in Paris, and London,
+and in the German Empire, and throughout all Italy? You know not the
+greatest of philosophers and physicians, of astronomers and
+astrologers, to learn from whom and to see whom the wild youth flock
+hither from the far parts of Poland?"
+
+The young Spaniard, Alfonso, had moved back a step in delighted
+surprise; for the renown of this great teacher had driven him too from
+Barcelona over the sea. "Then it was he, it was himself!" he cried
+enthusiastically: "this too was why my heart felt so deeply moved. My
+spirit recognized his. O generous, pious man, how I love you for
+honouring him no less than do all the noble-minded and good in the
+Christian world!"
+
+"You too mean perchance to study under him?" askt the priest with a
+bitter tone.
+
+"Certainly," answered the other, "if he will vouchsafe to receive me
+among his scholars."
+
+The old man stood still, laid his hand on the youth's shoulder, and
+then said mildly: "My dear young friend, there is yet time; listen
+even now to my fatherly warning, before it is too late. Do not deceive
+yourself, as so many, even without number, have done already; be on
+your guard, and watch over your soul. Are you then at your age thus
+beforehand aweary of your peace and future blessedness? would you
+requite your Saviour's love by becoming a runagate from him, and
+denying him, and taking up arms as a rebel against him?"
+
+"I understand you not, old man," replied Alfonso: "did not you
+yourself see and hear how piously, how christianly, with what a
+heart-stirring majesty, the glorious man spake, and led back the
+erring footsteps of sorrowing love by his heavenly comfort into the
+right path?"
+
+"What is there that he cannot, that he will not do, the trickster, the
+magician!" exclaimed the old priest warmly.
+
+"Magician!" returned Alfonso. "So you too would take part in the folly
+of the rabble that is unable to appreciate the knowledge of lofty
+spirits, and would rather credit any absurdity than strengthen their
+own souls by gazing upon the grandeur of a fellow-creature.
+
+"Only go on in this way," said the priest indignantly, "and you
+scarcely need go into his vaunted school. It is clear his magic has
+you already in its snares, just as he subdues every heart that but
+beats within his reach. Yes forsooth, the heathen, he has spoken and
+prophesied today like a priest, and has for once besmeared his lies
+with this varnish. In the same manner he is lord and master in the
+house of the Podesta. Poor Crescentia could hardly in her last hours
+find her way back to holy church: so bound and held fast was her soul
+by the false doctrines the wicked hypocrite had flung like poisonous
+nets around her young spirit. Now she has escaped him; the Lord has
+called her to himself, and has sent this disease to save her soul with
+the loss of her body."
+
+The speakers were come into the large square before the church. The
+youth was irritated, and, to give his feelings vent, exclaimed: "What
+boots all this fierce envy, my ghostly sir? Do you not see, can you
+not perceive, how the world only falls away from you more and more,
+the more you by your excommunications and anathemas and persecutions
+strive to quench and stifle the new spirit? that spirit of eternal
+truth which is now awakening all nations from their sleep, and which
+in spite of your arts will never sink upon the pillow again to swallow
+your legends in submissive faith."
+
+"Bravo!" said the old man in high wrath: "Have we not Averroes now
+instead of Christ, and Aristoteles instead of the Almighty, and this
+Pietro of yours, this Iscariot, instead of the Holy Ghost? And verily
+the spirit of the earth has built up a high and stately body for him,
+and has crowned it with a noble brow, and has set an eye of fire in it
+and the sweet mouth of persuasion, and has poured grace and majesty
+over his motions, that he may juggle and delude: while I, the unworthy
+servant of the Lord, walk about here sickly and weak and without all
+comeliness of feature, and have only my own confession, only my faith,
+to give assurance that I am a christian. I cannot descend like him
+into the depths of dazzling knowledge, nor measure the course of the
+stars, nor foretell good and evil fortune; I am reviled and scorned by
+the overwise; but I bear it humbly, for the love of him who has laid
+all this upon me. Wait however until the end, and see whether his
+seven spirits whom he holds under his magical spell, can save him
+then; whether his Familiar, that spawn of hell, will then assist him."
+
+"Was his Familiar with him?" askt Alfonso eagerly.
+
+"Did not you observe the monster," answered the monk, "that had trickt
+itself out like a clown? the abortion with that hump, those twisted
+hands and arms, those crooked legs, those squinting eyes, and that
+enormous nose jutting out from its unsightly face."
+
+"I took all that for a mask;" said the youth.
+
+"No, this creature," replied the old man, "need not put on a mask.
+Such as he is, he is mask enough, and spectre, and imp of hell, this
+Beresynth, as they call him.... Will you pass the night in our
+convent, young man, until you have found a lodging?"
+
+"No," rejoined he very positively; "I will be indebted for no
+hospitality to a man thus unjust and slanderous toward the noble being
+whose name I heard with rapture while yet in my own country, and who
+shall walk and shine before me here as my guide and model. It is bad
+enough that I have been forced to hear such language from you, from a
+man whose condition and age forbid my calling him to account for it.
+If he alone is to be esteemed godly, who despises science and
+knowledge, he alone a christian, who in a waking slumber dozes away
+the days of his life and the powers of his soul, I depart out of the
+dull communion. But it is not so; nor is it the man, the christian, or
+the priest, that has been speaking from your lips, but your guild and
+fraternity. Farewell, if with such feelings you can."
+
+They parted, both much out of temper.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The young Florentine who had met the funeral procession in the city,
+dasht like a madman through the gate, and then gallopt with reckless
+vehemence across field and wood. When he found himself in the open
+country, he hurled forth imprecations against the world and fate, tore
+his hair, curst his stars and his youth, and then rusht almost
+unconsciously onward. He spurred in the face of the wind that arose at
+nightfall, as though seeking to cool the fire in his cheeks.
+
+When it grew later, his horse, which had often stumbled already, and
+which he had pulled up furiously every time, dropt exhausted to the
+ground, and he was forced to pursue his way on foot. He knew not where
+he was, still less whither he should go; only there stood before him
+with inextinguishable features his own misery, and the vanity of the
+world, and the treacherous inconstancy of all happiness.
+
+"Accursed madness of life!" cried he in his despair through the
+darkness: "thus, thus cruelly dost thou awaken me out of my slumber! I
+cannot choose but hate thee mortally for thy jugglings, thy
+presumption, and for all those senseless hopes which smile upon our
+youth and go along with us so like friends upon our journey, and, when
+they have beguiled us into the wilderness, fly away from us and grin
+and make mows at us. Life! what is this web of folly, this silly dream
+of a feversick heart? One faint shivering-fit follows another; one
+crazy phantom drives another out; our wishes caper around in the bald
+waste, and do not even know themselves again. O death! O rest! O
+nothingness! come to me, let me embrace thee, and set this stormy
+heart free. O that I could but gasp out my last convulsive breath this
+very instant! that tomorrow's sun might no more find my place upon
+earth, that no thought might rise within me to greet its returning
+ray! Am I not the very wretchedest creature that breathes? and so much
+the poorer, for that a few hours since I deemed myself the happiest.
+Woe be to youth! woe to love! Woe to the feelings of the heart, that
+let themselves be so readily, so grossly deceived!"
+
+A shower now drizzled through the cold air, and soon the drops grew
+larger and thicker. The youth knew not whither he had strayed; the
+wood lay already far behind him; no shelter was near. He began to
+gather up his recollections; his grief became gentler; tears flowed
+from his eyes. He already hated life less; it seemed to him as though
+the night itself wisht to comfort him and to soothe his sorrow.
+Uncertain whether to seek for his fallen horse again, or to hide
+himself in some hollow from the rain, he lookt once more around, and
+at length far below him across a valley and at the back of some trees
+discovered a little dancing light, that like a friendly eye winkt to
+him through the thick darkness and called him to approach it. He
+hastened toward the dubious gleam, which now vanisht, and now again
+shone forth. All his powers, all his feelings were bound as in sleep;
+his whole being had as it were past away into a dream.
+
+A storm now got up, and heavy low-hanging thunderclouds were rolling
+slowly along. He was already approaching some trees, as it appeared to
+him; but the darkness made it impossible to distinguish anything
+whatever. A flash of lightning here dazzled him and a loud clap of
+thunder stunned him, so that he fell into a ditch.
+
+On lifting himself up again, the light which had allured him was close
+at hand. He knockt at the little window that peept through some trees,
+and begged for admittance and shelter from the rain and storm. A loud
+hoarse voice answered from within; but the youth did not catch a word;
+for the wind and thunder and rain, and the rustling of the trees, all
+now raged so violently at once, that every sound beside them fell
+dead.
+
+The door of the little house opened into the garden: he had to hasten
+through it; a female hand then took hold of him, led him along a dark
+passage, and into a little room, from which the light of a lamp and
+the fire on the hearth shone in his eyes. In the corner by the lamp
+sat a hideous old woman spinning; the girl who had conducted him in
+set to work over the fire; and for a long time he was unable to
+examine the figures closelier by the doubtful quivering light; for a
+long time no conversation could be carried on, the roaring of the
+thunder overpowering every other sound.
+
+"This is a cruel storm!" said the old woman during a pause with a
+croaking voice. "Whence do you come hither, young man?"
+
+"I come from Padua since this evening."
+
+"Far indeed," cried the old woman: "it lies six good leagues from
+here. And whither are you going? for there is no public road
+hereabout."
+
+"I know not, and care not to know. The wretched cannot frame any plan
+or think about the future. Indeed how happy should I feel, were there
+no future at all for me!"
+
+"You are talking nonsense, young man; and that must not be. Heyday!"
+she exclaimed, as she lifted up the lamp and lookt at him more
+narrowly, "why he is a Florentine! That doublet and cape is what I
+have not seen this many a day. Well now, this must surely bode me some
+good. So the ugly weather has made me a present of a dear guest; for
+you must know, my young gentleman, I too am from that blessed land. Ay
+Florence! Ah, if one might but once more tread on thy ground and see
+thy dear hills and gardens again! And your name, my dear young
+gentleman?"
+
+"Antonio Cavalcanti," said the youth, who felt more confidence in the
+old dame on finding that she was his countrywoman.
+
+"O what an accent!" cried she almost rapturously: "Cavalcanti! such a
+one I too knew some years since, one Guido."
+
+"He was my father," said Antonio.
+
+"And is he no longer alive?"
+
+"No," answered the young man; "my mother too was taken from me a long
+time ago."
+
+"I know it, I know it, my dear pretty boy. Ay, ay, it must now be full
+fifteen years since she died. Alas yes, it was then, in those
+troublous times, that she had to give up the ghost. And your dear
+worthy father, he is the only person I have to thank for the judges
+not having treated me just like a faggot some years after: they had
+somehow got it into their pates that I was a witch, and there was no
+avail in denying it. But Signor Guido fought my battle, what with
+reason and what with ranting, what with entreaties and what with
+threats: so they merely banisht me out of the dear land. And now this
+thunderstorm brings me the son of my benefactor into my poor little
+cottage. Come, give me your hand on the strength of it, youngster."
+
+Antonio gave it to the old woman shuddering; for now at length he was
+able to observe her more distinctly. She grinned at him friendly, and
+displayed two long black teeth standing out between her bristly lips;
+her eyes were small and sharp, her brow furrowed, her chin long; she
+stretcht out two gaunt shrivelled arms toward him; and being
+compelled, however loth, to embrace her, he felt the hump which made
+her ugliness still more disgusting.
+
+"True!" she said with a forced laugh, "I am not remarkably pretty; I
+was not so even in my younger days. There is something whimsical about
+beauty; one can never tell or describe downrightly in what it
+consists; it is always only the want of certain things which, when you
+have them at their full size, make up what folks call ugliness. Come
+now, tell me, such as I am, what do you think the most hideous thing
+about me?"
+
+"My dear old dame," said the youth in confusion....
+
+"No," she cried, "plump out with the truth, and without any flattery.
+Everybody, you know, has some odd maggot or other; and as for me, I
+pride myself no little on being utterly without all those things which
+in the world they christen handsome. Now let me see your taste! speak
+out!"
+
+"If I must," stammered Antonio, while in spite of his grief a smile
+curled his lips, "those two teeth are ... to my mind...."
+
+"Ha, ha!" cried the old woman laughing aloud, "my two dear good old
+black teeth are what pleases you the least about me. I can well
+believe it: they stand like two scorcht palisades among the ruins of a
+fortress in the wide empty space there. But you should have seen me
+ten years back; then matters were much worse still. In those days I
+had a whole mouth full of such portentous grinders; and they who loved
+me would say it lookt frightful. Well, one by one they fell out, and
+these two alone are left behind the last of all their race. When they
+are once gone, my jaws will clap together like two doors, the upper
+lip will grow just thrice as long, and again one can't tell what sort
+of a face will come of it. Time, my dear young friend, is, as somebody
+found out many many years ago, a bungling workman; he makes a creature
+pretty enough; then he daubs and trims and pares and pulls and
+squeezes the thing about, draws the nose and chin out of their
+sheaths, knocks in the cheeks, eats ruts into the forehead, till he
+has turned it into a scarecrow; and then at last he gets ashamed,
+smashes the whole wretched concern to pieces, and shovels it over with
+earth that all the world may not see his disgrace. Your cheeks too,
+smooth and polisht as they are, will not be so like a roseleaf by and
+by. Here! let me look! verily you have the rarest pearls of
+toothikins! a pity they must be used in chewing bread and roast beef.
+Hey, hey! shew them to me ... wider open with the mouth ... but they
+stand very oddly ... hem! and that eyetooth! there is meaning in all
+that."
+
+Antonio knew not whether to scold or laugh; however he constrained
+himself to be calm, and to let the old woman have her chatter; for
+owing, as it seemed, to her former acquaintance with his family, she
+possest a strange power over him. But how did he start with amazement
+when she suddenly cried out: "Crescentia!"
+
+"For Heaven's sake!" he said, almost breathlessly: "do you know her?
+can you see her? can you tell me anything about her?"
+
+"What's the matter with you?" howled the old woman: "how can I help
+knowing her, seeing she is my own daughter? Only look yourself how the
+lazy slut has fallen asleep in her chair there, and lets the fire go
+out and the soup get cold."
+
+She took up the lamp and went to the chimney; but what were the
+youth's feelings, when again for the second time on that day he beheld
+his beloved, almost the same as in the evening? Her pale head lay
+dropt back; her eyes were closed; every feature, even the dark
+tresses, were those of his bride; just so were her little hands
+folded, and just so did she too clasp a crucifix between them. Her
+white dress helpt to increase the illusion; the flowers alone were
+wanting; but the dusk wove something like wreaths of dark heavy
+foliage around her hair.
+
+"She is dead!" sighed Antonio gazing fixedly upon her.
+
+"Sluggish is she, the lazy jade," said the old woman, and shook the
+fair slumberer awake: "she can do nothing but pray and sleep, the
+useless baggage."
+
+Crescentia roused herself, and her confusion still hightened her
+beauty. Antonio felt on the brink of madness at thus again seeing
+before him one whom he had yet lost for ever.
+
+"Old witch!" he cried out vehemently: "where am I? and what forms art
+thou bringing before my wandering senses? Speak, who is this lovely
+being? Crescentia, art thou alive again? Dost thou still acknowledge
+me as thine own! How camest thou hither?"
+
+"Holla! my young prince," screamed the old woman; "you are gabbling
+away there, as though you had quite lost your little bit of an
+understanding. Is the storm beating about inside of your pate? has the
+lightning perchance singed your brains? She is my daughter, and always
+has been so."
+
+"I do not know you," said the pale Crescentia, blushing sweetly: "I
+was never in the city."
+
+"Sit down," the old woman interposed; "and eat and drink what I have
+to give you."
+
+The soup was placed on the table, along with some fruit; and the old
+woman going to a small cupboard took out a flask of excellent
+Florentine wine.
+
+Antonio could eat but little; his eye was spellbound upon Crescentia;
+and his disturbed and shattered imagination was evermore persuading
+him anew that this was his lost bride. Then again he often fancied he
+was lying enchained by a heavy dream, or had been seized by a trance
+of madness which was transforming every object around him, so that he
+was perhaps still in Padua, or at his own home, and saw nothing but
+phantasmal forms, and could not recognize or understand any of the
+friends who might be round about consoling him or mourning over him.
+
+The storm had raved itself out, and the stars were shining in the
+pacified dark sky. The old woman ate greedily, and drank still more
+plenteously of the sweet wine.
+
+"Now at length, young Antonio," she began after some time, "tell us,
+prithee, what brought you to Padua, and what has driven you hither?"
+
+Antonio started as from sleep. "You may well," he replied, "demand
+some account of your guest, since, beside that reason, you knew my
+father, and it may be my mother too."
+
+"To be sure I knew her," said the old woman sniggering; "nobody so
+well as I. Yes, yes, she died just six months before your father
+celebrated his second marriage with the Marchesa Manfredi."
+
+"So you know that too?"
+
+"Why, it seems to me," she continued, "as though I could see the
+dainty trim doll at this very moment before me. Well, is your
+beautiful stepmother still living? When they drove me out of the
+country she was just in her prime full bloom."
+
+"I cannot again go through," said Antonio with a sigh, "what I
+suffered from that alien mother. She held my father as under
+enchantment; and he was readier to wrong all his old friends, readier
+to wrong his own son, than in anywise to offend her. At last however
+their behaviour to each other altered; but my heart almost broke at
+the sight of their hatred, while before it had only bled at the
+insults I had to endure."
+
+"So there was plenty of bitter malice," askt the old hag with a
+nauseous grin, "throughout the whole family?"
+
+Antonio eyed her with a sharp look, and said confusedly: "I know not
+how I have come to be talking here about my own and my parents
+misery."
+
+The old woman swallowed a bumper of red wine, which stood like blood
+in the glass. Then with a loud laugh she said: "Faith, I know no such
+glorious pleasure, nothing, I mean, so like what one may call perfect
+rapture and bliss, as when such a wedded couple, who in earlier days
+were once a pair of fond lovers, fall out in this way, and snarl and
+snap at each other, like cat and dog, or two tiger-beasts, and scold
+and curse each other, and would each give up heart and soul to Satan,
+only to hurt and pain or to get rid of the other. This, my young lad,
+is the true glory of mortal life: but more especially, if the two
+yoke-fellows have of yore gone stark mad with love, if they have done
+everything, even what is a little bit out of the way, for each other,
+if they have waded through much of what certain good pious folks would
+call crimes and sins, merely for the sake of getting at one another,
+merely for the sake of at last tying the knot, which they now so
+cordially abhor. Trust me, this is a grand feast for Satan and all his
+comrades, and it makes those below keep jubilee and sing psalms. And
+here now even ... but I'll hold my tongue; I might easily say too
+much."
+
+Crescentia lookt mournfully at the astonisht youth. "Forgive her," she
+whispered: "you see she has drunk too much; pity her."
+
+But in Antonio's soul there now rose up with fresh power the image of
+former times and all their dark scenes. The sorrowful day came back
+upon him, when he saw his stepmother on her deathbed, when his father
+was in despair and curst himself and the hour of his birth, and called
+upon the spirit of his first wife and prayed for forgiveness.
+
+"Have you nothing else to tell?" askt the old woman, and thereby
+awakened him from his dreamy amaze.
+
+"What shall I tell?" said Antonio, with the deepest anguish: "do not
+you seem to know everything, or else to have learnt it by soothsay?
+Need I tell you that an old servant, Roberto, poisoned her, having
+been persecuted by her hatred and thus spurred on to revenge himself?
+that this accursed villain attempted to throw the crime upon my
+father? He escapes from prison, scales the garden-wall, and in the
+grotto thrusts his dagger into my father's breast."
+
+"What old Roberto! Roberto!" cried the old woman almost with a shout
+of triumph: "hey, only see how strangely some people will turn out!
+Ay, ay, the sneak in his younger days was such a straitlaced
+hypocrite, such a holy-seeming dog; afterward however he grew a fine
+spirited fellow, as they tell me. It was in the grotto then? How
+cunningly things fit together, and shell off till one gets at the
+kernel! In that grotto your father in earlier days sat time after time
+with his first wife; there at their betrothal he first swore eternal
+love to her. In those times Roberto doubtless already wore that
+dagger; but he knew not what an odd use he was to make of it some
+twenty years after. In that grotto too the second spouse would often
+slumber beside the cool fountain; and again the husband would lie
+there at her feet. Well, Antonio, child, is not life a right merry,
+right silly, right absurd, and right horrible hodgepodge? No man can
+say: 'that's a thing I never will do'. The pangs and the feelings, the
+stings and the ravings, which the black crew forge in hell's smithy,
+all these keep coming on and coming on, slowly, wonderously, nearer
+and ever nearer: on a sudden Horrour is in the house, and the frantic
+victim sits with it in the corner, and gnaws at it as a dog gnaws a
+bone. Drink, drink, my darling; this grape-juice sets all things to
+rights when its spirits once get into the soul.... Now, and you? do
+tell me a little more."
+
+"I swore to revenge my father," said Antonio.
+
+"That's just right;" returned the old woman: "look you, my child, when
+such a firebrand has been once hurled into a house, it must never
+never go out again. From generation to generation down to grandchild
+and cousin the poison is entailed; the children rave already; the
+wound is always bleeding afresh; a new vein must be opened to save the
+disaster and set it upon its legs again, when but for that it might be
+in danger of breathing its last. O revenge, revenge is a goodly word!"
+
+"But Roberto," said Antonio, "had escaped, and was nowhere to be
+found."
+
+"A pity, a pity!" exclaimed the old woman. "Now of course thy revenge
+drives thee over the world?"
+
+"Yes in truth; I wandered through Italy, searcht in every town, but
+could find no trace of the murderer. At last the fame of Pietro of
+Abano fixt me at Padua. I wisht to learn wisdom from him; but when I
+came into the house of the Podesta...."
+
+"Well! speak out, child!"
+
+"What shall I say? I know not whether I am raving or dreaming. There I
+saw his daughter, the sweet, the lovely Crescentia. And I here see her
+again before me ... yes it is herself ... that funeral procession was
+a wicked, unseemly jest ... and this disguise, this flight hither into
+the desert, is again a most unseemly piece of mummery. Acknowledge
+thyself to me at length, at length, beloved, beautiful Crescentia.
+Thou knowest it well, my heart only lives within thy bosom. To what
+end these agonizing trials? Are thy parents perchance in the next room
+there, and listening to all we are saying? Let them come in now at
+last, at last; let us have done with this cruel probation, which will
+soon drive me mad."
+
+The pale Crescentia lookt at him with such an unutterable expression,
+such a weight of sadness over her face, that the tears gusht from his
+eyes.
+
+"Faith, he is drunk already!" howled the old woman. "Speak, tell me,
+is the Podesta's daughter dead then? Dead is she? and when?"
+
+"This evening," said the weeper, "I met her corpse."
+
+"So she too!" continued the old woman merrily, as she filled her glass
+again. "Well, now will the family of Marconi in Venice be right glad."
+
+"Why so?"
+
+"Because they are now the only heirs to their rich kinsman. This is
+what the long-sighted knaves have always wisht, but could never hope
+for."
+
+"Woman!" exclaimed Antonio with new horrour; "why thou knowest
+everything!"
+
+"Not everything," replied she, "but some little. And then a good deal
+more may perhaps be guessed at. And I will not deny it, a little
+witchcraft now and then helps on the game. Only don't be too much
+frightened at it. Nor in truth was it altogether for nothing that
+their Florentine worships would have built me a throne of faggots:
+some petty trifling bits of reasons for this wish they might fairly
+enough have brought forward.... Look me in the face, boy! stroak away
+the curls from thy forehead: good! now give me thy left hand: the
+right: heyday! strange and marvellous! That's it; some near misfortune
+is hanging over thee; but if thou outlivest it, thou wilt see thy
+beloved again."
+
+"In the next world!" sighed Antonio.
+
+"The next world? what is the next world?" cried the old hag in her
+drunkenness: "no, in this world, here, on what we call earth. What
+words the fools make use of! There is no next world, you silly
+ninnyhammer! he who does not skim off the fat from the broth while he
+is here, is a wretched gull. This however is what they clack to their
+simple brood, that they may behave prettily, and keep within bounds,
+and go the way one would lead them: but whosoever believes none of
+their fabling, he is free on the strength of this, and can do what his
+heart lusteth after."
+
+Antonio eyed her wrathfully, and was about to make an indignant reply;
+but the pale Crescentia interposed such a humble beseeching look for
+her mother that his anger was disarmed.
+
+The old woman yawned and rubbed her eyes, and it was not long before,
+stupefied as she was by the repeated draughts of strong wine, she fell
+fast asleep.
+
+The fire on the hearth was gone out, and the lamp now only cast a
+faint glimmer. Antonio sank into a deep study, and Crescentia sat by
+the window on a low stool.
+
+"Can I sleep anywhere?" the weary youth at length askt.
+
+"There is another room above," said Crescentia sobbing; and he now
+first observed that she had been crying bitterly all the time. She
+trimmed the lamp, to make it burn brighter, and walkt silently before
+him. He followed her up a narrow staircase, and after they were above
+in the low dark loft, the damsel set the light on a little table and
+was on the point of retiring. But when already at the door she turned
+back again, stared at the young man as with a look of death, stood
+tottering before him, and then fell sobbing aloud and with violent
+unintelligible lamentations as in a convulsion down at his feet.
+
+"What is the matter with thee, my sweet girl?" he exclaimed, and tried
+to lift her up: "hush thee; tell me thy sorrow."
+
+"No, let me lie here!" cried the weeper. "O that I might die here at
+your feet, might die this very instant. No, it is too horrible. And
+that I can do nothing, can hinder nothing, that I must behold the
+crime in silence and helplessly! But you must hear it."
+
+"Compose thyself then," said Antonio comforting her, "that thou mayst
+recover thy voice and thy words."
+
+"I look," she continued passionately and interrupted by her tears, "so
+like your lost love, and it is I who am to lead you by the hand into
+the house of murder. My mother may easily foretell that a near
+misfortune is hanging over you: she well knows the gang that assemble
+here nightly. No one has ever yet escaped alive from this hell. Every
+moment is bringing him nearer and nearer, the fierce Ildefonso, or the
+detestable Andrea, with their followers and comrades. Alas! and I can
+only be the herald of your death, can offer you no help, no safety."
+
+Antonio was horrour-struck. Pale and trembling he graspt after his
+sword, tried his dagger, and summoned courage and resolution again.
+Much as he had but now wisht for death, it was yet too frightful to be
+thus forced to end his life in a robber's den.
+
+"And thou," he began, "thou with this face, with this form, canst
+bring thyself to be a companion, a helpmate to the accursed?"
+
+"I cannot run away," she sighed despondingly: "how joyfully would I
+fly from this house! Alas! and this night, tomorrow, I am to be taken
+from hence, and dragged over the sea; I am to be made the wife of
+Andrea or Ildefonso. Is it not better to die now?"
+
+"Come," cried Antonio, "the door is open; escape with me; the night,
+the forest will lend us their shelter."
+
+"Only look around you," said the girl; "only see how both here and in
+the room below all the windows are secured with strong iron bars; the
+door of the house is fastened with a large key which my mother never
+parts with. Did you not perceive, sir, how she threw the door into the
+lock when you entered?"
+
+"Then let the old hag fall first," cried Antonio: "we'll tear the keys
+from her...."
+
+"What, kill my mother!" shriekt the pale maiden, and clambered
+forcibly round him, to hold him fast.
+
+Antonio quieted her. He proposed to her that, as the old woman was
+drunk and sleeping soundly, they should take the large house-key
+gently from her side, then open the door, and escape. From this plan
+Crescentia seemed to catch some hope: they both went silently down
+into the room below, and found the old woman still fast asleep.
+Crescentia crept trembling up to her, sought for the key, found it,
+and succeeded after a time in loosening it from the string at her
+girdle. She beckoned to the youth; they stept on tiptoe to the door;
+they cautiously fixt the iron key in the lock; Antonio was now
+straining his hand to draw back the bolt without noise; when he felt
+that some one else was working at the lock on the outside in the same
+noiseless manner. The door opened softly and in came face to face to
+Antonio a large wild-looking man.
+
+"Ildefonso!" screamed the damsel, and the youth at the first glance
+recognized the murderer Roberto.
+
+"What is this?" said he with a hollow voice. "Where got you that key?
+whither are you going?"
+
+"Roberto!" cried Antonio, and furiously seized the gigantic man by the
+throat. They wrestled violently; but the nimbler strength of the youth
+got the better and threw the villain upon the floor; he then knelt
+upon his breast and plunged his dagger into his heart.
+
+The old woman meanwhile had awaked with loud screams, had started up
+on seeing the battle, and howling and cursing had torn her daughter
+away; she dragged her up to the room overhead, and bolted the door
+from within.
+
+Antonio was now mounting to break into the loft, when several dark
+forms stalkt in, and were no little astounded at finding their leader
+dead on the ground.
+
+"I am your captain now!" cried a broad bearded figure, fiercely
+drawing his sword.
+
+"Provided Crescentia is mine!" answered a younger robber in a tone of
+defiance.
+
+Each persisting in having his own way, they began a murderous combat.
+The lamp was thrown over, and amid yells and imprecations the battle
+rolled in the darkness from corner to corner.
+
+"Have you lost your senses?" shouted another voice athwart them: "you
+are letting the stranger get off; knock him down first, and then fight
+your quarrel out."
+
+But blind with fury they heard him not. Already the first grey
+uncertain gleam of early morning was dawning. Antonio now felt a
+murderer's fist at his breast; but quickly and strongly he struck the
+assailer down.
+
+"I am slain!" cried he, falling upon the floor: "Madmen, blockade the
+doors; don't let him run away."
+
+Meanwhile Antonio had found the way out; he sprang through the little
+garden and over the fence; the robbers, who by this time had come to
+their senses, hurried after him. He was only a few paces before them,
+and they tried to cut him off. One of them threw stones after him; but
+they missed their mark. Amid hollowing and threatening they had reacht
+the wood.
+
+Here the path split into sundry directions, and Antonio was at a loss
+which to choose. He lookt back, and saw the robbers separated; he
+attackt the nearest, and wounded him so that he let his sword drop.
+But at the same moment he heard shouts, and saw new forms along a
+by-path hastening thither; his road would soon be blockt up.
+
+In this extremity of need he met with his horse again on a little plot
+of grass in the wood. It seemed to have recovered from yesterday's
+over-fatigue. He leapt upon it, after rapidly seizing and righting the
+bridle; and with its utmost speed, as if the animal had felt his
+danger, it bore him along a foot-track out of the forest.
+
+By degrees the cries of his pursuers sounded more and more distant;
+the wood grew lighter; and when he had reason to trust that there was
+nothing more to be afraid of, he saw the city lying before him in the
+glory of the rising sun.
+
+People met him; countrymen were going the same road toward the city;
+travellers joined company with him; and in this way he came back to
+Padua, making little answer to the manifold questions and inquiries,
+why his dress was in such disorder, and why he had no hat. The
+citizens stared in wonder at him as he dismounted before the great
+house of the Podesta.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the city on that same night strange things had been going on, which
+as yet were a secret to everybody. Scarcely had the darkness spread
+thickly abroad, when Pietro, whom people commonly called by the name
+of his birthplace, Apone or Abano, retiring into his secret study at
+the back of his house, set all his apparatus, all the instruments of
+his art, in due order, for some mysterious and extraordinary
+undertaking. He himself was clad in a long robe charactered with
+strange hieroglyphs; he had described the magical circles in the hall,
+and he arranged everything with his utmost skill, to be certain of the
+result. He had searcht diligently into the configuration of the stars,
+and was now awaiting the auspicious moment.
+
+His companion, the hideous Beresynth, was also drest in magical
+garments. He fetcht everything at his master's bidding, and set it
+down just as Pietro thought needful. Painted hangings were unrolled
+over the walls; the floor of the room was covered over; the great
+magical mirror was placed upright; and nearer and nearer came the
+moment which the magician deemed the most fortunate.
+
+"Hast thou put the crystals within the circles?" demanded Pietro.
+
+"Yes;" returned his busy mate, whose ugliness kept bustling to and fro
+merrily and unweariably amid the vials, mirrors, human skeletons, and
+all the other strange implements. The incense was now brought; a flame
+blazed upon the altar; and the magician cautiously, almost with
+trembling, took the great volume out of his most secret cabinet.
+
+"Do we start now?" cried Beresynth.
+
+"Silence!" answered the old man solemnly: "interrupt not these holy
+proceedings by any profane or any useless words."
+
+He read, at first in a low voice, then louder and more earnestly as he
+paced with measured steps to and fro, and then again round in a
+circle. After a while he paused and said: "Look out, how the heavens
+are shaping themselves."
+
+"Thick darkness," replied the servant on his return, "has enwrapt the
+sky; the clouds are driving along; rain is beginning to drip."
+
+"They favour me!" exclaimed the old man: "it must succeed."
+
+He now knelt down, and murmuring his incantations often toucht the
+ground with his forehead. His face was heated; his eyes sparkled. He
+was heard to pronounce the holy names which it is forbidden to utter;
+and after a long time he sent his servant out again to look at the
+firmament. Meanwhile the onrush of the storm was heard; lightning and
+thunder chased each other; and the house seemed to tremble to its
+lowest foundations.
+
+"Hearken to the tempest!" shouted Beresynth coming back hastily: "Hell
+has risen up from below, and is raging with fire and fierce cracking
+crashes of thunder; a whirlwind is raving through the midst of it; and
+the earth is quaking with fear. Hold with your conjuring, lest the
+spokes of the world splinter, and the rim that holds it together
+burst."
+
+"Fool! simpleton!" cried the magician: "have done with thy useless
+prating! Tear back all the doors; throw the house door wide open."
+
+The dwarf withdrew to perform his master's orders. Meanwhile Pietro
+lighted the consecrated tapers; with a shudder he walkt up to the
+great torch that stood upon the high candlestick; this too at last was
+burning; then he threw himself on the ground and conjured louder and
+louder. His eyes flasht; all his limbs shook and shrunk as in
+convulsions; and a cold sweat of agony trickled from his brow.
+
+With wild gestures, as if scared out of his senses, the dwarf rusht in
+again, and leapt for safety within the circles. "The world is at the
+last gasp," he shriekt, pale and with chattering teeth: "the storms
+are rolling onward; but all beneath the voiceless night is dismay and
+horrour; every living thing has fled into its closet, or crept beneath
+the pillows of its bed to skulk away from its fears."
+
+The old man lifted up a face of ghastly paleness from the floor, and
+with wrencht and indistinguishable features screamed in sounds not his
+own: "Be silent, wretch, and disturb not the work. Give heed, and keep
+a fast hold on thy senses. The greatest things are still behind."
+
+With a voice as if he would split his breast, he read and conjured
+again: his breath seemed often to fail him; it was as though the
+gigantic effort must kill him.
+
+Hereupon a medley of voices were suddenly heard as in a quarrel, then
+again as in talk: they whispered; they shouted and laught; songs
+darted from among them, together with the jumbled notes of strange
+instruments. All the vessels grew alive, and strode forward, and went
+back again; and out of the walls in every room gusht creatures of
+every kind, vermin and monsters and hideous abortions in the richest
+confusion.
+
+"Master!" screamed Beresynth: "the house is growing too tight. What
+shall we do with all these ghosts? they must eat one another. O woe! O
+woe! they are all with cub, and are come here to whelp: new brutes
+keep sprouting out of the old ones, and the child is always wilder and
+frightfuller than its dam. My wits are leaving me in the lurch. And
+then this music into the bargain, this ringing and piping, and
+laughter athwart it, and funeral hymns enough to make one cry! Look
+master! look! the walls, the rooms are stretching themselves, and
+spreading out into vast halls; the ceilings are running away out of
+sight; and the creatures are still shooting forth, and thicken as fast
+as the space grows. Have you no counsel? have you no help?"
+
+In complete exhaustion Pietro now raised himself; his whole form was
+changed, and he seemed to be dying. "Look out once more," he said
+faintly: "turn thine eyes toward the dome, and bring me tidings of
+what thou seest."
+
+"I am treading the rabble here on the head," roared Beresynth, totally
+bewildered; "they are disporting themselves in twining about me like
+serpents, and are laughing me to scorn. Are they ghosts? are they
+demons, or empty phantoms? Get away! Well, if you won't move out of my
+path, I'll stamp downright upon your green and blue snouts. Everybody
+must take care of number one, even if a devil is to be the sufferer."
+He stumbled out muttering.
+
+Things now grew tranquil, and Pietro stood up. He waved his arm, and
+all those strange forms which had been crawling about the floor and
+twisting around each other in the air, vanisht. He wiped off the sweat
+and tears, and drew his breath more freely.
+
+His servant came back and said: "Master, all is quiet and well; but
+sundry light forms flitted by me and lost themselves in the dark sky.
+Thereupon, while I kept staring immovably toward the dome, a mighty
+crash sounded, as if all the strings of a harp were breaking at once,
+and a clap came that made the streets and the houses all tremble. The
+great door of the church burst open; flutes warbled sweetly and
+lovelily; and a soft light brightness streamed forth from the heart of
+the church. Immediately after the form of a woman stept into the
+radiance, pale, but glancing, bedeckt with crowns of flowers; she
+glided through the door, and gleams of light strewed a path for her to
+tread along. Her head upright, her hands folded, she is floating
+hither toward our dwelling. Is this she for whom you have been
+waiting?"
+
+"Take the golden key," answered Pietro, "and unlock the innermost
+richest chamber of my house. See that the purple tapestries are spread
+out, that the perfumes are scattering their sweetness. Then away, and
+get thee to bed. Make no further inquiry into what happens. Be
+obedient and silent, as thou valuest thy life."
+
+"I know you too well," returned the dwarf, and walkt off with the key,
+casting back another look of something like mischievous delight.
+
+Meanwhile a lovely murmur approacht. Pietro went into the
+entrance-hall, and in glided the pale body of Crescentia, in her robe
+of death, still holding the crucifix in her folded hands. He stood
+still before her; she drew up the lids from her large eyes, and shrank
+back from him with such a quick start that the wreaths of flowers
+dropt down from her shaking head.
+
+Without speaking a word he wrested her fast-claspt hands asunder; but
+in the left she kept the crucifix tightly clencht. By the right hand
+he led her through room after room, and she moved by his side stiffly
+and with indifference, never looking around.
+
+They reacht the furthest chamber. Purple and gold, silk and velvet,
+were its costly garniture. The light only glimmered in faintly by day
+through the heavy curtains. He pointed to the couch; and the
+unconscious holder of a charmed life stoopt and bent down like a lily
+that the wind shakes; she sank upon the red coverlet and breathed
+painfully.
+
+From a golden vial the old man poured a precious essence into a little
+crystal cup, and set it before her mouth. Her pale lips sipt the
+wonderous draught; she again unfolded her eyes, fixt them on her
+former friend, turned away from him with an expression of loathing,
+and fell into a deep sleep.
+
+The old man carefully closed the chamber again. Everything in the
+house was quiet. He betook himself to his own room, there in the midst
+of his books and magical instruments to await the rising of the sun
+and the business of the day.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When the unhappy youth, Antonio, had rested, the Podesta rode forth on
+the following day with him and with a large train of armed followers,
+to seek for the hut with the hideous old woman and the robbers, and to
+take them prisoners. On hearing Antonio's story, the disconsolate
+father became very eager to see the damsel who was said to be so like
+his lost daughter. "Can it be," said the old man on their way, "that a
+dream to which I have only too often abandoned myself, is about to
+become true?"
+
+The father was in such haste that he gave the youth no further
+explanation. They came to the neighbouring wood; and here Antonio
+thought he recollected himself and had found his track again. But that
+night had so bewildered him, and excited such a turmoil throughout his
+whole frame, that he could not make out the way further on, which he
+had taken during the storm, half stunned by the roaring of the thunder,
+on foot, wandering over ploughed land and meadow.
+
+They crost the large plain in every quarter; wherever trees or bushes
+were to be seen, thither Antonio spurred his horse, in the hope of
+meeting with that den of robbers and the marvellous apparition within
+it; or at least, should the inhabitants have absconded, as he might
+well expect, of gaining some sort of tidings about them.
+
+At length the Podesta, after they had been roaming about thus for a
+great part of the day, began to fancy that the youth's heated
+imagination had merely beheld these phantoms in the wild ravings of
+his grief. "Such happiness," he exclaimed, "would be too great; and I
+am born only for misfortune."
+
+On reaching a village they were forced to let their horses and
+servants bait. The inhabitants said they knew nothing of any such
+suspicious neighbours, nor had the bodies of the slain been found
+anywhere round about. After a short pause Antonio again set off, but
+the Podesta now followed him more mistrustingly. Inquiries were made
+of every peasant they fell in with; but none could give them any
+certain information.
+
+Toward evening they got to a building that appeared to have been
+destroyed; ashes and rubbish lay around; some charred beams peered out
+from among the stones; the trees that stood near were scorcht.
+
+Here the youth seemed to recognize what he saw. This, he affirmed
+confidently, had been the abode of the murderers and of that wonderous
+Crescentia. They made halt. Far and wide through the waste country
+there was no house to be seen, no human being to call to.
+
+A servant rode to the next hamlet, and returned an hour after,
+bringing an old man on horseback. This old man said he knew that a
+good year since a hut had been burnt down there, having been set fire
+to by some soldiers; that the owner of the estate had already been ten
+years at Rome waiting for an office promist him in the church; and
+that his bailiff had taken a journey to Ravenna for the sake of
+getting in an old debt.
+
+Vext and wearied the travellers rode back to the city. The Podesta
+Ambrosio determined to give up his office, to withdraw from public
+life, and to leave Padua, where everything reminded him only of his
+misfortunes.
+
+Antonio resolved to learn in the school of the renowned Apone how to
+bear his wretchedness, and perchance to forget it. He removed into the
+house of that great man, who had long treated him with much kindness.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"So you too," said the little priest some time after to the melancholy
+Antonio, "have given yourself up to this ill-starred school, to this
+pernicious man who will ensnare your soul to its destruction."
+
+"Why are you angry," answered Antonio courteously, "my pious friend?
+May not religion and knowledge shake hands in amity, as they do in
+this admirable teacher? in him whom the whole world admires, whom
+princes esteem and cherish, whom our holy father himself means to
+raise to a spiritual dignity. Why are you incenst against him who
+comes forward to meet you and all mankind with his love? Did you know
+how his doctrine comforts me, how he lifts up my soul and guides it
+heavenward, how in his mouth piety and religion find the words and
+images of inspiration, which bear his scholars as with the wings of
+the spirit into the regions above the earth, you would not think and
+speak thus harshly of him. Learn to know him more nearly; seek his
+intercourse; and you will soon be moved by penitence and love to
+abjure your dislike and your over-hasty judgement against him."
+
+"Love him!" cried the priest: "no, never! Keep yourself safe, young
+man, from his clutches and those of his servant with hell's stamp upon
+him, who cannot gull any one with the same fair seeming as his
+master."
+
+"True," rejoined Antonio, "little Beresynth is a queer figure, and a
+hideous one too. I wonder myself that our noble Pietro can endure to
+have him perpetually at his side, wherever he is and whatever he is
+doing. But ought a hump or any other such ugly mark to render us cruel
+toward a poor wretch whom nature has neglected?"
+
+"Fine words! grand phrases!" exclaimed the priest impatiently: "such
+are the very sentiments to make conjurors and quacks thrive apace.
+See, there comes the abomination! I cannot even bear to look upon him,
+much less to have any dealings with him. A creature whom the Lord has
+markt in this wise, is knowable enough; and let everybody in whom all
+human feeling is not yet quencht, get out of his way."
+
+Beresynth, who had caught the last words, came up to them with divers
+ungainly jumps.
+
+"My very reverend sir," he exclaimed, "do you then yourself happen to
+be of such mightily exquisite beauty, that you have a right to judge
+thus intolerantly? My master from his youth up has been a majestic and
+stately man; and yet he thinks far otherwise of me and my fellows.
+What! you little stinted, stunted, stumpy, bile-faced animal, whose
+nose is for ever running crimson with spite! You with the crooked
+corners of your seesaw mouth, with the broken ridges and ditches in
+your shrivelled half-inch forehead, you would make an outcry about my
+ugliness! Why the bit of a dwarf can hardly peer out of its pulpit
+when it is hubbubbing there, and is so gossamer-shankt it durst not
+walk across the great square if the wind chance to be blowing strong;
+the congregation are hard put to find him out when he is grimacing and
+gesticulating before the altar, and need all their christian faith and
+hope to believe him actually corporeally present; and such a
+hop-o'-my-thumb, such a ghostly ne'er-to-be-seen, would take the tone
+of a Goliah here. With thy leave, thou most invisible man of
+godliness, one might cut out of my nose alone as stout a pillar of the
+faith as thou art; and I won't reckon in the brace of humps which my
+backbone and breastbone have built up in rivalry of each other."
+
+The priest Theodore had already left them in anger before the end of
+this speech; and the melancholy Antonio chid the little dwarf for his
+wantonness. But the latter cried; "Now pray don't you also begin to
+preach. Once for all I will bear that from no one else than my master;
+for he came into the world on special purpose to teach morality and
+philosophy and their kin. But this weathercock of a priest here, that
+is driven round with such a creaking merely by his envy and malice,
+because he fancies that my noble master is lowering both his authority
+and his purse, he shall not unkennel his tongue from his toothless
+jaws, where I can but thrust in my unwasht mouth. And from a young
+student too I will brook no contradiction; for I used to have my beard
+shaved, while your father was still carried about in his
+chrisom-cloth; I was earning stripes at school and getting the fool's
+cap hung round my ears, when they put your worshipful grandfather into
+his first pair of breeches: so shew respect where it is due, and never
+forget whom you have before you."
+
+"Don't be angry, little man," said Antonio: "I meant it well with
+thee."
+
+"Mean it just as you please," returned the other. "My master is to be
+a prelate, do you know that yet? and lord rector of the university.
+And he has received a new gold chain as a token of royal favour from
+Paris. And you must come to him; for he is going away from Padua, and
+wants to speak to you once more before he sets off. And don't crawl
+about so among the parsons, if you mean to be a philosopher."
+
+Hopping and jumping to and fro from side to side he ran down the
+street again; and Antonio said to Alfonso, who now came up to him, and
+who for some time past had been forming a friendship with him: "I
+never know, when talking to that little abortion, whether it means its
+words in earnest or only in jest. He seems always to be scoffing at
+himself and at everything else in the world."
+
+"This," answered Alfonso, "is a kind of necessary amends to him, a way
+of comforting himself for his deformity: by his sneers he to his own
+fancy makes all other creatures just like himself. But have you heard
+of the new honours that have been bestowed on our illustrious teacher
+and master?"
+
+"The world," replied Antonio, "acknowledges his high worth; and now
+that even our holy father, the pope, is making him a prelate, this
+will at length silence the envious priests and monks who are for ever
+trying to charge the virtuous and pious man with heresy."
+
+They parted; and Antonio hurried home, to take leave of his teacher
+for some days. The little dwarf Beresynth was awaiting him in the
+doorway with a friendly grin.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was already growing dark within the house; and as Beresynth left
+the youth to himself, he walkt, on not finding his teacher in the hall
+or even in the library, through a number of rooms, and thus advanced
+even to the innermost, which he had never yet entered. Here beside a
+dim lamp Pietro was sitting, and was no little surprised to see the
+Florentine come in; who on his part was astonisht at the skeletons,
+the strange instruments, and extraordinary machinery around the old
+man. Not without confusion the latter came up to him.
+
+"I did not expect you here," said he, "but thought to find you
+without, or to look for you up in your own room. I must set off to
+meet the legate of our holy father, the pope, that with due humility
+and gratitude I may receive the letter and the new dignity which his
+grace and paternal kindness have vouchsafed to confer upon me."
+
+Antonio was embarrast, and seemed to be examining the instruments,
+having never seen any thing like them.
+
+"You are wondering," said the old man after a while, "at all these
+things, which are necessary for my studies. When you have attended
+a course of my lectures on natural philosophy, I shall be able
+hereafter to explain everything which now perhaps you may deem
+incomprehensible."
+
+But at this moment something happened that drew away Antonio's
+attention from all these objects. A door that seemed shut was only
+ajar; it opened, and he saw into a room filled with a red purplish
+light; and at the door in the midst of this roseate glow was standing
+a pale ghost that winkt and smiled.
+
+With the speed of lightning the old man turned round, dasht the door
+thunderingly to, and fastened it with a gold key. Trembling and pale
+as a corpse he then threw himself into a chair, while large drops of
+sweat ran down from his forehead.
+
+When he was somewhat recovered, he beckoned to Antonio, still
+trembling and said with a faltering voice: "This mystery also, my
+young friend, will hereafter become clear to you; think, my dearest
+son, the best of me. Thee above all, thou child of many sorrows and of
+my love, will I lead into the lowest depths of my knowledge; thou
+shalt be my true scholar, my heir. But leave me at present; go up to
+thy lonely chamber, and call in fervent prayer upon heaven and its
+holy powers to support thee."
+
+Antonio could make no answer, so amazed and horrourstruck was he by
+the apparition, so perplext by his honoured teacher's speech; for it
+seemed to him as though Pietro was struggling to check a burst of
+anger, as if represt rage were flashing from his firy eyes, which
+after their sudden dimness rapidly shot forth fiercer glances.
+
+He went away; and in the antechamber he found Beresynth, who with
+grinning mouth was catching flies and then tossing them to a monkey.
+Both seemed engaged in a match which could make the most portentous
+faces. His master now called aloud for the servant, and the monster
+hopt in. Antonio heard a loud squabble, and Pietro appeared to be
+violently angry. Whining and yelling Beresynth came out of the room; a
+stream of blood was rushing down from his enormous nose.
+
+"Can't he keep his doors shut himself," howled the abortion,
+"allsapient and allpotent as he is? When the master is a blockhead,
+the servant must bear the blame. Betake you yourself, most honorablest
+sir, up to your most attic study, and leave me with my good friend, my
+dear Pavian here, in peace. He has still a human heart, the dear
+faithful creature. Merry comrade as he is, in his tender moments he is
+the most exquisite fellow. Come march! Pylades would feast on some
+more flies, which his Orestes must catch for him."
+
+Antonio left the room almost stupefied.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Florentine youth had taken up his abode in his teacher's house,
+for the sake of giving himself up without any interruption to his
+sorrows and his studies. He had chosen the most retired and highest
+room in the whole building, to be quite alone and unvisited by
+anybody. When he lookt from hence over the beautiful and fruitful
+fields about the city, and followed the course of the river with his
+eyes, he thought the more intensely of his, lost love. He had got her
+picture from her parents, as well as some toys she had played with in
+her childhood; above all he delighted in a nightingale, that in its
+moving plaints seemed to him to be only pouring forth the woes of his
+own heart. This bird had been fostered by Crescentia with the utmost
+care and fondness; and Antonio preserved it like something holy, as
+the last relic of his earthly happiness.
+
+With other young men of his own age he never mingled, excepting the
+Spaniard Alfonso, to whom he was united by their equally enthusiastic
+admiration of Pietro Abano. The Podesta Ambrosio had resigned his
+office and left the city: he meant to spend the rest of his life at
+Rome, for the sake of getting beyond the reach of his relations at
+Venice. He had given up the thought of ever again finding the twin
+daughter who had been stolen from him in her infancy; and his grief
+had been embittered by Antonio's calling back this hope with such a
+shock into his soul. He was convinced the young man had misled him and
+himself been deceived by the fevered dreams of that night.
+
+In the morning Pietro set off with his trusty servant. Antonio was
+left alone in the large house, the rooms of which were all lockt up.
+The night had past over him in sleeplessness. That terrific figure was
+evermore standing before his eyes, which, greatly as it had appalled
+him, had yet reawakened all his most delightful feelings. It was as
+though all power of thinking had died away within him; visions which
+he could not hold fast kept moving in ever-rolling circles before his
+imagination. It was a frightful feeling to him, that he knew not what
+to think of his venerated teacher, that he had a boding of lawless
+mysteries, and of a horrour which since that look into the chamber
+seemed to be awaiting him, to strip him of all optimism, and to
+deliver him up to madness and despair.
+
+The nightingale began singing before his window, and he saw that it
+was blowing hard and raining. His fondness for the bird made him take
+it in and set it atop of a high old wardrobe. He clambered up and was
+leaning over to place the cage steadily, when the chain from which the
+portrait of his beloved was hanging broke, and the picture slid to the
+wall and down behind the old oak chest. The unhappy are terrified by
+the veriest trifles. He got down hastily to seek for his darling
+treasure. He stoopt down to the ground, but his search was vain; it
+was not to be seen beneath the large heavy cabinet. Everything,
+whether of great or little moment, in his life seemed to be
+persecuting him as it were under some spell. He shoved at the old
+piece of furniture and tried to push it out of its place; but it was
+fastened to the wall. His impatience grew more vehement with every
+hinderance. He seized an old iron bar which he found in the anteroom,
+and laboured with all his strength to move the wardrobe; and at last,
+after much heaving and wrenching and a hundred fruitless efforts, it
+gave way with a loud cracking as if an iron cramp or chain had snapt.
+The cabinet now by degrees came forward, and Antonio was at length
+able to squeeze himself in between it and the wall. He immediately saw
+his beloved portrait. It was lying upon the broad knob of a door,
+which jutted out of the wall. He kist it, and turned the handle, which
+yielded. A door opened; and he resolved to push the great wardrobe
+somewhat further away, and to explore this strange matter; for he
+thought the owner of the house himself could hardly be acquainted with
+this secret passage, which had been concealed with so much care, and,
+as it appeared, for so long a time.
+
+When he had gained a little more room, he saw that behind the door
+there was a narrow winding staircase. He went down a few steps; the
+thickest darkness came round him. He descended lower and still lower;
+the stairs seemed to lead down almost to the bottom of the house. He
+was on the point of returning, when he struck against a stoppage; for
+the flight of steps was now at an end. As he groped up and down in the
+darkness, his hand hit on a brass ring, which he pulled, and instantly
+the wall opened, and a red glow streamed into his face. Before he
+passed through, he examined the door, and found that a spring which
+the ring had set in motion, had driven it back. He put it to and stept
+cautiously into the room.
+
+It was covered with costly red tapestry; purple curtains of heavy silk
+hung down before the windows: a bed of brilliant scarlet embroidered
+with gold rose in the middle of the room. Everything was still; no
+sound was heard from the street; the windows lookt into a small
+garden.
+
+A painful anxiety came over the youth as he stood in the midst of the
+chamber; he listened attentively, and at length seemed to hear the low
+whisper of a breath, as from a sleeper. With throbbing heart he turned
+round, and went forward, to spy whether any one was upon the bed; he
+spread open the silken hangings, and ... he thought he must be in a
+dream; for before him lay, pale as a corpse, but in a sweet slumber,
+the form of his beloved Crescentia. Her bosom heaved visibly;
+something like a slight blush had tinged her pale lips, which were
+softly closed, quivering imperceptibly as a gentle smile ever and anon
+flitted over them. Her hair was loose and lay in its dark heavy locks
+upon her shoulders. Her dress was white, with a golden clasp at her
+girdle. For a long time Antonio stood lost in gazing; at last as if
+driven by a supernatural power he snatcht the lovely white hand, and
+began to pull up the sleeper by force. She darted a plaintive cry
+forth; and frightened by it he let go the arm again, which dropt
+languidly upon the pillow.
+
+But the dream, so seemed it, had flown away; the net of sleep which
+had held the wonderous form inclosed, was rent asunder: and as clouds
+and mists move along the side of the hills on the gentle morning
+breeze in wavy forms and now rise and now sink again, so the slumberer
+began to stir, stretcht herself as if powerless, and in slow and
+graceful motions seemed striving to emerge from her sleep. Her arms
+raised themselves, so that the broad sleeves fell back and displayed
+their full beauteous roundness; her hands folded themselves, and then
+dropt down again; the head arose, and the bright neck lifted itself
+freely up; but the eyes were still fast closed; the black tresses fell
+over the face, but the long taper fingers stroaked them back; now the
+fair one was sitting quite upright; she crost her arms over her
+breast, heaved a hard sigh, and on a sudden her large eyes stood wide
+open and glancing.
+
+She gazed at the youth; but it was as though she saw him not; she
+shook her head; then she graspt the gold tassel which was fastened to
+the top of the bed, lifted herself strongly up, and the tall slender
+form was now standing on its feet raised up on high in the midst of
+the scarlet drapery. She then stept safely and firmly down from the
+couch, walkt a few paces up to Antonio who had drawn back, and with a
+childish exclamation of surprise, as when children are suddenly
+gladdened by a new plaything, she laid her hand upon his shoulder,
+smiled lovelily upon him, and cried with a soft voice: "Antonio!"
+
+But he, pierced through and through with fear and horrour and joy and
+amazement and the deepest pity, knew not whether to fly from her, to
+embrace her, to cast himself at her feet, or to melt away in tears and
+die. That was the selfsame sound which of yore he had heard so often
+and with such delight, at which his whole heart had turned round.
+
+"Thou livest?" he cried with a voice which the swell of his feelings
+stifled.
+
+The sweet smile that had mounted from her pale lips over her cheeks
+even into her radiant eyes, suddenly split, and froze into a stiff
+expression of the deepest most unutterable woe.
+
+Antonio could not endure the glance of those eyes; he covered his face
+with his hands, and shriekt: "Art thou a ghost?"
+
+The figure came still closer, prest down his arms with her hands, so
+that his face lay bare, and said with a gently fluttering voice: "No,
+look at me; I am not dead; and yet I live not. Give me that cup
+there."
+
+A fragrant liquid was floating in the crystal vessel; he held it out
+to her trembling; she set it to her mouth and sipt the drink by slow
+draughts. "Alas! my poor Antonio!" she then said: "I will only borrow
+these earthly powers that I may disclose the most monstrous of crimes
+to thee, that I may beseech thy aid, that I may prevail on thee to
+help me to that rest after which all my feelings so fervently yearn."
+
+She had sunk back into the arm-chair, and Antonio was sitting at her
+feet. "Hellish arts," she again began, "have seemingly awakened me
+from death. The same man whom my inexperienced youth honoured as an
+apostle, is a spirit of darkness. He gave me this shadow of life. He
+loves me, as he says. How my heart shrank back from him when my
+awakening eye beheld him. I sleep, I breathe; I may, if I choose, be
+restored to life altogether, so that wicked man has promist me, if I
+will give myself up to him with my whole heart, if in secret
+concealment I will let him become my husband.... O Antonio, how hard
+is every word to me, every thought! All his art crumbles before my
+longing for death. It was frightful, when my spirit, already at rest,
+with new visions already unfolding before it, was summoned back so
+cruelly out of its calm peace. My body was already a stranger to me, a
+hostile and hateful thing. I came back like the freed slave to chains
+and a dungeon. Help me, my true lover; save me."
+
+"How!" said Antonio: "Oh God in Heaven! what have I lived to! in what
+a state do I find thee again! And thou canst not, mayst not return to
+life altogether? thou canst not again be mine, again be thy parents'
+dear child?"
+
+"Impossible!" cried Crescentia with a tone of anguish, and her
+paleness became yet whiter from dismay. "Alas! Life! How can any one
+seek it again, who has once been set free from it? Thou, my poor
+Antonio, conceivest not the deep longing, the love, the rapture,
+wherewith I think upon death and pant for it. Even more intensely than
+of yore I loved thee, even more fervently than my lips at the Easter
+festival pined for the holy wafer, do I now yearn for death. Then I
+shall love thee more freely and more wholly in God; then I shall be
+given back to my parents. Then I shall live; formerly I was dead; now
+I am a cloud and a shadow, a riddle to myself and to thee. Alas, when
+thy love and our youth have gleamed in upon me in my present state,
+when I have heard my well-known nightingale from above pouring her
+song into my loneliness, what a sweet shuddering, what a dark joy and
+pain have then rippled through the dusk of my being! O help me to get
+loose from this chain."
+
+"What can I do for thee?" askt Antonio.
+
+Her talking had again broken the strength of the apparition: she
+paused awhile with closed eyelids; then she spake faintly: "Alas! if I
+could go into a church, if I could be present when the Lord is lifted
+up and appears to the congregation in the sacrament, then in that
+blessed moment I should die of rapture."
+
+"What should hinder me," said Antonio, "from informing against the
+villain, and delivering him up to the tribunals and to the
+inquisition?"
+
+"No! no! no!" groaned the figure in the greatest terrour: "thou dost
+not know him; he is too mighty; he would make his escape, and again
+tear me to him within the circle of his wickedness. Quietly and by
+silence alone can we succeed; he must feel secure. A chance has
+brought thee to me. Thou must make him believe himself quite safe, and
+keep everything secret."
+
+The youth collected his senses; he talkt much with his former
+betrothed; but speaking became more and more difficult to her; her
+eyelids dropt down; she drank once more of the wonderous potion; then
+she made him lead her to the couch.
+
+"Farewell!" she said, as if already in a dream; "do not forget me."
+
+She mounted upon the bed, laid herself gently down; her hands searcht
+for the crucifix, which she kist with her eyes closed; then she held
+out her hand to her lover, and beckoned him away as she stretcht
+herself out to sleep.
+
+Antonio gazed at her awhile; then with the spring he shut the
+invisible door again, crept back up the narrow winding stairs to his
+chamber, fixt the wardrobe in its old place, and burst into hot tears
+as the song of the nightingale welcomed him with the swell of its
+mournful notes. He too longed for death, and only wisht beforehand to
+release her, who but a few days since was to have been his earthly
+bride, from her marvellous and awful state.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In order to be out of the way when his teacher returned from his
+journey, Antonio had bent his steps toward the loneliest part of the
+wood. It was an annoyance to him to meet his friend, the Spaniard,
+here; for he was in no mood to carry on a conversation. However, as
+there was no avoiding his comrade, he resigned himself in silent
+sadness to the society which at other times had been a pleasure to him
+and a comfort. He only half listened to what his friend said, and
+answered but sparingly. As was almost always the case, Pietro was
+again the theme of Alfonso's boundless admiration.
+
+"Why are you thus stingy of your words today?" he at length began,
+somewhat vext: "is my company troublesome to you? or are you no longer
+as capable as you used to be of honouring our great teacher and giving
+him the glory he deserves?"
+
+Antonio was forced to collect himself, not to sink away entirely into
+his dreamy state.
+
+"What is the matter with you?" askt Alfonso again: "it seems I have
+offended you."
+
+"No, you have not;" cried the Florentine; "but if you have any regard
+for me, if you would not excite my anger, if you would not have the
+bitterest feelings rend my heart, do give over chaunting the praises
+of your idolized Pietro for today. Let us talk on some other subject."
+
+"Ha! by Heaven!" exclaimed Alfonso: "so the parsons have twisted your
+feeble senses round at last. Go your own way henceforward, young man;
+wisdom, I now well see, is too lofty a prize for you. Your head is too
+weak for this fare; and you are longing again for the pap you were
+wont to get from the former fathers of your soul. You will do better
+to stay with them, at least till your milk teeth have dropt out."
+
+"You are talking overweeningly," cried Antonio in wrath; "or rather
+you are utterly ignorant of what you are saying, and I deserve not
+this language from you."
+
+"How has our teacher deserved," said the Spaniard hastily, "he who has
+taken you in like a father, he who favours you so highly above all the
+young men of our university, who allows you to dwell in his house, who
+entrusts you with all the thoughts of his heart, by what offense has
+he deserved, that you should thus mean-spiritedly deny him?"
+
+"If I were to answer now," returned Antonio angrily, "that you do not
+know him, that I have reasons, and the fullest, to think otherwise of
+him, again you would not understand me."
+
+"Verily," said Alfonso with a sneer, "you have already scaled so high
+into the most secret places of his philosophy, that the common
+unfavoured child of earth is unable to follow you. Here again one sees
+that half-merit and quarter-merit puff themselves up the most. Pietro
+Abano is more lowly-minded than you, his feeble mimic."
+
+"You are unmannerly!" exclaimed the young Florentine irritated to the
+utmost. "If I were now to assure you by my honour, by my faith, by
+heaven, and by everything which must needs be holy and venerable to
+you and me, that in all Italy, in all Europe, there is no such wicked
+villain, no so atrocious hypocrite as this...."
+
+"Who?" shouted Alfonso.
+
+"Pietro Abano," said Antonio now grown calm: "what would you say
+then?"
+
+"Nothing!" furiously cried the other, who had not allowed him to
+finish: "save that you, and everybody else who dares to speak in that
+way, are the paltriest knaves that ever had the audacity to blaspheme
+holy things. Draw, if you would not be called a mean coward as well as
+a base slanderer."
+
+Antonio's drawn sword met the challenger with the same speed; and it
+was in vain that a hoarse anxious voice cried out to them: "Hold!"
+Alfonso was wounded in the breast; and the blood at the same time ran
+from Antonio's arm.
+
+The old priest, who had wisht to separate the quarrellers, now
+hastened forward; bound up their wounds and stancht the blood; then he
+called to some students that he had seen a little way off, and told
+them to carry the wounded Alfonso to the city.
+
+Before he was removed, Antonio went up to him and whispered in his
+ear: "If you are a man of honour, not a word about the cause of our
+fray will pass over your lips. In four days time we will meet again:
+and if you are not of my way of thinking then, I am ready to give you
+any satisfaction."
+
+Alfonso pledged his solemn promise; all the bystanders too assured
+Antonio that the wound as well as the whole affair should be kept a
+secret, not to expose him to any danger.
+
+When they were all gone Antonio walkt with the priest Theodore deeper
+into the wood.
+
+"Why," began the latter, "will you, for a fiend's sake, make over your
+own soul to hell? I see, you are now of a different opinion; but is
+the sword the spokesman that should preach truth to a brother?"
+
+Antonio felt in doubt how much he should disclose to the monk; however
+he said nothing about the wonderful event that had befallen him, and
+only entreated that, at the approaching festival of Easter, he might
+be allowed to enter the great church during high mass through the
+sacristy, near the altar.
+
+After some objections Theodore complied, though he could not conceive
+what was the youth's purpose in asking for this permission. All
+Antonio said further was: "I wish to bring a friend into the church
+that way, whose entrance at the great door might perhaps be stopt."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+All the bells in the city were ringing, that the holy feast of Easter
+might be kept with gladness and devotion. The people flockt toward the
+dome, to celebrate the most joyous of Christian festivals, and also to
+behold the renowned Apone in his new dignity. The students escorted
+their illustrious teacher, who walkt along amid the reverent
+salutations of the nobles, the council, and the citizens, in seeming
+piety and humility, an example to all, the pride of the city, the
+inspiring model of the youth. At the door of the cathedral the crowd
+shrank back in timid respect, to make way for their honoured bishop,
+who, in the garb of a prelate, with the golden chain round his neck,
+with his white beard and the white locks on his head, might be
+compared to an emperor or an ancient doctor of the church in his
+majestic demeanour.
+
+A seat had been raised up on high for the great man near the altar,
+that the students and the people might see him; and when the multitude
+of the devout had poured into the church, the service began.
+
+Theodore, the little priest, read mass on this day; and young and old,
+gentle and simple, all rejoiced to keep the festival of their Lord's
+resurrection in a worthy manner, and to behold the pomp of worship
+returning, glad that after the days of severe fasting, after the
+saddening representations of suffering and sorrow, they might now
+comfort themselves with the feeling of a new life springing forth from
+the grave.
+
+The first part of the divine service was already over, when people
+were astonisht to see Antonio Cavalcanti stepping into the church by
+the side of the altar, leading a thickly veiled figure in his hand. He
+placed the figure on the raised pavement just in face of Pietro, and
+then threw himself down before the altar praying. The muffled form
+remained standing stiff and high, and beneath the covering one saw the
+firy black eyes. Pietro lifted himself from his seat, and sank back
+into it pale and trembling. The music of the mass now gusht and rolled
+in fuller symphonies; the muffled form disentangled itself slowly from
+its veils; the face became free; and those who were nearest with
+horrour recognized the dead Crescentia. A shudder passed through the
+whole church; even over those who were furthest off a secret shivering
+crept, to see the image pale as death standing so tall there, and
+praying so fervently, and never turning her large burning eyes from
+the priest at the altar. Even the great mighty Pietro himself seemed
+changed into a corpse; from his distorted features one might have held
+him to be dead, but that his life betrayed itself in his violent
+trembling.
+
+Now the priest turned round and lifted up the consecrated host;
+trumpets announced the renewed presence of the Lord; and with a voice
+of triumph, with a face of high transport, her arms widely outspread,
+as she cried aloud "Hosannah!" so that the church resounded with it,
+the pale apparition dropt down, and lay dead, stiff, and motionless,
+before Pietro's feet.
+
+The people rusht forward; the music stopt; curiosity, astonishment,
+horrour, and affright spake from every asking countenance; the nobles
+and students went up to comfort and support the venerable old man, who
+appeared so deeply shockt; when Antonio with a yelling sound shouted:
+"Murder! Murder!" and began the most fearful charge, the most
+appalling tale, unfolded the hellish arts, the accursed magic of the
+dismayed sinner, spake of himself and of Crescentia and of their awful
+meeting again, until anger and rage and imprecations and loathing and
+curses raved like a stormy sea around the criminal, and threatened to
+annihilate him, to tear him to pieces in the madness of their fury.
+They talkt of gaolers and chains; the inquisitors drew near; when
+Pietro started up as in a frenzy, thrust and struck about him with
+clencht fists, and seemed to spread himself out to a gigantic size. He
+walkt up to Crescentia's body that lay smiling like the picture of a
+saint, gazed at her once more, and then passed roaring and with
+flashing eyes through the crowd.
+
+A new horrour seized the people; they made room for the huge form; all
+moved out of his way. Thus Pietro came to the open street: but the mob
+now bethought themselves, and with cries and curses and revilings
+pursued the fugitive, who ran hastily onward, while his long robes
+flew far behind him, and the gold chain beat and rattled upon his
+breast and shoulders. The rabble, as they could not catch him, tore up
+the stones from the pavement, and threw them after him; and wounded,
+bleeding, dripping with sweat, his teeth chattering from fear, Pietro
+at last reacht the threshold of his house.
+
+He hid himself in the innermost apartments; and Beresynth came forward
+inquisitively, asking all sorts of questions, to meet the mob and the
+rush of the people.
+
+"Fall upon the maskt devil! the familiar!" they all shouted: "tear in
+pieces the profane creature who never yet set foot in a church!"
+
+He was dragged and pusht into the street; no answer was made to his
+inquiries and intreaties, to his howls and shrieks, nor indeed was
+anything heard through the stormy tumult except curses and threats of
+death. "Bring me before the magistrate!" at length screamed the dwarf;
+"there my innocence will be made clear as day."
+
+The constables were summoned, and seizing him led him toward the
+prison. All the people prest after him. "In here with him!" cried the
+chief of the officers: "chains and faggots are waiting for thee."
+
+He tried to tear himself away from them; the constables laid hold on
+him and shoved him to and fro: one seized him by the collar, another
+by the arm, the next clung round his leg to hold him fast, a fourth
+caught his head to make quite sure of him.
+
+While they were pulling him backward and forward in this way amid
+shouts and curses and laughter, on the sudden they all started off
+from one another; for each had got nothing but a piece of clothing, a
+sleeve, cap, or shoe of the monster; he himself was nowhere to be
+seen. He could not have run away; he seemed to have vanisht; but
+nobody could tell how.
+
+When they had broken into Apone's chamber, those who rusht in found
+him lying on his bed, lifeless, having bled to death. They plundered
+the house; the magical implements, the books, the strange furniture,
+were all made over to the flames; and throughout the whole city
+nothing resounded except curses on the man whom but this morning all
+had honoured as a messenger from Heaven. This only embittered the
+loathing with which they now revolted from the phantom.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When the turmoil by which the people were agitated was somewhat
+allayed, the body of Pietro was silently buried at night, without the
+consecrated churchyard. Antonio and Alfonso renewed their friendship,
+and attacht themselves to the pious Theodore, who, after going through
+the solemn rites and pronouncing a devout oration, had the body of the
+beautiful Crescentia laid a second time in the vault designed for her.
+Antonio however could not bear to stay any longer at Padua; he
+resolved to revisit his native city, that he might settle his affairs,
+and then perhaps get admitted into a convent. Alfonso on the other
+hand determined to make a pilgrimage to Rome, where the holy Father
+had just been proclaiming a year of jubilee with a plenary indulgence
+for sins. Not only throughout Italy was every one in motion; but from
+France too, and Germany, and Spain, came numerous trains of pilgrims,
+to celebrate this till then unheard of solemnity, this great festival
+of the church, in the holy city.
+
+After the friends had parted, Antonio pursued his lonely path,
+shunning the great road, partly for the sake of brooding
+uninterruptedly over his sorrows, and partly to avoid the swarms that
+were flocking along the highway, and were often troublesome at the
+nightly resting-places.
+
+Thus following his own mood, he roamed through the plains and through
+the vallies of the Apennines. One evening the sun set and no inn was
+to be seen. As the shades were deepening, he heard a hermit's little
+bell tinkling in a wood on one side. He bent his steps toward the
+sound, and when the darkness of night was already closing, he arrived
+at a small hut, to which a narrow plank led across a brook, surrounded
+by bushes.
+
+He found an aged infirm man praying with the deepest devotion before a
+crucifix. The hermit received the youth, who greeted him courteously,
+with kindness made up a couch of moss for him in a recess of the rock
+which was separated by a door from his cell, and placed some of his
+fruit, some water, and a little wine before him. When Antonio was
+refresht, he was greatly pleased with the conversation of the monk,
+who in earlier times had lived in the world, and served as a soldier
+in many campaigns. In this way it had grown late in the night, and the
+youth betook himself to his bed, just as another weak and sickly monk
+entered, who meant to pass the night with the hermit in prayer.
+
+When Antonio had rested about an hour he started suddenly out of his
+sleep. It seemed to him as though loud voices were disputing. He sat
+up; and all doubt about the quarelling and squabbling was removed. The
+tones too struck him as if he knew them; and he askt himself whether
+he was not dreaming. He went to the door, and found a crevice through
+which he could pry into the front room.
+
+How was he amazed at beholding Pietro Abano, whom he could not but
+deem dead, speaking loudly, with eyes of rage and a red face, and
+striding about with violent gestures! Over against him stood little
+Beresynth's hideous carcase.
+
+"So you have got your persecutor," cried the latter with a croaking
+voice, "who has made you thus wretched, the lovesick godly fool, here
+under your roof! he has run of his own accord like a silly rabbit into
+the snare: and you are shillishallying about cutting his throat."
+
+"Silence!" cried the large figure: "I have already taken counsel with
+my spirits; they will not consent; I have no hold upon him; for he is
+imprisoned in no sin."
+
+"Smite him dead then," said the little one, "without your spirits,
+with your own gracious hands: so his virtue and his sinlessness will
+not avail him much; and I should be a sorry servant if I were not to
+stand by you in so praiseworthy an exploit."
+
+"Well then!" said Pietro: "let us go to work; take thou the hammer;
+I'll carry the axe; he is fast asleep now."
+
+They advanced toward the door; but Antonio tore it back, to meet the
+villains boldly in the face. He had drawn his sword; but he remained
+like a statue, standing with uplifted arm, when he saw two sickly
+decrepit hermits lying on their knees before the cross, mumbling their
+prayers.
+
+"Do you want anything?" askt his host, rising toilsomely from the
+floor. Antonio was so astounded, he could make no answer.
+
+"Why that drawn sword?" askt the weak stooping hermit; "and wherefore
+these menacing looks?"
+
+Antonio drew back with the excuse that a frightful dream had scared
+and worried him. He could not fall asleep again; his senses were in
+such a tumult. Ere long he again plainly heard Beresynth's croaking
+voice; and Pietro said with a full clear tone: "Have done; thou seest
+he is armed and warned; he will not trust himself to sleep again."
+
+"We must overpower him then;" screamed the little one: "now that he
+has recognized us, we are quite undone every way. The pious slave will
+go and give us up to the inquisition tomorrow; and the pious rabble
+will then be at hand in a trice with their faggots and flames."
+
+Through the chink in the door he perceived the two magicians. He again
+rusht in with his sword drawn, and again found two decrepit old men
+lying on the ground and whining their prayers. Enraged at the cheating
+forms, he seized them in his arms and wrestled violently with them;
+they defended themselves desperately; it was now Pietro, now the
+hermit, one moment the imp Beresynth, the next a crippled old monk.
+
+After much screaming and raving, cursing and wailing, he at last
+succeeded in thrusting them out of the cell, which he then carefully
+fastened. He now heard a whining without and entreaties and groans,
+mixt up with the whispering of many voices, and with songs and yells;
+afterward rain and wind seemed to be stirring, and a storm afar off
+rolled athwart the multitudinous sound. Stunned at length by all this,
+Antonio fell asleep, leaning on his sword as he sat before the
+crucifix; and when the cold morning breeze awakened him, he found
+himself on the highest peak of a narrow ridge in the midst of a thick
+forest, and thought he heard bursts of scornful laughter behind him.
+
+It was at the peril of his life that he climbed down the steep
+precipice, tearing his clothes, and wounding his face and hands and
+feet. He had then to wander wearisomely through the forest: there was
+not a soul to call to, not a hut to be discovered far around, often as
+he mounted the hights to explore. When it was almost night, faint with
+fatigue, hunger, and exhaustion, he fell in with an old collier who
+refresht him in his little hut. He learnt that he must be some twelve
+miles and upward from the hermitage he had met with the evening
+before. It was only late on the following day that, somewhat
+strengthened and cheered, he could pursue his journey toward Florence.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Antonio had returned to Florence for the sake of visiting his kindred
+and his paternal house again. He could not make up his mind on what
+course of life to enter, since all the happiness of existence had
+proved so treacherous, and even realities had shewn themselves to him
+under the aspect of a mad dream.
+
+He settled his affairs, and gave himself up to his sorrow in the great
+palace of his fathers; where that fatal grotto and every well-known
+room only harast his mind with the liveliest images of his own and his
+parents misfortunes. He thought too of that hateful witch who was so
+entangled in his fate, and of that Crescentia who had appeared to him
+and then vanisht again in a way scarcely less marvellous than his
+bride. If he could have caught the slightest glimmering of hope, he
+might in time have grown reconciled to life again.
+
+At last there rose up within his soul, like a pale star, the wish of
+making a pilgrimage to Rome, which he had never yet seen, there to
+partake in the graces bestowed upon the faithful, to visit the famous
+churches and holy relics, to divert his thoughts from himself in the
+midst of the streaming multitude, the throng of numberless strangers
+who had journied thither from all quarters of the earth, and to seek
+out his friend Alfonso. He also expected that he should find old
+Ambrosio in the great city, should receive comfort from this mourner
+who had meant to become his father, and might perhaps afford him too
+some comfort in his affliction. With these feelings and views he set
+out on his way, and after some time arrived at Rome.
+
+He was astonisht when he entered the great city. He had framed no
+conception of her grandeur, her ancient monuments, or of such a
+concourse of innumerable strangers. It might well be deemed matter of
+wonder if one found out any friend or acquaintance, without being able
+beforehand to give an accurate account of where he lived. And yet this
+wonderful chance befell him in his suddenly meeting Ambrosio, as he
+was going up to the Capitol from which the old man was coming down.
+The Podesta carried him to his house, where Antonio greeted the
+sorrowing mother. The rumour of Pietro's strange end, of Crescentia's
+return to life and second departure from it, had already been bruited
+as far as Rome: this marvellous story was in the mouth of every
+pilgrim, disfigured with confused additions and contradictions, and
+drest out by frequent repeating into the very reverse of the truth.
+The parents listened with alternations of joy and woe to the story as
+Antonio told it, awestruck as they both were, especially the mother,
+who gave vent to her loathing in execrations against the old
+hypocritical magician, and in her rage more than half believed that he
+had himself been the cause of her daughter's death, having perhaps
+taken a bribe for that purpose from the family of Marconi, that he had
+poisoned her for the sake of awakening her corpse again to gratify his
+frantic abominations.
+
+"Let us leave all this to heaven;" said the old man. "What happened
+and was notorious to the whole city and country, was quite horrible
+enough, without involving others, who may perhaps have been innocent,
+in this enormous wickedness. However, let the matter with regard to
+the Marconis stand as it may, I am perfectly resolved that they shall
+never be the better off for my fortune. By the help of my patrons here
+I shall obtain leave to make over my property to some convents or
+charitable foundations; and perhaps my weariness of life may lead me
+to end my own days as a monk or hermit."
+
+"But what," threw in the mother weeping, "if it were possible after
+all to find out that second Crescentia again, of whom Antonio has told
+us! The child was stolen from me during your absence in a most
+incomprehensible manner; the witch who named the Marconis on that
+night, the likeness, all, all agrees so wonderfully, that surely we
+ought not to cast away hope, that first and chief good of life, too
+early, not too hastily, in our despair."
+
+"Good Eudoxia," said the father, "have done, have done with all these
+dreams and stories and wild fancies: for us there remains in this
+world nothing that is certain, except death; and that ours may be
+pious and easy, is what we must wish and pray to heaven for."
+
+"And if hereafter, when it is already too late," exclaimed the mother,
+"our poor orphan child should be found again, may not the unhappy girl
+justly reproach us for not relying on the bounty and mercy of Heaven,
+and waiting for her return with a little more calmness and patience?"
+
+Ambrosio cast a dark frown on the youth, and then said: "This too has
+come in over and above all the rest to deepen our wretchedness: you
+have infected my poor wife with your sick fancies, and have thereby
+robbed her of her peace, the only, the last blessing of life."
+
+"What mean you by these words?" askt Antonio.
+
+"Young man," answered the father, "ever since that ride of yours
+through field and forest, when you pinned that wild tale upon me about
+the events which you said had befallen you the night before...."
+
+"Signor Ambrosio!" cried Antonio, and his hand fell involuntarily on
+his sword.
+
+"Leave that alone," continued the old man calmly: "far be from me the
+wish to accuse you of a falsehood; I have too long known your noble
+character, and your love for truth. But has it never struck you, my
+poor young friend, without my putting it into your head, that ever
+since the night when you met my daughter's coffin, having come with
+the thought to carry her home with you the next day as your bride,
+your senses have got into disorder, your reason has been much
+weakened? During that lonely night, beneath that storm, in the
+strongly excited state of your passions, you fancied you saw my lost
+child again; and the recollections of your unfortunate father, of your
+long-lost mother, connected themselves with her image. In this way
+were those visions bred, and fixt themselves firmly in your brain. Did
+we find a single trace of the hut? Was a human creature in the
+neighbourhood able to tell us a word about the robbers you killed?
+That awful meeting again with my real daughter, in which I perforce
+must believe, is of itself enough to fever the very coldest feelings
+into madness; and need one marvel then at your talking of having
+encountered another impossibility, at your story about finding the
+dead Pietro come to life among the mountains, and not knowing him
+again, and about those almost farcical tricks of jugglery that were
+played you, all which you have related to us with the very same
+assurance? No, my good Antonio, pain and grief have distracted your
+sounder senses, so that you see and believe in things which have no
+real existence."
+
+Antonio was perplext and knew not what to reply. Greatly as the loss
+of his beloved had shaken all the faculties of his soul, he still was
+too clearly conscious of the events he had past through, to bring
+their reality thus in question.
+
+He now felt a new motive to activity: he wisht at least to prove that
+the story of that night was no dreamy phantom, that his second
+Crescentia was an actual being; and thus it became his liveliest
+desire to find her again, and to restore her to her afflicted parents,
+or at least make Ambrosio acknowledge that he had misjudged him.
+
+In this mood he left his old friend, and wandered about the city to
+and fro, prest by the concourse of people, and half stunned by shouts,
+and questions, and stories in all the languages of the earth. Thus,
+shoved and pusht about, he had been driven on as far as the Lateran,
+when he fancied that, as the crowd now and then opened a little, he
+distinctly perceived, though some way off, that selfsame hideous old
+woman, the mother of the beautiful maiden, who bore the name of his
+Crescentia.
+
+He endeavoured to get up to her, and seemed to be succeeding, when a
+train of pilgrims came pouring from a cross street, who cut him off
+entirely, and made all further advance impossible. While he was
+struggling with all his might, and working his way up the steps of St
+John's Church, that he might be able to overlook the multitude, he
+felt a friendly slap on his shoulder, and a wellknown voice pronounced
+his name. It was the Spaniard Alfonso.
+
+"So I find you exactly in the place," said he joyfully, "where I lookt
+for you."
+
+"What do you mean by that?" askt Antonio.
+
+"First let us get out of the way of this torrent of human flesh,"
+cried the other: "in this place, from the myriads of tongues that are
+wagging, from the ceaseless buz of this monstrous Babylonian beehive,
+one can't hear a single word."
+
+They took a walk out into the country; and here Alfonso confest to his
+friend that, since he had been at Rome, he had devoted himself to the
+science of astrology, divination, and other like things, which he had
+formerly held in abhorrence, having been of opinion that they could
+only be acquired by accursed means and by the help of evil spirits.
+"But since the day," he continued, "when I made acquaintance with the
+incomparable Castalio, this knowledge appears to me in a far higher
+and purer light."
+
+"And is it possible," exclaimed Antonio, "that after all those fearful
+events at Padua, you can again expose your soul to such perils? Do you
+not clearly see that whatsoever is to be attained in a natural way and
+by means of our own reason does not repay the trouble, being nothing
+more than a set of petty tricks that can only excite merriment and
+laughter! that everything beyond on the other hand, which does not
+turn upon empty delusion, cannot possibly be called into being, unless
+by evil and damnable powers?"
+
+"Declaiming," said the Spaniard, "is not proving. We are far too young
+to understand the whole of our own nature; much less can we comprehend
+the rest of the world and all its unexplored mysteries. When you once
+see the man whom I have so much to thank for, all your doubts will
+vanish. Pious, simple-hearted, nay childlike, as he is, every look of
+his eye pours the light of confidence into you."
+
+"And how was it with Apone?" Antonio threw in.
+
+"He," replied his friend, "always wanted to be coming forward in the
+light of a supernatural being: he was evermore labouring, consciously
+and purposely, to appear as a messenger from Heaven, and with
+counterfeit splendour to dazzle the ordinary sons of men. He delighted
+in pomp; he would indeed be condescending at times, but it was only to
+make the enormous distance between him and us more palpably felt. Did
+he not revel in the admiration which the nobles and citizens, the
+young and old, were all forced to pay him? But my present friend (for
+such he is, because he renders himself altogether my equal) has no
+wish to seem great and sublime: he smiles at the endeavours of so many
+men to do so, and considers this of itself as an assurance that there
+is something spurious and hollow to be concealed; since a clear
+consciousness of worth would only wish to pass for what it feels
+itself to be, and the wisest of mortals must after all acknowledge
+that he too, as well as the most ignorant vagabond, is merely a child
+of the dust."
+
+"You make me curious;" said Antonio: "so he knows both what is past
+and what is to come? the destinies of men? and could tell me how happy
+or unhappy the cast of my future life is to be? whether certain secret
+wishes can be accomplisht? Would he then be able to decipher and
+divine such parts of my history as are obscure even to myself?"
+
+"It is in this very thing that his wisdom lies," answered Alfonso with
+enthusiasm; "by means of letters and numbers, in the simplest and most
+harmless way, he finds out everything for which those wretches have to
+employ conjurations and charms and yells and screams and the agonies
+of death. Hence too you will find none of that odious magical
+apparatus about him, no crystals with spirits blockt up in them, no
+mirrors and skeletons, no incense, and no nauseous imps: he has all
+his stores in himself. I told him about you; and he found out by his
+calculations that I was quite sure of meeting you today at this hour
+on the steps of the Lateran church. And so it has turned out at the
+very instant he foretold."
+
+Antonio was desirous of becoming acquainted with this wonderfully
+gifted old man, in the hope of learning his destiny from him. They
+dined in a garden, and toward evening went back to the city. The
+streets had grown somewhat quieter; they could pursue their way with
+less hinderance. At dusk they came into the allies which pass close
+behind the tomb of Augustus. They walkt through a little garden; a
+friendly light glimmered upon them from the windows of a small house.
+They pulled the bell; the door opened; and full of the strangest and
+highest expectations Antonio entered with his friend into the hall.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Antonio was surprised at seeing before him a simple-mannered
+middle-sized young man, who from his appearance could not be much
+above thirty years old. With an unaffected air he greeted the youth on
+his entrance like an old acquaintance.
+
+"Be welcome!" said he with a pleasing voice: "your Spanish friend has
+told me much good of you, so that I have long lookt forward with
+pleasure to becoming acquainted with you. Only you must by no means
+fancy that you are come to one of the sages, to an adept, or forsooth
+to a man before whom hell trembles in its foundations: you will find
+me a mere mortal, such as you yourself are and may become, as may
+every man whom such graver studies, and retirement from the vain
+tumult of the world, do not scare away."
+
+Antonio felt comfortable and at ease, greatly as he was astonisht: he
+cast his eyes round the room, which beside a few books and a lute
+displayed nothing out of the way. In his own mind he compared this
+little house and its straightforward inmate with the palace and the
+pomp, the instruments and the mysteries, of his former teacher, and
+said: "In truth one sees no traces here of that high and hidden
+knowledge which my friend has been extolling to me, and in which you
+are said to be infallible."
+
+Castalio laught heartily, and then replied: "No, my young friend, not
+infallible; no mortal can go so far as that. Only look around you;
+this is my sitting-room; there in that little chamber stands my bed: I
+have neither space nor means for hiding any instruments of fraud, or
+setting any artificial machinery in action. All those circles and
+glasses, those celestial globes and maps of the stars, which your
+conjurers need for their tricks, would find no room here: and those
+poor creatures after all are only deluded by the spirit of falsehood,
+because they will not labour to learn the powers of their own minds.
+He however who descends into the depths of his own soul, with humility
+and a pious disposition to guide him, he who is in earnest in wishing
+to know himself, will at the same time find every thing here which he
+would vainly strive by desperate means and devices to extort from
+Heaven and Hell. _Become like children._ In this exhortation the whole
+mystery lies hidden. Only let our feelings be pure, and we may again,
+even though it be but for hours or moments, cast off all that our
+first parents drew down upon themselves by their wanton disobedience;
+we walk again as in paradise; and Nature with all her powers comes
+forward as she did then, in the youthful bridal age of the world, to
+meet the transfigured man. Is not this the very thing which proves our
+spirit to be a spirit, that bodily hinderances, space and time, with
+the confusion they breed, cannot confine it? It soars even now on the
+wings of yearning and devotion far above all the circles of the stars:
+nothing checks its flight, save that earthly power which, when sin
+entered, pounced upon it and enslaved it. This however we can and
+ought to subdue, by prayer, by self-abasement before the Lord, by
+confessing our vast guilt, and by boundless gratitude to him for his
+unfathomable love; and then we see and hear the things that are
+curtained from us by space and time; we are here and there; the future
+comes forward and, like the past, pours out its secrets before us; the
+whole realm of knowledge, of comprehension, lies open to us; the
+powers of heaven become our willing servants: and yet to the truly
+wise man one glimpse into the mysteries of the Godhead, one emotion of
+his own heart when toucht by God's love, is far higher, and far more
+precious knowledge, than all the treasures which do homage to the
+inquiring mind, than the revealed soul of history or of the present
+time, than the bending knees of a thousand angels who are ready to
+call him their master."
+
+Alfonso cast a look of enthusiasm upon his friend; and Antonio could
+not refrain from acknowledging to himself that here in the garb of
+lowly simplicity he found more than had ever delighted him from
+Apone's mouth, even at the time of his greatest admiration for that
+ostentatious philosopher. Indeed he was already become fully convinced
+that the knowledge which people call supernatural may be easily united
+with piety and a thorough resignation to the Lord.
+
+"Do you know now what my fate has been?" askt the youth with emotion:
+"can you tell me anything about the events that are hereafter to
+befall me?"
+
+"If I learn the year, the day, and the hour of your birth," answered
+Castalio, "compare the horoscope I shall then draw with the lines of
+your face and the marks on your hands, and afterward give free range
+to my mind in contemplating the results, I hardly doubt my being able
+to tell you something about your destinies."
+
+Antonio gave him a pocket-book, in which his father had himself noted
+down the hour of his birth. Castalio placed some wine before the young
+men, himself partaking a little of it, turned over a few books, and
+then sat down to calculate, without however entirely breaking off his
+conversation with his guests. It only seemed as if the cheerful young
+man had some common business in hand, which was far from requiring the
+whole of his attention. Thus amid laughing and lively talk an hour may
+have past away, when Castalio stood up and beckoned to Antonio to go
+with him to the window.
+
+"I know not, he began, how far you trust your friend there, or what
+you may wish to keep secret from him."
+
+Hereupon he examined Antonio's face and hands very minutely, and then
+in regular connexion told him the story of his parents and their
+misfortunes, the early violent death of his mother, and his father's
+sinful passion, together with his murder by the hand of his wicked
+complice. Afterward he came to Antonio's own affairs, how he had
+sought for the murderer and pursued him, and had been detained at
+Padua by love.
+
+"So you," he concluded, "as not without astonishment I have learnt,
+are the very young man who a short time since detected the wickedness
+of the abominable Apone in such a wonderful way, and who delivered the
+shameless villain over to his punishment, although you yourself only
+became still unhappier than before, from having to lose your beloved a
+second time in so horrible a manner."
+
+Antonio confirmed all that the friendly man said, and had gained such
+confidence in him, that he felt just as if he was talking to himself.
+He then went on to tell him about the adventures of that night, about
+the second Crescentia, and the odious witch, who, he could not help
+fancying, had appeared to him a second time on that day.
+
+"Can you inform me now," he askt eagerly, "whether this is all true,
+who that Crescentia is, and whether I shall ever see her again and
+carry her back to her parents?"
+
+Castalio became more thoughtful than before. "Unless that strange
+creature Beresynth," he answered, "the imp that used to be at the
+magician's side, has been disguising himself as a woman, to escape
+from his pursuers, I feel assured that I shall find the hag out. Only
+have patience till tomorrow, and I will then give you your answer.
+Meanwhile you may be satisfied that the occurrences of that night were
+no phantoms of your mind, but realities; thus far you may set yourself
+and your elderly friend at rest."
+
+The young people were lost in thought as they left the wonderful man,
+and Antonio thankt the Spaniard heartily for having procured him this
+acquaintance.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Antonio had not been mistaken. It was in fact the old woman that he
+had caught sight of in the crowd. She was living in a little hut,
+behind some ruinous houses, not far from the Lateran. Persecuted,
+destitute, deserted and hated and dreaded by all the world, she was
+here, in the abode of wretchedness, reduced to the brink of despair.
+She seldom ventured to shew herself abroad, and on this day too had
+only gone out from necessity, to bring her Crescentia, who had run
+away from her, back again.
+
+As everybody shrank out of her path, as it was hard work for her even
+to obtain here and there an alms, and as her former arts found few
+lovers, she was no little astonisht that evening to hear a knock at
+her door, while cries and shouts were tossing without. She took her
+lamp, and, opening the door, saw a swarm of street-boys and of the
+lowest rabble at the heels of a little crooked figure fantastically
+clad in red velvet and gold.
+
+"Does not the worthy Pancrazia live here?" screamed the deformed
+dwarf.
+
+"Ay, to be sure!" said the old woman, as she forcibly banged the door
+to, and tried to drive away the people on the outside by abuse. "Who
+are you, worthy Sir? what do you seek from an old forlorn lady?"
+
+"Set yourself down," said the little stranger, "and kindle some more
+light, that we may spy and look at one another; and whereas you call
+yourself poor, take these gold pieces, and we will sip a glass of wine
+together to our better acquaintance."
+
+The old woman smirkt, lighted some wax-candles which she kept lockt up
+in a drawer, and said: "I have still a flask of good Florence,
+worshipful sir, that shall warm our insides." She opened a little
+cupboard and placed the red comforter upon the table, pouring out the
+first glass for her unknown guest.
+
+"Why do you call me worshipful?" askt he.
+
+"Don't the pieces of gold declare it?" answered she: "and your
+doublet, and the lace upon it, and the feather in your hat? Are you
+not a prince, not a magnate?"
+
+"No!" howled the little one: "what, odds bodikins! cousin, don't you
+know me in the least? and yet in my younger days people wanted to
+flatter me by assuring me that we in some degree resembled each other:
+and faith! when I come to look thus closely at your figure, your
+physiognomy, your expression, your sweet smile, and those twinkling
+stars in your eyes there, and when I weigh all this with scrupulous
+impartiality, why, cousin Pancrazia of the house of Posaterrena in
+Florence, and little Beresynth of the family of Fuocoterrestro in
+Milan, are for such degrees of kin, as cousinhood, like each other
+enough."
+
+"O gemini!" screamed the old woman in delight: "so you are the
+Beresynth of Milan about whom I heard so much talk in my childhood.
+Hey! Hey! so am I at this late hour in the day, in the depth of old
+age, to become acquainted with such a lovely cousin face to face!"
+
+"Ay!" said the dwarf: "just nose to nose; for that great bastion
+thrown up there is certainly the biggest piece of bonework in our
+faces. For curiosity's sake, dear coz, let us make an experiment for
+once, whether we can manage to give each other a cousinly kiss.... No,
+purely impossible! the far outjutting promontories immediately begin
+rattling against each other, and forclose our lowly lips from
+everything like a soft meeting. We must force our noble Roman noses
+aside with our two fists. So! Don't let it fly, my lady cousin! I
+might come by a box on the ears that would make my last teeth tumble
+out."
+
+With a hearty laugh the hag cried: "Hey! I have not been so merry this
+long time. But what did they want with you before the door there,
+cousin?"
+
+"What!" screamed the little one: "to look at me, to delight their eyes
+with me, nothing more. Is not man, my highly esteemed cousin gossip, a
+thoroughly silly animal? Here in Rome now have hundreds of thousands
+been assembled whole months, for their Redeemer's honour, as they give
+out, and to do penance for their sins and get rid of them; and the
+moment I peep out of the window (I only arrived here the day before
+yesterday) be it merely in my nightcap, and still more when I come
+forth at full length and in my Sunday suit into the marketplace, one
+can't help swearing that the whole gang of them have started out of
+every hole and corner in Europe merely for my sake: they so leer, and
+ogle me, and whisper, and ask questions, and laugh, and are in
+ecstacies. I might grow rich, meseems, were I to let myself be stared
+at for money while I stay here; and if I chance to give them all this
+pleasure gratis, forthwith a pack of blockheads begin barking and
+hallooing at my tail. To see a long-tailed monkey, apes or seals, the
+dogs must put themselves to some expense; yet instead of enjoying my
+magnanimity quietly and like sensible people, they rave and revile me
+all round, and hunt for every expression of loathing they can root out
+of the animal creation, to display their gross ignorance."
+
+"Very true! very true!" sighed the old woman: "it fares no better with
+me. Are the beasts such sheer fools then? Only let a body have a
+regular, average, commonplace nose, eyes, and chin, and all goes on
+quietly."
+
+"Look at the fish," continued Beresynth, "who are dunces in many
+things. What philosophical tolerance! and yet among them many a fellow
+is all snout, and confronts the learned physiognomists of the ocean
+with a countenance, grave, cold, calm in the consciousness of its
+originality: nay, the whole deep brims and swims with one can't count
+how many eccentric faces, and gills, and teeth, and eyes astart from
+their sockets, and every other kind of striking contour: but every
+monster there floats his own way quietly and peaceably, without having
+his sleeve twitcht or any other annoyance. Man alone is so absurd as
+to laugh and sneer at his fellow creatures."
+
+"And on what," said the beldam, "after all does this mighty difference
+turn? I am sure I never yet saw a nose that was but a single yard
+long: an inch, at most two, hardly ever three, make the vast
+distinction between what they call monsters, and what they are pleased
+in their modesty to style beauty. And now to come to a hump. If it
+were not in one's way sometimes in bed, as you know, coz, it is in
+itself far more agreeable to the eye than those dull flats by way of
+backs, where in many a lank lathy booby the tiresome straight line
+stretches up as far as one can see without a single twist, or curl, or
+flourish."
+
+"You are in the right, my dame cousin!" cried Beresynth already drunk
+to his drunken hostess. "What can Nature be about when she turns off
+the things they christen beauties from her pottery-wheel? Why, they
+are hardly worth the trouble of setting to work at them. But such
+cabinet pieces as you and I! there the creative power, or the
+principle of nature, or the soul of the world, or the mundane animal,
+or whatever title one chooses to give the thing, can look at its
+product with a certain degree of complacency and satisfaction. For it
+has your curved lines: it starts off into noticeable angles; it is
+jagged like corals; it darts forward like crystals; it agglomerates
+like basalt; nay, there is no conceivable line that does not hop,
+skip, and jump about our bodies. We, coz, are the spoilt, the cockered
+children of the formation: and this is why the common rabble of nature
+are so malicious and envious toward us. Their slim wretched fashion is
+next door to the slimy eel: there is nothing edifying in such an
+edifice. From that piece of monotony to the prawn is already a good
+step; and how far above that is the seal! how do we surpass them both,
+as well as the seastar, the crab, and the lobster, my trustiest
+cousin, in our excursive irregularities, which defy all the
+mathematicians in the world to find an expression for their law. But
+coz, pray where did you get those two gorgeous teeth? the incomparable
+couple cut a grand and gloomy figure there across the chasm ... of
+your unfathomable mouth, and form a capital bridge over the gulf that
+gapes between the dark cliffs of your gums."
+
+"O you rogue! O you flatterer!" laught the old woman: "but your
+darling chin that comes forward so complaisantly, and is so ready to
+wait upon you and spread itself out like a table. Don't you think you
+could put a good-sized platter upon it comfortably, where your mouth
+might then quietly nibble away, while your hands were seeking work
+elsewhere. This I call an economical arrangement."
+
+"We won't spoil ourselves by too much praise;" said the dwarf: "we are
+already, it seems, vain enough of our advantages; and after all we did
+not give them to ourselves."
+
+"You are right," said she. "But what profession are you of, cousin?
+where do you live?"
+
+"Oddly enough;" answered Beresynth: "sometimes here, sometimes there,
+like a vagabond: however I now mean to settle quietly; and as I heard
+there was still a near kinswoman of mine living, I resolved to seek
+her out and beg her to come and live with me. This is what brought me
+hither. In my youth I was an apothecary in Calabria; there they drove
+me away, because they fancied I manufactured love-powders. O dear, as
+if there was any need of 'em nowadays. Then once upon a time I was a
+tailor; the outcry was, I thieved too much: a pastrycook; all accused
+me of thinning the cat and dog population. I wanted to put on a monk's
+cowl; but no convent would let me in. Then came my doctoring days, and
+I was to be burnt; for they muttered about, what think you?
+witchcraft. I became a scholar, wrote essays, systems of philosophy,
+poems: those who could not read were sure I was blaspheming God and
+Christianity, and that was too bad. After many long years I betook
+myself to the man who was making such a pother in the world, Pietro
+Apone, and became his familiar, next a hermit, and what not? The best
+is that in every state of life I have made money and hoarded it up; so
+that I can now lay down my grey head free from want and care. And now,
+coz, for your history."
+
+"Just like yours;" answered she: "the innocent are always persecuted.
+I have had a few times to stand in the pillory; have been banisht out
+of half a dozen countries; among other things they even wanted to burn
+me; they would have it I conjured, I stole children, I bewitcht
+people, I fabricated poisons."
+
+"And coz," said Beresynth in the openness of his heart, "there was
+some truth in all this, was not there? innocent as you are. I at least
+must confess it as to myself, and perhaps it may lie in the family,
+that I have given in to more than one of the aforesaid practices. My
+amiable gossip, he who has once swallowed a titbit of dear witchcraft,
+can never keep his fingers from it afterward as long as he lives. The
+thing is just like dram-drinking: once get the taste for it, and
+tongue, and throat, and gums, and marry! even lungs and liver, will
+never let it go."
+
+"You know human nature, I see, my dear cousin;" said the hag, with a
+grin that tried to be a simper. "Such trifles as a little murder and
+witchcraft, poisoning and stealing, run in the blood even of the
+innocentest. Bawding was a thing in which I could never hit the mark.
+And what shall one say when one has to endure thanklessness and woe
+from one's own children? My daughter, though she has seen how I suffer
+hunger and trouble, and how I have stinted and starved my old mouth,
+merely to put her into fine clothes, the graceless wench would never
+let me coax her into earning but a single half-crown. Some time since
+she might have made a good match of it! there was Ildefonso and
+Andrea, and many other brave fellows besides, who supported our whole
+house, herself among the rest; but she set up the paltry pretense that
+the gentry were robbers and murderers, and that she could not let them
+into her heart. The gallants were such generous spirits, they meant to
+have the baggage actually tied to them in church; but silly youth has
+neither sense nor truth. Now they are lying in their graves, those
+worthy men, and have been turned out of life's doors in a most
+scandalous way. But this does not move her a whit more than my sorrow
+and distress; so that I can't make her consent to live with a rich
+young noble cavalier, the nephew of a cardinal, who could floor this
+whole room with gold. The silly jade has run away, and they absolutely
+won't give her up to me again. Such is the respect shewn to a mother
+in these days."
+
+"Let her go, the worthless trumpery!" cried Beresynth: "we shall live
+happily together without her, I warrant; our ways of thinking and
+feeling are so well paired."
+
+"But why should she run away," continued the old woman, "like a
+faithless cat after a flogging? We might have parted as if we loved
+each other, and like two rational beings. Surely some occasion would
+have turned up before long of selling the greensick minx
+advantageously to an old lover or a young one; and this might have
+succeeded too, why should not it? if she had not lockt up a silly
+young fellow in her heart, whom she loves, as she tells me."
+
+"O have done, gammer!" screamed Beresynth, reeling and already half
+asleep. "If you begin to talk about love, coz, I shall tumble into
+such a laughing convulsion that I shall not recover from it for this
+next three days. Love! that stupid word broke the neck of my famous
+master, Pietro. But for this tarantula-dance the great hawk-nose would
+still be sitting as professor at his lecturing desk, and tickling the
+young goslings with philosophy and wisdom as they perkt up their
+yellow beaks to catch the crumbs he dropt into them. Marry! old
+beldam, this monkey-trick of love, this Platonic drunkenness of the
+soul, was the only thing wanting to us, to me as well as you, and then
+the miracle of our heroic existence would have been quite perfect....
+Well, goodbye, old dame; tomorrow night about this time I'll come to
+fetch you, and then we never part more."
+
+"Cousin," said Pancrazia, "goodbye, till we meet again. Since you came
+through my door, I have grown quite a different creature. We will make
+a royal housekeeping of it hereafter."
+
+"So we too have had our jubilee now!" stammered Beresynth, who was
+already standing in the street, and who reeled through the dark night
+to his lodging.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Antonio meanwhile had already been to prepare old Ambrosio and his
+wife, telling them he was now sure of finding out the hideous old
+woman again, and no doubt her daughter Crescentia also. The mother
+readily believed him; but the father persisted in his doubts.
+
+Even before the sun had set, the youth was again with his friend at
+the door of the wise Castalio. The latter met them smiling, and said:
+"Here, Antonio, take this paper: you will find noted down on it, in
+what street, in what house, you may meet with the old crone. When you
+have discovered her, you will no longer entertain any doubts about my
+science."
+
+"I am already convinced;" replied Antonio: "I was so even yesterday:
+you are the wisest of mortals, and by the help of your art will make
+me the happiest. I will go to seek for the old woman: and if
+Crescentia is not dead or lost, I shall carry her to the arms of her
+parents."
+
+Powerfully excited and full of expectation he was about to depart in
+haste; his hand was already on the door-knob; when a low timid knock
+was heard on the outside, accompanied by a hoarse coughing and a
+scraping of feet.
+
+"Who's there?" cried Castalio; and, when the friends opened the door,
+in came Beresynth, who immediately stationed himself in the middle of
+the room, and with sundry antick bows and writhings of his features,
+offered his services to the wise man.
+
+"Who are you?" exclaimed Castalio, who had changed colour, and pale
+and trembling had shrunk back a few steps.
+
+"A villain he is, the fiend!" cried Antonio: "a magician, whom we must
+put into the inquisition's hands. It is the accursed Beresynth
+himself, whose name, my honoured friend, you have already heard, and
+of whom I have told you."
+
+"Think you so, young jackanapes?" said Beresynth with a sneer of the
+deepest contempt. "With you, children, I have no business. Do you not
+know me?" cried he turning to Castalio: "perhaps you have nothing for
+me to do."
+
+"How should I?" said Castalio with a faltering voice: "I never saw you
+before. Leave me; I must decline your services. In this little house
+of mine I have no room for any stranger."
+
+Beresynth paced with his biggest strides up and down. "So, you don't
+know me? It may be; folks alter a good deal sometimes; for no man is
+always in his bloom. But, it strikes me, people ought not to forget
+me, or to mistake me for any one else, quite so soon as they might
+many of your smooth nicely painted ninnies.... And you too," as he
+turned round to the youths, "you perchance don't know that
+wisdommonger there."
+
+"O yes!" said Antonio: "he is our best friend, the excellent
+Castalio."
+
+Here the dwarf raised such an enormous shout of laughter, that the
+walls and windows of the room clattered and echoed it back. "Castalio!
+Castalio!" screamed he as if possest: "why not Aganippe too, or
+Hippocrene? So, you have got spectacles before your eyes, and your
+souls stare stupidly with a calf's look out of your round pumpkins of
+heads! Rub your noses, and see, and recognize, I pray you, your
+honoured Pietro of Abano, the great jack-of-all-trades from Padua!"
+
+He who called himself Castalio had sunk as if fainting into a chair:
+his trembling was so violent that all his limbs fluttered; the muscles
+of his face quivered with such force that no feature in it could be
+distinguisht; and after the young men had gazed on it for some time
+amazedly, they thought with horrour they perceived that from this
+distortion of all the lineaments came forth the well-known countenance
+of the aged Apone.
+
+With a loud scream the magician started from his seat, clencht his
+fists, and foamed at the mouth; he seemed in his fury of a gigantic
+size. "Well, yes!" he roared in a tone of thunder: "it is I, I,
+Pietro! and thou slave, thou art spoiling my game, as I was destroying
+those young brats after a new fashion. What wouldst thou, worm, of me,
+who am thy master, and who have cast thee off? Tremblest thou not
+through all thy bones at the thought of my vengeance and punishment?"
+
+Beresynth again raised the same pealing horrid laugh. "Vengeance!
+Punishment!" he repeated grinning. "Fool! matchless fool! art thou now
+for the first time to find out that such language toward me does not
+beseem thee? that thou juggler, must crawl in the dust before me? that
+a glance of my eye, a grasp of my iron arm, will dash thee to pieces,
+thou earth-born mummery with thy wretched tricks, which only prospered
+through my countenance."
+
+A spectre stood in the hall. His eyes shot forth sparks of fire; his
+arms spread themselves out like an eagle's wings; his head toucht the
+ceiling: Pietro lay whining and howling at his feet. "It was I," so
+the demon spake on, "who furthered thy paltry tricks; who deluded the
+people; who made thee sin and thrive in thy sins. Thou troddest me
+under foot; I was thy scorn; thy high-minded wisdom triumpht over my
+silliness. Now I am thy master. Now thou shalt follow me as my
+bondslave into my kingdom.... Depart hence, ye poor wretches!" he
+cried to the youths: "what more we have still to settle, it befits not
+you to behold!" and a tremendous clap of thunder shook the house to the
+bottom.
+
+Dazzled, horrour-struck, Antonio and Alfonso rusht out; their knees
+tottered; their teeth chattered. Without knowing how, they found
+themselves again in the street; they fled into a neighbouring church;
+for a howling whirlwind now arose, with thunder and lightning, and the
+house, when they lookt behind them, was burning and had fallen in
+ruins.
+
+Two dark shadows hovered over the flame, fighting, as it seemed, and
+twining round each other, and wrestling and dashing each other to and
+fro: yells of despair and peals of scornful laughter resounded
+alternately between the pauses of the loudly raving storm.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was a long time before Antonio could collect calmness enough to go
+and seek for the house of the old woman according to the directions he
+had received. He found her drest out; and she cried to him merrily:
+"What! Florentine! are you too come to see me again at last?"
+
+"Where is your daughter?" askt Antonio, trembling with anxiety.
+
+"If you wish to have her now," replied the old woman, "I won't keep
+her from you. But you must pay honestly for her, you or the Podesta of
+Padua, if he still lives; for she is his child, whom I stole from him
+long since, because the Marconis vouchsafed me a round sum of money
+for doing so."
+
+"If you can prove it," said the youth, "you shall have whatever you
+ask."
+
+"Proofs, as many as you please," cried the beldam: "trinkets with arms
+on them, clothes she had on at the time, a mole on her right shoulder,
+which of course her mother must know best. But you shall also have
+letters from the Marconis, writings which I carried off with her from
+Padua in my hurry, everything ... only money must be forthcoming."
+
+Antonio paid her all that he had about him, and then gave her the
+jewels from his hat and clothes, some pearls, and a gold chain. She
+swept it all in laughing, while she said: "Don't be surprised that I
+am in such haste, and so easily satisfied. The wench has run away from
+me, because she was determined not to have any lover, and has stuck
+herself into the nunnery beside Trajan's column: the abbess would not
+give her up to me; but only send in your name, and the young chit will
+jump into your arms; for she dreams and thinks of nothing but you; you
+have so bewitcht her silly heart, that ever since that night, which
+you will probably remember, she has not spoken a single word of sense,
+and can't bear to hear the mention of a lover or a husband. I am glad
+to be quit of her in this way; I am going with my noble cousin, Signor
+Beresynth, who came of his own accord to invite me, this very night to
+his villa. Fare thee well young man! good luck attend you with your
+Crescentia!"
+
+Antonio took all the letters, the baby clothes, and every proof of
+Crescentia's birth. At the door he was met by the terrible being that
+called itself Beresynth. He hastened on, and was so light of heart, so
+winged on his way, that he did not notice the storm behind him, which
+threatened to lay the country waste, and to heave the houses from
+their foundations.
+
+During the night the overhappy parents examined the letters; and
+these, as well as the clothes, convinced them that this second
+Crescentia was their child, the twin sister of her that died, whom at
+her christening they had named Cecilia. In the morning the father
+fetcht the lovely pale girl from the convent; and she felt as though
+in heaven at belonging to such noble parents, and at having again
+found a youth who adored her, and to whom on that perilous night she
+could not help giving up her whole heart for ever.
+
+Rome talkt for some time of the two unfortunate persons whom the storm
+had slain: and Ambrosio lived thenceforward with his wife, his
+recovered daughter, and his son-in-law, Antonio, in the neighbourhood
+of Naples. The youth amid the bliss of love ceast to mourn over the
+sorrows of his younger days; and the parents were comforted by their
+children and grandchildren for the loss of their beautiful and most
+dearly loved Crescentia.
+
+
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+                         TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:
+
+Contemporary spellings were retained, especially past tense endings on
+t rather than ed.
+
+The translation was checked against the 1853 German edition of Tieck's
+collected works. The following sentence was missing from the original
+translation:
+
+    Er war ueberzeugt, der Juengling habe ihn und sich selbst mit den
+    Fieber-Phantasien jener Nacht getaeuscht.
+
+It has been added as:
+
+    He was convinced the young man had misled him and himself been
+    deceived by the fevered dreams of that night.
+
+The following sentence is not present in the 1853 German edition and
+has been omitted:
+
+    (...like two rational beings.) I might have discharged a mother's
+    duty, and settled her where she should be in no danger of
+    starving. (Surely some occasion...)
+
+In addition, the following corrections and amendments have been made:
+
+Almost everybody has a mask; and this is mime.
+    changed to
+Almost everybody has a mask; and this is mine.
+
+when you have them at their full size.
+    changed to
+when they are present and pronounced.
+
+they who loved me never would say it lookt.
+    changed to
+they who loved me would say it lookt.
+
+chewing bread and bullock's flesh.
+    changed to
+chewing bread and roast beef.
+
+Antonio had found the outlet;
+    changed to
+Antonio had found the way out;
+
+cried a broad massy figure,
+    changed to
+cried a broad bearded figure,
+
+Antonio preserved it like something holy.
+    changed to
+the adoring Antonio preserved it like something holy.
+
+to strip him of everything like hope.
+    changed to
+to strip him of all optimism.
+
+behind the old chest
+    changed to
+behind the old oak chest
+
+they now revolted from the impostor.
+    changed to
+they now revolted from the phantom.
+
+his youth and his sinlessness will not avail him.
+    changed to
+his virtue and his sinlessness will not avail him.
+
+some fifty miles and upward from the hermitage,
+    changed to
+some twelve miles and upward from the hermitage,
+
+no smokework
+    changed to
+no incense
+
+Welcome to me.
+    changed to
+Be welcome.
+
+Unless that mischievous Beresynth
+    changed to
+Unless that strange creature Beresynth
+
+Iuocoterrestro
+    changed to
+Fuocoterrestro
+
+To see a porpoise, a baboon, or an otter.
+    changed to
+To see a long-tailed monkey, apes or seals.
+
+hunt for every filthy name
+    changed to
+hunt for every expression of loathing
+
+forcing the sun to look on their gross ignorance.
+    changed to
+forcing the sun to display their gross ignorance.
+
+lying in their graves, poor perishable mortals,
+    changed to
+lying in their graves, those worthy men,
+
+This I call economical bodykeeping.
+    changed to
+This I call an economical arrangement.
+
+already on the lock of the door.
+    changed to
+already on the door-knob.
+
+or the Podesta of Padua; for she is his child,
+    changed to
+or the Podesta of Padua, if he still lives; for she is his child,
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN, THE
+LOVECHARM AND PIETRO OF ABANO***
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