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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/26360-8.txt b/26360-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f7fcf44 --- /dev/null +++ b/26360-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7966 @@ +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*** + + +******* This file should be named 26360-8.txt or 26360-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/6/3/6/26360 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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> </p> +<h3>E-text prepared by Delphine Lettau</h3> +<p> </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> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h1>THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN,</h1> +<h1>THE LOVECHARM,</h1> +<h4>AND</h4> +<h1>PIETRO OF ABANO.</h1> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h3>TALES FROM THE GERMAN OF TIECK.</h3> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h6>LONDON:</h6> +<h6>EDWARD MOXON, 64, NEW BOND STREET.</h6> +<h6>1831.</h6> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p><a name="nov1" id="nov1"></a></p> +<p> </p> +<h2>THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN.</h2> +<p> </p> +<p> </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,—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."</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—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."</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 … 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;—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> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </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,—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."</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—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."</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,—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."</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—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> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </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,—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."</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—for this power will often exist only on one side—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,—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—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."</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,—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> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </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—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,—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—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."</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> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </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,—"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."</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,"—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."</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——</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—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."</p> + +<p> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </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.—"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> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </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?"—said Edward interrupting her—</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 … 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."</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> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </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;—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."</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 … 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.'"</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?—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."</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> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </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 … 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!—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 … 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.</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.—And death….</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> </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> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </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 … +"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?"</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 … 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!"</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 … 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."</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.—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 … 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> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </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> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </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?… stand up … my +unhappy child come to my arms…." 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—"</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—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.</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 … 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."</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> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </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> </p> +<p> </p> +<p><a name="nov2" id="nov2"></a></p> +<p> </p> +<h2>THE LOVECHARM.</h2> +<p> </p> +<p> </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 /> + And every nightingale is steeping<br /> + 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 /> + Fair are the breezes gambolings<br /> + 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 /> + When Love's rich magic decks the earth,<br /> + From countless roses Love peeps forth,<br /> +Those stars wherewith Love's heaven glows.</p> + +<p class="noindent">But sweeter, fairer, brighter far<br /> + To me that little lamp's pale gleaming,<br /> + 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 /> + Then twines them in a flowery band,<br /> + 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 /> + And, as at morning's touch updarting,<br /> + 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 /> + Full after them; they laugh, and fly,<br /> + 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 /> + They bar themselves within, and say:<br /> + 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—"</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,—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….'</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.—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"> Within the heart 'tis still;<br /> +Sleep each wild thought encages:<br /> + Now stirs a wicked will,<br /> +Would see how madness rages,<br /> + And cries: Wild spirit awake!<br /> +Loud cymbals catch the cry,<br /> + And back its echoes shake;<br /> +And, shouting peals of laughter,<br /> +The trumpet rushes after,<br /> + And cries: Wild spirit awake!<br /> +Amid them flute-tones fly,<br /> +Like arrows, keen and numberless;<br /> + And with bloodhound yell<br /> + Pipes the onset swell;<br /> +And violins and violoncellos,<br /> + Creaking, clattering,<br /> + 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 /> + Like hellstars bicker:<br /> +Let us twine in closer clusters,<br /> + On! on! ever closer and quicker!<br /> +How the silly things throb, throb amain!<br /> + Hence all quiet!<br /> + Hither riot!<br /> + Peal more proudly,<br /> + 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 /> + Smiles ripple o'er thy lips,<br /> +And o'er thine eye's blue water;<br /> + O let me breathe on thee,<br /> + Ere parted hence we flee,<br /> + Ere aught that light eclipse!<br /> +I know that beauty's flowers soon wither:<br /> + Those lips, within whose rosy cells<br /> + 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 /> + Why should I weep and whine and wail,<br /> + 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 /> + While thus on the waves of the dance by<br /> + 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 /> + And sob, and tear, and groan, and sigh,<br /> +Stand ranged in state<br /> + 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 /> + Or the fringe of thy garment will waft me<br /> + a kiss:<br /> +Thou rollest on in light;<br /> +I fall back into night;<br /> + Even despair is bliss.<br /></p> + +<p class="noindent">From this delight,<br /> + From this wild revel's surge<br /> + Perchance there may emerge<br /> +Foul jealousy, and scorn, and envious spite.<br /> +But this is our glory and pride;<br /> + When thee I despise,<br /> + I turn but my eyes,<br /> + And the fair one beside thee will welcome<br /> + my gaze,<br /> +And she is my bride!<br /> + 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 /> + Adown life's giddy cave;<br /> +Nor living, nor loving,<br /> +But dizzily roving<br /> + Through dreams to a grave.<br /> +There below 'tis yet worse:<br /> + Earth's flowers and its clay<br /> + 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 /> + And frisk caper skip prance dance yourselves<br /> + out of breath!<br /> +For your life is all art,<br /> +Love has given you no heart:<br /> + So hurrah till you plunge into bottomless<br /> + 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> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </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,—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."</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 … 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.</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> </p> +<p> </p> +<p><a name="nov3" id="nov3"></a></p> +<p> </p> +<h2>PIETRO OF ABANO.</h2> +<p> </p> +<p> </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 … 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> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </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…. 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> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </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….</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 … to my mind…."</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 … wider open with the mouth … but they +stand very oddly … 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 … 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…. 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…."</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 … 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."</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…. 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…."</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> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </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> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </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> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </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> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </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> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </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 … 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…. 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> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </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…."</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> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </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> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </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> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </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…."</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> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </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> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </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…. 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 … 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…. +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> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </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…. 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…. 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> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </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 … 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> </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 überzeugt, der Jüngling habe ihn und sich selbst mit den +Fieber-Phantasien jener Nacht getäuscht.</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> </p> +<p> </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> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/6/3/6/26360">http://www.gutenberg.org/2/6/3/6/26360</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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*** + + +******* This file should be named 26360.txt or 26360.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/6/3/6/26360 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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