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diff --git a/36403-h/36403-h.htm b/36403-h/36403-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..edf5384 --- /dev/null +++ b/36403-h/36403-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,15764 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"> +<title>Titan: A Romance. Vol. II.</title> + +<style type="text/css"> + +body {margin-left:10%; + margin-right:10%; background-color:#FFFFFF;} + +i {color:black} + +p.normal {text-indent:.25in; text-align: justify;} +.center {margin: auto; text-align:center; margin-top:9pt;} + + +p.right {text-align:right; margin-right:20%;} + +p.continue {text-indent: 0in; margin-top:9pt;} +.text10 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:10%; margin-right:0px; font-size:90%;} +.text20 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:20%; margin-right:0px; font-size:90%;} + + +.poem { + margin-top: 24pt; margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 10%; text-align: left; + margin-bottom: 24pt; font-size:90%} + + .poem .stanza { + margin : 1em 0; + margin-top:24pt; + } + + +.poem0 { + margin-top: 24pt; margin-left: 0%; + margin-right: 0%; text-align: left; + margin-bottom: 24pt; font-size:90%} + + + +figcenter {margin:auto; text-align:center; margin-top:9pt;} + +.t0 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0em; margin-right:0px;} +.t1 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:1em; margin-right:0px;} +.t2 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:2em; margin-right:0px;} +.t3 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:3em; margin-right:0px;} +.t4 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:4em; margin-right:0px;} +.t5 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:5em; margin-right:0px;} +.t6 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:6em; margin-right:0px;} +.t7 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:7em; margin-right:0px;} +.t8 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:8em; margin-right:0px;} + +.quote {font-size:90%; margin-top:24pt; margin-bottom:24pt} +.dateline {text-align:right; font-size:90%; margin-right:10%; margin-top:24pt; margin-bottom:24pt} + +h1,h2,h3,h4,h5 {text-align: center;} + +span.sc {font-variant: small-caps; font-size:100%;} +span.sc2 {font-variant: small-caps; font-size:90%;} + +hr.W10 {width:10%; color:black;} + +hr.W20 {width:20%; color:black;} + +hr.W50 {width:50%; color:black;} +hr.W90 {width:90%; color:black;} + +p.hang1 {margin-left:1em; text-indent:-1em;} +p.hang2 {margin-left:1em; text-indent:0em;} + + +</style> + +</head> + +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg eBook of Titan: A Romance, by Jean Paul + +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: Titan: A Romance + Vol. II (of 2) + +Author: Jean Paul + +Translator: Charles T. Brooks + +Release Date: June 12, 2011 [eBook #36403] +[Most recently updated: November 23, 2021] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TITAN: A ROMANCE *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Bowen, from page images provided by Google Books + + + + + +</pre> + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<p class="hang1">Transcriber's Note:<br> + + +1. Page scan source: +http://books.google.com/books?id=p-ukFFdXOVoC&dq</p> + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h1>TITAN:</h1> +<br> +<br> +<h2>A ROMANCE.</h2> +<br> +<br> + +<h4>FROM THE GERMAN OF</h4> + +<h2><i>JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER.</i></h2> +<br> +<br> + +<h4>TRANSLATED BY</h4> + +<h3>CHARLES T. BROOKS.</h3> +<br> +<br> + +<h4>IN TWO VOLUMES.</h4> + +<h4>VOL. II.</h4> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<p class="center"> +<b>LONDON:</b><br> +<b>TRÜBNER & CO., 60 Paternoster Row.</b><br> +<b>1863.</b></p> + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<p class="center" style="margin-bottom:24pt"> +<img src="images/rivetstart.png" width="550" height="140" alt="rivetstart"></p> + +<h2>Contents of Vol. II.</h2> +<br> + +<h3><a name="div1_17" href="#div1Ref_17">SEVENTEENTH JUBILEE.</a></h3> + +<h4><span class="sc"><b>Princely Nuptial-Territion.—Illumination of Lilar.</b></span></h4> + +<h3><a name="div1_18" href="#div1Ref_18">EIGHTEENTH JUBILEE.</a></h3> + +<h4><span class="sc"><b>Gaspard's Letter.—The Blumenbühl Church.—Eclipse of the Sun and of +the Soul.</b></span></h4> + +<h3><a name="div1_19" href="#div1Ref_19">NINETEENTH JUBILEE.</a></h3> + +<h4><span class="sc"><b>Schoppe's Office of Comforter.—Arcadia.—Bouverot's Portrait-painting.</b></span></h4> + +<h3><a name="div1_20" href="#div1Ref_20">TWENTIETH JUBILEE.</a></h3> + +<h4><span class="sc"><b>Gaspard's Letter Partings.</b></span></h4> + +<h3><a name="div1_21" href="#div1Ref_21">TWENTY-FIRST JUBILEE.</a></h3> + +<h4><span class="sc"><b>The Trial-lesson of Love.—Froulay's Fear of Fortune.—The Biter +Bit.—Honors of the Observatory.</b></span></h4> + +<h3><a name="div1_22" href="#div1Ref_22">TWENTY-SECOND JUBILEE.</a></h3> + +<h4><span class="sc"><b>Schoppe's Heart.—Dangerous Spiritual Acquaintances.</b></span></h4> + +<h3><a name="div1_23" href="#div1Ref_23">TWENTY-THIRD JUBILEE.</a></h3> + +<h4><span class="sc"><b>Liana.</b></span></h4> + +<h3><a name="div1_24" href="#div1Ref_24">TWENTY-FOURTH JUBILEE.</a></h3> + +<h4><span class="sc"><b>The Fever.—The Cube.</b></span></h4> + +<h3><a name="div1_25" href="#div1Ref_25">TWENTY-FIFTH JUBILEE.</a></h3> + +<h4><span class="sc"><b>The Dream.—The Journey.</b></span></h4> + +<h3><a name="div1_26" href="#div1Ref_26">TWENTY-SIXTH JUBILEE.</a></h3> + +<h4><span class="sc"><b>The Journey.—The Fountain.—Rome.—The Forum.</b></span></h4> + +<h3><a name="div1_27" href="#div1Ref_27">TWENTY-SEVENTH JUBILEE.</a></h3> + +<h4><span class="sc"><b>St. Peter's.—Rotunda.—Colosseum.—Letter to Schoppe. +—The War.—Gaspard.—The Corsican.—Entanglement with the +Princess.—Sickness.—Gaspard's Brother.—St. Peter's Dome, +and Departure.</b></span></h4> + +<h3><a name="div1_28" href="#div1Ref_28">TWENTY-EIGHTH JUBILEE.</a></h3> + +<h4><span class="sc"><b>Letter From Pestitz.—Mola.—The Heavenly Ascension of a +Monk.—Naples.—Ischia.—The New Gift of the Gods.</b></span></h4> + +<h3><a name="div1_29" href="#div1Ref_29">TWENTY-NINTH JUBILEE.</a></h3> + +<h4><span class="sc"><b>Julienne.—The Island.—Sundown.—Naples.—Vesuvius.—Linda's +Letter.—Fight.—Departure.</b></span></h4> + +<h3><a name="div1_30" href="#div1Ref_30">THIRTIETH JUBILEE.</a></h3> + +<h4><span class="sc"><b>Tivoli.—Quarrel.—Isola Bella.—Nursery of +Childhood.—Love.—Departure.</b></span></h4> + +<h3><a name="div1_31" href="#div1Ref_31">THIRTY-FIRST JUBILEE.</a></h3> + +<h4><span class="sc"><b>Pestitz.—Schoppe.—Dread of Marriage.—Arcadia.—Idoine.—Entanglement</b></span></h4> + +<h3><a name="div1_32" href="#div1Ref_32">THIRTY-SECOND JUBILEE.</a></h3> + +<h4><span class="sc"><b>Roquairol.</b></span></h4> + +<h3><a name="div1_33" href="#div1Ref_33">THIRTY-THIRD JUBILEE.</a></h3> + +<h4><span class="sc"><b>Albano And Linda.—Schoppe and the Portrait.-The Wax Cabinet.—The +Duel.—The Madhouse.—Leibgeber.</b></span></h4> + +<h3><a name="div1_34" href="#div1Ref_34">THIRTY-FOURTH JUBILEE.</a></h3> + +<h4><span class="sc"><b>Schoppe's Discoveries.—Liana.—The Chapel of the Cross.—Schoppe and +the "I" and the Uncle.</b></span></h4> + +<h3><a name="div1_35" href="#div1Ref_35">THIRTY-FIFTH JUBILEE.</a></h3> + +<h4><span class="sc"><b>Siebenkäs.—Confession of the Uncle.—Letter from Albano's Mother.—The +Race for the Crown.—Echo and Swan-song of the Story.</b></span></h4> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<p class="center"><img src="images/shieldstart.png" alt="shieldstart"></p> +<br> +<h1>TITAN.</h1> +<br> +<br> +<hr class="W20"> +<br> +<br> +<h2><a name="div1Ref_17" href="#div1_17">SEVENTEENTH JUBILEE.</a></h2> + +<h3><span class="sc2">Princely Nuptial-territion.<a name="div2Ref_01" href="#div2_01"><sup>[1]</sup></a>—Illumination of Lilar.</span></h3> + +<h3>77. CYCLE.</h3> + + +<p class="normal">What a universal joy of the people could now ring and roar, for a space +of eight days, from one frontier of the land to the other! For so long +was the public sorrow suspended; the bells sounded for something better +than a march to the grave; music was again allowed to all musical +clocks and people; all theatres would have been opened, had there been +one there, or had the court been shut up, which was a continual +play-house; and now one could walk and visit and promulgate decrees in +high places, without the black border. By and by, when this refreshing +interlude was over, during which one enjoyed orchestra, punch, and +cakes, they were to go back again with the more zest to weeping and +tragedies.</p> + +<p class="normal">On the morning of the tedious procession of carriages going forth to +form the escort, the Prince rode out beforehand over the limits, with +Bouverot and Albano,—all three as being the only people in the land +who were independent and uninterested in the festival. Poor Luigi! I +have already very distinctly stated, in the first volume of "Titan," +that the princely bridegroom who to-day mounts the bridal bed can only +be a father of his <i>country</i>, not father of a family. Under the heaven +of his princely throne, as on the first row of the chess-field, all is +to be made and regenerated,—officers, even the queen of chess, but not +the Schach<a name="div2Ref_02" href="#div2_02"><sup>[2]</sup></a> himself. It were to be wished, since the circumstance +makes the festival shade into the ridiculous, that the bridegroom could +only, by way of shaming many <i>old</i> families that laugh at him,—old so +often, even in the heraldic and medical sense at once,—show them some +dozen of the princes ranged around the nuptial altar, whom he has +seated in Calabria, Wales, Asturia, in <i>Dauphiny</i>,—all Europe was a +Dauphiny to him,—in short, in so many <i>active</i><a name="div2Ref_03" href="#div2_03"><sup>[3]</sup></a> hereditary +lands,—that is, the heirs, not heirlooms, of foreign princes. Could he +do that, then would he look more contentedly into this day's +congratulations, because some dozen fulfilments would be already +standing by, and awaiting his nod. But as the Marchioness of Exeter can +transform the bed of the Marquis in London, which costs three thousand +pounds, into a throne, so must the Princess also do with hers, without +being able, like her, to reverse the transformation.</p> + +<p class="normal">I will therefore introduce and lead him out on the dancing-floor of +to-day's joy, not at all as bridegroom, but, in every instance,—just +as we speak of the crown without the crowned head,—merely as +Bridegroom's-coat, so as not to make him ridiculous. Albano rode along +with a breast full of indignation, scorn, and pity beside this victim +of dark state policy, and simply could not comprehend how it was that +Luigi did not send the German gentleman, that hired axe and uprooter of +his family tree, with one kick far behind him howling. Good youth! a +prince more easily sets himself free from men whom he loves, than from +such as he has full long hated; for his fear is stronger than his love.</p> + +<p class="normal">The great-hearted, never narrow-chested, always broad-breasted youth +found to-day, in his solemn, painful frame of mind, everything +tragical, noble and ignoble, greater than it was. He showed, indeed, +only a fiery eye and animated countenance, because he was too young and +modest to make a display of personal grief; but beneath the eye, which +was fixed on the spot of blue in the heavens where his dark clouds were +this day to break away or fall upon him, stood the glistening +tear-drop. The coming evening, into which he had so often looked as +into a hell, and full as often as into a heaven, stood now, as a +confused medium between the two, so near,—ah, hard by him! A throng of +kindred feelings attended him to the (in his opinion unhappy) bride +of—his father and this prince.</p> + +<p class="normal">A quarter of a mile the other side of Hohenfliess might already be seen +jogging on her <i>Gibbon</i>, well known among all natural historians—not +among the politicians—by the long arms which this owner of the +Moluccas and Ape notoriously carries. "Where is my Gibbon?" the +Princess usually asked (even supposing she had in her hand, at the +moment, the English namesake,—the historian with long nails and short +sentences against the Christians) when she wanted her Longimanus.</p> + +<p class="normal">At last she came prancing along—all plumed and in riding-habit—on the +finest English steed,—a tall, majestic figure, who, indifferent to her +court-retinue, although freighted with relatives, would much rather +have looked a welcome to the blue morning sun behind a rearing horse's +and swan's neck. She gave the Bridegroom's-coat with propriety greeting +and kiss, but neither with emotion nor dissimulation nor embarrassment, +but freely and frankly and cordially, too far exalted above the +ridiculousness of her genealogical disproportion to do otherwise; yes, +even above every thought of that disproportion which necessity or +tyranny created. In her otherwise fairly built—rather than finely +drawn—face, her nose alone was not so, but angularly cut and +presenting more bones than cartilage in contrast to the commonplace +character of regents. With women, marked, irregular noses, e. g. with +deep indenture of the bridge, or with concave or convex archings, or +with <i>facettes</i> at the knob, &c., signify far more for talent than with +men; and—except in the case of a few whom I myself have seen—beauty +must always sacrifice something to genius, although not so much as +afterward the genius of others sacrifices to beauty, as we men in +general have, unfortunately perhaps, done.</p> + +<p class="normal">The Count was presented to the Princess; she had not known +him,—although she had heard of him and seen his father so long,—but +had rather fancied him to resemble the Bridegroom's-coat. The coat +could not—or should not—have failed to be flattered by this blooming +likeness. The likeness entirely explains the beautiful interest which +she now must needs take in both, because it always takes a couple of +people to make a resemblance.</p> + +<p class="normal">She spoke with the son without any embarrassment about the Knight of +the Fleece having been presented by her and her Court with a (flower-) +basket,<a name="div2Ref_04" href="#div2_04"><sup>[4]</sup></a> and extolled his knowledge of art. "Art," said she, "makes +in the end all lands alike and agreeable. When that is once had, one +thinks of nothing further. At Dresden, in the inner gallery, I really +believed I was in joyous Italy. Yes, if one should go to Italy itself, +one would forget even Italy in the midst of all that one finds there." +Albano answered, "I know, I too shall one day intoxicate myself with +the old wine of art, and glow under it; but for the present it is to me +merely a beautiful, blooming vineyard, whose powers I certainly know +beforehand, without as yet feeling them." The Princess won his esteem +so exceedingly, that he put the question to her, when the Prince, a few +steps onward, was surveying from the window the swelling flood of the +Pestitz escort, how the German ceremonies of her rank struck her +artistic taste. "Tell me," said she, lightly, "what station among us +has not full as many, and where, in the whole range of situations, do +not priests and advocates play their part? Just look for once at the +marriages of the imperial cities. The Germans are herein no better nor +worse than any other nation, old or new, wild or polished. Think of +Louis Fourteenth. Once for all, such is man; but I do not, of course, +respect him for that."</p> + +<p class="normal">The Prince reminded them now of the hour of march; and the Princess +mustered together, by way of attiring herself for the grand <i>entrée</i>, +more, dressing-maids and toilet-boxes than Albano, according to her +words, or we, according to the cartilages of her nose,—which seemed +spiritual wing-bones,—should have expected. Her hurrying people +followed her with more dread than reverence for her rank or character; +and some, who occasionally ran by out of the dressing-chamber, had +downcast faces.</p> + +<p class="normal">At last she appeared again, but much fairer than before. There must +surely belong to the manliest woman more charming womanliness than we +think, since such a one gains by female finery, by which the most +effeminate man would only lose. "Rank," said she to Albano, showing a +great candor in opinions, which easily consists with a quite as great +reserve in emotions, "oppresses and confines a great soul oftentimes +less than sex." Her calling herself a great soul could not but strike +the Count, because he now saw before him the first example—another man +knows innumerable examples—of the fact, that distinguished women +praise themselves outright, and far more than distinguished men.</p> + +<p class="normal">The grand movement began. On a boundary bridge, which, like the +printer's hyphen, was at once sign of separation and of connection +between the two principalities, half Hohenfliess already sat halting in +carriages and on horseback, until an upset, shabby old vehicle, with +village comedians, could be raised again on the fourth wheel, and the +mythological household furniture which they had in hand packed in. But +when the Princess made her way by main force on to the bridge, suddenly +passengers and packers converted themselves into muses, gods of music, +gods of love, and a pretty little Hymen, and, in theatrical decoration +and apparatus, flooded the encircled bride with their poetic effusions, +representing the war of the other gods against the virgin-stealer +Hymen. The son of the muses who had versified the matter acted a part +himself, as father of the muses. I dare say that this original +invention of the Minister was very favorably received, as well by +Haarhaar as by Hohenfliess.</p> + +<p class="normal">Froulay, all prinked and powdered, as if he were stretching himself out +on the bed of state between funeral-gueridons,<a name="div2Ref_05" href="#div2_05"><sup>[5]</sup></a> marched out before +her as spokesman of the country, which wished to testify its happy +participation in her marriage to the Bridegroom's-coat. The Princess +abridged and clipped short all festal lying with a fine pair of ladies' +scissors.</p> + +<p class="normal">Froulay had, among other carriages, brought with him also one +containing several trumpeters and kettle-drummers, levied from all +quarters, in which, for joke's sake, Schoppe stood, too, who did not +often stay away from great processions of men, for this reason, because +men never looked more ridiculous than when they did anything in mass +and multitude. By way of bringing salt to the solemnities, he set up in +his carriage the hypothesis that they were doing all this merely, with +the best intention, for the sake of driving the bride back again to +where she had come from, partly by way of sparing her the sham- and +stage-marriage, partly by way of sparing the land the new court-state. +Her ear, he assumed, when the cannon drawn up on the surrounding hills +mingled with the trumpeting of his thunder-car, and three postmasters, +with fifteen postilions, who had not been posted there <i>for nothing</i>, +with their best horns and lungs, blew their horns at the same +moment,—her ear must be very much tortured, and she somewhat repelled, +by such a welcome. Hence they even send empty state-coaches with the +rest, just for the sake of the rattling, even as, in the province of +Anspach, the farmer, merely by frightful screaming, without ammunition +or dogs, drives the stags from his crops.<a name="div2Ref_06" href="#div2_06"><sup>[6]</sup></a> As ships do in the fog by +lanterns and drums, so would states fain keep themselves apart by +illumination and firing.</p> + +<p class="normal">She still, however, I see, moves onward, said he, on the +way,—sometimes taking into his hands with profit the diphthong of the +kettle-drum,—and we must all accordingly follow after; but perhaps her +ear is already dead, and she is now only to be come at through the eye. +In this hope he was exceedingly delighted with the dapple uniform of +the assembled officers and feather scarecrows of the court-liveries. +Now there is still to come, he predicted, joyfully, the gold-spangled, +triumphal arch, with vases and pipers, through which she must directly +pass; and do not people scare away sparrows from the cherry trees, +then, with gold leaf and Selzer pitchers?</p> + +<p class="normal">O, thought he, when she was through, if that Gothic tyrant suffered +himself to be led back from his plundering expedition into holy Rome by +the suppliant procession of the Pope that came to meet him, then +certainly it must prevail with her, when the orphan children in the +suburbs come imploringly to meet her with their foster-father, then +the schoolmasters with their pages, then the gymnasium and the +university,—all which, however, to be sure, is only a skirmish with +the outposts; for the gate is occupied with infantry, the whole market +with citizens capable of bearing arms, the cathedral is guarded by the +clergy, the council-house by the magistracy, all ready, if she does not +turn back, to march after her at a certain distance, as police-patrol +and choirs of observation; and are there not seven bridal couples +stationed at the palace-gate, as seven prayers and penitential psalms? +and do they not bring to meet her—upon a pillory of satin, quite +unconscious of the effect—a dismal Pereat-Carmen<a name="div2Ref_07" href="#div2_07"><sup>[7]</sup></a> composed by +myself, a decree of the 19th June?</p> + +<p class="normal">All right! said he, when the whole train, by way of affording an +easier inspection to the powers and principalities clustered at the +palace-windows, rode twice through the palace-yard; this double dose +must take hold. Schoppe's hopes were farthest from falling when he +found that, because it was gala, they kept themselves up-stairs long +concealed and silent; and at length the Prince, as victor, but +exhausted, was brought down by court-cavaliers into the chapel, in +order publicly to give thanks for the retreat of the hostile forces. +Nay, when presently the bride, too, pressed after, held back, however, +by the arms of chamberlains,—even drawn back by her court-dames +holding her train,—then could the Librarian easily afford to dismiss +all anxiety.</p> + +<p class="normal">Albano's tossing soul imaged the confused court world as still more +wild and misshapen than it was. He heard the princely cousins, even the +future successor to chair and throne, wish their cousin Luigi health, a +happy marriage, and sequel thereto, although they, through their +friend,—a living succession-poison,<a name="div2Ref_08" href="#div2_08"><sup>[8]</sup></a>—had caused so much of these +three things to be taken away from him that they could assign him +precisely their cold-blooded kinswoman as crown-guard of their next +succession. He heard the same marriage-songs from all court Pestitzers, +who, like a muscle, manifested a special effort to make themselves +short. He saw how lightly, coldly, and with what malicious pleasure, +the Prince, although with the feeling that he should soon drown in his +dropsy, his water or fat in the limbs, carried off all the lies. O, +must not princes themselves lie, because they are eternally cheated? +themselves learn to flatter, because they are forever flattered? He +himself could not bring himself to cast so much as the smallest mite of +a lying congratulation into the general treasury of lies.</p> + +<p class="normal">The Princess flung the Count—as often as it would do, and almost +oftener—two or three looks or words; for this blooming one, among the +throne-coasters, from whom one more easily hears an echo than an +answer, was reminded only of his powerful father. The Captain—who, +like all enthusiasts, and like moths and crickets, loved <i>warmth</i> and +shunned <i>light</i>, and because all people of mere understanding were +tedious to him—complained several times to Albano, that the Princess +displeased him with her cold, witty understanding; but the Count—out +of regard for the beloved of his father, and out of hatred toward her +sacrificial priests and butchers—could only pity a being, who perhaps +must hate now, because her greatest love had set. How many noble women, +who would otherwise have held it a higher thing to admire than to be +admired, have become powerful, rich in knowledge, almost great, but +unhappy and coquettish and cold, because they found only a pair of +arms, but no heart between them, and because their ardently devoted +souls met with no likeness of themselves, by which a woman means an +unlike image, namely one higher than her own! Then the tree with its +frozen blossoms stands there in autumn high, broad, green, and fresh, +and dark with foliage, but with empty, fruitless twigs.</p> + +<p class="normal">At last they came out of the sweltry dining-halls into the fresh +evening of Lilar, into the open air and freedom. Half indignant, half +bewildered with love, Albano went to meet a veiled hour, in which so +many a riddle and his dearest one were to be solved. What does man see +before him, when with the thread in his hand he steps out of the +subterranean labyrinth? Nothing but the open entrances into other +labyrinths, and the choice among them is his only wish.</p> +<br> +<h3>78. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">On the loveliest evening, when the heavens were transparent to the very +bottom of all the stars, the Prince let the weary assembly drive to +Lilar, in order to make a better illusion with his two invisibilities, +with the Illumination and with Liana's <i>tableau vivant</i>. With what +growing anxiety and tenderness did the honest Albano's susceptible +heart beat, as, during the rolling down from the woodland bridge into +the expectant throng of the tumultuous populace, he thought to +himself,—<i>She</i>, too, went this way into the Lilar which used to be so +dear to her. His whole realm of ideas became an evening rain before the +sun, of which one half trembles glistening before the sun and the other +vanishes in a gray mist. Ah, before Liana it had rained without +sunshine, when she to-day secretly went over merely into the Temple of +<i>Dream</i>, in order only to personate a beloved being, but not to be one.</p> + +<p class="normal">Not a lamp was yet burning. Albano looked into every green depth after +his angel of light. Even the Prince himself, who kept the sudden +kindling up of the St. Peter's dome still awaiting his nod and beck, +anticipated the pleasure, so rare at courts, of giving a twofold +surprise. The Princess had spared the Minister the dilemma of a lie or +an answer, for she had not inquired at all after her future court-dame +Liana, like the whole of that strong class of women, indifferent to her +sex, but attaching herself so much the more fixedly to a select one. +Albano espied, in the dark, driving whirl, his foster-parents and +Rabette; but in this reeling of the ground and of the soul he could +only, like others, direct his eyes toward the veil (itself veiled) +behind which he had more than all others to find and to lose. In the +years of youth, however, no black veil, only a motley one, hangs down, +and in all its sorrows are still hopes!</p> + +<p class="normal">The people awaited the splendor and the music. The Prince at last led +his bride toward the Temple of Dream; Charles, to-day blind to his +Rabette, not <i>for</i> her, took with him the glowing Count. In the outer +temple nothing could be detected corresponding to its magic name; only +the windows went from the roof of this Pavilion down to the very +ground; and, instead of frames and window-sills, were set in twigs and +leaves. But when the Princess had gone in through a glass door, the +Pavilion seemed to her to have vanished away; one seemed to stand on a +solitary, open spot, guarded with some tree-stems, which all vistas of +the garden met and crossed. Wondrously, as if by sportive dreams, were +the regions of Lilar intermingled, and opposites drawn together; beside +the mountain with the thunder-house stood the one with the altar, and +hard by the enchanted wood the high, dark Tartarus reared itself. +The near and the far swallowed each other up; a fresh rainbow of +garden-hues and a faded mock-rainbow ran on beside each other, as, when +one wakes, the shadow of the dream-image glides away, still visible, +before the glittering present. While the Princess was still sinking +away into the dreamy illusion,<a name="div2Ref_09" href="#div2_09"><sup>[9]</sup></a> Liana—as if gliding out of the air +through a glass side-door, in Idoine's favorite attire,—in a white +dress with silver flowers, and in unadorned hair, with a veil, which, +fastened only on the left side, flowed down at full length—came +tremulously forth, and when the deceived Princess cried out, "Idoine!" +she whispered, with a trembling and scarcely audible voice: "<i>Je ne +suis qu'un songe</i>."<a name="div2Ref_10" href="#div2_10"><sup>[10]</sup></a> She was to say more and offer a flower; but +when the Princess, with emotion, went on to exclaim: "<i>Sœur +chérie!</i>"<a name="div2Ref_11" href="#div2_11"><sup>[11]</sup></a> and folded her passionately in her arms, then she forgot +all, and only wept out her heart upon another heart, because to her +another's vain languishing after a sister was so touching. Albano stood +near to the sublime scene; the bandage was torn off from all his +wounds, and their blood flowed down warmly out of them all. O, never +had she, or any other form, been so ethereally beautiful, so +heavenly-blooming, and so meek and lowly!</p> + +<p class="normal">When she raised her eyes out of the embrace, they fell upon Albano's +pale countenance. It was pale, not with sickness, but with emotion. She +started back, quivering, and embraced the Princess again; the pale +youth had wrung from her agitated heart one tear after another; but the +two did not greet each other,—and thus began their evening.</p> + +<p class="normal">During the illusion and the embrace, at a nod from the Prince, all +twigs and gates of the garden were involved in a glistening +conflagration; all water-works of the enchanted wood started up, and +fluttered aloft with golden wings; in the inverted rain played a white, +green, golden, and gloomy world, and the jets of water and of flame +flew up mischievously against each other, like silver and gold +pheasants. And the splendor of the burning Eden embraced the Temple of +Dream, and the reflection fell on its inner green foliage-work, and +turned it to gold.</p> + +<p class="normal">Liana, holding the hand of the admiring Princess, stepped out, with +downcast, bashful eyes, into the bright, busy city of the sun, into the +din of the music and of the exultant spectators. Upon Albano the stormy +scene came shooting like a torrent; such opposite and strangely +intermingled parts played before such opposite persons, the splendor of +the evening's gladness, and the nightly bewilderment in his bosom, made +it hard for him to walk through this evening with a firm step.</p> + +<p class="normal">The Princess soon drew him onward in her wake and vortex; Liana she let +not go from her side. The Minister daubed and starched up with old +gallantries the erotic slave; but to every one he appeared, as the +Princess settles with creditors after the death of the Prince, to +imitate only the manner of ministers, whose spirit loves to proceed +from Father and Dauphin—<i>filioque</i><a name="div2Ref_12" href="#div2_12"><sup>[12]</sup></a>—at once, in order to seat +itself, not between, but upon two princely chairs. She seemed, however, +since his manœuvring with Liana, to receive him more haughtily. He +was sufficiently blessed in the good fortune of his daughter, as his +step-son Bouverot was by her nearness, and this pair of knaves lay +deeply buried and revelling in nothing but flowers. Albano could divine +nothing more than that even a cold dragon, an orang-outang of souls, +was darkly spying out the charms of this angel.</p> + +<p class="normal">The Minister's lady and the Lector took turns, with an easy +alternation, in guarding Liana from every word—of Albano. The Princess +let herself be conducted through the sparkling pleasure-avenues, +through the enchanted wood which was standing in moist lightnings, and +finally to the thunder-house, by way of taking the burning garden from +all points into her picturesque eye; Liana and Albano attended her +through all the walks of her withered, stale Arcadia, and held their +shattered hearts mutely and steadfastly together. True to her word +with her parents, she gave him no warmer look or tone than any other, +but no colder one neither; for her soul would not torment, but only +suffer and obey. He made—he thought—all his looks and tones gentle, +nor did the noble man avenge himself by a single manifestation of +coldness, or in fact of any insincere making-of-friends with the +princely female-recruiting-officer of crowns and hearts.</p> + +<p class="normal">The Princess began to be unintelligible to him. They passed from the +romantic to romance, then to the question, why it did not portray +marriage. "Because," she replied, "it [romance] cannot be without +love." "And marriage?" asked Albano, uncourteously. "Cannot exist +without a friend," said she; "but Love is a god, <i>nec Deus intersit, +nisi dignus vindice nodus inciderit</i>,"<a name="div2Ref_13" href="#div2_13"><sup>[13]</sup></a> she added, for she had +learned Latin for the sake of the poets.</p> + +<p class="normal">Bouverot finished the verse, in order to make the sense +ambiguous,—"<i>Nec quarta loqui persona laboret</i>."<a name="div2Ref_14" href="#div2_14"><sup>[14]</sup></a> No one understood +this last but the Lector and the Princess.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Why are there no lamps in that house?" she inquired. "Who lives +there?" She meant Spener's house. Liana answered only the latter +question, and concluded her glowing picture with the words, "He lives +for immortality." "What does he write?" inquired the Princess, +misunderstanding her; and Liana must needs give a Christian explanation +of the matter, whereupon the unbelieving woman smiled. There arose +forthwith a dispute for and against the eternal sleep, which took up +not much less time than they needed for making the circle of the +thunder-house. The Princess began: "We should have quite as much to say +against our every-day sleep, if it were not a fact, as against the +eternal one." "More, too, however, against our ever waking out of it," +said Albano, striking in, and cut short the religious disturbances.</p> + +<p class="normal">The Princess came back again with her inquiries after Spener, who had +interested her by his long mourning for her deceased father-in-law; and +Liana, sure of her mother's concurrence, poured herself out into a +stream of speech and emotion,—her eyes were forbidden to shed one,—on +which was borne along a sublime image of her teacher. How the +exaltation of this so delicate, tender soul thrilled her friend! So in +the pale, small moon and evening star do higher mountains rear +themselves than on our larger earth! "She was once inspired for thee, +too, but now no more," said Albano to himself, and stayed behind after +all the rest had gone on, because his soul had been long since full of +pains, and because now the Princess began to displease him.</p> + +<p class="normal">He posted himself alone, and looked at the ringing, gleaming war-dance +of joy. The children ran illuminated through the uproar and in the +bright green foliage. The tones hovered and hung twining together into +one wreath, high in their ether above the noisy swarm of men, and sang +down to them their heavenly songs. Only in me, said he to himself, do +the tones and the lights toss a sea of agony to and fro, in no one +else, in her not at all; she has brought with her for all others her +old gladdening heart of love, not for me; she has not thus far +suffered, she blooms in health. He considered not, however, that in +fact his struggles also had shed not a drop of water into the dark red +glow of his youth; in Liana well might wounds from such conflicts, like +those of the scratched Aphrodite, only dye the white roses red.</p> + +<p class="normal">But he determined to remain a man before so many eyes, and to await the +crisis and Liana's solitude. He therefore exchanged several rational +words with his foster relatives from Blumenbühl;—he said to Rabette: +"It pleases you, does it not?" He startled, unintentionally, the +Captain, who was hovering about some new faces from Haarhaar, with the +unmeaning question, "Why dost thou leave my sister so alone?"</p> + +<p class="normal">But as often as he looked at Liana, who to-day went in her long veil, +as the only one without any thick, heavy gala-wrappage, as if she were +a young, breathing, tender form among painted stone statues, so +bashfully putting others to the blush, glistening and trembling like an +egrette,—so often did masses of flame fly wildly to and fro within +him. Passion, as the epilepsy often does with its victims, hurries us +away, precisely at the dangerous crises of life, to shores and +precipices. He leaned his head against a tree, slightly bowed down; +then Charles came along out of his waltzes of joy, and asked him, with +alarm, what provoked him so; for his bending down had cast gloomy, wild +shadows upon his tense, muscular face; "Nothing," said he, and the face +gleamed mildly when he lifted it up. At this moment, also, came the +unreflecting Rabette, and would fain draw him into the general joy, and +said, "Does anything ail thee?" "Thou!" he replied, and looked at her +very indignantly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Go into the gloomy oak-grove to Gaspard's rock!" cried his heart. "Thy +father never bowed; be his son!" Thereupon he strode away through the +world of brilliancy; but when, far within, amidst the darkness, he +leaned his head upon the rock, and the tones came toyingly and +teasingly in after him, and he thought to himself, how he could have +loved such a noble soul,—O how exceedingly!—then it was as if +something said within him, "Now thou hast thy <i>first</i> sorrow on earth!"</p> + +<p class="normal">As during an earthquake doors fly open and bells ring, so at the +thought, "first sorrow," was his soul rent asunder, and hard tears +dashed down. But he wondered at hearing himself weep, and indignantly +wiped his face on the cool moss.</p> + +<p class="normal">Weakened, not hardened, he stepped out into the enchanted land, +besprinkled with glimmering jewels, and among the tones which came +dancing more rapturously to meet him, and would fain snatch his soul +away and lift it up and set it on high places, so that it might look +down into far and wide spring-times of life! Here on this once blessed +soil he saw lying the shattered, trampled pearl-string of his future +days. "O how happy we might have been this evening!" thought he, and +looked into the bright Feast of Tabernacles, into the gilded but +living branchwork,—into the green, flitting reflection, rocked +by the night-wind, and into the wild-fire of burning bushes in the +flowing waters. On the arched triumphal gates stood lights like +heaven-descended constellations of the wain, and behind him the dark +cloister-wall of Tartarus, which showed sublimely in its summits +only single small lights; and, over beyond, the silent mountains +sleeping in night, and here the noisy life of men, playing with the +night-butterflies about the lamps!</p> + +<p class="normal">Thus does the fire within us of itself create in us the storm-wind +which fans it still higher. The tones that floated by him spoke to him +every thought which he would fain kill. As man sees himself, so does he +often hear himself, in the presence of a sound of music.</p> + +<p class="normal">At this moment Liana went off some distance from the crowd with +Augusti. "I will speak with her, then it will be over," said he to +himself, as he drew near her, battling and wrestling with himself: he +saw plainly that she wanted to be back again among strange listeners. +"Liana, what have I then done to thee?" said he, with the deep-souled +tone of a tender heart, bitterly despising the Lector's presence and +powers. "Only do not desire an answer to-day, dear Count," said she, +turning back, and took in haste Augusti's arm; but he remarked not that +she did it to avoid sinking. Upon this he cast at the Lector a fiery +look, hoping to be offended and then avenged,—left her in haste and +silence;—the sweetest wine of love a hot ray had sharpened into +vinegar;—and he slipped away, without knowing it, into the temple of +dream.</p> + +<p class="normal">He went up and down therein, murmuring, "<i>Je ne suis qu'un songe</i>"; but +was soon driven out into Tartarus by his disgust at so many copies of +himself moving round with him, and by the eternal spring of tones +flying after him, which just now beside the upturned flower-bed of life +was so intolerable.</p> + +<p class="normal">In Tartarus all the apparatus of horror seemed to him now very +diminutive and ridiculous. Just then, not far from the Catacomb avenue, +Roquairol and Rabette came to meet him. Roquairol's flaming face was +extinguished and Rabette's turned backward, when Albano passionately +strode forth to meet them, and, still more imbittered by the +remembrance of the time when their heavens were contemporaneous, and +flaming up under the wind which blew upon his glowing ruins, attacked +the Captain with: "Art thou a friend? Art thou no devil? Thou hast +referred me to this evening: never, never say a word more of it!" Both +trembled, confused and colorless; Albano, without further reflection, +ascribed the growing pale and turning away to their sympathy for his +martyrdom. What a confounding, hostile night!</p> + +<p class="normal">He roved onward and onward, the licking fire of the joy and music that +pursued him tormented him unspeakably,—the tones were to him mocking +tropical birds of fairer, warmer zones that came fluttering to meet +him. "I will just go to my bed, so soon as it once becomes still within +there!" He was half a mile off, when the music of Lilar still continued +to sound after him; he sternly stopped his ears, but Lilar still +sounded on within them,—then he perceived that he was only listening +to himself. But all the time it seemed to him as if the merry ringing +must, as in <i>Don Juan</i>, resolve itself into a cry of murder at the +presence of ghosts.</p> + +<p class="normal">The avenue of coming days ran to a frightful point before him, when he +now snatched out from them the moon of his heaven, which had once +gleamed upon his childish heart and upon the paths of Blumenbühl. The +blooming, dancing genius of his past, all unseen, with only the wreath +of joy in its hand, stole away behind him, while he struggled with the +dark angel of futurity going before him, who dragged him along after +him through sounding thickets,—through sleepy villages,—through +moist, trickling valleys. At last Albano looked up to heaven, beneath +the innumerable eternal stars, to the hanging blossom-garden of God. "I +am not ashamed before you," said he, "because I weep on this ball, and +am oppressed before your immensity. Up there ye stand, all of you, far +asunder,—and on all great worlds every poor spirit has, after all, +only one little spot beneath its feet where it is happy or miserable. +When only this night has once gone by, and I am gone to my bed; +to-morrow I shall certainly be a man and stand fast!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Suddenly he heard several times an almost exasperated cry of +lamentation. At length he beheld, near a stream, outstretched white +sleeves or arms; he went to the female form. "Alas! I am blind of God," +said she; "I too was at the illumination, and have strayed away; I am +generally acquainted with road and lane; over yonder lies our village; +I hear the shepherd dog, but I cannot find the bridge over the water." +It was the grown-up blind girl of the herdsman's hut. "Does it still go +on pleasantly there?" he asked, as he guided her along. "All over!" +said she. On the bridge of the Rosana she would not, out of vanity, let +herself be directed any farther.</p> + +<p class="normal">He returned through the pleasant bushes, which were already dripping +with the dew of morning, to an eminence before Lilar. All was still +down below there; a few scattered lamps flickered in the flute-dell, +and in Tartarus a couple, like deadly tiger-eyes, still lingered. He +went down into the vacant land away over the silent, flat grave,—up +through his gloomy, downward-ascending cavern-avenue,—and into his +bed. "To-morrow!" said he with energy, and meant his vow of +steadfastness.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<p class="center"><img src="images/barstart.png" alt="barstart"></p> +<br> +<h2><a name="div1Ref_18" href="#div1_18">EIGHTEENTH JUBILEE.</a></h2> + +<h3><span class="sc2">Gaspard's Letter.—The Blumenbühl Church.—Eclipse of +the Sun and of the Soul.</span></h3> +<br> +<h3>79. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">If in the foregoing night a strange, hostile spirit cruelly drove +against each other and away from each other human beings with bandaged +eyes, so will that spirit on the morning after, when from a cold cloud +he surveyed his battle-field with sparkling eyes, have almost smiled at +all the joys and harvests which lie prostrate round about him down +below there.</p> + +<p class="normal">In Blumenbühl, Rabette, in lonely corners, wrings her hands with +trembling arms, and breathes upon the wall-plaster, to wipe away the +redness of wet eyes; out of Lilar comes Albano, gloomily looks upon the +earth instead of its inhabitants, and from the astronomical tower gazes +eagerly into the heavens, and seeks no friend; Roquairol musters up +horses and riders, and makes himself, out in the country, a merry, +drunken evening; Augusti shakes his head over letters from Spain, +and reflects upon them disagreeably, but deeply; Liana leans in an +easy-chair, all crushed, with her face falling towards her shoulder, +and nothing blooming in it any longer save innocence; her father +strides up and down, with a reddish-brown complexion; she answers but +faintly, lifting from time to time her folded hands a little. Before +the night-spirit on the cloud men's time goes swiftly by, as a fleeting +pair of wings without beak or tail; the spirit has near him the distant +week when Albano shall see by night from the observatory how in the +Blumenbühl church there burns an altar-light, how Liana kneels therein +with uplifted hands, and how an old man lays his own on her serene, +shining brow, which directs itself with tearless eyes toward heaven.</p> + +<p class="normal">The spirit looks down deeper into the months; he writhes around himself +for delight, and grins over all dwelling-places and pleasure-haunts of +men which lie about him; often a laugh runs round along all his open +hell-teeth, only sometimes he gnashes them under the cover of the +lip-flesh.</p> + +<p class="normal">Look away,—for he too sees and wills it,—and step down from the +wintry spectre among the warm children of men, and on the firm ground +of reality, where flying time, like the flying earth, seems to rest +upon steadfast roots, and where only eternity, like the sun, seems to +rise.</p> + +<p class="normal">Albano's wound, which cut through his whole inner man, you can best +measure by the bandage which he sought to bind around it. Our grief may +be guessed from the solace and self-deception we resort to. The next +morning he let his griefs discourse across one another, and lay still, +before their funeral wail, as a corpse; then he rose up, and spoke thus +to himself: "Only one of two things is possible,—either she is still +true to me, and only her parents now constrain her,—then they again +must be constrained, and there is nothing at all to be lamented,—or +else, from some weakness or other, perhaps towards her tyrannical and +beloved parents, she is no longer true to me, or it may be out of +coldness toward me, or from religious scruples, error, and so on; in +that case I see," he continued, and tried to tread his two feet deeper +and firmer into the ground, without, however, having any <i>purchase</i>, +"nothing else to be done than to do nothing; not to be a crying +suckling, a groaning sickling, but an iron man; not to weep blood over +a past heart, over the ashes of death lying deep upon all fields and +plantations of my youth, and over my monstrous grief." Thus did he +delude himself, and mistake the necessity of consolation for its actual +presence.</p> + +<p class="normal">Every evening he visited the star-tower out of the city, on the +Blumenbühl heights. He found the old, solitary, meagre, +eternally-reckoning, wifeless, and childless keeper, always friendly +and unembarrassed as a child, making no inquiries after war-news, +journals of fashion, and poesies, and never paying money for his +pleasure, except on the coach to Bode and Zach. But the old eye +sparkled when it looked from under the sparse eyebrows into heaven, and +his heart and tongue rose to poetry when he spoke of the highest +mundane spot, the light heaven over the dark, low earth,—of the +immense, universal sea without shore, wherein the spirit, which in vain +seeks to fly across it, sinks exhausted, and whose ebb and flow only +the Infinite One sees at the foot of his throne,—and of the hope of a +starry heaven after death, which then no earthly disk, as now, shall +intersect, but which shall arch itself around itself, without beginning +and without end.</p> + +<p class="normal">If Socrates humbled the proud Alcibiades with a map of the world, so, +when this in turn is annihilated by a chart of the heavens, must our +pride and sorrow on the earth be still more put to the blush. Albano +was ashamed to think of himself, when he looked up into the immense +ascending night above him, wherein days and morning twilights abide and +move. He edified himself and his teacher when he spoke of <i>this</i>: how +even now overhead, in the immensity, spring-times and paradises of +new-born worlds and thundering<a name="div2Ref_15" href="#div2_15"><sup>[15]</sup></a> suns and earths burning up are flying +across each other's paths, and we stand here below like deaf men under +the sublime hurricane, and the roaring tempest and torrent shows itself +to us, so far off, only as a still, stationary, white rainbow on the +brow of night.</p> + +<p class="normal">As often as Albano's great eye came back from heaven, it found the +earth brighter and lighter. But at length the night came, which the +hostile spirit had already so long lived in anticipation. It was +already very late, and the heavens quite serene; the nebulæ crowded +down nearer, as higher market-towns;<a name="div2Ref_16" href="#div2_16"><sup>[16]</sup></a> the sky seemed more white than +blue. Albano thought of the hidden loved one, who, were she by his +side, would still more consecrate the heavens and himself with her +heartful of unceasing prayers; when suddenly, through his lowered +telescope, he espied light in the Blumenbühl church,—the princely +vault open,—Liana kneeling at the altar, with uplifted hands,—and an +old man near her, as if blessing her. Fearfully stood the torch-flames +and Liana's face and arms upside down; for the telescope caused +everything to appear inverted.</p> + +<p class="normal">Albano, shuddering, begged the astronomer to look that way. He too saw +the apparitions, to him, however, nameless. "There are probably people +in the church," said he, indifferently. But Albano rushed down,—hardly +allowing the astonished astronomer time to call out after him with an +invitation to the total eclipse of the sun tomorrow,—and ran toward +Blumenbühl. How his heart wore itself out in the race, and most of all +in the hollows, where he lost sight of the illuminated church, must +remain a secret, because it was hidden even from himself in the tempest +of his feelings. At last he saw the white church before him, but the +church-windows were without any light. He knocked hard at the iron +church-door, and cried, "Open!" he heard only the echo in the empty +church, and nothing more.</p> + +<p class="normal">So he went back, with a stormy past in his bosom, through the sleeping +night: the earth was to him a spirit-island, the spirit-islands were to +him earths; his being, his city of God was burning up, he felt.</p> + +<p class="normal">It lay on the morrow still in full glow, when the Lector came to him, +and brought him the incomprehensible message from Liana, that she +wished, about noon, to speak with him alone in Lilar. He was not this +time enraged against the suspected messenger, and said, full of wonder, +"Yes." With what bold, adventurous forms does our life-cloud rise to +heaven, ere it disappears!</p> +<br> +<h3>80. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">Let us go to Liana, with whom the riddles dwell! On the morning after +the illuminated night she felt, upon reflection, for the first time, +the horrible effort with which she had kept the promise of silence made +to her parents; she sank down with unstrung energies, but also with +renewed and ardent fidelity. "What," she kept continually saying to +herself,—"what then had this noble man done to deserve that I should +cause him a whole evening full of pangs? How often he looked at me +imploringly and judgingly! O that I might have been permitted to hold +up thy beautiful head, when thou leanedst it heavily against the rough +pine-bark!" What had made her most melancholy in the heavy midnight had +been his silent disappearance; how often had she looked up at his +thunder-house outwardly illuminated with lamps, while within only +darkness lay at the window! Now she felt how near he dwelt to her soul; +and she wept the whole morning over the night, and the ray of love +stung her more and more hotly, just as burning-glasses bring the sun +before us more potently when it looks down just after rain. The mother +showed her gratitude to her to-day for her yesterday's sacrifice in +keeping her word by returning love and confidence; though the father +did not by any means, since with him one was as little saved by good +works as with the elder Lutherans, but only damned for the want of +them; even now, however, when the parents had drawn from the previous +night the newest hopes of renunciation, the daughter could not humor a +single one of them.</p> + +<p class="normal">How often she thought of Gaspard's letter! Is it a shot-off arrow, +which, with a wound on its poisonous point, is on its slow way from +Spain to Germany, or the friendly light of a never yet seen fixed star, +just entered upon its distant track towards our lower world?</p> + +<p class="normal">Augusti had, however, received the letter even before the night of the +illumination, only he had not found good reasons for delivering it. +Here it is:—</p> +<br> + +<p class="normal">"I must needs value your anxiety very much, without, however, adopting +it. Albano's love for Mademoiselle von Fr., in whom I have already +formerly remarked, with great pleasure, a certain <i>virtuosity</i><a name="div2Ref_17" href="#div2_17"><sup>[17]</sup></a> in +virtue, so to speak, secures us and him against the influence of the +ghostly machinery, and against connections of other kinds which might +well be more dangerous for his studies and his warm blood. Only one +must leave this kind of youthful plays to their own course. If he +becomes too closely attached to her, then he may see to the +<i>dénouement</i> of the affair. Why shall we cut this pleasure still +shorter for him, when you, too, already complain to me of the +sickliness of the fair one? In the latter part of autumn I shall see +him. His brave, vigorous nature will know well how to bear privation. +Assure the Froulay house of my best sentiments.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="sc">G. d. C</span>."</p> +<br> + +<p class="normal">The Lector would gladly have thrown this letter into the paper-mill, so +little was there in it that was "<i>ostensible</i>." To be sure, Gaspard's +murderously polished and pointed irony about Liana's sickliness, if he +showed her the letter, would still remain, to this innocent, +unsuspecting peace-princess, a sheathed blade. The north-wind of +egotism, too, which ran through the communication would not, as it was, +after all, a favorable side-wind for Albano's prosperous passage +through life, be felt or heeded by the lovers; but that was the very +rub; for she might look upon Gaspard's disguised "No" as a "Yes," and +just fatally entangle herself in the thread whereby a friend would draw +her up over her steep precipice.</p> + +<p class="normal">Meanwhile the letter must be delivered; but he did it with long, +hesitating evasions, which were intended apparently to withdraw the +veil for her from the covered "No." She read it with fear, smiled, +weeping, at the murderous irony, and said, softly, "Yes indeed!" The +Lector had already half a hope in his eye. "If the knight," said she, +"thinks so, can I do less? No, good Albano; now I remain true to thee. +My life is so short, therefore let it be cheering and devoted to him as +long as is in my power."</p> + +<p class="normal">She thanked the Lector so warmly and pleasantly for the arrow from +Spain, that he had not the capacity of being hard enough to thrust home +its darkly poisoned end into the fair heart. She begged him, for the +sake of sparing him, not to be present at her firm explanation with her +father, but rather, at most, out of indulgence to her own and her +mother's feelings, to take upon himself the task of making her +explanation to her mother. He consented simply to—both, instead of +one, of these things.</p> + +<p class="normal">The gentle form stepped quietly into her father's presence, and there, +shrinking not before thunder and lightning, carried her explanation +through to a close, saying that she severely rued her disapproved love, +that she would bear all penalties, and do and suffer all, both here and +with the Princess, as "<i>cher père</i>" should demand, but that she dared +not longer offend the innocent Count of Zesara by the show of a most +undutiful desertion. At this address the Minister, who had suffered +himself, in consequence of her recent submissive self-denial, to be +lifted up by refreshing expectations, now stretched prostrate on the +ground, dashed down from his Tarpeian rock, could not utter a single +sound but this: "Imbécille! thou marriest Herr von Bouverot; he takes +thy picture tomorrow; thou sittest to him." He took her, with stern +hand and three terribly long strides, to his lady. "She will remain," +said he, "under guard in her chamber; no one may visit her except my +son-in-law; he will paint the Imbécille <i>en miniature</i>." "Go, +Imbécille!" said he, beside himself. Her entire want of womanly cunning +had actually, to the statesman, drawn a curtain over her deep, sharp +eye. A straightforward man and mind resembles a straight alley, which +appears only half as long as one which runs by crooks and turns.</p> + +<p class="normal">The Lector, who never meant to be regarded as a special amateur of +connubial sham-fights, had already taken himself off. The thirty years' +war of the spouses—for it only wanted a few years of that—gained life +and reinforcement. The old bridegroom diffused over his face that +convulsive smile which, with some men, resembles the convulsive quiver +of the cork when it announces the bite of the fish. He asked whether he +were now wrong in trusting neither daughter nor mother, both of whom he +charged with a partisan understanding against him, and insisted that +now, after such proofs, he ought not to be blamed either for stricter +measures or for a straightforward march to his object; and with the +sitting, for which the German gentleman had twice begged him, he +commenced the campaign. The Minister's lady, as a punishment for Liana, +remained silent on the subject of so excessively great a present to +Bouverot as a miniature likeness would be.</p> + +<p class="normal">The tender daughter, jammed and crushed in the meeting between two +stone statues, represented to her mother, that she could not possibly +hold out under so long inspection of a man's eye, and least of all Herr +von Bouverot's, whose looks often went like thorns into her soul. +Hereupon the father replied and retorted in the mother's name, by +drawing a chair up to the desk, and inviting, on the spot, the German +gentleman to come to-morrow and paint. Then Liana was sent away with a +word which drew even from this delicate flower the lightning-spark of a +momentary hatred.</p> + +<p class="normal">The Imperial peace-protocol lay open now before the two spouses, and +there merely wanted some one to dictate, when the Minister's lady rose +up, and said, "You must learn to respect me more."</p> + +<p class="normal">She had the coach tackled, and drove off to the Court Chaplain, +Spener's. She knew Liana's respect for him, and his omnipotence over +her pious disposition. Even to herself he was still imposing. Down from +that earlier theological age in which the Lutheran Father-confessor +still reigned nearer to the Catholic, he had, through the power and +magnanimity of his character, brought a shepherd's staff, which was +distinguished from a bishop's staff only by being made of better wood. +She must needs narrate to him twice over Liana's relations; the ardent, +indignant old man could not at all comprehend or believe a love which +must have been spun out right under his old eyes without his knowledge. +"Your excellence," he at length answered, "has, indeed, committed a +mistake in not communicating to me this important circumstance before +to-day. How easily, with God's help, would I have conducted all to a +blessed issue! However, there is nothing lost. Let your excellence send +the maiden this very night to me, but alone, without you; that must be +done; then I stand pledged for the rest!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Objections and cautions would merely have inflamed the old man's +ambition and anger,—both which still worked on beneath the ice of his +hoary hair; she therefore confidently promised him all, with that +submissiveness, which she had also transmitted as an inheritance to +Liana.</p> + +<p class="normal">Right hopefully did Liana receive the command of a night ride to the +good, pious father. She started off with only her devoted maiden. With +deeply agitated soul she appeared before her father-confessor. She +opened herself to him as to a God; he decided just as if he were one. +What a sight for another eye less proud than Spener's would have been +this lowly, but composed saint, whose heart, like a sunbeam, always +appeared loveliest in its breaking asunder.</p> + +<p class="normal">But here the history moves in veils! The old man commanded her maiden +to stay behind, and took her alone over into the silent Blumenbühl. He +unlocked for her the church, lighted a torch at the altar, in order +that the desolate darkness might not play any prelude to her timid eye, +and completed what her parents could not.</p> + +<p class="normal">How he extorted from her the promise to renounce her Albano forever is +a mystery watched and hidden by the Great Sphinx of the oath which she +swore to him,—only the far-off man, who lost the fair soul, had from +the observatory of the suns gazed at the bright church-windows and +discovered behind them disturbing apparitions, without knowing that +they were true, and decided his life.</p> + +<p class="normal">She went back again coldly across the meadows and mountains of old +days, which had once been so bright, to the dwelling of the old man, +who dismissed her with greater reverence than had marked his reception +of her. On the night-journey she was mute, and wrapped up in herself, +and exchanged not a word with her maiden. Her parents still awaited +her; the mother looked anxiously out into the night and into the +future. At length the living carriage rolled into the court. Great and +mighty as one who, having been executed in innocence, starts up into +life again before the dissector and, regarding him as the judge on +high, speaks with unfettered freedom and gladness, so did she come into +the presence of her parents: like the cold marble of a god's form, she +stood there, pale, tearlessly cold and calm. She knew it not, and she +willed it not, but she soared high over life, even beyond a child's +love,—she could not kiss her mother so fervently as once,—she stood +undismayed before her blustering father, and said, then, without a +tear, without emotion, without a blush, and with soft voice, "I have +this night renounced my love before God. The pious father has convinced +me." "And had the man better reasons for it <i>in petto</i> than I?" said +Froulay. "Yes," said she; "but I have sworn in the Temple to keep +silence until time discloses all. Now I pray you by the All-just One +only to allow me to give him back in person his letters, and tell him +that I cease to be his, not, however, from fickleness, but from duty; I +entreat this, dear parents. Then may God dispose of the rest, and I +shall never be disobedient to you again." The wretched father, puffed +up still more by this triumph, would fain have made this last prayer of +the dying heart bitter to her, and even insinuated a flying suspicion +of the motive of the interview; but the mother, smitten in her fair +soul by the fairest, interceded warmly, and contemptuously and +arbitrarily decided in the affirmative. Nor did Liana seem to take much +notice of the paternal No. When he had gone, the mother, weeping for +bliss, snatched the silent form to her embrace; but Liana wept not so +easily upon her bosom as once out of love, whether it was that her +heart was too much exalted, or that it came back just as slowly into +the old condition as it went out of it. "Receive thanks, daughter," +said the mother; "I shall now make thy life more happy." "It was happy +enough. I was to die; therefore I must needs love," said she. So she +went smiling into the arms of sleep, with hard-beating heart. But in +dream it appeared to her as if she were sinking away in a swoon, losing +her mother, and struggling up again fearfully out of the grasp of +flying death, and then weeping for joy that she lived again. Thereupon +she awoke, and the glad drops, softly released by the dream, still +flowed from her open eyes, and softened like a thawing-wind the stiff +soil of life.</p> + +<p class="normal">Ye great or blessed spirits above us! When man here, under the poor +clouds of life, throws away his fortune, because he prizes it less than +his heart, then is he as blessed and as great as you. And we are all +worthy of a holier earth, because the sight of the sacrifice exalts, +and does not oppress us, and because we shed burning tears, not from +pity, but from the deepest, holiest love and joy.</p> +<br> +<h3>81. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">Warmly and brilliantly did the sun, who today, like the unhappy one, +was to be eclipsed, begin his morning race. Liana awoke on the +burial-day of her love, not with yesterday's strength, but faint and +languid, somewhat cheered, however, by the prospect of a return of her +peaceful time. The mother, although herself sickly, pressed her, early +in the morning, to her heart, in order to prove the pulse of the heart +most precious to her. Liana looked affectionately and yearningly, with +moist eye, into her moist eye a long time, and was silent. "What wilt +thou?" asked her mother. "Mother, love me more now, as I am alone," +said she. Then in her mother's presence she bound together all Albano's +letters, without reading them, except the one in which he begs her +brother for his love. She sported with her mother, as fate does with us +and as poor parents do with their children, who at first give them +bright, gay garments, because these are more easily dyed into dark +ones.</p> + +<p class="normal">Her mother sought gradually to take away from her her spiritual +fantasies, the death-moss, as it were, which clung sucking to her +green, young life. "Thou seest," said she, "how thy angel can err, +since he approved thy love, which thou now condemnest." But she had an +answer: "No, the pious father said, it had been right until the time +when he told me the secret, and that the Bible says, one must forsake +everything for love." Thus, then, does this poor creature, as they tell +of the bird of Paradise, soar straight upward in heaven, until she +drops down dead.</p> + +<p class="normal">She manifested to her mother almost a feverish gayety,—a sunshine on +the last day of the year. She said, how it refreshed her, that she +could now speak freely with her dear mother of her former lovely days. +She portrayed to her Albano's great, glowing heart, and how he deserved +the sacrifice, and the "pearly hours" which they had lived together. +"After all," said she, cheerfully, but in such a way that tears came +into the hearer's eyes, "nothing of it has really passed away. +Remembrances last longer than present reality, as I have conserved +blossoms many years, but never fruits." Yes, there are tender female +souls which intoxicate themselves only among the blossoms of the +vineyard of joy, as others do only with the berries of the vine-hill. +The Lector's note arrived with the intelligence that Albano was +awaiting her in Lilar.</p> + +<p class="normal">Now, as the hour of interview drew so near, she grew more and more +uneasy. "If I can only persuade him," said she, "that I have acted as +an upright maiden!" Before exchanging her morning chamber for the +mourning-carriage, she set all things to rights there for drawing, when +she should return; she had, she said, had a very bad dream, but she +hoped it would not come to pass.</p> + +<p class="normal">With her work-basket on her arm, in which the letters lay, she stepped +into the carriage, which they had to open, because its sultry air +oppressed her. But the sultriness was the breath and atmosphere of her +own spirit, and everything beautiful which met her became to her to-day +a benumbing poison-flower. Fearfully she kept grasping and pressing the +hand of her mother, because every cry, every form that darted by, +fluttered over her like a rustling storm-bird; a crier, with his rough +tone, cut across her nerves; they trembled more gently again, only when +a pastor and his servant passed by with the sick-cup for the evening +drink of weary people. O, the fair way was long to her! She had so long +to hold together with fainting powers the breaking heart, which was to +speak so firmly and decidedly and distinctly with her beloved.</p> + +<p class="normal">The sky was blue, and yet neither of them remarked that it was +beginning to be dark without clouds, since the moon already stood with +her night upon the sun. As they passed over the woodland bridge into +the living Lilar, where on all branches hung the old bridal-dresses of +a decorated past, Liana said, with intense earnestness, to her mother: +"For God's sake, not into the old castle of the dead!"<a name="div2Ref_18" href="#div2_18"><sup>[18]</sup></a> "But +which way then? That is his rendezvous," said the mother. "Anywhere +else,—into the Dream-temple. He sees us already; yonder he goes over +the gates," said she. "God Almighty be with thee, and speak not long," +said the weeping mother, as she went from her into the temple, in whose +mirrors she could behold the parting of the innocent beings.</p> + +<p class="normal">Albano came slowly along down through the walks; he had cleared +his eye of tears and his heart of storms. O, how had he hitherto, +like a long-tossed mariner, peered into his dark clouds, in order +between their misty peaks to discover the mountain-peaks of a green +continent!—that he was to-day to lose so much, namely all, his most +mournful conclusions had not gone so far as that; nay, he maintained so +much tranquillity, that he sent back overhead the little Pollux, who +came dancing after, not with threats, but with presents.</p> + +<p class="normal">At last he stood with quivering lips before the beloved, beautiful +form, who, childlike, pale, trembling, and watching her work-basket, +looked upon him a little, and then struggled with her sinking eyes. +Then his heart melted; the flood of old love rushed back high into his +life. "Liana," said he, in the softest tone, and drops fell from his +eyes, "art thou still my Liana? I am still the same as ever; and hast +thou too not changed?" But she could not say no. A gash was made into +the arteries of her life, and tears sprang up instead of blood. His +good form, his familiar, brotherly voice stood again so near to her, +and his hand held hers again, and yet all was over; a hot sun-glance +flashed across her former flowery garden-life, and showed it in a +melancholy illumination, but it lay far from her. "Let us," he went on, +"be strong now at this singular meeting again. Tell me very briefly +everything, why thou hast hitherto been so silent and done so. I have +nothing to say,—then let all be forgotten." He had unconsciously +raised her hand, but the hand pressed itself down and trembled withal. +"Dost thou tremble, or do I?" said he. "I, Albano," said she, "but not +from any fault: I am true, O God, I am true even unto death!" He looked +upon her with a wild, wondering look. "To you, to you I am so, but it +is all over," she cried, confounded and confounding. "No," she added, +commandingly, as he was accidentally on the point of going with her out +of the perspective range of the Dream-temple,—"no, my mother wishes to +see us from the Dream-temple yonder."</p> + +<p class="normal">He grew red at the maternal espionage; his eye flashed into hers a +certain resentment against the "you," and his hot looks wanted to draw +out of her agitated face the delaying riddle. Necessity commanded +strength; she began.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Here"—she stammered, and could hardly raise the basket for trembling, +"your letters to me!" He took them gently. "I have resigned you," she +continued; "my parents are not to blame, although they did not like our +love. There is a mystery, which concerns merely you and your happiness, +that has constrained me to part from you and from every joy." "Do you +wish your letters too?" said he. "My parents—" said she. "The mystery +about me?" said he. "An oath binds me," said she. "Last night in the +church at Blumenbühl before the priest?" he asked. She covered her eyes +with her hand and nodded slowly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"O God!" cried he, weeping aloud, "is it thus with life and joy and all +truth? So? How ye have lied"—he looked at his letters—"about eternal +fidelity and love! Whom did you mean then, ye hellish liars?" He flung +them away. Liana was about to pick them up; he trod on them violently, +and looked bitterly upon the affrighted one. Now he fell into a storm, +and drew and poured out, like a water-wheel during the influx of the +floods, his tumultuous, suffering breast, and ceased not his cruel +pictures of his love, her weakness, her coldness, his pain, her former +oaths, and her present violated one about his mysterious fortune, which +he said he did not want at all. Her silence wrought him up to a wilder +whirl. Her quick, intense breathing he heard not.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Do not torment thyself. It is all impossible now," she answered, +imploringly. "O," said he indignantly, "I will not re-change the +change, for the Lector and the Pope would again change that!" He fell +now into that induration and palsy of the heart which is peculiar to +man; the stream of love hung as a frozen, jagged waterfall over the +rocks.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I did not think thou wert so hard," said she, and smiled strangely. "I +am harder still," said he; "I speak as thou actest." "Leave off, leave +off, Albano,—it grows so dark to me. O, I will instantly to my +mother!" she cried suddenly. The two old black spiders, let down by +Fate, stood again over her fair eyes and overspun them, busily +spinning, with a closer and closer web; and over the golden strips of +life already grew a gray mould.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It is the solar eclipse," said he, ascribing the blindness to the +faintly gleaming sickle of the quarter-sun. He saw overhead in the blue +heaven the lunar lump cast like a gravestone into the pure sun. Not so +much as a real shadow, but only enervated shadows lived in the +uncertain gray light; the birds fluttered timidly around; cold shudders +played like ghosts of the noonday hour in the little, faint lustre +which was neither sunlight nor moonlight. Gloomy, gloomy lay life +before the youth; through the long black marble colonnade of the years +sorrows came stalking on like panthers, and grew brightly spotted under +the retreating sun-glances of the past.</p> + +<p class="normal">"This is indeed very fitting for to-day," he continued; "such a sudden +night without evening-twilight. Lilar must be covered up to-day. Look +up at the moon,—how darkly it has rolled over the sun; once she too +was our friend. O, make it still gloomier, utter night!" "Albano, +forbear; I am innocent, and I am blind. Where is the temple and my +mother?" she cried, moaning; the spiders had fast closed the wet, +tearful eyes.</p> + +<p class="normal">"By the Devil, it is the eclipse of the sun!" said he, and gazed into +the blindly groping, timid face, and guessed all; but he could not +weep, he could not console. The black tiger of the most cruel anguish +hung clambering on his breast and carried him away. "No, no," said +Liana, "I am blind, and I am innocent too."</p> + +<p class="normal">Little Pollux, made happy by his presents, had led along a begging +mute, who followed with the ringing mute's-bell. "The dumb man cannot +say anything," said Pollux. Liana cried, "Mother, mother! my dream +comes, the death-bell tolls."</p> + +<p class="normal">The Minister's lady rushed out. "Your daughter," said Albano, "is blind +again, and God send the father and the mother, and whoever is to blame +for it, their retribution of misery." "What is the matter?" cried +Spener, suddenly stepping out, who had previously seen the meeting, and +had come to the mother. "A wretched maiden; your work too!" replied +Albano.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Farewell, unhappy Liana!" said he, and was about to depart; but +stopped, and after gazing wildly on the beautiful, tortured countenance +which wept with its blind eyes, he cried, "Dreadful!" and went away.</p> + +<p class="normal">Long did he lie, up in the thunder-house, with his eyes buried in his +arms, and when he at last, and quite late, without knowing where he +was, roused himself, as from a dream, he saw the whole landscape +illumined by a serene day, the sunshine unveiled and warm in the pure +blue, and the close carriage with the blind one rolled rapidly across +the woodland bridge. Then Albano sank down again on his arms.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<p class="center"><img src="images/flowerstart.png" alt="flowerstart"></p> +<br> +<h2><a name="div1Ref_19" href="#div1_19">NINETEENTH JUBILEE.</a></h2> + +<h3><span class="sc2">Schoppe's Office of Comforter.—Arcadia.—Bouverot's +Portrait-painting.</span></h3> +<br> +<h3>82. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">Now that Albano lived without love or hope; now that he had seen the +polar-star of his life fall like a shooting-star into a wilderness +still as death; now that every one of his actions and every +recollection darted out a scorpion-sting, and he sent back Liana's +letters, forsook Lilar, the house of the Doctor, the Lector, Liana's +relatives, and the pious father; now that he directed his face, +gradually growing pale, only to books and stars; men who know no higher +sorrow than selfish sorrow must needs imagine that nothing weighs upon +his bosom but the ruins and rubbish of the shattered air-castles of his +hope and youthful love. But he was more nobly unhappy and disconsolate: +he was so, because he had for the first time made a human creature and +the best of beings miserable,—his beloved blind! Into this abyss of +his heart all neighboring fountains of sorrow flowed together. The +smallest gayly-painted shards of his urn of fortune were as if +shattered afresh, when he heard from day to day that the poor girl, +although daily stationed in the bath-house before the healing +fountains, was nevertheless brought back each time without a ray of +light or hope, and that she now feared nothing more, lamented nothing +more on this robbers' earth, than that death might perhaps close her +eyes before they had seen her mother again.</p> + +<p class="normal">O, the wound of conscience is no sear, and time cools it not with his +wing, but merely keeps it open with his scythe! Albano called back to +remembrance Liana's bitter entreaty for indulgence; and then it was no +consolation to him, that, during that eclipse of the sun, he had not +wished to sacrifice her eyes, but only her heart. In the burning-glass +and magnifying-mirror of consequences fate shows us the light, playing +worms of our inner man as grown-up and armed furies and serpents. How +many sins pass through us unseen and with soft looks, like nightly +robbers, because, like their sisters in dreams, they steal not out from +the circle of the breast, and get no outward object to fall upon and +strangle. The fair soul readily detects in an accident a sin. Only +those hard stormers of heaven and earth before whose triumphal chariots +there starts up beforehand a wagon-rampart full of wounds and +corpses,—that is, the fathers of war, which, in the long course of +history, ministers have oftener been than princes,—only these +can calmly kindle all the volcanoes of earth, and let all their +lava-torrents stream down, merely that they may have—fair prospects. +They manure Elysian fields into a battle-field, in order to raise +therein a redder rose-bush for a mistress.</p> + +<p class="normal">The first thing Albano did, when he arrived at the Doctor's house, was +to trudge out of it down into the remote valley town, in order neither +to see the suspected Lector, still less to hear daily the malicious +Doctor Sphex upon the relapse of the blindness. Only the faithful +Schoppe jogged off with him, especially as he, by a well-adapted course +of behavior, had contrived to get up an opposition party against +himself in the Sphex family, which could no longer suffer him in the +house. The Librarian's warmth toward the Count had grown very much with +the Lector's coldness, and on similar grounds. The bold march out to +Lilar and the passionate wildness of the youth had fastened him more +closely to Albano's side. "I thought at first," said Schoppe, "the +young man was coming to be nothing but an elderly one, when I saw him +stalking along so to school. I often held the man in the moon—where +notoriously, from an absence of thirst and atmosphere, there is nothing +to drink—to be a greater tippler than he. But at last he strikes out. +A youth must not, like old Spener, represent everything in bird's-eye +perspective, from the apex downward. He must, in the beginning, like +incipients in authors' studies and painters' studios, make all lines a +little too large, because the little ones come of themselves. There are +thunder-steeds, but no thunder-asses and thunder-sheep; as, however, +the tutors and lectors would be glad if there were, and would be glad +to have such to drive along before them,—they who, like the +billiard-markers, suffer no open fire in the pipe, but only one under +cover."</p> + +<p class="normal">Albano lived alone now among books. Liana's brother came to him seldom, +and then ice-cold, and said nothing of the patient, although he always +stayed for her sake. As he himself had once woven the first web of her +blindness, he must, of course, especially with his <i>un</i>painted fire of +love for his sister, have a real hatred for him who had drawn it over +her again; so Albano thought, and gladly bore it as a punishment. So +much the oftener did the Captain let himself be drawn to the German +gentleman's, upon whose good graces he now, contrary to what was to be +expected, always won. It is a question—that is to say, there can be no +question—whether his talent and inclination for winding himself around +the most unlike men was not mere coldness toward all hearts, all of +which he only travels over, because he does not mean to dwell in any +one.</p> + +<p class="normal">Rabette, also, wrote the Count several bills of impeachment about the +Captain's growing coolness. In one she even says, "Could I only see +thee, in order for once to have some one who would let me weep, for +laughter I have not for a considerable time any longer known." The good +Albano entered this desertion also upon his sin-register, as if it were +grandchild to his devil's children.</p> + +<p class="normal">The Princess prevailed occasionally to allure him out of solitude, when +she put the gentle bird-whistle to her fair lips. She seemed, for the +father's sake, to take a veritable interest in the melancholy son, who +showed no grief, to be sure, but also no joy. Besides, the masculine +woman, more helmeted than hooded, loves to place the pillow of rest +under the sick head, and under the faint head her arm as a chair-back; +and such a one consoles fondly and tenderly, often more tenderly than +the too feminine woman. Almost every day she visited her future +court-dame and visionary sister<a name="div2Ref_19" href="#div2_19"><sup>[19]</sup></a> at the Minister's, and could +therefore tell the lover all about her. Meanwhile, she acted as if she +knew nothing of Albano's relations to the blind one;—the very +dissembling betrays tender forbearance toward two beings at once, Albano +said;—so she could freely give him all the medical reports of the fair +sufferer's case, as well as the opinions entertained about her in +general. After the manner of the strong women, she bestowed upon her +all just praise, without any petty womanish deduction, and wished +nothing so much as her restoration and future company.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I am capable of doing everything <i>for</i> an uncommon woman, as well as +everything <i>against</i> a common one," said she, and asked whether his +father had already written him about her plan with Liana. He said no, +and begged her for it. She referred him, however, to the paternal +letter, which must soon come. She found fault only with Liana's +propensity to be always embroidering fantasy-flowers into the +groundwork of her life, and called her a rich Baroque pearl.</p> + +<p class="normal">But from all these conversations Albano returned only more confused to +Schoppe; he heard only lip-solace, and the death-sentence, that the +long-suffering soul from whom he had stolen creation was becoming more +and more immured in the deepest cavern of life, near which only the +deeper one of the grave lies bright and open. Every soft, soothing, +warm gale wafted to him by the sciences or by human beings passed over +that cold cavern, and became to him a sharp norther. O, had he been +called to release her from his sinking arms amidst lovely days, into a +long, eternal Paradise, and had she forgotten him in the intoxication +of rapture, he too could have forgotten that; but that he should have +thrust her away into a cold realm of shadows, and that she must needs +remember him for sorrow,—this must he forever remember.</p> + +<p class="normal">Schoppe knew no "plaster" for all this distress (to use his own fine +play on words) "except the plaster of Paris,"<a name="div2Ref_20" href="#div2_20"><sup>[20]</sup></a> namely, an excursion. +At least, he concluded, when one is out in the country, all inquiries +about one's health are done with, and all these poisonous anxieties +about the answer; and on return one finds much pain spared or in fact +all the trouble gone.</p> + +<p class="normal">Albano obeyed his last friend; and they rode off into the Principality +of Haarhaar.</p> +<br> +<h3>83. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">Whoever thinks that Schoppe, on the way, was to Albano a flying +field-lazaretto of consolation,—an <i>antispasmodicum</i>,—a Struve's +table of ailments and remedies,—a pulverized <i>Fox's lung</i> for the +hectic of the heart, &c., and that at every milestone he delivered a +consolatory sermon,—whoever thinks so, Schoppe himself laughs him to +scorn.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What then," said he, "if misfortune does knead a young man thoroughly +and soundly in her kneading-trough? The next time, he, who is now in +the power of grief, will have her in his power. Whoso has never borne +anything, never learns to bear up under anything."<a name="div2Ref_21" href="#div2_21"><sup>[21]</sup></a> As regards +weeping, he, as a Stoic, was, as may well be imagined, an enemy to it +at least; Epictetus, Antonine, Cato, and several such, men made less of +ice than of iron, would very willingly, as he so often said, have +allowed the body these extreme unctions of sorrow, provided only the +spirit beneath and behind all had kept itself dry. The true +disconsolateness is to desire and to accept consolation; why will not +one then for once just go through with the pang out and out without any +physic?</p> + +<p class="normal">But his view of things and his actual life became, without his express +intention, powerful over the Count, whom everything great only +enlarged, as it belittles others. Schoppe sat like a Cato upon ruins, +but, to be sure, upon the greatest of all; if the wise man ought to be +a barometer-tube at the Equator, in which even the tornado produces +little displacement, he was a wise man. Accidentally he tore open the +Count's glued-up wings at an inn by means of the <i>Hamburg Impartial +Correspondent</i>, which he found lying there. Schoppe read aloud out of +it two extensive battles, wherein, as by an earthquake, lands instead +of houses were buried, and whose wounds and tears only the evil genius +of the earth could be willing to know; thereupon he read,—after the +death-marches of whole generations, and the rending open of the craters +of humanity,—with uninterrupted seriousness, the notices, under the +head of Intelligence, where one solitary individual mounts upon an +unknown little grave and announces and asseverates to the world, which +surely condoles with him,—"Frightful was the blow which laid our child +of five weeks—"; or, "In the bitterest anguish which ever—"; or, +"Overwhelmed with the loss of our father in the eighty-first year of +his age," &c.</p> + +<p class="normal">Schoppe said, he pronounced that to be right; for every distress, even +a universal one, after all, housed itself only in one individual +breast; and were he himself lying on a red battle-field full of fallen +sheaves, he would sit up among them, if only he could, and deliver to +those lying around him a short funeral sermon upon his shot-wound. "So +has Galvani observed," he said, "that a frog which stands in electrical +relations quivers as often as thunder rolls over the earth."</p> + +<p class="normal">He adhered to this position, also, out of doors. He cited with +disapprobation what Matthison remarks,—as a traveller's note by the +way,—that in the modern town, <i>Avenches</i>, in Switzerland, on the site +of the Helvetian capital, <i>Aventicum</i>, which was laid in ruins by the +Romans, the plan of the streets and walls may be traced by the thinner +strips of grass; whereas, in fact, the same stereographic projections +of the past lay manifestly all about in every meadow,—every mountain +was the shore of a deluged old world; every spot here below was +actually six thousand years old and a relic; all was churchyards and +ruins on the earth, particularly the earth itself; "Heavens!" he +continued, "what is there, in fact, which is not already gone +by,—nations, fixed stars, female virtue, the best Paradises, many just +men, all Reviews, Eternity a <i>parte ante</i>, and just now even my feeble +description of all this? Now, if life is such a game of nothingness, +one must prefer to be <i>card-painter</i> rather than <i>king of cards</i>."</p> + +<p class="normal">A vigorous, high-minded man, like Albano, will hardly, then, in the +midst of thirty-years' wars, last days, emigrating nations, crumbling +suns, strip off his coat, and exhibit to himself or the universe the +ruptured vein which bleeds on his breast.</p> + +<p class="normal">So stood matters, when the two friends at evening climbed a half-open +woodland height, from which they saw below them a wonderful glory-land, +so friendly and foreign, as if it were the remains of a time when the +whole earth was still warm, and an ever-green orient land. It seemed, +so far as they could see for the trees and the evening-sun, to be a +valley formed by the angle of mutually approaching mountains, and +stretching away immeasurably toward the west. A party-colored windmill, +flinging round its broad wings before the sun, confused the eye, which +would fain analyze the throng of evening lights, gardens, sheep, +and children; on both steeps white-clad children, with long, green +hat-ribbons flowing behind them, were keeping watch; a motley Swissery +ran through the meadow-green along the dark brook; on a high-arched +hay-wagon there drove along a peasant-woman, dressed as if for a +marriage festival, and at the side went country-people in Sunday +finery; the sun withdrew behind a colonnade of round, leafy +oaks,—those German liberty-trees and temple-pillars,—and they +soared aloft, transfigured and magnified in the golden blue. At this +moment the surprised travellers saw the shaded Dutch village near +below,—composed, as it were, of neat, painted garden-houses clustered +together, with a linden-circle in the middle, and a young, blooming +hunter not far off, or an Amazon, who with one hand took off her hat, +stuck full of twigs, and with the other let the crossbeam with the +bucket mount high over the well.</p> + +<p class="normal">"My friend," inquired Schoppe of an official messenger who came behind +them with tin-plate and knapsack, "what do you call this village?" +"Arcadia," was the reply. "But to speak without any poetic white-heat +or culminating of fancy, my poetic friend, how is that canton down +below there properly named?" asked Schoppe again. Petulantly the +official messenger answered, "Arcadia, I say, if you cannot retain +it,—it is an old crown-domain; our Princess Idone (Idoine) keeps +herself there year in and year out for constancy, and does everything +there at her own pleasure; what will you have more?" "Are you, too, in +Arcadia?"<a name="div2Ref_22" href="#div2_22"><sup>[22]</sup></a> "No, in Sowbow," answered the messenger, very loud, over +his shoulders, for he was already five steps ahead.</p> + +<p class="normal">The Librarian, who saw his friend in great commotion at the messenger's +discourse, put to him joyfully the question, whether they could have +found better night-quarters than these, except these very same in the +moon of May. But how was he astounded at Albano's plunging back into +the limbo which conscience and his love had kindled! Idoine's illusive +resemblance to Liana had suddenly flashed across his thoughts. "Know'st +thou," said he, continuing to tremble more violently in his agitation +by reason of the magic of evening, "wherein Idoine is unlike her? She +<i>can</i> see," he himself added, "for she has not seen <i>me</i> yet. O +forgive, forgive, firm man! truly I am not always so. She is dying at +this moment, or some calamity or other draws near to her; like a smoke +before a conflagration, it mounts up duskily and in long clouds within +my soul. I must absolutely go back."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Believe me," said Schoppe, "I shall one day tell you all that I now +think; for the present, however, I will spare you." Neither did this, +however, produce any effect; he turned about; but through the whole of +the next day's journey his cup of sorrow, which Schoppe had scoured so +shiny, continued to be stained with moisture and blackness. They could +not arrive till evening, when a magic mist of twilight, moonlight, +smoke, vapor, and cloud-red made the city a somewhat strange place. +Albano's eagle eye clove the smoke in twain, and it vanished. He saw +only the blind Liana, on the high Italian roof, run against the +statues, or headlong down over the edge. Wildly, and without uttering a +sound, he ran through the deep streets,—lost sight of the Palace +buried in buildings, and ran so much the more furiously; he imagined to +find her crushed to atoms on the pavement,—he sees the white statues +again, she holds one entwined within her arms, and the old gardener, he +of the <i>Cereus serpens</i>, stands with his hat on his head before her. +When, at length, he arrived directly under the walls of the Palace, +there stood overhead a strange maiden beside her, and below women, +running together, looked up, asking one another, "God, what is the +matter now?" Liana looked (so it seemed) to the heavens, wherein only a +few stars burned, and then for a long space into the moon, and then +down upon the people; but directly she stepped back from the statues. +The gardener came out of the court, and said, as he passed, to his +inquiring wife, "She can see." "O my good man," said Albano, "what do +you say?" "Only just go up there!" he replied, and strode busily away. +At this moment came Bouverot on foot,—Albano, with a short bow and +greeting, stepped across his path. Bouverot looked at him a moment: "I +have not the honor of your acquaintance," said he, wildly, and hurried +off.</p> +<br> +<h3>84. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">Take now a nearer look at the blind Liana! From the day when her mother +bore her home, a ruined creature, there gradually began for her, under +her solar eclipse, a cooler and a tranquil life. Earth had changed; her +duties towards it seemed rolled off from her; the silver-glance of +youth, like a human look, now blinded; her short joys, those little +May-flowers, plucked off already under the morning-star; the object of +her first love, alas! as her mother had predicted, not so tender as she +had thought, but very masculine, rough, and wild, like her father, time +and the future extinguished, and the coming days for her only a blind, +painted show-gate, which men's hands do not open, and through which she +can no longer force her way, except with her unencumbered soul, when it +has thrown back on the earth the heavy trailing mantle of the flesh.</p> + +<p class="normal">Her heart clung now—as Albano did to a man's—more than ever to a +female heart, which beat more tenderly and without the fever of the +passions; just as the compass-needle shows itself as a spiral lily, so +did virtue show itself to her as female beauty.</p> + +<p class="normal">Her mother never left her blind-chair; she read to her, even the French +prayers, and kept her up by consolation; and she was easily consoled, +for she saw not her mother's distressed face, and heard only the quiet +tones of her voice. Julienne, since the burial of the first love, had +thrown off an old crust, and a fresh flame for her friend sprang up in +her heart. "I have dealt by thee honestly," said she, upon one +occasion; then they secretly declared themselves to each other, and +then their souls, like flower-leaves, linked themselves together to +form one sweet cup. The Princess spoke seriously about studies and +sciences, and gained even the mother, whom in men's society she had +pleased less. At evening, before retiring, Caroline flew down, still, +as from the heaven of joy, into her realm of shadows, and grew daily in +brilliancy and beauty of complexion, but spoke no more; and Liana fell +softly to sleep, while they looked upon each other.</p> + +<p class="normal">At times a pang came to her when she thought that she should perhaps +never see her precious parents, especially her mother, any more; then +it seemed to her as if she were herself invisible and already making +her pilgrimage alone down the deep, dark avenue to the next world and +heard her friends and companions at the gate far behind calling after +her. Then she tenderly sent her love over, as if out of death, and +rejoiced in the great reunion. Spener visited his pupil daily; his +manly voice, full of strengthening and solace, was, in her darkness, +the evening-prayer-bell, which leads the traveller out of the dusky +thicket back to the more cheerful lights. Thus was her holy heart drawn +up to still greater heights of holiness, and the dark passion-flowers +of her sorrows shut themselves up to sleep in the tepid night of +blindness. How different are the sufferings of the sinner and those of +the saint! The former are an eclipse of the moon, by which the dark +night becomes still blacker and wilder; the latter are a solar eclipse, +which cools off the hot day, and casts a romantic shade, and wherein +the nightingales begin to warble.</p> + +<p class="normal">In this way Liana maintained, in the midst of the sighs of others +around her, and in the tempestuous weather that enveloped her, a +tranquil, healing bosom. So does the tender white cloud often in the +beginning hurry away, a torn and tattered fugitive through the heavens, +but at last move along in rounded form and slow pace overhead there, +when down below the storm still sweeps over the earth, and whirls and +tears everything. But, good Liana, all the thirty-two winds, let them +waft pleasant days to thee or blow them away, hold on longer than the +dead calm of repose!</p> +<br> +<h3>85. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">The Minister, when she came home from Lilar with murdered eyes, had set +in <i>his</i> right eye a hell, and into his left a purgatory, for no +fatality had ever before so cheated him, namely, so completely upset +all his projects and prospects,—the office of court-dame for his +daughter, that ring guard on the finger of the Princess, and finally +every chance of a haul with his double-woven net.</p> + +<p class="normal">Unspeakably did the man struggle against the spoon in which fate +offered him the powder wherein he was to let the swallowed diamonds of +his plans go down; he delivered the strongest sermons,—so did he, like +Horace, name his Satires against "his women"; he was a war-god, a +hell-god, a beast, a monster, a satan,—everything;—he was in a frame +now to undertake anything and everything,—but what availed it?—Much, +when the German gentleman surprised him just in this mood of moral +feeling. He made no scruple of refreshing the paternal memory on the +subject of the promised sitting of the daughter for a miniature, and +asserting his claim to it; for the rest he was all-knowing, and seemed +to know nothing. For the sitting-scene of a blind girl he had cut out +certain original, romantic situations, according to the notices which +he had drawn out of the Captain. His artistic love for Liana had +hitherto suffered little, and his slow, stealthy advances and +reconnoitrings were in accordance with his viper-coldness and his +worldsman-like energy. The old father—who in life, as in an imperial +advertiser, always sought a partner with 60-80,000 dollars for his +business—declared himself anything but averse to the match. These two +falcons on one pole, trained by one falcon-master, the Devil, +understood and agreed with each other excellently well. The German +gentleman gave to understand that her miniature-likeness would, through +her striking resemblance to Idoine, who, like her, had never been +willing to sit, be serviceable for many a piece of pleasantry with the +Princess, but still more indispensable to his "flame" for Liana, and +just now, in her blindness, one might, indeed, sketch her without her +knowledge,—and he would write under the picture, <i>La belle aveugle</i>, +or something of the kind. The old Minister, as was said, swallowed +the idea with perfect <i>goût</i>. As the Italian female singers carry a +so-called mother instead of a passport on their journeys, so did he +regard himself as in a similar sense a so-called father; he thought to +himself: at all events there is little more to be done with the girl; +she lies there as so much dead capital, and pays a miserable interest; +I can take the god-penny-medal which the German gentleman in his +godfatherly capacity offers to me as the father like a name for the +child, and just put it in my pocket.</p> + +<p class="normal">This duplicate of rogues was held back in mid-current merely by a +drag-rake, which threatened to draw the prey out of their pike-like +teeth. An old, scolding, but true-souled chambermaid from Nuremberg was +the rake; she could not be drawn away from Liana, or reduced to +silence. Bouverot, to be sure, a Robespierre and destroying angel to +his servants, would, in Froulay's place, have caused the Nuremberg +dame, a couple of days beforehand, to be furnished by a servant with +some complex fractures, and then thrown upon the street; but the +Minister—his heart was soft—could not do that. All that was possible +for him was this: He sent for her to his chamber; represented to her +that she had stolen his Magdeburg ear; remained, in his present state +of hearing, deaf to every objection, but not to every incivility, and +at last found himself under the necessity (a word and a blow) of +driving the thievish wench out of service. With every successor to the +office, as being a new one, money would have weight, he knew.</p> + +<p class="normal">He proposed thereupon to beg of the Princess an invitation for himself +and his lady to tea and supper, to bespeak the miniature-painter, to +instruct the new chambermaid, and put all things in a right train.</p> + +<p class="normal">Two tigers, according to the legend, digged the Apostle Paul's grave; +so do our two men here scratch away at one for a saint. So much the +more confidently do I say this, as I do not otherwise see through—if +nothing is to be made but a picture—the meaning of so many +circumstances. But the father I could almost excuse. In the first +place, he said expressly to the German gentleman, the Abigail might, in +his opinion, as well stay in the chamber, or in the adjoining one, in +case the patient wanted anything; secondly, the otherwise soft man had +contracted, from his ministerial commerce with justice, a certain grit, +a certain barbarity, which is so much the more natural to Themis, +passing sentence behind the bandage, and, as an Areopagus, without the +sight of the pains, as even Diderot<a name="div2Ref_23" href="#div2_23"><sup>[23]</sup></a> asserts that blind people are +more cruel than others; and, thirdly, no one could well be more ready +than he to pity the more deeply, in case she should die, the very child +whom he, as it was once pretended Jews and witches did with Christian +children, crucified, in order, like them, to do something with the +blood (as parents generally, and particularly human parents, can indeed +get over easily the misfortunes of those who are near and dear to them, +but hardly their loss, just as we, in the case of the hair of the head, +which is still nearer to us, feel not the singeing or cutting of it, +but very painfully the tearing of it up by the root); and, fourthly, +Froulay had always the misfortune that thoughts which in his head had a +tolerable, innocent hue, became, like muriate of silver or good ink, +black on the spot, when they once came to light.</p> + +<p class="normal">Otherwise, and without taking these alleviating circumstances into +view, there remains, indeed, much in his conduct which I do not +vindicate.</p> + +<p class="normal">The evening appeared. The Minister's lady went on her husband's arm to +the court. The new chambermaid had, as Bouverot's bridesmaid, already, +three days beforehand, made the most necessary arrangements or +manœuvres. She had, with great ease, borrowed for him Liana's +letters to Albano, as the mother, from habit, forgot that a present eye +was not necessarily a seeing one; and he could extract from them the +historical touches or watercolors, wherewith he could assume, before +the blind one, in case of a recognition on the stage, the semblance of +her hero,—namely, Albano's. With Roquairol he had played often enough +to have his voice, consequently Albano's, in his power. Methinks his +preparation-days for the festal evening were suitably spent.</p> + +<p class="normal">He could, as little residences drink tea earlier than others, make his +appearance quite as early as a miniature-painter in September +absolutely must. When he beheld the silent form in the easy-chair, with +the discolored flower-cups of the cheeks, but more firmly rooted in +every purpose, a more coldly commanding saint, then did the +exasperation and inflammation which he had imbibed at once from her +letters kindle each other into a higher flame. Only in such chests, +strung at once with metal and catgut, with cruelty and sensuality, is +such an alliance of lust and gall conceivable. Bouverot's whole past, +the books of his life's history, ought, as those of Herodotus are to +the nine Muses, to have been dedicated to the three Fates, one to each.</p> + +<p class="normal">He stole to the window, seated himself, set down his paint-box, and +began hastily to dot. Meanwhile Liana heard her very cultivated, +well-read chambermaid read to her out of the second volume of Fénelon's +<i>Œuvres Spirituelles</i>. Zefisio was not affected by the Archbishop in +the least,—what he caught about pure love (<i>sur le pur amour de Dieu</i>) +he perverted into an impure by applications, and let himself be +devilishly inflamed by the divine,—for the rest what there was +touching in Liana's relations he left as it was, as he had now to +paint. Odiously did his motley-colored panther-eyes lick like red, +sharp tiger-tongues over the sweet, soft countenance!—"Dear Justa, +stop, the reading is disagreeable to thee, thou breathest so short!" +said she at last, because she heard the portrait-painter breathe. It +was no sacrifice to him, but a foretaste, a sweet early-bit, to put off +the kiss of this tender little hand and lip and the whole exhibition +of his burning heart, until he saw her outline dotted off with the +poison-tints on the white ivory by the rapid dotting machine of his +hand. At length he had her, many-colored<a name="div2Ref_24" href="#div2_24"><sup>[24]</sup></a> on white. "Very well, dear +Justa," said she, "the prayer bell tolls; thou canst not see any +longer. Rather lead me to the instrument,"—namely the harmonica. She +did so. Bouverot gave Justa a sign to retire. She did that too. The +yellow garden-spider now ran up to the tender, white flower. The spider +heard her evening choral not without enjoyment, and the devout +upcasting of her ruined eyes seemed to him a right picturesque idea, +which the true <i>painter</i><a name="div2Ref_25" href="#div2_25"><sup>[25]</sup></a> resolved to transfer to the ivory leaf, if +it could be done.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Lovely goddess!" cried he, suddenly, with Albano's stolen voice, into +the midst of those holy tones, which Albano had once, in a happier +hour, but more nobly, interrupted. She listened with alarm, but hardly +believing her own ear in this night. The astonishment did not displease +the prospect painter—for her face was his prospect—by any means +whatever; "remember this harmonica in the thunder-house." He confounded +it with the water-house. "You here, Count?—Justa! where art thou?" +cried she distressfully. "Justa, come here!" he added, calling after +her. The maiden followed his voice and his—eye. "Gracious damsel?" +asked she. But now Liana had not the heart to ask about the door and +the admission-ticket of the Count. To speak French with her lover +would not do, as the maid understood it; hence it was that in Vienna in +the years of the Revolution they forbade this language very +judiciously, because it so surely and pestilentially spreads a certain +<i>equality</i>,—<i>freedom</i> follows,—between the nobility and the servile +orders.</p> + +<p class="normal">Maliciously and joyfully did Bouverot, to whom she now seemed to betray +a serviceable mistrust about the Count, which pointed out a freer +play-room for his character mask, remind the perplexed maiden of her +commands for Justa; she must now cause her to bring a light.</p> + +<p class="normal">"<i>Infidèle</i>," he thereupon began, "I have overcome all obstacles, in +order to throw myself at your feet and supplicate your forgiveness. <i>Je +m'en flatte à tort pent être, mais je l'ose</i>," he went on, made more +passionate through her. "<i>O cruelle! de grace, pourquoi ces régards, +ces mouvements? Je suis ton Alban et il t'aime encore,—Pense à +Blumenbühl, cé sejour charmant,—Ingrate, j'esperais te trouver un peu +plus reconnaisante. Souviens-toi de ce que tu m'a promis</i>," said he, by +way of sounding her, "<i>quand tu me pressas contre ton sein divin</i>." ...</p> + +<p class="normal">A pure soul mirrors, without staining itself, the unclean one and feels +darkly the distressing neighborhood, just as doves, they say, bathe +themselves in limpid water, in order to see therein the images of the +hovering birds of prey. The short breath, the wavering tone of speech, +every word, and an indefinable something, drove the frightful spectre +close before her soul, the suspicion that it was not Albano. She +started up; "Who are you? God, you are not the Count. Justa, Justa!" +"Who else could it be," replied he, coldly, "that would dare to assume +my name? <i>O, je voudrais que je ne le fusse pas. Vous m'avez écrit, que +l'esperance est la lune de la vie. Ah, ma lune s'est couchée, mais +j'adore encore le soleil, qui l'éclaire</i>."</p> + +<p class="normal">Here he grasped the hand of this eclipsed sun fighting with a dragon. +Then his gnawed finger-nails and dry fingers, and a passing touch of +his order-cross, discovered to her the real name. She tore herself +loose with a shriek, and ran away without seeing whither, and fell into +his hands again. He snatched her violently to his meagre hot lips: +"Yes, it is I," said he, "and I love you more than does your Count with +his <i>étourderie</i>."</p> + +<p class="normal">"You are wicked and godless toward a blind maiden; what will you? +Justa! is there no one then to help me? Ah, good God, give me my eyes," +she cried, flying, without knowing whither, and again overtaken. +"Bouverot! Thou evil spirit!" she cried, warding off in places where he +was not. He, like gunpowder, cooling on the tongue, and singeing and +shattering when greed kindled him, placed himself at a considerable +darting-distance from her, threw a painter's eye at the charming waves +and bendings of her tempest-struck flowerage, and said quietly, with +that mildness which resembles the eating and devouring milk of spunges: +"Only be calm, fairest; it is I still; and what would it all avail +thee, child?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Giddy with the snake-breath of distress, wandering nature began +to sing, but only beginnings: "Joy, thou spark of Heaven-born +fire!"—"I am a German maiden." She ran round and sang again: "Know'st +thou the land?" "Thou evil spirit!"</p> + +<p class="normal">At this moment the giant snake, thus charmed, reared himself aloft on +his cold rings, with darting tongue, to spring and to coil; "<i>Mon +cœur</i>," said the snake, who always in passion spoke French, "<i>vole +sur cette bouche qui enchante tous les sens</i>." "Mother!" cried +she, "Caroline! O God, let me see, O God—my eyes!" Then did the +All-gracious give them back to her once more; the agony of nature, the +noisy preparations for the burial, opened again the eye of the tranced +victim.</p> + +<p class="normal">How eagerly she flew out of the chamber of torture! The disappointed, +mortified beast of prey was still reckoning on blindness and +distraction. But when Bouverot saw that she ran lightly up the stairway +to the Italian roof, then he merely sent the maid, who came running in, +after her, to see that she received no injury; and now again he held +her previous blindness for dissimulation. He himself took from the +chamber the miniature sketch, and dragged himself like a hungry, +wounded monster sullenly and slowly out of the house.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<p class="center"><img src="images/rivetstart.png" alt="rivetstart"></p> +<br> +<h2><a name="div1Ref_20" href="#div1_20">TWENTIETH JUBILEE.</a></h2> + +<h3><span class="sc2">Gaspard's Letter.—Partings.</span></h3> + +<h3>86. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">"She can see again," cried Charles to the Count the morning after, in +the intoxication of joy, without concerning himself at all about the +cold relations of the recent period; and was entirely his old self. His +enmity was more frail and fleeting than his love, for the former dwelt, +in his case, on the ice, which soon melted and ran away, the latter +upon the fluid element, on which he always sailed. Coloring, Albano +asked who had been the ophthalmist. "A well-meant fright," said he; +"the German gentleman made as if he would paint her, when my parents, +according to appointment, were not there,—or he really painted +her,—at this moment I have but a confused idea of the whole,—all at +once she heard a strange man's voice, and terror and fright worked +naturally like electric shocks!" Although the Captain heard, down on +the bottom of his billowy sea, all voices only confusedly, nevertheless +he had this time heard correctly; for Liana had extorted from her +mother the concealment of the martyrology, in order to take away from +her brother the occasion of proving his love to her by a duel with her +adversary.</p> + +<p class="normal">Albano laid up many questions about the dark history in his breast; and +broke off the conversation by a description of his journey.</p> + +<p class="normal">After some days he heard that Liana with her mother had left the city, +and gone to visit the mountain-castle of a solitary old noble widow, +which lay above Blumenbühl. Out in the clean country, it was hoped +light would fall again upon her life, and the maternal hand was to +paint over anew its fading colors. The Minister, who, like other old +men and like old hair, was hard to frizzle and to shape, was, in this +last and deepest pitfall of fate, struck quite spiritless, so that he +did not devour Liana, who was also caught therein, but let her go. The +whole story was to the public eye very much covered over and beflowered +like the wall of a park. Only the Lector knew it in full, but he could +hold his tongue. He demanded back the miniature from the German +gentleman, in the name of the mother; that personage gave in its stead +cold, hollow lies; nevertheless Augusti, at the entreaty of mother and +daughter, knew how to control himself, and sacrifice to them the +challenge wherewith he was going to take satisfaction for all.</p> + +<p class="normal">Our friend was now, since his conscience had been appeased with respect +to accidental consequences, smitten with new and unmingled sorrow over +the emptiness of his present condition; the most precious soul was +nothing to him any longer; his hours were no more harmoniously +sounded out by the chime of love and poesy, but monotonously by the +steeple-clock of every-day routine. Therefore he took refuge with men +and friendship, as under trees still blooming in greenness near the +smouldering ruins of a conflagration; women he shunned, because +they—as strange children do a mother who has lost hers—too painfully +reminded him of his loss. How gayly, on the contrary, does a general +lover, who celebrates only all-souls' and all-saints' days, go about +like one new-born, when he has happily slipped the noose of a heart +which had caught him, and now can reckon up all female forms again with +the prospect of a redeemed estate! The very feeling of this freedom may +animate him to surrender himself the oftener, by way of tasting it +again, as prisoner to a female heart.</p> + +<p class="normal">Albano let himself be drawn by the hands of Roquairol and Schoppe to +wild festivals of men,—which would fain render the sphere-music of joy +on the kettle-drum;—they were only the thorn-festivals after the +feasts of roses. So there is a despair which relieves itself by +revelry; as, for example, during the plague at Athens,—or in the +expectation of the last day,—or in the anticipation of a Robespierre's +butcher-knife. The Captain went back deeper into his old labyrinth and +wilderness, and drew, so far as he could, the innocent youth into his +popular festivals with so-called sons of the muses, into his recruiting +places of pleasure, just as if he had need on his own account to bring +his friend down to himself a little.</p> + +<p class="normal">Albano fancied, with these Dithyrambics, his weeping soul would be +quite sung to sleep, and he only gave it in addition a gentle rocking. +Meanwhile, although he would not have confessed it, his young rosy +cheeks grew as pale as a forehead, and his face fell in like a +piano-forte key upon the snapping of a string. It was touching and hard +at once, when he sat laughing among his friends and their friends with +a colorless face,—with higher, sharper bones of eyes and nose,—with a +wilder eye, which blazed out of a darker socket. From music, especially +Roquairol's, wherein under the hackneyed, artistical alternation of +damper and thunder, the passionate rolling and plunging of our ship +were too vividly represented, his ear and heart fled as from a +destroying siren. The broken-off lance-splinter of the wound rankled +and festered in his whole being. O, as, in the years of childhood, when +the rosy cloud in heaven seemed to him to lie directly on the mountain +where it was so easy to be reached, the magnificent pile retired far +into the sky so soon as he had climbed the mountain, so now did the +aurora of life and the spirit, which he would fain seize and hold near +to him, stand so high and far overhead beyond his reach in the blue! +Painfully does man attain the alp of ideal love; still more painful and +dangerous—as in the case of other alps—is the descent from it.</p> + +<p class="normal">One day Chariton came into town, merely to hand him at last a letter of +her husband's,—for Dian, like all artists, much more easily and +agreeably executed a work of art than a letter,—wherein he expressed +his joy that he should see Albano so soon. "Is he coming back, then?" +asked the Count. She exclaimed, with a sad tone: "Body o' me!—that +indeed!—according to his former letter he has still to stay his year +longer." "I do not understand him so," said Albano.</p> + +<p class="normal">The same evening he was invited by the Princess to see the engravings +of Herculaneum, which had come by the same post with Chariton's letter. +She welcomed him with that animated look of love which we put on before +one who will immediately, as we hope, pour out before us the unmeasured +thanks of his heart. But he had nothing to pour out from his. She asked +at length, somewhat surprised, whether he had received no letters +to-day from Spain. She forgot that the post is courteous and +expeditious toward no house except the princely house. As, however, his +letter must certainly be already lying in his chamber, she allowed +herself to take upon herself the part of Time, who brings all things to +daylight, and told what was in the letter, namely, "that she should in +autumn undertake a little artistic journey to Rome, upon which his +father would accompany her, and he him if he liked; that was the whole +secret." It was only the half; for she soon added, that she should be +most glad to extend the pleasure of this tour to the best draughtsman +in the city, as soon as she recovered,—Liana.</p> + +<p class="normal">As the whole heart is suddenly illuminated with joy, when, after a +long, dark rainy day, at last in the evening the sun arches for himself +under the heavy water a golden, open western gate, stands therein pure +and brilliant as in a rose-bower before the mirroring earth, announces +to her a fairer day, and then, with warm looks, disappears from the +open rose-bower, so was it with our Albano.</p> + +<p class="normal">The fair day had not yet come, but the fair evening had. He left the +Herculanean pictures under their rubbish, and hastened, as quickly as +gratitude allowed, back to the letter of his father, who so seldom sent +such a favor.</p> + +<p class="normal">Here it is:—</p> +<br> + +<p class="normal">"<span class="sc">Dearest Albano</span>: My affairs and my health are at length in such order, +that I can conveniently carry out my plan, which I have proposed, in +conjunction with the Princess, of making a short artistical tour to +Rome this very autumn, to which I invite thee, and will come myself to +take thee in October. The rest of the travelling party will not +displease thee, as it consists entirely of clever connoisseurs, Herr +von Bouverot, Mr. Counseller of Arts Fraischdörfer, Mr. Librarian +Schoppe (if he will). Unfortunately Herr von Augusti must stay behind +as Lector. Thy teacher in Rome (Dian) is expecting thee with much +eagerness. They have written to me that thou art particularly partial +to the new court-dame of the good Princess, Madlle. von Fr., whom I +recollect as a very capital draughtsman. It will interest thee, +therefore, to know, that the Princess takes her, too, with her, +especially since, as I hear, a journey for health is as needful to her +as to me. In spring, which, besides, is not the pleasantest season of +the year in Italy, thou wilt return to Germany to thy studies. One +thing more, in confidence, my best one! They have unreservedly +communicated to my ward, the Countess of Romeiro, thy ghost-visions in +Pestitz. Now, as she is to spend the autumn and winter during my +absence with her friend, the Princess Julienne, and besides will arrive +earlier than I, let it not strike thee as strange that she shuns thy +acquaintance, because her female and personal pride has been mortified +by the juggling use of her name, and feels itself challenged to a +direct refutation of the juggler. In fact, if the game has really +a serious object, one could not well choose worse means to effect +it.—Thou wilt do what honor bids, and, although she is my ward, not +insist upon seeking her company. All this between ourselves. Adio!</p> + +<p class="right">"<span class="sc">G. v. C</span>."</p> +<br> + +<p class="normal">These prospects,—the elevating one of being so long with his father; +the healing one of wading out from this deep ashes into a freer, +lighter land; the flattering one that the sick, tormented heart in the +mountain-castle might perhaps, in citron and laurel groves, find, yes, +and haply give back, too, joy and health again,—these prospects +were, what the joys of human beings are, very pleasant walks in a +prison-yard.</p> + +<p class="normal">On this happy walk he was soon disturbed by the image of the coming +Linda, not, however, on his own account, but on that of his poor sister +and his friend. How malignantly must this strange <i>ignis fatuus</i>, +thought he, dance into the nightly conflict of all these clashing +relations! Roquairol seemed, besides, to leave the too intensely loving +Rabette alone with her solitary wishes. She sent him weekly, under +cover to Albano,—once it was the reverse,—her epistolary sighs and +tears, all which he coldly pocketed, without speaking of them or of the +forlorn one.</p> + +<p class="normal">Albano, weighing in silence Liana and Rabette, compassionated, himself, +the unequal lot of his over-hasty friend, over whose sun-steeds only an +Amazon and Titaness, but not a good country-girl, could fling the +bridle, and whose Psyche's-chariot and thunder-car seemed to him too +good for a mere connubial post-chaise or child's carriage. What a +strangling struggle of all feelings will there be, thought he, when he, +kneeling at the nuptial altar with Rabette, accidentally looks up, and +discovers among the spectators the never-to-be-forgotten lofty bride of +his whole youth, and must stammer out the renouncing "Yes!"</p> + +<p class="normal">He was therefore in doubt whether he might venture to disclose to him +the contents of the letter, but not long indeed. "Shall I," said he, +"dissemble and juggle before a friend? May I dare to presuppose him +weak, and shun the acceleration of connections, which, after all, must +come with her?"</p> + +<p class="normal">So soon as Charles came to him, he spoke to him first of the intended +journey, and even added the request for his company, moved by the +thought of the first parting with his youthful friend. The Captain, +whose heart always needed the sounding-board of fancy for musical +utterance, was not able, on the spot, to have or to picture any +considerable emotions about the farewell. Then Albano, who could not +get it over his lips, gave him the whole letter.</p> + +<p class="normal">During the reading, Roquairol's whole face became hateful, even in his +friend's eye. He darted then such a flaming look of indignation at +Albano, that the latter involuntarily and unconsciously returned it. +"O, verily, I understand it all," said Charles; "so was the thing to be +solved. Only wait till to-morrow!" All muscles in him were alive, all +features distorted, everything in commotion, just as, in a violent +tempest, little cloudlets whirl around each other. Albano would fain +question and detain him. "To-morrow, to-morrow!" he cried, and went off +like a storm.</p> +<br> +<h3>87. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">On the morrow, Albano received a singular letter from Roquairol, for +the understanding of which some notices of his connection with Rabette +must be prefixed.</p> + +<p class="normal">Nothing is harder, when one really loves one's friend, than scarcely to +look at that friend's sister. Nothing is easier (except only the +converse) than, after being disenchanted by city hearts, to be +enchanted by country hearts. Nothing is more natural for a general +lover, who loves all, than to love one among them. It needs not be +proved that the Captain had been in all three cases at once, when he, +for the first time, told Rabette she had his heart, as he was pleased +to call it. She, of course, should not have worshipped, at such a +nearness, the Hamadryad in such a Upas-tree, with whose sap so many of +Cupid's arrows are poisoned; but she and most of her sisters are so +dazzled by men's advantages as not to see men's misuse of them.</p> + +<p class="normal">In the beginning many things went well; the pure innocence of his +sister and his friend threw a strange magic light upon the unnatural +union. The prominent advantage was, that he, as concert-master of his +love, needed little more of Rabette than her ears; loving was with him +talking, and he looked upon actions merely as the drawing of our soul; +words being the colors. There is a twofold love,—love of the feeling +and love of the object. The former is more man's love; it wishes the +enjoyment of its own being, the foreign object is to it only the +microscopic object-bearer, or much rather subject-bearer, whereupon it +beholds its "I" magnified; it can therefore easily let its objects +change, if only the flame into which they are thrown as fuel continues +to blaze up high; and it enjoys itself less through actions, which are +always long, tedious, and troublesome, than by words, which picture and +promote it at the same time. The love of the object, on the contrary, +enjoys and desires nothing but its welfare (such is for the most part +female and parental love), and only deeds and sacrifices give it peace +and satisfaction; it loves for the sake of blessing, whereas the other +only blesses for the sake of loving.</p> + +<p class="normal">Roquairol had long since devoted himself to the love of the feeling. +Hence it was that he must make so many words; at the Rhine-fall of +Schaffhausen he would not have been in the best, that is, the most +excited mood, merely because he could not—since the flood out-thunders +everything—have delivered anything himself in praise thereof, on +account of the sublime uproar.</p> + +<p class="normal">His Romance with Rabette after the declaration of love was divided into +distinct chapters.</p> + +<p class="normal">The first chapter he sweetened for himself in her society, by the +consideration that she was new and belonged to him and yielded him an +admiring obedience. He painted for her therein great pieces of +beautiful nature, mixed therewith some nearer emotions, and thereupon +kissed her; so that she really enjoyed his lips in two forms, that of +action and that of speech; from her, as has been said, he wanted only a +pair of open ears. In this chapter he assumed also some possibility of +their marriage; men so easily confound the charm of a new love with the +worth and duration of it.</p> + +<p class="normal">He set himself about his second chapter, and swam therein blissfully in +the tears with which he sought to write it out. In fact, this ocular +pleasure afforded him more true joy than almost the best chapters. +When, in such mood, he sat and drank by her side,—for, like a dead +prince's heart, he loved to bury his living one in cups,—and then +began to describe his life, particularly his death, and his sorrows and +errors in the interval, and his suicide and infanticide at the +masquerade, and his rejected and spurned love for Linda: who was +then more moved to tears than himself? No one but Rabette, whose +eyes,—having been, through her father and brother, as little +acquainted with men's tears as with elephants', stags', or crocodiles' +tears,—so much the more richly, but not so sweetly as bitterly, +streamed over into his sorrow and love. This poured fresh oil again +into his flame and lamp, until he at last, like that pupil of Goethe's +master wizard, with the brooms that carried water, could no longer +govern his spirits. Poetic natures have a sympathetic one; like +justice, they keep a surgeon in their pay near the rack, who +immediately sets again the broken limbs, yes, even regulates beforehand +the places for the crushing fractures.<a name="div2Ref_26" href="#div2_26"><sup>[26]</sup></a></p> + +<p class="normal">A man should never weep on his own account, except for ecstasy. But +poets and all people of much fancy are magicians who—exact +counterparts of the burnt enchantresses—weep more easily, although +more at images, than at the rough, sore calamity itself, in order to +put the poor enchantresses to the worst water-ordeal. Trust them not! +On the machinelle-poison-tree the rain-drops are poisonous which roll +from its leaves.</p> + +<p class="normal">Meanwhile it must never be concealed, that the Captain in this second +chapter strengthened his resolution of really marrying the good and so +tender Rabette. "Thou knowest," he said to himself, "what upon the +whole there is in and about women, one or two deficiencies, more or +less, make little difference; thy man-like folly of requiring her, as +they do hired animals, to be warranted without fault, may surely be +regarded as gone by, friend."</p> + +<p class="normal">Now he set himself down to dip into the ink for his third chapter, +wherein he merely sported. His lip-omnipotence over the listening heart +refreshed him to such a degree, that he made frequent experiments to +see whether she could not laugh herself almost to death. Women in love, +by reason of weakness and fire, take the laughter-plant most easily; +they hold the comic heroic-poet still more as their hero, and prove +therewith the innocence of their laughing at him. But Roquairol loved +her less when she laughed.</p> + +<p class="normal">In his fourth chapter,—or sector, or Dog-Post-day, or letter-box,<a name="div2Ref_27" href="#div2_27"><sup>[27]</sup></a> +or in whatever other way I have (ludicrously enough) made my divisions, +instead of using the Cycle,—in his fourth Jubilee, I say, it went, so +to speak, harder with him. Rabette grew at last sated and sick of his +eternally jumping off and opening the pot of the lachrymal glands that +hung between the wheels, to grease his mourning-coach. Deep emotion was +every day made more disagreeable and bitter to him; he must be ever +giving longer and more vivid tragedies. Then he began to perceive +that the tongue of the country maiden is not the very greatest +landscape-painter, soul-portrayer, and silhouettiste, and that she +hardly knew how to say much more to him than, "Thou, my heart!" He +made, on that account, in the fourth chapter, rarer visits; that again +helped him considerably, but only for a short time. Fortunately, the +half-mile from Pestitz to Blumenbühl counted in with Rabette's lines +and rays of beauty; in the city, in the same street, or in fact under +the same roof, he would have remained too cold from very nearness.</p> + +<p class="normal">The most natural consequence of such a chapter is the fifth, or the +chapter of alternations, which still blows up some flames by the +ever-swifter interchange of reproaches and reconciliations, so that the +two, as electrical bodies do little ones, alternately attract and repel +each other. Sometimes he drank nothing, and merely treated her harshly. +Sometimes he took his glass, and said to her: "I am the devil, thou the +angel." The greatest offence to his love his father gave, by the +approbation which, most unexpectedly, he bestowed upon it. It was to +the Captain exactly as if he should realize the silver-wedding if he +ever solemnized the golden one. In the service of the goddess of love +one more easily grows bald than gray; he was already morally bald +toward the silver-bride. Fortunately, a short time before the +illumination Sunday in Lilar,<a name="div2Ref_28" href="#div2_28"><sup>[28]</sup></a> he carried all sins of omission and +commission so far, that on Sunday he was in a condition to curse them; +only after scolding and sinning could he with comparative ease love and +pray, as the grovelling spring-scarabee snaps up only when turned over +on his back. It has probably slipped, or at least escaped, the memory +of few readers, among the events of that Sunday, that Roquairol sat in +the morning with Rabette in the flute-dell, that Rabette sang there in +a depressed and lonesome mood, and how he, dissolved thereby, +encountered his friend glorified by love. The dell affair is +natural; after so long coolness (not coldness) on this breezy, free +Otaheite-day, with all that he had in his hands (another's hand—and a +flask) beside that heart of hers, as warm and yet as tranquil as the +sun in the heavens,—and then the solitary orphan flute which he made +play its call,—and with his most hearty wish to profit somewhat by +such a day and sky,—under these circumstances he found himself +actually compelled to draw upon his genuine emotions, to give himself +vent on the subject of his past life (he resembled the old languages, +which, according to Herder, have many Preterites and no Present),—yes, +even on the subject of his death (also a fragment of the past),—and +then as on a heavenly way to move forward. Of course he went not far; +he let his blood of St. Januarius, namely, his eyes, become fluid +again, (his own blood having previously become so,) and then demanded +of the enraptured soul, whirled about in the fairest heaven nothing +less than—since she was mute before the pocket-handkerchief thrown to +her as the canary-bird is under the one thrown over him,—a faint +singing. Rabette could not sing; she said so, she declined, at last she +sang; but during the empty singing she thought of nothing save him and +his wild, wet face.</p> + +<p class="normal">The most miserable chapter of all, which he brought out in his Romance, +may well be the sixth, which he wrote down on the night of the +illumination in Lilar. In the beginning he had left Rabette to stand +alone a mute, inglorious<a name="div2Ref_29" href="#div2_29"><sup>[29]</sup></a> spectator, while he ran, jumping up behind +the car of Venus full of strange goddesses. Gradually one pleasure +after another crept along toward him and gave him the Tarantula bite, +which was followed by a sick raving. As moderation is a true +strengthening medicine of life, so did he uncommonly seldom resort to +this powerful medicine, in order not to be obliged to use it in +stronger and stronger doses, and he did not accustom himself to it at +all. At last, when he was full, forms appeared in him as in Chinese +porcelain;<a name="div2Ref_30" href="#div2_30"><sup>[30]</sup></a> he stepped sympathizingly and lovingly to Rabette, and +fancied, as she did, that he was tender or affectionate towards her, +when he merely was so towards all.</p> + +<p class="normal">He would fain draw her away from the hostile array of eyes, to seek +from her the kiss to which interdiction and privation lent honey again; +but she refused, because there, where the eye stops, suspicion begins, +when he unfortunately caught sight of the blind girl from Blumenbühl, +and could call her as a pretended guard of Rabette, in order to lead +her out of the temptation among men to the temptation in the +wilderness. Pressing her to him with such a passionate impetuosity of +love as he had never showed before,—so that the poor soul who had been +so forsaken and forlorn this evening wept over the return of all her +joys,—and speaking to her like an angel, who acts like none, he +involuntarily arrived with her at the silent Tartarus, where all was +blind and dumb.</p> + +<p class="normal">Rabette had not suffered the blind girl to leave her; but when they +entered the catacomb-avenue, which holds only two persons, unless the +third will creep along in the water, the eyeless maid was stationed at +the gate, and so much the more, because he would not willingly let +himself be checked by a superfluous listener. And besides, what then +was there to fear in the very raree-show of the grave?</p> + +<p class="normal">Within there he spoke about the everywhere stretched-out index-finger +of death,—how "it indicated that life, stupid as it is, should not be +made by us more stupid, but joyous." He seated himself by her side, +caressing her,—as the destroying angel sits invisible beside the +blooming child that plays in the old masonry, and into whose tender +hands he presses the black scorpion. It was the very spot where he had +sat in that first covenant-night, with Albano, opposite the skeleton +with the Æolian-harp, when his friend swore to him his renunciation of +Linda. His tongue streamed like his eye. He was tender, as, according +to the popular superstition, corpses are tender which mourners die +after. He threw fire-wreaths into Rabette's heart, but she had not, +like him, streams of words to quench them withal. She could only sigh, +only embrace; and men fall into sin most easily from weariness of good, +but tedious hearts. More swiftly did laughter and weeping, death and +drollery, love and wantonness, spring over into each other; moral +poison makes the tongue as light as physical makes it heavy. Poor girl! +the maidenly soul is a ripe rose, out of which, so soon as one leaf is +plucked, all its mates easily fall after. His wild kisses broke out the +first leaves; then others fell. In vain the good genius wafts holy +tones from the harp of death, and sends up angry murmurs in the +orcus-flood of the catacomb,—in vain! The darkest angel, who loves to +torture, but rather innocent ones than the guilty, has already torn +from heaven the star of love, to bear it as a murder-brand into the +cavern. The poor, narrow little life-garden of the defenceless maid, +wherein but little grows, stands over the long mine-passage which runs +away under Roquairol's wide-extended pleasure-camp; and the darkest, +angel has the lint-stock already lighted. With fiery greediness the +spark-point eats its way onward; as yet her garden stands full of +sunshine, and its flowers wave; the spark gnaws a little into the black +powder. Suddenly it tears open a monstrous flame-throat; and the green +garden reels, then flies, blown up, scattered to atoms, falls in black +clods out of the air down upon far distant places; and the life of the +poor maiden is all smoke and ruin.</p> + +<p class="normal">But Roquairol's wide-spread and jointly rooted pleasure-parks withstood +the earthquake much more vigorously. Both then came up out of the +mine-passage sorrowfully, for the Captain had lost a little arbor in +the explosion; but they found no more the blind girl, who, in her +search for them, had lost herself. They encountered only the roving +Albano, who himself was sorely wailing and raving, although he this +evening had lost nothing but—pleasures.</p> + +<p class="normal">Let us lead up the deluded maiden and her million companions with some +words before a mild judge! This is not the only thing which that judge +will weigh, that she, stupefied by the blossom-dust of a reeking spring +season of joys, smothered into dumbness with the virgin's veil, +prostrate before the storm of fancy (as women fall so much the more +easily before another's fancy and a poetic one, the seldomer their own +blows upon them, and accustoms them to standing firmly), suffered the +reward of a whole virgin life to die; but this is what most strongly +mitigates the sentence, that she bore love in her heart. Why, then, do +not the male sex recognize that the loving female, in the hour of love, +will really do nothing less than all for her beloved, that woman has +all power <i>for</i> love, <i>against</i> which she has so little, and that she, +with the same soul and at the same moment, would just as readily +sacrifice her life as her virtue, and that only the demanding and +taking party is bad, deliberately and selfishly?</p> + +<p class="normal">The last or seventh chapter of his robber romance is very short and +contradictory. The third day he visited her in her garden, was +delicate, rational, temperate, reserved, as if he were a married man. +As he found her full of trouble, which she, however, only half +expressed, he accordingly, out of anxiety for her health, came again +several times; and, when he found that she had not suffered in the +least, he stayed—away. Towards Albano, during the aforesaid anxiety, +he behaved meekly, and, after it, he was the same as ever, but not +long; for when his sister, whom of all human beings he perhaps loved +most purely, became blind through Albano's wildness, he then, even on +account of a similarity of guilt, flung at him a real hatred, and +something like it at all his (Albano's) relations. Rabette got nothing +from him now but—letters and apologies, short pictures of his wild +nature, which must, he said, have free play-room, and which, fastened +to another, must beat and bruise and gall that one with the chain quite +as much as itself. All objections of Rabette's he knew how to remove so +well, as they consisted only in words, and not in looks and tears, that +he at last himself began to perceive he was right; and almost nothing +was left to the poor May-flower, crushed by the fall of this smooth +May-pole, than the real last word,—namely, the mute life, which is not +the first thing to announce to the murderer that he has smitten and +destroyed a heart.</p> +<br> +<h3>88. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">Here is Roquairol's letter to Albano:—</p> + +<p class="normal">"It must once be, and be over; we must see each other as we are, and +then hate each other, if it must be so. I make thy sister unhappy; thou +makest mine unhappy and me too; these things just balance each other. +Thou distortedst thyself out of an angel to me more and more +passionately into a destroying angel. Strangle me, then, but I grapple +thee too.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Now look upon me, I draw off my mask, I have convulsive movements on +my face, like people who live after drinking sweet poison. I have made +myself drunk with poison, I have swallowed the poison-pill, the great +poison globule, the earth-globe. Out with it freely! I exult no more, I +believe nothing more, I do not even lament right valiantly. My tree is +hollowed out, burnt to a coal by fantastic fire. When, occasionally, in +this state, the intestinal worms of the soul, exasperation, ecstasy, +love, and the like, crawl round again, and gnaw and devour each other, +then do I look down from myself to them; like polypuses, I cut them in +twain and turn them wrong end foremost and stick them into each other. +Then I look again at my own act of looking, and as this goes on <i>ad +infinitum</i>, what then comes to one from it all? If others have an +idealism of faith, so have I an idealism of the heart, and every one +who has often gone through with all sensations on the stage, on paper, +and on the earth, is in the same case. What boots it? If thou shouldst +die at this moment, I often say to myself, then, as all radii of life +run together into the minute point of a moment, all would verily be +wiped out, invisible; to me, then, it is as if I had been nothing. +Often I look upon the mountains and floods and the ground about me, and +it seems to me as if they could at any and every moment flutter asunder +and melt away in smoke, and I with them. The future life (as even the +present is hardly to be called a life), and all that hangs thereupon, +belongs to the ecstasies which one winks at; especially it belongs to +the ecstasy of love.</p> + +<p class="normal">"As thou so readily assumest every difference from thyself to be +enervation, so do I say to thee outright: Only ascend farther, only +knead thyself more thoroughly, only lift thy head higher out of the hot +waves of the feelings, then wilt thou no longer lose thyself in them, +but let them billow on alone. There is a cold, daring spirit in man, +which nothing touches at all,—not even virtue; for it alone chooses +that, and is its creator, not its creature. I once experienced at sea a +storm, in which the whole element furiously and jaggedly and foamingly +lashed itself into commotion, and flung its waters pell-mell through +each other, while overhead the sun looked on in silence;—so be thou! +The heart is the storm; self is the heaven.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Believest thou that the romancers and tragedians, that is, the men of +genius among them, who have a thousand times aped, and aped their own +apings of everything, divine and human, are other than I? What keeps +them and the world's people still real is the hunger after money and +praise; this eating gastric-juice is the animal glue, the salient +point in the soft floating and fleeting world. The apes are geniuses +among beasts; and the geniuses are—not merely before higher beings, +as Pope says of Newton, but even here below—apes, in aesthetic +imitation, in heartlessness, malignity, malicious pleasure, sensuality, +and—merriment.</p> + +<p class="normal">"The last and last but one I reserve for myself. Against the +<i>longueurs</i> (lengthy passages) in life's book,—a book which no man +understands,—there is no remedy except some merry passages, of which I +think no more so soon as I have read them. In order only to get over +this cold, hobbly life, I will surely sooner scatter below me rose-cups +than thistles. Joy is of itself worth something, if only that it crowds +out something worse before one lays down his heavy head and sinks into +nothingness.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Such am I; such was I; then I saw thee, and would be thy <i>Thou</i>—but +it serves not, for I cannot go back; thou, however, goest forward, thou +becomest my very self one day,—and then I <i>would</i> have loved thy +sister! May she forgive me for it! Here drink pure wine! I know best +how one fares with the women,—how their love blesses and robs,—how +all love, like other fire, <i>kindles</i> itself with much better wood than +that which <i>feeds</i> it,-and how, universally, the Devil gets all he +brings.</p> + +<p class="normal">"O, why then can no woman love but just so far as one will have her, +and no further,—absolutely none? Hear me now: everywhere lazy +preachers would fain hold us back from all transitory pleasure by +telling us of the discomfort that comes after. Is not then the +discomfort transitory too? Rabette meant well with me, on the same +ground of desire upon which I meant well with her and myself. But does +any one know, then, what purgatorial hours one wades through with a +strange heart, which is full, without making full, and whose love one +at last hates,—<i>before</i> which, but not <i>with</i> which, one weeps, and +never about the same thing, and to which one dreads to unveil any +emotion, for fear of seeing it transmuted into nourishment of +love,—from whose anger one imbibes the greater wrath, and from its +love the lesser! And now to have absolutely the more joyous relations +screwed down forever to this state of torment, when they ought rather +to exalt us above the tormenting ones, the long wished for gods'-bliss +of life perverted forever into a flat show and copper-plate +engraving,—the heart into a breast and mask,—the marrow of existence +into sharp bones,—and yet, as to all reproaches of coldness, chained +only to silence, bound innocent and dumb to the rack,—and that, too, +without end!</p> + +<p class="normal">"No, sooner give me the frenzy which one draws from the temple of love +as well as from that of the Eumenides! Better burn up in a real flame +of misery, without hope, without utterance, even to paleness and +madness, than be so loving and not loved! He who has once burned in +this hell, Albano, continues to frequent it forevermore: that is the +last misery. Can I not worry down life and death, and wounds and stings +beforehand?—and certainly I am not weak. Nevertheless, I am not the +man to put restraints upon a sentimental discourse, or harpsichord +fantasy, or reading or singing, not though sorrow in person should hold +before me a menace, undersigned by all the gods, that a female listener +whom I cannot endure would immediately thereupon become my lover, and +from that my mistress and my hell.</p> + +<p class="normal">"The Greeks gave Love and Death the same form, beauty, and torch; for +me it is a murderous torch; but I love Death, and therefore Cupid. Long +has life been to me a tragic muse; willingly to the dagger of a muse do +I offer my breast; a wound is almost half a heart.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Hear further! Rabette has a fine nature, and follows it; but mine is +for her a cloud of empty, transitory form and structure; she does not +understand me. Could she, then would she be the first to forgive me. O, +I have indeed treated her hardly, as if I were a destiny, and she I. +Resent, but hear!<a name="div2Ref_31" href="#div2_31"><sup>[31]</sup></a> On the night of the Illumination her longing and +my emptiness brought us in the fiery rain of joy more warmly together; +among the shiningly mailed and smoothly polished court-faces her +ingenuous one bloomed lovely and living as a fresh child on the stage +or at court; we happened into Tartarus,—we sat down in the place where +thou didst swear to me thy resignation of Linda; in my senses wine +glowed, in hers the heart. O, why is it that, when one speaks and +streams, she has no other words than kisses, and makes one sensual from +ennui, and forces one to speak her speech? My mad boldness, which fancy +and intoxication breathe into me, and which I see coming on and yet +await, seized me and drove me like a night-walker. But always is there +in me something clear-seeing, which itself weaves the drag-net of +delusion, throws it over me, and carries me away entangled in its +meshes. So behold me on that night with the burning net-work about my +head; the rivulet of death murmurs to me, the skeleton sweeps across +the harp-strings,—but, enveloped, imprisoned, darkened, dazzled with +the fiery hurdle-work of pleasure, I heed neither annihilation nor +heaven, nor thyself and <i>that</i> evening, but I drag all together and +into the hurdle,—and so sank thy sister's innocence into the grave, +and I stood upright on the royal coffin, and went down with it.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I lost nothing,—in me there is no innocence; I gained nothing,—I +hate sensual pleasure. The black shadow, which some call remorse, swept +broadly along after the vanished motley-colored pleasure-images of the +magic-lantern; but is the black less optical than the motley?</p> + +<p class="normal">"Condemn not thy poor sister; she is now more miserable than I, for she +was happier; but her soul remains innocent. Her innocence lay treasured +up in her heart as a kernel in the stony peach; the kernel itself burst +its mail-coat in the warm, nourishing earth, and forced a way for its +green leaves to the light.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I visited her afterward. All her soul's pangs passed over into me; for +all actions and sacrifices on her account, I felt myself ready; but for +no feelings. Do what you will, thou and my father, I will positively, +in this stupid stubble-field of life, where one reaps so little in +freedom, not banish myself into the narrow thirty-years' hedge of +marriage. By Heaven! for the miserable, forced intoxication of the +senses, and under it, I have already endured more than it is worth.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Not that which I yesterday read in thy presence gives me this +resolution,—as to that, ask Rabette about it,—and my frankness toward +thee is a voluntary offering, since the mystery between two might, but +for me, have remained a mystery still: but I will not be misapprehended +by thee,—by thee, the very one who, with so little reflection upon thy +inner being, so easily makest unfavorable comparisons, and dost not +perceive that thou didst sacrifice my sister in Lilar precisely so, +only with more spiritual arms, and didst cast her eyes and joys into +Orcus. I blame thee not; fate makes man a sub-fate to woman. The +passions are poetic liberties, which the moral liberty takes to itself. +Thou didst not, I assure thee, have too good an opinion of me; I am all +for which thou tookest me, only, however, still <i>more too</i>; and the +<i>more too</i> is still wanting to thyself.</p> + +<p class="normal">"O, how much swifter my life flies since I know that <i>she</i><a name="div2Ref_32" href="#div2_32"><sup>[32]</sup></a> is +coming! Fate, which so oft plays weight and wheels, and swings the +pendulum of life with its own hand, heaves off mine, and all wheels +roll unrestrainedly to meet the blissful hour. <i>She</i> is my first love; +before <i>her</i> I tore up all my blooming years, and flung them to her on +her path as flowers; for <i>her</i> I sacrifice, I dare, I do all, when she +comes. O, whoso fears nothing in the empty froth-and-sham-love, what +should he dread or decline in the real, living sun-love? Thou angel, +thou destroying angel, thou camest flying down into my stale, flat +life, thou fleest and appearest, now here, now there, on all my paths +and pastures: O tarry only long enough for me to dig my grave at thy +feet, while thou lookest down upon me!</p> + +<p class="normal">"Albano, I behold the future and anticipate it; I see full clearly the +long net stretched over the whole stream which is to catch, entangle, +and strangle thee; thy father and others, too, are drawing you both +toward one another therein, God knows for what. It is for that <i>she</i> +comes now, and thy tour is only show. My poor sister is soon conquered, +that is, murdered; particularly, as one needs for the purpose, with her +belief in spirits, no other voice than that incorporeal one, which over +the old Prince's heart pointed out to thine its limits!</p> + +<p class="normal">"What lights burn in the future, between dark situations and bushes, in +murderous corners! Be it as it may, I march forward into the caverns; I +thank God, that this impotent <i>cold-sweating</i> life gains again a +pulsation of the heart, a passion; and then or now do to me, who +<i>could</i> act safely and secretly and dishonestly, what thou choosest. +Fight with me to-day or to-morrow. It shall rejoice me, if thou layest +me on my back in the last, long sleep. O the opium of life makes one in +the beginning lively, then drowsy, how drowsy! Willingly will I love no +more, if I can die. And so without a word further, hate or love me, but +farewell!</p> + +<p class="right">"<span class="sc">Thy Friend, Or Thy Foe</span>."</p> +<br> +<h3>89. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">"My foe!" cried Albano. The second hot pain darted from Heaven into his +life, and the lightning-flash blazed up fiercely again. As a heartless +carcass of the former friendship, Roquairol had been thrown at his +feet; and he felt the first hatred. That poison-mixing of sensual and +spiritual debauchery, that fermenting-vat of the dregs of the senses +and the scum and froth of the heart,—that conspiracy of lust and +bloodthirstiness, and against the same guiltless heart,—that spiritual +suicide of the affections, which left behind only an airy, roaming +spectre, ever changing its forms of incarnation, upon which there no +longer remains any dependence, and which a brave man already begins to +hate for the very reason that he cannot lay hold of this yielding +poison-cloud and give it battle,—all this seemed to the Count, who, +without the transitions and mezzotintos of habit and fancy, had +been ushered over out of the former light of friendship into this +evening-twilight, still blacker than it was. Beside the superficial +wound which his family pride received in the maltreatment of his +sister, came the deep, poisonous one that Roquairol should compare him +with himself, and Liana's ruin with Rabette's. "Villain!" said he, +gnashing his teeth; even the least shadow of resemblance seemed to him +a calumny.</p> + +<p class="normal">Most assuredly Roquairol had miscalculated upon him, and set out his +poetic self-condemnation too much on the reckoned strength of a poetic +sentence from the judge. As in an uproar one unconsciously speaks +louder, so he, when fancy with her cataracts thundered around him, did +not justly know what he cried and how strongly. As he often, to be +sure, found less that was black in himself than he depicted, so he +presumed that another must find even still less than he himself. He +had, too, in his poetic and sinful intoxication, made for himself at +last the moral dial-plate itself movable, so that it went with the +index; in this confusion it was never indicated to him where innocence +was.</p> + +<p class="normal">Had he foreseen that his epistolary confessions would bound and rebound +in more hostile corners than his oral ones did aforetime, he would have +prepared them otherwise.</p> + +<p class="normal">For agitation Albano could not directly write the short +parting-letter—not a challenge—to the abandoned one, but delayed, in +the certainty that the Captain would not come himself,—when all at +once he came. For procrastination he could not bear; bodily and +spiritual wounds he received as theatrical ones; too much accustomed to +win men, he too easily brought himself to lose men. A terrible +apparition for Albano; it was but the long coffin of his murdered +favorite set upright!—that now over that powerfully-angular face, once +the stronghold of their souls, furrows of weeds should wind, that this +mouth, which friendship had so often laid upon his, should have become +a plague-cancer, a concealing rose to the tongue-scorpion for the good +Rabette when she approached so trustingly,—to see and think of <i>that</i> +was clear anguish.</p> + +<p class="normal">Hardly audible were greeting and thanks; silently they walked up and +down, not beside but against each other. Albano sought to get the +mastery over his wrath, so as to say nothing but the words: "Begone +from me, and let me forget thee!" He meant to spare Liana in her +brother, who had reproached him with being sacrificial-knife to her; +unjust suspicions keep us better in the time immediately following, +because we are not willing to let them grow into just ones. "I am +candid, thou seest," Roquairol began, with moderation, because his +ebullitions had been half distilled and dropped away from the point +of his pen; "be thou so, too, and answer the letter." "I was thy +friend,—now, no more," said Albano, choking. "I have not surely done +anything to <i>thee</i>," was the reply.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Heavens! Let me not say much," said Albano. "My miserable sister,—my +innocence of the coming of the Countess,-my wretched, abandoned sister! +O God! drive me not to frenzy,—I respect thee no more, and so go!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Then fight!" said the Captain, half drunk with emotion and half with +wine. "No," said Albano, drawing in a long breath, as if for a sigh of +indignation; "to thee nothing is sacred, not so much as a life!" This +pupil of death so easily threw after his own life-days and joys and +plans all those of another into the tomb with them; that was what +Albano meant, and thought of the sick Liana, so easily dying of others' +wounds; love (<i>instead of friendship</i>) had passed along like a soothing +woman before his provoked soul; but the foe misunderstood him.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Thou must," said the Captain, wildly mocking; "thine shall be precious +to me!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Heaven and Hell! I meant a better one," said he; "slanderer, toward +thy sister I have <i>not</i> acted as thou hast against mine,—I have not +wished to make her miserable, <i>I am not as thou!</i>—and I shall not +fight; I spare <i>her</i>, not thee." But the hell-flood of wrath, which he +through Liana had wished to turn off into a flat land, and make more +shallow, swelled up thereby as if under an enchanter's hand, because +Roquairol's lie about her being sacrificed came so near home in that +connection.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Thou art afraid," said the exasperated Roquairol, and still took down +two swords from the wall. "I respect thee not, and will not fight," +said Albano, only stimulating him and himself the more, while he meant +to control himself.</p> + +<p class="normal">Just then Schoppe stepped in. "He is afraid," repeated Roquairol, +weapon in hand. Albano, reddening, gave, in three burning words, the +history. "You must fight a little before me!" cried the Librarian, full +of his old hatred for Roquairol's dazzling and juggling heart. Albano, +thirsting for cold steel, grasped at it involuntarily. The fight began. +Albano did not attack, but parried more and more furiously; and as, +while so doing, he beheld the angry ape of his former friend with the +dagger in his hand, which had been ploughed up out of the blooming +garden-beds of the loveliest days, and upon which he had trodden with +his wounds: and as the Captain with increasing storminess flashed away +at him like lightning, unavailingly: then did he see on the grim face +that dark hell-shadow standing again, which had stood and played +thereon, when he had strangled Rabette struggling in his grasp;—the +drawbridge of countenances, whereupon once the two souls met, stood, +suddenly raised high in the air. More fiery grew Albano's glance; more +drunk with indignation, he set upon the were-wolf of devoured +friendship;—suddenly he severed his weapon from him like a claw: when +Schoppe, indignant at the unequal forbearing and fighting, would fain +invoke vengeance with Rabette's name, and cried, "The sister, Albano!"</p> + +<p class="normal">But Albano understood by that Charles's sister, and hurled one sword +after the other, and fiery drops stood in his eye, and hideously +distorted the face of the foe before him. "Albano!" said Roquairol, his +wrath exhausted, relying on the tear-built rainbow of peace,—"Albano?" +he asked, and gave him his hand. "Farewell; live happily, but go; I am +still innocent,—go!" replied Albano, who felt bitterly the tempest of +the first wrath overhead, which having settled down, between his +mountains, continued to beat upon him. "In the Devil's name, go! I too +shall be roused at last," said Schoppe, interfering. "In such a name +one goes willingly!" said the Captain, whose tongue-muscles always +stiffened in Schoppe's presence, and silently departed; but Albano had +for some time ceased to look upon him, because he could never endure +another's humiliation, but, like every strong soul, felt himself bowed +down at the same time with any abasement of humanity, just as great +thrones tolerate no distinguishing marks of servility in their +neighborhood.<a name="div2Ref_33" href="#div2_33"><sup>[33]</sup></a></p> + +<p class="normal">Schoppe began now to remind him of his own earliest predictions about +Roquairol, and to name himself the Great Prophet-Quartette,—to +denounce the fellow's incurable scurvy of mouth and heart,—to compare +his theatrical firmness with the Roman marble and porphyry, which has +on the outside a stone rind, but inwardly only wood,<a name="div2Ref_34" href="#div2_34"><sup>[34]</sup></a>—to remark how +his internal possession might be said to be, like that of the German +Order, only a <i>tongue</i>,—and in general to declare himself so +vehemently against self-decomposition through fancy, against all +poetical contempt of the world, that any other but Albano might well +have taken his zeal for a defence of himself against the slight feeling +of a similarity.</p> + +<p class="normal">Schoppe had strong hopes Albano would listen to him believingly, and +would grow angry, laugh and answer; but he became more grave and +silent;—he looked at the honest Librarian—and fell passionately and +silently on his neck—and speedily dried his heavy eye. O, it is the +gloomy day of mourning, the burial-day of friendship, when the outcast, +orphan heart goes home alone, and it sees the death-owl fly screaming +from the death-bed of old feeling over the whole creation.</p> + +<p class="normal">Albano had, in the beginning, inclined to go this very day to +Blumenbühl and lead his forsaken sister to the mausoleum of truth; but +now his heart was not strong enough to sustain his own words to his +sister or her immeasurable and inconsolable tears.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2><a name="div1Ref_21" href="#div1_21">TWENTY-FIRST JUBILEE.</a></h2> + +<h3><span class="sc2">The Trial-lesson of Love.—Froulay's Fear of Fortune.—The +Biter Bit.—Honors of the Observatory.</span></h3> +<br> +<h3>90. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">Since the extinction of the engagement, and since Gaspard's letters, +Albano's eye had been directed toward the fairest ruins of +time,—unless one excepts the earth itself,—to Italy; and his injured +vision held fast to this new portal of his life, which was to usher him +into the presence of the fairest and greatest which nature and man can +create. How did the fire-mountains, and Rome's ruins, and her warm, +golden-blue heavens, already unfold to him their splendor, when in +fancy he led the suffering Liana before them, and her holy eyes +refreshed themselves with measuring the heights! A man who travels with +his beloved to Italy has in the very fact that he might do without one +of the two, both double. And Albano hoped for this felicity, since all +testimonies which he met with of Liana's restoration to health promised +as much. As to Dr. Sphex,—the only one who opened a pit for her, and +in it cast a death-bell, and swore to everybody, she would fall with +the leaves of autumn,—him he saw no more. He wished, however,—he said +to himself,—in this whole joint-tour, only her happiness, not at all +her love. So did he see himself always in his self-mirror, namely, only +veiled; so did he regard himself often as too stern, although he was so +little of that; so did he take himself to be conqueror of his own +heart, when his fair countenance already wore pale, sickly hues.</p> + +<p class="normal">The present stood as yet dark above him, but its neighboring times, the +future and the past, lay full of light. What a journey, in which a +beloved, a father, a friend, a female friend, are of themselves, on the +very road, the curiosities which others find only when they reach the +end!</p> + +<p class="normal">The Princess was the female friend. Since Gaspard's letters to her and +to him, since the hope of a longer and nearer enjoyment of his society, +she found more and more pleasure in subduing all clouds round about +her, so as to smile and shine upon her friend only out of a blue +heaven. She alone at court seemed to take mildly and rightly the blunt +youth, whose proud frankness so often ran against the disguised pride +of the Count, and particularly against the open pride of the Prince; +she alone seemed—as nothing is seldomer guessed in and by <i>circles</i> +than fair sensibility, especially by courtly ones and especially manly +sensibility—softly to spy out his, and to increase its warmth by her +sympathy. She alone honored him with that strict, significant attention +which mankind so seldom give, as well as can so seldom appreciate, +because they never have occasion but for love and passion, in order +to—render justice, incapable, otherwise than by comet-light, by +warm-flames and fires of joy, to read the best hand. All that he was, +she simply presupposed in him; his pre-eminent qualities were only her +demands and his passports; she made his individuality neither her model +nor her reflection; both were painters, no pictures. He heard often, +indeed, that she had a masculine severity, especially in her +dictatorial capacity, but not, however, that she was womanishly +inhuman. To the customary vermin of courtlings, which gives itself +elevation on its worm-rings only by crawling, she was repulsive and +torturing; although, as a new-comer, she should, it would seem, have +been a new-born child, that brings with it raisins to the older +children. On Sunday, when at courts, as on the stage in Berlin, +spiritual popular pieces are always brought out, she was (among the +Sunday-born-children, who see more spirits than they have) a Monday's +child, which wishes to find for itself one, who, whether he has +ever been dubbed noble or not, at all events knows how to distinguish +an original from the copy, as well in his own self as in a +picture-gallery. On that account many lords, and still more ladies, +thanked God, if they had occasion to say nothing more to her than "God +bless you!"</p> + +<p class="normal">In this way she appeared to the Count every day more worthy of his +father. As into a warm spring sunshine did he enter for the first time +into the flattering magic circle of female friendship, which even here +cast and moulded two wings for love out of the wax-cells of the enjoyed +honey; it was, however, with him love for Liana, to whom the friend +could most easily give wings for Italy. He felt that soon an hour of +overflowing esteem would strike, when he could confidingly open the +high-walled cloister-garden of his former love. For she made room for +him to be near her as often as the narrow compass of a throne and the +all-betraying height of its location would admit. But something +disturbed, watched, beset both,—a rival neighbor, as it seemed. It was +the singular Julienne, who always, when things were getting on, stepped +out of her box on to the stage of the Princess, and confounded the +play. Frequently she came after him; sometimes he had gotten +invitations from her just the moment before others from the Princess +followed, which hers, therefore, as it seemed, must have anticipated. +What did she mean? Would she possibly win from a youth whom she had so +often provoked by her contempt of men, and by the lightning-like +dartings of her indignation, his love, merely, perhaps, because he had +always so warmly reciprocated her friendly glances, as those of so dear +a—friend of his beloved? Or did she want of him only hatred for the +honored Princess, and that indeed out of envy and the usual resemblance +of women to ivory, whose <i>white</i> hue so readily becomes <i>yellow</i>, and +which only by a thorough warming gets the fair color again?</p> + +<p class="normal">These questions were rather repeated than answered by an evening which +he and Julienne spent at the Princess's. A good reading was to give the +picture-exhibition of Goethe's Tasso. Fine art, and nothing but art, +was with the Princess the art of Passau<a name="div2Ref_35" href="#div2_35"><sup>[35]</sup></a> against court- and +life-wounds; and, in general, the world-system was to her only a +complete picture-gallery and Pembroke cabinet and gallery of antiques. +The reading parts were so distributed by the manager, the Princess, +that she herself got the Princess, Julienne the <i>confidente</i> Leonore, +Albano the Poet Tasso, a youthful-cheeked Chamberlain the Duke, and +Froulay Alphonso. This latter, who had learned to prefer works of +artifice to works of art, and the princely cabinet to any cabinet of +art, in spite of his heart stood ready there for a journey to the +mountain of the muses, arrayed for that purpose by the Princess in a +mountain-habit. Thus forced more and more every day into the poetical +fashion, he looked, of course, like any other abortion, which has +come into the world with pantaloons, queue, and the like all born on +him, on purpose to condemn the modish way of the world, just like a +street-sweeper in Cassel.</p> + +<p class="normal">Albano read with outward and inward glow, not toward the reading +Princess, but toward the Princess she personated, from a habit of his +heart which life always set a-glow; and the Princess read the <i>rôle</i> of +her <i>rôle</i> very well, of course. Her artistic feeling told her, even +without the prompting of tender sensibility, that in Goethe's +Tasso,—which, for the most part, is related to the Italian Tasso, as +the heavenly Jerusalem to the Jerusalem delivered,—the Princess is +almost Princess of Princesses. Never did the god of the muses and of +the sun pass more beautifully through the constellation Virgo than +here. Never was veiled love more radiantly unveiled.</p> + +<p class="normal">The Minister read off the powerful proser Alphonso, as he scolds at +Tasso and Albano, as well as a trumpeter of cavalry reads the notes +which are affixed to his sleeve; in fact, he found the man quite +sensible.</p> + +<p class="normal">The younger<a name="div2Ref_36" href="#div2_36"><sup>[36]</sup></a> Princess might, in the general poetic concert, have +done her share of the talking some quarter of an hour, more or less, +when she suddenly threw down, in a lively manner, the beautiful volume +of Goethe's works, of which there were three copies there, and said, +with her impetuosity, "A stupid part! I cannot abide it!" All the world +was silent. The senior<a name="div2Ref_37" href="#div2_37"><sup>[37]</sup></a> Princess looked at her significantly; the +junior Princess looked at <i>her</i> still more significantly, and went out, +without coming back again. A court dame took up the reading, and went +calmly on.</p> + +<p class="normal">To most of those present this interlude was properly the most +interesting; and they willingly continued to think of it during the +reading of the latter part. The Princess, who had long believed the +Princess loved the Count, was delighted with the inconsiderateness of +her adversary. Albano, although her warm eye had struck him of old, +explained to himself the absconding on the ground of chagrin at the +subordinateness of her part in the reading, and the general +incompatibility of the two women; for while Julienne, at her own +expense, slighted the Princess, and took little pains to conceal her +opinion, so also did that of the Princess appear involuntarily. So soon +as one party manifests its hatred, the second can hardly conceal its +from the third.</p> + +<p class="normal">When Albano came home, he found the following leaf on his table:—</p> +<br> + +<p class="normal">"The P—— decoys thee; she loves thee. With <i>éclat</i> she will send in +the next place the M—— back, in order to give bold relief to her +virtue, and produce an imposing effect upon thee. Shun her! I love +thee, but differently and eternally.</p> + +<p class="center">"<i>Nous nous verrons un jour, mon frère</i>."</p> +<br> + +<p class="normal">Who wrote it? Not even as to the admission-ticket of this cartel could +the servant make any deposition. Who wrote it? Julienne; to this point, +at least, all roads of probability converged; only in that case +mysteries lay round about him. Significant was the French subscription, +which stood in like manner exactly under the picture of his sister, +which his father had given him on Isola Bella;<a name="div2Ref_38" href="#div2_38"><sup>[38]</sup></a> but that might +be a coincidence. He investigated now these new silver-veins of his +Diana-<a name="div2Ref_39" href="#div2_39"><sup>[39]</sup></a> and family-tree by the touchstone of his whole history. His +mother and Julienne's had gone to Italy with his father in one and the +same year; both had been uncommon women and mutual friends, and his +father the friend of both. There was the possibility of a false step on +the part of his father, which had been concealed. Quite as easily might +the traces of this error have been shown to Julienne. Then, further, +the hypothesis of her sisterly love would throw light on her whole +previous winding course; her affectionate interest in Albano; her +love-race with the Princess; her correspondence with his father; her +enlisting of the Count's affection for Romeiro, which, as it seemed, +heated her quite as much against the Princess as it chilled her toward +Liana; above all, the singularity of her love for him, which never +unfolded itself further and more openly;—all this gave ground to +suspect that it might be only a sister's kindred blood which blazed so +often on her round cheeks, when she had unconsciously gazed at him too +long. After this step he made forthwith the leap; he now suspected, +also, that she alone had sought to dazzle and delude him into the love +of her Linda with the magic mirror of spiritual existences.</p> + +<p class="normal">As respects the relation of the Princess to the Minister, every word +upon that subject was to him a lie. He was quite as reluctant to let +himself part with a good opinion of others as a bad one. Ordinary men +readily give the good opinion away and hold the bad one fast; weaker +ones are easily reconciled, and hardly parted. He was unlike either. +Hitherto he had so easily ascribed in his own mind the Princess's +friendship for the Minister, her visitation journeys with him through +the land, and the like, to her manly prudence and foresight, which +would fain at once keep watch over the future hereditary land of her +brother and hold the key to it; and to this probability, as the +Minister accommodated himself equally well to the related parts of a +cicerone and an overseer, he still adhered.</p> + +<p class="normal">The following week brought along a circumstance, which seemed to throw +a greater light into the dark billet.</p> +<br> +<h3>91. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">The promised circumstance has its root again in older circumstances +which occurred between the Princess and the Minister; these I here +premise.</p> + +<p class="normal">The Minister had been very soon furnished by his friend Bouverot—whose +clammy woodpecker's tongue licked off unseen the vermin of all +mysteries out of all musty cracks in the throne—with a description of +all that the Princess concealed in herself in the shape of Phoenix +ashes and rubbish: he had instructed him that she, cold as a piece of +ice ground into a convex lens, never would melt herself, but only +others; that she was one of those more rare coquettes who, like sweet +wines, become sour through warmth, and only sweeter by cold; and that +she therefore had about her one of the worst habits,—which made the +most grievous jobs for every one. It was, namely, the following: She +had a heart, and would never suffer it to lie in her bosom as dead +capital; but it must pay interest, and circulate. So the lover became, +in the beginning, more wide awake and gay from day to day, then from +hour to hour; he knew all by-ways through wood and hollow, all thieves' +paths and shorter cuts in this love-garden regularly by heart, and +would foretell the critical<a name="div2Ref_40" href="#div2_40"><sup>[40]</sup></a> quarter of an hour on his repeating +watch when he should arrive at the summer-house. It was not by any +means unknown to him (but comical) what it signified, that the said +lover would pass with her from sentences to glances, from these to +kissing of the hand, then to kissing of the mouth, whereupon he would +find himself caught, entrapped, and imprisoned in the Whistonian +comet's-train of her ell-long (or mile-long) hair as in a bird-net (in +which, however, the noose was also the berry-bait), and bent up in his +prison to such a degree as to know what o'clock it had struck on his +repeater. But just then, when all clouds seemed fallen from heaven, he +himself would fall out of both into a basket from her;—that was the +bad point. In fact, German princes of the oldest houses, who had made +all other experiments, saw themselves made immoral, ay, ridiculous, and +knew not at all what to think about it; for the Princess openly +wondered at such monsters, gave all the world a copy of her challenge, +showed all the world the redness and the loftiness of her +turkey-hen's-neck, and suffered such an old tempter of a Prince, or +whoever it was, never more in her haughty presence.</p> + +<p class="normal">As princes (in such cases) know what they want, so of course they +spread it about that she knew not what <i>she</i> would have; and often not +till long after an hereditary prince came the apanaged brother of the +same court, and later the legitimated one. However, the thing remained +the same; namely, she remained like the spherical concave mirror, which +indeed images behind itself what stands close before it, as large and +upright, but so soon as it comes into its focus, makes it invisible, and +then out beyond that point hangs it quite diminished and topsy-turvy +in the air. Her love was a fever of debility, in which Darwin, Weikard, +and other Brownists, by <i>stimulating</i> means—wine, for instance—produce +a <i>slower</i> pulse, and even promise therefrom a cure. So far Bouverot to +the Minister!</p> + +<p class="normal">But to the Minister came thereby an inexpressible favor. For princes' +sins jumped not at all with his professional studies and trade. When, +therefore, she had decided upon having his understanding and powerful +physiognomy near her, and had named him Minister of her most intimate +relations in Haarhaar, then was it solemnly laid down and sworn to +within him, never, though she were kindness itself, to be the robber of +her honor to her straw-widower. In the beginning, like all his +predecessors, he got on easily with mere pure feelings and discourses; +as yet there was nothing desired of him, except that he should +sometimes unexpectedly dart at her a sly look full of loving +tenderness; and he must also have a longing. He darted the look; he +also got up longings; and so he felt himself comfortably enough insured +for such a successful love affair.</p> + +<p class="normal">But it stopped not here. Hardly had her Albano appeared, when the +thorn-girdle and hair-shirt of the pure Minister was made +disproportionately more rough and thorny, and the strongest +requirements, namely, gifts, redoubled, in order that the poor Joseph +might the more speedily assail her honor and therefore run into his +ruin, which should be bait for the Count. By this time he had +been already brought along so far that he wove and knotted in her +flying hair (to him poisonous snake-hair),—he must needs blow out +soap-bubbles of sighs from his pipe,—he must needs quite often be +beside himself; yes, he must even (if he would not see himself chased +away as a hypocritical rascal) be half-sensual, although still decent +enough. Meanwhile he was not to be tempted into a temptation by the +Devil himself. Whenever he even thought of the subject, shuddering, how +the least misstep might hurl him from his ministerial post, then he +would as soon have let himself be impaled and quartered as bewitched. +For a third party, not for these two,—they were the sufferers,—it +would perhaps have been a feast, to have seen how they (if I may use a +too low comparison) resembled a pair of silk stockings drawn over each +other, which for and by each other, when one keeps them distended<a name="div2Ref_41" href="#div2_41"><sup>[41]</sup></a> +at a certain distance, ethereally blow themselves and fill, but +immediately collapse, flat and flabby, when they touch each other.</p> + +<p class="normal">Of course, in the long run, it fell heavily upon the old statesman to +have to leap along before the dancing pageantry of love-gods as their +arch-master, tackled into the triumphal car of the Cyprian,—a +flower-garland on his state-peruke, in his eyes two Vauclusa fountains, +the cavity of his breast a choked-up Dido's cave, wearing in his +button-hole an arrow in a heart, or a heart on an arrow, and faring +toward the capitol, in order there, after the Roman fashion, not so +much to sacrifice as to be sacrificed. Nothing except the tin boxes +which the government officers and exchequer messengers stowed away for +him at home could fan fresh and cool again the stalemated man, who +would fain be a checkmated one.</p> + +<p class="normal">He read with her Catullus, she with him the better pictures out of the +Prince's cabinet; it was allowed him to reward her by his Latinity for +her artistic favors: but he remained, nevertheless, as he was.</p> + +<p class="normal">When women wish to carry a point, and find hindrances constantly +recurring, they grow at last blind and wild, and dare anything +and everything. The tour to Italy approached so fast; still the +Minister was no nearer to letting go his high consideration for his +beloved,—although from just her own motive, that of the tour, with the +nearness of which he animated himself to a cheerful endurance of so +short a flame. Her passion for the Count increased with the Count's +tranquillity, because coldness strengthens strong love, just as +physical coldness makes strong people more vigorous and weak ones more +puny. Froulay, as an old man, was, as it seemed, capable of creeping +along so for a whole age to his object, without making one unnecessary +leap, since old people, like ships, always move slower the longer they +have been going, and on similar grounds, namely, that both, by the +adhesion of filth, weeds, barnacles, and the like, have become +unwieldy. In short, the Princess at last ceased to ask for anything, +but matters went thus:—</p> + +<p class="normal">The Prince had gone a journey, the Princess had been invited as +god-mother out into the country. The castellain on one of her country +castles, who had already the year before invited the Minister, had not +been restrained by bashfulness from making his way still farther up on +this rope-ladder, with his descendant under his arm, and up there on +the throne laying his child of the land in the arms of her, the +Princess herself. Princes love to let themselves down—on thin +silk-worm threads—(as well as up); they value the good-natured, stupid +people, and would fain in this way raise somewhat the poor creeping +dwarf-beans,—for they well know how little it matters,—and, so to +speak, pole them and boot them by means of the leg of the princely +chair. Beside this, the Minister had been invited as grand-god-father +(so called). The autumn day was only a brighter, more perfect spring, +and the autumnal night stood under a brilliant full moon. Courts always +long so exceedingly to be away in the country, among the idyls of +murmuring rivulets, sighing branches, and tree-tops, and bleating +Swisseries, and farmers; Courts—that is, courtiers, court-dames and +official chamberlains'-staves, and others—yearn so for the society of +human beings; as beasts are driven by the December hunger, so does a +noble hunger drive them down from the throne-mountains into the flat +plains; not that they would fly from <i>ennui</i>, but they desire only a +different kind, as their very pastime consists in the abbreviation and +alternation of their <i>ennui</i>.</p> + +<p class="normal">Hardly had the Court appeased its first longing for the people with +whom it stood for half a quarter of an hour on a confidential, +conversational footing, when it came to itself again, and dispersed +itself through the princely garden, in order to consume full as long a +time in satisfying its longing after nature. A sponsoress of the +sponsoress promised Christianity in the stead of Princess and child. +The Princess herself attached the Minister to her as a chamberlain. The +grand-god-father looked out into the prospect of a d—d long evening, +in which he should be obliged to parade round her procession-banner. +For the enjoyment of the evening there was a concert, and for the +enjoyment of the concert card playing had been arranged; and for the +enjoyment of the latter, the Princess had seated herself alone with +Froulay, in order, during the general playing of cards and instruments, +to have some inaudible conversation with him. Suddenly the two pounds +which were hung up in his breast—for no heart, according to the +anatomists, weighs more than that—became two hundred-weight heavier, +when she asked him whether he was steadfast and could confide in her +and dare for her. He swore that, if only as Princess, she might expect +of his two-pounder any and every sacrifice and mark of veneration. She +went on: she had some weighty things to intrust him with to-day about +herself and the Prince; she wished, when the <i>Foule</i> was gone, to speak +with him alone; he need only go up the little stairway from the side of +the garden to the door of the library-chamber; this was open; in the +poetical bookcase on the left side was a spring in the wall, the +pressure of which would open to him the tapestry door of the apartment, +where he was to await her.</p> + +<p class="normal">Immediately she rose, presuming upon an affirmative. How it fared now +with the two pounds of his sixty-four-ounce-heart can gratify none but +his deadly enemy to realize. So much lay written before him with long, +thick, stony letters, as on an epitaphium, namely, that after a few +hours, when the other lords, in other respects still greater sinners +than he, could snore away quietly in the pleasant ministerial houses +which formed the court of the Palace, that then for him, innocent +knave, the wolf-hour, that is to say, the shepherd's hour,<a name="div2Ref_42" href="#div2_42"><sup>[42]</sup></a> would so +soon strike, when he on the most flowery meadow must kneel beneath the +butcher's knife. But he—angry that his faith in female and princely +impudence should prove a soothsayer—made silently all kinds of oaths +to himself, that, even if as much were imposed upon him as on the +greatest saints and universal philosophers, he would nevertheless +behave like both, for instance, like old Zeno and Franz.</p> + +<p class="normal">The Princess sought him all the evening less than usual. At last he +took his respectful leave of the whole court, but with the prospect +of creeping, not, like them, under silk quilts, but under cold +bowers. He even marched—sure of himself—up the stairway, opened the +library-chamber, found the spring, touched it, and stepped through the +tapestry door into the princely—bedchamber. "It is certain, then," +said he, and cursed about him inwardly to his heart's content, lying +prostrate and crushed quite flat beneath the love-letter weight. In the +side chamber on the left hand he already heard her and a chambermaid, +who was undressing her. On the right the door of a second but lighted +chamber stood ajar. He stood long in doubt whether he should step into +that, or stay where he was under the light-screen of a dark corner. At +last he laid hold of the protection of night. During his suspense and +her disrobing, he had time to rehearse or read over his part; now he +came to an agreement with himself, in case of necessity,—and if he +should find himself pushed too hard—and all the more, as the place +would speak more against <i>her</i> than against <i>him</i>, inasmuch as every +one must needs ask, whether he could otherwise have possibly gained +admission,—in such a case of necessity, where only the choice between +a satire and a satyr was left him, he determined to transform himself +on the spot into a respectful—Faun.</p> + +<p class="normal">Directly the Princess strode in, but in the direction of the +illuminated chamber. "I have no further occasion for thee," she called +back to the chambermaid. "<i>Diable!</i>" screamed she, in the bedchamber, +spying out the tall Minister; "who stands there? Hanna, a light! +<i>Ciel!</i>" she continued, recognizing him, but continuing to speak +French, because Hanna understood nothing of that. "<i>Mais, Monsieur! Me +voila donc compromise! Quelle méprise! Vous vous etes trompé de +chambres! Pardonnéz, Monsieur, que je sauve les déhors de mon sexe et +de mon rang. Comment avez-vous-pu</i>—" She uttered all this, perhaps, +by way of blinding the German witness, with an angry accent. The +grand-godfather—who, after all previous gratifications, felt like a +cock, who has gulped down many live chafers, and is now threatened with +his life by their sticking in his distressed crop—kept not silence, +but replied in German, opening the tapestry door, meanwhile, that he +had, even as she commanded, laid the books out of the library in the +lighted chamber, and had been caught <i>in transitu</i>. He went immediately +through the tapestry; but she could hardly contain herself for terror, +had the physician called in the morning, and sent back her retinue. +Froulay—however much like the Spanish he found his romances, among +which, according to Fisher's assertion, the thieves' literature is the +best—at last did not know, himself, what to make of it.</p> + +<p class="normal">The chambermaid had to make profession with the vow of silence, which +she kept as strictly as she could, but not more so. Next morning very +few alighted before their own doors, most before the doors of others, +in order to land the news together with the injunction of the Princess +not to make the thing <i>éclatant</i>, because in that case the Prince would +hear of it.</p> + +<p class="normal">If ever the nobility of Pestitz was happy <i>en masse</i>, it was this very +morning. Nothing was wanting to universal joy but a chambermaid who +should have only understood as much French as a hunting-dog.</p> +<br> +<h3>92. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">Albano heard the report; the Minister had long appeared to him +contaminating, like a cold corpse of a soul; now he hated him still +more as a tormenting, blood-sucking dead man. For the Princess his +heart had hitherto stood security to him. She was to him a blue +day-sky, wherein to others only a hot sun blazes, wherein he, however, +through the mysterious depths of the soul and of friendship, had found +soft constellations beaming. But now since the rumor, which, like the +magicians in the presence of Moses, threw soot into her heaven, she +stood, to his eyes, shining under new lights. The hatred which he by +his very nature, i. e. from pride, had of all rumor, because it +controls and is not to be controlled, worked in him with fresh fire; he +resolved, even because Liana must be the daughter either of her +hereditary foe or of her lover, and the Princess <i>her</i> rival, to +venture freely on the strength of his heart and what it knew, and at +this very juncture to communicate openly to the Princess his prayer for +her mediation in favor of Liana's company upon the journey,—in other +words, of his heaven.</p> + +<p class="normal">On the morning after, the Prince came back,—the Princess immediately +had her carriage tackled,—toward evening she came with one carriage +more into town. The report ran through all card-tables that the Spanish +Countess Romeiro had arrived at the Palace. Reports are polypuses; +wounding and mutilating only multiplies them; only sticking them into +each other makes one out of two: the report of Linda's arrival +swallowed up the report of Froulay's disgraceful attempt.</p> + +<p class="normal">But Albano! Like the discovery of a new world, this turned his old one +topsy-turvy. Linda, that foreign tropical bird, came flying in advance +of his approaching father, who rose before him like a rich land out of +the distance,—the soil where he had found so many thorns and flowers +soon sank behind him, with all its treasures and days, below the +horizon. Only Liana could not vanish with it; that muse of his youth +must he lead with him into the land of youth. By those usual magic arts +of the heart had Linda's nearness awakened in him an insuperable +longing for Liana.</p> + +<p class="normal">He was now decided to remind the Princess of her earlier promise to +pour the life-balsam of a southern tour upon Liana's sick nerves, and +through her now, betimes, before the confusion of the last pressing +moments should prostrate anything, to put the Minister's lady in tune, +and gain her over, who, like all court people, would certainly hardly +resist a princely wish and a happy prospect.</p> + +<p class="normal">If, however, Liana, from any fault of her own or of others, stayed +behind, then was it his sworn determination, for no power, not even his +father's, to stir from the native land of his eternal bride; but to +root himself before her sick-cloister, until she either passed out +therefrom free and cheerful again into open life, or buried herself, +darkly veiled, in the gloomy nun-choir of the dead. O, to come back to +seek her in the romantic grounds of olden time, and to find her nowhere +but behind the speech-grating of the hereditary vault,—this was a +thought his heart could not endure!</p> + +<p class="normal">The Princess herself furnished him an opportunity of making his +request; she sent him an invitation to an astronomical party at the +observatory, through her faithful court-dame Haltermann: "I have to +write to you, verbally, merely the following," wrote she. "Come this +evening to the observatory; I and my good Haltermann are going +thither." This Haltermann, a Fraülein of few charms of spiritual +flag-feathers, but of many dogmas and premature wrinkles, had already +for years hung indissolubly upon the Princess, keeping everything +secret, and favoring all her "make-your-appearances" (<i>rendez-vous</i>) by +merely saying, "My princess is as pure as gold, and only few know her +as I do."</p> + +<p class="normal">Nothing could happen more propitious to Albano's wishes. He stood +earliest of all on the noble observatory, in the midst of the lovely +night. It was some days after the full moon; that shining world was as +yet hidden behind the earth, but the let-on jets of its rays shot up by +fits and starts. On all mountain-peaks glimmered even now a pale light, +as if the distant morning of super-terrestrial worlds were falling upon +them. Through the valleys the light-shunning, black, earthly beast, +Night, still stretched himself out, and reared himself up against the +mountains. The mountain-castle of Liana was invisible, and showed, like +a fixed star, only a light. Suddenly the autumnal purple upon all +summits around the castle was bedewed with silver by the moon, and a +shower of light came down on the white walls and along the white +avenues of the garden; at last, a strange, pale morning, glimmering +through all bowers, lay in the garden, as it were the tender gleaming +of a high, perfectly pure spirit, who only in the holy, silent night +trod the low earth, and then and there sought nothing but the pure, +still Liana.</p> + +<p class="normal">As Albano looked and dreamed and longed, the Princess came up, with her +Haltermann. The Professor almost broke himself in two with his salam +before them, and allowed the fixed suns no astrological influence upon +his erect posture. Albano and the Princess met each other again with an +increase of reciprocal warmth. But the first question of the Princess +was, whether he had seen the Spanish countess. Indifferently he said, +he had been invited by the Princesse since her arrival, but had not +gone. "<i>Ma belle sœur</i> admires her most," continued the Princess; +"but she deserves it somewhat. She is majestically built, taller than +I, and fair, especially her head, her eye, and her hair. She is, +however, more plastically than picturesquely beautiful, rather +resembling a Juno or Minerva than a Madonna. But she has her +peculiarities. She cannot endure any women, except such as are simple, +straightforward, and blindly good; hence her chamber-women live and die +for her. Men she holds to be poor creatures, and says she should +despise herself if she should ever become the wife or slave of a man; +but she seeks them for the sake of information. To the Prince she has +unnecessarily, though she was in the right as to the matter of fact, +said bitter things. He laughs at it, and says there is nothing she does +love, not even children and lap-dogs. You must see her. She reads much; +she lives only with the Princesse, and seems, if one may judge by her +dress, to count little upon any conquests, at least at our court."</p> + +<p class="normal">Albano said, many of these traits were truly grand, and broke short +off. During the conversation the Professor had diligently arranged and +screwed up everything, and was now ready to commence. He remarked upon +the bright, bland, summer-like night,—proceeded, after some +introductory observations, into the moon, in order to lead the six eyes +to the most considerable lunar spots,—foreshadowed, in a preliminary +way, several shadows overhead there,—introduced them to the Crater of +Bernoulli ("I make use of Scröter's nomenclature," said he),—the +highest mountain range Dörfel ("it consists, of course, of three +summits," said he),—the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel ("Hevel, however, +calls it Mount Horeb," said he),—then Mont Blanc, and the +ring-mountains in general; and concluded with the sly assurance, that +the observatory was, to be sure, still very deficient in instruments.</p> + +<p class="normal">The Haltermann longed indescribably after the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel +in the moon, and endeavored to get at the telescope. "It is only a spot +in the planet, my child!" said the Princess. "And is the Mont Blanc +overhead, then, nothing but a spot, too?" asked she, disappointed. The +Princess nodded, and looked into the telescope; the magic moon hung +like a piece of day-world close to the glass. "How its fair, pale light +and all its magic passes away when it is brought near! as when the +future becomes present!" said she, to the astonishment of the +Professor, who could never make anything out of the planet excepting +precisely when it <i>was</i> near. She interrogated him about Saturn's ring. +"There are properly two, your Highness; but the observatory just at +this time wants an instrument to see it," said he, and aimed again in +the direction of the former shot.</p> + +<p class="normal">Albano saw his life-gardens sparkling round about him with the warm +glimmer of an after-spring; and his inner being trembled sweetly and +sadly. He took a comet-seeker, and flew round among the stars, towards +Blumenbühl, into the city, up the mountains, only not to the white +castle with the illuminated corner-chamber and the little garden. His +whole heart turned backward for shame and love before the gate of +Paradise.</p> + +<p class="normal">At this moment, the Haltermann, at a hint to retire, led the way down +with the astronomer, in order to favor the Princess with a moment free +from witnesses. Albano stood before her, noble in the moonlight; his +eye was radiant; his features showed emotion. She grasped his hand, and +said, "We certainly do not misunderstand each other, Count?" He pressed +her hand, and his eyes gushed full. "No, Princess!" said he, softly. +"You give me your friendship. I do not deserve it, if I do not trust it +entirely. I give you now the proof of my open confidence. You know, +perhaps, the history of my fortunes and my loss; you know the +Minister." "Alas, alas!" said she; "even your hard history, noble man, +has become familiar to me."</p> + +<p class="normal">"No!" replied he, passionately; "I was more cruel than my fate. I +tormented an innocent heart; I made an obedient daughter miserable, +sick, and blind. But I have lost her," he continued, with rising +emotion, and turned sidewise, in order not to see the glimmering +heights of Liana's residence, "and bear it as I can, but without any +secret way to repossession. Only the victim cannot be permitted to +bleed to death over yonder, with her stern, narrow-hearted mother. O, +the honey-drops of the pleasures, they and Italy's heaven, might well +heal <i>her</i>. She dies if she stays, and I stay to look on. Friend, O how +great is the favor I ask!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Gladly shall it be granted you! Day after to-morrow I visit the mother +and daughter, and certainly will decide the latter for the journey, in +so far as it depends upon me. I do it, however,—to be frank,—merely +out of genuine friendship for you; for the girl does not please me +entirely with her mysticism, and certainly does not love as you do. She +does everything for people merely from love to God; and that I do not +like."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Ah, so thought I, too, once; but whom should the pious love, except +God?" said he, absorbed in himself and the night, and in too +hyberbolical a style for the taste of the Princess. His glimmering eye +hung fast on the white mountain-palace, and spring-times floated down +from the moon, and glided to and fro on the illuminated track of his +vision; and the beautiful youth wept and pressed ardently the hand of +the Princess, without being conscious of either. She respected his +heart, and disturbed it not.</p> + +<p class="normal">At last, they both came down the high stairway, where the astronomer +joyfully awaited them, and confessed to both how very much, to speak +freely, their attachment and devotion to astronomy not only gladdened, +but even animated and inspired him.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Day after to-morrow, certainly!" With these words, the Princess +departed, in order to grant the pensive, full-hearted youth consolation +and dreams.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<p class="center"><img src="images/shieldstart.png" alt="shieldstart"></p> +<h2><a name="div1Ref_22" href="#div1_22">TWENTY-SECOND JUBILEE.</a></h2> + +<h3><span class="sc2">Schoppe's Heart.—Dangerous Spiritual Acquaintances.</span></h3> +<br> +<h3>93. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">Albano was now again lashed to the Ixion's wheels of the clock. The +setting off of the Princess and her answer were to suddenly set up +lights in the dark, wide cavern in which he had so long travelled, +without knowing whether it harbored frightful formations and venomous +beasts, or whether it was vaulted, and filled with glistening +arches and subterranean pillared halls. Over Liana's condition two +hands—Augusti's and that of the Minister's lady—had hitherto held +fast the veil. Both were persons who never liked to answer the +question, How do you do? However, he now let his whole soul rest upon +the Princess, since the astronomical evening, in remembering which, he +could hardly comprehend how it was that he was able at that time to +speak to a female friend about his love as much and more than ever to a +friend of his own sex. But man does not love to speak of his feelings +before a man, and does love to before a woman. A woman, however, loves +best to do so before a woman. Meanwhile, the Princess held him in bonds +by the finest flattery which can be,—by decided and silent attention. +He was as sick and sated of verbal praise as he was partial and +tributary to that which came in a practical shape.</p> + +<p class="normal">Pending the arrival of the decision, a confused time elapsed; like a +man who travels in the night, he heard voices and saw lights; and it +needed morning to decide upon their hostile or friendly significance. +Rabette lay sick and bleeding away her faint heart; for not he had +drawn out of it the astringent dagger,—namely, Charles's love,—but +the latter had himself anticipated him with bitter-sweet tears over the +bitterest.</p> + +<p class="normal">Charles had met him once, with his hat drawn down over his brows, and +grimly-stinging look, without a greeting. Everywhere he heard that +Charles in vain besieged and blockaded Linda's and Julienne's double +gate. This and Liana's illness made the tropical savage like a grownup +wild boy of the woods. Even in the present state of separation,—on the +death-field of <i>friendship</i>,—Albano felt it as a wound to <i>humanity</i>, +that Charles did not take for granted—for to the contrary presumption +he imputed the street-grimness—that he would not seek to see the +Countess.</p> + +<p class="normal">Even in the Librarian, for several days, a mystery seemed to have been +lurking. He, however, since it had been growing lighter and lighter to +Alban in Schoppe's depths, and he had looked in behind his comic mask, +even to the honest eye and loving lips, became very near to his heart, +especially after so many partings; for even the Lector, according to +his custom never to court the love of any man, or, at least, faithless +friend, kept himself aloof from him,—a thing which afflicted the very +same youth, who inwardly approved it.</p> + +<p class="normal">For several days, I say, Schoppe had been transposed into an entirely +new tune, and become his own remainder and after-summer. It began with +his blowing away at a miserable haying song a whole half-day on the +bugle; the remaining half he sang it off vocally. Instead of reading +and writing, he went up and down in the city and in his chamber. All +that which he had formerly despatched with rapidity,—running, +swallowing of victuals, speaking, smoking, starting up,—all this went +now club-footed, and finally stood fast. His slow rousing up, and his +tender, gentle step, might have seemed ludicrous to those who were +acquainted with his former days. His large, noble wolf-dog, whom he had +ten times a day suffered to hug him round the neck with his fore-paws, +and whose breast, drawn up on the skin, he so fondly pressed to his +own, when he held with him a Lange's and consistorial colloquy, he now +neglected to such a degree that the dog became attentive, and did not +know what to think of it. How little could he once endure the yelp of a +cudgelled hound without sallying out of his house-door as protector and +patron, because he conceived one might well treat men like dogs, but +not dogs themselves so! Now he could hear their screaming, merely +because, as it seemed, he did not hear it.</p> + +<p class="normal">As he formerly often went to Albano merely to walk up and down, without +a loud word,—because he said, "By this I recognize my friend, that he +does not undertake to entertain me or himself, but will merely sit +there,"—so now he came still more mute, often touched tenderly, like a +playful child, the shoulder of Albano as he sat reading, and said, when +the latter looked behind him, "Nothing!" Meanwhile, Albano inquired not +about the change; for he knew he would surely unveil it to him in good +time. Their hearts stood over against each other like open mirrors.</p> + +<p class="normal">So lay the dark wood of life before Albano, with its paths running +through each other and deep into the thicket, as he stood upon the +cross-way of his future and waited for his genius, who, either as a +hostile or as a good one, was to bring him Liana's decision. At last +there came from the gloomy wood a genius, but it was the dark genius, +and gave him this note from the Princess:—</p> +<br> + +<p class="normal">"<span class="sc">Dear Count</span>: I am always true, and would rather be unsparing than +<i>un</i>true. The sick Mademoiselle v. F. is no longer in a condition to +make a tour or profit by it. I take a lively interest in the case. +However fondly I could wish to-day myself to speak consolation to you, +I hope, nevertheless, after this intelligence, not to have occasion to +do so.</p> + +<p class="right">"<span class="sc">Your Friend</span>."</p> +<br> + +<p class="normal">What a dark cloud-break out of the morning redness of youth! So then +the secret joy which he had hitherto nourished had been the forerunner +of the dreadful blow,<a name="div2Ref_43" href="#div2_43"><sup>[43]</sup></a> the soft murmuring before the +waterfall.<a name="div2Ref_44" href="#div2_44"><sup>[44]</sup></a> +That his very love was to be the blazing sword which pierced through +her life: O, he dwelt upon that so constantly; <i>that</i> pained him so! +But there was no moisture in his eye; the wormwood of conscience +embitters even sorrow.</p> + +<p class="normal">When man is no longer his own friend, then he goes to his brother, who +is a friend still, in order that <i>he</i> may softly speak to him and +restore his heart and soul; Albano went to his Schoppe.</p> + +<p class="normal">He found not him, but something else. Schoppe, namely, kept a diary +about "himself and the world," wherein his friend might read whatever +and whenever he wished; only he must pardon it, if he carried away with +him from the reading, since it was written throughout just as if no one +were to see it again,—angry slaps of the fan, and that, too, with the +hard end. "Why should I spare thee any more than myself?" said Schoppe. +To this <i>thou</i> they had come without being able to say when, chary as +they generally were of this official style of the heart, this holiest +dual of souls toward others; "for I thank God," said Schoppe, "that I +live in a language in which I can sometimes say you, yes even (if men +and monkeys are subjects for it) between every two commas, your +Well-born, as well as your High-born, or Otherwise-born."</p> + +<p class="normal">Albano found the diary open, and read with astonishment +this:—"<i>Amandus-day</i>. A stupid and extremely remarkable day for the +well-known Hesus or Hanus!<a name="div2Ref_45" href="#div2_45"><sup>[45]</sup></a> I can hardly persuade myself that the +poor Thunder-god deserved to walk along behind the tall Proserpine,<a name="div2Ref_46" href="#div2_46"><sup>[46]</sup></a> +and at last to peep into her face, her brow, her lips, her neck! O +God! If such a god had stayed now on the spot! As <i>Pastor fido</i> he +by good fortune rose up again and went on his way. O hell-goddess, +heaven-stormer of Hesus, thou hast made thyself his heaven! Can he ever +let thee go?</p> + +<p class="normal">"<i>Afternoon</i>. The <i>Pastor</i> becomes his own baiting-house, he knows not +how to stay; he lives now in all streets, in order to behold his +<i>Jeanne d'Arc-en-ciel</i>,<a name="div2Ref_47" href="#div2_47"><sup>[47]</sup></a> and suffers enough. But, Hesus, are not +sorrows the thorns, wherewith the buckle of love fastens? To-day +Friday<a name="div2Ref_48" href="#div2_48"><sup>[48]</sup></a> went with the Princess to the observatory. The wind is +south-east-east,<a name="div2Ref_49" href="#div2_49"><sup>[49]</sup></a>—read thirteen monthlies in one hour,—Spener sees +life transfigured and poetic in the shining magnifying-mirror God, as +well as another man.</p> + +<p class="normal">"<i>Sabina's day</i>. With the <i>Pastor</i> it grows worse, if I see right. He +is in the way to work himself over into a <i>billet-doux-presser</i>, to +powder himself by night in bed; and the knave already raises in the +heat, like milk which is kept warm, poetic cream. Only may Heaven never +grant him to fall into a rational discourse with his hell-goddess, face +to face, breath to breath, and the two souls be confounded together! +Verily, Flins<a name="div2Ref_50" href="#div2_50"><sup>[50]</sup></a> would snatch him away, Hesus would devour a +millennial kingdom at once; I fear he would become too wild with the +nectar, and too hard for me to control.</p> + +<p class="normal">"<i>Evening</i>. Is it not already so far gone with the <i>Pastor</i>, that he +has borrowed him an author out of the whining decade of the age (he is +ashamed to name him), and will fain let himself be affected by the +stupid stuff, while he muses upon the effect which the author had upon +him in his fourteenth year. Of course he stumbles at him, in his +present period of life, like a night-watchman by day; but still he +cries back his cry, and has a new affection on the subject of his old. +So does the declension of <i>cornu</i> in the grammar still smile upon me, +even to this hour, because I recollect how easily and glibly in the +golden moons of childhood I retained the whole of the <i>Singular</i>.</p> + +<p class="normal">"<i>Simon Jud</i>.<a name="div2Ref_51" href="#div2_51"><sup>[51]</sup></a> Curse on it! A fair face and a false Maxd'or make, in +the course of a year, a couple of hundred knaves, who differ from each +other only in this, that one wishes to keep and the other to get +rid of the article. Hesus frowns, and charges home upon a million +rivals already. Like button- and lace-makers, or like copper- and +brass-founders, two so nearly of a trade cannot let each other get +on.<a name="div2Ref_52" href="#div2_52"><sup>[52]</sup></a> Right! hell-goddess, that thou hatest all men! That is, to be +sure, something for the <i>Pastor</i>,—a wound-salve! Scioppius, the two +Scaligers, and the vigorous Schlegels, &c.—"</p> + +<p class="normal">Here the diary passes to other matters. An old portrait, for which +Schoppe had sat to himself, he had retouched. A notice to be inserted +in the "Pestitz Weekly Advertiser" announced the purpose of the +picture:—</p> +<br> + +<p class="normal">"The undersigned, a portrait-painter of the Flemish school, makes known +that he has taken up his residence in Pestitz, and that he is ready to +paint all of every station and sex that may sit to him. As a sample of +his execution may be seen at his studio a portrait of himself, which +represents him sneezing, and which may be compared with the original on +the spot. I also cut profiles.</p> + +<p style="margin-left:70%; text-indent:-10%">"<span class="sc">Peter Schoppe</span>,<br> + +"No. 1778."</p> +<br> + +<p class="normal">Probably that was to move the hell-goddess to sit for once to the +sneezing painter. Albano could not but be astonished in the midst of +deep pain. In the beginning, he had imagined, according to the +simplicity of his nature, that he himself was meant by Hanus.</p> + +<p class="normal">At this moment, Schoppe appeared. Albano spoke first, and said, softly, +"I, too, have read thy diary." The Librarian started back with an +exclamatory curse, and looked glowingly out of the window. "What is the +matter, Schoppe?" asked his friend. He whirled round, stared at him, +and said, twisting the skin of his face apart, like one who is cleaning +his teeth, and drawing up his upper lip, like a boy who bites into his +bread and butter, "I am in love," and ran up and down the chamber in a +flame, bewailing, at the same time, that he must live to experience +such a thing in himself in these his oldest days. "Read my diary no +more," he continued. "Ask not about the name, brother; no devil, no +angel, not the hell-goddess, shall know it. One day, perhaps, when I +and she lie in Abraham's bosom, and I on hers—thou art so troubled, +brother!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Fly gayly in the sun-atmosphere of love!" said his friend, in that +sadness of conscience which makes man simple, calm, and lowly; "I will +never ask nor disturb thee! Read that!" He gave him the note of the +Princess, and said to him also, while he read, "Cursed be every joy +where she has none! I stay here till it is decided whether she lives or +not." "I stay here too," rejoined Schoppe, with an involuntarily comic +expression. "Be serious!" said Albano. "Once I could," said he, +tearfully; "since day before yesterday no more!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Meanwhile, Albano approved Schoppe's separation from the travelling +company; both secured to each other, even in friendship, the most +precious freedom. Of tutors' attendance neither made account. Schoppe +often ridiculed tutors of much information and manners, when they +assumed he educated anything out of Albano or into him. He said: "The +age educated, not a ninny; millions of men, not one; properly, at most, +a pedagogical group of Pleiades sent their light after him,—namely, +the seven ages of man, every age into the next following. The +individual resembled very much the entire humanity, whose revolutions +and improvements were nothing more than retouchings of a Schickaneder's +magic flute by a Vulpius. Meanwhile, however, there hovered around the +silly, discordant piece a melody of Mozart, in respect to which one +outstrips father and language-master."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Wherefore do we sinners creep and buzz about here? Let us to Ratto's!" +said Schoppe. With extreme reluctance, Albano agreed to it; he said the +cellar had in it for him something uncomfortable, and a sultry +foreboding oppressed his bosom. Schoppe referred the presentiment to +the pressure of the rafters of his ruined pleasure-castle, which still +lay upon his breast, and the remembrance of that Roquairol, now flying +in the abyss, who had once drunk his health in the cellar, and +afterwards confessed to him in Lilar. Albano followed at last, but +reminded him of the fulfilment of another presentiment, which he had +had on the hill above Arcadia.</p> + +<p class="normal">"We neither of us play the best personages in love; meanwhile let us go +into the cellar," said Schoppe, on the way, and, with a quite unwonted +hardness, stretched his favorite upon the rack of his drollery. Once, +when he was not himself in love, he was so capable of a tender, +indulgent, serious silence on that subject; but now no more.</p> +<br> +<h3>94. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">In the cellar there was the old running in and out of strange and +familiar faces. Albano and Schoppe climbed together those pure heights +of the mountains of the Muses, where, as on natural ones, the +atmosphere of life rests lighter, and the ether draws nearer to the +shortening column of air. Men comfort each other more easily on their +Ararat than women in their vales of Tempe. After Schoppe, made more +fiery by the tempestuous atmosphere of punch and love, had for a +considerable time played off the lightning-spark of his humor in +zigzag, and with a calcining effect, through the world-edifice, +suddenly an unknown person, like a death's-head, perfectly bald and +even without eyebrows, but with a rosy hue on his withered cheeks, +stepped up to their table and said, with iron mien, to Schoppe: +"Within fifteen months this day you will have become crazy, my merry +cock-sparrow!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"O ho!" Schoppe broke out, inwardly shrinking up the while. Albano grew +pale. Schoppe collected himself again, stared sharply and courageously +at the repulsive shape, which rolled its withered but rosy skin to and +fro upon sharp, high cheek-bones, and said: "If you understand me, +prophetic gallows-bird and cock-sparrow, and are not yourself +crack-brained, then am I in a condition to prove that one can make +very little of a case out of such a thing as madness." Hereupon he +showed—but as one cooled-down, burnt-out, and deserted by his host of +images—that madness, like epilepsy, gave more pain to the spectator +than the performer; for it was only an earlier death, a longer dream, a +day-walking instead of night-walking; for the most part, it gave what +the whole of life and virtue and wisdom could not,—an <i>enduring</i> +agreeable idea.<a name="div2Ref_53" href="#div2_53"><sup>[53]</sup></a> Even if, which was rare, it chained a man to a +tormenting one, still this became, nevertheless, a panoply against all +bodily sufferings. He had, therefore, for himself, never feared madness +any more than dreaming, but could not bear to hear others speak, or +even to see them, in either of these states. "We shudder," said Albano, +"at a man who talks to us in his sleep as to an absent person, or who, +when awake, talks only to himself alone; and whenever I hear myself +soliloquize, it is just the same."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I am no philosopher," said the Baldhead, indifferently, whose perfect, +shining baldness was more frightful than hateful. Schoppe asked +angrily, "Who he was, then, <i>quis</i> and <i>quid</i> and <i>quibus auxiliis</i>, +and <i>cur</i> and <i>quomodo</i> and <i>quando</i>."<a name="div2Ref_54" href="#div2_54"><sup>[54]</sup></a> "<i>Quando?</i>—After +fifteen +months I come again. <i>Quis?</i>—Nothing; God uses me only when he has to +make some one unhappy," said the bald one, and begged a glass and the +liberty of drinking with them. Albano, freely granting it, said, in an +inquiring tone, he had probably just arrived? "Just from the great +Bernhard," said the bald one, growing more repulsive with every word, +because his old rosy face was a zigzag of convulsive distortions, so +that at every moment a different man seemed to be standing there. He +went out a moment. Schoppe, quite beside himself, said: "I grow more +and more exasperated with him, as with a hideous, hovering fever-image. +For God's sake, let us go. I have a feeling behind me all the time, as +if a wicked fist were thrusting me upon him, that I should strangle +him. He grows, too, more and more familiar to me, like an old +moss-grown deadly foe."</p> + +<p class="normal">Albano answered softly: "See, my presentiment! But now that I have not +hearkened to it, I must even see where it will come out." His +courageous nature, his romantic history and position, would not let him +draw back from a prospect so full of adventure.</p> + +<p class="normal">"But why," inquired Schoppe of the bald one, when he came back, "do you +cut so many faces, which do not present you exactly in the most +favorable light?" "They come," said he, "from poison which was given me +ten years ago. Have you observed how <i>aqua toffana</i>, taken in +quantities, distorts? In Naples, I forced it down the throat of a +beautiful girl of sixteen, who had for some years dealt in it, and +caused her to die before my eyes. I fancy there is nothing more godless +than poison-mixing." "Abominable!" cried Albano, seized with the +deepest repugnance for the man; as to Schoppe, <i>his</i> fury had actually +relieved him.</p> + +<p class="normal">At this moment a poor, meagre joiner's wife came in for liquor, who +kept her eyes cast down and half closed with shame and weakness; she +ventured not to look up, because the whole town knew that she was +forcibly driven out of her bed at night into the street to see a +funeral procession, which some days after was really to move through +it, already in prelude and prefiguration pass before her. Hardly had +the bald one beheld her, when he covered his face. "There is only a +single innocent one among us," said he, all pale and uneasy; "this +youth here," pointing to Albano. Just then a carriage with six horses +thundered by overhead. Schoppe jumped up, twice in succession put the +question to Albano, who was lost in thought: "Wilt thou go with me?" +turned angrily away at the word No, stepped close up to the bald one, +and said furiously: "Dog!" and turning on his heel went out. On the +pale, bloodless skin of the Baldhead no expression stirred, only his +hand twitched a little, as if there were near it a stiletto to lay hold +of, but he sent after him that look at which the maiden in Naples died.</p> + +<p class="normal">Albano was enraged at the look, and said: "Sir, this man is a +thoroughly honest, true, vigorous nature; but you have exasperated him +even against himself, and must acquit him of blame." With soft, +flattering voice he replied: "My acquaintance with him dates not from +to-day, and he knows me, too." Albano asked whether, when he spoke of +the great Bernhard some time since, he meant the Swiss mountain of that +name. "Certainly!" replied he. "I travel thither yearly to spend a +night with my sister." "So far as I know, there are only monks +there," said Albano. "She stands among the frozen ones in the +cloister-chapel,"<a name="div2Ref_55" href="#div2_55"><sup>[55]</sup></a> he replied. "I stay all night before her, and +look upon her, and sing Horæ."</p> + +<p class="normal">Albano, while listening, felt himself singularly changed, which he +could ascribe only to the punch,—it was less intoxication than glow; a +flying blaze roared over his inner world, and the red lustre hovered +about on its farthest borders; now did it seem to him as if he stood +entirely on the same ground with the Baldhead, and could wrestle with +this evil genius. "I had a sister, too," said Albano; "can one call up +the dead?" "No, but the dying," said the Baldhead. "Ugh!" said Albano, +shuddering. "Whom would you see?" asked the Baldhead. "A living sister, +whom I never have seen yet," said Albano, in a glow. "It requires," +said the Baldhead, "a little sleep, and your knowing also where your +sister was on her last birthday." Luckily Julienne, whom he took for +his sister, had, on <i>hers</i>, been at the Palace in Lilar. He told him +so. "Then come with me!" said the Baldhead.</p> + +<p class="normal">At this moment Schoppe's servant brought Albano a sword-cane and the +following note:—</p> +<br> + +<p class="normal">"Brother, brother, trust him not. Here is a weapon, for thou art quite +too foolhardy. Run him right through, if he does so much as make faces. +All sorts of unknown people have this evening asked after thee and thy +whereabouts. It is to me as if no life at all were safe to me from the +beast,—thine or hers. Be on thy guard, and come!</p> +<p class="right"><span class="sc">Schoppe</span>.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Run him through, however, I pray thee."</p> +<br> + +<p class="normal">"Are you afraid, perhaps?" asked the Baldhead. "That will appear," said +Albano, angrily, and, taking the sword-cane, went with him. As the two +passed through the little, dark anteroom of the cellar, Albano saw in a +mirror his own head set in a fiery ring. They passed out of the city +into the open country. The bald one went ahead. The sky was bright with +stars. It seemed to the Count as if he heard the subterranean waters +and fires of the globe and the creation. Hardly did he recognize out +there the way to Blumenbühl. Suddenly the bald one ran into a field on +the left. The lean joiner's wife stood on the Blumenbühl road quite +stiff, and saw abstractedly a corpse move along invisible, and heard +the far-off bell, which is borne by the mute Death. So it seemed.</p> + +<p class="normal">Then did Albano follow the Baldhead more daringly: the fear of spirits +kills the fear of man. Both moved along in silence beside each other. +In the depth of the distance, it seemed as if a man floated, without +walking or stirring, slowly and steadily onward through the air. The +white skin on the bald one twitched incessantly, and one invisible fist +after another thrust itself forth from the clay of his face, as in the +act of striking. Once there flitted over it the look of the Father of +Death.<a name="div2Ref_56" href="#div2_56"><sup>[56]</sup></a></p> + +<p class="normal">Suddenly Albano heard around him the smothered murmur and confused talk +of a throng. There was nothing on either side. "Do you hear nothing?" +he asked. "All is still," said the Baldhead. But the swarm kept on +murmuring and whispering eagerly and hotly, as if it could not be ready +and agreed. The bold youth shuddered. The gates of the shadowy kingdom +stood far open into the earth; dreams and shadows swarmed in and out, +and flew near to bright life.</p> + +<p class="normal">The two stepped up to the thicket before Lilar. There came a boy out of +the wood with an enormously big head, helping himself along on two +crutches, and holding a rose, which he offered, with a nod, to the +youth. Albano took it, but the little fellow nodded incessantly, as if +he would say he should like to have him smell of it. Albano did so; and +suddenly the sinking of the stage of life, a bottomless slumber, drew +him down into the dark, unfathomable depths.</p> + +<p class="normal">When he awoke heavily, he was alone and unarmed, in an old dusty Gothic +chamber. A faint little light scattered only shadows around. He looked +through the window; it seemed to be Lilar, but on the whole landscape +snow had fallen, and the heavens were white with cloud, and yet the +stars singularly pierced through. "What is this? Am I standing in the +mask-dance of dreams?" he asked himself.</p> + +<p class="normal">Then an arras went up; a covered female form, with innumerable veils on +the face, stepped in, stood a moment, and flew to his heart. "Who is +it?" he asked. She pressed him to her bosom more passionately, and wept +clear through the veil. "Knowest thou me?" he asked. She nodded. "Art +thou my unknown sister?" he asked. She nodded, and with a sister's +close embrace, with hot tears of love, with rapturous kisses, held him +fast to herself. "Say, where livest thou?" She shook her head. "Art +thou dead or a dream?" She shook her head. "Is thy name Julienne?" She +shook her head. "Give me a sign of thy truth!" She showed him half of a +gold ring on a table that stood near. "Show thy face, that I may +believe thee!" She drew him away from the window. "Sister, by Heaven, +if thou liest not, then raise thy veil!" She pointed with her long, +outstretched, enveloped arm to something behind him. He kept on +intreating. She motioned vehemently toward a certain place, and +repelled him from herself. At length he obeyed, and turned sidewards; +then he saw in a mirror how she suddenly threw up the veils, and how, +beneath them, the superannuated form appeared whose image, with the +signature, his father had given him on Isola Bella. But when he turned +round again, he felt on his face a warm hand and a cold flower; and a +second slumber drew downward his conscious being.</p> + +<p class="normal">When he awoke, he was alone, but with his weapon, and on the wooded +spot where he had first sunk to sleep. The sky was blue, and the light +constellations glimmered; the earth was green, and the snow gone; the +half-ring he no longer held in his hand; around him was no sound, and +no human being. Had all been but the fleeting cloud-procession of +dreams, the brief whirl and shaping that goes on in their magic smoke?</p> + +<p class="normal">But life and truth had burned so livingly into his breast, and the +tears of a sister still lay on his eye. "Or might they be only my +brotherly tears!" said his perplexed spirit, as he rose, and in the +bright night went homeward. All was as still as if life were yet +sleeping on; he heard himself, and feared to waken it; he looked upon +his own body as he walked along. Yes, thought he, this thick bed in +which we are wrapped plays off before us even the woes and joys of +life. Just as, in our sleep, we seem to stifle under falling mountains +when the coverlet settles over our lips, or to stride over sticky, +melted metal when it oppresses the feet with too great a thickness of +feathers, or to freeze, like naked beggars, when it is shoved off, and +exposes us to the night-chill, so does this earth, this body, throw +into the seventy years' sleep of the immortal lights and sounds and +chills, and he shapes to himself therefrom the magnified history of his +joys and sorrows; and, when he once awakes, only a little of it proves +true!</p> + +<p class="normal">"Heavens! why comest thou so late, and so pale?" asked Schoppe, who had +been a long time in Albano's chamber, waiting for him. "O, ask me not +to-day!" said Albano.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<p class="center"><img src="images/barstart.png" alt="barstart"></p> +<br> +<h2><a name="div1Ref_23" href="#div1_23">TWENTY-THIRD JUBILEE.</a></h2> + +<h3><span class="sc2">Liana.</span></h3> +<br> +<h3>95. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">Ever did Schoppe let fly at himself more curses than on the morrow, +during Albano's recital, and on this account, to be sure, that he had +not stayed so as to arrest the Baldhead, the fly-wheel of so many +ghostly movements, in the midst of the revolutions, by dashing right at +the spokes. He earnestly besought the Count, at the next appearance, at +least,—especially in Italy,—to tear off, without mercy, the +Baldhead's mask, though life hung upon it. The youth had been moved too +intensely by the events of the night. He therefore spoke of them +reluctantly, and without dwelling upon them. As in him all sensations +stirred more intensely and overpoweringly than in Roquairol, he had +not, like him, pleasure in portraying them, but shrank from it. He +looked up the little old likeness of his sister which his father had +given him on the island. What a striking reflection of the nightly +image in the mirror! This moss of age on a sister must have been +artificially produced there, merely for the purpose of hiding the +resemblance. The presumption of its being Julienne he gave up again, +after the denial of the veiled one, and from the improbability of such +a nocturnal performance, and postponed measuring the altitudes of all +these incomprehensible airy apparitions till he should have the aid of +his daily expected father.</p> + +<p class="normal">Ah, over all his thoughts swept incessantly in vulture-circles a +distant, dark form, the destroying angel, that would fain stoop +greedily upon the helpless Liana! The staring stiffness of the +corpse-seeress on the Blumenbühl road—especially since the sad billet +of the Princess—now in the dark intersecting thicket paths, into which +his life's course had entangled itself, danced on before him as a +juggling phantom of terror.</p> + +<p class="normal">A new and single resolve stood now in his soul like a rigid arm fast by +the way-side, pointing ever in one direction, up the Blumenbühl road. +"Thou must go to her," said the resolve; "she must not die in the +delusive belief of thy anger and thy old severity; thou must see her +again, to ask her pardon, and then shalt thou weep till her grave opens +and takes her away." "O, how I then," he said to himself, "before the +dying-throne of this angel, shall bruise with contrition my hard, +haughty, wild heart, and take back everything, everything whereby I +blinded and wounded the tender soul in Lilar, that she may not despise +too much the short days of her love, and that her heart may at least +part from me with one little farewell pleasure! And that, O God, grant +us!"</p> + +<p class="normal">In vain did Schoppe propose thereupon, that he should seek with him the +business-office of the night-wonders, which so probably must be found +in the Gothic-temple; this very day he would force his way into the +presence of his pale loved one. Schoppe continued to insist vehemently +on the visit to Lilar, and at last demanded it, and commanded +compliance; but now it was a lost case, and Albano's refusal was +panoplied. "Plague take it! why let myself, then, be boiled in these +tear-pots?" said Schoppe, and marched out.</p> + +<p class="normal">But after a short time he came back with a billet from—Gaspard, +wherein the latter demanded for to-day relay-horses from the +post-house, and with a proposition from himself that they should go to +meet his father. How refreshingly did the nearness of his father +breathe over Albano's sultry waste! Nevertheless, he said No the second +time; his long willing and warring and every hour's lapse veiled Liana +more and more darkly from him in her cloud, and he thought anxiously of +his dream about her on Isola Bella;<a name="div2Ref_57" href="#div2_57"><sup>[57]</sup></a> and finally he had his +suspicions aroused by Schoppe's holding him back so significantly.</p> + +<p class="normal">And herein he erred not. Schoppe acted upon quite other grounds than +Albano had yet learned. The Lector, namely, who with wise old honesty +kept a distant watch, through Schoppe's agency, over the rebellious +youth, whom, however, he took every occasion to praise, had pointed out +to his proxy the up-towering, leaden-heavy cloud-pile which was moving +onward and lowering over the head of the youth; namely, Liana's +impending death.</p> + +<p class="normal">At first, for some time the quarrel with her parents, that poetic +hardening, as it were, of Liana's nerves, had been to them wine of +iron, but afterward they melted in the soft water of renunciation, +autumnal rest and devotion. There is a bland calm which loosens men as +well as ships; a warmth in which the wax-figure of the spirit melts +down. Every day, too, came the pious father and spread her wings, +loosed her from earthly hopes and earthly anxieties, and led her up +into the glory of the throne of God. The fair spring-breezes of her +ended love she let breathe again, but in a higher region; they were now +thin, mild, ethereal zephyrs, breaths of flowers. She knew now, at +once, that she was dying and loved God. She stood already like a sun, +tranquil and far away in her heaven, but like a sun she seemed to +move obediently around the little day of her mother, and shed on her a +soft warmth. Her tears flowed out as sweetly as sighs, as evening dew +out of evening redness. As one sinks, blissfully cradled, in joyous +dreams, so she floated, long borne up, drawn slowly onward, with +buoyant fleshly-garment, on the flood of death.</p> + +<p class="normal">Only a single earthly obstacle had hitherto broken the gentle +fall,—the ardent expectation of the coming of the Romeiro, whom she so +dearly loved as the friend of her friend Julienne. At last she made her +appearance, and took too powerful a hold of Liana's fancy; for it was +just the wings of fantasy which, in this tender, constant swan,<a name="div2Ref_58" href="#div2_58"><sup>[58]</sup></a> +were too strong. How did the sick one humble herself at the feet of +this shining goddess! How unworthy did she find herself of her former +love for Albano! So little had Spener, humble only before God, been +able to prevent her taking up with her two jewels out of her former +life into her present glorified state, her old lowliness before men and +her old anxiety for those she loved.</p> + +<p class="normal">Julienne sought again and again to dissuade her; but one evening—when +she learned that Albano was to be taken to Italy—she twined herself +around Linda's heart, and told her, with her wonted over-fulness of +feeling, only Albano deserved her. Linda answered with astonishment; +she could not comprehend a self-annihilating love; in <i>her</i> case she +should die. "And am not I, then, dying?" said Liana.</p> + +<p class="normal">Julienne, thereupon, immediately begged Liana to spare the +embarrassment of the noble Countess on this subject. Liana, without +being offended, remained silent; but the new desire now possessed her +to see once more her lost Albano, and show him her former fidelity and +his error, and with dying heart to make over to him a new and great +one. She was very frank in uttering all the last wishes of her holy +soul. Her mother and Augusti held her from her purpose as long as they +could, that she might not take so dark, poisonous a flower as the +pleasure of such a meeting must be to her sick heart. But she entreated +her mother: How could it harm her this year, as it was not till the +next—according to Caroline's prediction—she was to go hence? +Meanwhile they sought to put farther and farther off from her the last +purpose, in the hope that Gaspard would carry away the Count, and with +the intention, only in the extreme case of having to give up all hopes, +of gratifying for her this fatal wish.</p> + +<p class="normal">Then she turned with her request to her brother; but he, partly from +mortified vanity and partly from love for his sister, depicted Albano +on the colder side, said he was going off to a gay country, would +easily cease to regret her, &c. How did it almost provoke the gentle +soul, because, with a woman's sharpsightedness, she detected in this an +approaching breach of love towards Albano and Rabette, and a return of +partiality for Linda, who was to be left behind! She had already for +some time been curious about Rabette's being so long invisible. For the +poor soul had not, since her fall, since the burial of her innocence, +been in a state to be prevailed upon, by prayers or commands, to appear +with her downcast, sinful eye before the friend of eternal purity; and +now it was absolutely impossible for her, since Linda's arrival and +visits had crushed even the lightest, lingering gossamer-web of her +flying summer, and her throat, full of anguish, was stifled and choked +with the closeness of the funeral-veil. "Brother, brother," said Liana, +with inspiration, "think what our poor parents get from us children! I +fulfil no hope of theirs; every hope rests on thee! Ah, how angry will +our father be!" she added, with her old dread and love. Her brother +held it right to keep from her the truth (about Rabette's degradation +and concealment), which would this time wear the form of an armed fate, +and so he put in the place of the truth his brotherly love. Hence he +had hitherto denied himself the only opportunity of speaking with the +Countess—by Liana's sick chair. "Thou must die," he once said to her +in enthusiasm; "it is well that thy web is so delicate, that the +cross-play of so many talons may rend it asunder. What mightest thou +not have suffered, even to thy seventieth year, from the world and men!" +He, too, believed—from his own experience—that there are more sorrows +of women than of men, just as, in heaven, there are more eclipses of the +moon than of the sun.</p> + +<p class="normal">So things stood till the night when Albano saw the Baldhead, the +playing of the eclipses, and his veiled sister. That night one string +after another snapped in Liana's life; a rapid change came over her; +and early the next morning she had already received the last sacrament +from her Spener's hands. The Lector got this sad intelligence from the +Minister's lady at nine of the morning. Hence it was that he sought so +eagerly through Schoppe to hold back the youth from the sight of a +dying bride.</p> + +<p class="normal">Subsequently came Gaspard's billet, which put it into the heads of +both to try to induce him to go meet his father, and—by a message to +him—to persuade the latter, at least for some days, to turn back with +Albano from the approaching earthquake, that the ground might sink +before the son should tread upon it.</p> + +<p class="normal">But this, too, as has been already related, missed the mark. Albano +acquainted Schoppe directly with his suspicion of some unpleasant +event. The latter was just on the point of giving an answer, when he +was spared the necessity by a panting messenger from Blumenbühl, who +handed Albano the following note from Spener:—</p> +<br> + +<p class="center">"P. P.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Your highborn grace must with all speed be informed that the mortally +sick Fraülein von Froulay desires most earnestly this very day to speak +with your highness <i>in person</i>; and you have so much the more need to +haste, as, according to her own representation, she can hardly with the +least probability be expected, especially as patients of this <i>genre</i> +can always foresee their death accurately, to survive the present +evening, but must pass out of this mortality into the eternal glory. In +my own person, I need hardly admonish your grace as a Christian, that a +soft, still, pious, and devout demeanor would be far more suitable and +seemly than cruel worldly sorrow beside the dying-bed of this glorious +bride of Christ, in regard to whose death every heart will wish, 'Lord, +be my death like that of this just one!' With this suggestion, I +remain, with distinguished respect,</p> + +<p style="margin-left:15%; text-indent:-5%">"Your highborn grace's submissive<br> + +"<span class="sc">Joachim Spener</span>, <i>Court Chaplain</i>.</p> + +<p class="normal">"P. S. If your highness does not come directly with the messenger, I +beg earnestly the favor of a few lines in reply."</p> +<br> + +<p class="normal">Albano said not a word, gave the note to his friend, pressed his hand +gently, took his hat, and went slowly and with dry eyes out into the +road that led up to the mountain-castle.</p> +<br> +<h3>96. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">He hurried along with a shudder round by the spot where the +corpse-seeress had stood the previous night, in order to behold her +dreams, transformed into dark-clad human beings, wind slowly down from +the mountain-road. It was a still, warm, blue after-summer afternoon. +The evening red of the year, the ruddy-glowing foliage, stole from +mountain to mountain; on dead pastures the poisonous saffron-flowers +stood together untouched; on the overspun stubble spiders were still +working away at the flying summer, and setting up a few threads as the +ropes and sails wherewith it was to hasten its flight. The wide circle +of air and earth was still, the whole heaven cloudless, and the soul of +man heavily overcast.</p> + +<p class="normal">Albano's heart rested upon the season as a head rests upon the +executioner's block. Naught did he see in the wide blue of heaven but +Liana soaring therein; nothing, nothing on the earth, but her +prostrate, empty form.</p> + +<p class="normal">He felt a sharp pang when suddenly, on the heights of Blumenbühl, the +white mountain-palace flashed upon his sight. He ran down wildly along +by the abhorred, the transformed, and deformed Blumenbühl, and hurried +away up into the deep hollow pass which leads to the mountain-castle. +But where this splits into two ascending defiles, the young man, with +the veil of sorrow over his eyes, took by mistake the left, and hurried +on between its walls more and more eagerly, till, after the long chase, +he came out on the heights, and beheld the gleaming palace of sorrow +behind him. Then did it seem to him as if the landscape stretching far +away below him heaved to and fro confusedly, like a stormy sea, with +billowing fields and swimming mountains; and the heavens looked down +still and serene on the commotion. Only down below on the western +horizon slept a long, dark cloud.</p> + +<p class="normal">He stormed down again, and in a few minutes arrived at the little +flower-garden of the house of mourning. As he strode impetuously +through it, he saw, up at the castle-windows, the backs of several +people. If they should turn round, said he, the word would immediately +go round, There comes the murderer! At this moment, the Minister's lady +came to a window, but quickly turned round when she saw him. Heavily he +went up the stairs; the Lector came feelingly to meet him, and said to +him, "Composure for yourself and forbearance for others! You have no +witness of your interview, but your own conscience," and opened to the +speechless youth the silent chamber of sickness.</p> + +<p class="normal">Burdened and bowed down with grief, he softly entered. In an easy-chair +reclined a white-clad figure, with white, sunken cheeks, and hands laid +in one another, leaning her head, which was encircled with a variegated +wreath of wild-flowers, on the arm of the chair. It was his former +Liana. "Welcome to me, Albano!" said she, with feeble voice, but with +the old smile, like sunrise, and stretched out to receive him her hand +which she raised with difficulty; her heavy head she could not raise at +all. He drew near, sank on his knee and held the precious hand, and his +lip quivered and was dumb. "Thou art right welcome to me, my good +Albano!" she repeated, still more tenderly, with the impression that he +had not probably heard it the first time; and the well-known voice +coming back to him started all the tears of his heart into one gushing +rain. "Thou, too, Liana!" he stammered, still more softly. Wearily she +let her head fall over on the other arm of the chair, which was nearer +to her; then did her life-tired blue eyes look right closely upon his +wet and fiery ones; how did each find the other's countenance paled and +ennobled by one and the same long sorrow! Red-cheeked and in full +bloom, and with a load of sorrows, had Liana entered the strange, cold +death-realm of sore probation for the higher world, and without color +and without sorrows had she come back again, and with heavenly beauty +on the face from which earthly bloom had faded. Albano stood before +her, pale and noble also, but he brought back on his young, sick, +sunken countenance the pangs and the conflicts, and in his eye the glow +of life.</p> + +<p class="normal">"O God, thou hast changed, Albano," she began, after a long gaze. "Thou +lookest quite hollow: art thou so sick, love?" she asked, with that old +anxiety of affection which neither the pious father nor the last +genius, who makes man cold towards life and love, ere he withdraws +them, had been able to take from her heart. "O, would to God!—No, I am +not," said he, and stifled, out of forbearance, the internal storm; for +he would so gladly have poured out his woe, his love, his death-wish +before her in one mortal cry, as a nightingale sings herself to death +and falls headlong from the branch.</p> + +<p class="normal">Her chilled eye long rested, warming itself, upon his face, full of +inexpressible love, and at last she said with a heavy smile, "So, then, +thou lovest me again, Albano! Thou wast even in Lilar wholly in error. +After a long time my Albano will begin to learn why I separated from +him,—only for his good. On this, this my dying-day, I tell thee that +my heart has been ever true to thee. Believe me! My heart is with God, +my words are true. See, this is why I begged thee to come to me +to-day,—for thou shalt mildly, without remorse, without reproach, in +thy long-coming life, look over upon thy first youthful love. To-day +thou wilt not take it ill of thy little Linda<a name="div2Ref_59" href="#div2_59"><sup>[59]</sup></a> that she speaks of +dying,—seest thou haply that I was then in the right? Bring me the +leaf yonder!"</p> + +<p class="normal">He obeyed; it was a sketch which she had made with trembling hand to +represent Linda's noble head. Albano did not look upon the leaf. "Take +it to thyself," said she; he did so. "How kind and compliant thou art!" +said she. "Thou deservest her,—I name her not to thee,—as the reward +of thy fidelity towards me. She is more worthy of thee than I; she is +blooming, like thyself, not sick, like me; but never do her wrong; it +is my last wish that thou shouldst love her. Wilt thou distress me, +determined spirit, by a vehement No?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Heavenly soul!" he cried, and looked upon her beseechingly, and +presented her the stifled No as an offering to the dead. "I answer thee +not. Ah, forgive, forgive that earlier time!" For now he saw for the +first time, how meekly, gently, and yet fervently, the still, tender +soul had loved him, who even yet, in the dissolution of the body, spoke +and loved as in the beautiful days of Lilar, just as the melting bell +in the burning steeple still continues, from the midst of the flames, +to sound out the hours.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Now, then, farewell, beloved!" she said, calmly, and without a tear, +and her feeble hand offered to press his; "a happy journey into the +beautiful land! Accept eternal thanks for thy love and truth, for the +thousand joyous hours which I will, up yonder, at length deserve;<a name="div2Ref_60" href="#div2_60"><sup>[60]</sup></a> +for Lilar's fair flowers.... The children of my Chariton have put them +on me.<a name="div2Ref_61" href="#div2_61"><sup>[61]</sup></a> ... <i>Je ne suis qu'un songe</i>.<a name="div2Ref_62" href="#div2_62"><sup>[62]</sup></a> What was I going to say to +thee, Albano? My farewell! Forsake not my brother! O how thou weepest! +I will still pray for thee!"</p> + +<p class="normal">The dying have dry eyes. The tempestuous weather of life ends with cold +air. They know not how their babbling tongue cuts into widely rent +hearts. This most gentle soul knew not how she thrust sword upon sword +through Albano, who now felt that to the saint whom already the +spring-gales, the spring-fragrances of the eternal shore were floating +to meet and welcome, he could be nothing more, give nothing more, nor +even so much as take from her her humility.</p> + +<p class="normal">When she had said it, her head, with the crown of flowers, raised +itself upright; inspired, she drew her hand out of his, and prayed +aloud with fervor: "Hear my prayer, O God! and let him be happy till he +enters into thy glory. And should he err and waver, then spare him, O +God, and let me appear to him and exhort him. But to thee alone, O +all-gracious one, be praise and thanks uttered for my pleasant, +peaceful life on the earth; thou wilt, after I have rested, bestow +on me up yonder the fair morning in which I may work.... Wake me +early from the sleep of death.... Wake me, wake!... Mother, the +morning-red<a name="div2Ref_63" href="#div2_63"><sup>[63]</sup></a> lies already upon the trees."</p> + +<p class="normal">At this moment, her mother, with other persons, rushed into the +chamber. Her vision, bewildered with the drowsiness of death and the +wandering of her speech, announced that the cold sleep with open eyes +was now at hand. "Appear to me, thou art indeed with God!" cried +Albano, distracted. In vain would Augusti have led him away; without +answering, without stirring, he stood fast-rooted there. Liana grew +paler and paler; death arrayed her in the white bridal garment of +Heaven; then his eye ceased its weeping, grief froze, and the broad, +heavy ice of anguish filled his breast.</p> + +<p class="normal">Liana's eye was fixed steadily on a light spot of the softly veiled +evening heavens, as if seeking and waiting for the heavens to lift and +show the sun. Indifferent to all present, her brother stormed in with +his lamentation: "Go not to God, or I shall see thee no more! Look on +me, bless, sanctify me, give me thy peace, sister!" She was silently +lost in the lightening and breaking sun-cloud. "She takes thee for me," +said Albano to Charles, on account of the similarity of their voices, +"and gives thee not her peace." "Steal not my voice!" said Charles, +angrily. "O, leave her in peace," said the mother, out of whose +downcast eyes only a few light tears fell trembling on the garland of +the daughter, whose faint head, upturned toward heaven, she held, +leaning against herself, with both hands.</p> + +<p class="normal">All at once, when the sun opened the clouds like eyelids, and looked +serenely from beneath, the still form quivered. The dying see double; +she saw two sun-balls, and cried, clinging to her mother, "Ah, mother, +how large and fiery his eyes are!" She saw Death standing in heaven. +"Cover me with the pall," she begged, distressfully,—"my veil!" Her +brother caught it up, and covered with it the wandering eyes and the +flowers and locks. The sun, too, mercifully veiled himself again with +clouds.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Think on Almighty God!" said the pious father to her, in a loud voice. +"I think of him," answered the veiled one, in a low tone. The aurora of +the second world stands black before mortals. They all trembled. Albano +and Roquairol grasped and pressed each other's hands, the latter from +hatred, Albano from agony, as one gnashes at metal. The chamber was +full of uncongenial, discordant people, whom death made equal. At one +side Albano saw that a strange form, repulsive to him, had stolen in. +It was his impenetrable father, whose great, dark eyes were fastened +sharply and sternly on his son. Out of a second chamber two tall, +veiled female forms gazed at the third, and saw no face, and no one saw +theirs.</p> + +<p class="normal">Liana played with her fingers at the veil. Evening stood in the +chamber, and the silence between the lightning-flash and the +thunder-clap. "Think upon Almighty God!" cried Spener. She answered +not. He continued: "Of our source, and of our sea; he alone stands by +thee now in the dark, when the earth, and its dwellers, and all lights +of life, are sinking away beyond thy reach!" Suddenly she began, and +said, with a low tone of gladness, and with words swiftly following +each other, as when one talks in sleep, and with increasing rapture and +rapidity, "Caroline! here, here, Caroline! This is my hand,—how +beautiful thou art!" The invisible angel who had consecrated her first +love, who had attended her whole life, gleamed again, like a new-risen +moon, over the whole dark scene of death; and the splendor gently +melted the little May night into the great spring morning of the second +world.</p> + +<p class="normal">Now the veiled nun of heaven leaned, quite still, on her mother. The +death-angel stood invisible and wrathful among his victims. With great +wings hung the screech-owl of anguish over mortal eyes, and pecked with +black beak down into the breast, and nothing was heard in the stillness +but the owl. More darkly rolled the Knight's melancholy eyes to and fro +in their deep sockets between the still bride and the still son; and +Gaspard and the destroying angel gazed upon each other gloomily.</p> + +<p class="normal">At that moment Liana's harp sent out a clear, high, ringing tone far +into the silence. The Fatal Sister who spun at her life knew the +signal, checked herself, and stood up; and the sister with the scissors +came. Liana's fingers ceased to play, and beneath the veil all became +still and motionless.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Thy head is heavy and cold, my daughter," said the disconsolate +mother. "Tear the veil away!" cried the brother; and when he drew it +down, there lay Liana, peaceful and smiling beneath it, but dead,—the +blue eyes open toward heaven, the transfigured mouth still breathing +love, the maidenly lily-brow encircled with the flower-wreath which had +sunk down around it; and pale and glorified with the moonlight of the +higher world was the strange form which passed majestically forth from +the midst of the puny living among its lofty dead.</p> + +<p class="normal">Then gushed the golden sun through the clouds and through all the +tears, and circumfused with the blooming evening twilight, with the +youthful rose-oil of his evening clouds, the faded sister of heaven; +and the transfigured countenance wore again the bloom of youth. In +heaven all the clouds, touched with her wings as she swept through +them, burst out into long, red blossoms; and through the high, misty +veil, fluttering up over the earth, glowed the thousand roses which had +been strown about or sprung up on the cloud-path on which the virgin +passed up over the earth to the Eternal.</p> + +<p class="normal">But Albano, the forsaken Albano, stood without tears or eyes or words +among the commonplaces of sorrow, in the crimson evening fire of the +holy chamber of transfiguration, amidst the earthly bustle that went on +round the still form. In the depths of the past, Sorrow showed him a +Medusa's-head; and he still looked upon it when his heart was already +petrified by it, and he heard continually the gloomy head murmur the +words, "How bitterly did the dead one, when in Lilar, weep at the harsh +Albano!" Her brother, upon his rack, said many barbarous words to him. +He heard or heeded them not, because he was listening to the horrible +Gorgon head.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Son," cried Gaspard Cesara, earnestly,—"son, dost thou not know me?" +Through the heavy, deathly heart a life-voice flashes upon him. He +looks round, and sees his father, with terror arranges him into a +shape, and falls upon his breast, and cries only, "Father!" and again +and again, "Father!" He continued to cry out, grasping him violently +like a foe, and said: "Father, that is Liana!" Still more passionate +grew the embrace, not from love, only from agony. "Come to thyself, and +to me, dear Albano," said the Knight. "O, I will do so; she is dead +now, father!" said he, with a choked voice; and now his grief broke +upon his father like a cloud upon a mountain, into one incessant +tear,—it streamed forth as if the innermost soul would bleed itself to +death out of all the open veins,—but the weeping only stirred up his +sorrows, as a rain-storm does a battle-field: he became more +inconsolable and impetuous, and sullenly repeated the previous +exclamation.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Albano!" said Gaspard, after some time, with stronger voice, "wilt +thou accompany me?" "Gladly, my father!" said he, and followed him, as +a bleeding child with its wound follows its mother. "To-morrow I will +speak," said Albano, in the carriage, and took his father's hand. His +wide-open eyes hung swollen and blind upon the warm evening-sun, which +already rested on the mountains; he continued smiling and pale, and +weeping softly; nor did he mark when the sun went down, and he arrived +in the city.</p> + +<p class="normal">"To-morrow, my father!" said he languidly and beseechingly to the +Knight; and shut himself in. Nothing more was heard from him.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<p class="center"><img src="images/hornstart.png" alt="hornstart"></p> +<br> +<h2><a name="div1Ref_24" href="#div1_24">TWENTY-FOURTH JUBILEE.</a></h2> + +<h3><span class="sc2">The Fever.—The Cure.</span></h3> +<br> +<h3>97. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">Albano for a long time remained mute in a by-chamber. His father left +him to the healing influence of quiet. Schoppe waited for him +patiently, that he might console him by looking upon and listening to +him. At last they heard him in there praying fervently: "Liana, appear +to me and give me peace!" Directly after he stepped out strong and free +as an unchained giant, with all the blood-roses on his face,—with +lightnings in his eyes,—with hasty tread. "Schoppe," said he, "come +with me to the observatory; there hangs high in heaven a bright star; +on that she is buried: I must know that, Schoppe!"</p> + +<p class="normal">The noble soul lay in the violent hands of a fever. He was just going +out with him, when he beheld the Knight, who gazed upon him intently. +"Only do not become numb and palsied again, my father!" said he, +embraced him but gently, and forgot what he had been going to do.</p> + +<p class="normal">Schoppe went for Doctor Sphex. Albano returned to his chamber, and +walked slowly up and down there with bowed head and folded hands, and +said to himself consolingly, "Only wait, however, till it strikes +again." Sphex came and saw and—said, "It is simply an inflammatory +fever." But no force could bring him to the point of undressing himself +for bed, or even for a bleeding. "What!" said he, modestly; "she may +surely appear to me at any moment and give me peace. No! no!" The +physician prescribed a whole cooling snow-heaven for the purpose of +snowing the crater full. These coolings and frost-conductors also the +wild youth refused. But then the Knight assailed him with that +thundering voice of his, and with that fury in his eye which revealed +the ever-enduring but covered wrath-fire of the haughty breast: +"Albano, take it!" Then the patient became considerate and compliant, +and said: "O my father, I do indeed love thee!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Through the whole night, of which the faithful Schoppe remained watcher +and physician, the crazed body kept on playing its feverish part, +driving the youth up and down, and at every stroke of the clocks +constraining him to kneel down and pray: "Liana, do appear, and give me +peace!" How often did Schoppe, otherwise so poor in expression, hold +him fast with a long embrace, only to beguile the harassed one into a +short repose. Incomprehensible to the physician the next morning were +the energies of this iron and white-hot nature, which fever, pain, and +walking had not yet bowed, and on which all prescribed ice-fields +hissed and dried up,—and frightful appeared to him the consequences, +as Albano continued to be his own incendiary, and, at every striking of +the hour, fell on his knees and languished and looked for the heavenly +apparition.</p> + +<p class="normal">His father, however, left him, like a humanity, to his own energies; he +said he was glad to see such a rare case of unenfeebled youthful vigor, +and felt no fear at all; and he gave, too, with perfect calmness, his +orders about packing up everything for the journey to Italy. He visited +the court, i. e. everybody. Upon any one who knew what he was wont to +demand of men and deny to them, this general complaisance towards all +the world inflicted the pang of wounded honor, even if Gaspard +addressed him too. He first visited the Prince, who, although the +Knight, when in Italy, had quietly administered to him the poisoned +Host of love, together with her poison-chalice, always hung upon him +familiarly. The Knight inspected with him the new accessions to the +works of art; the two sharply and freely compared their opinions in +regard to them, and gave each other commissions for the approaching +absence.</p> + +<p class="normal">Thereupon he went to his travelling companion, the Princess, towards +whom, indeed, his galling pride had not left behind one particle of +flower-dust from his former love, who, however, in the smooth, cold +mirror of his epic soul, in which all figures moved about freely and in +clear conception, occupied, by virtue of her powerful individuality, +the foreground, as a central figure. As he placed freedom, unity, even +license of spirit, far above sickly pietism, hypocritical imitation of +other people's talents and penitent warfare with one's self, he held +the Princess, even with her cynicism of tongue, as "in her way dear and +deserving." She inquired with much interest after his son's condition +and prospect of travelling with them; he gave her, with his old +calmness, the best hopes.</p> + +<p class="normal">The Princess Julienne was inaccessible. She had been compelled to see +how the faithful playmate of her youth had been drawn by a harsh, +hostile arm from the flowery shore into the flood of death, and how the +poor girl had drifted away exhausted; this completely prostrated her, +and gladly would she have plunged headlong after the victim. She had +not been, the day before, in a condition to go with the two veiled ones +to the castle.</p> + +<p class="normal">Gaspard now hastened to one of these, the Countess Romeiro, with whom +he found the other also, the Princess Idoine. The latter had not been +able to read so much in every letter about the sister of her face and +soul, without travelling from her Arcadia in person to see her and +prove the fair relationship; but when she arrived in her veil at the +house of mourning, her kinswoman had already drawn hers over her dying +eye; and when it arose, she saw herself extinguished, and beheld, in +the deep mirror of time, her own dying image. She kept silence within +herself, as if before God, but her heart, her whole life, was stirred.</p> + +<p class="normal">The resemblance was so striking that Julienne begged her never to +appear before the afflicted mother. Idoine was, it is true, taller, +more sharply cut and less rosy than Liana in her days of bloom; but the +last pale hour, wherein the latter appeared beside her, made the +whitened form taller and the face nobler, and withdrew the flowery veil +of maidenhood from the sharp outline.</p> + +<p class="normal">Idoine said little to the Knight, and only looked on and saw how her +friend Linda overflowed with real childlike love in return for his +almost paternal affection. Both maidens he treated with a respectful, +warm, and tender morality, which must have appeared wonderful to an eye +(for example, the Prince's) which had often witnessed the unmerciful +irony wherewith he so loved to draw downward in a slow spiral of +licentious discourses, rotten, worm-eaten hearts,—half installed in +God's church and half in the Devil's chapel,—shy, soft, sensitive +sinners, inwardly-bottomless Fantasts, the Roquairols, for instance, +more and more deeply and with ever-increasing pleasure to the centre of +infamy. The Prince thought, in such cases, "He thinks exactly as I do;" +but Gaspard did with him just so.</p> + +<p class="normal">Even the trembling, pale Julienne stole in, at last, to see him. They +avoided, so far as they could, for her sake, the open grave of her +friend; but she asked, herself, after the sick lover of that friend +very urgently. The Knight, who for most answers of moment had provided +himself with an original phrase-book of nothings, particularly with +ice-flowers of speech, such as, "It is going on as well as can be +expected under the circumstances," or, "Such things are to be looked +for," or, "It will all come right," made use on this occasion of the +last-named flower of rhetoric, and replied, "It will all come right."</p> + +<p class="normal">When he reached home, nothing had come right, but the flood of the +evil was at its highest. There lay the youth—dressed, in bed,—unable +to walk any longer,—in a burning heat,—talking wildly,—and yet at +every stroke of the clock uttering his old prayer to the high, shut-up +heavens. Hitherto his firm, vigorous brain had been able to hold fast +its reason, at least for all that did not touch Liana; but gradually +the whole mass went over into the fermentation of the fever. In vain +did his father, once, when he knelt and prayed for the apparition of +the dead, arm himself with all the wrath and thunder of his +personality. "Give me peace!" Albano continued to pray, softly, and, as +he said it, looked him softly in the face.</p> + +<p class="normal">Schoppe, at this point, with the look of one who has a weighty mystery, +took the father aside, and said he knew an unfailing remedy. Gaspard +evinced curiosity. "The Princess Idoine," said he, "must not concern +herself at all about miserable childish trifles, but just when it +strikes and he kneels, boldly present herself to him as the blessed +spirit, and conclude the plaguy peace." Contrary to what might have +been presumed, the Knight said, ill-humoredly, "It is improper." In +vain Schoppe sought to preach him over to the sunny side,—he only went +farther over to the wintry side at the appearance of another's +intention; no one could bring him to a gentle warmth but himself. +At last Gaspard, after his manner, let so much drift-ice of +above-mentioned phrases drive over the permanent ground-ice of his +character, that Schoppe proudly and indignantly held his peace. +Besides, the preparations for the journey went on as if the father +meant to snatch his son as a brand from the fever-burning, and tear him +distractedly out of the old circles of love. Schoppe made known to him +his intention of staying at home; he said he had nothing against it.</p> + +<p class="normal">Now did Schoppe feel on his own scratched-up face the cutting North of +this character, to which he had generally been partial: "'Trust no +long, lank Spaniard,' was the just saying of Cardanus,"<a name="div2Ref_64" href="#div2_64"><sup>[64]</sup></a> said he.</p> + +<p class="normal">Albano was sick, and therefore not inconsolable. He drew from the Lethe +of madness the dark draught of oblivion of the present; only when he +knelt did he see mirrored in the stream his lacerated form and a cloudy +heaven. He heard nothing of this,—how the poor named their names, that +they might weep gratefully around their sleeping benefactress, and how +under their lamentations the once healing music of their countenances +now lay deaf and dumb. He heard nothing of the raving of her brother, +nor of the loud (acoustically arranged) grief of her father, nor of the +stiff mother wrapped in dull anguish. He knew not beforehand that the +pale Charis would appear one evening in her coronation-chamber in the +midst of lights for the last time on earth, crowned, decked, and +slumbering. To him, indeed, at every hour died an infinite hope, but +each hour bore him also a new one.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Poor brother," said Schoppe the next day, in noble indignation, "I +swear to thee, thou shalt get thy peace to-day." The pale patient +looked upon him imploringly. "Yes, by Heaven!" Schoppe swore, and +almost wept.</p> +<br> +<h3>98. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">Schoppe had resolved not to trouble himself at all about the +Knight,—who divided his evening between the Minister and Wehrfritz in +Blumenbühl,—but to betake himself at once to the presence of the +Princess Idoine with the great petition. First, however, he would get +the Lector as porter or <i>billeteur</i> of the locked court-doors, and as +surety for his words. But Augusti was indescribably alarmed; he +insisted the thing would not do,—a Princess and a sick young man, +and an absolutely ridiculous ghost-scene, &c.; and his own father, +indeed, already saw through it. Schoppe upon this became a spouting +fire-engine, and left few curses or comparisons unused upon the +man-murdering nonsense of courtly and female decorum,—said it was as +beautifully shaped as a Greek fury,—it bound up the wound on a man's +neck as the cook-women did on a goose's, not till after it had bled to +death, so that the feathers might not be stained,—and he was as much +of a <i>courtisan</i>, he concluded ambiguously, as Augusti, and knew what +decency was. "May I not propose it to the Fürstinn, then, who certainly +esteems him so highly?" Augusti said, "That does not alter the case." +"Nor yet to Julienne?" "Nor yet to her," said he. "Nor yet to the most +satanic Satan?" "There is surely a good angel between," replied +Augusti, "whom you can at least with more propriety use as an +intercessor, because she is under obligations to the Knight of the +Fleece,—the Countess of Romeiro." "O, why not, indeed?" said Schoppe, +struck with the idea.</p> + +<p class="normal">The Lector—who was one of those men that never use their own hands, +but love to do everything by a third, sixth, farthest possible one, +after a system of <i>handing</i> analogous to the fingering-system—urged +upon the reflecting Schoppe his ready willingness to introduce him to +Linda, and her ability to do something in this "<i>épineuse affaire</i>."</p> + +<p class="normal">Schoppe went up and down in a state of unusual distraction between two +opinions,—shook his head often and vehemently, and yet stopped +suddenly,—fluttered and shook still more violently,—looked at the +Lector with a glance of sharper inquiry,—at length he stood fast, +struck down with both arms, and said: "Thunder and lightning seize the +world! Done, then! So be it! I go right to her. Heavens, why am I then, +so to speak, so ridiculous in your eyes—I mean just now?" The courtly +Lector had, however, transformed the smile of the lips into a smile of +the eyes only. On Schoppe's face stood the warmth and haste of the +self-conqueror. As men can be at once hard of hearing amidst the common +din of life, and yet open to the finest musical tones,<a name="div2Ref_65" href="#div2_65"><sup>[65]</sup></a> so were +Schoppe's inner ears hardened against the vulgar noise of ordinary +impulse, but drank in thirstily all soft, low melodies of holier souls.</p> + +<p class="normal">The Lector—loving the Count far more heartily than he was loved by +him—was for taking the Librarian by storm at once to the castle, +because just now was the most favorable hour, of court-recess, from +half past four to half past five. Schoppe said he was on hand. In the +castle Augusti commanded a servant, who understood him, to usher +Schoppe into the mirror-room. He did so; brought lights immediately +after; and Schoppe went slowly up and down, with his annoying retinue +of dumb, nimble orang-outangs-of-the-looking-glass, rehearsing his part +and calculating the future. Singularly did he feel himself seized now +with his young, fresh sense of that former freedom which he was just +suspending. He recognized Liberty, held her fast, looked upon her, and +said to her, "Go away, only for a little while; save him, and then come +back again!"</p> + +<p class="normal">The multiplication of himself in the mirrors disgusted him. "Must ye +torment me, ye I's?" said he, and he now represented to himself +how he was standing before the richest, brightest moment and finest +gold-balance of his existence, how a grave and a great life lay in this +balance, and how his "I" must vanish from him, like the copied glass +I's round about him. Suddenly a joy darted through him, not beyond the +worth of his resolve, but greater than its occasion.</p> + +<p class="normal">At last, near doors flew open, and then the nearest. Then entered a +tall form, with head still half turned back, all enveloped in long, +black silk. Like an enraptured moon on high tops of foliage, there +stood before him, on the dark, silken cloud, a luxuriantly blooming, +unadorned head, full of life, with black eyes full of lightnings, with +dark roses on the dazzling face, and with an enthroning, snowy brow +under the brown, overhanging locks. It seemed to Schoppe, when she +looked upon him, as if his life lay in full sunshine; and he felt, with +embarrassment, that he stood very near the queen of souls. "Herr von +Augusti," she began, earnestly, "has told me that you wished to put +into my hands a petition for your sick friend. Name it to me clearly +and freely. I will give you, with pleasure, a frank and decided +answer."</p> + +<p class="normal">All recollections of his part were sunk to the bottom, and dissolved +within him; but the great guardian-genius, who flew along invisible +beside his life, plunged with fiery wings into his heart, and he +answered, with inspiration, "So, too, will I answer you. My Albano is +mortally sick; he has been in a fever since last evening. He loved the +departed Fraülein Liana. He lies bound to the condor's-wing of fever, +and is swept to and fro. He falls upon his knees at every knell of the +clock, and, lying close to the sunny side of fancy, prays more and more +fervently, 'Appear to me, and give me peace!' He stands upright and +dressed on the high pyre of the fantastic flame-circle, and pants and +bakes with thirst, and dries and shrivels up dreadfully, as I can +plainly see ..."</p> + +<p class="normal">"<i>O, finissez donc?</i>" said the Countess, who had bent back with a +shudder, and slowly shaken her Venus head. "Frightful! Your petition?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Only the Princess Idoine," said he, coming to himself, "can fulfil it, +and rescue him, by appearing to him, and whispering him peace, since +she is said to be such a near ass-<a name="div2Ref_66" href="#div2_66"><sup>[66]</sup></a>, cos-<a name="div2Ref_67" href="#div2_67"><sup>[67]</sup></a>, copy, and mock-sun of +the deceased." "Is that your petition?" said the Countess. "My +greatest," said Schoppe. "Has his father sent you hither?" said she. +"No, I," said he; "his father, to be clear and free and explicit with +you, disapproves of it."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Are you not the painter of the sneezing self-portrait?" she asked. +He bowed, and said, "Most certainly." Having replied that in an +hour he should hear the decision, she made him a short, respectful, +leave-taking obeisance, and the simple, noble form left him gazing +after her in rapture; and he was provoked that the childish mirrors +round about should dare to send after the rare goddess so many shadows +of herself.</p> + +<p class="normal">At home he found, indeed, the crazed young man, whose ears alone lived +any longer among realities, again on his knees at the sixth stroke of +the clock; but his hope bloomed now under a warmer heaven. After an +hour, the Lector appeared, and said, with a significant smile, the +thing was going on right well; he was to get an opinion from the +physician, and then the decision would be accordingly.</p> + +<p class="normal">Herr von Augusti gave him, with courtier-like explicitness, the more +definite intelligence, that the Countess had flown to the Princess, +whose regard for her future travelling companion she knew, and told her +she would, in Idoine's case, do it without hesitation. The Princess +considered with herself a little, and said this was a thing which only +her sister could decide. Both hastened to her, pictured to her the +whole case, and Idoine asked, with alarm, how she could help her +resemblance and her well-meant journey hither, that they should wish to +draw her so deeply into such fantastic entanglements. At this moment +Julienne came in, pale, and said she had only since morning received +intelligence of this, and it was the duty of such a good soul to grant +the apparition. Then Idoine, considering herself and everything, +answered, with dignity, it was not at all the unusualness and +impropriety of the thing which she dreaded, but the untruthfulness and +unworthiness, as she would have to play false with the holy name of a +departed soul, and cheat a sick man with a superficial similarity. The +Countess said she knew of no answer to that, and yet her feelings were +not against the thing. All were silent and perplexed. The conscientious +Idoine was moved in the tenderest heart that ever hung trembling under +the weight of such a decision upon a life. At last Linda said, with her +sharp-sightedness, "Properly speaking, however, after all, there is no +moral man to be deceived in the case, but a sleeper, a dreamer; and +imagination and delusion are not, in fact, going to be strengthened in +him, but to be subdued." Julienne drew Idoine aside, probably to +portray to her more nearly the youth, whom she had not seen any more +than Linda. Soon after, Idoine came back with her decision.</p> + +<p class="normal">"If the physician will give a certificate that a human life hangs upon +this, then I must conquer my feeling. God knows," she added, with +emotion, "that I am quite as willing to do as to forbear, if I only +know first what is right. It is my first untruth."</p> + +<p class="normal">The Lector hastened from Schoppe to the Doctor, in order to bring back +with him from the latter, among many turns of expression, just the most +convenient certificate.</p> + +<p class="normal">Schoppe waited long and anxiously. After seven o'clock came a note from +Augusti: "Hold yourself in readiness; punctually at eight o'clock comes +the privy person." Forthwith, by way of sparing the patient's feverish +eyes, he put out the wax-candles, and lighted the magic hanging-lamp of +isinglass in the chamber.</p> + +<p class="normal">He kindled the sick youth to new fever with stories of people who had +come back from the tomb, and advised him to kneel with long, ardent +prayers before the fast gate of death, in order that her mild, merciful +spirit might open it, and healingly touch him on the threshold.</p> + +<p class="normal">Just before eight, the Princess and her sister came in their sedans. +Schoppe was himself seized with a shudder at the sight of this risen +Liana. With sparkling eye and firmly shut mouth, he led the fair +sisters into the <i>coulisse</i>, whence they already heard, out on the +adjoining stage, the youth praying. But Idoine's tender limbs trembled +at the unpractised part in which her truthful spirit must belie itself. +She wept upon it, and her fair, holy mouth was full of mute sighs. Her +sister had to embrace her often in order to encourage her heart.</p> + +<p class="normal">The clock struck. With a frightful fervor the frantic one within prayed +for peace. The tongue of the hour was imperative. Idoine sent up a look +as a prayer to God. Schoppe slowly opened the door.</p> + +<p class="normal">Within, blooming in the magic dusk, with arms and eyes uplifted to +heaven, knelt a beautiful son of the gods in the enchanted circle of +madness, whose only and continual cry was, "O peace! peace!" Then, with +inspiration, as if sent by God, the virgin stepped in, clothed in +white, like the deceased in the dream-temple and on the bier, with the +long veil at her side, but taller in stature, less rosy, and with a +sharper, brighter starlight in the blue ether of the eye, and more +resembling Liana among the blest, and sublimely, as if, like a +renovated spring, she had come back again from the stars, so she +appeared before him. His enchaining, fiery look terrified her. In a low +and faltering tone, she stammered, "Albano, have peace!" "Liana?" +groaned his whole breast, and, sinking down, he covered his weeping +eyes. "Peace!" cried she, more strongly and courageously, because his +eye no longer smote and staggered her; and she disappeared as a +superhuman spirit vanishes from men.</p> + +<p class="normal">The sisters departed silently, and full of high remembrance and +satisfaction. Schoppe found him still kneeling, but looking away +enraptured, like a storm-sick mariner on tropical seas, who, after long +sleep, opens his eyes on a still, rosy-red evening, just before the +going down of the blazing sun; and the dashing wake travels on, like a +bed of roses and flames, into the sun, and the flashing cloud flies +asunder in mute fire-balls, and the distant ships float high in the +evening-red, and swim far away over the waves. So was it with the +youth.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I have my peace now, good Schoppe," he said, softly, "and now I will +sleep in quiet." Transfigured, but pale, he rose, laid himself on the +bed, and in a few minutes a heart wearied with so long a wading in the +hot fever-sands sank down on the fresh, green oasis of slumber.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<p class="center"><img src="images/rivetstart.png" alt="rivetstart"></p> +<br> +<h2><a name="div1Ref_25" href="#div1_25">TWENTY-FIFTH JUBILEE.</a></h2> + +<h3><span class="sc2">The Dream.—The Journey.</span></h3> +<br> +<h3>99. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">It was late when the Knight of the Fleece arrived. Schoppe showed him +joyfully the sleeping countenance, whose rose-buds seemed to burst as +in a moist, warm night. The Knight manifested great exhilaration at +this, and still more did Doctor Sphex, who looked in quite late. The +latter found the pulse not only full, but even slow, and on the way to +a still greater repose. He appealed, at the same time, to <i>Chaudeson</i>, +and several other professional examples, that great mental sufferings +had often been relieved and removed very successfully by the internal +opium of lethargy.</p> + +<p class="normal">At last Schoppe acquainted the father with Idoine's whole method of +cure. Gaspard haughtily replied, "You still, however, knew my opinion, +Mr. Librarian?" "Certainly, but my own too," said, with bitterness, the +disturbed Schoppe. The Knight, however, entered no further into +anything,—quite after his manner of never giving the least light upon +his real self, however much it might gain thereby,—but gave the friend +a very cold signal of retreat.</p> + +<p class="normal">The next morning, Schoppe found his beloved still in the soul's cradle +of sleep. How he budded and bloomed! How slowly, yet strongly, like a +freeman's, moved the breath in his unchained breast! Meanwhile, +Gaspard's packed carriage, which was to trundle the youth away to +Italy, stopped already, at this early hour, before the door, with its +snorting, pawing horses, and the Knight expected every minute the +waking up and the—jumping in.</p> + +<p class="normal">The physician came also, praised crisis and pulse, added that the +cream-o'-tartar (which he had prescribed among the rest) was the cream +of life, and said, right to the father's face, when the latter was +about to wake the youth for starting, he had never yet, in all his +praxis, known any one who had so little acquaintance with critical +points as he; any waker would be in this case a murderer, and, as +physician, he most expressly forbade it.</p> + +<p class="normal">From hour to hour Schoppe grew more and more out of humor with the +father; he thanked God now—when he considered how the Knight's +treatment had beat upon and washed over this fruit-bearing island—that +Albano had not only the heat, but also the hardness of a rock.</p> + +<p class="normal">Dr. Sphex, equally fond of his art and his reputation, watched like a +threatening Esculapius-serpent over the pillow, and grew more +hilarious. Schoppe lingered there, nerved against any degree of +severity. The Knight took leave of every one in his son's name, and +sent all soft hearts home; for the foster-mother, Albina and others, +were not suffered so much as to see the sleeper,—because tears were to +him a cold, disagreeable Scotch mist. The Princess and her retinue were +already streaming along with the gay pennons of hope on their way to +the shining Italy.</p> + +<p class="normal">The evening was now irrevocably set for departure, especially as, in +the night, the sleeping Liana was to be carried into the bed-chamber, +which men never again open.</p> + +<p class="normal">Already was the blooming Endymion overspread with smiles and radiance +of joy, as a precursive morning-star of his waking day. His soul +roamed, smiling, through the sparkling-cave of subterranean treasures, +which the genius of dream unlocks; while the common waking eye stood +blind before the spirit's Eldorado, so near and yet walled round by +sleep. At last an unknown over-measure of bliss opened Albano's +eye,—the youth immediately rose with vigor,—threw himself with the +rapture of a first recognition on his father's breast, and seemed, in +the first dreamy intoxication, not to remember the spent storm behind +him, but only the blissful dream,—and in ecstasy related it thus:—</p> + +<p class="normal">"I sailed in a white skiff on a dark stream which shot along between +smooth, high marble walls. Chained to my solitary wave, I flew +anxiously through the winding, rocky narrows, into which, at times, a +thunderbolt darted. Suddenly the stream whirled round and descended, +growing broader and wilder, over a winding stairway. There lay a broad, +flat, gray land around me, tinged by the sickle of the sun with a +loathsome, lurid, earthy light. Far from me stood a coiled-up +Lethe-flood, which crawled round and round itself. On an immense +stubble-field innumerable Walkyres,<a name="div2Ref_68" href="#div2_68"><sup>[68]</sup></a> on spider's-threads, shot by to +and fro with arrowy swiftness, and sang, 'The fight of life 'tis we +that weave'; then they let one flying summer after another soar +invisibly to heaven.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Overhead swept great worlds; on every one dwelt a human being; he +stretched out his arms imploringly after another, who also stood on his +world and looked across; but the globes ran with the hermits round the +sun-sickle, and the prayers were in vain. I, too, felt a yearning. +Infinitely far before me reposed an outstretched mountain-ridge, whose +entire back, looming out of the clouds, glittered with gold and +flowers. Painfully dragged the skiff through the flat, lazy waste of +the shallow stream. Then came a sandy tract, and the stream squeezed +through a narrow channel with my jammed-up skiff. And near me a plough +turned up something long; but when it came up it was covered with a +pall—and the dark cloth melted away again into a black sea.</p> + +<p class="normal">"The mountain-ridge stood much nearer, but longer and higher before me, +and cut through the lofty stars with its purple flowers, over which a +green wild-fire flew to and fro. The worlds, with the solitary beings, +swept away over the mountains, and came not back; and the heart yearned +to mount up and soar away after them. 'I must, I will,' cried I, +rowing. After me came stalking an angry giant, who mowed away the waves +with a sharp moon-sickle; over me ran a little condensed tempest made +out of the compressed atmosphere of the earth; it was called the +poison-ball of heaven, and sent down incessant pealings.</p> + +<p class="normal">"On the high mountain-ridge a friendly flower called me up; the +mountain waded to meet and dam up the sea, but it almost reached now to +the worlds that were flying over, and its great fire-flowers seemed +only like red buds scattered through the deep ether. The water +boiled,—the giant and the poison-ball grew grimmer,—two long clouds +stood pointing down like raised drawbridges, and the rain rushed down +over them in leaping waves; the water and my little bark rose, but not +enough. 'No waterfall,' said the giant, laughing, 'runs <i>upward</i> here!'</p> + +<p class="normal">"Then I thought of my death, and named softly a holy name. Suddenly +there came swimming along high in heaven a white world under a veil, a +single glistening tear fell from heaven into the sea, and it rose with +a roar,—all waves fluttered with fins, broad wings grew on my little +skiff, the white world went over me, and the long stream snatched +itself up thundering, with the skiff on its head, out of its dry bed, +and stood on its fountain and in heaven, and the flowery mountain-ridge +beside it, and lightly glided my winged skiff through green +rosy splendor and through soft, musical murmuring of a long +flower-fragrance, into an immense radiant morning-land.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What a broad, bright, enchanted Eden! A clear, glad morning sun, with +no tears of night, expanded with an encircling rose-wreath, looked +toward me and rose no higher. Up and down sparkled the meadows, bright +with morning dew. 'Love's tears of joy lie down below there,' sang the +hermits overhead on the long, sweeping worlds, 'and we, too, will shed +them!' I flew to the shore, where honey bloomed, while on the other +bloomed wine; and as I went, my gayly decorated little skiff, with +broad flowers puffed out for sails, followed, dancing after me over the +waves. I went into high blooming woods, where noon and night dwelt side +by side, and into green vales full of flower-twilights, and up sunny +heights, where blue days dwelt, and flew down again into the blooming +skiff, and it floated on, deep in wave-lightnings, over precious +stones, into the spring, to the rosy sun. All moved eastward, the +breezes and the waves, and the butterflies and the flowers, which had +wings, and the worlds overhead; and their giants sang down, 'We fondly +look downward,—we fondly glide downward, to the land of love, to the +golden land.'</p> + +<p class="normal">"Then I saw my face in the waves, and it was a virgin's, full of +high rapture and love. And the brook flowed with me, now through +wheat-fields; now through a little, fragrant night, through which the +sun was seen behind sparkling glow-worms; now through a twilight, +wherein warbled a golden nightingale. Now the sun arched the tears of +joy into a rainbow, and I sailed through, and behind me they sank down +again, burning like dew. I drew nearer to the sun, and he wore already +the harvest-wreath. 'It is already noon,' sang the hermits over my +head.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Slowly, as bees over honey-pastures, swam the thronging clouds in the +dark blue, over the divine region. From the mountain-ridge a milky-way +arched over, which sank into the sun. Bright lands unrolled themselves. +Harps of light, strung with rays, rang in the fire; a tri-clang of +three thunders agitated the land. A ringing storm-rain of dew and +radiance filled with glitter the wide Eden; it dissolved in drops, like +a weeping ecstasy. Pastoral songs floated through the pure blue air, +and a few lingering, rosy clouds danced out of the tempest after +the tones. Then the near morning-sun looked faintly out of a pale +lily-garland, and the hermits sang up there, 'O bliss, O bliss! the +evening blooms!' There was stillness, and twilight. The worlds held +themselves in silence round the sun, and encircled him with their fair +giants, resembling the human form, but higher and holier. As on the earth +the noble form of man creeps downward by the dark mirror-chain of animal +life, so did it, overhead there, mount up along a line of pure, bright, +free gods, sent from God. The worlds touched the sun, and dissolved +upon it; the sun, too, fell to pieces, in order to flow down into the +land of love, and became a sea of radiance. Then the fair gods and the +fair goddesses stretched out their arms towards each other, and touched +each other, trembling for love; but, like vibrating strings, they +disappeared from sight in their blissful trembling, and their being +became only an invisible melody; and the tones sang to each other, 'I +am with thee, and am with God'; and others sang, 'The sun was God.'</p> + +<p class="normal">"Then the golden fields glistened with innumerable tears of joy, which +had fallen during the invisible embrace; eternity grew still, and the +breezes slept, and only the lingering, rosy light of the dissolved sun +softly stirred the flowers.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I was alone, looked round, and my lonely heart longed dyingly for +a death. Then the white world with the veil passed slowly up the +milky-way; like a soft moon, it still glimmered a little; then it sank +down from heaven upon the holy land, and melted away upon the ground; +only the high veil remained. Then the veil withdrew itself into the +ether, and an exalted, godlike virgin, great as the other goddesses, +stood upon the earth and in heaven. All rosy radiance of the swimming +sun collected in her, and she burned in a robe of evening-red. All +invisible voices addressed her, and asked, 'Who is the Father of men, +and their Mother, and their Brother, and their Sister, and their Lover, +and their Beloved, and their Friend?' The virgin lifted steadfastly her +blue eye, and said, 'It is God!' And thereupon she looked at me +tenderly out of the high splendors, and said, 'Thou knowest me not, +Albano, for thou art yet living.' 'Unknown virgin,' said I, 'I gaze +with the pangs of a measureless love upon thy exalted countenance. I +have surely known thee; name thy name.' 'If I name it, thou wilt +awake,' said she. 'Name it!' I cried. She answered, and I awoke."</p> +<br> +<h3>100. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">"Thou canst surely keep awake and travel one night?" With this +question, his father hastily conducted him to the carriage that stood +ready for the journey, in order to steal him away while yet in the +midst of the glowing dream, with his recollections lulled to slumber, +and in order especially to get the start of the pale bride, who this +very night, by the same road, was to go home to the last heritage of +humanity. "In the carriage thou shalt hear all," replied Gaspard to his +son's mild question respecting their destination. Still entranced with +the light of the shining land of dreams, Albano willingly and blindly +obeyed. He still saw Liana in lofty, divine form, standing on the +evening-red ground of the sun, which was bespangled with the dew-drops +of joy, and his eye, full of splendor, reached not down into the +earth-cellar, and to the narrow cast-off chrysalis-shell of the +liberated and soaring Psyche.</p> + +<p class="normal">Schoppe accompanied him to the torch-lighted carriage, but in perfect +silence, in order not to awaken his heart by intimating the destination +of the journey. He pressed with warmth the hand of the beautiful and +beloved youth, which returned the pressure, and said nothing but "We +shall see each other again, brother!" Thereupon, honored by no parting +look from the imperious father, he stepped back with emotion from his +friend, who continued to wave his warm farewells; and the carriage +rolled off, and, leaving a long gleam of torch-light behind it, flew +out into the high, starry night.</p> + +<p class="normal">Freshly and meaningly did the glimmering creation broaden out before +the convalescent. Saturn was just rising, and the god of time set +himself, as a soft, flashing jewel, in the glittering magic belt of +heaven. With sealed eyes was the unconscious youth conducted down from +the pastoral cottage of his early years, and out of the shepherd's vale +of his first love, away where the great, eternal constellations of art +beckoned, into the divine land, where the dark ether of heaven is +golden, and the lofty ruins of the earth are clothed with grace, and +the nights are days. No eye looked over to the heights of Blumenbühl, +from which, at this very moment, a black train of coaches was passing +slowly down, with upright-burning funeral torches, like a moving +shadow-realm, to convey the still, good heart, wherein Albano and God +lived, with its dead wounds, to the soft place of rest. Flaming rolled +the torch-carriage up the mountain-road towards Italy.</p> + +<p class="normal">Tearless and far-gazing, Albano's eye rested on the glimmering, +ceaselessly moving fountain-wheel of time, eternally drawing up +constellations in the east, and pouring them out in the west; and his +childlike hand gently clasped his father's.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<p class="center"><img src="images/barstart.png" alt="barstart"></p> +<br> +<h2><a name="div1Ref_26" href="#div1_26">TWENTY-SIXTH JUBILEE.</a><a name="div2Ref_69" href="#div2_69"><sup>[69]</sup></a></h2> + +<h3><span class="sc2">The Journey.—The Fountain.—Rome.—The Forum.</span></h3> +<br> +<h3>101. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">So long as the night lasted, the images of Albano's dream went on +gleaming with the constellations, and not until the bright morning rose +were they all extinguished. Gaspard told him, smilingly, he was on his +way to Italy. He received the intelligence of his going abroad with an +unexpected composure. He merely asked where his Schoppe was. When told +that <i>he</i> had not been disposed to join them, then did he seem to see +all at once in fancy's eye the Linden-city come following after him +over the mountains and valleys, and his last friend standing in the +middle of the market-place all alone, engaged in mock-play with +himself, by way of quieting his true, strong heart, which would fain +worry down its grief and hold fast its love. With this friend, whom he +would not let go out of his soul, Albano drew after him, as by a +Jupiter's-chain, the whole stage and world of his past, and every sad +scene came close up to him. Cities and lands rolled along before him +unseen. The waves which sorrow lashes up around us, stand high between +us and the world, and make our ship solitary in the midst of a haven +full of vessels. He turned away with a shudder from every beautiful +virgin; she reminded him, like a dirge, of her who was pale in death; +forever did Liana's white face, uncovered,—like a corpse in +Italy,<a name="div2Ref_70" href="#div2_70"><sup>[70]</sup></a>—seem to be travelling along on the endless way to the +grave, and only indistinguishable forms with masks followed after her +alive. So is it with man and his grief; by a process the reverse of +ship-drawing, in which the living drag the dead along with them, here +the dead takes the living with him, and draws them after him far into +his cold realm.</p> + +<p class="normal">Time gradually unfolded his grief, instead of weakening it. His life +had become a night, in which the moon is under the earth, and he could +not believe that Luna would gradually return with an increasing bow of +light. Not joys, but only actions,—those remote stars of night,—were +now his aim. He held it unjust to keep back in the presence of his +father the tears which often forced themselves from him in the midst of +conversation, merely because his father took no interest in them; still +he showed him, nevertheless, by the energy of his discourses and +resolves, the vigorous youth. Only the reproach which he had cast upon +himself for his guilt in Liana's death had suffered itself to be +swallowed up in the peace which Idoine had given him, although he now +held her apparition to have been only a feverish waking dream about +Liana.</p> + +<p class="normal">His father kept a profound silence about Idoine's appearance on the +stage of action, as well as all disagreeable recollections. He spoke +much, however, of Italy and of the spoils of art which Albano would +acquire there, especially through the company of the Princess, the +Counsellor of Arts, and the German gentleman, who had gone on before +them, and whom one might soon overtake. The son turned to him at last +with the bold inquiry whether he really had a sister still, and related +the adventure with the Baldhead. "It might well be," said Gaspard, with +a disagreeable jocosity, "that thou hadst still more sisters and +brothers than I knew of. But what I know is, that thy twin-sister +Severina died this year in her cloister. For what, then, dost thou take +the night-adventure?" "I should almost think it a dream," he replied. +Here, accidentally, his hand found its way to his pocket, and to his +astonishment struck upon the half-ring which his sister had presented +him. The strangeness of the whole thing sank deep among his sensations, +and that night of horror passed swiftly and coldly through his noon. He +and his father examined the ends of the divided ring, on each of which +a broken-off signature ended abruptly. "There is <i>nothing</i> miraculous, +however," said the Knight. "How do we know, then, that there is +anything natural?" said Albano. "Mystery," replied Gaspard, "or the +spirit-world, dwells only in the spirit." "We must," the son continued, +"even in the case of the commonest optical tricks, derive our pleasure +from something else than the resolving of the deception of fancy into a +deception of the senses, because otherwise the magic would necessarily +please us more <i>after</i> the solution than before. These are the points +and poles of human nature, upon which the eternal polar clouds hang. +Our maps of the kingdom of truth and spirits are the map-stones, which +stand for ruins and villages; these are <i>lies</i>, but still they are +<i>likenesses</i>. The spirit, forever an exile among bodies, desires +spirits." "That is just about what I meant, too," said Gaspard.</p> + +<p class="normal">Albano, however, insisted more distinctly upon his decision respecting +the Baldhead and the sister. "Anything else," said the Knight, quite +petulantly; "it is to me a very disagreeable conversation. Take the +world in <i>thy</i> way and be quiet!" "Dear father," asked Albano, with +surprise, "do you mean at some future time to definitely enlighten me +on the subject?" "So soon as I can," said the Knight, abruptly, with +such sharp and stinging glances at the son, that the latter, flinching +from them, as from arrows, hastily bent away his head out of the +carriage; when he for the first time observed that his father did not +mean him at all; for he still continued to look as sharply in the same +direction as if he were close upon the point of falling into his old +torpor.</p> + +<p class="normal">Gaspard's expression about the indwelling of the spiritual world within +the spirit, and his look, and the thought of his palsy lent a romantic +awfulness to the hour and the silence in Albano's eyes. Down below on +the bank of the stream stood a concourse of people, and one came +running like a fugitive or a spokesman out of the crowd. A boy at +some distance threw himself down on a hill, and laid his ear to the +earth, in order to hear somewhat accurately the rolling of their +carriage-wheels. In the village where they made their noonday halt +there was an incessant tolling. Their host was at the same time a +miller; the din of waves and wheels filled the whole house; and +canary-birds sent their additional jargoning through the jargon.</p> + +<p class="normal">There are moments when the two worlds, the earthly and the spiritual, +sweep by near to each other, and when earthly day and heavenly night +touch each other in twilights. As the shadows of the shining clouds of +heaven run along over the blossoms and harvests of earth, so does +heaven universally cast upon the common surface of reality its light +shadows and reflections. So did Albano find it now. The ring and the +mystic word of his cold father had dazzled him like lightning. Below at +the house-door he found a maiden, who carried along before her a box of +citrons. Suddenly and unpleasantly the tolling stopped; he looked +up to the belfry, and a white hawk sat upon the vane. Soon came the +bell-ringer himself, to get something to drink, and began upon the +chamberlain with strong and yet not ill-meant curses, for having kept +him tolling there these three weeks, and said he only wished that such +a one as that distinguished personage himself had been the previous +year had only been obliged to toll regularly three days after the +decease of the blessed daughter. He urged the miller to "buy some of +the citrons, because they were good, juicy, and had a thin rind; and he +and the 'parson's boy'<a name="div2Ref_71" href="#div2_71"><sup>[71]</sup></a> must recognize them as coming from the +burial of the gracious Fräulein; and in fourteen days, at all events, +he would need some for the assembled clergy, as bride-father!" "What +are the customs here?" asked Albano.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Why, you see, when any one dies," said the sexton, very respectful and +friendly, "then the parson and my littleness get a citron, and so does +the corpse too; but if any one is married, then the clergy get the +same, and so also the bride. This is the fashion with us, my most +gracious master."</p> + +<p class="normal">Albano went out into the garden back of the house, into which the +exposed mill-wheels threw their silver sparks, and which was as if +swallowed up in the splendor and uproar of the open water. While he +looked into the glimmering, flying whirlpools, the citrons which the +corpse as well as the bride got hovered before his excited mind. +Emotion is full of similes. Time was, thought he, when Liana should +have journeyed to the citron-land, and into the low woods where the +snow of blossoms and the gold of fruits play together between green and +blue, and there she was to have gained health and refreshment; now she +holds the citron in her cold, dead hand, and she is not quickened.</p> + +<p class="normal">He looked round, and seemed to stand in a strange world. In the blue of +heaven an invisible storm without clouds swept along like a spirit; +long rows of hills shifted and sparkled with red fruits and red leaves; +out of the gay trees glowing apples were flung; and the storm flew from +summit to summit, and down upon the earth, and roared along down the +whole course of the disturbed stream. One could fancy spirits played +around the earth, or would appear upon it, so singularly seemed the +bright welkin stirred and illuminated. By this time, Albano had come +unconsciously into a dark, wooded wilderness; therein leaped, unseen, +unheard, a pure, light fountain out of the earth upon the earth; the +storm without was still, only the fountain was heard. "The holy one is +near me," said his heart. "Is not the fountain her image? Is it not the +very image of her eternal tears? Does she not press upward out of the +earth, where she dwells?" All at once he saw in his hand, as if +another's hand had laid it therein, the sketch of Linda's head which +Liana, with dying hands, had made and presented; but his fancy +powerfully impressed upon the picture the resemblance to the artist, so +clearly did he see Liana's soft face upon the paper.</p> + +<p class="normal">He went forth again into the shining world. "How poor I am!" he cried. +"I see her upon the golden cloud which sails from the evening sun +toward morning; I see her in the cool fountain of the vale, and on the +moon, and on the flower. I see her everywhere; and she rests only on +one spot. O, how poor!" And he looked up to heaven, and a single long +cloud was floating therein, swiftly and far away.</p> +<br> +<h3>102. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">Thus did the days, with their cities and landscapes, fly by, and the +world mirrored itself in Albano's life as in a poem. One faculty after +another, the whole bowed harvest of his inner being, gradually rose up +again green and dripping; but, at the same time, the thorn of grief +also grew strong. While his eye and spirit were filling themselves with +the world and all spoils of knowledge, the evil spectre of pain still +kept his abode in the ruins, and came forth when the heart was alone, +and seized it.</p> + +<p class="normal">He touched Vienna, where he must needs be pleased to be introduced to +several distinguished friends of Gaspard, who here, for the first time, +disclosed to him that he belonged not to the <i>Cavalleros del Turone</i>, +but was an Austrian Knight of the Fleece. "It is so singularly familiar +to me here," said Albano; "whence can this arise?" "From some +resemblance to another city," said Gaspard; "whoever travels much comes +out of like cities into like." Every day his father grew more dear and +intelligible to him, and yet no more confidential or intimate. After a +warm day and familiar conversation with Gaspard, one stood, at the +next succeeding interview, again in the very antechamber of his +acquaintance; as in the case of hard-natured maidens, after every +May-month's day the melted May-frost begins to fall anew. Age respects +love, but, unlike youth, it respects little the signs of love. However, +Albano maintained the pride of letting his father see him wholly and +with all his differences, without hiding his summer from the face of +winter.</p> + +<p class="normal">From day to day Gaspard found letters to himself at the post-offices, +particularly from Pestitz, as Albano saw externally by the post-marks, +for not one was handed over to him. He desired more and more to +overtake the Princess, who was now only one day's journey in advance of +them. They saw already those giants of winter, the Swiss and Tyrolese +Alps, in their encampment; those sons of the gods stood, armed with +avalanches and cataracts and winters, sentinels around the divine land +where gods and men reciprocally imitated each other. How often did +Albano, when the sun at evening glowingly blended with the snow-clad +Alpine heights, gaze with a pang of sadness at those thrones, which he +had once beheld quite otherwise, much more golden, so hopefully and +trustingly, from <i>Isola Bella</i>! The heights of thy past life, said he +to himself, are also white, and no Alpine horns any longer sound up +there, among serene, sunny days, and thou art deep in the valley!</p> + +<p class="normal">They passed, even now, the popular festival of a belated vintage. The +Knight informed himself about everything with the curiosity of a +wine-dealer, and with the science of a vine-dresser. So did he botanize +universally upon the earth after every spear and sprig of knowledge. +Albano wondered at this, since he had heretofore believed that Gaspard +sought and strove after nothing but the Paris—and Hesperides-apples of +art, because, in his station, he could have no occasion for any other +fruits, or need their meat and their kernel, either to enjoy or to +plant them.</p> + +<p class="normal">They sank into the depths of the mountains of Tyrol. The heights stood +already wrapped in the close, white bier-cloth of winter, and through +the valleys the cold storm went to and fro, the only living thing. +Albano's longing after the mild land of youth grew, between the storms +and the Alps, higher and higher; and Rome's image, the nearer it +approached him, assumed more colossal dimensions. Gaspard made the +journey go on wings, in order to anticipate the rain-clouds of autumn.</p> + +<p class="normal">In a dark travelling night they worked their passage, as it were, away +through the mountains, like their companion, the river Adige, which +tears up a giant rock, and heaves it into the mild plain, and softly +speeds on its level way. The sun appeared,—and Italy.</p> + +<p class="normal">It had rained. A bland air fluttered from the cypress hills through the +valley, and through the vine-festoons of the mulberry-trees, and had +forced its way along between blossoms and the fruits of the Seville +oranges. The Adige seemed to rest, like a curling giant-snake, upon the +motley-colored landscape of country-houses and olive-groves, and to set +rainbows upon one another. Life played in the ether; only summer birds +floated in the light blue; only the Venus-chariot of pleasure rolled +over the soft hills.</p> + +<p class="normal">Albano's full soul gushed out, as it were, into the broad bed which led +him from the mild plain to the magnificent Rome! "When we journey +back," said Gaspard, "then remember thy approach." They stopped at a +village with great stone houses. Albano was looking upon the warm +out-o'-door life around him, the uncovered head, the naked breast, and +the sparkling eyes of the men, the great sheep with silken wool, the +little, black, lively pigs, and the black turkey-cocks, when he +suddenly heard his name and a German greeting from a balcony overhead.</p> + +<p class="normal">It was the Princess; her carriages stood just aside; Bouverot and +Fraischdöfer were with her. How like balsam it steals through the +heart, in a strange land, and though it were the loveliest, to meet +again a brother or a sister inhabitant of a rougher land, as if one +were meeting in the second world a kindred son of earth! The Adige, +too, that had previously in the wild mountains accompanied him under +the name of the Etsch, followed him with its fairer designation into +the plain. The Princess seemed to him, he knew not why, to have become +milder, more maidenly in form and look, and he reproached himself with +his earlier error. But he only committed a later one. Beyond Vienna her +strongly drawn physiognomy was surpassed by sharper southern ones, and +the striking<a name="div2Ref_72" href="#div2_72"><sup>[72]</sup></a> colors in which she loved to array herself were +outshone by the Italian. A strange soil is a masquerade ball-room or a +watering-place hall, where only human relations, and no political ones, +prevail, and in a strange land men are least strangers. All touched +each other in friendliness, as strange hands feel after and grasp each +other during the ascent of mountains. With what veneration did Albano +look upon the Princess! For he thought, "She would fain have taken the +departed one with her into the healing Eden. O, the saint would indeed +be happy this morning, and her blue eye would weep for bliss." Then his +did so, but not for bliss; and thus are the fire-works of life, like +others, built always by and upon water. Then was the oath solemnly +sworn within him before the beautiful face of the dead Liana: "I will +be truly the friend of this her friend!" Man plays a new part in the +drama of life most warmly and best; over our introductory sermons the +Holy Spirit floats, brooding with the wings of a dove; only by and by +do the eggs lie cold. Albano, never yet initiated into any friendship +but a man's, worshipped that of woman as a rising star, and for this, +as for the former, he found far more capacities of sacrifice treasured +up in his warm soul than for love. Man is in friendship what woman is in +love, and the reverse; namely, more covetous of the object than of the +feeling for it.</p> + +<p class="normal">With new swelling sails and flying streamers, in gayly decorated +singing-vessels, with propitious side winds, did the gay passage fly +through cities and pastures.</p> + +<p class="normal">Nothing hangs out over the <i>corso</i> of a long journey a finer festoon of +fruits and flowers, for a carriage which goes before, than a couple of +carriages coming after. What fellowship of joy and danger in night +quarters! What bespeaking of lines of march! What joy over the +adventures past and to come, namely, over the reports of the same! And +how each loves the others!</p> + +<p class="normal">Only toward Bouverot Albano showed a steady coldness; but the Knight +was friendly. Albano, brought up more among books than among men, often +wondered within himself, that in the former the same difference of +sentiments passed by him so lightly, which among the latter assailed +him so sharply. At last his father asked him upon one occasion, "Why +dost thou demean thyself so strangely toward Herr von Bouverot? Nothing +exasperates more than a considerate, quiet hatred; a passionate hatred +does so far less." "Because it is my law," he answered, "to flee and to +hate the everlasting untruthfulness of men in their connections with +each other. Out of mere humanity to place one's self on a par with +unlike persons, designedly to make a friendly face to any one, to have +such a feeling towards a man, that one is not at liberty to speak it +out to him on the spot, that may well be deemed complete slavery, and +confounds the purest." "Whoso will love nothing but his likeness," +replied Gaspard, "has nothing but himself to love. Von Bouverot," he +added, laughing, "is, after all, a brave host and travelling +<i>compagnon</i>." Albano, who could withstand even people whom he +respected, made no inquisition upon his father, but thought the German +gentleman only the more despicable.</p> + +<p class="normal">That gentleman, born a pettifogger and pedler, had, it must be +observed, cleared a pathway of deep footprints for himself in the snow +of the Knight and the Princess,—both of whom, like all long +travellers,<a name="div2Ref_73" href="#div2_73"><sup>[73]</sup></a> were uncommonly avaricious,—by overseeing and +overreaching all hosts and Italians in settling up the <i>Patto</i>,<a name="div2Ref_74" href="#div2_74"><sup>[74]</sup></a> and +even by his understanding the art of being profoundly coarse just at +the right time, whereas upon turning from the host to the Princess he +would become as much a man of the world again as Fontenelle or any +Frenchman, who in such cases always counts up and curses longer than he +eats. The Knight of the Fleece, who, as he confessed, had never +travelled so cheaply, covered him, therefore, with the laurel which +grew all about here, and looked as gay as he had never looked before. +Only to his son was the cold, wrathful, coarse man a volcano, ejecting +slime and water. Ride a mile ahead of a crowned head or a classic +author, who is also one, and in general before people who have money, +but not to spare, and only save them a few gold pieces a day,—never +shall you have seen the said heads more glad or grateful than in such a +case!</p> + +<p class="normal">Everywhere Albano would fain have alighted, and stepped in among great +ruins and into the splendor of the scattered insignia, which had been +lost by the conquerors of the world out of their triumphal chariots on +the way to Rome. But the Knight advised him to spare and save his eyes +and inspiration for Rome itself. How his heart beat, when at last in +the waste <i>Campagna</i>, which lay full of lava-eruptions around the nest +of the Roman eagles, those world-driven storm-birds, they rolled along +over the Flaminian road! But he and Gaspard felt themselves wonderfully +oppressed. One seemed to be wading through the stagnant lake of a +sultry sulphurous atmosphere, which his father ascribed to the +brimstone huts at Baccano,—he thirsted for the snow on the distant +mountains,—the heavens were dark-blue and still,—single lofty clouds +flew arrow-swift through the silent wilderness. A man in the distance +set down again an urn which he had dug up, and prayed, anxiously +looking to heaven, and telling his beads. Albano turned toward the +mountains, to which the evening sun was sinking, as if dissolved in +piercing splendor. All at once the Knight ordered the postilion to +stop, who passionately threw up his arms toward heaven, while it went +on rumbling under the carriage, and exclaimed, "Holy mother of God, an +earthquake!" But Gaspard touched his son, who seemed intoxicated with +the splendors of sunset, and said, pointing, "<i>Ecco Roma!</i>" Albano +looked, and saw in the depths of the distance the dome of St. Peter's +gleaming in the sun. The sun went down, the earth quaked once more, but +in his spirit nothing was save Rome.</p> +<br> +<h3>103. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">Half an hour after the earthquake, the heavens swathed themselves in +seas and dashed them down in masses and in torrents. The naked +<i>Campagna</i> and heath were covered with the mantle of rain. Gaspard was +silent,—the heavens black,—the great thought stood alone in Albano, +that he was hastening on towards the bloody scaffold and the throne +scaffolding of humanity, the heart of a cold, dead, heathen-world, the +eternal Rome; and when he heard, on the <i>Ponte Molle</i>, that he was now +going across the Tiber, he felt as if the past had risen from the +dead,—as if the stream of time ran backward, and he were sailing on +it; under the streams of heaven he heard the seven old mountain-streams +rushing and roaring, which once came down from Rome's hills, and with +seven arms uphove the world from its foundations.</p> + +<p class="normal">At length the constellation of the mountain city of God, that stood so +broad before him, opened out into nights; cities with scattered lights +lay up and down, and the bells (which to his ear were alarm-bells) +sounded out the fourth<a name="div2Ref_75" href="#div2_75"><sup>[75]</sup></a> hour, when the carriage rolled through the +triumphal gate of the city, the <i>Porta del Popolo</i>; then the moon rent +her black heavens, and poured down out of the cleft clouds the splendor +of a whole sky. There stood the Egyptian obelisk of the gateway, high +as the clouds in the night, and three streets ran gleaming apart. "So," +said Albano to himself, as they passed through the long <i>corso</i> to the +Tenth Ward, "thou art veritably in the camp of the god of war; here, +where he grasped the hilt of the monstrous war-sword, and with the +point made the three wounds in three quarters of the world." Rain and +splendor gushed through the vast, broad streets,—occasionally he +passed suddenly along by gardens and into broad city-deserts and +market-places of the past. The rolling of the chariot amidst the rush +and roar of the rain resembled the thunder, whose days were once holy +to this heroic city, like the thundering heaven to the thundering +earth; muffled-up forms, with little lights, stole through the dark +streets; often there stood a long palace with colonnades in the fire of +the moon, often a solitary gray column, often a single high fir-tree, +or a statue behind cypresses. Once, when there was neither rain nor +moonshine, the carriage went round the corner of a large house, on +whose roof a tall, blooming virgin, with an uplooking child on her arm, +herself directed a little hand-light, now toward a white statue, now +toward the child, and so alternately illuminated the whole group. The +friendly company made its way to the very centre of his exalted soul +and brought with it to him many a recollection; particularly was a +Roman child to him a wholly new and mighty idea.</p> + +<p class="normal">They alighted at last at the Prince di Lauria's, Gaspard's +father-in-law, and old friend. Near his palace lay the <i>Campo Vaccino</i> +(the ancient Forum), and the radiant moon shone on the broad steps and +the three wondrous edifices of the Capitol; in the distance stood the +Colosseum. Albano ascended hesitatingly into the lighted house, before +which the carriage of the Princess stood, reluctantly turning his eye +from those heights of the world, from which once a light word like a +snow-flake rolled far and wide, and grew and grew, till at last in a +strange land it crushed a city with the weight of an avalanche.</p> + +<p class="normal">The Princess, with her company, saw with pleasure the new-comers. The +old Prince Lauria welcomed his grandson courteously and with reserve. +His innumerable servants spoke among them almost all the languages of +Europe. Albano immediately asked the Knight after his teacher Dian, +that graft of a Greek upon a Roman; but the most human thing was +precisely that which Gaspard, as is always the case with great men, had +not thought of. They sent to his residence, which was near; he was not +at home.</p> + +<p class="normal">They sat down to dine. The Prince immediately entertained them with his +favorite show-dish, the political progress of the world, and gave the +latest news of the French Revolution. Gazettes of the times were to him +Eternities, news was his antiques; he took all the newspapers of +Europe, and therefore kept for each a German, Russian, English, Polish +servant, to translate it for him. By the side of his satirical coldness +toward all men and things, the political and Italian zeal appeared the +stronger, with which he defended the French against the Knight, who +composedly despised them; and, indulging himself after his manner, even +in bad puns, conceded to the old Romans the <i>Forum</i> and to the modern +the <i>Campo Vaccino</i>, and even to the ancient Gauls the field of Mars, +and to the modern French a field of March.</p> + +<p class="normal">Albano could not conceive of there being any joking so near the +<i>Forum</i>, and thought every word must be great in this city. The cold +Lauria spoke warmly for France, like a minister, regarding only +nations, not individuals, and his sentiment pleased the youth.</p> + +<p class="normal">Then the Princess led the stream of conversation to Rome's high art. +Fraischdörfer dissected the Colossus into limbs, and weighed them in +the narrowest scales. Bouverot engraved the giant in historical +copperplate. The Princess spoke with much warmth, but without point. +Gaspard melted all up together, as it were, into a Corinthian brass, +and comprehended all without being comprehended. On his coldly but +strongly up-shooting life-fountain he let the world play and dance like +a ball.</p> + +<p class="normal">Albano, dissatisfied with all, kept his inspiration, sacrificing to the +unearthly gods of the past round about him, after the old fashion, +namely, with silence. Well might and could <i>he</i> have discoursed also, +but quite otherwise, in odes, with the whole man, with streams which +mount and grow upwards. He looked more and more longingly out of the +window at the moon in the pure rain-blue and at single columns of the +Forum; out of doors there gleamed for him the greatest world. At last +he rose up, indignant and impatient, and stole down into the glimmering +glory and stepped before the Forum; but the moonlit night, that +decorative painter, which works with irregular strokes, made almost the +very stage of the scene irrecognizable to him.</p> + +<p class="normal">What a broad, dreary plain, loftily encompassed with ruins, gardens and +temples, covered with prostrate capitals of columns, and with single +upright pillars, and with trees and a dumb wilderness! The heaped-up +ashes out of the emptied urn of time, and the potshards of a great +world flung around! He passed by three temple columns,<a name="div2Ref_76" href="#div2_76"><sup>[76]</sup></a> which the +earth had drawn down into itself even to the breast, and along through +the broad triumphal arch of Septimius Severus; on the right stood a +chain of columns without their temple; on the left, attached to a +Christian church, the colonnade of an ancient heathen temple deep sunk +into the sediment of time; at last the triumphal arch of Titus, and +before it, in the middle of the woody wilderness, a fountain gushing +into a granite basin.</p> + +<p class="normal">He went up to this fountain, in order to survey the plain out of which +the thunder-months of the earth once arose; but he went along as over a +burnt-out sun, hung round with dark, dead earths. "O man, O the dreams +of man!" something within him unceasingly cried. He stood on the +granite margin turning toward the Colosseum, whose mountain-ridges of +wall stood high in the moonlight, with the deep gaps which had been +hewn in them by the scythe of Time. Sharply stood the rent and jagged +arches of Nero's golden house hard by, like murderous cutlasses. The +palatine hill lay full of green gardens, and on crumbling temple-roofs +the blooming death-garland of ivy was gnawing, and living Ranunculæ +still glowed around sunken capitals. The fountain murmured babblingly +and eternally, and the stars gazed steadfastly down with imperishable +rays upon the still battle-field, over which the winter of time had +passed without bringing after it a spring,—the fiery soul of the world +had flown up, and the cold, crumbling giant lay around;—torn asunder +were the gigantic spokes of the fly-wheel which once the very stream of +ages drove. And in addition to all this, the moon shed down her light +like eating silver-water upon the naked columns, and would fain +dissolve the Colosseum and the temples and all into their own shadows!</p> + +<p class="normal">Then Albano stretched out his arms into the air, as if he could +therewith embrace and flow away, as with the arms of a stream, and +exclaimed: "O ye mighty shades, you who once strove and lived here, ye +are looking down from heaven, but scornfully, not sadly, for your great +fatherland has died and gone after you! Ah, had I on the insignificant +earth (full of old eternity), which you have made great, only done one +action worthy of you! Then were it to me a sweet privilege to open my +heart by a wound, and to mix earthly blood with the hallowed soil, and +to hasten away out of the world of graves to you, eternal and immortal +ones! But I am not worthy of it!"</p> + +<p class="normal">At this moment there came suddenly along up the <i>Via Sacra</i> a tall man, +deeply enveloped in his mantle, who drew near to the fountain; without +looking round threw down his hat, and held a coal-black, curly, almost +perpendicular hindhead under the stream of water. But hardly had he, +turning upward, caught a glimpse of the profile of Albano absorbed in +his fancies, when he started up all dripping, stared at the Count, fell +into amazement, threw his arms high into the air, and said, "<i>Amico?</i>" +Albano looked at him. The stranger said, "<i>Albano!</i>" "My Dian!" cried +Albano. They clasped each other passionately, and wept for love.</p> + +<p class="normal">Dian could not comprehend it at all. He said, in Italian, "But it +surely cannot be you; you look old." He thought he was speaking German +all the time, till he heard Albano answer in Italian. Both gave and got +only questions. Albano found the Architect merely browner, but there +was the lightning of the eyes and every faculty in its old glory. With +three words he described to him the journey and the company. "How does +Rome strike you?" asked Dian, pleasantly. "As life does," replied +Albano, very seriously; "it makes one too tender and too hard. I +recognize here absolutely nothing at all," he continued; "do those +columns belong to the magnificent Temple of Peace?" "No," said Dian, +"to the Temple of Concord; of the other there stands yonder nothing but +the vault." "Where is Saturn's Temple?" asked Albano. "Buried in St. +Adrian's Church," said Dian, and added, hastily, "close by stand the +ten columns of Antonine's Temple; over beyond there, the Baths of +Titus; behind us, the Palatine Hill, and so on. Now tell me—"</p> + +<p class="normal">They walked up and down the Forum, between the arches of Titus and +Severus. Albano—especially beside the teacher who in the days of +childhood had so often conducted him hitherward—was yet full of the +stream which had swept over the world, and the all-covering water sank +but slowly. He went on to say, "To-day, when he beheld the obelisk, the +soft, tender brightness of the moon had seemed to him eminently +unbecoming the giant city; he would rather have seen a sun blazing on +its broad banner; but now the moon was the proper funeral torch beside +the dead Alexander, who at a touch collapses into a handful of dust." +"The artist does not get far with feelings of this kind," said Dian; +"he must look upon everlasting beauties on the right hand and on the +left." "Where," Albano went on asking, "is the old Lake of Curtius, the +Rostrum, the <i>pila Horatia</i>, the Temple of Vesta, of Venus, and of all +those solitary columns?" "And where is the marble Forum itself?" said +Dian; "it lies thirty span deep under our feet." "Where is the great, +free people, the senate of kings, the voice of the orators, the +procession to the Capitol? Buried under the mountain of potshards. O +Dian, how can a man, who loses a father, a beloved in Rome, shed a +single tear, or look round him with consternation, when he comes out +here before this battle-field of time, and looks into the charnel-house +of the nations? Dian, one would wish here an iron heart, for fate has +an iron hand!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Dian, who nowhere stayed more reluctantly than upon such tragic cliffs, +hanging over, as it were, into the sea of eternity, always leaped off +from them with a jest. Like the Greeks, he blended dances with tragedy. +"Many a thing is conserved here, friend," said he; "in Adrian's church +yonder they will still show you the bones of the three men that walked +in the fire." "That is just the frightful play of destiny," replied +Albano, "to occupy the heights of the mighty ancients with monks shorn +down into slaves."</p> + +<p class="normal">"The stream of time drives new wheels," said Dian; "yonder lies Raphael +twice buried.<a name="div2Ref_77" href="#div2_77"><sup>[77]</sup></a> How are Chariton and the children doing?" "They are +blooming on," said Albano, but in a sombre tone. "Heavens!" cried Dian, +with all a father's terror, "is it really so?"<a name="div2Ref_78" href="#div2_78"><sup>[78]</sup></a> "Verily, Dian!" said +Albano, softly. "Does Liana," said Dian, "still come often to +Chariton's? And how fares the sweet one?" Albano answered, in a low +tone, "She is dead." "What! dead? Impossible! Froulay's daughter, +Albano? The gold-rose? O speak!" he cried. Albano nodded affirmatively. +"Ah! thou good maiden!" said he, piteously, with tears in his black +eyes, "so friendly, so enchantingly lovely, so fine an artist! But how +did it come to pass? Have you, then, not been acquainted at all with +the lovely child?" "One spring only," said Albano, hurriedly. "My good +Dian, I will now go back to my father, and I can answer no more +questions." "O certainly! But I must learn more," Dian concluded. And +so they climbed silently and speedily over rubbish and torsos of +columns, and neither gave heed to the mighty emotion of the other.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<p class="center"><img src="images/barstart.png" alt="barstart"></p> +<br> +<h2><a name="div1Ref_27" href="#div1_27">TWENTY-SEVENTH JUBILEE.</a></h2> + +<h3><span class="sc2">St. Peter's.—Rotunda.—Colosseum.—Letter to Schoppe.—The +War.—Gaspard.—The Corsican.—Entanglement with the +Princess.—Sickness.—Gaspard's Brother.—St. Peter's Dome, +and Departure.</span></h3> +<br> +<h3>104. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">Rome, like the creation, is an entire wonder, which gradually +dismembers itself into new wonders, the Colosseum, the Pantheon, St. +Peter's Church, Raphael, &c.</p> + +<p class="normal">With the passage through the Church of St. Peter the knight began the +fair race through immortality. The Princess let herself be bound by the +tie of art to the circle of the men. As Albano was more smitten with +edifices than with any other work of art, so did he see from afar with +holy awe the long mountain-chain of art, which again bore upon itself +hills; so did he stand before the plain, around which two enormous +colonnades run like Corsos, bearing a people of statues; in the centre +shoots up the obelisk, and on its right and left an eternal fountain, +and from the lofty steps the proud church of the world, inwardly filled +with churches, rearing upon itself a temple toward heaven, looks down +upon the earth. But how enormously, as they drew near, had its columns +and its rocky wall mounted up and flown away from the vision!</p> + +<p class="normal">He entered the magic church, which gave the world blessings, curses, +kings, and popes, with the consciousness that, like the world-edifice, +it was continually enlarging and receding more and more, the longer one +remained in it. They went up to two children of white marble, who held +an incense-muscle-shell of yellow marble; the children grew by nearness +till they were giants. At length they stood before the main altar and +its hundred perpetual lamps;—what a stillness! Above them the heaven's +arch of the dome, resting on four inner towers; around them an +overarched city, of four streets, in which stood churches. The temple +became greatest by walking in it; and when they passed round one +column, there stood a new one before them, and holy giants gazed +earnestly down. Here was the youth's large heart, after so long a time, +filled. "In no art," he said to his father, "is the soul so mightily +possessed with the sublime as in architecture; in every other the giant +stands in it and in the depths of the soul, but here he stands out of +it and close before it." Dian, to whom all images were more clear than +abstract ideas, said: "He is perfectly right." Fraischdörfer replied: +"The sublimity here also lies only in the brain: for the whole church +stands, after all, in something greater, namely, in Rome, and under the +heavens, in the presence of which latter we certainly should not feel +anything." He also complained, "That the place for the sublime in his +head was very much narrowed by the innumerable volutes and monuments +which the temple shut up therein at the same time with itself." Gaspard +said, taking everything in a large sense: "When the sublime once really +appears, it then, by its very nature, absorbs and annihilates all +little circumstantial ornaments." He adduced as evidence the tower of +the minster,<a name="div2Ref_79" href="#div2_79"><sup>[79]</sup></a> and nature itself, which is not made smaller by its +grasses and villages.</p> + +<p class="normal">The Princess, among so many connoisseurs of art, enjoyed in silence.</p> + +<p class="normal">The ascent of the dome Gaspard recommended to defer to a dry and +cloudless day, in order that they might behold the queen of the world, +Rome, upon and from the proper throne; he therefore proposed very +earnestly the visiting of the Pantheon, because he was eager to let +this follow immediately after the impression of St. Peter's Church. +They went thither. How simply and grandly the Hall opens upon one! +Eight yellow columns sustain its brow, and majestically, as the head of +the Homeric Jupiter, its temple arches itself! It is the Rotunda or +Pantheon. "O the pygmies," cried Albano, "who would fain give us new +temples! Raise the old ones higher out of the rubbish, and then you +have built enough."<a name="div2Ref_80" href="#div2_80"><sup>[80]</sup></a> They stepped in; there reared itself around +them a holy, simple, free world-structure with its heavenly arches +soaring and striving upward, an odeum of the tones of the sphere-music, +a world in the world! And overhead<a name="div2Ref_81" href="#div2_81"><sup>[81]</sup></a> the eye-socket of the light and +of the sky gleamed down, and the distant rack of clouds seemed to touch +the lofty arch over which it shot along! And round about them stood +nothing but the temple-bearers, the columns! The temple of <i>all</i> gods +endured and concealed the diminutive altars of the later ones.</p> + +<p class="normal">Gaspard questioned Albano about his impressions. He said he preferred +the larger church of St. Peter. The Knight approved, and said that +"youth, like nations, always more easily found and better appreciated +the sublime than the beautiful, and that the spirit of the young man +ripened from strength to beauty, as his body ripens from beauty to +strength; however, he himself preferred the Pantheon." "How could the +moderns," said the Counsellor of Arts, Fraischdörfer, "build anything, +except some little Bernini's towers?" "That is why," said the offended +Provincial Architect, Dian, who despised the Counsellor of Arts, +because he never made a good figure, except in the æsthetic hall of +judgment as critic, never in the exhibition-hall as painter, "we +moderns are, beyond contradiction, stronger in criticism, though in +practice we are collectively and individually blockheads." Bouverot +remarked, "The Corinthian columns might be higher." The Counsellor of +Arts said, "After all, he knew nothing more like this fine hemisphere +than a much smaller one, which he had found in Herculaneum, moulded in +ashes—of the bosom of a fair fugitive." The Knight laughed, and Albano +turned away in disgust, and went to the Princess.</p> + +<p class="normal">He asked her for her opinion about the two temples. "Here Sophocles, +there Shakespeare; but I comprehend and appreciate Sophocles more +easily," she replied, and looked with new eyes into his new +countenance. For the supernatural illumination through the zenith of +Heaven—not through a hazy horizon—transfigured in her eyes the +beautiful and excited countenance of the youth, and she took for +granted that the saintly halo of the dome must also exalt her form. +When he answered her: "Very good! But in Shakespeare Sophocles also is +contained; not, however, Shakespeare in Sophocles; and on Peter's +Church stands Angelo's rotunda!" Just then the lofty cloud all at once, +as by the blow of a hand out of the ether, broke in two, and the +ravished sun, like the eye of a Venus, floating through her ancient +heavens,—for she once stood even here,—looked mildly in from the +upper deep; then a holy radiance filled the temple, and burned on the +porphyry of the pavement, and Albano looked around him in an ecstasy of +wonder and delight, and said, with low voice: "How transfigured at this +moment is everything in this sacred place! Raphael's spirit comes forth +from his grave in this noontide hour, and everything which its +reflection touches brightens into godlike splendor!" The Princess +looked upon him tenderly, and he lightly laid his hand upon hers, and +said, as one vanquished, "Sophocles!"</p> + +<p class="normal">On the next moonlit evening Gaspard bespoke torches, in order that the +Colosseum with its giant-circle might, the first time, stand in fire +before them. The Knight would fain have gone around alone with his son +dimly through the dim work, like two spirits of the olden time, but the +Princess forced herself upon him, from a too lively wish to share with +the noble youth his moments,—and perhaps, in fact, to have her heart +and his own common property. Women do not sufficiently comprehend that +an idea, when it fills and elevates man's mind, shuts it up against +love, and crowds out persons, whereas with woman all ideas easily +become human beings.</p> + +<p class="normal">They passed over the Forum by the <i>Via Sacra</i> to the Colosseum, whose +lofty, cloven forehead looked down pale under the moonlight. They stood +before the gray rock-walls, which reared themselves on four colonnades, +one above another, and the flames shot up into the arches of the +arcades, gilding the green shrubbery high overhead; and deep in the +earth had the noble monster already buried his feet. They stepped in, +and ascended the mountain full of fragments of rock, from one seat of +the spectators to another; Gaspard did not venture to the sixth, or +highest, where the men used to stand, but Albano and the Princess did. +Then the youth gazed down over the cliffs, upon the round, green crater +of the burnt-out volcano, which once swallowed nine thousand beasts at +once, and which quenched itself with human blood; the lurid glare of +the flames penetrated into the clefts and caverns, and among the +foliage of the ivy and laurel, and among the great shadows of the moon, +which, like recluses, kept themselves in cells; toward the south, where +the streams of centuries and barbarians had stormed in, stood single +columns and bare arcades,—temples and three palaces had the giant fed +and lined with his limbs, and still, with all his wounds, he looked out +livingly into the world.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What a world!" said Albano. "Here coiled the giant snake five times +about Christianity! Like a smile of scorn lies the moonlight down +below there upon the green arena, where once stood the colossus of the +sun-god. The star of the north<a name="div2Ref_82" href="#div2_82"><sup>[82]</sup></a> glimmers low through the windows, +and the serpent and the bear crouch. What a world has gone by!" The +Princess answered, that twelve thousand prisoners built this theatre, +and that a great many more had bled in it. "O, we too have building +prisoners," said he, "but for fortifications; and blood, too, still +flows, but with sweat! No, we have no present; the past without it must +bring forth a future."</p> + +<p class="normal">The Princess went off to break a laurel-twig and pluck a blooming +wall-flower. Albano sank away into musing,—the autumnal wind of the +past swept over the stubble,—on this holy eminence he saw the +constellations, Rome's green hills, the glimmering city, the Pyramid of +Cestius; but all became past, and on the twelve hills dwelt, as upon +graves, the lofty old spirits, and looked sternly into the age as if +they were still its kings and judges.</p> + +<p class="normal">"This in remembrance of the place and the time!" said the Princess, +returning and handing him the laurel and the flower. "Thou mighty one, +a colosseum is thy flower-pot; for thee nothing is too great, and +nothing too small!" said he, and threw the Princess into considerable +confusion, till she observed that he meant not her, but Nature. His +whole being seemed newly and painfully moved, and as it were removed to +a distance,—he looked down after his father and went to find him,—he +looked at him sharply, and spoke of nothing more this evening.</p> +<br> +<h3>105. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">Albano, like a world, was wonderfully changed by Rome. After he had +thus, for several weeks, lain encamped among Rome's creations and +ruins; after he had drunk out of Raphael's crystal magic goblet, whose +first draughts only cool, while the last send an Italian fire through +all the veins; after he had seen the mountain-stream of Michael Angelo, +now as a succession of cataracts, now as a mirror of the ether; after +he had bowed and consecrated himself before the last greatest +descendants of Greece, before her gods, who, with calm, serene +countenance, stand looking into the inharmonious world, and before the +Vatican Apollo, who is indignant at the prose of the age, at the abject +Pythonian serpent, which is ever renewing its youth;—after he had +stood so long in splendor before the full moon of the past, all at once +his whole inner world was overcast, and became one great cloud. He +sought solitude; he ceased to draw or to practise music; he spoke +little of Rome's magnificence. By night, when the daily rain ceased, he +visited alone the great ruins of the earth, the Forum, the Colosseum, +the Capitol; he became more passionate, unsocial, sharp; a deep, +brooding seriousness reigned on the lofty brow, and a sombre spirit +burned through the eye.</p> + +<p class="normal">Gaspard, unobserved, kept his eye upon all secret unfoldings of the +youth. A mere sorrow for Liana did not seem to be his case. In the +northern winter this wound would only have frozen up, and not healed +up; but here, in the temple of the world, where gods lie buried, a noble +heart gathered strength, and beat for older graves. The Princess, who, +under the mask of friendship for the father, aspired after the son, he +sought less than the old, cold Lauria and the fiery Dian.</p> + +<p class="normal">At this same period, he longed sadly for his Schoppe; on that breast, +he thought, would the secret of his own have found the right place and +comfort. It was to him as if he had, since this separation, lived with +him uninterruptedly, and become bound to him by a faster fraternal +bond. Thus do spirits dwell and melt together in the invisible land; +and when the bodies again meet each other in the visible, the hearts +find each other again mutually more acquainted. Unfortunately, among +all the letters that his father received from Pestitz, he heard not one +sound from his friend over the mountains, whom he had left behind in +the dark relations of a strange, perplexing passion. He never reckoned +silence as a fault against Schoppe, whose hatred and spite against all +letter-writing he well knew. However, his own heart could not bear it +any longer, and he wrote to him as follows:—</p> + +<p class="normal">"We were torn from each other sleeping, Schoppe. That time has veiled +itself, and remains so. Very wide awake will we be when we look on each +other again. Of thee I know nothing; if Rabette does not write to me, I +shall have to bear about with me and endure this burning impatience +till our meeting in summer. Of myself what is there to write? I am +changed even to my innermost being, and by an ingrasping giant-hand. +When the sun passes over the zenith of countries, they all wrap +themselves in a deep cloud; so am I now beneath the sun at its highest +point, and I am also shrouded. How a man in Rome, in actual Rome, can +merely enjoy and weakly melt away before the fire of art, instead of +starting up red with shame, and striving and struggling for power and +exploits, is what I cannot comprehend. In painted Rome, in the Rome of +poetry, there laziness may luxuriate; but in the real Rome, where +obelisks, Colosseum, Capitol, triumphal arches, incessantly behold and +reproach thee,—where the history of ancient deeds, all day long, like +an invisible storm-wind, sweeps and sounds through the city, and impels +and lifts thee,—O, who can stretch himself out in inglorious ease and +contemplation before the magnificent stirring of the world? The spirits +of saints, of heroes, of artists, follow after the living man, and ask, +indignantly, 'What art thou?' With far other feelings dost thou go down +out of the Vatican of Raphael, and over the steps of the Capitol, than +thou comest out of any German picture-gallery or antique cabinet. There +thou seest, on all hills, old, eternal majesty. Even a Roman woman is, +in shape and pride of stature, still related to her city. The dweller +beyond the Tiber is a Spartan, and thou wilt no more find a Roman than +a Jew stupid; whereas in Pestitz thou must become impatient with the +very contrast of the mere form. Even the calm Dian maintains that the +odious masks of the ancients look like the faces in the German streets, +and their Fauns and other bestial gods like nobler court-faces, and +that their copy-pictures of Alexander, of the philosophers, of the +Roman tyrants, however pointedly and prosaically they stand out in +contrast to their poetical statues of the gods, resemble the present +ideals of the painters.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Is it enough, here, to creep around the giants with eyes full of +astonishment and folded hands, and then languidly and pusillanimously +to lie pining at their feet? Friend, how often in the days of +discontent did I pronounce the artists and poets happy, who at least +may appease their longing by light and joyous creations, and who with +beautiful plays celebrate the mighty dead,—Archimimes of the heroic +age. And yet, after all, these voluptuous plays are only the jingling +of the bells on the lightning-conductor: there is something higher; +action is life; therein the whole man bestirs himself, and blooms with +all his twigs. Not of the narrow, timid achievements of littleness +on the oar-bank and the lolling-bank of the times are we speaking +here. There still stands a gate open to the coronation-city of the +spirit,—the gate of sacrifice, the door of Janus. Where else on earth +than on the battle-field is the place to be found in which all +energies, all offerings, and virtues of a whole life, crowded into an +hour, play together in divine freedom with thousand sister powers +and offerings? Where else do all faculties—from the most rapid +sharp-sightedness even to all bodily capacities of despatch and of +endurance, from the highest magnanimity down to the tenderest pity, +from all contempt of the body even up to the mortal wound—find the +lists so freely open for a covenant-rivalry? although, for the very +same reason, the play-room of all the gods stands open also to the +mask-dance of all the furies. Only take war in a higher sense, where +spirits, without relation of gain and loss, only by force of honor and +of object, bind themselves over to destiny, that it shall select from +among their bodies the corpses, and draw the lot of victory out of the +graves. Two nations go out on the battle-plain, the tragic stage of a +higher spirit, in order to play against one another, without any +personal enmity, their death-parts; still and black hangs the +thunder-cloud over the battle-field; the nations march on into the +cloud and all its thunders; they strike, and gloomily and alone burns +the death-torch above them; at last it is light, and two triumphal +gates stand built up,—the gate of death and the gate of victory,—and +the host has divided and passed through both, but through both with +garlands of honor. And when it is over, the dead and the living stand +exalted in the world, because they had not cared for life. But when the +great day is to be still greater, when the most costly thing is to come +to the spirit which can hallow life, then does God place an +Epaminondas, a Cato, a Gustavus Adolphus, at the head of the +consecrated host, and freedom is at once the banner and the palm. O, +blessed he who then lives or dies at once for the god of war and for +the goddess of peace!</p> + +<p class="normal">"Let me not profane this by speaking of it. But take here my softly +spoken but firmly meant word, and lay it up in thy bosom, that so soon +as the probable war of Gallic freedom breaks out, I take my part +decidedly in it, for it. Nothing can hold me back, not even my father. +This resolution belongs to my peace and existence. Not from ambition do +I form it; though I do from an honorable self-love. Even in my earlier +years I could never enjoy the flat praise of an eternal domestic +felicity, which certainly beseems women rather than men. Of course +hardly any one else has <i>thy</i> strength or disposition to take +everything great quietly, and silently to melt down the world into an +internal dream. Thou gazest upon the coming clouds and along the +milky-way, and sayest coldly, Cloudy! But dost thou not, prithee, allow +thyself too deeply in this feeling, in this cold vault? It is true, the +poison of this feeling will, in all parts of Rome particularly, that +churchyard of such remote nations, such opposite centuries, consume one +more sweetly than anywhere else; but couldst thou know the changeable, +except by contrast with the unchangeable, standing side by side with +it? and where does death dwell but in life? Let decay and dust reign! +there are, after all, three immortalities; although in the first, the +superterrestrial, thou dost not believe; then the subterranean, for the +universe may decay, but not its dust; and the immortality which ever +worketh therein, namely, this, that every action becomes more certainly +an eternal mother than it is an eternal daughter. And this union with +the universe and with eternity encourages the ephemera, in their +flying-moment, to carry and sow still farther abroad the blossom-dust, +which in the next thousand years will perhaps appear as a palm-grove.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Whether I disclose myself to my father is to me still a matter of +doubt, because I am still in doubt on the subject, whether I am to take +his previous expressions against the modern French for sharp earnest, +or only as another instance of the sportive coldness wherewith he was +formerly wont to treat his very divinities,—Homer, Raphael, Cæsar, +Shakespeare,—from disgust at the mimicking idolatry which the vulgar +show to true elevation and to false. Greet my brave, manly Wehrfritz, +and remind him of our union-festival on the day when the news comes of +the demolition of the Bastille. Farewell, and stay by me!</p> + +<p class="right">"<span class="sc">Albano</span>."</p> +<br> + +<p class="normal">On the evening of writing this letter he went with his father to a +<i>Converzatione</i> in the <i>Palazzo Colonna</i>; here they found the dark +marble gallery, full of antiques and pictures, perverted from a chamber +of art and a parlor into a fencing-school; all arms and tongues of +Romans were in commotion and in conflict about the latest developments +of the French Revolution, and most in its favor. It was at the time +when almost all Europe forgot for some days, what it had been for +centuries learning from the political and poetic history of France, +that this same France could more easily become a magnified than a great +nation. The Knight alone gave himself up rather to the works of art +than to the sham-fight in his neighborhood. At length, however, he +heard distant words which announced how Albano, like all the youth of +that day, was marching exultingly after the <i>Queen of Heaven</i>, +<i>Liberty</i>, following on in the train of eternal freemen and eternal +slaves after the <i>equality</i> of the times; then he drew nearer and +remarked, in his manner, "That the Revolution was something very great; +but that he found, however, in great works, e. g. in a Colosseum or +obelisk, in the bloom of a science, in war, in the heights of +astronomy, of physics, less to admire than others, for it was merely a +mass in time or space that created it, a considerable multitude of +<i>little</i> forces. But only great ones a man should respect.<a name="div2Ref_83" href="#div2_83"><sup>[83]</sup></a> In +revolution he saw more of the former than of the latter. Freedom was as +little gained as lost in <i>one</i> day; as weak individuals in a state of +intoxication were exactly the opposite of themselves, so too there was +a sort of intoxication of the multitude by multitude."</p> + +<p class="normal">Hereupon Bouverot replied, "That is exactly my sentiment, too." Albano +made answer, and very visibly only to his father, because he profoundly +despised the German gentleman, and held him utterly unworthy of +enjoying high works of art, for which he had brought with him an +eminent <i>taste</i>, although no sense, and said: "Dear father, the twelve +thousand Jews did not design the Colosseum which they built, but the +idea was, after all, at some time or other, entirely in <i>one</i> man, in +Vespasian; and so universally must there preside over the concentric +directions of little forces some great one, and though it were God +himself." "To that source," said Gaspard, "to which everything godlike +is referred, thou mayst transfer it if thou wilt." Bouverot smiled. +"The Gallic intoxication," replied Albano, warmly, "is surely and +verily no accidental one, but an enthusiasm grounded at once in +humanity and in time, for whence otherwise the universal interest in +it? They may perhaps sink, but only to soar higher. Through a red sea +of blood and war humanity wades toward the promised land, and the +wilderness is <i>long</i>; with gashed hands, gluing themselves in their +own blood, they, like the chamois-hunters, climb upward." "The +chamois-hunters themselves," said the Knight, "do the same still more, +when they undertake to come <i>down from the Alps</i>; meanwhile such hopes +are charming, and we will gladly wish their fulfilment." "<i>Signor +Conte</i>," added Bouverot, "was very happy in naming the outbreak a fit +of intoxication. One sleeps it out; but in the morning there is a great +deal broken and to pay." "Intoxication?" said Albano; "what best thing +has not occurred in a state of enthusiasm, and what worst thing has not +been done in cold blood? Say, Herr von Bouverot? Yes, there is a grim, +dreadful frost of the soul, as well as a similar physical frost, which, +like the greatest heat, makes one black and blind and sore;<a name="div2Ref_84" href="#div2_84"><sup>[84]</sup></a> +something like French tragedy, <i>cold</i>, and yet <i>barbarous</i>."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Thou approachest the tragic, son," said Gaspard, interrupting him, and +reinforcing the German gentleman; "we may expect of the French very +much political sagacity, especially in distress; that is their forte. +Therein they match women. They are, too, like women, either uncommonly +tender, moral, and humane, when they are good, or, like them, quite as +cruel and rough, when they are beside themselves. It may be predicted, +that, in a liberation-war, if one should break out, they will, in +valor, take precedence of all parties. That will dazzle exceedingly, +since, after all, nothing is rarer than a cowardly people. One learns +to estimate military courage very moderately, when one sees that the +Roman Legions, precisely when they were mercenary, bad, slavish, and +half freedmen, namely, under the Triumvirate, fought more courageously +than ever. The citizens fought and died to the very last man for that +insignificant incendiary, Catiline, and only slaves were made +prisoners."</p> + +<p class="normal">This speech set a hot seal upon Albano's mouth; it seemed exactly as if +his father had found him out, and took his old pleasure in damping, +like a fate, all enthusiasm, and giving all expectations, even gloomy +ones, the lie. The offended, self-inflaming spirit remained now fast +covered from Gaspard and Bouverot.</p> + +<p class="normal">But to his Dian he showed all on the morning after. He knew how this +friend, with the arm of an artist and a youth at once, bore and waved +the banner of freedom, and therefore he broke before him the dark seal +of his previous melancholy. He confessed to his most beloved teacher +his full-grown purpose, so soon as the unholy war against Gallic +liberty, which now hung out its pitchy torch in all streets of the city +of God, burst into flames, to repair to the side of freedom, and to +fall himself sooner than see her fall. "Truly, you are a brave man," +said Dian. "Had I not child and profession hanging upon my neck, by +Heaven, I myself would join you. An old fellow like that yonder sees +much and hears badly. He shall not nose out anything, nor his beast of +a <i>Barigello</i> neither." He meant the Counsellor of Arts, Fraischdörfer, +whom he, with an artist's obstinacy, eternally abominated, because the +Counsellor painted worse and criticised better than himself. "Dian, +your word is finely said; yes, indeed, age makes one physically and +morally <i>far-sighted</i> for one's self, and <i>deaf</i> to others," said +Albano. "Have I spoken well, Albano? But truly such is the fact," said +he, very much pleased, in his diffidence with respect to his language, +at the praise of its beauty.</p> + +<p class="normal">After some time, the Knight, just as if he saw away through the seal, +uttered some words which took hold of the youth on all sides. "There +are," said he, "some vigorous natures which stand exactly on the +boundary-line of genius and talent, fitted out, half for active, half +for ideal effort, and, withal, of burning ambition. They feel forcibly +all that is beautiful and great, and would fain create it again out of +themselves; but they succeed only very feebly in doing so. They have +not, like genius, one direction toward the centre of gravity, but they +stand themselves at the gravitating point, so that the directions +destroy each other. They are now poets, now painters, now musicians; +most of all do they love in youth bodily courage, because in that +strength most easily and expeditiously expresses itself through the +arm. Hence, in early life, everything great which they see enraptures +them, because they think to create it anew, but later in life quite +annoys them, because, after all, they have not the power. They should, +however, perceive that it is just they, if they know early how to guide +their ambition, who have drawn the finest lot of various and +harmonizing powers. They seem to be rightly fitted for the enjoyment of +all that is beautiful, as well as for moral development and for the +care of their being, for <i>whole</i> men,—something like what a prince +must be, because in that office one must have for his all-sided +destination all-sided directions of effort and kinds of knowledge."</p> + +<p class="normal">They stood, as he said this, just on Mount Aventine; before them the +Pyramid of Cestius, that epitaphium of the Heretics' Churchyard, +wherein so many an undeveloped artist and youth sleeps, and, near by, +the lofty potshard mountain<a name="div2Ref_85" href="#div2_85"><sup>[85]</sup></a> (<i>monte testaccio</i>), before which +Albano always passed along with a miserable, sickly feeling of stale +dreariness. The shock which his father's ideas gave his own, and the +relationship of the potshard mountain to the strangers' churchyard, +caused Albano to answer rather himself than his father, with a melted +ice-drop of displeasure in his eye: "Such a nameless mountain of pots +is, upon the whole, also the history of nations. But one would much +rather kill one's self on the spot than, after a long life, to bury +one's self so namelessly and ingloriously in the mass at last."</p> + +<p class="normal">After his union with himself, he grew more happy. Already he began with +zeal to set himself to work, agreeably to his nature, which, as in the +seed-corn, put forth out of one seed-point stem and root, thoughts and +actions.</p> + +<p class="normal">He threw all other pursuits away, and studied the art of war, ancient +and modern, for which Dian borrowed and supplied him the books and the +study-chamber. With unspeakable delight and exaltation, he ran over +again the sun-charts of the Roman history, here on the very body of the +burnt-out sun itself, and often, when he read descriptions of its +volcanic eruptions, he stood in the very craters where they had +occurred.</p> + +<p class="normal">Dian gave, into the bargain, his knowledge of the small service, and +gladly gave himself for bodily exercises, when he had previously +ushered him up to divine service under the heaven of Raphael's art, +where graces, like constellations, walk in the lofty ether; for with +Dian body and soul were <i>one</i> casting; the most delicate ocular nerve +and the hardest brachial muscle were <i>one</i> band. At last, as a word was +much more disagreeable to him than an action, and as he had much rather +bestir the whole body than the tongue, he introduced to the Count an +oratorical brother-in-arms, a young Corsican, all alive, as if formed +out of the clear marrow of life.</p> + +<p class="normal">The two young men loved and exercised each other for a time in romantic +freedom, without so much as asking each other's name. They fought, +read, swam. The Corsican almost idolized Albano's form, strength, head, +and soul, and poured his whole heart into one which he could not wholly +comprehend; as many maidens do only when in love, so did he only when +playing war show soul and sense. Albano's clear gold complacently +reflected back the strange form, without, like glass, annihilating its +own at the same time.</p> + +<p class="normal">On one occasion the glow of the Corsican grew into a flame, which +showed up the whole character of his life to his friend in a bright +illumination, and his peculiar aim and thirst, namely, for Frenchmen's +blood, "which," he said, "he hoped to quench in the approaching war." +Had Albano been like him, then would they, like fighting stags, have +mortally entangled themselves in each other's antlers; for the +obstinate, inflexible courage of the Corsican—more a sensual courage +as Albano's was more a spiritual—could not endure a contradiction. +Like his class, he desired of Albano a right strong backing word to his +speech; but Albano said: "This is the very greatness in war, that one +can and dare do without exasperated passion, without personal enmity, +all that which the weakling can do only by such means; verily it were +nobler," said he, "to kill in battle a loved than a hated one." "Silly +chimeras!" said the Corsican, angrily; "what? Thou wilt kill the French +and yet love them?" Albano's magnanimity threw off at once every timid +mask, and he said: "In one word, I shall some time fight <i>for</i> the +French and with them." "Thou, false one?" said the Corsican, +"impossible! Against me?" "No," replied Albano, "I pray God that we may +never meet in that hour!" "And I will supplicate Him right earnestly," +said the Corsican, "that we never may meet again at all except one day +at the point of the bayonet. Adio!" So saying, he turned on his heel in +a fury and never came back again.</p> +<br> +<h3>106. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">Unlike other fathers, Gaspard had been, since the first battle about +war, the same as ever, yes, almost better than ever; with his old +respect for every strong individuality, he took it quite agreeably that +the sun of the youth entered so perceptibly into the signs of summer, +and soared above the earth higher as well as warmer.</p> + +<p class="normal">He gave him the nearest proof of his undiminished regard in the fact, +that, amidst the gradual preparations for returning to Pestiz, he +answered in the affirmative to a quite unexpected wish of his son's +for—separation. That is to say, Albano, who now, like ivy, wandered +with all his blossoms and twigs among the monuments of the heroic past, +and twined himself faster and faster around them, would not part from +Rome without having seen Naples. To reinforce his own longing came also +Dian's inspiration for the daughter-land of his father-land, for the +splendor of its sky and earth, for its Grecian ruins, which the +Architect preferred to the Roman. "In Rome," Dian had said, "you have +the past; in Naples, on the other hand, the bold present. I will +accompany you to and fro, and we will go home together. For you are +not, to be sure, as yet, properly speaking, versed in the beautiful, +but in nature, in the heroic and in effect. Naples is the place, then." +The Knight—although the whole object of the journey had been already +gained by Albano's having regained his spirits—consented without +hesitation to the appendix of a second, on the condition that he should +not stay behind longer than a month.</p> + +<p class="normal">But just at this time, when his inner world seemed at liberty to tune +itself so harmoniously, came hostile discords nearer and nearer, which +at a distance he still took for harmonies. The discord evolved itself +slowly out of his indefinite connection with the Princess, because +every such connection with women decided itself uncomfortably at last, +seldomer ending in love than in hatred.</p> + +<p class="normal">The Princess hitherto had done and suffered everything, in order to be +dangerous to him, even before she became intelligible. She played Liana +as well as she knew how, and took out of her theatrical wardrobe the +nun's veil of a religious virginity, although women of genius are +mostly sceptical, as men of genius are credulous. She made him the +confidant of her past life, and gave the history of those who had died +for her, or at least pined away, and she told all this, after the +manner of women, with more satisfaction than remorse; only her +connection with his father she indulgently let rise from its grave +behind a touching nun's veil, and in fact imitated the son in his +respect for the Knight, whom in her soul she bitterly hated. When +Albano for hours forgot the present, and steadfastly gazed into the +sacrificial fire of the past and of art, and showed her on the +mountains of his world flames which burned not on her altar, then did +she patiently accompany him on this road of art, and only stopped when +she could, before spots where one had a view of the—present.</p> + +<p class="normal">He became daily her warmer friend, without so much as dreaming of her +intentions. Only a man—no woman—can wholly overlook another's love; +the love which is long overlooked seldom, if ever, becomes a +reciprocated love. Albano was too delicate to presuppose in the beloved +of his father, and in the wife of another, and in a friend of his own +beloved, this desire of an impropriety. Moreover, he always placed +quite as small a reliance upon his desert as he did a great reliance on +his right.</p> + +<p class="normal">She doubted, but despaired not of a warmer feeling on his part. A woman +hopes as long as a second does not hope with her. Albano's nocturnal +visits to the Capitol and the Colosseum were always found by the eyes +which followed him to be worthy of his noble character. Daily did the +firm youth become dearer to her by his new bloom and by his manly +development. Sometimes she strongly hoped, beguiled by his friendly +sincerity and by that heroic melancholy which was not to be explained +by her on any other principle, far or near. This to her so unusual +rising and sinking on her waves shook her health and her character, and +she became involuntarily more like Liana, with whose dove's plumage she +had in the beginning been fain only to array herself in white; the +sparkling sun-rainbow became a moon-rainbow; with her strong powers she +flung half of her former self away,—her mania for decoration, art, and +pleasing,—and she became intensely uneasy when a Roman fair one, with +southern liveliness exclaimed, as often happened, behind the Count, as +he walked before her, "How beautiful he is!" Sorely was she punished +for her earlier malicious sportings with others' hearts and sorrows by +her own; but such dark days are the very ones in which love more +especially roots itself, as trees are best grafted in cloudy days.</p> + +<p class="normal">Albano observed her change. The charming melancholy of her once +vigorous countenance, this reflection of her silent cloud, moved him to +a sympathizing inquiry into her health and happiness. She answered him +so confusedly and confoundingly,—sometimes even imputing to Albano, +with all his sharp-sightedness, dissimulation and wickedness,—that she +led him into the strangest error.</p> + +<p class="normal">Namely, under so great a certainty that some earth-shadow had passed +across her whole life, and would not stir, he must needs seek the body +which cast it,—which was, in his mind, Gaspard, whom she, as he +imagined, still loved. He carried this presumption back very reasonably +through all her earlier conversations and looks. It was so natural that +they who were at an earlier period separated by a throne should now, in +this lovely land of free connections, long for each other again. Beside +all this, the Knight had, according to his inexorable irony, received +her show of courting him with show on his part,—that is to say, with +seriousness,—and therefore always served himself up as a side-dish to +her enjoyment of his son, and carried over an after-winter into the +spring. This double show Albano recalled to himself as double truth.</p> + +<p class="normal">Then, too, fate stepped in suddenly among his new conclusions. His +father was taken dangerously sick of an unnerving spring-fever, caught +from the sirocco-wind. "Take no special interest," said Gaspard to him, +"either in my sufferings or expressions. I have, in such situations, a +weakness which I am afterwards ashamed of, and yet cannot avoid." +Albano was moved, by many an unexpected outbreak of the sick man's +heart, even to the warmest love. If the ruins of a temple inspire +melancholy, thought he, why shall not the ruins of a great soul affect +me so still more? There are men full of colossal relics, like the earth +itself. In their deep heart, already grown cold, lie fossil flowers of +a fairer period; they resemble northern rocks, on which are found the +impress of Indian flowers.</p> + +<p class="normal">The sickness undermined itself. Gaspard remained without sympathy for +himself; only his affairs, not his end, troubled him. He held private +interviews with his step-father Lauria, by way of impressing the +finishing black seal of justice on his life. An express must stand in +readiness to fly, the moment after his death, with a letter to Linda; +his son must himself break one open, and deliver a sealed one to the +Princess. Very harshly and imperiously did he demean himself toward the +son, when he demanded of him an oath, immediately after his death, to +travel off to Pestitz; for when Albano, who so longed to see Naples, +and upon whom all these conditions, presupposing his father's death, +fell hard, hesitatingly declined, Gaspard said, "That is so really +human and common, to bewail the pains of others immoderately, and +sympathize with them sincerely, and yet ungraciously to sharpen them so +soon as the smallest thing must be done." Albano gave his word and +oath, and never let himself be seen by his father again, when he wept +out of a child's love.</p> + +<p class="normal">Unexpectedly there presented himself before this sickbed Gaspard's +nearest and earliest kinsman, his brother. Albano stood by when the +strange being came up and spake to the mortally sick man, and turned +two stiff, glassy eyes, which looked as if they had been set in, quite +away from him with whom he spake,—so fantastic, and yet full of the +cold world toward his dying brother,—with loosely hanging face-skin +upon significant face-bones,—a gray were-wolf on his hind legs, just +charmed out of the beastly hide into the human skin,—like the +destroying angel, a destroying man, and yet without passion. It +stretched out toward Albano its long hand, but he, repelled by +something unnamable, could not grasp it. This brother said he had come +from Pestitz,—handed over two letters from there, one to Gaspard, one +for the Princess,—and began to say something about his travels, which +seemed uncommonly acute, fantastical, learned, incredible, and oft +really unintelligible. Once Albano said, "That is a downright +impossibility." He began the narration again, made it still more +incredible, and insisted it was actually so. Thereupon he went away, to +Greece, as he said, and took the coolest leave imaginable of his dying +brother.</p> + +<p class="normal">Gaspard now said to Albano, "I should like to have you, after my death, +rightly estimate this strangeling, if he ever comes near you, or rather +avoid him altogether, as he never says a true word, and that from a +pure and disinterested delight in pure lies; still more," he continued, +"shun the deep, deadly scorpion-sting of Bouverot, as well as his +cheating hand at play." Albano was surprised at the aspect of this +speech (agreeably so at its moral sharpness), for he had hitherto +imagined that he found in his father quite other sentiments regarding +Bouverot.</p> + +<p class="normal">The next day he found his father already with his foot on the steps to +come up out of the tomb. The express had been discharged,—all letters +remanded,—the Prince Lauria stood there with beaming face. "Simply +another's sickness has cured me of mine," said the father. The letter +which his brother had brought him from Pestitz had contained the +intelligence that his old friend, the reigning Prince, was swiftly +approaching his last hour, because they had held his dropsy to be +<i>embonpoint</i>, and had delayed the treatment of it. "I hope," said +Gaspard, "to have been so wholesomely agitated by my sympathies in this +matter, that I shall still be able to make the journey in season for +the last hour of friendship." He added, that then this journey would +make way again for Albano's to Naples.</p> + +<p class="normal">Then came the Princess in consternation about the letter, which +announced her husband's danger and her own departure. Gaspard answered +by giving his son a hint expressive of his desire for a private +interview with her. They remained alone together for a long time. At +last the Princess came back quite changed, and begged him, with almost +stammering hesitation, to accompany her to the <i>opera seria</i>. She was +moved and embarrassed, her eyes glistening, her features inspired; his +father, too, he found excited, but apparently strengthened.</p> + +<p class="normal">Here a long beam of noonday shot through his whole previous +labyrinthine wood, namely, the confirmed presumption of his father's +love, which now, through the approaching dissolution of the marriage +chain of the Princess, and in the debility of sickness had broken out +more strongly; hence Gaspard's letter to the Princess, hence their +keeping together in Rome and on the way thither, &c.</p> + +<p class="normal">Never did Albano love his energetic father more than after this +discovery of a tender sentiment; and toward the Princess his heart now +grew from a friend to be all at once a son. Besides, as among the five +prizes of hereditary human love he had gained only one,—a father (no +mother, no brother, no sister, and no child),—so was he filled with +this new delight at the gain of a mother. All that respect could do, +warmth express, and hope betray, he indulged.</p> + +<p class="normal">It was a night when in Rome spring already threw flowers again through +the clouds of winter. At the theatre they gave Mozart's <i>Tito</i>. How on +a foreign soil is one carried away by a strain from one's native land, +which has followed him hither! The lark that sings over Roman ruins +exactly as over German fields is the dove which, with her well-known +song, brings us the olive-branch from our native land. Up to this time, +Albano, on the Alpine road over ruins, had sent his eye eagerly forward +only along the future race-ground of war, and had seldom raised it +toward the heaven where the glorified Liana was, and he had forcibly +dashed away every rising tear. But now his sick father had lifted the +curtain of the bed under the ground where her remains slept; now did +the clear stream of tones which had passed through the lands of his +youth and his paradises come all at once strongly over the mountains, +and murmur down so near to him with its old waters. At first his spirit +defended itself against the old, slumbering days, which spoke in their +sleep; but when at length the tones which Liana herself had once played +and sung before him came across over the bier of the mountains, and +hung down as shining tapestries of golden days,—when he reflected what +hours he and Liana might have found here, but had not found,—then his +dark grief ran up the scale of tones as an evil, plundering genius, and +Albano saw his dreadful loss stand clearly in heaven. Then he turned +not his eye toward the Princess, but in the consecration of music +pressed the hand by which the departed saint was once to have come into +these fields. By and by he said, "I shall, in the rich Naples, long +more and more after my only female friend, and envy the happy man who +is permitted to accompany her." She fell into great emotion at this new +intelligence of his intended separation, and into a still greater at +his passionate transformation, which she knew how to deduce, with the +richest dowry for her tenderest hopes, from her departure, and even the +approaching departure of her spouse. But she concealed the greater +emotion behind the lesser. They parted from each other with mutual joys +and errors. Albano was made more and more happy by the improvement of +his father's health; the Princess was made so by the increase of the +son's warmth, and her life mounted out of the ship of war into an +express-balloon, an air-vessel winged with tidings of peace. Thus did +both approach closer and closer to the curtain, whose pictures they +took for the scenery of the stage itself, only to be so much the more +astonished when it rose.</p> +<br> +<h3>107. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">The dried-up bed of the Knight's life had been richly inundated again +by the agitations of his heart. Even because, in well days, he held +himself together, like mountains, with ice and moss, so in sick days, +it seemed, did a real, internal commotion more easily restore his old +energy and repose. He armed and equipped himself for travelling, which +best built up and built upon his capricious body. The Princess put off +her departure from day to day, merely in the firm and ardent +expectation that Albano would impart to her, to take with her on her +way, the fairest concluding word of her whole life. In Albano this +blooming land awakened longings for—Spain, and Naples, he hoped, +would appease them. Spring was already dawning upon Rome, and rising +in Naples; the nightingale and man sang all night long, and the +almond-trees were everywhere in bloom. But it seemed as if the three +travellers were waiting for each other. Could the Princess hurry away +from the heart upon which her being bloomed and took root,—she, like a +torn-up rosemary twig, whose roots, at the same time with those of a +germinating wheat-grain, take a double hold of the earth? Albano, too, +would not hasten the hour which cast him into remote corners of the +earth, far away at once from his father and his friend,—them into an +after-winter, him into an early and latter spring,—and least of all +just now. His spirit had appeased itself, and become reconciled with +itself, by the resolution of war. His Portici was gloriously built up +on the buried Herculaneum of his past.</p> + +<p class="normal">A letter from Pestitz decided matters. The mortally sick Prince wrote +to the Princess, and begged to see her again; the letter was like a +fire, bursting the common ground and scattering all that stand +thereupon; the three confederates formed the purpose to set off on one +and the same day,—on one morning,—so that one dawn might shed its +gold into three travelling-carriages at once.</p> + +<p class="normal">Yet one thing the Princess desired on the evening previous to the +departure, namely, Albano's company to the dome of St. Peter's in the +morning; she wished to take Rome once more into her parting soul, when +the dawn in its redness and splendor gilded the city. Albano, too, was +glad to drink the must of a fiery hour, which might clear itself up +into an eternal wine for the whole of life; for he knew not that the +lively Princess,—made still more lively by Italy,—after waiting so +long and impatiently for the fairest word from his lips, at last +ventured indignantly upon a parting hour, in which it must escape from +him.</p> + +<p class="normal">Early before sunrise, when, in Rome, many more go to bed than get up, +he waited upon her; only her faithful Haltermann accompanied them. She +still glowed with her night-long vigils, and seemed very much moved. +Rome still slept; occasionally they were met by coaches and families, +which were just finishing their night. The sky stood cool and blue over +the dawning morn, the fresh son of the fair night.</p> + +<p class="normal">The wide circus before St. Peter's Church was solitary and dumb as the +saints upon the columns; the fountains spoke: one constellation more +went out above the obelisk. They went up by the winding stairway of a +hundred and fifty steps to the roof of the church, and came out through +a street of houses, columns, little cupolas and towers, through four +doors into the monstrous dome,—into a vaulted night. In the depths +below the temple rested, like a broad, gloomy, lonesome valley with +houses and trees, a holy abyss, and they walked along close by the +mosaic-giants, the broad colored clouds on the heaven of the dome. +While they were ascending in the high vault, Aurora's golden foam +glistened redder and redder on the windows, and fire and night swam +into each other among the arches.</p> + +<p class="normal">They hastened yet higher and looked out, just as a single living ray +darted upon the world, as out of an eye, from behind the mountains; +around the old Alban mountain smoked a hundred glowing clouds, as if +his cold crater was again bringing forth a flame-day, and the eagles +with golden wings baptized in the sun flew slowly along over the +clouds. All at once the sun-god stood upon the fair ridge; he stood +erect in heaven, and rent away the network of night from the covered +earth; then burned the Obelisks and the Colosseum and Rome from hill to +hill, and on the solitary Campagna sparkled in manifold windings the +yellow giant snake of the world, the Tiber,—all clouds dissipated +themselves into the depths of heaven, and golden light ran from +Tusculum and from Tivoli, and from the vine-hills into the many-colored +plains, over the scattered villas and cottages, into the citron and oak +groves; low in the far west the sea was again as at evening, when the +hot god visits it, full of splendor, ever kindled by him, and became +his eternal dew.<a name="div2Ref_86" href="#div2_86"><sup>[86]</sup></a></p> + +<p class="normal">In the morning world below lay far and wide the great, still Rome,—no +living city, a solitary, enormous, enchanted garden of the old, hidden, +heroic spirits, laid out on twelve hills. The unpeopled pleasure-garden +of spirits announced itself by its green meadows and cypresses between +palaces, and by its broad, open stairways and columns and bridges, by +its ruins and high fountains and garden of Adonis, and its green +mountains and temples of the gods; the broad city avenues had passed +away; the windows were barred up; on the roofs the stony dead looked +steadfastly at each other; only the glistening fountain waters were +awake and alive and active, and a single nightingale sighed, as if she +would die at last.</p> + +<p class="normal">"That is great," said Albano, at length, "that all is solitary down +below and one sees no present. The old heroic spirits can pursue their +existence in the vast vacuity, and march through their old arches and +temples and play, up on the columns, with the ivy."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Nothing," replied the Princess, "is wanting to the magnificence but +this dome, which from the Capitol we might in fact see besides. But +never shall I forget this spot."</p> + +<p class="normal">"What were all beside?" said he. "The flat regions of life in general +pass by without a memorial; from many a long past no echo reverberates, +because no mountain breaks the broad surface! But Rome and this hour +with you will live within us forever."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Albano," said she, "why must we find each other so late and part so +early? Yonder goes your way along by the Tiber,—God grant into no +devouring sea!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"And yonder goes yours over the bright mountains," said he. She took +his hand, for his tone expressed and excited so much emotion. Divinely +gleamed the world from the dark spring flowers even up to the lofty +Capitol, and the bells sounded down the hours; the festal fires of day +blazed on all heights; life was broad and high as the prospect; his eye +stood under a tear,—no sad one, however, but such a tear as when the +world's eye glances sunnily under the water, and has higher hues, which +the dry world destroys. He pressed her hand, she his. "Princess, +friend," said he, "how I esteem you! After this holy hour we separate. +I would fain give you a sign that shall not pass away, and say a bold +word to my father, which should express myself and my respect, and +which, perhaps, might solve many a riddle."</p> + +<p class="normal">Her eye fell, and she merely said, "May you venture?" "O forbid it +not!" said he; "so many a divine bliss has been lost by one hour's +hesitation. When shall man act extraordinarily, then, except in +extraordinary situations?" She was silent, awaiting the morning-sound +of love, and in a continued pressure of hands they went down from the +lofty place. Alban's being was a trembling flame. The Princess +comprehended not why he still deferred this spring-tone; no more did he +see through her, unskilled in reading women and their broken words, +those picture-poems, half form and only half speech. Just as if an +eagle had flown down from his morning splendor, and, as a predatory +genius, flapped his wings over his eyes; so had the flashing morn +dazzled him so exceedingly that he meant to venture, now in the parting +hour, to be mediator between his father and the Princess, by a word +which should take away the partition-wall between their loves. His +delicacy made many an objection against this proceeding, but when a +weighty object was in sight, there was nothing he so abhorred as +quailing caution; and daring he held to be worth as much to a man as +winning.</p> + +<p class="normal">The Princess, misunderstanding, but not mistrusting, followed him into +his father's house with an expectation—bolder than his—that he would +perhaps actually confess to the Knight his love for her. They found the +father alone and very serious. Albano, although aware of his aversion +to bodily signs of the heart, fell on his neck with the half-choked +words of the wish: "Father! a mother!" To this childlike relation had +his previous feelings raised and refined themselves. "Heavens, Count!" +cried the Princess, astounded and enraged at Albano's assumed +insinuation. The Knight, sparkling with wrath, and full of horror, +seized a pistol, saying, "Unlucky—" but before one knew at which of +the three he would shoot it off, his numbness seized and held him like +a coiling snake imprisoned in a murderous embrace. "Count, did I +understand you?" said the Princess, flinging the word at him, +indifferent toward the petrified foe. "O God," said Albano, moved by +the sight of the paternal form, "I meant no one!" "None were capable of +that," said she, "but a base creature. Farewell. May I never meet you +again!" So saying, she went off.</p> + +<p class="normal">Albano stayed, unconcerned as to whether he himself was not meant by +the pistol at the side of the sick man, who had stiffened exactly +opposite to a man's corpse across the way which they were just busied +in painting. Gradually life wrestled again out of winter, and the +Knight, as cataleptics must, finished the address which he had begun +with the word "Unlucky—" "woman, of whom art thou mother?" He came to +himself and looked wakefully around; but soon the lava of wrath ran +again through his snow: "Unlucky boy, what was the talk about?" Albano +disclosed to him, with innocent soul, that he had cherished the hope, +in the probable event of the Prince's death, of a union between his +father and the Princess, and for himself, of the good fortune of having +a mother.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You young people always imagine one cannot have any genuine love +without carrying it out and directing it to some one," replied Gaspard, +and began to laugh hard and to find something very comic in the +"sentimental misunderstanding"; but Albano asked him now very seriously +about the origin of his misunderstanding. Gaspard gave him the +following account: Lately, in his sickness, he had, upon the first news +of the Prince's approaching death, a desperate battle with the +Princess, who in the event of this death desired a regency,—or +guardianship,—even on the bare ground of the possibility of an heir to +the princely hat. The Knight said to her decidedly this <i>possibility</i> +was an impossibility, and he would, without further preamble, attack +her with new proofs yet unknown to her. He gave her directly to +understand that he was even armed against the case of an ocular +demonstration of the contrary (a Hereditary Prince) being presented to +him. The Princess replied with bitterness, she could not conceive why +he need in the least concern himself any more about the Haarhaar line +and succession, or take any more care for it than for that of +Hohenfliess. He brought her even to tears, for he could unsparingly +hurl the most barbarous words, like harpoons, deep into her heart; he +had the perfect resolution of a statesman, who, like a great bird of +prey, drives the victim, which he can neither conquer nor draw away, to +a precipice, and beats it over the brink with his wings, in order that +he may find it subdued for him down below. A life which even as it +passes away, like the sinking glaciers, discovers old corpses! Just as +the happy one spreads out his love of an individual warmingly over +humanity, so does the misanthrope hold the stinging focus (or +freezing-point) of his broad and general coldness toward humanity at +<i>one</i> great foe alone, whereas previously every smaller offence was +forgiven the individual, and imputed only to mankind in a mass.</p> + +<p class="normal">This, then, was that secret interview whose traces Albano had taken for +fairer emotions than of hatred. "And now," said the Knight openly, in +order to punish his high feeling with cutting impudence, "when thou +madest to me the concise and obscure speech: 'A mother!' I could not +but take thee for the father, and from this thou mayst easily explain +the rest." "Father," said he, "that was a crying injustice to each"; +and departed with three hot wounds, torn in him by the trident of fate. +At his departure Gaspard reminded him to keep his word of returning in +a month, and added jokingly, that the old man whom they were painting +over yonder was a German gentleman, with whom he once carried on the +joke of a sudden conversion.<a name="div2Ref_87" href="#div2_87"><sup>[87]</sup></a></p> + +<p class="normal">Before an hour Albano was travelling with his Dian out of the +illuminated Rome. The blue heavens, floating down, undulated on the +heights and on the dome of St. Peter's, and long shadows, begemmed with +pearls of dew, still slept on the flowers; but the blessed morn had +flown far back out of the hard day. They met before the gate a circular +crowd, who stood around the beautiful form of one murdered, and who +repeated, with a pleased expression, over the prostrate body, instead +of casting the word with indignation in the teeth of the murderer, +"<i>Quanto e' bello!</i>"<a name="div2Ref_88" href="#div2_88"><sup>[88]</sup></a> And Albano thought how often they had +exclaimed behind his back, "<i>Quanto e' bello!</i>"</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<p class="center"><img src="images/rivetstart.png" alt="rivetstart"></p> +<br> +<h2><a name="div1Ref_28" href="#div1_28">TWENTY-EIGHTH JUBILEE.</a></h2> + +<h3><span class="sc2">Letter From Pestitz.—Mola.—The Heavenly Ascension +of a Monk.—Naples.—Ischia.—The New Gift of the Gods.</span></h3> +<br> +<h3>108. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">A little light in our apartment can screen us against the blinding +effect of the whole heaven-broad lightning-glare; so it needs in us +only a single, constantly shining idea and tendency, that the rapid +alternation of flame and light in the outer world may not dizzy us. Had +not Albano had an end in view which could be seen far-off,—had he not +kept before his eye an obelisk in his life-path,—how long would the +last scene, with its pangs cutting through each other, have confounded +him! Now he was like the kindled olive—and laurel-leaves around him, +whose flames grow green as they are themselves. Dian, who drove away +the pains of others, because he, being easily movable, soon grew from a +spectator to a sharer of them, made Albano and himself gay by his +ardent interest in every beautiful form, every ruin, every little joy. +He had the rare and beautiful gift of being cheerful upon journeys, of +plucking every flower, but no thistle; whereas the majority jog along +with the night-cap under the hat; from station to station, gaping as +they go on, and in grumbling war with every face, they travel through +whole paradises as if they were antechambers of hell.</p> + +<p class="normal">In the waste Pontine marshes, wherein only buffaloes thrive and men +grow pale, Dian sought for all sorts of amusement, and even drew forth +his letter-case, in order to get over the last fishing-water of the +papal territory, out of the reach of Peter's fisherman successors, +without falling into a deadly sleep. There he stumbled, with a modern +Greek curse, upon a letter to Albano, which had been enclosed in one +from Chariton, and which in Rome he had forgotten, in the hurry of +departure, to hand over; but he soon laughed about it, and found it +good that in this "Devil's-dale" one had something to read against +sleep.</p> + +<p class="normal">It was the following from Rabette:—</p> +<br> + +<p class="normal">"Heartily loved brother, one longs to know whether thou still thinkest +a little bit of thy friends in Blumenbühl, now that in the magnificent +Italy thou art certainly quite in thy <i>essée</i>.<a name="div2Ref_89" href="#div2_89"><sup>[89]</sup></a> That thou livest in +all our hearts, <i>that</i> thou hast long known, and thou shouldst only +know how long after thy departure we all wept for thee, as well thy +mother as myself; and a certain one<a name="div2Ref_90" href="#div2_90"><sup>[90]</sup></a> thinks now-a-days quite +differently of thee from what he did in old times. Much has happened +this winter. The Minister's lady has separated from her husband, and +lives on her estate, sometimes in Arcadia with the Princess Idoine. Our +Prince is dangerously sick with the dropsy, and father can get a scrap +of business from the province by this, as he says. Thy Schoppe has gone +on a journey of a couple of months, leaving behind a letter to thee, +which he has intrusted to father's care. He stayed latterly with us, +and in thy room, and visited attentively the Countess Romeiro. It is a +shame for him, for he means well; but Master Wehmeier and all of us in +the place are convinced that he is, in short, mad, and he believes it, +too, and says he shall therefore soon set his house in order. As +touching the Countess Romeiro, she has gone off with Princess Julienne; +none, however, knows whither. They say the Prince has shown her too +marked attentions, and she would rather be off to Spain. Others talk of +Greece, but the <i>certain one</i> assures me she is gone to Rome to her +guardian: of that now thou wilt know better than myself. The certain +one undertook all that was within human possibility in order to win +her, partly by letters, partly in person, to no purpose; not one smile +could he gain as often as ever he addressed her even at <i>cour</i>. All +this I have (wilt thou believe it?) from his mouth, for he is again +often with me, and reveals to me his whole heart. Mine, however, I hold +together fast, that not so much as the smallest drop of blood may +trickle out from it, and God alone sees how it passes, and what a +weeping there is therein. Ah, Albano, a poor girl who is in strong +health must endure much before she can die. Often my eye can no longer +remain dry, and I then say his talk does it, which, to be sure, is +partly true, but to thee I show the <i>dessous des cartes</i>. Never, never +more can I be his, for he has not dealt ingenuously with me, but +altogether recklessly, and he knows it too. Nor is a single kiss +allowed him; and I tell him, only for God's sake, not to take that as a +coquette's manner to draw him to me. My good parents do not rightly +know what they are to make of our intercourse, and I fear father may +break out; then I shall have very bitter days. But shall I repel the +poor, sick, pale spirit from myself, too? shall the glowing soul, +exhaling like smoke, rise to heaven, and consume itself? Whose heart +will not break when he is at a <i>Festin</i>, and she immediately, offended +at his presence, goes home again?—as lately happened, and he said to +me, in a perfect rage, 'Well, very well, Linda, <i>one day</i>, be sure, +thine eye will be wet for me.' Then I know well that he means no good, +and I spare him from an anxious dread on that account; for shall two, +brother and sister, sink in their bloom? He would long ago have +travelled after her, had he not daily hoped she was coming back. Ah, +could I tear my loving heart out of my breast, and put it into hers +instead of the other, that so she might love him with all my love, +Albano, right gladly would I do it. But the paper comes to an end on +this side, and mother wishes on the other to write a greeting. +Farewell! is the wish of</p> +<p style="margin-left:60%; text-indent:-15%">Thy faithful sister,<br> +<span class="sc">Rabette</span>."</p> + +<p class="normal">"How goes it with my most precious son? Is he prosperous, still good +and well? Does he still think of his true foster-parents? This in the +name of his father and in her own, asks and wishes,</p> + +<p style="margin-left:55%; text-indent:-10%">His faithful mother,<br> + +<span class="sc">Albina von W</span>."</p> + +<p class="normal">"P. S. His old teacher, Wehmeier, likewise greets his darling in +strange lands; and we all rejoice in the prospect of his return.</p> +<p style="margin-left:65%">A."</p> + +<p class="normal">"P. S. Brother, I, too, must make a P. S. Schoppe has painted <i>you know +who</i>, and <i>scenes</i>, even, have arisen out of the circumstance. But more +of this when we meet. The Princesse Idoine has visited our Princess +often this winter.</p> +<p style="margin-left:65%">R."</p> +<br> + +<p class="normal">As letters accommodate themselves more to the place, where they were +born, than to that where they are delivered, it often happens that what +went out as seed, arrives, after its long journey, already in a +germinating state, and with roots, and inversely in the shape of +blossoms rather than of dry seed; and every sheet is a double birth of +two distant times, that of writing and that of reading. Thus was +Albano, now under this serener sky, on this soil of a greater world of +the past, and with a soul full of new springs, the less overtaken and +darkened by Rabette's letter, through which the northern winter clouds +had passed. The ingenuous Rabette, the mild Albina came after him in +fancy but softly over the strange mountains and through the strange +climes, and laid a cooling hand on his hot brow; his old Schoppe stood +in his old worth before him, and Liana floated again through the lofty +blue. Toward the weather-beaten Roquairol he felt not so much as +compassion, but a hard contempt; and Linda's steadfast mind was exactly +after his, like the proud look and gait of Roman women. He now thought +over many things more cheerfully than ever, and even wished to look +once in the magic-face of that Heroine.</p> + +<p class="normal">In <i>Fondi</i> the Neapolitan world-garden began, and when they entered +upon the road to <i>Mola</i>, they went deeper and deeper into blossoms and +flowers. In flying sheets—addressed, perhaps, to his father, still +more probably to his Schoppe—his bliss and his soul expressed +themselves; it treasured up, as it were, some stray orange-blossoms +dropped out of the Eden through which they had so rapidly flown. Here +they are:—</p> +<br> + +<p class="normal">"Shortly before sundown on Ascension-day we arrived in Mola; the native +Dian was full as much overcome with the green majesty, which he had not +seen for a long time, as I, and I do not yet believe him when he says +that it blooms and smells more finely about Naples. I did not go at all +into the city, for the sun hung already toward the sea. Around me +streams the incense smoke of reeking flowers from citron-woods and +meadows of jessamin and narcissus. On my left the blue Apennine flings +his fountain-waters from mountain to mountain, and on my right the +mighty sea presses upon the mighty earth, and the earth stretches out a +firm arm and holds a shining city<a name="div2Ref_91" href="#div2_91"><sup>[91]</sup></a> hung with gardens, far out into +the multitudinous waves,—and into the unfathomable sea lofty islands +have been cast as unfathomable mountains;<a name="div2Ref_92" href="#div2_92"><sup>[92]</sup></a> low in the south and east +a glimmering mist-land, the coast of Sorrento, grasps round the sea +like a crooked-up Jupiter's-arm, and behind the distant Naples stands +Vesuvius, with a cloud in heaven under the moon. 'Fall on thy knees, +fortunate one,' said Dian, 'before the sumptuous prospect!' O God, why +not do it in earnest? For who can behold in the glow of evening the +monstrous realm of waters, how yonder busy and restless motion grows +still in the distance, and only sparkles, and at last, blue and golden, +blends with the sky, and how the earth here shuts in the delicate, +floating fire with her long lands into a rosy, steady earth-shadow, who +can behold the fire-rain of infinite life, the weaving magic circle of +all forces in the water, in the sky, on the earth, without kneeling +down before the infinite spirit of Nature and saying, 'How near to me +thou art, O Ineffable!' O here he is both near and far, bliss and hope +come glimmering from the misty coast, and also from the neighboring +fountains, which the hills pour down into the sea, and in the white +blossoms over my head. O does not, then, this sun, around which burning +waves flutter, and the blue overhead and over yonder, and the kindling +lands of men, worlds within the world,—does not this distance call out +the heart and all its aspiring wishes? Will it not create and grasp +into the distance and snatch its life blossoms from the highest peak of +heaven? But when it looks around itself upon its own ground, there too +again is the girdle of Venus thrown around the blooming circumference, +brightly green grows the tall myrtle-tree near its little dark myrtle, +the orange glimmers in the high, cold grass, and overhead hangs its +fragrant blossom, the wheat waves with broad leaves between the enamels +of the almond and the narcissus, and far off stands the cypress, and +the palm towers proudly;<a name="div2Ref_93" href="#div2_93"><sup>[93]</sup></a> all is flower and fruit, spring and +harvest. 'Shall I go this way? shall I go that way?' asks the heart in +its bliss.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Thus did I see the sun go down under the waves,—the reddening coasts +fled away under their misty veils,—the world went out, land after +land, from one island to another,—the last gold-dust was wafted away +from the heights,—and the prayer-bells of the convents led up the +heart above the stars. O how happy and how wistful was my heart, at +once a wish and a flame, and in my innermost being a prayer of +gratitude went forth for this, that I was and am upon this earth.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Never shall I forget that! If we throw away life as too small for our +wishes, still do they not belong to life itself, and did they not come +from it? If the crowned earth rears around us such blossoming shores, +such sunny mountains, would she fain enclose therewith unhappy beings? +Why is our heart narrower than our eye? why does a cloud hardly a mile +long oppress us, when that very cloud stands itself under the stars of +immensity? Is not every morning and every hope a beginning of spring? +What are the thickest prison-walls of life but vine-trellises built up +for the ripening of the wine-glow? And as life always cuts itself up +into quarters, why must it be merely the last, and not quite as often +the first, upon which a full-beaming moon follows? 'O God,' said I, as +I went back through the green world which next morning becomes a +glowing one, 'never let me ascribe thy eternity to any one time, except +the most blissful; joy is eternal, but not pain, for this last thou +hast not created.'</p> + +<p class="normal">"'Friend,' said Dian to me, on the way, when I could not well conceal +from him my inner commotion, 'what may not your feelings be, then, when +you look back upon Naples on the passage over to Ischia! For it is +plain to perceive that you were born in a northern land.' 'Dear +friend,' said I, 'every one is born <i>with</i> his north or south; whether +in an outer one beside, that is of little consequence.'"</p> +<br> + +<p class="normal">So far his leaf upon Mola. But a wonderful circumstance seemed this +very night to take him at his word in respect to the last assurance +contained in his letter. In the yard of the inn were assembled many +boatmen and others; all were contending violently about an opinion, and +the most were continually saying: "To-day, to be sure, is Ascension +Day, and <i>he</i>, too, has wrought miracles." "Ascension?" thought Albano, +and remembered his birthday, which often fell on this festival. Dian +came up and related, laughing, how the people were expecting down below +the ascension of a monk, who had promised it this night, and many +believed him for this reason, because he had already done a wonderful +work, namely, given a dead man his speech for two hours, before all +Mola. They both were agreed to witness the work. The multitude +swelled,—the promised man came not, who was to lead them to the place +of ascension,—all became angry rather than incredulous. At length late +at night a mask appeared and gave, with a motion of the hand, a sign to +follow it. All streamed after, even Albano and his friend. The pure +moon shone fresh out of blue skies, the wide garden of the country +slept in its blossoms, but all breathed fragrance, the slumbering and +the waking flowers.</p> + +<p class="normal">The mask led the crowd to the ruins of Cicero's house, or tower, and +pointed upward. Overhead, on the wall, stood a trembling man. Albano +found his face more and more familiar. At last the man said: "I am a +father of death: may the Father of life be merciful to me. How it goes +with me I know not. There stands one among you," he added at once in a +strange, namely, in the Spanish language, "to whom I appeared one Good +Friday on Isola Bella, and announced the death of his sister; let him +journey on to Ischia, there will he find his sister."</p> + +<p class="normal">Albano could not hear these words without excitement and indignation. +The form of the Father of Death upon that island he saw now right +clearly upon these ruins; and his promise to appear to him on a Good +Friday came again to his mind. He tried now to work his way up to the +ruins, so as to attack the monk. An inhabitant of Mola cried, when he +heard the strange language: "The monk is talking with the Devil." The +ascensionist said nothing to the contrary,—he trembled more +violently,—but the people sought for him who had said it, and cried, +"It is he with the mask, for he is no more to be found." At last the +monk, quaking, begged they would be still when he vanished, and pray +for him, and never seek his body. Albano was now close behind his back, +unseen by Dian. Just then, high in the dark blue, came a flock of +quails flying slowly along. The monk swiftly and staggeringly flung +himself up, scattered the birds, cried out in the dark distance, +"Pray!" and vanished away into the broad air.</p> + +<p class="normal">The people cried and shouted with exultation, and part prayed; many +believed now the Devil was in the play. Among the spectators lay a man +with his face to the earth, and continually cried, "God have mercy on +me!" But no man brought him to an explanation. Dian, privately a little +superstitious, said his understanding was at a stand-still here. But +Albano explained how a complot of ghosts had been long twitching and +drawing at his life's curtain, but some day he should yet certainly +thrust his hand successfully through the curtain, and he was firmly +resolved immediately to cross over from Naples to Ischia, to see his +sister. "Verily," he added, "in this mother country of wonder, fantasy, +and everything great, one as easily believes in fair, enriching +miracles of fate, as one does in the north in dreadful robbing miracles +of spirits."</p> + +<p class="normal">Dian was also for the earliest visit to the island of Ischia; "Because +otherwise," he added, "when Albano had delivered his letters in Naples, +and had been drawn in to the <i>Ricevimenti</i>,<a name="div2Ref_94" href="#div2_94"><sup>[94]</sup></a> or on Posilippo and +Vesuvius, then there would be no getting away."</p> + +<p class="normal">On the day following they departed from Mola. The lovely sea played +hide-and-seek with them on their way, and only the golden sky never +veiled itself. Naples' goblet of joy already intoxicated one from afar +with its fragrance and spirit. Albano cast inspired looks at <i>Campania +Felice</i>, at the Colosseum in Capua, and at the broad garden, full of +gardens, and even at the rough Appian Way, which its old name made +softer.</p> + +<p class="normal">But he sighed for the island of Ischia, that Arcadia of the ocean, and +that wonderful place where he was to find a sister. It was not in their +power earlier than in the early part of Saturday night—if indeed +waking and glancing life can be called night, particularly an Italian +Saturday night—to reach <i>Aversa</i>. Albano insisted upon their +continuing on in the night toward Naples. Dian was still reluctant. By +chance there stood in the post-house a beautiful girl, who might be +about fourteen years old, very much troubled at having missed the +coach, and determined this very night to go on to Naples, in order to +reach Ischia, where her parents were, early enough on the holy Sabbath. +"She had come," she said, "from <i>Santa Agata</i>; her name was only +<i>Agata</i>, and not <i>Santa</i>." "Probably her old joke," said Dian, but he +was now—with his love of hovering about every fair form—himself quite +in a mood for the night-ride, that so they might carry the black-eyed +one along with them, who looked joyously and brightly into the fire of +strange eyes. She accepted the invitation cheerfully, and prattled +familiarly, like a naturalist, about Epomeo and Vesuvius, and predicted +for them innumerable pleasures on the island, and altogether showed an +intelligence and thoughtfulness far above her years. At last they all +flew along under the bright stars out into the lovely night.</p> +<br> +<h3>109. CYCLE</h3> + +<p class="normal">Albano goes on in the description of his journey thus:—</p> + +<p class="normal">"A night of unrivalled serenity! The stars alone of themselves +illuminated the earth, and the milky-way was silvery. A single avenue, +intertwined with vine-blossoms, led to the magnificent city. Everywhere +one heard people, now near, talking, now distant, singing. Out of dark +chestnut woods, on moonlit hills, the nightingales called to one +another. A poor, sleeping maiden, whom we had taken with us, heard the +melodies even down into her dream, and sang after them; and then, when +she awoke herself therewith, looked round confusedly and with a sweet +smile, with the whole melody and dream still in her breast. On a +slender, light two-wheeled carriage, a wagoner, standing on the pole +and singing, rolled merrily along by. Women were already bearing in the +cool of the hour great baskets full of flowers into the city; in the +distance, as we passed along, whole Paradises of flower-cups sent +their fragrance; and the heart and the bosom drank in at once the +love-draught of the sweet air. The moon had gone up bright as a sun in +the high heaven, and the horizon was gilded with stars; and in the +whole cloudless sky stood the dusky cloud-column of Vesuvius, alone, in +the east.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Far into the night, after two o'clock, we rolled in and through the +long city of splendor, wherein the living day still bloomed on. Gay +people filled the streets; the balconies sent each other songs; on the +roofs bloomed flowers and trees between lamps, and the little bells of +the hours prolonged the day; and the moon seemed to give warmth. Only +now and then a man lay sleeping between the colonnades, as if he were +taking his siesta. Dian, at home in all such matters, let the carriage +stop on the southern side, toward the sea, and went far into the city, +in order to arrange, through old acquaintances, the passage across to +the island, so that we might have exactly at sundown out on the sea, +the richest view of the stately city, with its bay and its long coasts. +The Ischian girl wrapped herself up in her blue veil, to keep off the +flies, and fell asleep on the black, sandy shore.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I walked up and down alone; for me there was no night and no house. +The sea slept, the earth seemed awake. In the fleeting glimmer (the +moon was already sinking towards Posilippo) I looked up over this +divine frontier city of the world of waters, over this rising mountain +of palaces, to where the lofty Castle of St. Elmo looks, white, out of +the green foliage. With two arms the earth embraced the lovely sea; on +her right, on Posilippo, she bore blooming vine-hills far out into the +waves, and on the left she held cities, and spanned round its waters +and its ships, and drew them up to her breast. Like a sphinx lay the +jagged Capri darkly on the horizon in the water, and guarded the gates +of the bay. Behind the city the volcano smoked in the ether, and +occasionally sparks played between the stars.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Now the moon sank down behind the elms of Posilippo,—the city grew +dark,—the din of the night died away,—fishermen disembarked, put out +their torches, and laid themselves down on the bank,—the earth seemed +to sink to sleep, but the sea to wake up. A wind from the coast of +Sorrento ruffled the still waves; more brightly gleamed Sorrento's +sickle with the reflection at once of the moon and of morning, like +silver meadows; the smoke column of Vesuvius had blown away, and from +the fire-mount streamed a long, clear morning redness over the coasts +as over a strange world.</p> + +<p class="normal">"O, it was the morning twilight, full of youthful omens! Do not +landscape, mountain, coasts, like an echo, speak so many the more +syllables to the soul the farther off they are? How young did I feel +the world and myself, and the whole morning of my life was crowded into +this!</p> + +<p class="normal">"My friend came; all was arranged; the boatmen had arrived; Agata was +awakened to the joy, and we embarked, just as the dawn kindled the +mountains, and, her sails swelling with the morning breezes, our little +vessel flew out into the sea.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Before we had yet doubled the promontory of Posilippo, the crater of +Vesuvius threw up its glowing child, the sun, slowly into the sky, +and sea and earth blazed. The half earth-girdles of Naples, with +morning-red palaces, its market-place of fluttering ships, the swarm of +its country-houses on the mountains and up along the shore, and its +green throne of St. Elmo, stood proudly between two mountains, before +the sea.</p> + +<p class="normal">"When we came round Posilippo, there stood Ischia's Epomeo, like a +giant of the sea, in the distance, girdled about with a wood, and with +bald, white head. Gradually appeared on the immeasurable plain the +islands, one after another, like scattered villages, and wildly pressed +and waded the promontories into the sea. Now, mightier and more alive +than the dried-up, parcelled out, stiff land, the watery kingdom +opened, whose powers all, from the streams and waves even to the drops, +join hands and move in concert. Almighty, and yet gentle element! +grimly thou leapest upon the lands, and swallowest them up, and, with +thy undermining polypus-arms, liest stretching around the whole globe. +But thou reinest the wild streams, and meltest them down into waves; +softly thou playest with thy little children, the islands, and playest +on the hand which hangs out of the light gondola, and sendest out thy +little waves which play before us, then bear us along, and play behind +us.</p> + +<p class="normal">"When we came along by the little Nisita, where Brutus and Cato once +sought shelter after Cæsar's death; when we passed by the enchanted +Baja and the magic castle where once three Romans determined upon the +division of the world, and before the whole promontory, where the +country-seats of great Romans stood; and when we looked down towards +the mountain of Cuma, behind which Scipio Africanus lived in his +Linternum and died; then did the lofty life of the great ancients take +possession of me, and I said to my friend: 'What men were those! +Scarcely do we learn incidentally in Pliny or Cicero that one of them +has a country-house yonder, or that there is a lovely Naples. Out of +the midst of nature's sea of joys their laurels grow and bear as well +as out of the ice-sea of Germany and England, or out of Arabia's sand. +Alike in wildernesses and in paradises, their mighty hearts beat on. +And for these world-souls there was no dwelling except the world; only +with such souls are emotions worth almost more than actions. A Roman +might here weep nobly for joy! Dian, say, what can a modern man do for +it, that he lives so late after their ruins?'</p> + +<p class="normal">"Youth and ruins, tottering, crumbling past and eternal fulness of +life, covered the shore of Misenum and the whole far-stretching coast. +On the broken urns of dead gods, on the dismembered temples of Mercury +and Diana, the frolicsome, light wave played, and the eternal sun; old, +lonely bridge-posts in the sea, solitary temple-columns and arches, +spoke, in the luxuriant splendor of life, a sober word; the old, holy +names of the Elysian Fields, of Avernus, of the Dead Sea, lived still +along the coast; ruins of rocks and temples lay in confusion upon the +motley-colored lava; all bloomed and lived; the maidens and the boatmen +sang; the mountains and the islands stood great in the young, fiery +day; dolphins chased sportively along beside us; singing larks went +whirling up in the ether above their narrow islands; and from all ends +of the horizon ships came up and flew down again with arrowy speed. It +was the divine over-fulness and intermingling of the world before me. +Sounding-strings of life were stretched over the string-bridge of +Vesuvius, even to Epomeo.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Suddenly one peal of thunder passed along through the blue heaven over +the sea. The maiden asked me, 'Why do you grow pale? it is only +Vesuvius.' Then was a god near me; yes, heaven, earth, and sea stood +before me as three divinities. The leaves of life's dream-book were +murmuringly ruffled up by a divine morning-storm; and everywhere I read +our dreams and the interpretations thereof.</p> + +<p class="normal">"After some time, we came to a long land swallowing up the north, as it +were the foot of a single mountain; it was already the lovely Ischia, +and I went on shore intoxicated with bliss, and then, for the first +time, I thought of the promise that I should there find a sister."</p> +<br> +<h3>110. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">With emotion, with a sort of festive solemnity, Albano trod the +cool island. It was to him as if the breezes were always wafting to +him the words, "The place of rest." Agata begged them both to stay +with her parents, whose house lay on the shore, not far from the +suburb-town.<a name="div2Ref_95" href="#div2_95"><sup>[95]</sup></a> As they went over the bridge, which connects the green +rock wound round with houses to the shore and the city, she pointed out +to them joyfully in the east the individual house. As they went along +so slowly, and the high, round rock and the row of houses stood +mirrored in the water; and upon the flat roofs the beautiful women who +were trimming the festal lamps for evening spoke busily over to each +other, and greeted and questioned the returning Agata; and all faces +were so glad, all forms so comely, and the very poorest in silk; and +the lively boys pulled down little chestnut-tops; and the old father of +the isle, the tall Epomeo, stood before them all clad in vine-foliage +and spring-flowers, out of whose sweet green only scattered, white +pleasure-houses of happy mountain-dwellers peeped forth;—then was it +to Albano as if the heavy pack of life had fallen off from his +shoulders into the water, and the erect bosom drank in from afar the +cool ether flowing in from Elysium. Across the sea lay the former +stormy world, with its hot coasts.</p> + +<p class="normal">Agata led the two into the home of her parents, on the eastern +declivity of Epomeo; and immediately, amidst the loud, exulting +welcome, cried out, quite as loudly: "Here are two fine gentlemen, who +wish to come home with me." The father said, directly: "Welcome, your +excellencies! You shall, with pleasure, keep the chambers, though many +bathing-guests will come by and by. You will find nowhere better +quarters. I was formerly only a <i>turner</i> in the Fayence manufactory, +but have been for these eight years a vine-dresser, and can afford to +do a favor. When was there ever a better December and March<a name="div2Ref_96" href="#div2_96"><sup>[96]</sup></a> than +this year? Your commands, excellencies!" Suddenly Agata wept; her +mother had announced to her the interment of her youngest sister, for +which solemnity, according to the fashion of the island, an eve of joy +was appointed to-day, because they loved to congratulate each other +upon the eternal, bliss-insuring ratification of a child's innocence by +death. The old man would fain have gone at once right into narrations, +when Dian begged his Albano, after so long a commotion of souls and +bodies, to go to sleep till sunset, when he would wake him. Agata +showed him the way to his cool chamber, and he went up.</p> + +<p class="normal">Here, before the cooling sea-zephyr, the going to sleep was itself the +slumber, and the echoing dream itself the sleep. His dream was an +incessant song, which sang itself,—"The morning is a rose, the day a +tulip, night is a lily, and evening is another morning."</p> + +<p class="normal">He dreamed himself at last down into a long sleep. Late, in the dark, +like an Adam in renovated youth, he opened his eyes in Paradise, but +he knew not where he was. He heard distant, sweet music; unknown +flower-scents swam through the air. He looked out; the dark heaven was +strewed with golden stars, as with fiery blossoms; on the earth, on the +sea, hovered hosts of lights; and in the depths of distance hung a +clear flame steadily in the midst of heaven. A dream, of which the +scene was unknown, confounded still the actual stage with one that had +vanished; and Albano went through the silent, unpeopled house, dreaming +on, out into the open air, as into an island of spirits.</p> + +<p class="normal">Here nightingales, first of all, with their melody drew him into the +world. He found the name Ischia again, and saw now that the castle on +the rock and the long street of roofs in the shore-town stood full of +burning lamps. He went up to the place whence the music proceeded, +which was illuminated and surrounded with people, and found a chapel +standing all in fires of joy. Before a Madonna and her child, in a +niche, a night-music was playing, amidst the loquacious rustling of joy +and devotion. Here he found again his hosts, who had all quite +forgotten him in the jubilee; and Dian said, "I would have awaked you +soon; the night and the pleasures last a great while yet."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Do hear and see yonder the divine Vesuvius, who joins in celebrating +the festival in such right good earnest," cried Dian, who plunged as +deeply into the waves of joy as any Ischian. Albano looked over toward +the flame, flickering high in the starry heaven, and, like a god, +having the great thunder beneath it, and he saw how the night had made +the promontory of Misenum loom up like a cloud beside the volcano. +Beside them burned thousands of lamps on the royal palace of the +neighboring island Procida.</p> + +<p class="normal">While he looked out over the sea, whose coasts were sunk into the +night, and which lay stretching away like a second night, immeasurable +and gloomy, he saw now and then a dissolving splendor sweep over it, +which flowed on ever broader and brighter. A distant torch also showed +itself in the air, whose flashing drew long, fiery furrows through the +glimmering waves. There drew near a bark, with its sail taken in, +because the wind blew off shore. Female forms appeared on board, among +which, one of royal stature, along whose red, silken dress the +torch-glare streamed down, held her eyes fixed upon Vesuvius. As they +sailed nearer, and the bright sea blazed up on either side under the +dashing oars, it seemed as if a goddess were coming, around whom the +sea swims with enraptured flames, and who knows it not. All stepped out +on shore at some distance, where by appointment, as it seemed, servants +had been waiting to make everything easy. A smaller person, provided +with a double opera-glass, took a short farewell of the tall one, and +went away with a considerable retinue. The red-dressed one drew a white +veil over her face, and went, accompanied by two virgins, gravely and +like a princess, to the spot where Albano and the music were.</p> + +<p class="normal">Albano stood near to her; two great black eyes, filled with fire and +resting upon life with inward earnestness, streamed through the veil, +which betrayed the proud, straight forehead and nose. In the whole +appearance there was to him something familiar and yet great; she stood +before him as a Fairy Queen, who had long ago with a heavenly +countenance bent down over his cradle and looked in with smiles and +blessings, and whom the spirit now recognizes again with its old love. +He thought perhaps of a name, which spirits had named to him, but that +presence seemed here not possible. She fixed her eye with complacency +and attention on the play of two virgins, who, neatly clad in silk, +with gold-edged silken aprons, danced gracefully, with modestly +drooping heads and downcast eyes, to the tambourine of a third; the two +other virgins, whom the stranger had brought with her, and Agata, sang +sweetly with Italian half-voice<a name="div2Ref_97" href="#div2_97"><sup>[97]</sup></a> to the graceful joy. "It is all +done in fact," said an old man to the strange lady, "to the honor of +the Holy Virgin and St. Nicholas." She nodded slowly a serious yes.</p> + +<p class="normal">At this moment there stood, all at once, Luna, played about with the +sacrificial fire of Vesuvius, over in the sky, as the proud goddess of +the sun-god, not pale, but fiery, as it were a thunder-goddess over the +thunder of the mountain, and Albano cried, involuntarily, "God! the +great moon!" The stranger quickly threw back her veil, and looked round +significantly after the voice as after a familiar one; when she had +looked upon the strange youth for a long time, she turned toward the +moon over Vesuvius.</p> + +<p class="normal">But Albano was agitated by a god, and dazzled by a wonder; he saw here +Linda de Romeiro. When she raised the veil, beauty and brightness +streamed out of a rising sun; delicate, maidenly colors, lovely lines +and sweet fulness of youth played like a flower-garland about the brow +of a goddess, with soft blossoms around the holy seriousness and mighty +will on brow and lip, and around the dark glow of the large eye. How +had the pictures lied about her,—how feebly had they expressed this +spirit and this life!</p> + +<p class="normal">As if the hour would fain worthily invest the shining apparition, so +beautifully did heaven and earth with all rays of life play into each +other,—love-thirsty stars flew like heaven-butterflies into the +sea,—the moon had soared away over the impetuous earth-flame of +Vesuvius, and spread her tender light over the happy world, the sea and +the shores,—Epomeo hovered with his silvered woods, and with the +hermitage of his summit high in the night blue,—near by stirred the +life of the singing, dancing ones, with their prayers and their festal +rockets which they were sending aloft. When Linda had long looked +across the sea toward Vesuvius, she spoke, of herself, to the silent +Albano, by way of answering his exclamation, and making up for her +sudden turning round and staring at him. "I come from Vesuvius," said +she; "but he is quite as sublime near at hand as afar off, which is so +singular." Altogether strange and spirit-like did it sound to him, that +he really heard this voice. With one that indicated deep emotion he +replied: "In this land, however, everything is great indeed, even the +little is made great by the large,—this little human pleasure here +between the burnt-out volcano<a name="div2Ref_98" href="#div2_98"><sup>[98]</sup></a> and the burning one,—all is at one, +and therefore right and so godlike." At once attracted and distracted, +not knowing him, although previously struck with the resemblance of his +voice to that of Roquairol, gladly reflecting on his simple words, she +looked longer than she was aware at the ingenuous, but daring and warm +eye of the youth, made no reply, turned slowly away, and again looked +silently at the sports.</p> + +<p class="normal">Dian, who had already for a long time been looking at the fair +stranger, found at last in his memory her name, and came to her with +the half-proud, half-embarrassed look of artists toward rank. She did +not recognize him. "The Greek, Dian," said Albano, "noble Countess!" +Surprised at the Count's recognition of her, she said to him: "I do not +know you." "You know my father," said Albano, "the Knight Cesara." "O +Dio!" cried the Spanish maiden, startled, became a lily, a rose, a +flame, sought to collect herself, and said, "How singular! A friend of +yours, the Princess Julienne, is also here."</p> + +<p class="normal">The conversation flowed now more smoothly. She spoke of his father, and +expressed her gratitude as his ward. "That is a mighty nature of his, +which guards itself against everything common," said she, at once, +against the fashion of the quality, speaking even partially of persons. +The son was made happy by this praise of a father; he enhanced it, and +asked in pleased expectation how she took his coldness.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Coldness?" said she, with liveliness, "I hate the word cordially. If +ever a rare man has a whole will and no half of one, and rests upon his +power, and does not, like a crustaceous animal, cleave to every other, +then he is called cold. Is not the sun, when he approaches us, cold +too?" "Death is cold," cried Albano, very much moved, because he often +imagined that he himself had more force than love; "but there may well +be a sublime coldness, a sublime pain, which with eagle's talon +snatches the heart away on high, but tears it in pieces in mid-heaven +and before the sun."</p> + +<p class="normal">She looked upon him with a look of greatness. "Truly you speak like a +woman," said she; "they alone have nothing to will or to do without the +might of love; but it was prettily said." Dian, good for nothing as to +general observations, and apt only at individual ones, interrupted her +with questions about particular works of art in Naples; she very +frankly communicated her characteristic views, although with tolerable +decision. Albano thought at first of his artistic friend, the +draughtsman Schoppe, and asked about him. "At my departure," said she, +"he was still in Pestitz, though I cannot comprehend what such an +extraordinary being would fain do there; that is a powerful man, but +quite jumbled up and not clear. He is very much your friend." "How +does," asked Dian, half joking, "my old patron, the Lector Augusti?" +She answered concisely, and almost with a certain sensitiveness at the +familiarity of his question: "It goes well with him at court. Few +natures," she continued, turning to Albano, on the subject of Augusti, +"are doomed to meet so much injustice of judgment as such simple, cool, +consistent ones as his." Albano could not entirely say yes, but he +recognized with satisfaction in her respect for the strangest +individuality of character the pupil of his father, who prized a plant, +not according to the smoothness or roughness of its skin, but according +to its bloom. Never does a man portray his own character more vividly +than in his manner of portraying another's. But Linda's lofty candor on +the subject, which is as often wanting in finely cultivated females as +refinement and reserve are in powerful men, took the strongest hold of +the youth, and he thought he should be sinning if he did not exercise +his great natural frankness towards her in a twofold degree.</p> + +<p class="normal">She called her maidens to depart with her. Dian went off. "These are +more necessary to me," said she to Albano, "than they seem." She had, +namely, she related, something of the ocular malady<a name="div2Ref_99" href="#div2_99"><sup>[99]</sup></a> of many Spanish +women, of being infinitely short-sighted in the night. He begged to be +permitted to accompany her, and it was granted; he would have guided +her, after what she had said, but she forbade it.</p> + +<p class="normal">During the walk she often stood still, to look at the beautiful flame +of Vesuvius. "He stands there," said Albano, "in this pastoral poem of +Nature, like a tragic muse, and exalts everything, as a war does the +age." "Do you believe that of war," said she. "A man must have," he +replied, "either great men or great objects before him, otherwise his +powers degenerate, as the magnet's do, when it has lain for a long time +without being turned toward the right corners of the world." "How +true," said she: "what say you to a Gallic war?" He owned his wish that +it might break out, and his own disposition to take part in it. He +could not help, even at the expense of his future liberty, being +open-hearted towards her. "Blessed are you men," said she; "you dig +your way down through the snow of life, and find at last the green +harvest underneath. That can no woman do. A woman is surely a stupid +thing in nature. I respect one and another head of the Revolution, +particularly that political monster of energy, Mirabeau, although I +cannot like him."</p> + +<p class="normal">During these discoursings they came upon the ascent of Epomeo. Agata +accompanied the two playmates of her earlier days with full tongue and +hungry ear for so many mutual news-tellings. As he now went along +beside the beautiful virgin, and occasionally looked in her face, which +was made still more beautiful by mental energy, and became at once +flower, blossom, and fruit (whereas generally the converse holds, and +the head gains by the face): then did he pass a severe judgment upon +his previous deportment toward this noble being, although he as well as +she, out of delicacy, remained silent about the former juggling play +with her name, as well as about the wonderfulness of to-day's meeting. +Silently they went on in the rare night and region. All at once she +stopped on an eminence, around which the dowry of Nature was heaped up +on all sides in mountains. They looked round in the splendor; the Swan +of Heaven, the moon, floated high over Vesuvius in the ether,—the +giant serpent of the world, the sea, lay fast asleep in his bed that +stretches from pole to pole,—the coasts and promontories glimmered +only, like midnight dreams,—clefts full of tree-blossoms overflowed +with ethereal dew made of light, and in the vales below stood dark +smoke-columns upon hot fountains, and overhead they floated away in +splendor,—all around lay, high up, illuminated chapels, and low around +the shore dark cities,—the winds stood still, the rose-perfumes and +the myrtle-perfumes stole forth alone,—soft and bland floated the blue +night around the ravished earth; from around the warm moon the ether +retired, and she sank down love-intoxicated out of mid-heaven larger +and larger into the sweet earth-spring. Vesuvius stood now, without +flame or thunder, white with sand or snow, in the east,—in the +darkening blue the gold grains of the fiery stars were sowed far +abroad.</p> + +<p class="normal">It was the rare time when life has its transit through a +superterrestrial sun. Albano and Linda accompanied each other with holy +eyes, and their looks softly disengaged themselves from each other +again; they gazed into the world, and into the heart, and expressed +nothing. Linda turned softly round and walked silently onward.</p> + +<p class="normal">Just then, all at once, one of the prattling maidens behind them called +out: "There is really an earthquake coming; I actually feel it; good +night!" It was Agata. "God grant one," said Albano. "O why?" said +Linda, eagerly, but in a low tone. "All that the infinite mother wills +and sends is to me to-day childishly dear, even death;—are not we, +too, part and parcel of her immortality?" said he. "Yes, man may feel +and believe this in joy; only in sorrow let him not speak of +immortality; in such impotency of soul he is not worthy of it."</p> + +<p class="normal">Albano's spirit here rose up from its princely seat to greet its lofty +kinswoman, and said, "Immortal one! and though no one else were so!" +She silently smiled and went on. His heart was an asbestos-leaf written +over and cast into the fire, burning, not consuming; his whole former +life went out, the leaf shone fiery and pure for Linda's hand.</p> + +<p class="normal">When they reached the last eminence below which Linda's and Julienne's +dwelling lay, and they stood near each other on the point of +separation, then the maiden suddenly cried out below: "An earthquake!" +Out of hell a thunder-car rolled on in the subterranean ways,—a broad +lightning flapped its wings up and down in the pure heaven under the +stars,—the earth and the stars trembled, and affrighted eagles flew +through the lofty night. Albano had grasped the hands of the tottering +Linda. Her face had faded before the moon to a pale, godlike statue of +marble. By this time it was all over; only some stars of the earth +still shot down out of the steadfast heavens into the sea, and wondrous +clouds went up round about from below. "Am I not very timid?" said she, +faintly. Albano gazed into her face livingly and serenely as a sun-god +in morning-redness, and pressed her hands. She would have drawn them +away violently. "Give them to me forever!" said he, earnestly. "Bold +man," said she, in confusion, "who art thou? Dost thou know me? If thou +art as I, then swear and say whether thou hast always been true!" +Albano looked toward Heaven, his life was balanced; God was near him; +he answered softly and firmly: "Linda, always!" "So have I!" said she, +and inclined modestly her beautiful head upon his breast, but +immediately raised it again, with its large moist eyes, and said, +hurriedly: "Go now! Early to-morrow come, Albano! Adio! Adio!"</p> + +<p class="normal">The maidens came up. Albano went down, his bosom filled with living +warmth, with living radiance. Nature breathed with fresher perfumes out +of the gardens; the sea murmured again below; and on Vesuvius burned a +Love's-torch, a festal fire of joy. Through the night-skies some eagles +were still sailing toward the moon, as toward a sun; and against the +arch of heaven the Jacob's-ladder stood leaning with golden rounds of +stars.</p> + +<p class="normal">As Albano was walking along so solitary in his bliss, dissolved in the +rapture of love, the fragrance of the vales, the radiance of the +heights, dreaming, hovering, he saw birds of passage flying across the +sea in the direction of the Apennines, on their way to Germany, where +Liana had lived. "Holy One above!" cried his heart, "thou desiredst +this joy; appear and bless it!" Unexpectedly he stood before a chapel +niche wherein the Holy Virgin stood. The moon transfigured the pale +statue,—the Virgin took life beneath the radiance, and became more +like Liana,—he knelt down, and ardently gave God his prayers of +gratitude and Liana his tears. When he rose, turtle-doves were cooing +in dreams, and a nightingale warbled; the hot fountains smoked +glimmering, and the happy singing of far-off people came up to his +ears.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<p class="center"><img src="images/hornstart.png" alt="hornstart"></p> +<br> +<h2><a name="div1Ref_29" href="#div1_29">TWENTY-NINTH JUBILEE.</a></h2> + +<h3><span class="sc2">Julienne.—The Island.—Sundown.—Naples.—Vesuvius.— +Linda's Letter.—Fight Departure.</span></h3> +<br> +<h3>111. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">After a long night, the fresh morning breathed when Albano was to find +again the treasures of the most blessed dream, the flowers of fortune +which the moon had opened, in broad sunlight. Life shouted to him +exultingly, as he climbed again yesterday's heights, which shone +overspread with the varnish of light; not to a rose-feast, but to all +flower and harvest-festivals at once; to feasts of myrtles and lilies; +to gleanings and blossom-gatherings. The sun went forth over the +blessed region, and as a peacock with his trailing rainbow flies into a +blossoming tree, so did the young day, heavy with colors and laden with +gardens and full of reflections, mount the blue heights, and smile like +a child upon the world. Albano looked now from his height down on the +enchanted castle wherein yesterday the mighty enchantress had +disappeared.</p> + +<p class="normal">He went down to it. A singing maiden on the flowery roof, who seemed to +have been waiting for him, pointed out, leaning over without +interrupting her singing, a near apartment below her into which he was +to enter. He stepped in; it was empty. Through the windows of oiled +paper streamed a wondrous morning light; on the wooden ceiling figures +from Herculaneum were painted; in a Campanian vase stood yellow +butterfly flowers and myrtle-blossoms, which diffused around them a +sweet perfumed atmosphere. The singular environs enclosed him more and +more closely, for he found, in fact, some pictures and articles of +furniture which seemed familiar to him. At last he saw, to his +amazement, on the table a half ring. He took out his half which he had +got from the pretended sister in the Gothic chamber on that ghostly +night, and which, to be ready for the opportunity of a comparison, he +always carried about with him. He pressed the semicircles into one +another; suddenly they closed, clasping, and formed a fast ring. "God!" +thought he, "what arm strikes again into my life?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Just then the door was hastily opened, and the Princess Julienne +entered hurriedly, smiling and weeping, and exclaimed, flying to him, +"O my brother! my brother!" "Julienne," said he, seriously, and with +deep emotion, "art thou really my sister at last?" "O, long enough has +she been so!" replied she, and looked on him tenderly and blissfully, +and smiled through her tears. Then she again embraced him, and again +looked at him, and said: "Thou dear Albano-brother! So long have I, +like a moon, been sailing around thee, and had, like her, to stay +colder and farther off. Now will I love thee with exceeding fondness; +my love shall run backward, and run forward too!" "Almighty!" Albano +broke out, weeping, when he found himself so suddenly clasped by a +beneficent arm out of the cloud, "all this dost thou now give me at +once?" "Ah!" cried Julienne, with liveliness, "that I were only weeping +for pure joy! But I must eat my bitter crust of sorrow with it too! +Dear brother, Luigi writes me yesterday from Pestitz that I must hasten +back, else he will hardly live to see my return. Did I think of this on +my setting out? Thus what I receive with one hand I must give up with +the other." Albano said nothing to this, because he could not possibly +take the least interest in the Prince. So much the more did he refresh +himself with fresh, clear joy in the open, breathing Orient of his +earliest days of life, in the sight of this young, pure flower, which +grew and played, as it were, in and out of the bright, fresh fountain +of his childhood.</p> + +<p class="normal">"But, heavens! explain to me," began Albano, "how all came to pass." +"Now, I know, the questioning begins," she replied. "The ostensible sum +and substance thou shalt shortly have; if thou askest for more, if thou +wilt peep into the book of mysteries, then I shut it to, and repeat to +thee some lies. Next October, it may be sooner, all comes to light. +This for the present, and first of all,—my mother was, and remains, +verily pure and holy in this relationship, by the Almighty God!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"What a riddle!" said he. "Art thou the daughter of my father? Is Luigi +my brother? Is my dead sister Severina thy sister?" asked he.</p> + +<p class="normal"><i>Julienne</i>. "Ask October!"</p> + +<p class="normal"><i>Albano</i>. "Ah, sister!"</p> + +<p class="normal"><i>Julienne</i>. "O brother, trust the daughter of Melchisedec. Further,—I +was indeed the sister in the apparition, whom the man with the bald +head introduced to thee in Lilar. I could not, and yet I felt that I +must, have thee ere thou hadst flown away into foreign parts. The old +age which I then had in the mirror was, as thou seest, made only by an +artificial mirror."<a name="div2Ref_100" href="#div2_100"><sup>[100]</sup></a></p> + +<p class="normal"><i>Albano</i>. "Truly, I thought then of no one but of thee. Only how comes +there a man like the Baldhead and like the Father of Death, who so +incomprehensibly predicted to me in Mola that I should find thee?"</p> + +<p class="normal"><i>Julienne</i>. "That is impossible. Did he name my name?"</p> + +<p class="normal"><i>Albano</i>. "That only was wanting. The Pater is, for the rest, in all +probability one and the same man with the Baldhead. Immediately after +the announcement he went toward heaven."</p> + +<p class="normal"><i>Julienne</i>. "There let him stay, by all means, and the other too. Does +this dark bond of enchantment concern or disturb me or thee, which, in +its false miracles, has thus far always been interrupted by singular +real ones? It was quite innocently that I happened in Lilar at that +time, and perhaps I prevented something frightful."</p> + +<p class="normal"><i>Albano</i>. "By heavens! I must ask what, then, is his object, who his +leader, his manager?"</p> + +<p class="normal"><i>Julienne</i>. "Probably the father of the Countess, for he lives still, I +hear, unknown and unseen, although thy father is guardian. Be +astonished when thou art at home, and leave the riddles, which, be +assured, are unravelling themselves so agreeably for us both, and await +the October days."</p> + +<p class="normal"><i>Albano</i>. "But one thing, beloved sister, deny me not, I pray thee,—a +clear word about my and thy wonderful relation to the noble Countess! +Only that!"</p> + +<p class="normal"><i>Julienne</i>. "Has my heart, then, already denied it thee? The glorious +one,—well for her and me and thee! Thy first word of love,—which the +gods have now so firmly sealed,—was to be the signal-word for my +annunciation to thee; only from the beloved mightest thou receive the +sister. What jugglers and ghosts have done towards it, and how much of +it, no one knows better than—October; why shall I, meanwhile, be +choosing between lies and perjury? I simply did all, only to bring you +two together; the rest I knew beforehand. Nothing succeeded,—it all +was a stifling snarl; everything went up hill. I saw precious +beings<a name="div2Ref_101" href="#div2_101"><sup>[101]</sup></a> sowing in an unblessed spring dreadful griefs, and withal +smiling so hopefully! and I could not hold their unhappy hands,—I, who +with such certainty foreknew all the coming anguish. O thou pure, pious +soul above!" said she, all at once, with quivering lip, looking towards +heaven.</p> + +<p class="normal">The brother and sister embraced each other softly, and wept in silence +at the thought of the innocent sacrifice.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No," said Albano, very warmly, "no hell-conspiracy could have sundered +us had she only stayed with me, or even on the earth." "See, Albano," +said Julienne, collecting again her more cheerful life-spirits, and +opening all blinds, "how the morning hill sparkles and swims up and +down! Let me speak out! By the very greatest good luck, I learned in +winter that thou wast turning thy thoughts toward Naples. Linda had +already been there once, and her mother at the baths of the +neighborhood. For me, I said to her, Ischia's baths would do as well as +any. Go with me; we will not disturb or go near your triste guardian in +Rome at all. She readily assented. Of course there was no mention made +of thee; previously, however, there had been often enough in letters +and otherwise, when I always praised thee beyond measure. And now <i>nous +voici donc</i>. Yesterday I received in Naples the mournful letter of my +brother. Of thy arrival I knew as yet nothing. I let the Countess go +alone to the feast of tones, and hastened home with heavy heart. When +she came back, she opened her glad heart, and told me all; and then I +told her all. Ah, thank God," she added, falling upon his neck, "that +we have now at last disembarked in Elysium, and that the rotten +Charon's-boat has not sent us to the bottom. But for all Europe, even +for thy Dian, mark me, the privy seal remains upon our relationship." +Albano must needs still put a few questions. She kept answering, in a +lively tone, "October! October!" till all at once, as if awaking, she +exclaimed, "O, how can I say that so gayly?" but without explaining +herself on the subject.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Now will I bring thee, as I have heretofore done, to the Countess, +only by a shorter way," said she, took his hand, led him out, opened +the opposite apartment, where Linda lived, and said, "I present to thee +my brother." Deeply blushing, the noble form came to meet them, and +embraced, without a word, her dear female friend. When her eye met +again Albano's, she was so struck that she sought to draw away the hand +which he kissed, for she had yesterday hardly seen but in a glimmering +light his beautiful eye, and his noble brow, and the lips of love; and +this blooming man stood, inspired with double emotion, so bright and +still and earnest before her, full of noble, real love. Her heart would +gladly have fallen upon his; at least, she gave him back her hand into +his, and wished him joy of this morning. The obvious answer, "and of +yesterday evening," he could not get over his lips, from a peculiar, +modest shyness, of giving as of taking praise. "A third man is found at +last for the travelling-college," said Julienne; "for thou must go off +directly, in a few days; thou, too, must be off to Pestitz, Albano." +"I, too, sister?" said he; "I meant to stay a month, and here is the +visit of Vesuvius, Herculaneum, and Naples crowded into a few days." He +wondered afterwards himself at the sweetness of obedience under the +fair commands of love, since he used once to say, "Command me to +command, and I will not obey." "I accompany my friend," said Linda, +"glad as I should have been to go to Greece, to which I am already, for +the second time, so near."</p> + +<p class="normal">"This very night I fly away," said he; "I will only wake, see, live, +and love." Julienne had already begun to show a sister's concern about +his health and his objects; divided between two brothers, gladly would +she, had it only been possible, have sacrificed herself to both. "The +good creature has not even yet enjoyed Ischia," said she; "he must have +that to-day."</p> + +<p class="normal">Albano felt, at the expression of this new female love, that woman +was the human heart in the fairest form. Within him rang a glad +melody,—"What a day lies before thee, and what years!" Sweetly +entwined and overspun with a canopy of double love-blossoms, he saw +life and earth full of fragrance and light; over the morning dew of +youth a sun had now been ushered up, and the dark drops glistened up +and down through all gardens.</p> + +<p class="normal">He cast, at length, a glance at the place which surrounded him. Niobe's +group, the Genius of Turin, Cupid, and Psyche, stood there in casts, +borrowed from the cabinet of an artist in Naples. The walls were +decorated with rare pictures, among which was—Schoppe sneezing. This +alone rushed with the northern past mightily into his softened heart, +and he expressed his feeling to his beloved. "You," said she, "prefer +friendship to art, for that portrait is the worst in my collection; but +the original deserves, indeed, all regard."</p> + +<p class="normal">She went into the cabinet, and brought out a miniature likeness of +herself, which represented her, after the Turkish fashion, veiled, and +with only one eye uncovered. How livingly beside the twilight of the +veil did the open, soul-speaking eye look and strike! How did the flame +of its might burn through the covering of mildness! Linda named the +master of the magnificent picture, that very Schoppe, and added, he had +said in this case the master must, out of reciprocal complaisance, +himself praise a work which praised him more partially and powerfully +than any other work of his ever had. She explained this difference of +his pencil by another cause, which he had stated to her almost in these +words: he had, he said, in his earliest youth, loved her mother as long +as he had seen her, and afterwards never any one again; and therefore +he had, as she resembled her mother, painted her <i>con amore</i>, and +really striven to bring out something.</p> + +<p class="normal">"O, honest old man!" said Albano, and could hardly keep tears out of +the eyes which so often were happy. But it was only the holy pang of +friendship; for there darted through him at last, like a beam of +lightning through the clearest sky, a presumption made certain by +everything,—by Schoppe's diary and Linda's words and Rabette's +letter,—that Linda was the soul whom the singular being secretly +loved. A sharp pain cut hastily but deeply through his brow; and he +conquered himself only by his present younger freshness of spirit, by +newly gathered power and force, and by the free thought that a friend +may well and easily give up and sacrifice to his friend a <i>loved</i> one, +but cannot or dares not so easily surrender <i>one who loves him</i>.</p> + +<p class="normal">Julienne said, "The only wonder is that my brother, between two such +fantastical beings as this Schoppe and Roquairol, has not himself +become one of the same feather." A running fire broke out. Linda said, +"Schoppe is only a southern nature in conflict with a northern +climate." "Properly with life itself," said Albano. Julienne simply +remarked, "I love always rules in life; with neither of them is one +ever tranquil and <i>à son aise</i>, but only <i>à leur aise</i>." She asked him +at once about Roquairol. "He was once my friend, and I speak of him no +more," said Albano, whose tongue was tied by the ruined favorite's +torturing love for Linda, and even his relationship to Liana. Linda +glided over the subject with the mere verdict that he was an +overstrained weakling, and without special mention of his love for her +or of her abhorrence of him. She quite as coldly forgot at a distance +every one who was repulsive to her inner being as she did vehemently +thrust him off when he was near.</p> + +<p class="normal">Julienne withdrew to make arrangements for the little day's journey +over the island. Albano despatched a note to Dian, containing the +<i>marche-route</i> to Naples. Linda said, in respect to Julienne, "A deeply +and firmly grounded character!" "The stem and twigs all buried in +little fragrant blossoms!" he added. "And exactly what she hates in +books and conversations,—poesy,—that she pursues right earnestly in +action. Individuality is everywhere to be spared and respected, as the +root of everything good. You, too, are very good," she added, with soft +voice. "Truly, I am so at present," said he; "for I love right +heartily; and only a complete being can one really love, and with +entire disinterestedness."</p> + +<p class="normal">"So must the sun's image strike full and round, in order to burn." "Or +an image which one takes for it," said she; "I am what I am, and cannot +easily become anything else. If man has only a will once for all, which +goes through life, not alternating from minute to minute, from being to +being, that is the main thing." "Linda," cried Albano, "I hear my own +soul. There are words which are actions; yours are." When she thus +spoke out her soul, her beautiful form vanished from before his +enchanted spirit, as the golden string vanishes when it begins to +sound. Wounded and punished by the past for his often hard energy, he +breathed only with a gentle breath—although now life, the world, +and the very region made him bolder, brighter, firmer, and more +ardent—upon the <i>unisonant</i> Æolian strings of this <i>many-toned</i> soul. +But how must she have been charmed with a man at once so mighty and so +tender,—a soft constellation of near suns,—a beautiful war-god with +the lyre,—a storm-cloud full of Aurora,—a spirited, ardent youth, +whose thought was so honest! She said it not, however, but simply +loved, like him.</p> + +<p class="normal">He threw an accidental glance at her little table-library. "Nothing but +French!" said she. He found <i>Montaigne</i>, the life of <i>Guyon</i>, the +<i>Contrat Social</i>, and, last of all, <i>Madame de Staël sur l'Influence +des Passions</i>. He had read this, and said how infinitely pleased he had +been with the articles upon love, parties, and vanity, and, in short, +with her German or Spanish heart of fire, but not with her bald French +philosophy, least of all with her immoral suicide-mania. "Good Heaven!" +cried Linda; "is not life itself a long suicide? Albano, all men are +still somewhere or other pedants, the good in morality so called, and +you especially. Maxims of Kant, great, broad classifications, +principles, must they all have. You are all born Germans, real Germans +of the Germans, even you, friend. Am I right?" she added, softly, as if +she desired a "yes."</p> + +<p class="normal">"No," said Albano, "so soon as a man once pursues and desires anything +right earnestly and exclusively, then he is called a coxcomb or a +pedant." "O you everlasting readers and readeresses!" cried Julienne, +stepping in and seeing him with a book in his hand. "Never has the +Princess read preface or note," said Linda, "as I have never yet let +any one go." Women who read prefaces and notes are of some +significance; with men, at most the opposite were true. "We can set +out; all is ready," said Julienne.</p> +<br> +<h3>112. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">When they came out into the festive world, how did the cool blue of +heaven come floating, fanning down upon them instead of earthly airs! +How sparkled the world and the day—and the future! How brightly foamed +over in the goblet of life the draught of love made for each of the +three beings out of two intoxicating ingredients!</p> + +<p class="normal">They followed the path to the summit of Epomeo, but in an elastic, +yielding freedom, and in a rapid variety of nature which is not to be +matched anywhere upon the earth. They met valleys with laurels and +cherries, with roses and primroses at once. There came cool defiles +filled out with ripe oranges and apples, beside high rocks of aloes and +pomegranates, and on the summits of the cherry and apple tree stirred +overhead the vine and orange blossoms. In the blooming clefts warbled +secure nightingales, and out of the crevices poisonless serpents' heads +darted to the light,—sometimes appeared a cloister in a citron-grove, +sometimes a white house attached to a vine-garden, now a cool grotto, +now a kitchen garden near red clover, now a little meadow full of white +rose-flowers and narcissi, and at every turn a man, who went by +singing, dancing, and accosting them. Heights and gardens alternately +hid and revealed the land and the water, and often for a long time the +far-stretching sea and its cloud-coasts glimmered after them like a +second heaven through the green twigs.</p> + +<p class="normal">They drew nearer and nearer to the hermit's house on the summit, +rocking themselves upon the gay, golden flag-feathers of life. They +spoke to each other now and then a word of joy, not, however, by way of +communicating each other, but because the heart could not help it, and +a word was nothing but a sigh of happiness. They stood at last upon the +throne of the earth, and looked down as from the sun. Round about them +the sea lay camped, melting away into the blue of the horizon,—from +Capua, far in the depths of the distance, stretched the white +Apennines around Vesuvius and over on the long coast of Sorrento still +onward,—and from Posilippo the lands pursued the sea even beyond Mola +and Terracina,—on the opened world-surface appeared everything, the +promontories, the yellow crater-margins on the coasts and the islands +round about, which the terrible, veiled fire-god under the sea had +driven up out of his fiery realm to the light of the sun,—and the +lovely Ischia with its little cities on the shores and with its little +gardens and craters, stood like a green blooming ship in the great sea, +and rested on innumerable waves.</p> + +<p class="normal">Then vanished the greatnesses of the earth from below, only the earth +was great and the sun with his heavens. "O how happy we are!" said +Albano. Yes, you were happy there; who will be so after you? Cradling +himself upon the tree of life, at which his childish eye had already so +early and longingly gazed upward, he gave utterance to all that exalted +and possessed him. "Therein I recognize the all-powerful mother; angry +and flaming, she comes up from the bottom of the sea, plants a burning +land, and then does she again, smiling, distribute flowers among her +children; so let man be, volcano—then flower." "What in comparison +with this," said Julienne, "are all the winter amusements of the German +May-moon! Is not that a smaller Switzerland only in a greater lake of +Geneva?" The Countess, who through her Spain was more initiated in such +charms, kept herself for the most part still. "Man," said she, "is the +Oread and Hamadryad or some other divinity, and inspires wood and vale, +and man himself, again, is inspired by man."</p> + +<p class="normal">The Hermit appeared, and said, their meal, which was sent up, had long +since arrived; he also took occasion to praise his situation. "Often," +said he, and made Julienne laugh, "my mountain smokes like Vesuvius, +and bathing-guests look up, and apprehend something, but it is only +because I am baking my bread up here." They encamped themselves in the +shady open air. They must needs be ever looking down again upon the +lovely, diminished island, which with its gardens planted within +gardens, with its springs intertwined with autumns, lay so whole and so +near, a great family garden, where the people all dwell together, +because there are no different lands to become entangled with each +other, and the bees and the larks fly not far out over the garden of +the sea. Like still, open flowers were the three souls beside each +other; fragrantly flies the flower-dust to and fro, to generate new +flowers. Linda sank away completely into her great deep heart; unused +to love, she would fain gaze therein and find joy, while no word of +Albano's escaped her, for it bespoke its birth of love in the heart. +Overflowing with mildness, and deep in thought she sat there, with her +great eye half under the downcast eyelid,—after her manner, always +long silent as well as long speaking. As the diamond sparkles just like +the dewdrop, but only with steady power and even without the sun, her +heart resembled the softest in all feminine mildness and purity, and +excelled it only in strength. With delight Julienne beheld, when, now +and then, after a childlike forgetting of Albano, (because her stream +of speech had borne her from one world to another,) suddenly and with +unembarrassed joy, she replaced her finely formed hand in the youth's, +to whom a pressure of her hand was nothing less than a tender embrace.</p> + +<p class="normal">They took the nearest way down back to Albano's residence, which was +ever looking up to them from its vine-shrubbery. They were ever so +little with each other,—in the morning Albano was to travel. He must +write from Portici, a messenger must come to take the letter,—"And he +brings me one, too," said he. "Certainly not!" said Linda. Albano +begged. "She will soon change and write," said Julienne. She said no. +By degrees furrows of shade stole down the mountain along with the dark +lava-streams, and in the poplars nightingales began already their +melodious twilight. They drew near to Albano's house. Dian ran out with +delight to meet the Princess. Albano begged him, without having asked +either, to procure a bark, in order that they might enjoy the evening. +Compulsory proposals of pleasure are precisely those to which maidens +love best to say yes. Dian was immediately at hand with a boat; he +always and quickly joined his pleasure to that of others.</p> + +<p class="normal">They all embarked and moved along among the sunflowers, which every ray +of the sun planted thicker and thicker upon the watery beds. Albano—in +his present glow, accustomed to the manners of the warm land where the +lover speaks before the mother and she speaks of him with the daughter, +where Love wears no veil, but only hatred and the face, and where the +<i>myrtle</i>, in every sense, is the setting of the fields—forgot himself +a moment before Dian, and took Linda's hand; she quickly snatched it +away from him, true to the manner of maidens, which is lavish of the +arm and chary of the finger and the thimble. But she looked on him +softly, when she had repelled him.</p> + +<p class="normal">They passed along again, on their passage from east to north, before +the rock with houses and before the streets of the suburb town on the +shore. All was glad and friendly,—all sang that did not prattle,—the +roofs were occupied with looms of silk ribbons, and the websters spoke +and sang from roof to roof. Julienne could hardly keep her eye away +from this southern sociableness and harmony. They put out farther into +the sea, and the sun went down nearer to it. The waves and the +breezes played with one another, the former breathing, the latter +undulating,—sky and sea were arched into one blue concave, and in its +centre floated, free as a spirit in the universe, the light skiff of +love. The circle of the world became a golden, swollen harvest-wreath +full of glowing coasts and islands,—gondolas flew singing into the +distance, and had torches already prepared for the night, (sometimes a +flying-fish traced his arc behind them in the air,) and Dian responded +to their familiar songs as they glided along by. Yonder were seen great +ships, proudly and slowly sailing along, fluttering like the sky, with +red and blue plumes, and like conquerors bound to port. Everywhere was +the must of life poured out, and it worked impetuously. So played a +divine world around man! "O here in this great scene," said Albano, +"where everything finds place, Paradises and dark Orcus-coasts of lava, +and the yielding sea, and the gray Gorgon-head of Vesuvius, and the +playing children of men, and the blossoms and all,—here where one must +glow like a lava,—could not one, like the hot lava round about him, +bury himself in the waves, in all his glow, if one knew that anything +of this hour could pass away, even so much as a remembrance thereof, or +a throbbing of the pulse for a loved heart? Were not that better?" +"Perhaps," said Linda. Julienne was carried in thought by the softening +pleasure to the distant sick-bed of her brother, and said, smiling: +"Cannot one do like the fair sun over yonder, and go under the waves +and yet come back again? And yet, after all, if you look upon his going +down rightly, there is no such thing in reality."</p> + +<p class="normal">The sun stood already big as a great golden shield held from heaven +above the Pontian islands, and gilded their blue,—the white, rocky +crown of thorns, Capri, lay in glowing light, and from Sorrento's +coasts to Gaeta's glimmering gold had shot up along the walls of the +world,—the earth rolled with her axis, as with a music-barrel, near +the sun, and struck from the great luminary rays and tones,—sideward +lay in ambush the giant messenger of night, camped on the sea, the +immense shadow of Epomeo.</p> + +<p class="normal">At this moment the sun touched the sea, and a golden lightning darted +trembling round through the humid ether,—and he cradled himself on a +thousand fiery wave-wings, and he quivered and hung, burning and +glowing with love, on the sea, and the sea, burning, drank all his +glow. Then it threw, as if he was about to pass away forever, the veil +of an infinite splendor over the pale-growing god. Then it became still +on the earth; a floating evening redness overflowed with rose-oil all +the waves; the holy islands of sundown stood transfigured; the remotest +coasts drew near and showed their redness of delight; on all heights +hung rose-garlands; Epomeo glowed upward even to the ether, and on the +eternal cloud-tree, which grows up out of the hollow Vesuvius, went out +on the summit the last thin glimmering of splendor.</p> + +<p class="normal">Speechless, the companions turned from the west toward the shore. The +sailors began again to talk. "Make thy brother," Linda softly begged +her friend, "keep himself always turned toward the west." She fulfilled +the request without immediately guessing its motive. Linda looked +continually into his beautifully irradiated face: "Ask him again," said +she a second time, "the twilight is too deep, and my weak eyes see so +poorly without light." It was not done, for they immediately went on +shore. The earth trembled beneath and after them as they trod upon it, +as a sounding-board of the blissful hour. Albano was fastened in +speechless emotion upon the beloved face, which he must soon leave +again. "I'll write to you," said she, unasked, with so touching a +recall of her former threat, that, had he not been among strange eyes, +he must have fallen, intoxicated with gratitude upon her hand, upon her +noble heart. Hard was the parting, and the end of an harmonious day in +which the tone of every single minute had been again a tri-clang. By +this time Dian had already departed. "Not even the roses of evening," +said Julienne, "are without thorns." "An abrupt leave-taking is always +the best; we will go home," said Linda. Albano begged that he might be +allowed to attend her. "Whither?" said Linda. Softly she added, for the +sake of her eyes, "I can hardly see you any longer; however, only come, +I can hear, nevertheless." "Beautiful inconstant one!" said Julienne. +"I change myself," said she, "but no other does it; only as far as the +chapel, Albano; you sail early in the morning." "Even earlier; perhaps +this very night," said he.</p> + +<p class="normal">While they thus more and more slowly descended the mountain, and the +nightingales warbled, and the myrtle-blossoms breathed their perfume, +and the tepid breezes fluttered, and overhead the whole second world, +like a veiled nun, looked with a holy eye through the silver-grating of +the constellations, every heart overflowed with faithful love, and the +brother and the sister and the beloved took alternately each other's +hand.</p> + +<p class="normal">At once Linda stood upon the spot of yesterday's union and said, "Here +he must go, Julienne!" and swiftly drew her hand out of his, and +smoothed lightly his locks and cheek and then his eye, and asked, +"How?" in the confusion of a dream. "Immediately," said Julienne; "one +must, however, wait at least for the Italian winter, for the moon, +before one can even go home." Then the brother fell upon the bosom of +the tender sister, who would fain hereby procure for him a longer +tarrying, and for her friend the privilege of seeing him again by a +stronger illumination, and he exclaimed, with tears, "O sister! how +much hast thou done for me, before I could do anything for thee, or +even thank thee! Thou givest me, indeed, everything,—every joy, the +highest felicity; O, what art thou like!" "There is the moon!" cried +she; "now farewell, and a happy journey!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Like a silvery day the moon had climbed the mountains, and the +transfigured beloved one saw again the blooming face of her beloved. He +took her hand and said, "Farewell, Linda!" Long looked they upon each +other, their eyes full of soul, and they grew more strange and exalted +in each other's eyes. Then did he, without knowing how, press to his +heart the noble maiden, like a blessed spirit embracing a spring +sun,—and he touched her holy countenance with his, and like the red +mornings of two worlds their lips melted together. Linda closed her +eyes, and kissed with trembling, and only a single life and bliss +rolled and glowed between two hearts and lips. Julienne gently enfolded +the embrace with her own, and desired no other bliss. Thereupon all +parted, without speaking again, or looking round.</p> +<br> +<h3>113. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">Albano, with the new haste which now reigned in his actions, was +already, beneath the cool morning star, flying from the happy soil. He +told the architect, Dian, all his whole blessedness, because he knew +how very much of a youth the man still remained in matters of love. +"Bravo!" answered Dian, "who can escape without love in Italy? At least +none of us. It is to be hoped your magnificent Juno is not so haughty +toward you as toward other people: then there may well be for you a +life of the gods."</p> + +<p class="normal">In the morning breezes, irradiated with sun and wave, he swept gliding +along on the blue, liquid mirror between two heavens, and his eye was +blest when it looked back at the Olympus of Epomeo, and blest when it +looked back again on the coasts that gleamed up and down on the long, +outspread market-place of the earth.</p> + +<p class="normal">When they came through the midst of those glimmering palaces, the +ships, to the stationary ones, they found the people in the ecstasy of +a saint's festival. He was compelled to bury the blue day and the sea +in temples, in picture-halls, in fourth stories, where, according to +the custom, several of the grandees dwelt, to whom he delivered letters +from his father, and more beautifully in the subterranean, gloomy +street which arches itself through the blooming Posilippo.</p> + +<p class="normal">Only the prospect that, in the very next solitude, he should converse +with his distant heart quieted his spirit, which was always flying away +from the present. At evening they ascended the finest of the heights +above Naples, the cloister of Camaldole, where, among the pleasures of +the prospect, he saw, standing in gray distance behind Posilippo, the +lofty Epomeo. He could no longer contain himself, but began, in a spot +more thickly hidden with blossoms than others, which he had sought out +for the purpose, the following letter to Linda:—</p> +<br> + +<p class="normal">"At last, noble soul, I can speak to thee, and behold again thy island, +although only as a sunny-red evening cloud looming in the horizon. +Linda, Linda, O that I have and have had thee! Does, then, the two +days' divine dream last even over into the cold to-day? Thou art now so +far off and dumb, and I hear no yes. When, in Rome, on the dome of St. +Peter's, I looked into the blue morning heavens, and life swelled and +sounded around me as the breezes swept by, then it seemed to me as if I +must fling myself into a flying royal ship, and seek a shore which +grows green under the farthest constellation; as if I must flutter +down, like a cascade, through the heavens, and tear my way below there +through this stony life, pressing onward, and destroying and bearing +everything before me and with me. And so is it with me again at this +moment, and still more emphatically. I could fly over to thee, and say, +'Thou art my glory, my laurel-wreath, my eternity, but I must deserve +thee; I can do nothing for thee, except what I do for myself.' In the +olden time, beloved youths were great, deeds were their graces, and the +coat of mail their festal dress. Today, as I looked across on the Gulf +of Baja, and on the ruins where the gardens and palaces of the great +Romans still lie in ruins or names, and when I saw the old, defying +giants stand in the midst of flowers and oranges, and in tepid, +incense-breathing breezes, refreshed and quickened by them, but not +softened and subdued,—lifting with the hand the heavy trident which +moved three quarters of the globe, and with sinewy breast going forth +to meet winter in the north, burning heat in Africa, and every +wound,—then did my whole heart ask, 'Is it so with thee?' O Linda, can +a man be otherwise? The lion roams over the earth, the eagle sweeps +through the heavens, and the king of these kings should have his path +on the earth and in the heavens at once. I have as yet been and done +nothing; but when life is as yet an empty mist, canst thou overcome it, +or seize it fast and dash it to pieces? Wilt thou one day, thou +Uranide, love a man? then will I shrink back from no one. But words are +to actions only the sawdust of the club of Hercules, as Schoppe says. +So soon as war and freedom clash against each other, then will I +deserve thee in the storm of the times, and bring with me to thee +actions and immortal love.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Here I stand on the divine heights of the cloister-garden, and look +down into a green, heavenly realm which knows no equal. The sun is +already away over the gulf, and flings his rose-fire among the ships, +and a whole shore full of palaces and full of men burns red. Through +the long, wide-extending streets below me rolls up already the din of +the festival, and the roofs are full of decorated men and women, and +full of music. Balconies and gondolas wait to welcome the divine night +with songs. And here am I alone, and am nevertheless so happy, and +yearn without pain. But had I been standing here four days ago, Linda, +when, as yet, I knew thee not and had thee not, and had I been looking +upon such an evening as this,—upon the golden sea,—the gay Portici, +upon which sun and sea are rippling with flames,—the majestic +Vesuvius, wound round with gold-green myrtles, and with his gray, ashen +head full of the glow of the sun,—and, behind me, the green plain full +of clouds of flower-dust, which rise out of gardens and rain down in +gardens again,—and the whole busy, magic circle of glad energies,—a +world swimming in light and life,—then, Linda, without thee, would a +cold pang have darted through the warm bliss, and remembrances with +mourning masks would have gone about in the golden light of evening.</p> + +<p class="normal">"O Linda, how hast thou cleansed and widened my world, and I am now +happy everywhere! Thou hast transformed the heavy, sharp ploughshare of +life, which painfully toils at the harvest, into a light brush and +pencil, which plays about till it has wrought out a god's form. Have I +not seen to-day every temple and every hill more glad, as if gilded by +thee, and every beauty, whether it bloomed on a statue, on canvas, on +the singing lip, or on the summits, wear a richer lustre, and felt it +breathe a richer fragrance? and then did I not fly up from the little +flower to the blooming Linda?</p> + +<p class="normal">"How the dark Power holds sway behind the cloud! It gives us sealed +orders, that we may break them open at a later time, upon a distant +spot. O God! upon Ischia's Epomeo it was for me first to open mine. +Then rose a moment over life, and bore eternity; the butterfly brought +the goddess!</p> + +<p class="normal">"Evening goes down, and I must be silent. Might I only know how thy +evening is! My life consists now of two hours, thine and mine, and I +can no longer live with myself alone. May this day have stolen away +from thee richly and mildly, and thy evening have been like mine! Only +Vesuvius now reddens in the lingering sun. The islands slowly fade away +in the dark sea. I behold now, without speaking to thee, the great +evening, but, O God, so otherwise than in Rome! Blissfully shall I fix +my eye only on thy island as it is about to be extinguished in the +glittering din of the evening twilight, and yet long shall I look +thitherward, when already the summit of Epomeo is dissolved in night; +and then shall I look cheerfully down into the grave of colors +encircled with lights below me. Happy songs will steal through the +twilight; the stars will glimmer affectionately; and I shall say, 'I am +alone and still, but inexpressibly happy, for Linda has my heart, and I +weep only out of love, because I think of her heart'; and then I shall +go down in blissful rapture through the blossom-smoke of the mountain."</p> +<br> + +<p class="normal">He came slowly back to Naples to his friend Dian; all the festive +merriment which met him, the whole odeum of joy, in which the ringing +wheel of the hurdy-gurdy dizzily rolled round, seemed to him to be +merely his echo; whereas, in general, not till the external, sensitive +chords of man are struck, do the inner ones sound after them. All he +wanted was to be ever hurrying onward, and—if it might be—to proceed +this very night on his way to Vesuvius. For him there was now only one +season of the day. The warmer climate, together with love and May, +seemed to awaken all the spring winds of his powers; they blew with an +impetuosity which made him conscious of them himself. Only before his +beloved was he—still sore from the wounds of the past—merely a +zephyr, which spares the dusting blossoms.</p> + +<p class="normal">On the next day he proposed to ascend Vesuvius, and on the morning +after await his Dian in Portici, when he had first seen from the top of +the volcano the spectacle of sunrise.</p> +<br> +<h3>114. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">He describes his journey to his beloved.</p> +<br> +<p class="right">"In the Hermit's Hut on Vesuvius.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Why does not man fall on his knees and adore the world, the mountains, +the sea, the all? How it exalts the spirit to think that it is, and +that it is conscious of the immense world and of itself! O Linda, I am +still full of the morning; I still sojourn even on the sublime hell. +Yesterday I rode in the morning with my <i>Bartolomeo</i> through the rich, +full garden avenue to the gay Portici, which links itself to the giant +like Catana to Ætna. Ever the same great epic Greek feature running +through this sublime land,—the same blending of the monstrous +with the beautiful, of nature with men, of eternity with the +moment; country-houses and a laughing plain opposite to the eternal +death-torch; between old, holy temple-columns goes a merry dance, the +common monk and the fisherman; the glowing blocks of the mountain tower +up as a bulwark around vineyards, and beneath the living Portici dwells +the hollow, dead Herculaneum; lava cliffs have grown out into the sea, +and dark battering-rams lie cast among the flowers. The ascent was in +the beginning refreshment to my soul; the long mountain was a conductor +to the full cloud. Late at night, after an eternal ascent, without +having enjoyed the evening sun, through whose red glow upon the ashes +we were obliged to wade rapidly, we arrived here at the hermit's. The +moon was not yet up; thy island was still invisible. Often it thundered +under the floor of the apartment. Then was I all at once pleasantly +reminded by the hermit of my old Schoppe, when he told me that a +limping traveller with a wolf-dog had once said up here, 'In Vesuvius +was the stall of the incessantly stamping thunder-steeds.' That could +certainly after all have been no one but Schoppe.</p> + +<p class="normal">"At midnight, my Linda, when the moon stood high over the Apennine, and +looked from heaven with a long, enraptured, silvery look, and I thought +of thee, I arose and went softly out, in order to see again where thou +dwellest, my Linda. Out of doors it was all still everywhere; I seemed +to hear the earth thunder along its path in the heavens; the shadows of +the linden-trees around me lay fast asleep on the green turf; the smoke +of Vesuvius streamed up into the pure air; the moon gleamed out +wondrously over the smoking sea, and with difficulty I sought and +found at last the solitary mountain of thy island soaring into the +blue, blooming silvery among the surrounding stars,—a glimmering +temple-pinnacle for my heart. 'Yonder she dwells, and slumbers upon +her Tabor, a glorified one of Elysium!' I said to myself. Around me +was the ashes of centuries, stillness as of a coffin, and only now and +then a rattling, as if they were throwing upon it the earth of the +grave-mound. I was neither in the land of death nor of immortality; the +countries became clouds; Naples and Portici lay hidden; the broad +blue of heaven encompassed me; a high night-wind bent the smoke-column +of Vesuvius downward, and swept it on in long clouds, tinged with +ever-varying hues, through the pure ether. Then I looked after Ischia, +and looked toward heaven. O Linda, I am sincere, hear it; I prayed the +holy Liana, who loved thee so infinitely, now to hover round thee and +prepare for thee the fortune which she once so earnestly wished thee. +All at once the thunders of the mountain became entirely still, the +stars sparkled more brightly. Then did the silence and life send a +shudder through me, and I went back into the hut; but long did I +continue to weep for rapture at the mere thought that thou wast happy.</p> + +<p class="normal">"The morning rose, and in the midst of its wintry darkness we entered +upon our journey to the fire-flue and smoke-gate. As in a burnt-up, +smoking city, I went along by hollows, around hollows, mountains around +mountains, and over the trembling floor of an everlastingly active +powder-mill up to the powder-house. At last I found the throat of this +land of fire,—a great glowing smoke-valley, containing another +mountain within it,—a landscape of craters, a workshop of the last +day, full of fragments of worlds, of frozen, burst hell-floods,—an +enormous potsherd of time, but inexhaustible, immortal as an evil +spirit, and under the cold, pure heaven bringing forth to itself twelve +thunder-months.</p> + +<p class="normal">"All at once the broad smoke ascends more darkly red, the thunders roll +more wildly into one another, the heavy hell-cloud smokes more hotly. +Suddenly morning air rushes in, and drags the flaming curtain down the +mountain. There stood the clear, benignant sun on the Apennine, and +Somma and Ottayano and Vesuvius bloomed in peaceful splendor, and the +world came slowly up after the sun with its mountains, islands, and +coasts. The ring of creation lay gilded upon the sea before me, and as +the magic wands of the rays touched the lands, they started up into +life. And the old royal brother of Vesuvius, Ætna, sat on his golden +throne, and looked out over his land and sea. And the light day rolled +like snow from the mountains down into the sea, melting away in +splendors, and flowed over the broad, happy Campania<a name="div2Ref_102" href="#div2_102"><sup>[102]</sup></a> and into the +dark chestnut-vales. And the earth became boundless, and the sun drew, +in the wide net of rays, the sweetly imprisoned world onward in the +fairest ether.</p> + +<p class="normal">"O Linda, there sparkled thy outspread island, proudly encamped in the +sea, with the morning redness streaming down over it, a high-masted +war-ship; and an eagle, the bird of the thunder-god, flew into the +blessed distance, as if he bore my heart in his breast away to thy +Epomeo. 'O that I could follow him,' said my spirit. The hot earth gave +claps of thunder, and the smoke enveloped me. I could have died, that +so I might follow the eagle in his flight and be at this moment in +Ischia."</p> +<br> + +<p class="normal">Here the intensely excited soul held itself in. He went or glided down +the declivity towards Portici. In a house which had been mutually fixed +upon beforehand he thought to find again his friend. But he found +neither Dian nor the expected letter from Linda. Enervated by walking, +watching, and glowing, he fell, in the cool, still chamber into a +dreamy sleep. When he awoke, the midnight of the Italian day, the +siesta, embosomed him. All rested under the hot, still light; there was +not a lark in heaven; the green parasols near his window, the pines, +stood unmoved in the earth, and only the poplars rocked gently the +new-born blossoms of the vine which lay in their arms; and the ivy, +which hung from summits, swayed a little. Such shadowy twigs played +once in Lilar in Chariton's chamber, when he was expecting Liana, and +then thought of Italy. The great, level, simple garden from Portici to +Naples—a garden web of villages, groves, and country-houses, washed by +waves—carried his eye over blossoms to his paradise in the sea. This +lonely, still time, full of longing, softened infinitely his fair +heart. He ended the interrupted letter thus:—</p> +<br> + +<p class="right">"In Portici.</p> + +<p class="normal">"O my Linda! I am nearer to thee again, but the distance between us +seems to me here in the stillness so vast! O Linda, I love thee with +pangs, both when near and when far,—O with what yet unfelt pangs +should I lose thee? Why am I, then, so certain of thy love? Or so +uncertain? Softly does thy heart speak to me. <i>Soft</i> music or love is +like a <i>distant</i>,—and the distant again is like the soft. Has the +sublime pedestal of the thunder-god beside me agitated me so much, or +do I think too vividly of the hollow, dead Herculaneum under me, where +one city is one coffin? Weeping and oppressed, I look over the sea to +the still island whereon thou dwellest. O that it is so long before we +see each other again; that thou dost not draw every thought immediately +out of my heart and I out of thine! Why does the delay of thy letter +prefigure at once greater pains, ah, the greatest, before my soul? Why +do I think; the deepest lines of pain upon our brow, the wrinkles of +life, are only little lines out of the monstrous building-plan which +the world-spirit draws, unconcerned what brows and joys his line of +bliss painfully cuts through? If this line should one day go through +our love—O forgive this premature pang! in this life, this alternation +of transient showers and sunbeams, it may well be permitted."</p> +<br> + +<p class="normal">Here he was interrupted by joy and Dian, attended by an Ischian, who +brought a letter from Linda, and came to take his back with him. He +read it passionately, and added to his own these few more words as a +tear of joy: "Day after to-morrow I come upon the island. What is the +earth in comparison with a heart? Thou art mighty; thou holdest my +whole blooming existence high into the heavens, and it falls upon thee, +if it falls. Farewell! I fear verily neither the hot oil nor the flame +of Psyche."</p> +<br> + +<p class="normal">Here is Linda's letter:—</p> +<br> + +<p class="normal">"We have both been living very quietly since our agreeable runaway has +been revelling about on mountains and in palaces. We have talked almost +too much about him, besides sending for the prattling Agata to tell us +something about his journey. Your Julia is full of blessings and helps +for Linda. Never did I see before such a clear, determined, sharply +discerning and yet cold nature, which only loves in giving, rather than +gives in loving. She will never, it is true, feel the pangs which Venus +Urania sends her chosen ones; but she is a born mother, and a born +sister; and I ask her sometimes, why hast thou not all brothers and all +orphans?</p> + +<p class="normal">"Since the earthquake I have been somewhat ill. I have, perhaps, +not been accustomed to love, and so to die. I take a philosophical +book,—for poets just now take too violent a hold of me,—and fancy I +am still following it, when I have been long since flown away over the +sea. I am reading at this moment the life of the glorious Guyon. She +knows what love is,—that godlike affection for the godlike, that +losing of self in God, that eternal living and abiding steadfast in one +great idea,—that growing sanctification through love, and that growing +love through sanctification! The book falls out of my hands, I close my +eyes, I dream and weep and love thee. O Albano, come earlier. What wilt +thou now seek on mountains and ruins? Shall we not come hither again? +But you roving men! Only women love, whether it be God, or yourselves, +alas! Guyon, the holy Thérèse, the somewhat prosaic Bourignon, loved +God as no man ever did (except the holy Fénelon); man deals with the +highest being not much better than with the fairest. Albano, if thou +hast any other longing than I, if thou desirest more on earth than me, +more in Paradise than me, then say so, that I may leave off and die. +Truly, when thou embracest thy sister, then I am jealous and long to be +thy sister, and thy friend Schoppe, and thy father, and everything that +thou lovest, and thy very self, if thou lovest it, and thy whole heaven +and thy whole thou in me, thy I in thee.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I will tell you something of my history. I went for a long time in +silence over the earth; I saw courts, nations, and lands, and found +that most <i>men</i> are only <i>people</i>. What did it concern me? One must +never say of anything, that is bad, but only, that is stupid, and think +no more of it. What I do not love has for me no existence, and instead +of hating or despising it long, I have forgotten it. I was scolded at +as proud and fantastic, and could not satisfy any one. But I kept and +cherished my inner being, for no ideal must be given up, else the holy +fire of life goes out, and God dies without resurrection. I saw men, +and found always the simple distinction among them, that some were +fine, intelligent, and delicate, without spirit or enthusiasm, and the +rest very hearty and enthusiastic with shallow rudeness, but all +selfish; although when their heart is full, and not on the wane, they, +even like the full moon, show the fewest spots. Beside the teachings of +my great mother, beside your great father, no one of them could hold up +his head. Your Roquairol one could neither love nor hate, nor respect +nor fear, although one could come very near to all these at once.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It had a great effect, too, that I was always travelling: travelling +often keeps one colder. When I look toward the coast, and think that a +great Roman was now in Baja, now in Germany, now in Gaul, now in Rome, +and that to him the earth was a great city, then I easily comprehend +how to him men became masses. Travelling is an employment that we women +always miss. Men have always something to do, and send the soul +outward; women must stay all day at home with their hearts. In +Switzerland I (as the Princess Idoine does) imposed upon myself a +little economy, and I know how by means of little objects which one +daily attains one consoles one's self for the high one which lies, like +a god's throne, on an eminence.</p> + +<p class="normal">"So I came just in this still week of life to the mer-de-glace in +<i>Montanvert</i>. Of picturesque mountains, plains, dells, I had seen my +fill in Spain, and of ice-mountains in Switzerland. But a sea of ice at +that height, a solitary, primeval, blue-green sea surrounded with red +rocks, a broad waste full of restless, upheaving, tempestuous billows, +which a sudden death, a Medusa's head, had so, in the midst of life, +frozen stiff and fast! At that time a storm, which at any other time +would have been frightful to me, swept up the mountain with flames; I +hardly noticed it, my soul hung musingly on the stillness of a +petrified storm, on the repose of—ice! I shuddered, wept unusually +all the way down the mountain, and the same week laid my economical +play-work aside and continued my travels.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I made, however, no storm-prayers, but dwelt down below there without +complaint in the rainy hollow of a dark, cold existence. Then fate +brought me to Epomeo, and there the gods willed that the scene should +be changed.</p> + +<p class="normal">"But now it must remain as it is. When a singular being has said to a +singular being, 'Thou art the one!' then do they exist only through and +for each other. The Psyche with her lamp will not feel it, if the lamp +catches and consumes her locks and her hand and her heart, while she +blissfully gazes upon the slumbering Cupid; but when the hot drop of +oil escapes from the lamp and touches the god, and he awakes and +angrily flies away from her forever—forever—Ah, thou poor Psyche! Of +what avail to thee is death in the dissolved ice-sea? Has, then, no man +ever yet experienced the pain of lost love, that he may know what a +thousand times harder desolation it inflicts upon a woman? Who of them +has fidelity, the genuine, which is neither a virtue nor a sensation, +but the very fire which eternally animates and sustains the kernel of +existence?</p> + +<p class="normal">"I am sick, Albano, else I know not how I come by these gloomy ideas. I +am so tranquil in my innermost heart; I have shown only the chords, not +the tune. We must work and look, not upon the future, but upon the +next coming present. If the time should ever, ever appear—I have +neither remorse nor patience—the time when thou lovedst me no more, +heartily—ah! I should be stiller, stronger, briefer than now: and +what could there be beyond, except to die either <i>for</i> the loved one +or—<i>by</i> him?</p> + +<p class="normal">"Come soon, sweet one! It is very beautiful around us; it has rained, +all the world is in jubilee, and sees the sun-drops, and has gathered +itself a heavenly drink. I, too, have set out in haste for thee dishes +and vases. Come; I will bring thee the olive-leaf and the myrtle-twig, +and wind around thy head roses and violets. Come. Once I little thought +that I should look so often toward Posilippo.</p> +<p style="margin-left:70%; margin-top:-9pt">L."</p> + +<p class="normal">"P. S.—The rival also looks toward Posilippo, and rejoices in the +thought of thy return. Yet do not hurry anything. <i>Adio, caro</i>.</p> +<p style="margin-left:70%; margin-top:-9pt">J."</p> +<br> + +<p class="normal">Albano found in this character a silent justification and satisfaction +of all demands which at an earlier period, when Liana was still living, +he had always felt compelled to make upon a loved being. He did not, +however, perceive, in the innocence of his love, that this was the very +being whom the longing after war and exploits that reigned in his +letter could not please.</p> + +<p class="normal">He visited now the subterranean city in its churchyard, near the +Cestius' pyramid, as it were, of the volcano. Dian went through +Herculaneum with him as an antiquarian lexicon, in order to unroll +before him the whole domestic economy of the ancients, up to their very +painting; but Albano was more moved than his friend by this picture of +the past dwelling in the midst of the present,—by the still houses, +and night-like streets, and by the frequent traces of flying despair. +"Would not all these people, then, have been dead now, after all, if it +had not been for Vesuvius?" asked Dian, gayly, in this gay region. "I +ask you, rather," he continued, "whether an architect who comes out of +this chamber or city of art can take any longer much pleasure in +sketching in your Germany, after seeing these ruins of the earth, the +petty, pitiful ones for your princely gardens?" They saw in a dark +vestibule one of those earthern masks which they used to put into +graves, with lamps like eyes behind. Then Albano looked at him +staringly, and said, "Are we not gleaming earth-masks on graves?" "Fie! +what an odious idea!" said Dian.</p> + +<p class="normal">Yet a long time, out there in the living sunshine, did gloomy forms +follow him. Near the shining Portici stood Vesuvius, like a funeral +pile, and on it the death-angel. He thought of Hamilton's prediction, +that the lovely Ischia would one day perish over the mine of an +earthquake. Even Linda's letter troubled him, with the bare imagination +of the possibility of losing her.</p> + +<p class="normal">In Naples he examined a few more curiosities; then on the next morning +he embarked for the Eden of the waves.</p> +<br> +<h3>115. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">And when they saw and embraced each other again, they were even more +enraptured and devoted to each other than any happy heart could have +foreseen. Linda sat still and soft, looked upon the fair youth, and let +him and his sister tell their stories, the latter often interrupting +herself to kiss both. He spoke with great joy about Linda's letter. Men +always make more out of what is written than women. Linda spoke +indifferently: "Ah, well, once written and read, let it be forgotten. +In yours, too, there is occasionally a northern <i>faux brillant</i>." "The +Countess," said Julienne, "never praises any one to the face, but +herself." Linda bore the joke with characteristic good-nature. Albano, +often pleasing and often offending her when he was not conscious of it, +forgave love ever so easily. Friendship finds it harder to get +forgiveness from offended vanity.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, indeed!" cried Julienne, suddenly starting under the veil of +mirthfulness for a serious discourse; "thy project of emigrating to +France is a <i>faux brillant</i>. Canst thou then believe that they will +allow a princess-sister of Hohenfliess to sign a pass to her brother +for a democratic campaign? Never! And nobody at all will do it who +loves thee!" Albano smiled, but at last grew serious. Linda was silent, +and cast down her eyes. "Can you show me," said he, softly, as half in +earnest and half in jest, "a purer field of spurs on the whole map?" +"A poorer field of spurge!"<a name="div2Ref_103" href="#div2_103"><sup>[103]</sup></a> said she, playing on the words. +"Hardly, I should think!" Now she began to shadow forth, with +aristocratic, feminine, and princely colors at once, with tri-colored +paints, all the flames, smoke-clouds, and waves with which the <i>Monte +Nuovo</i> of the Revolution had come up from the ground, and added, +"Better an idle count than that!" He grew red. Always had this womanly +fettering of man's energy, this affectionate fastening of one down +to flowers, this unrighteous forging over of the love-ring into a +galley-ring, been to him a crying and odious thing. "In a world which +is only a fair-week and mask-ball, not to be able to maintain even the +freedom of fair and masquerade, is tough," Schoppe had once said; and +he had never forgotten it, because it came right out of his own soul +back into it again. "Sister, either thou art not my brother, or I am +not thy sister," said he, "else we should understand each other more +easily." Linda's hand quivered in his, and her eye rose slowly towards +him, and quickly sank again. Julienne seemed to be touched with the +reproach cast upon her sex. Albano thought of the time when he had +crushed a heart of wax with one of iron, and said, more brightly and +coldly, "Julienne, I should be very willing not to say no to thee, if +thou wouldst not take the absence of a negative for an affirmative." He +could, it occurred to him, easily hide his contradiction behind the +future, since in fact no war was as yet decided upon in Europe; but he +did not deem that honorable and dignified enough. "Do not torment!" +said Linda to her. "Certainly," said Julienne, with quickness, "I can, +indeed, only think of this and that; what do I know?" and looked very +serious. "Two days longer," she added, and sought to escape from the +serious mood, "can we spend like gods, yes, like goddesses, upon the +island,—although, at all events, I should answer for a god, only not +for a goddess; that requires a taller person. I am only a foil to the +Countess out of infinite good-nature." For Julienne's stature lost by +the neighborhood of the majestic Linda.</p> + +<p class="normal">The war of the loving beings had, however, not concluded with a peace, +and therefore remained an armistice. As Vesuvius throws glowing stones, +so does man throw his objections up in himself, alternately flinging +them aloft and swallowing them again, till at last a more lucky +direction sends them out over the brink.</p> + +<p class="normal">In Albano, as may well be supposed, the question was working, what +Linda's silence in the little war imported respecting and against the +great one; but he did not propose it. Conscious of the unchangeableness +of his purpose, he was milder toward his sister, whom he, as he +believed, should surely one day exceedingly wound by it. Thus had he +become soft by the cold and warm alternation of life, as a precious +stone, by rapid heating and cooling, is transformed into medicine.</p> + +<p class="normal">Swiftly and sweetly glided the last days of joy over the island, which +after the rain glistened in greenness like a German garden. The soft, +cool air, the fragrance of myrtles and oranges, single clouds of +brightness in the warm sky, the magic-smoke of the coasts, the golden +sun at morning and evening, and love and youth decked and crowned the +rare season. High burned on the blooming earth the sacrificial flame of +love into the still, blue heavens. As two mirrors stand before one +another, and one pictures the other and itself and the world, and the +other represents all this and also the pictures and the painter, so +tranquilly stood Albano and Linda before each other, attracting and +imaging soul within soul. As Mont Blanc majestically mirrors himself +down in the still lake of Chede in a paler heaven, so stood Albano's +whole, sound, light spirit in Linda's. She said he was an honest and an +honorable man at once, and had, what was so rare, a <i>whole</i> will; only, +as is often the case with men, he wanted to love still more than he did +love, and therefore did not sufficiently recognize his quiet, original +sin, from egotism. There was nothing against which he bristled up more +indignantly and excitedly than against this latter charge, and he would +not forgive it in any one save the Countess. He refuted her as strongly +as he could; but her opinion became, under the best annihilation, only +a mock corpse, and came back alive against him the very next hour.</p> + +<p class="normal">He became through her more nearly acquainted with himself than even +with her. He called her the Uranide, because she seemed to him, like +the heavens, at once so near and so far off; and she had no objection +to this full laurel-wreath. There is a heavenly unfathomableness, which +makes man godlike, and love toward him infinite; so did the ancients +make Friendship the daughter of Night and of Erebus. When Albano thus +looked out over the broad, rich spirit of Linda,—at once living for +her love, and harboring every other's love, and yet, as it were, +intoxicated with the thirst for knowledge; at once a child, a man, and +a virgin; often hard and bold with the tongue for and against religion +and womanhood, and yet full of the tenderest, most childlike love +toward both; melting in her glow before the beloved, and quickly +stiffening at a cold assault; without any vanity, because she always +stood before the throne of a divine idea, and man is never vain before +God, but entirely confiding in herself and submissive to no one, +without, however, any comparison of herself or others; full of bold, +manly uprightness, and full of respect for talent and for shrewd +understanding of the world; so perfectly free from selfishness, and +with such a childlike delight in others' gladness, without special +anxiety or respect for persons; so inconstant and inflexible, the one +in wishing, the other in willing; but with her eye and life ever +directed toward the sun and moon of the spiritual kingdom, character +and love, toward her own and toward a beloved heart;—when Albano saw +all this playing and flitting before him, then did he live, as it were, +on the single and yet immense, the movable and yet almighty sea, whose +limit is only the clear sky, which has itself none.</p> + +<p class="normal">In the heaven of the three loving ones appeared at length the dawn of +the day of departure. It was determined by the two friends that Albano +might accompany them only as far as Naples, where their people waited +for them, then find them once in Rome accidentally, then on Isola Bella +for the last time accidentally,—a very unfriendly subjection to +worldly appearance, upon which Linda, however, insisted as strongly as +Julienne, and to which Albano himself, who by his birth was more +hardened to the constraints of rank than a plebeian youth of like soul, +easily yielded up the bitter yes, under the heavy veil which hung over +all his connections. Julienne decided upon all lesser ways and means; +she had been during the whole tour the business-agent of the Countess, +who, as she said, had not head enough to buy herself a hat for it, so +impetuous, absent in money matters, and dreamy was she. The sister was +so lively, and entirely restored, but said, all the five and thirty hot +springs of the island could not have done half so much for her recovery +as the same number of tears of joy which she had fortunately shed.</p> + +<p class="normal">Singular did all around them appear on the morning of departure. A +bright, warm cloud dropped silvery drops; the sun looked in between two +mountains; the enraptured islanders sang a new popular song, amidst the +rain-harvest or drop-gleaning; while their friends were hastily borne +away by the waves out of their circle of joy. Agata stood, in order to +cool herself, on the shore, with a snake in her hand, and Albano felt a +pain at the sight which he knew not how to explain to himself.<a name="div2Ref_104" href="#div2_104"><sup>[104]</sup></a> At +this moment Epomeo parted the cloud-heaven, and shining fragments of +cloud sailed slowly along before them toward the Apennine to the north, +the heavenly dwelling-place of the mist, and swiftly and lightly glided +the shadows of the sky over the swarming peaks of the waves.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Ever mayest thou," said Albano, looking toward the island, which was +swimming backward to the west, "stand fast with thy mountain; never may +a calamity tear the fairest leaf out of the book of the blest!" "How +will it be with us all," said Linda, "when we meet again, and seek +again the lovely soil?" Just then they espied a high-arched rainbow; +that stood half on the island and half on the waves, which seemed to +fling it out as a gay, arching water-column upon the shore. "We are +going," said Julienne, delighted, "to pass under the arch of peace." At +this word the rain and the wreath of colors disappeared, and the sun +alone shone behind them.</p> + +<p class="normal">The passage ran through the torch-dance of the waves. The distances +shone and smoked magnificently. "Why do distances take so mighty a hold +of the soul, although painted with the same colors as what is nearer?" +said Albano. "That is the very question," said Dian. Mightily lay the +sea like a monster along the coasts stretched out over their whole way +to Rome, and tossed up and down the scales of waves. Albano said, "When +I saw on Vesuvius the mountain and the sea, I thought how pettily and +falsely narrow man sunders the two Colossi of the earth into little, +familiar members, and acts as if the same sea did not stretch round the +whole earth."</p> + +<p class="normal">His friends were too deeply and sadly moved to make any reply, and +before strange eyes neither words nor hardly looks were at their +command. When Albano saw again more nearly the battle-field of +time,—the ruin-coasts, which ever grasp and lift the man; the old +temples and Thermæe, like old ships, dying on the land; here a crushed +and crumbling giant temple, there a city street down on the bottom of +the sea;<a name="div2Ref_105" href="#div2_105"><sup>[105]</sup></a> the holy memorial-columns and light-houses of former +greatness deserted and extinguished amidst the eternally youthful +beauty of ancient nature,—he forgot the neighborhood of his own +transitoriness, and said to Linda, whose eye he saw directed thither, +"Perhaps I can guess what you are now thinking of,—that the ruins of +the two greatest times, the Greek and the Roman, remind us only of a +<i>strange</i> past, whereas other ruins, like music, only admonish us of +our <i>own</i>. That was perhaps your thought." "We think of nothing at all +here," said Julienne; "it is enough, if we weep that we are obliged to +go away." "Truly the Princess is right," said Linda, and added, as if +displeased at Albano and everything, "and what is life, more than a +glass door to heaven? It shows us what is fairest and every joy, but it +is, after all, not open."</p> + +<p class="normal">By the accident of strangers' company they were compelled to leave each +other with cold show, and, according to the custom of teasing, +tantalizing fate, to conclude a great past with a little present.</p> + +<p class="normal">Albano travelled as hastily as his sensibility would allow over the +sublime world round about him. When he arrived in Mola, he heard the +singular intelligence that they had found in Gaeta a whole leathern +dress, with a mask, swimming far out to sea, which must have belonged +to the ascended monk, and in respect to which they found nothing so +inexplicable as the empty casing, without the dead body. In Mola, the +fair island of Ischia at length breathed out its last fragrance; the +high citadel of heaven and the ascending pole hid among other southern +constellations this warm one also, which had so long gleamed over him +with suns of bliss; and the last star of the short spring went down.</p> + +<p class="normal">Such is life; such is bliss. Like the playing moon, it consists of +first and last quarters, and slowly waxes and slowly wanes. In its +hope, in its fear, a brief flash is the full moon of the deepest +rapture; a short invisibility the new moon of the deepest +desolateness;—and always is the light game, like the moon, beginning +its circle anew.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<p class="center"><img src="images/rivetstart.png" alt="rivetstart"></p> +<br> +<h2><a name="div1Ref_30" href="#div1_30">THIRTIETH JUBILEE.</a></h2> + +<h3><span class="sc2">Tivoli.—Quarrel.—Isola Bella.—Nursery of Childhood. +—Love.—Departure.</span></h3> +<br> +<h3>116. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">Albano alighted again at the Prince Lauria's, who had hitherto swum in +such a flood-tide of new incidents, that he had hardly been conscious +of the absence, and was disposed to wonder at the return. Meanwhile the +German war against France had been settled upon. This news he brought +to his grandson, full of the joyful expectation what great scenes such +a struggle must unfold. Even Albano was for a long time carried away +with him by this high stream, before he thought that this intelligence +would work otherwise and more dishearteningly on his sister than on +him. But the heroic fire, into which he talked himself with the +political Lauria, preluded to him easy victory over a sister's +affection.</p> + +<p class="normal">He was going to announce his arrival to his two friends, when he heard +from the Prince that they had both, as he had heard from the Princess +Altieri, with whom they resided, already gone to Tivoli. How happily he +departed, guessing the friendly design of this episode journey, out of +Rome, radiant as it was with love and spring, and looked quite as gayly +towards the future, where his life opened so bloomingly before him, as +toward Tivoli, where he hoped to press two hearts to one.</p> + +<p class="normal">He found, when he arrived in the town of Tivoli, that the ardent +maidens had already stolen away to the cascade. As a man in the Vale of +Tempe, or before the Lake of Geneva, passes along only in a careless +dream over the shore by the watery images of the heavens and the earth, +because the blooming originals round about seize and kindle him,—even +so the rocks of the thickly peopled landscape, and the round Temple of +Vesta, and the vales dissolving into one another, from the Roman gate +to the temple,—this shining procession glided by only as dream- and +water-images before a heart, in which a living loved one bloomed, and +crowded out a world with a world's fulness.</p> + +<p class="normal">He roved around amidst the swarm of prospects, without finding the +fairest, when a short, pale-yellow, richly dressed man eyed him with a +shrivelled up face, and with a silken arm pointed unasked the way to +the falls, saying if he were looking after the ladies, he would find +them at the great cascade.</p> + +<p class="normal">Albano said nothing, went onward, saw two, and recognized Linda by her +tall form. At length the three friends saw, found, embraced each other, +and the magnificent water-storm breathed into the delight. Linda spake +tender words of love, and felt as if she were dumb, for the beautiful +tempest of streams tore the tender syllables to pieces like +butterflies. They had not heard each other, and stood before each +other, pining for their sounds, encompassed with five thunders, with +weeping eyes, full of love and joy. Holy spot, where already so many +thousand hearts have sacredly burned and blissfully wept, and been +constrained to say, Life is great! Serenely and steadily sparkles the +city overhead in the sunshine down over the watery crater; proudly does +the rent Temple of Vesta, garlanded with almond-blossoms, look down +from its rock upon the whirlpools which undermine it; and opposite to +it the tempestuous Anio preludes at once all that earth and heaven have +of greatness,—the rainbow, the eternal lightning and thunder, rain, +cloud, and earthquake.</p> + +<p class="normal">They gave each other signs to go, and to seek the more quiet vale. How +sounded to them therein the words, brother, sister, Linda, like new +human tones in Paradise! Here, before ascending the hill full of new +waterfalls, lightnings, and colors, they sought to report to each other +their journeys and their news. Julienne made the happy report that her +brother, the Prince, gave again hope of recovery, since he had, with +waking eyes, as he insisted, seen his dead father, who had promised him +a longer life. The fair Linda bloomed in the Paradise like a veiled +goddess who had long been seeking and at last found her beloved on the +earth. She took his hand often, and pressed it against her eyes and +lips, and whispered, hardly audibly, when he spoke to her or Julienne, +"Dear! friendly man!" As to the scenery she was silent, for she never +spoke of any till she had once come out of it.</p> + +<p class="normal">Julienne, so happy about her brother's recovery, began all manner of +jokes,—said she regretted having sent to her Lewis, from Naples, a +vain specific against his malady, and at length asked Albano, "Dost +thou know a youth named <i>Cardito</i>? He wants to know thee." He said, +"No," but related how a little stout man had seemed to know him +hereabouts, and showed him the way to the cascade. Julienne started, +and said it was decidedly the Haarhaar Prince, who so maliciously built +his hopes upon Luigi's death and throne. He lived in Tivoli, in the +house of the Duke of Modena, and was certainly going about as a spy +upon them all. In order to tune herself again after this hated discord, +she continued her question about <i>Cardito</i>, and said, "It is a very +beautiful, sound Corsican (that living deformity is surely the Prince), +and he declares very seriously war against thee."</p> + +<p class="normal">"That shall he verily have," said Albano, who now comprehended all, +and—related all. Cardito was that Corsican with whom he had formerly +split on the subject of the Gallic war. "Brother, that is still thy +serious meaning?" said Julienne, with protracted accent. "Now +especially," said he, with decision, in order immediately to exclude +all strife. Linda with intensity pressed his hand to her eyes, as if +she would cover them with it. "Well, argue thy case with me, as +reasonably as thou canst, and let's hear thy grounds of justification; +but first let us ascend the hill, that one may have something to see at +the same time," said the sister.</p> + +<p class="normal">On the hill, before the green of the flashing vale, where the stream, +like a wounded eagle, has beat its wings all about on the earth, before +the three lesser cascades that leap down with their lightnings upon the +flowers, Albano began, with emotion and inspiration: "I have only one +reason, dear sister; I am not yet anything,—I am no poet, no artist, +no philosopher,—but nothing, namely, a Count. I have, however, powers +for much; why shall I not say so? Verily, if a Da Vinci is all things, +or a Crichton, or if a Richelieu, though he asserts the political +throne, will yet mount the poetic, also, shall not another be justified +in lesser wishes? And, by Heaven! properly speaking, a man will, after +all, be everything, for he cannot help it; he longs and aspires after +that, and the inner, stifled heart weeps drops of blood, which no human +hand can wipe away,—only the high iron barriers of necessity hold him +back. Sister, Linda, what have I, after all, yet done upon the earth?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Thou hast made this question, and this is enough in the sight of God," +said Julienne, moved by the proud, wounded modesty of the youth, and by +his beautiful voice, which, when indignant, sounded as if he were +tenderly touched. "Words! what are words?" said he. "O one surely may +well be ashamed that one has even to think and speak of anything before +he does it, although poor, imperfect man cannot otherwise, but every +action, like a statue, must first be modelled in the miserable wax of +words. Ah, Linda, do not here deeds lie everywhere around us, instead +of words and wishes? Have not I, also, an arm, a heart, a beloved, and +powers, as well as others, and shall I go out of the world with a +musty, mouldy Spanish or German Count's life? O my Linda, do thou +contend for me!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"I am not," said she, looking sharply toward the principal little +cascade, which stormed down from among the trees overhead,—"I am not +of many or eloquent words; and, moreover, I do not quite understand +you. I must always translate words for myself into ideas and truths, +and I cannot always do it. In the case of your words, Count, I cannot +form any idea at all. He whom love alone does not satisfy, cannot have +been filled with it. Of course, so all-forgetting with their hearts as +we, so concentrated upon one idea of life, men never are. Ah, and so +little is man to man, an image of man is more to him, and every little +future!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Thou, too, Brutus!" said Albano, astonished. "Would you," he +continued, collecting himself, "lay out an eternity of that +elysium-life in Ischia as adequate to a man? Would you send him as a +youth into the cloister of the most blissful repose? Certainly only as +an old man. The former would be like planting the tree top downward in +the dark earth."</p> + +<p class="normal">"There spoke the German again," said she; "for ever and ever real, +indefatigable industry. The tranquil Neapolitans, the people on the +Apennines or the Pyrenees, on the Ganges, in Otaheite, full of +enjoyment and contemplativeness, are to this Spaniard an abomination. I +should think, if a man were only somewhat for himself, not for others, +that would be all-sufficient. What <i>great actions</i> are I do not know at +all; all I know is a <i>great life</i>; for something like them every sinner +can do."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Verily, that is true," said he; "there is nothing more pitiable than a +man who will show himself by this or that, which appears to himself +great, rare, and without relation to his being, and therefore does not +belong to him at all. Every nature puts forth its own fruit, and cannot +do otherwise; but its child can never seem great to it, but always only +small, or just as it should be. If it be otherwise, then it must be +that an entirely foreign fruit has been hung upon its branches."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Albano, how true! But you had once never more than half a will; how is +it?" said Linda. "Neither have I now," said he, without severity. "One +is gentlest when one is strongest in a resolution." He endeavored now +carefully to spare and avoid his own words,—which were the oil and +wind to his fire,—and he did it the more because words, after all, are +of no help against anything, but much rather blow up instead of blowing +out the feelings of another. He was also mindful, in this connection, +of the frequent cases in which he had, by a single word, with all +innocence, excited Linda to a flame. They stopped, and he looked out +over the divine land, when Linda, after a silent look into his face, in +spite of her apparently calm philosophizing, at once passionately +grasped his hand and cried, "No, thou canst not!—by my happiness, by +all saints, by the holy Virgin, by the Almighty,—thou canst, thou must +not!" There is a robbery against which man always protests with an +irrepressible fire, and though a goddess committed it out of love, and +offered him in compensation a world of paradises; it is the robbery of +his freedom and free development. Yes, its being love,—despotic, +however, at once exercising and robbing freedom,—only exasperates him +the more, and out of the <i>cloud</i> of error grows by and by the <i>tempest</i> +of passion. Linda repeated, "Thou canst not." He looked upon her +excited, brilliant countenance, whose Southern intensity resembled +more, however, an enthusiasm than indignation, and said, firmly, "O +Linda, I shall indeed both dare and do!" "No! I say no!" cried she.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Brother!" the sister began. "O sister," cried he, "speak softly; I am +a man, and have violent faults." The sublime war of the water with +the earth and with rocks, the intermingling storms of the flashing +rain-constellations around him, drew him as on wings into the +whirl,—the great cascade flung its shower out of high trees, and out +of heaven sprinkled incessantly a glimmering world,—and in the east +the sea showed itself afar in dark sleep, and the setting sun sank +gleaming into the general splendor.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Certainly I will speak softly," said the Princess, who, much more +sensitive and resonant than Linda, had some trouble in tuning her tone +of speech to her promise; "nothing further is needed than the +consideration that our quarrel is premature; I make merely the request +to adjourn it till October, and the promise that <i>then</i> the issue will +be quite different." "O let it be!" said Albano. Linda nodded softly +and slowly, and, contrary to expectation, laid his hand with both hers +on her heart, and looked upon him weeping, with her large eyes, to +which fire was more usual than water. He was melted at beholding that +this powerful nature had only intensity without hate or wrath, and +infinitely was he refreshed by his former secret suppression of his +passionate flames.</p> + +<p class="normal">The sister was softened by both, and a minute of the tenderest love +soon entwined the three beings in one embrace. The hyperboles of anger +are never so serious with man as those of love; the former only the +other party must believe, the latter he believes himself. All had been +brightened and cleared up by this free expression.</p> + +<p class="normal">If generally a cold past moment shuts up to lovers, as a cold night +does to bees, the flowers out of which they take the honey, here, +however, after the storm, the clear blue air of heaven had become purer +and stiller, and the tranquillity became bliss, as the bliss +tranquillity. Through Albano, although rapidly, the Fury of fear had +passed, who holds an inverted telescope, and through it shows man a +very distant, empty heaven, without stars. But not so through Linda; +she had throughout spoken in love and hope, and for her glowing heart +there were no icy places. Therefore was he now so happy and so blessed +by the contemplation of that vigorous nature! A long, deep chain of +valleys, wherein wine and oil flowed in the fragrance of blossoms, led +them all towards the great Rome. For a space the youth could accompany +them; at last, for a long separation, he must tear heart and eye away +from the loved ones, when over the green, glistening vales the mighty +dome of St. Peter's already sparkled, and the cypresses, proudly +encircled only with cypresses, bore the gold of evening on their twigs +without stirring them. All had their eyes on the fair Rome, but their +hearts were only on Isola Bella, where they promised to find each other +again.</p> +<br> +<h3>117. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">On the way to Isola Bella, he thought of his hour of contention with +the vehement Linda, and the character of this war-goddess. He shuddered +at the very recollection of the steep precipice upon which, within a +few days, he had leaned so far over; for Linda is so decided, knows no +alternative between passion and annihilation. And yet, in this time of +cool reflection, he felt her imperious demand upon his liberty more +severely than ever, and said to himself, firmly, "Woman must not be +allowed to circumscribe or rule the holy domain of man's development." +On the other hand, it was, to be sure, all love, and an excess of it; +and the longer he journeyed and compared, so much the darker and +lonelier was it on that spot of his life upon which she alone cast the +great flame. She moved before him much more clearly and nearly in +spirit by his still contemplation of her spirit, than in bodily +presence, because the former presented her at once in harmony, the +latter with the individual dissonances without the solution. Her power +of all-sided impartiality towards all characters had appeared to him, +for a woman, quite as rare as it was great, especially as he himself +let this power work more in the shape of respect for her and in a glad, +free appreciation of great, eccentric, poetical manifestations, but not +of all, even the flat and the worthless.</p> + +<p class="normal">Alike mighty and full-grown stood Love and Liberty within him, side by +side. They were bound together and reconciled only by a new resolution +to be gentle, not merely strong, to lay before her with all frankness +his right of freedom and his loving soul, and to be to her the noble +character which belonged to her. "Am I not such, if I really will it?" +said he.</p> + +<p class="normal">In the highest joy of life, in perfect oneness with himself and +destiny, he made his journey to Isola Bella as rapidly as if he were +going to find there a beloved, instead of merely awaiting one. How many +a thing seemed now smaller along his road, to which he applied the +Roman measure, and not the German, and before which he now, as his +father had foretold him, passed along flying!</p> + +<p class="normal">At last he saw the artificial Alp of Isola Bella standing in the waves, +and disembarked joyfully with his teacher, Dian, in the garden of +childhood, where he was to expect so much, and, with fresh Italian +life-blossoms on his heart, bid farewell to the land of promise.</p> + +<p class="normal">He waited several long days, yearning and anxious for his two friends, +although his sunny companion was always reminding him to make allowance +for the rapidity of his own journey. His determination to be gentle +grew continually more and more unnecessary and involuntary. The very +island itself, with its springs born of perfumes and with the distant +garland of Alps, melted his soul. In the former year he had seen it +more in leaves than in blossoms. It was, indeed, his land of childhood. +From many places on the lake stars glimmered up to him out of a deep, +early, after-midnight hour of life. Here had he for the first time +found his father, and for the first time seen Linda's form across the +waters; here he finds and loses them again, after the longest +separation, for a still longer one; and here he stands in the gateway +between north and south. The free, fragrant land, full of islands, the +Jacob's-ladder of his life mounts back into the ether, and he goes down +into a cold region full of constraint and eyewitnesses; his love is +judged by his father, it is assailed by the downfallen friend. "Ye days +in Ischia," he sighed, "ye hours in Vesuvius and in Tivoli, can you +reverse your course? can you ever come back again and overflow anew the +insatiable heart, that it may drink, and say, 'It is enough'?"</p> + +<p class="normal">To his Dian, as if by way of justifying himself and his illimitable +longing, he spoke frequently of Chariton and their children, and asked +him how it was with his heart when he thought of them. "Don't talk to +me so much of them," said he, after his manner, feeling more than he +suspected or betrayed, "we are still so cruelly far off from them; one +only spoils one's journey without cause. But when I have them all.... +Well, ah God!" Then he paused, snatched the youth to his arms, and did +not kiss him.</p> + +<p class="normal">On a fresh, blue morning Albano stood, before the resurrection of the +sun in heaven, on the high, bloom-encircled pyramid of terraces, where +he had once, on awaking, seen his dear father flee without farewell; +and he gazed with emotion down into the vacant, broad lake, and around +on the summits of the glaciers, which already bloomed in the reflection +of Aurora riding down from on high,—and no one was with him but the +past. He looked upon himself and into his breast, and thought: "What +a long, heavy time has already passed through this bosom since that +day! A whole world has become a dream within me! And the heart still +beats fresh and sound within thee!" All at once he saw, in the light +morning-smoke of the lake, a skiff rowing along. Slowly, lazily it +waded, for he saw it from a great distance. At last it glided, it flew; +the sail bloomed up in the morning-blaze, and the green waves became a +wild-fire, playing around it, as formerly in Ischia, on that evening, +around Linda's skiff.</p> + +<p class="normal">Linda it was, and his sister. They looked up, and motioned a greeting. +He cried, in hasty joy, "Dian! Dian!" and ran down the long flight of +steps, all astonished and enraptured at the wide-spread splendor, +because, on account of the glad apparition, he had not seen the sun +rise, for it was he who was strewing before the loved one the fair +flames, like morning flowers along the path of the waters.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Is it you again, ye divine ones? O speak, weep for joy, that I am +blest and have you once more. Come ye then again with your real old +love?" Thus he went on speaking in eloquent ecstasy, born of his +long-dreaming expectation. Linda looked with secret angelic pleasure, +with lovely reflection into the high-playing flames of his love; and +his sister enjoyed in a sweet emotion of sympathy the beautiful +mildness on both their countenances, which, in union with energy, is as +enchanting as moonlight on a mountain. Descriptions of travels were +begun by both parties, but ended by neither; arrangements for the day +and plannings out of the island were projected, but none chosen. +Julienne held up before his heart his own word and her stipulation, +that at evening he must pursue his journey, as a slight cooling against +the fire of joy that burned therein; sadly he looked up to the +friendly, serene morning sun, as if it were not mounting higher, but +already going downward.</p> + +<p class="normal">They went now on a lovely stroll through the island; everywhere bloomed +beside the present a still past, under the rose a forget-me-not. Here, +in this grotto before the leaping waves, had he once played with his +sister Severina, and on this island was her death announced to him. +"But, Julia, thou art my Severina, and more," said he. "I think," said +she, softly, "quite as much." Not far from the arcade was it that he +had for the first time gazed into the face of his father. "But O when +wilt thou find <i>thy</i> father at last? Speak about this, good Linda!" +said he. She blushed, and said, "I shall find him when fate permits." +"But when is that?" "I know nothing about it," said she, with a soft +hesitation. Then Julienne touched him, nodding, and said, in as much +French Latin as she could muster together, but in an indifferent tone, +as if she were soliloquizing to the air, "<i>Non eam interroga amplius, +nam pater veniet</i> (<i>ut dicitur</i>) <i>die nuptiarum</i>."<a name="div2Ref_106" href="#div2_106"><sup>[106]</sup></a> He looked +at +her with astonishment; she nodded repeatedly. "Julia," said Linda, +smiling, "is like women, as cunning in acting as she is open in +speaking. I could not have disguised myself from a brother so long." +"When the brother and sister," replied she, "do not find each other +till they are equally grown up and with all perfections, they can +easily become lovers of each other, while other sisters have first for +many years to conquer the faults of the brother growing up."</p> + +<p class="normal">Now they came upon the gallery, amid lemon-blossoms, where Gaspard had +let his son see so many veils and masks hanging about the future; then +Albano said, with displeasure, "Here I had to let many riddles be +announced to me,—and there"—he meant the spot in the sea where +Linda's image had first appeared to him on the waves—"even this +precious form was mimicked." "My God!" said Linda, vehemently, "why +speak any more of it at all? O it was so wicked to do it!" "No one, +however, has lost much by it," said Julienne, joking, "except a couple +who have lost their hearts, and I my anonymousness!" "Could we not both +answer, Albano?" said Linda, softly, and raised her eyes. "By Heaven, +that we could!" said he, strongly, for without those preludes they +would have sought and found each other earlier.</p> + +<p class="normal">Amidst these lookings into a past so singularly interwoven with +futurity, they had stepped into the Borromæan palace, which to-day was +fortunately without occupants; because Albano, at Linda's request, +was to usher them both into the chamber, where he and Severina were +brought up. The palace-keeper, supposing they were only in quest +of a prospect,—for the nursery apartments were in the fifth +story,—would have led them out on the roof; he insisted they were +dusty children's-chambers, and had been locked up from time immemorial. +With difficulty the man turned, with a rusty key, a rust-eaten lock. +They stepped into the bedusted, clear-obscure, high, empty chamber, +wherein a vacant cradle, a flower-pot with a little Chinese rose-bush +dried up like its earth, a child's pewter watch, a girl's baby-kitchen +with old-fashioned utensils, a rolled-up shining harpsichord string, a +German almanack of 1772, many black seals with bare antique heads, a +dried-up twig of the liana, and the like, lay as cast-off lumber round +about. Man looks with emotion down into the far, low-lying time, when +the spindle of his life ran round as yet almost naked without threads; +for his beginning borders more nearly upon his end than the middle, and +the outward bound and the homeward bound coasts of our life hang over +into the dark sea. Albano was touched with melancholy at the scene +around him, and at this glimpse of human life and this out-look upon +his own green fields yet standing in wintry lowness,—and at the sight +of the spot where he had lived with a mother and a sister, who had +vanished from the earth, yes, even out of his imaginings. He took up +the pewter watch, and said, "Is there a better watch for that age which +knows no time but only eternity, than this one with only an index and +no wheel-work?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Linda was surprised as she drew away a curtain from a glass casket and +a waxen child, of angelic beauty, lying therein, caught the light in +her clear eyes. "It is the dead Severina," said Albano, hastily, with +the harsh adjective "dead," which Linda could not well endure. It +became more and more uncomfortable to him in the clear-obscure +chamber,—a streak of sunshine burned in singularly down through the +lofty window,—animated resurrection-dust played therein,—the spirits +of the sister and of Liana might at any moment flash across the earthly +light,—and the mountains out in real life receded into the distance. +When he looked again upon the blooming Linda, all at once she appeared +to him changed, strange, supernatural, as if she appeared among +spirits, and was going hence again. She looked upon him significantly, +with the words, "One is not at home here, let us go!" "Woman!" said he, +with strong voice, in German, making answer to an inward terror, and +grasped her hand, "we will hold together like a live heart, if one +should try to tear it asunder." Linda replied, "I cannot stay longer, +Julienne!" and they went.</p> + +<p class="normal">On the threshold it occurred to the Count to look into the next +chamber; he opened it and shrank back, but cried, "You only go on," and +he himself went in. He had, namely, beheld himself twice imaged as in a +mirror. Within the chamber he found himself standing in wax in a niche +in French uniform, but as a youth still, and close by, which the door +had concealed, his father also as a youth, dressed in the old fashion, +but beautiful as a Grecian god; the warm, full, flowery face had not +yet been iced over in the winter of mature life, and still bloomed with +love. He plunged deep into the sea of the past. The colossal statues +out of doors, and the illuminated mountain ridges had risen up out of +the dark waves, and stood in dripping splendor. There was a call from +without. He looked again into his face, but angrily. "Why twice over?" +said he, and crushed his face, but it was to him like suicide and +laying hands upon his very self and soul. The form of his father he +still more begrudged to the strange, unguarded place, but it was to him +too holy for the slightest touch.</p> + +<p class="normal">He went back, and remained silent on the subject of the images, in +order not to ruffle the great, stubborn wings of Linda's fancy. The +green, glistening, blooming day soon swallowed up the cold shadows +which had fallen in from the heights and grave-mounds of the past. "But +now," said Albano to Linda, "as you have just come out of my nursery, +lead me once into yours." "I will not crown thee until we are at the +right place," said she, and broke off and bound together twigs of the +laurel wood, through whose swarm of light and dark waves they were now +passing, for a garland. Bodily activity gave to this maiden, who, with +more than common ease, knit together tones and colors and ideas, a +peculiarly touching aspect of childlikeness and naive condescension. +She braided the wreath, but with difficulty, confounded once the +arbutus with the laurel that resembles it, put in one more blooming +myrtle-twig, and decked his curled hair with it, but very seriously. +"The garland becomes thee; the high laurels up on the summit thou wilt +one day get for thyself," said she. He thought she was playing behind +this seriousness; but she looked joyfully and searchingly and smilingly +on the crowned one, but like a mother, and said: "It is right so! What +wilt thou more? I will bring it. Albano, I have at this hour a very +peculiar and new love for thee. I could do much for thee, endure much. +My heart is moved with exceeding love. Kiss me not. I will tell thee." +The fair womanliness which loves the beloved more ardently and +intimately when it has for the first time gone over his homestead, the +scenes of his childhood, his dwelling-places, unconsciously filled her +strong heart. He kissed her not; he looked upon her, and wept in the +ecstasy of love. She inclined her head towards him, and said, but +cheerfully, "It is hard for me to weep, dearest! I will tell thee what +thou desiredst to know about my childhood. Of the first places of my +childhood but a very faint impression remains with me,—perhaps because +we were always travelling, and because I look more for persons than for +scenes,—except my having stayed longest in Valencia. Probably from +this early travelling I derive my travelling mania. After all, however, +it lies in my nature. But <i>you</i> always believe, like the Germans, that +you learn that which you properly inherit or create. By my mother I was +more hated and loved than by any one. I am now clear about her. She was +wholly born for art or for the arts, although I believe that she was +originally marked out by the gods for the stage. She was everything +this minute, nothing the next; curses and prayers, belief and unbelief, +hatred and love, alternated in this epic nature. She could have +lavished a world, and she could have stolen one. She once pressed me to +her heart, and said, 'Wert thou not my daughter, I would steal or kill +thee out of mere love'; and that was when I had said, 'I love Medea +more than Creusa.'</p> + +<p class="normal">"However, she was too inconsistent to be wholly loved; I loved my +invisible father far more. I thought he was <i>God the Father</i>. I once +imagined he must dwell in the <i>Porta Cœli</i>;<a name="div2Ref_107" href="#div2_107"><sup>[107]</sup></a> for whole hours +together I went round the garden of the dead of the cloister, and +looked longingly through the palms over the roses of the graves; I hung +on every living thing, even to pain. A dying canary-bird once made me +sick, and I thought the mass for the dead was read for him. On God and +spirits also I hung in a sort of intoxication. They once flashed by +before me in the fire which I struck out of sugar in the dark. I never +played, but read early. As I was very serious, and my form developed +itself precociously, I was early treated as a grown person, and I +desired it too. No one was earnest enough for me, except my guardian, +who, with secret hand, governed my development. Over books and in +travelling carriages my early life passed away. I envied men, and their +knowledge, and their freedom, but they did not please me, still less +did women. I passed for proud—and at an earlier period I was so +too—and for fantastical. I took it not ill, and said, 'You have your +way, and I mine.'" The narrative was interrupted by Dian and Julienne.</p> +<br> +<h3>118. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">The first solitary minute which Albano found with his sister he devoted +to an inquiry about her Latin intelligence that Linda's father would +appear precisely on her marriage-day; but she referred him to his own +father, who could tell him all about Linda's, and begged him "to +indulge Linda, not only in her tenderness, but also in her +characteristic shyness of marriage, which went very far. She could not, +upon one occasion, accompany a female friend to the nuptial altar," +Julienne added; "she called it the place of execution of woman's +liberty, the funeral pile of the fairest, freest love, and said the +heroic poem of love became then, at the highest, the pastoral poem of +marriage. Of course she knows not whither such principles ultimately +lead." "I hope, too, that thou trustest her," said Albano, making other +and higher deductions from this singularity than his strict sister. She +suddenly broke off, to impart to him a piece of advice which he was to +take with him to Pestitz,—namely, to shun the Princess, who was, to +the very core, cold, false, revengeful, and selfish. "She has something +in view with thee, and, indeed, much; and her hatred toward the +Countess must now be added. Linda clearly apprehends her, but yet she +lets herself, out of passionateness, be carried away and made use of by +all whom she foresees and surveys." Albano adhered to his old, milder +judgment of the Princess,—so much the more, as he already knew +Julienne's moral severity towards every woman of genius, from her +misjudgment in the case of Liana,—but he readily gave her his word to +shun the Princess, without telling her the reason,—namely, the love +which the woman had for him, and of which it was so hard to disenchant +her. To his tender feelings, there was no greater rudeness than this +public breaking open and reading of a love-letter, this masculine +catching and proclaiming of a woman's sigh of love through a +speaking-trumpet for the people.</p> + +<p class="normal">All came together again, encamped themselves upon a spot which +commanded the lake and the Alps, and the shadows of the blossoms. The +day cooled its glow, and sank from beauty to beauty down into evening. +"On this exquisite island," said Dian, "already the Northern nature +begins, and we shall soon find ourselves at home under a peaked roof." +"Well, yes," said Julienne; "but, after all, one is glad too, at last, +when one sees again a neat man, a blonde, and a shadow, and hears a +bird or two."<a name="div2Ref_108" href="#div2_108"><sup>[108]</sup></a> "I think not here of Tivoli and Ischia and +Posilippo," said Albano; "I think of my childhood and of the Alps. Over +on the shore of the long lake (<i>Lago Maggiore</i>) of course the two +sugar-loaves may not represent themselves to the best advantage, but, +as a compensation for that, here from the sugar-loaf the shore and the +lake appear so much the better, and for him who stands on this alp of +the lake, it is, after all, made." "All is indifferent to me," said +Linda; "for I find myself here entirely well. Remarking upon fine +landscapes is also a Northern characteristic, because there one can +become acquainted with them only through books. The Italian, who has +them, enjoys them as he enjoys health, and is conscious only of +the deprivation of them; for this reason he is not even a great +landscape-painter."</p> + +<p class="normal">"One should," said Dian, "celebrate in song the magnificent Italy, even +upon the boundary-line, if one could get a <i>guitarre</i> from the +Castellain." He went and brought one. He now began to improvisate in +Italian. He sang: "Apollo felt his old love for his former pastoral +land on the earth and for the lost, veiled Daphne, wake again within +him; he came down from heaven to find both. Jupiter had given him Momus +as a companion of his journey, who should show him all that was odious, +that he might flee back. As a beautiful, smiling youth he went over the +islands, through the ruins of the temples, through eternal blossoms; he +passed along before divine paintings of an unknown, exalted virgin with +a child, and before new tones of music, and moved as over the magic +circle of a new and fairer earth. In vain did Momus show him the monks +and pirates, and his temples prostrated by the hand of time, and +quizzingly make him take columns of thermæ for temple-columns. The god +looked up at the high, cold Olympus, and looked down upon this warm +land, upon this great, golden sun, these clear, blue nights, these +ever-blooming perfumes, these cypresses, these myrtle and laurel woods, +and said, 'Here is elysium, not in the subterranean world, not on +Olympus.' Then Momus gave him a laurel-twig from Virgil's grave,<a name="div2Ref_109" href="#div2_109"><sup>[109]</sup></a> +and said, 'That is thy Daphne.' Now did his great sister Diana grow +indignant. She gave Daphne her form and dress, as if she had come over +out of the woods of the Pyrenees; but he recognized his beloved, and +went back with her into Olympus." As Dian sang this, and let the +strains fly with the tones of the strings, there stood high over in +heaven the eternal, radiant mountains of ice; from the mountains +fluttered streams and shadows into the bright lake, and the evening +bestirred itself with kindling and enchanted glow. Then the silent +Albano seized the strings, buried his eye in the gleaming of the +mountains, and blushing, began: "Linger awhile, O singer, among the +lofty spirits who marched, killing, dying, over the battle-field, and +who built up the everlasting temples of humanity; linger among the pure +diamonds that remained firm and bright under the hammer of destiny; +linger in the olden time, in the sea of Rome, which bore upon its bosom +one quarter of the world, and undermined the others; but flee before +the time which sank its summit in its own crater. Linger, singer, on +the heights, and look down into the garden of the world, which is the +play of human life. The ruin becomes a rock, and the rock a ruin; on +the high promontory the blossom breathes fragrance, below lies the sea +with open jaws; over Scylla gleam beautiful houses and streets amidst +the lair of frightful rocks. And the god flies over the land and sees +the child on the temple-column by the shore, and the temples of the +gods full of monks, the marshes full of nameless ruins, and the coasts +full of blossoms and grottoes, and the blooming myrtles and grapes, and +the fire mountains and the islands, and Ischia."</p> + +<p class="normal">But the storm-swept <i>guitarre</i> sank from his hands, and his voice died +away; his eye lost itself in the depths of heaven and of human life, +and he withdrew himself to still his loud heart. In the cooling +solitude he observed how far already the sun had flown down, as on +Cupid's wings, through a colder heaven; he speedily turned back, and in +the evening redness his parting-hour struck.</p> + +<p class="normal">When he came back, Linda was alone, for Julienne, under the pretext of +inspecting the picture cabinet, had drawn away his Dian from the +lovers, to whom, besides, only the shortest day of bliss had been +to-day allotted, and his beloved looked on him significantly. "Dian, +strictly speaking, sang better," said she, "and more epically, but your +lyric nature I also hold very dear." She looked at him again and again, +then into his eye; then she embraced him impulsively, and not a sound +betrayed the sudden kiss. "We will go up on the terrace," said she, +softly. They mounted the lovely height of the ten terraces, which fill +the sight with laurel and citron trees, and with pyramids and colossal +statues, and with the prospect of the distant shore surrounded with +villages and alps, and where once Albano had seen his father flee. +"Thou pleasest me more and more, Albano," said Linda. "I almost believe +thou canst really love. Tell me thy first love; I have told thee my +story." "O Linda," said he, "how much thou desirest! But I am true, and +tell thee all. Thou wilt love her as she loved thee. See here thy +picture, which with her dying hand she made and gave me!"</p> + +<p class="normal">He handed her the little sketch, and her eye grew moist. Thereupon he +began, in a low and solemn tone, the picture of his first love; how he +had reverenced and sought her early, when she was yet unseen, and in +the first morning beams of life, and how he found her; and how she made +him happy, and was not so herself; how gentle she was, and he so wild +and harsh; how he demanded of her his own impetuosity of heart; how +barbarously he took her renunciation, and how she perished through him. +"O, I have dealt hardly, good Linda!" said he. "No," said she, "I weep +for you both." "I have great imperfections," said he. "I forgive thee +all," said she, "if thou canst only love. But the lovely creature also +committed many faults, and against love." She checked herself, then +asked, in a low voice, "Albano, is she still in thy heart?" "Yes, +Linda," said he. "O thou honest and true man!" cried she, with +inspiration, and laid her head upon his breast and prayed, "Holy God, +give thy immortals everything, only leave me forever this man's breast, +that he may be really loved, inexpressibly, and that I may not sink!" +"If thou wilt, dear," she whispered suddenly, and raised herself up, +looking upon him with infinite love and resignation, "that I dwell in +Lilar, only command it."</p> + +<p class="normal">This womanly, waiting submission of so free, mighty a spirit, made him +speechless. Like an eagle, the flame of love seized him and bore him +aloft. He glowed on her blooming countenance, and the bridal torch of +the setting sun darted in with great flames between the two. "Linda," +he began at length, with trembling, solemn voice, "if we could know +that we should ever lose or forsake each other! O Linda," he continued, +with difficulty, through his tears and his kisses, "if that were +possible, whether through my fault or through cold fate, were it not +then better that we at this moment plunged into the lake and died in +our love?" The glow of the sun burned in like an aurora, snatching away +youths and virgins to the gods, and the twilight of life was kindled +into a bright morning redness. "If thou knowest that," said Linda, +"then die now with me!" Just then Julienne's distant voice awoke +both; at last she came herself with Dian, to take leave. They looked +round, awaking, dazzled with the sun and with love, and all was +changed. The sun had sunk, the broad lake was overhung with misty +shadows, and the world was chilly; only the lofty glaciers blazed still +with rosy redness into the blue, like memorial pillars of the flaming +covenant-hour.</p> + +<p class="normal">Before Albano's soul stood even now the form of destiny, so coldly +dividing human beings, the veiled rocky form, whose veil is also of +stone, which no one raises. He would now fain have burst through it, +and directly, without cowardly delay, dashed down into the midst of +winter. "O till Hesperus has gone down, pardon me!" whispered Linda. He +stayed; but neither had words any longer, only eyes; the reined-in +eagles, which had formerly hurried the celestial Venus-car through the +heavens, fluttered wildly in the traces. The evening star went down; +the half-moon, in mid-heaven, touched the earth with her beams, as with +magic wands, and transformed it into a pale, holy world of the heart. +"Only let the great star go down now," said she, and looked upon him +longingly. He did so. The nightingales skipped musically among the +silvery twigs; only the human beings had a voiceless heaven and love.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Only one little star more!" she begged. He obeyed, touched by the very +expression, but she summoned up her resolution, and said, "No, go!" "We +will, Dian!" said he. Dian, indulgent to love, led the way down the +terraces. Long and ardently lay the brother and sister on each other's +hearts, and wished each other a pleasant, undisturbed reunion. Linda +gave him only her hand, and said not a word. As the still heaven of +night covers its hot sun, so was her flaming heart concealed; and when +he went, without looking after him, she clasped his sister to her +heaving bosom.</p> + +<p class="normal">Splendor and night and fragrance bestrewed the Jacob's-ladder of the +terraces down which he passed. Lightly flew his boat through the snow +of stars and blossoms, which drifted over the waves,—the nightingales +of the two islands chimed together,—the seamen sang back to them glad +songs,—a favorable wind bore the orange-perfumes after the little +vessel,—but Albano, weeping, had his heart and face turned toward the +sinking pyramid. His sister alone had looked after him from the +eminence; then she, too, was lost to sight,—the nightingales still +called faintly after him,—at last all was veiled. He turned himself +round toward the pale-glimmering glaciers, as toward the light-houses +of his voyage, and of the heaven of this day nothing was now left to +him but the pilot, love, as the seaman follows the magnet, when the +holy stars have concealed themselves and guide him no more.</p> +<br> +<h3>119. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">Albano and Dian flew joyfully over the German fields to meet so many a +precious heart, and nothing was disappointed except their dread of the +length of the countries through which they had to travel. Instead of +the black lava-sand and the burnt soil behind them, a bright, fresh +green now decked the plains and cooled the dazzled eye. The waves of +green grain-fields swept and tossed about as merrily as the waves of +the blue-green sea. In thicker, longer, higher woods floated new +shadows, like lovely little evenings, creeping away from before the +light of day. The dark green of the Italian trees was replaced by the +bright, laughing green of the German gardens, and new feathered choirs +cradled themselves in clouds and in woods, and greeted the heart of +man, and sent down to him their light and guileless joy.</p> + +<p class="normal">From spring to spring went the happy Albano, with his dreams of love; +as fast as a southern blossom fell behind him, a northern unfolded +itself before him; and his travelling-carriage stopped on the +variegated avenue among the blossom-shadows of a long garden.</p> + +<p class="normal">At length he stood before the house to which the garden conducted him, +and before the linden-city; so stood he also in a former year on the +heights before it, looking up at the cloud-procession of the future, +without being able to divine to what the clouds were shaping +themselves, whether into an aurora or into an evening tempest. How many +old pangs darted now like shadows of clouds over the old landscape! He +was going now, such was his reflection, to meet his father with the +news of his fortune; to meet his apostate friend with the stolen +beloved; to meet with old and new love his returning Schoppe, whose +heart and fate were to him, now, at once so dark and so weighty; and to +meet the singular time and hour, when the subterranean waters, whose +rush and roar he had hitherto so often experienced, should lie at once +uncovered, and with all their windings and springs laid open to the +light of day; and to meet the sacred spot where he could take boldly to +his heart the beloved, who now, on the German road and in the +neighborhood of former trials, seemed to him still greater and more +unattainable than on Epomeo, in the neighborhood of all that is sublime +in heaven and on earth, and when he might enfold her in his arms +forever without asking again, "Wilt thou love me?" Then he went back in +thought to an image which Vesuvius<a name="div2Ref_110" href="#div2_110"><sup>[110]</sup></a> had furnished him, and said to +Dian: "Behind man there works and travels onward a slow, fiery stream, +which consumes and crushes if it overtakes him; but let man only stride +boldly forward, and often look backward, and he comes off unscathed. My +beloved teacher, so will I now do in my new and momentous relations; do +thou, however, make me turn round toward the lava, if in pleasant +scenes I should sometimes forget it!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Speak better and more propitious words," said Dian. "Hail to us; the +gods are already favorable! Yonder comes your father up the palace +hill, and looks more gay and happy than I ever before happened to find +him!"</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<p class="center"><img src="images/barstart.png" alt="barstart"></p> +<br> +<h2><a name="div1Ref_31" href="#div1_31">THIRTY-FIRST JUBILEE.</a></h2> + +<h3><span class="sc2">Pestitz.—Schoppe.—Dread of Marriage.—Arcadia.— +Idoine.—Entanglement.</span></h3> +<br> +<h3>120. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">Gaspard received his son with the usual stately coldness of the first +hour, as letters begin more coldly than they end. Not until this +morning-frost had melted away and it grew warmer around him, did Albano +disclose to him, without fear or pusillanimous blushing, and with +matured manliness, the bond which he had forever concluded with Linda +and with himself, and begged him for the third yes. "So after all," +replied the Knight, "the old enchanter has carried it through at last; +of course under the reinforcement of a young enchantress. That I shall +never disturb thee in anything which thou seizest upon with whole soul +and forever, that thou knowest already from a similar case in the last +year." Albano grew red at the bitter mention of his first love, but had +gained strength within a half-year to preserve a manly silence, in +cases where he once spoke out like a youth. Gaspard, more glad and warm +than usual towards him to-day, nevertheless went on, when he perceived +his sensitiveness: "I pronounce it good! As the seal-engraver in the +beginning stamps the arms in wax, and then, and not till then, etches +them on the precious stone, so does man essay to impress his upon more +than one heart, until he at last gets the firmest. It must be owned +thou hast not made the worst choice in my ward, and I gladly give my +word of assent to it."</p> + +<p class="normal">Albano pressed the hand which drew the sweet knot of love still +tighter, and said, in the entrancement of gratitude: "I found my +sister, too, the Princess. I put no question to her, however, as +lately, but count upon time." "Mocker!" said Gaspard, and assumed, +seemingly by way of cooling him off, the cruel appearance of thinking +his pure, noble son had been disposed to retort upon him the bantering +allusion to having many love-affairs. "Only be silent about all in thy +innermost heart, as I myself have hitherto been, and conceal thy +knowledge from the court. Give me thy word of honor."</p> + +<p class="normal">Albano said he had already given it to Julienne also. He was, however, +driven back, by Gaspard's whole deportment, upon conclusions which +placed moral garlands neither upon his father nor upon Julienne's +mother.</p> + +<p class="normal">Gaspard added, furthermore, that it was a misfortune for a man to be +entangled with fantastic women,—as Albano already knew his mother to +have been,—and, in fact, with three at once, and advised him to march +on boldly, as hitherto, through all riddles, and leave them to solve +themselves. Thereupon he proposed to him, as a test of the third female +fancy-monger, the question whether he already knew that the Countess, +notwithstanding his guardianship, had still her living father, who +would appear for the first time on her wedding-day. He said, "Yes." +Gaspard then continued: This reason, of itself,—in order that Linda +might find her father, and all of them the peace of clearness at +last,—decided him for an early, secret marriage of the two through the +honorable Spener.</p> + +<p class="normal">Albano, really terrified at the prospect of the near and speedy +transformation of blissful hours into blissful years, and no more able +to think of his Titaness as wife than to think of her as child, +answered, modestly and with disinterested reference to Linda's dread of +wedlock, that, as to the time of sealing his happiness, no one must or +could decide but Linda herself.</p> + +<p class="normal">Gaspard was well content. "I only insist upon your adjourning the +matter awhile," he subjoined. "My friend the Prince is again near his +end; the beneficial effect which a spiritual apparition had wrought +upon him has gradually subsided, and he fears daily the return of the +phantom, which has promised to foretell him his last hours. At such a +time your festival does not serve my purpose. To speak in confidence, +the poor patient had himself an eye to the fair bride. It is, after +all, but fair to spare him the highest certainty of his loss. On his +account I also postpone my departure."</p> + +<p class="normal">As if a man should enter into the new-created paradise, and all birds +at once—nightingales and eagles and owls and birds-of-paradise and +vultures and larks—should beset him, so confusedly did Albano feel +himself excited by these mutually crossing prospects, and he perceived +that there could be no dependence nor defence here, except in his own +heart and Linda's.</p> + +<p class="normal">Gaspard seemed to be impatient to see the Countess again, whom he +called his only friend. "Unfortunately, I did not believe my brother in +Rome," he added, "when he insisted on having met both ladies in Naples. +<i>Apropos</i>, that brother passed through here some time ago, on his way +to Spain; in Rome he asserted he was travelling to Greece. Thou seest +with what poetic pleasure and geniality he carries on pure lying."</p> + +<p class="normal">Gaspard parted from him very warmly, with the words, "Albano, I am very +well satisfied with thee; I should be infinitely so if the purity of +the youth had passed over into the man; I have not yet found it so." +Albano was about to affirm and swear with emotion. "That is why," he +continued, waving away the oath with a light motion of the hand, "thou +foundest me so glad about thy good fortune, for the Princess's friend +had already announced to me thy love in the morning. Take heed to +thyself before her, for she hates thee without bounds."</p> + +<p class="normal">With a hard and horrible aspect, like a new and extraordinary beast of +prey behind the grating, does a real though unarmed hatred present +itself for the first time before a good heart. Albano demanded no +confirmation or explanation of this sad intelligence, for the love and +error of the Princess, her acquaintance with his former coldness toward +Linda, her silent bitterness toward Linda herself, were quite flames +enough for her to cook the strongest poison by.</p> + +<p class="normal">He took up his residence again, at the request of his father, at the +house of Doctor Sphex, situated, unmeaningly to him, down in the +valley; and Gaspard resumed his abode in the palace, near his sick +friend. The Knight speedily presented him to the court, which soon +observed and remarked the brown of travel, the sharper lightning of the +eye, and the whole latest development of his great form. The Princess +received him with the lightest, finest coldness, a sort of <i>aqua +toffana</i>, which seems only pure, tasteless water. The Prince sat +upright in his sick-bed, with peevish face, before drawings of +Herculaneum, and was letting himself be informed on the subject by +Bouverot. As a face upon which, in the late, gray years of life, fair +joyousness can still picture itself, announces a fair life and fair +heart, so the saint never wears a more heavenly smile than on his +sick-bed, nor the reprobate a more hard and painful one. Albano turned +his eye away from the sickly, withered <i>brother of his sister</i>.</p> + +<p class="normal">Languishing, he looked back toward the past Hesperia, and forward to +the gate of paradise which was finally to open, and show Linda and his +sister in Eden. "It will certainly meet your approval," Gaspard had +said, "that, under the pretext of Luigi's sickness, I have had them +both quartered in the old palace at Lilar, where thou canst see them +more unobserved." He met the Minister Froulay, and the Lector came to +meet him; with both came a dark, manifold shadowy retinue of hard, old +recollections. He had not yet seen Captain Roquairol, who was now to +him the evening cloud of a sunken spring day.</p> + +<p class="normal">He carried as speedily as he could his dumb heart—which was an +Æolian-harp in a dead calm—to his childhood's Blumenbühl, to greet the +parental beings, and to read the papers of his soul's nearest neighbor, +Schoppe, for whose promised return he now longed more than ever.</p> +<br> +<h3>121. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">It was a fresh, blue, summer day when Albano went to his old +Blumenbühl, without knowing that he did so precisely on the St. James's +day, or paternal birthday, which he had once, in childhood, spent in +such singular preludes of his life. In the old gardens and on the old +heights round about, even over to Lilar's wood, lay everywhere, even +now, the young, glistening dew of childhood, not yet dried up by the +western sun; many tear-drops, too, stood among the drops of dew on the +flowers; but his fresh, healing spirit was on its guard against +effeminately floating away into soft transport, that Lethe of the +present. In the village he was struck with the sight of a horse whom +they were shoeing, for, by the caparison and all, he recognized it as +Roquairol's festive steed. He introduced a festival into a festival, +when he entered the noisy paternal apartment, full of birthday +electors, blooming, fully developed, erect, a confirmed man, with +determined look and gait. Rabette screamed out; Roquairol cried, "Aha!" +and the old teacher Wehmeier, "God and my master!" and his childhood's +angels, the parents, embraced him just as ever, and out of Albina's +blue eyes ran the bright drops.</p> + +<p class="normal">But a change had come over the youth of the others, compared with his. +Rabette's countenance, the once full cheeks and blooming lips, had +fallen in, and were overlaid and overgrown with the white veil, and she +had two gray tears instead of eyes ; yet she smiled a great deal. Like +his own Gorgon-head, Roquairol's face appeared pale and hard, as if +chiselled on his gravestone; only naked piers stood in the water,—the +light arches of the beautiful bridge were gone. Albina and Rabette +looked up with a steady gaze at Albano's blooming figure; he seemed to +be an Italian growth, a Neapolitan nerved by daily bathing in the gulf. +Roquairol had his part immediately at command more easily than Albano +his truth; he demeaned himself with the highest courteousness toward +one who had broken in two for him the magic wand of life and thrown it +away as a pair of beggar's sticks,—kissed him on the cheek, kept up +the lightest, often a French tone of conversation, requested the latest +intelligence about Italy, and retailed in turn the most edifying news +from the country, as well, he said, as he could muster it up for a man +with a Hesperian standard of measurement. He related, also, "that the +Knight's brother had been there,—a man full of talent, especially the +mimetic and that sort, and of the most singularly intense fancy with +the highest coldness of character, though perhaps not always +sufficiently true. For my tragedy," added he, "he would be worth his +weight in gold. Dear brother, hold yourself forthwith as invited on the +occasion. The play is called The Tragedian; I give it soon. Rabette is +acquainted with it." She nodded. Albano glowed, but was silent. +Among all parts, the Captain succeeded most perfectly in that of a +world's-man; the show of coldness is more easy and true, also, than the +show of warmth. Albano kept a proud distance. Roquairol could not gain +in any respect by being opposite to the afflicted, faded Rabette, not +even by the intercession of that form of his, full of the ruins of +life. Albano found there something forever confused, and the wax wings +crushed down into a lump; and it was as close and confining to him as +to one who from the bright world creeps down at once into a low, damp +cavern of a cellar.</p> + +<p class="normal">The Captain rose, reminded him once more of his invitation to the +"Tragedian," and springing on his festive horse rode away.</p> + +<p class="normal">Behind his back every one was silent about him, as if embarrassed. The +women, a little shy of Albano's brilliant presence, found some +difficulty in venturing forth upon the subject of the old familiar +past, while the foster-father, Wehrfritz, who having steadily grown on +in his opinions and manners, and being still encased in the old cry of +dogs and canary-birds, knew nothing at all about time, expressed his +hearty thanks to his foster-son for the obliging recollection and +choice of his birthday festival, which Albano necessarily and vainly +declined, continued in his old thouing and patronizing, wrought himself +into ecstasies on the subject of the French and their future victories, +and bestowed more premiums of praise now on the older foster-son than +he ever had on the younger, in order thereby, as he hoped, to give him +as great pleasure as ever. The Magister backed the praise from a +distance, although he could not let slip the opportunity, so soon as +his pupil had pronounced Napel, Baia, Cuma, to pronounce Neapel, Baiæ, +Cumæ. Albano was pure, true, human, frank, and hearty toward all; there +was no vanity in his self-forgetting pride.</p> + +<p class="normal">Rabette found at last a lifting-screw to wind her polished and yet +familiar brother out of the receiving-room up into her or his former +apartment, so as to be alone on his breast. As they stepped in, she +immediately began, as she said, "Dost thou still know the chamber, +Albano?" to weep infinitely, with the tears which had been so long +gathering; and Albano showed her in his own, his long-cherished +sympathy, but tore open thereby all the wounds of the past. She herself +seized upon the remedy, namely, the telling of her story,—however +earnestly he persisted that he knew, and, indeed, could well guess +all,—and drying her eyes, informed him how all stood,—and that +Charles was a good deal with his mother in Arcadia; that the Minister +still acted the old tyrant toward his only child, and did not dole out +to him a farthing more than ever, although he was always heaping up +greater and greater debts, especially since there was no longer any +Liana silently to wipe them away; that he borrowed everywhere, only, +however, he never would accept anything from her; that he still +continued to desire and know nothing but the Countess, and that God +knew what all this would come to. Anticipating all inquiry, she added: +"He knows the whole already, all thy intercourse with that same person. +He behaves quietly and pleasantly about it, but I know him as well as I +want to. Ah!" she sighed, in the fulness of anguish, and added +immediately, with the same voice: "Thou lookest at me; is it not true +thou findest me very haggard to what I once was?" "Yes, indeed, poor +girl!" "I drank much vinegar on his account, because Charles loves +slender figures; and grief has much to do with it too," said she.</p> + +<p class="normal">Albano would have consoled her with the nearer possibility of a union +of Charles with her, since the impossibility of every other union had +been decided, and readily tendered his services for any prefatory word +or coercive measure. "Before God and us, he is thy husband," said he. +"That he never could have been," replied she, blushing, "for he never +could have been honest; and did I not write thee that I am now too +proud for it, too?" "Then cast him off forever!" said he. "Ah!" said +she, fearfully, "do I know, then, that he meditates no harm against +himself? Then I should reproach myself with it eternally." +Involuntarily he could not but compare with this loving, holy fear, the +hardness of the Princess, who could relate so gladly and proudly how +many a love-smitten life had fallen a victim to her prudish heart and +coquettish face. "What wilt thou do now?" he asked. "I weep," said she. +"Ah, Albano, that is enough, indeed, that thou hast given me hearing +and counsel; I am cheerful again. But be once more his friend."</p> + +<p class="normal">He was silent, a little angry at the naughtiness of women, which, under +pretence of seeking advice, only desires a hearing. "What is that?" he +asked, showing her a leaf. "That is perfectly my hand, and I never +wrote it!" She looked at it, and said Charles was often trying +experiments with her in this way at handwriting. He wondered, and said: +"Nothing, but imitating and counterfeiting all the time! But how canst +thou think of my forgiving him?" Some descriptions of travels on her +table, formerly so poor in books, met his eye. "I wanted to know, of +course," said she, "how you might probably be faring in this, that, and +the other place, and that is why I read the long stuff." "Thou art +still my sister!" said he, and kissed her heartily. She still asked him +much and urgently about his new connection; but chary of words with his +full heart, he hastened down stairs.</p> + +<p class="normal">The first word down below to the Provincial Director was a request for +the "deposed letter of Schoppe's." Wehrfritz brought the broad letter, +which had been laid up in the little iron box of bonds, and delivered +it he hoped, he said, in good order. Hardly could Albano keep back his +tears, when he held the crinkled but precious traces of the beloved +hand, which certainly never in its life had swerved or stained itself, +in his own. As he did not break the seal, they all began good-naturedly +to portray to him his friend Schoppe, according to the presumptions and +views which man so boldly and complacently indulges upon every higher +spirit, with all his actions or colors, as if actions or colors were +strokes and outlines. Wehrfritz and Wehmeier deplored that he was +growing mad, if not already so. The Magister held back with his +main-proof, till the Provincial Director should have contributed the +lesser auxiliary ones.</p> + +<p class="normal">His life beneath this palace-roof was uncovered and showed up, but in a +friendly spirit. "He had hitherto"—so went the reports—"had no real +or solid aim." Wehrfritz swore he had himself seen him reading the +Literary Gazette, just as it was folded together half-sheetwise, and +said he of course ascribed it less to insanity than to absence of mind, +because he knew with what pleasure the man always took into his hands +and understandingly perused the Imperial Advertiser, which the same +declared to be the gate-key to the great imperial city, Germany. In the +midst of company the Librarian had looked upon his hands with the +words: "There sits a gentleman here in bodily presence, and I in him, +but who is the same?" Of work he had done very little, seldom looked +into a book of any importance, as Herr Wehmeier knew, but got along +more easily with the worst of all stuff, for instance, whole volumes of +dream-interpretations. His dearest society had been his wolf-dog, with +whom for whole hours he would carry on regular discourse, and of whose +growling he seriously asserted it sounded like a very distant thunder. +He had been fond of sitting before the looking-glass, and had entered +into a long conversation with himself. Sometimes he had looked into the +camera-obscura, then on a sudden out into the landscape again, to +compare the two, and had asserted, unoptically enough, that the busy, +gliding images of the camera were magnified by the outer world, but +deceptively imitated. "It was a shy bird," added the Director, "for all +that. Divers of my acquaintances in the neighboring estates let him +paint them, because he did it cheap; he always knew, however, how to +slip something into the face so that one's physiognomy should appear +quite ridiculous or simple, and that he called his flattering. Of +course after that, no one could expect in the long run anything +<i>honnette</i> from him."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Were it permitted me," Wehmeier began, "I would now communicate to Mr. +Count a fact in regard to Mr. Librarian, which, perhaps—such is at +least my opinion—is as <i>frappant</i> as many another. The school-house, +as you certainly still well remember, stands close to the church." +Thereupon he related, in a long narrative, the following: "Once, at +dead of night, he heard the organ going. He listened at the church +door, and distinctly heard Schoppe sing and play a short stanza of a +popular hymn. Thereupon the said Schoppe came down, with a loud noise, +from the choir, and mounted the pulpit, and commenced an occasional +sermon to himself with the words: 'My devout hearer and friend in +Christ.' In the exordium he touched upon the silent, but unhappily so +fleeting bliss which one enjoyed <i>before</i> life, although not according +to correct Homiletic principles, since the second part almost repeated +the introduction. Thereupon he sang a pulpit stanza to himself, and +taking from the 3d chapter of Job, where the writer shows the happiness +of non-existence, the 26th verse as his text, which reads thus: 'Was I +not in safety, had I not rest, was I not quiet? Yet trouble +came,'<a name="div2Ref_111" href="#div2_111"><sup>[111]</sup></a>—he proposed to himself as his theme the joys and sorrows +of a Christian; in the first part the sorrows, in the second the joys. +Thereupon he crowded together concisely, but in a droll style and +speech, and yet with Scriptural expressions, too, all the misery and +distress on earth,—under which he enumerated singular things: long +sermons, the two poles, ugly faces, compliments, games, and the world's +stupidity. Thereupon he passed over abruptly to the consolation in the +second part, and described the future joys of a Christian, which, as he +blasphemously said, consisted in a heavenly ascension into future +nothingness, in the death after death, in an eternal deliverance from +self. Then (shocking it was to hear it) he addressed the neighboring +dead down below under the church and in the princely vault, and asked, +whether they had aught to complain of? 'Arise,' said he; 'seat +yourselves in the pews, and open your eyes, in case they are wet with +weeping. But they are drier than your dust. O how still and lovely lies +the infinite past world, swathed in its own shadow, softly laid on the +bed of its own ashes, without a single remaining dream-limb upon which +a wound can be inflicted. Swift, old Swift, thou who once in thy latter +days wast not so very much in thy head, and didst read through, every +birthday, the whole chapter from which the text of our harvest sermon +is taken,—Swift, how contented thou now art and entirely restored, the +hatred of thy bosom burnt out, the round pearl, thy Self, eaten up, at +last, and dissolved in the hot tear of life, and the tear alone stands +there sparkling! And thou, too, hadst once preached before the Sexton +like me!' Here Schoppe wept, and excused himself for his emotion, God +knows before whom. Thereupon he passed to the practical improvement, +and sharply insisted on both hearer and preacher growing better; upon +downright honest truthfulness; fidelity of friends; high-mindedness, +bitter hatred of suavity, snake-like movements, and weak +lasciviousness. Finally, he had concluded the devotions with a prayer +to God, that, if it should be his lot some day to lose his health or +understanding, or the like, he would still be pleased to let him die +like a man, and darted at once out of the church door. He put me," +added Wehmeir, "almost out of my senses for terror, when he all at once +flew at me angrily; 'Mock corpse, why creepest thou about the grave?' +and I, pale and hurried, made my way home without having made the least +reply to him. But what says Mr. Count?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Albano shook his head with vehemence without one enlightening word, +with pain and tears on his face. He merely took a sudden leave of all, +and begged them to pardon his haste; and sought the evening sun and +freedom, in order to read the letter of the noble man, and learn the +purpose of his journey. He struck into the old road to Lilar, where he +hoped to find, on the joyous southern breast of his radiant Dian +Southern gayety and Southern ways again; for his heart had been +upheaved by an earthquake, because, after all, many a wild sign in this +Schoppe, as it were an immoderate lightening and flashing of this star, +seemed to him to announce a setting and doomsday, which to his extreme +pain he was constrained to ascribe to the rising of the new star of +love, which had kindled this world of his nature.</p> +<br> +<h3>122. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">He read the following letter from Schoppe:—</p> +<br> +<p class="normal">"Thy letter, my dear youth, came duly to hand. I praise thy tears and +flames, which alternately sustain, instead of extinguishing each other. +Only become something, much, too, but not everything, in order that +thou mayest be able, in so extremely empty a thing as life is—(I +should be glad to know who invented it)—to hold out for all the +desolateness. A Homer, an Alexander, who have at length vanquished the +whole world and got it under them, must needs be plagued often with the +most tiresome and annoying hours, because their life, from being a +bride, has now become a wife. Much as I had palisaded and fortified +myself against that, in order not to mount over everybody's head, and +sit up top as Factotum of the world; I nevertheless, after all, came +out at last, unobserved and all standing, on the summit, merely +because, under my long contemplation, the whole circle of the earth, +full of foam-mountains and cloud-giants, had been melting down lower +and lower and crawling together; and now I gazed alone and dry-shod +down from my mountain-peak, wholly possessed with the bloodsuckers of +disgust at the world.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Brother, it has changed, however, during this year, and I am afloat. +For that reason a long, and to me quite tiresome, letter is written +thee here in February, which shall tell thee about my approaching +grub- and chrysalis-state, where and how; for when I am once a shining +chrysalis, then I can only feebly stir and show myself any longer.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I will explain myself <i>more</i> clearly,—the Germans add, when they have +explained themselves clearly. It fits and hits most luckily—which I +prize as much as another—that precisely the end of the year is the end +of the paternal property upon which I have thus far lived, and +consequently, if Amsterdam ceases to pay, I also fail, and have nothing +more on hand than weak, chiromantic prophecies, and nothing in my body +except my stomach. I would I could still live by my navel, as in my +earlier times, and make myself such a soft bed.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What, then, shall I do? As to accepting presents from my lords, men, +year out and year in, I do not respect them enough for that; and the +few, whom one does somewhat respect upon occasions, must in their turn +respect me too highly to make such an offer. What! shall I be a flea, +attached to the thinnest little golden chain, and a gentleman who has +fastened me by it, that I may spring with him but not away from him, +shall draw me up now and then upon his arm and say, 'Suck away, my +little creature!' Devil! I will remain free upon so contemptible an +earth,—no salary will I take, no orders in this great servants' +apartment,—sound to the core, so as not to awaken any sympathy or any +house-doctor,—yes, if one should knock off to me the heart of the +Countess Romeiro on the condition of my kneeling down to it, I would +take the heart, indeed, and kiss it, but immediately thereupon get up +and run away (either into the new world or the next) before she had +time to recapitulate the matter to herself and bring it before me.</p> + +<p class="normal">"As to being something, and thereby earning in proportion, that I +could, if one should propose it to me, of course undertake, without any +special forfeiture of freedom and disparity. In fact, I see here from +my centre three hundred and sixty roads radiate, and I hardly know how +to choose among them, so that one would choose rather to flatten out +the centre into a circumference, or to seek to draw the latter into the +former, so as only to continue standing upon it. <i>Serving</i>, as the +staff-officers of the regiments say, were, to be sure, next to +commanding. Thou wilt thyself, as thou writest, take the field. (I have +duly received thy letter, and found therein thy shyness and passion all +right and good, and thyself entire.) And, in truth, if the Archangel +Michael were to array a holy legion, a <i>legio fulminatrix</i> of some weak +Septuagints, against the commonwealth of the world,—were he to +proclaim a giant war against the domineering populace, in order to +drive four or five quarters of the world out of the world or into +prison by a sixth (on an island there would be good room for it), and +to make all spiritual slaves bodily ones,—be assured, in that happy +case I would plant myself foremost in the van, and would bring on +the cannon, with the short, flying remark, that, as Handel first +introduced cannon into music, so here for the first time, inversely, +they were bringing music into cannon. When we at length came back in a +body,—when the holy militia again swept hitherward,—then would God's +throne stand upon the earth, and holy men, with lofty fires in their +hands, should go up, much less to rule therefrom the world's body than +to sacrifice to the soul of the worlds.</p> + +<p class="normal">"With the flower of France, then, thou wilt, as thou writest, for thy +individual self, for one man, hereafter stand up. Of course it is hard +for me to think highly of five and twenty millions, of which it is true +the cubic root must have grown and run up freely, but stem and twig +have, after all, for whole centuries, been drying and withering in a +slave's dungeon. He who was not, before the Revolution, a silent +Revolutionist,—somewhat as Chamfort was, against whose fire-proof +breast I once in Paris struck fire with mine, or like Montesquieu and +J. J. Rousseau,—let him not, with his silly spatterings, spread +himself out far beyond his house-door. Freedom, like everything +godlike, is not learned and acquired, but inborn. Of course, all +over France and Germany there sit young authors and sons of the +muses, who admire and proclaim their own sudden worth, only they are +cursedly astonished that they had not earlier felt their sense of +freedom,—soft, sickly knaves, who look upon themselves as complete +blowing whales, because they have found some bone or other of the said +fish, and buckled it to their ribs. I should always, in a war such as +these dead times can furnish, believe that I was fighting against +fools, indeed, but for fools too.</p> + +<p class="normal">"The cynical, naive, free nature's-men of the present day—Franks and +Germans—are almost like the naked honorables, whom I have seen bathing +in the Pleisse, Spree, and Saale. They were, as was said, very naked, +white, and natural, and savages, but the black cue-tail of culture fell +down over their white backs. Some great, tall men, and fathers of their +times, like Rousseau, Diderot, Sidney, Ferguson, Plato, have laid aside +their worn-out breeches, and their disciples have taken them and worn +them, and because they sat so wide, long, and open upon their +diminutive bodies, have called themselves <i>sansculottes</i> (men without +breeches).</p> + +<p class="normal">"Truly, instead of the sword, I could also very well grasp the +penknife, and, as writing Cæsar, rise, to better the world, and be +useful to it, and use it. I shall always remember the conversation +which I once held upon this subject with a universal German librarian +of Berlin, as we walked quietly up and down in the menagerie. 'Every +one should surely enrich his native land with his talents, which else +would lie buried,' said the German librarian. 'To constitute a native +land, it is necessary, first and foremost, that there should be some +<i>land</i>,' said I. 'The Maltese librarian, however, who here speaks, +first saw the light at sea under a pitch-black storm. Of knowledge I +possess, of course, enough, and know that one has it, like a glassful +of cow-pock rationally taken, only to inoculate one's self withal. The +scholar, for his part, only swallows it again, in order to give it out +from himself, and so it goes on. Thus does the light, like the +glimmering brand in the game, "Kill the Fox, and Sell the Skin," pass +from hand to hand, until, however, to be sure, the brand goes out in +one,—mine,—and there remains.'</p> + +<p class="normal">"'Droll enough!' said the universal German librarian. 'With such a +humor as this only connect the study of bad men and good models, and +then you create for us a second Rabener, to scourge fools.' 'Sir,' +replied I, in a rage, 'I should prefer to transfer the first blow to +the backs of the wise ones and you. Philosophers suffer themselves to +be enlightened and washed, have always their insight into things, and +are good fools, and just my people. Let a man like a universal German +farrier, who takes the pulse of the muses' horse, holds his out to me, +and I will feel it with great pleasure. But the rest and refuse of the +world, sir? Who can skim off the world sea, if he does not break away +its banks? Is it not a sorrow and a shame that all men of genius, from +Plato even to Herder, have become noisy, and die printed, and +frequently read and studied by the learned rabble and custom-house, +without having the least power to change them? Librarian, call and +whistle out, I pray you, all that lies in the critical dog-kennels on +the watch beside those temples, and ask the whole body of greyhounds, +bulldogs, and boar-hounds whether anything else is stirring in their +souls than a potentiated maw, instead of a poetic and holy heart? In +the mountain-cauldron they see the pudding-pot and brewer's-kettle, in +the leaves the spades<a name="div2Ref_112" href="#div2_112"><sup>[112]</sup></a> on the play-cards, and the thunder has for +them, as a greater electric spark, a very sour taste, which it +afterward infuses into the March beer.'</p> + +<p class="normal">"'Do you mean any allusion?' he asked. 'Assuredly!' said I. 'But +further, Librarian, suppose we too were so lucky as to turn on our +heels, and, with one whirl of a breath, to blow over all fools, as if +they were infected with an arsenical fume, and lay them dead as a +mouse: I cannot see, for all that, where the blessing is coming out, +because, besides that we are still standing before each other, and have +to breathe on ourselves too, I see, in all corners round about, women +sitting, who will hatch the slain world anew.'</p> + +<p class="normal">"'My dear fellow, best pair of bellows,<a name="div2Ref_113" href="#div2_113"><sup>[113]</sup></a> full of fire,' I +continued, 'can this, however, call and stamp one very strongly to be +of the satirical handicraft? O no! This is genuine humor with me, +perhaps strange madness, also, perhaps—but O, will not the rare +joke-maker, even in your uncommon library, resemble the porcupine-man +in London (the son) who had the office under the beast-dealer, Brook, +of acting as Cicerone to the stranger among the wild stock and through +the park of outlandish beasts, and who commenced on the threshold with +the observation that he showed himself as one of the species man? +Consider it coolly and first of all! I still swing my satirical +horsetail loosely and merrily, and perhaps against an occasional +horse-fly; but let a book be tied to it, as in Poland they tie a cradle +to the cow's tail, and the beast shall rock the cradle of the readers +and give pleasure; the tail, however, becomes a slave.'</p> + +<p class="normal">"'To such images,' said the Librarian, 'sure enough, the cultivated +world could never be accustomed by any Rabener or Voltaire, and I now +perceive myself that satire is not your department.' 'O, most true!' +replied I, and we parted on very good terms.</p> + +<p class="normal">"But to take things seriously, brother, what is there now left for a +man (in the shape of prospects as well as of wishes) to whom the age is +so over-salted and so bitter and briny as it is to me, and to whom life +is made so by living men,—who is annoyed to death with the universal +insipid hypocrisy and the glistening polish of the most poisonous +wood,—and the horrible commonness of the German life-theatre, and the +still greater commonness of the German theatre-life,—and the Pontine +marshes of infamous and immoral Kotzebuean weakliness, which no Holy +Father can drain and make into sound land,—and the murdered pride, +together with the living vanity, that stalk about, so that I, only for +the sake of drawing breath, can betake myself for whole hours to the +plays of children and of cattle, because there I am assured, at least, +that neither of them are coquetting with me, that, on the contrary, +they have nothing in mind and are in love with nothing but their +work,—what is there left, I asked at the top of this page, for one in +whose nostrils, as was said, so many sorts of things stink, and +especially this further particular, that improvement is hard, but +deterioration not so by any means, because even the best do somewhat +impose upon the worst, and thereby on themselves too, and because with +their secret cursings of the age, and trimming and truckling to it, +they dance at least for gold and glory, and in consideration thereof +willingly let themselves be used by the more steady mass, as wine-casks +are used for meat-barrels,—what is there, friend, I say, for a man in +times when, as now, one makes in print, not <i>black white</i>, indeed, but +yet gray, and where one, as good catechists must, always avoids +precisely the question, yes or no,—what remains except hatred of +tyrants and slaves at once, and indignation at the maltreated no less +than at the maltreatment? And what shall a man to whom the armor of +life in such situations is worked thin or worn thin, seriously resolve +upon?"</p> + +<p class="normal">I, for my part, if the question is about myself, resolved, half in +joke, upon inserting a fine-spun, lucid demand in the Imperial +Advertiser, which you perhaps have already read in Rome, without even +guessing the author.</p> +<br> + +<p class="center">"'TO ALL WHOM IT MAY CONCERN.</p> + +<p class="normal">"'It may well be taken for <i>granted</i>, that a sound <i>understanding</i> and +<i>reason</i> (<i>mens sana in c. s.</i>), <i>next</i> to a clear conscience, +holds +among the prizeworthy goods of life the <i>highest</i> place,—a proposition +which I venture to assume as an axiom with the readers of this paper. +As to what may further be said on the subject, as well by as against +Kantners, (so Campe writes it, and much more correctly, instead of +<i>Kantians</i>,) it does not certainly belong to an entirely <i>popular paper +for the people</i> like this present. The undersigned is now in the +<i>sorry</i> case that he is obliged here to consult the physicians of +Germany and foreign parts. Have sympathy for suffering; send in your +answers; say <i>when</i> he is to be (out with it before all Germany!!) +completely insane, for as to the beginning thereof the fact has already +answered.</p> + +<p class="normal">"'The <i>when</i>, but not the <i>whether</i>, it now lies with and upon noble +philanthropists to answer. Here are my reasons, Germans! Leaving out of +sight that many a reason might be deduced from the very publication of +this request,—which, to be sure, decides little,—the following items +are noticeable and sure:—1. The motley style of the author itself, +which is to be known less from this insertion (composed at very +considerable intervals) than from the similarity between his style and +that of a very favorite and tasteless writer,<a name="div2Ref_114" href="#div2_114"><sup>[114]</sup></a> which, denoting a +gay exuberance of the most wild and strange images in the head, +betokens an approaching <i>crack</i>, as does a motley play of colors upon +glass; 2. The prediction of a scamp,<a name="div2Ref_115" href="#div2_115"><sup>[115]</sup></a> of which he is always +thinking,—a circumstance which must have bad effects; 3. His love and +study of Swift, whose madness is no novelty to the learned; 4. His +complete loss of memory; 5. His frequent bad trick of confounding +things dreamed of with things really experienced, and <i>vice versa</i>; 6. +His misfortune not to know what he writes till he has read it over +afterward, because he now leaves out something bearing upon his +subject, or again puts in something that has nothing to do with it, as +the crossed and blotted manuscript unfortunately best proves; 7. His +whole previous life, all his thinking and joking, the details under +which head it would be tedious here to specify; and, 8. His most +unreasonable dreams. Now the question is, <i>when</i>, in such circumstances +(that is to say, if no fevers, or cases of love intervene), complete +distraction (<i>idea fixa</i>, <i>mania</i>, <i>raptus</i>) comes on. With Swift +it +fell very late, in old age, when he might already, besides, have been +naturally half foolish, and only showed it more afterward. When one +considers that Professor Busch once reckoned that his weakness of sight +might very well grow upon him from year to year without any serious +consequence, because the period of complete blindness fell quite out +beyond the end of his whole life, merely upon his grave, so must I +assume that my infirmity might swell so gradually, that I should have +no occasion for any other <i>petites maisons</i> than the coffin itself; so +that I might, in the mean time, have married and held an office as well +as any other honest man.</p> + +<p class="normal">"'My object in this communication is simply to bring myself into +correspondence on the subject with some philanthropist or other (he +must be, however, a philosophical physician!). My address may be had at +the office of the Imperial Advertiser. I make myself, perhaps, more +clearly known, bodily and civilly, in this very paper, in the column +where I inquire after a wife.</p> + +<p class="normal">"'Pestitz, February. S——s, L——d, L——r, G——l, S——e.'<a name="div2Ref_116" href="#div2_116"><sup>[116]</sup></a></p> +<br> + +<p class="normal">"Albano, thou knowest under what bush my serious meaning lies hid. The +Advertiser of the Empire and of Schoppe has eight reasons for the +thing, which are not only my serious meaning, but my fun. Since the +Baldhead announced to me the rising of my mad-dog-star after a year, I +have always seen the aurora of this fixed star before me, and seen +myself thereupon blind and cowardly at last; I must speak it out. O I +had in January, brother, eight frightful dreams, one after another, +according to the number of reasons assigned in the Advertiser, and +themselves appertaining to the eighth,—dreams wherein a Wild Huntsman +of the brain went hunting through the mind, and a stream full of +worlds, full of faces, and mountains and hands, billowed along, bearing +all before it—I will not distress thee with the details,—Dante and +his head were heaven to it.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Then I grew sullen about the matter of cowardice, and said to myself, +'Hast thou hitherto lived so long, and easily flung overboard the +richest cargoes, even this world and the next, and divested thyself so +clean of everything, even of glory and of books and of hearts, and kept +nothing but thyself, in order to stand up therewith free and naked and +cold on the ball of earth before the face of the sun, and now must thou +unexpectedly cringe before the mere crazy fixed thought of a crazy +fixed idea, which any stroke of a feverish pulse, any blow of a fist, +any grain of poison may stamp into thy head, and thus must thou throw +away at once thy old, godlike freedom?—Schoppe, I know not at all what +I am to think of thee! Whoso still fears anything in the universe, and +though it were hell itself, he is still a slave!</p> + +<p class="normal">"Then the man plucked up his manhood and said, 'I will have what I +feared'; and Schoppe stepped up nearer to the broad, high cloud, and +lo! it was only (one would gladly have put one's self to bed on the +spot) the longest dream of the last, long sleep, no more,—what they +call madness. Now if one should go for some time into a mad-house, for +example, by way of joke, then might one have the dream, if all other +things were as well suited to keep the matter in countenance, as in +the case of many a one already. And now, thereinto will I gradually +sink,—into the dream, where the point of the dagger is broken off +against the future, and the rust rubbed off against the past,—where +man, undisturbed and alone, is the reigning House in the shadow-realm +and Barataria-island of his ideas, and the John Lackland, and, like a +philosopher, <i>makes</i> everything that he <i>thinks</i>,—where he also draws +his body out of the waves and surges of the external world, and cold +and heat and hunger and weak nerves and consumption and dropsy and +poverty assail him no more, and no fear, no sin, no error can come near +the mind in the mad-house where the three hundred and sixty-five dreams +of the nights in the year weave themselves together into a single one, +the flying clouds into one great evening red.</p> + +<p class="normal">"But here lurks something bad! Man must be in a condition to pick out +for himself and appropriate with understanding his dream, his good +fixed idea,—for a high ant-hill of the most grim and bewitching swims +and swarms before him,—otherwise he may fare as ill as if he were +still in his senses. I must now, in particular, make my arrangements to +find and recognize a good-natured, favorable fixed conceit, which shall +deal well with me. If I can bring it about, to be, perhaps, the first +man in the crazy house, or the second Momus, or the third Schlegel, or +the fourth grace, or the fifth king at cards, or the sixth wise virgin, +or the seventh worldly Electorate, or the eighth Wise Man of Greece, or +the ninth soul in the ark, or the tenth muse, or the forty-first +Academician, or the seventy-first Translator,<a name="div2Ref_117" href="#div2_117"><sup>[117]</sup></a> or, in fact, the +universe, or, in fact, the universal spirit himself,—then, certainly, +my fortune is made, and life's scorpion robbed of his whole sting. But +what golden jewel of a fortune does not in addition thereto still stand +open? Can I not be a very highly-favored lover, who sees the sun of a +beloved sail all day long through heaven, and looks up and cries, 'I +see only thy sunny eye, but it contents me!' Can I not be a deceased +person, who, full of disbelief in the next world, has made the journey +into it, and now does not know at all which way to turn there for joy? +O can I not—for the shorter dream and old age do indeed, of +themselves, make one childish—be an innocent child again, that plays +and knows nothing, that takes all men for its parents, and that has now +a tear-drop hanging before him, formed out of the collapsing gay bubble +of life, and again sends out the drop through the pipe, blown up into a +glimmering little world-globe of colors?</p> + +<p class="normal">"It is full midnight; I must now go to church, to hold my +vesper-devotions.</p> +<br> + +<p class="right">"Three weeks later.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Nota Bene!</p> + +<p class="normal">"I had been, since thy departure, in a manner damnably unlucky until +about one o'clock this morning. At two o'clock I took up my resolution; +I have just (at five) taken the pen; and at six, when I have drunken +myself full and written myself empty, I take my travelling cane, the +point of which, after two months, shall stand sticking in the Pyrenees. +O heavens! there must have been something thorny this long time +standing by me, which I so long took for a hedgehog, whereas it is the +best musical barrel full of pins, out of which I can get nothing less +(I turned it a few hours ago) than the best arrangement of flute-pipes, +unadulterated music of the spheres, and rotatory music for the +bravura-airs of the three men in the furnace, a whole living +Vaucanson's wooden flute-player, and unheard-of things wherewith the +machine blows till it bursts—not itself, but certain knaves, whereof +need I particularly name the Baldhead?</p> + +<p class="normal">"O listen, youth! It concerns thee. I will now, for thy sake, be what +the world calls frank, namely, shameless, for verily I had rather +uncover my haunch than my heart, and am less red when I do so.</p> + +<p class="normal">"There was, once on a time, in old times, a young time, one full of +fire and roses, when old Schoppe, for his part, was also young enough; +when the alert, contriving bird easily nosed out where the hare lay, +and the female hare, too; when the man could still put himself on good +terms with the well-known four quarters of the world; or else, just as +easily as a steer, thrust with his horn at every fly; when he (now a +silver pheasant of cool times) still strode or flew up and down through +all Italy as a warm gold pheasant, perched now on Buanorotti's Moses, +now on the Colosseum, now on Ætna, now on the dome of St. Peter's, and +crowed for joy, flapped his wings, and soared toward heaven.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It was at this time that the still unpicked storm-bird, hovering one +day to and fro through the waterfalls of Tivoli, preciously blest, saw +there occasionally, suddenly, overhead, in Vesta's temple, for the +first time, nothing more than—the Princess di Lauria, afterward, I +conjecture, carried off by a Knight of the Fleece, as his golden +fleece. To see her,—to transform one's self from a storm-bird into a +cock-pigeon to the chariot of Venus; to tear one's self loose from team +and bridle; to fly before that goddess; to float round her in narrower +and narrower circles,—all this was not one thing, but three things. I +had first to grow and paint myself up into a bird of Paradise, in order +to fly into a Paradise; that is to say, I had to learn painting, in +order to be permitted her presence.</p> + +<p class="normal">"When at length I had the portrait-pencil and profile-scissors in my +power, and one morning appeared with both before the Princess and the +old Prince, I had to paint and cut the Prince himself; his daughter had +already been married and secretly travelled off; for thy grandfather +(unlike others who prophesy their movements beforehand), prophesies his +only afterward, and opens his mouth merely to hear.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I soon cut out the man,—packed up,—went out into all the world. +After nearly three years I stood again on the tenth terrace of Isola +Bella, quite unexpectedly, before the Countess Cesara. Heaven and hell! +what a woman was thy mother! She threw everybody into both of <i>those +places</i> at once; I know not whether she did thy father, too. The writer +of this stood in his last ornithological transformation before her, as +silent pearl-cock (guinea-peacock), (tears must be the pearls), and got +a likeness of her after a few weeks.</p> + +<p class="normal">"She had two children, thee—I clearly remember thy then already +sharpened contour—and thy sister, the so-called Severina. Thy father +was not there, but his wax image was, by which I instantly recognized +him eighteen years later in Rome. Thy sister, too, was repeated in wax; +only thou not. A wax figure, like thee at a distance, which illusively +prefigured thee as a man always held up before thee, the brother of thy +father, who was there, too, as a file-leader of thy future, saying, +'Here thou art, cubed beforehand, and already forced up into full size, +filled out from flask into cask,'—seeking thus to enkindle thee, so +that thou mightest grow up and be a man. They had a uniform put on +thee, like that which the wax man wore,—I know not of what sort. Then +didst thou, striding around thine own micromegas, boldly call him out, +out of the future into the present. Now thou knowest what thou hast +become, and mayst well, and with more right, look down in thy turn as +proudly upon the little one, as the little one formerly looked up to +the great one. I could never approve in thy uncle this machine for +spiritual ductility; besides, I have for all wax puppets such an +abominating, shuddering dread.</p> + +<p class="normal">"My only object on the beautiful island was to get away from it, and +from the fair islander, so soon as I had painted her. 'Stupid century,' +said I, 'do I then want anything more of thee?' She sat to me gladly, +as upon a throne. I, half in tempest, half in rainbow, sketched her, +and naturally had to leave the picture uncopied. But, young man, some +letters, which formed my name at that time, and which I wrote and +concealed on the picture in the region of the heart under the +water-colors, may serve thee as a Tetragrammaton, eleven Dominical +letters and mothers of the reading (<i>matres lectionis</i>) of thy +existence, in case I reach Spain safely, and in Valencia wash away on +the likeness the coloring from my letters, and can now read in its +heart, <i>Löwenskiold</i>. So was I then called in Danish.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Then is the Countess Linda de Romeiro, without mercy, thy sister +Severina. God grant only that thou mayst not haply have seen and +married her before the receipt of this letter. She must, according to +what I heard yesterday, have set out for Italy.</p> + +<p class="normal">"For when I saw the Countess Linda here for the first time, it was to +me, in the market square of Pestitz, as if I were standing up on the +terrace of Isola Bella, and beholding the Alps, thy mother, my youth, +hardly three paces distant from me! By Heaven, just as if in the +pier-mirror of time the white rosy image of thy buried mother had been +snatched at once out of the depths of distance, and brought close to +the glass, and now hung before it in blooming redness, so stood Linda +before me! For the divine resemblance of the two is so great! No Arian +<i>Homoiousion</i><a name="div2Ref_118a" href="#div2_118a"><sup>[118a]</sup></a> whatever, but a complete Orthodox +<i>Homoousion</i><a name="div2Ref_118b" href="#div2_118b"><sup>[118b]</sup></a> +is to be believed here. Thus would I write to thee, hadst thou the +necessary church-history at hand for the understanding of such an allusion.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I painted Linda, too, this winter. What she related to me of the +character of her mother was entirely the same, as I had been able to +report to her of the character of the Princess di Lauria.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Linda's father, or Herr von Romeiro, would never appear, and still, I +hear, has not yet disappeared.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Linda's mother called herself a Roman and a relative of the Prince di +Lauria.</p> + +<p class="normal">"In Spain, where I have twice been and inquired, I never could find a +residence of a lady by the name of Cesara.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Trillion spiders'-strands of probability spin themselves into an +Ariadne's thread in the Labyrinth.</p> + +<p class="normal">"A new, unknown sister is introduced to thee in the Gothic house with +veils and in mirrors.</p> + +<p class="normal">"And indeed the illusion is produced upon thee through real mirrors by +the honest Baldhead,—who wants something more to be a Christ's-head +than the locks, and whom I in autumn called a dog.</p> + +<p class="normal">"The aforesaid Baldhead, or head of Anubis, stood, then, (Heaven and +the Devil best know why, but I believe the fact,) as Father of Death on +Isola Bella; he lay as travelling journeyman on the Prince's grave and +in every sort of ambush, to give thee thy sister for wife—in case I +suffered it; but so soon as ever I have sealed this, I sally forth to +Spain, break into Linda's picture cabinet, look after a certain +likeness of her mother, the place and chamber whereof I have taken +pains clearly to ascertain; and if it is the picture by me, then all is +right and the thunder may strike into the midst of the whole business.</p> + +<p class="normal">"The Baldhead himself is a fifth quarter of a proof,—he is one of the +few men who, when hardly of a spider's thickness, wickedly made water +in their mothers' womb.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Perhaps I may find thy uncle, who knew me again here, he said, and who +has actually gone off to Valencia.<a name="div2Ref_119" href="#div2_119"><sup>[119]</sup></a></p> + +<p class="normal">"O Heavens! if I should succeed (but why not, since my tongue remains +of iron and this leaf comes, in iron, under charge of the honest +Wehrfritz, whose heart is an old German, and does not <i>Germany</i> rightly +represent the <i>heart</i> in the virgin Europa?)—if, I write, I should +succeed in kindling a fire upon a cursed mystery of a straw-door, +tearing all up and down and away, blind gates and sacrificial gates, +and a strong light should fall in upon the brave Linda and the brave +youth, illuminating the neighboring Baldhead (perhaps somebody else), +who even in the darkness will fain make a slanting thrust with two +grafting and slaughtering knives down into a brother and sister——</p> + +<p class="normal">"If I should once succeed in this, that is to say, in the harvest +month,—for then I should come back again to Pestitz and have the +likeness in my pocket,—and I should have boldly avenged myself and two +innocent beings upon guilty ones: then would I hold myself fully at +liberty to seize hold of my head and say, '<i>À bas, gare</i>, heads off!' +To which, certainly, (since, indeed, the question is not of any stupid +packing off of the body by a Werther-powder, but only of the purpose to +lose, upon occasion, what competent judges call my understanding,) my +friends must agree, because they would still have me (since in this +case the body is still retained), although as the night-piece of a man, +because I would then carry on a rational discourse upon any subject +(only let no one attack the fixed idea!) as well as another man, and +certainly should not forget to sprinkle over it, now and then, a good +moral joke (verily the true spice), and because the state should find +me day and night equipped and saddled to save it, after the example of +the Berlin Bedlamites, who once, upon a fire breaking out in the house, +extinguished it and saved the house in the best style, and I would come +in at the gap and the breach, when the dark intervals of its other +civil servants could not otherwise be filled up than with our lucid +ones.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Farewell! I break off. The world smiles upon me gayly. In Spain I +shall find a bit of youth again—as in this writing.</p> + +<p class="right">"<span class="sc">Schoppe</span>.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Apropos! Has the Baldhead nowhere run against thee? I cannot tell thee +how I labor now daily to impress upon myself and appropriate beforehand +a real horror and dread at the wish of running him down hereafter in my +madness, in order that afterward the possible act may not, as a late +fruit of my previous rational, moral state, be reckoned over against me +into the other.</p> + +<p class="normal">"<i>Annihilate this letter!</i>"</p> +<br> + +<p class="normal">When Albano raised his fiery eyes from the letter, he stood before +Lilar under a high triumphal arch, and the sun went down in splendor +behind Elysium. "Dost thou not know me?" asked Linda, in a low tone, +who stood beside him in travelling dress, weeping in bright love and +bliss; and Julienne came flying out and making a sign of caution to +both, from the entrance thicket of the flute-dell, and cried, as a +cunning pretext: "Linda, Linda, hearest thou not the flutes, then?" And +Albano had forgotten the painful letter.</p> +<br> +<h3>123. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">Like a concert that suddenly flutters up with a hundred wings did the +swift presence of old love and joy break over the forsaken youth (so +troubled about his friend) in beautiful waves; and smitten with +delight, he saw Linda again as on Ischia; but she saw him again as in +another Elysium; she was more soft, tender, ardent, remembering his +past scenes in this garden. She would not relate nor hear anything at +all about her own travelling adventures. Albano buried his mystery of +Schoppe in his mighty but trembling breast; only to his father he +burned to disclose it. He was incessantly representing to himself the +possibility of a relationship, and the facility with which Schoppe +might confound the pretended sister with the true one, Julienne; this +very evening he meant to ask his father.</p> + +<p class="normal">He imparted to her the paternal consent to their alliance with great +joy, but not with the greatest, because Schoppe's letter echoed in his +bosom. Julienne perceived that only a cascade instead of a cataract +came out of him to-day, and sought with a sly pleasantry to draw him +out, by making him answer, which she easily did, through the whole +range of questions touching important personalities of his and her +acquaintance. She had some inclination to weave and to paint on the +theatre curtain, or even to pierce a prompter's-hole in it. She began +the questions at Idoine,—who shortly after his arrival had taken her +departure back again from the city,—and left off with them at +Schoppe,—inquiring after the object of his journey; but Albano had not +seen the former, and as to the latter, Schoppe, he said, had confided +it to him alone. A beautiful, inflexible marble vein of firmness ran +through his being. Linda's black eye was an open, true German one, and +looked upon him only to love him.</p> + +<p class="normal">Out of the flute-dell came the rest of the company, the Lector and +others; Julienne constrained the lovers to a separation, saying: "Here +is no Ischia; without me you cannot see each other here in the palace +at all; I will announce it to thee always through thy father, when I am +here."</p> + +<p class="normal">When he stood alone in Lilar with the heavy thought of Schoppe and +Linda, and surveyed the lovely regions and scenes of fair hours, then +it seemed to him all at once as if, in the twilight, Elysium, like a +charming face, distorted itself into an expression of scorn at him and +at life. Little malicious fays sit on the little children's tables, as +if they were tender children, and very much loved to see men and human +pleasure; anon they start up as wild huntresses, and run through the +blossoms; a thousand hands turn up the garden with its blossoming +trees, and point its black, gloomy thicket of roots like summits up +into heaven; Gorgon heads look out of the twigs, and up in the +thunder-house there is an incessant weeping and laughing;—nothing is +fair and soft but the great, daring Tartarus.</p> + +<p class="normal">However, as it was the shortest way to his father, Albano went, stern +and angry, through the garden, over the swan bridge, along by the +Temple of Dream, by Chariton's little cottage, by the rose arbors, and +over the woodland bridge, and soon was in the princely palace with his +father, who had just come back from the sick Luigi. With ironical +expression of countenance, his father related to him how the patient +had begun to swell again, merely because he feared that his dead +father, who had promised to appear to him a second time as a sign of +death, would give the sign and immediately call him away. Then Albano +related, without any introduction, and without mention of Schoppe and +of his connections, the hypothesis of the most singular relationship, +without putting, out of respect for his father, any long, searching +questions, or even more than the short, swift one, "Is Linda my +sister?" His father quietly heard him through. "Every man," said he, +angrily, "has a rainy corner of his life, out of which foul weather +proceeds, and follows after him. Mine is the carrying about of +mysteries with me. From whom hast thou the latest?" "On that subject +sacred duty bids me be silent," he replied. "In that case," said +Gaspard, "thou wouldst better have been silent altogether: he who gives +up the smallest part of a secret, has the rest no longer in his power. +How much dost thou suppose that I know of the matter?" "Ah, what can I +suppose?" said Albano. "Didst thou think upon my consent to thy union +with the Countess?" said Gaspard, more angry. "Should I then keep +silence? and did not sister Julienne in the end disentangle herself +from all mysteries?" Here Gaspard looked at him sharply, and asked, +"Canst thou rely upon the earnest word of a man, without wavering, +swerving, however eloquently appearances may discourse to the +contrary?" "I can," said Albano. "The Countess is not thy sister; rely +upon my word!" said Gaspard. "Father, I do so!" said Albano, full of +joy; "and now not a word further on the subject."</p> + +<p class="normal">But the old man, now more composed, went on to say that this new error +gave him an occasion now earnestly to insist upon Linda's consent to a +speedy union, because her father, perhaps himself the mysterious +wonder-worker who had hitherto baffled all attempts at detection, had +absolutely fixed, as the time of his appearance, the wedding-day. He +indicated yet once more to his son his desire to know the way in which +he had arrived at that hypothesis; but to no purpose: holy friendship +could not be desecrated or deserted, and his breast closed mightily +around his open heart, as the dark rock closes about the bright +crystal.</p> + +<p class="normal">So he parted, warm and happy, from his silent father. In the hard hour +of the letter-reading, he had only climbed an artificial, rocky region +of life, and there lay the gay gardens again, stretching away even to +the horizon; yet, after all, the vain, painful error of his Schoppe, +and the thought of that spirit so desolated by love and hatred, which, +even in the tone of the letter, seemed to bow itself down, and the +prospect of his madness, passed like a distant funeral chime dolefully +through his fair landscape, and the happy heart grew full and still.</p> +<br> +<h3>124. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">Soon after this, Albano's kind sister again let a Hesperian hour strike +and play on the musical clock of his happiness, whose keeper she +was,—an hour with which his whole life, up and down, sounded in +unison, and cleared away, and in which, as in Switzerland, when a cloud +opens, all at once heights, glaciers, mountain-peaks, now look out from +the sky. He saw his Linda again, but in new light, glowing, but like a +rose before the blushing evening red. Her love was a soft, still flame, +not a leaping of eccentric, stinging sparks. He concluded that his +father, who was a man of his word, had already made his request to her +for a priestly union, and even got her consent. Julienne told him she +wished to speak with him the next evening, at six o'clock, in his +father's chamber; that made him still more sure and glad. With new and +still more tenderly adoring emotions, he parted with Linda: the goddess +had become a saint.</p> + +<p class="normal">When he came the next day into the paternal apartment, he found no one +there but Julienne. She gave him a slight and almost imperceptible +kiss, in order to be speedily ready with her intelligence, since her +absence was limited to so many minutes as the Princess needed to go +from the sick-bed of her husband to the apartment of the Princesse. +"She will not marry thee," she began, softly, "notwithstanding that thy +father expressed himself so strongly and finely to her, at the first +reception after the journey, upon the new good fortune of his son, for +which he had now nothing more to desire, he said, than the seal of +perpetuity. It was still more finely silvered and gilded; I have +forgotten the precise words. Thereupon she replied in her speech, which +I never can retain, that her will and thine were the real seal; every +other seal of policy imposed chains and slavery upon the fairest life."</p> + +<p class="normal">Deeply was Albano hurt by an open refusal, which hitherto, coming upon +him as a silent one and as philosophy, had floated about untouched, as +a mere unsubstantial shadow. "That was not right; she might say <i>a good +while hence</i>, but not <i>never</i>," said he, sensitively. "Moderation, +friend!" said Julienne; "thereupon thy father reminded her, in a +friendly manner, of the conditional appearance of her own, by saying +that he could not but wish very much to transfer her fortunes out of +his own hands into nearer ones. No arbitrary condition could compel or +annihilate a will, she said. Thy father went on calmly, and added, he +had sketched, in that case, the fairest plan of life for you two; but, +in the other case, his approval of their love stood open only as long +as his stay here, which would end at his friend's death. Then he went +coolly and composedly out, as men are wont to do when they have +provoked us to a real rage."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Hesperia, Hesperia!" cried Albano, angrily. "But did Linda really +repeat her no?" "O, too true! But, brother?" asked Julienne, with +astonishment. "Suffer me," he replied; "for is it not unrighteous, this +meddling of parents with the fairest, tenderest strings, whose +vibration and melody they at once kill, in order to call forth from +them a new tune? Is it not, then, sinful to degrade divine gifts into +state-revenues and match-moneys,—yes, match<a name="div2Ref_120" href="#div2_120"><sup>[120]</sup></a>-moneys indeed? Good +Linda, now we stand again on the ground, where they set up the flowers +of love for sale as hay, and where there are no other trees in paradise +than boundary-trees. No, thou free being! never through me shalt thou +cease to be so!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Julienne stepped back some paces, and said, "I will only laugh at +thee," which she did, and then added, in earnest, "<i>She</i>, then,—is +that thy will?—shall appoint <i>thee</i> the day when the old father is to +become visible?" "That does not follow by any means," said he. She +calmly remarked, that an excited person always complained of the +heat of another, and that Albano, in his very calmness, insisted too +sternly upon his own and others' rights; that such people went on to +demand, in passion, something beyond the right, as a pin, which fits +too nicely into the clock, when warmed stops it by its size. Then she +begged him affectionately just to leave the disentangling of the "whole +snarl" to her fingers, and to remain mild and still, lest yet more +people—perhaps, in fact, her <i>belle-sœur</i>—might interfere with +their union. Albano took it in friendship, but begged her earnestly +only not to make any plans, because he should be too honorable toward +Linda for that, and should immediately tell her the whole word of the +charade.</p> + +<p class="normal">She disclosed to him that she had made no other plan whatever than a +plan for a happy day to-morrow, namely, to visit with Linda the +Princess Idoine in Arcadia, to whom she owed still greater things +beside a visit, particularly half of her heart. "Thou wilt ride +accidentally after us, and find us in the midst of pastoral life," she +added, "and surprise thy Linda." He said very decidedly, "No," both out +of a shrinking from Idoine's resemblance to Liana,—although he only +knew that Liana had personated her in the Dream Temple, and not, also, +that Idoine had counterfeited her before his sick-bed,—and because he +disliked to come into the presence of the Minister's lady, from a dread +as well of bitter as of sweet recollections, of both which, in such a +case, Roquairol would have brought up the rear. Julienne mischievously +objected: "Only have no fear for the Princesse; she was obliged, in +order only to rid herself of the detested bridegroom, to engage with an +oath to all her friends never to choose one below her rank,—and that +she will keep, even with thee." He answered the joke merely with the +serious repetition of his no. Well, then she should insist upon it, she +replied, that he should at least come to meet them half-way, and await +them in the "Prince's Garden,"—a park which had been laid out by Luigi +as hereditary prince, and forgotten when he came into the princely +chair. He assented to this proposition very joyfully.</p> + +<p class="normal">She still asked, jocosely, as they parted, "Who has been presenting +thee with a new sister, lately?" He said, "That is what my father could +not draw from me." "Brother," said she, softly, "it was a gentleman who +easily takes princesses for countesses, and who, in the next place, +thinks to be still more crazy than he already is,—thy Schoppe," and +flew off.</p> +<br> +<h3>125. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">On the morning after the two friends took their journey to Arcadia, +Julienne, although more troubled on account of the increased illness of +her sick brother, cheered herself by her reliance upon a plan which, in +spite of her assurance, she had sketched for the good fortune of the +<i>well</i> one, and which she was to carry out in Arcadia. She, unlike +others who hide their heads behind the dark, mourning-fan of sorrow and +sensibility, oftener hid her head, with its designs, behind the gay +dress-fan of smiles, which turned to the spectators the painted side; +amidst laughing and weeping she pursued and pondered them. Thus she had +made the request to Albano to join in the visit to Idoine only for +show, and in the certainty that he would refuse, or in case he should +not, that then Idoine would; for she knew, from Idoine's visits in the +previous winter, that she had frequently thought in conversations of +the fair fever-patient who had been restored by her, and that she had +just fled before his arrival, in order not to overshadow his bright, +loving present, which had become known to her in the easiest manner +through the Princess, by coming upon him like a cloud out of the past +full of melancholy resemblances. Julienne had even ascertained that the +Princess had vainly wished to keep and reserve the Princesse longer, in +order, perhaps, by means of her, to remind, terrify, change, or punish +the youth. Julienne's love for the Princesse would perhaps have been +made as warm by that tender flight from Albano, as her love towards +Linda was, had not this very love stood between; at least, this +beautiful flight had given her an unlimited confidence—which is +exactly the true and only kind—in the Princesse.</p> + +<p class="normal">The day of the journey was a beautiful harvest morning, full of +thickly-peopled cornfields, full of coolness and dew and zest. Linda +expressed a childlike joy in Idoine, and gave the reasons in a glad +tone. "First, because she saved thy brother's life,—and because she +knew, after all, what she wanted, and insisted upon it with spirit, and +did not, like other Princesses, transform herself into a victim to the +Throne,—and because she is the most German Frenchwoman that I know +except Madame Necker. Yes, in my eyes she belongs strictly, with all +her fair youth, among old ladies, and these I have always sought out, +for there is at least something to be learned from them. She loves thee +exceedingly, me, I believe, less. To one who is such a charming medium +between the nun and the married woman, I seem too worldly, though it is +not the case."</p> + +<p class="normal">The two companions arrived early in the beautiful, enchanted village in +the afternoon before dinner, just as the neat children were already +banding together to go to gleaning, and the wagons were already going +out to meet the gatherers of the sheaves. Idoine's brother, the future +hereditary Prince of Hohenfliess,—the Dwarf of Tivoli,—looked out of +the window, and Julienne almost regretted the journey. Idoine flew to +meet her, and clasped her heartily to her breast. When Julienne had +before and upon her face that great blue eye and every transfigured +feature of the form which once her brother had so blissfully and +painfully loved, she fancied herself, now that she had become his +sister, to receive, as his representative, the love of the +representative of Liana; and she must needs, as she had done every time +since that death at the first reception, weep heartily.</p> + +<p class="normal">Linda was received by the Princess with such a deep tenderness that +Julienne wondered, since the two generally lived in an alternation of +coldness and love. There stood the Minister's lady, Froulay, so old +with mourning, so cold, still, and courteous, so cold towards the +occasion and the company (except the fac-simile of her daughter), +particularly towards Linda, whose bold, decided, philosophical tone +seemed to her unwomanly, and like a trumpet on two female lips.</p> + +<p class="normal">The future hereditary Prince of Hohenfliess fortunately withdrew +himself soon from so inconvenient a place, where he navigated a +shipwreck plank instead of a gondola. After inquiring of Julienne with +interest about the state of her brother, his present predecessor, and +reminding her and Linda of her and his Italian tour, he became so +fretful and out of tune at Julienne's frigidity, and at the moral +discourses of the women, and at a certain oppressiveness premonitory of +a moral tempest,—which sensualists experience in the presence of +women, where everything rude, selfishness, arrogance, screams like +discord,—and at the general, plaguy hypocrisy,—which he could not but +immediately take it all to be,—that he was glad to break away, and +relieve this pastoral life of the only wolf who had crept into it. +Voluptuaries can never hold out long among <i>many</i> noble women, +tormented as they are by their many-sided, sharp observations, although +they can more easily with one, because they hope to ensnare her. What +made him feel worst of all was, that he was compelled to pronounce them +all hypocrites. He found no good women, because he had faith in none; +since we must believe in them in order to see them where they are, just +as one must exercise virtue in order to be acquainted with it, though +not the reverse.</p> + +<p class="normal">With him a black cloud seemed to draw off out of this Eden and ether. +The Minister's lady received a card from her son Roquairol, who had +just arrived, and she went too, to the joy of Julienne, who found in +her a little obstacle to her plan of conversion for Linda, because the +latter looked upon the Minister's lady as a one-sided, narrow, anxious, +unyielding nature. Idoine begged the two maidens to travel over her +little kingdom with her. They went down into the clean, wide village. +On the steps they were met by cheerful, obliging faces. From the +distant apartments of the palace was heard now singing, now blowing +of wind instruments. As on the bird the shining feathers slide swiftly +and smoothly under each other and out again, so did all occupations +move around Idoine; her economical machine was no clumsy, jarring +steeple-clock, but a musical picture-watch, which conceals the hours +behind tones, the wheels behind images.</p> + +<p class="normal">In a meadow-garden the youngest children were playing wildly with each +other. Moravian and Dutch neatness had scoured and painted the village +to a sleek, bright fancy-shop. New and shiny hung the bucket over the +well; under the linden-rotunda of the village the earth-floor was swept +clean; everywhere were seen clean, whole, fair clothes, and happy eyes; +and Idoine showed, under the unusual gayety, an earnest meaning in the +looks with which she inspected her Arcadia, flower after flower.</p> + +<p class="normal">She led her friends over the various Sunday dancing-places of the +different ages, along before the house of the steward,—wherein the +Minister's lady resided, and now, to Julienne's fear, her son was,—to +the bright, plain church. Soon came the parson and steward, for whom +her passing by had been a hint, following her into the church, and +received commissions from her. Both were fair young men, with open brow +and a little youthful pride. When the party were out of the church, she +said through these young men she ruled over the place, and them she +guided gently; that only young people were furnished with hatred and +spirit against conventionalism, and with enthusiasm and faith. She +added, jocosely, she governed nothing but a school of girls, upon which +she laid more stress than upon the other, because education was the +formation of habits and manners, and these a girl needed more than a +boy, whom the world, after all, would not allow to have any; and she +had, she said, some inclination to be a <i>la Bonne</i>, because she had, +even when a girl, often been obliged to be one with her sisters.</p> + +<p class="normal">Thereupon she introduced the two to several houses; everywhere +they found well-whitened, neatly-ordered apartments, flowers and +vine-clusters over the windows, fair women and children, and now a +flute, now a violin, and nowhere a spinning child. In all she had +charges to give, and what seemed a mere walk was also business. She +showed a sharp insight through people, and their perverted, crooked +ways, and a talent for business, which possessed and united at once the +universal and the particular. "I should be glad, of course," said she, +"to have only pleasures and amusements about me; but without labor and +seriousness the best good of the world dies: not so much as a real play +is possible without real earnestness." Linda commended her for training +all to music,—that real moonlight in every gloomy night of life. +"Without poesy and art," she added, "the spirit grows mossy and wooden +in this earthly clime." "O what were mine without tones!" said Idoine, +glowingly.</p> + +<p class="normal">Linda inquired about the right of citizenship in this pleasant state. +"It is mostly possessed by Swiss families," said Idoine, "with whom I +became acquainted at hearth and home on my travels. Immediately after +the French women I rank my Swiss." Julienne replied, "You repeat to me +riddles." She solved them for her; and Linda, who had been in France +shortly after her, confirmed it, that there, among the women of a +certain higher tone, to whom no Crebillon had ever come up, a +development prevailed, unusual in Germany, of the most delicate +morality, almost holiness. "Only," added Linda, "they had in morality, +as in art, prejudices of fine taste, and more delicacy than genius."</p> + +<p class="normal">They went out through the village, toward the loveliest evening sun; +Alpine horns responded to each other on the mountains, and in the vale +gay old men went to light employments. These Idoine greeted with +peculiar love. "Because," she said, "there was nothing more beautiful +than cheerfulness on an old face; and among country people it was +always the sign of a well-regulated and pious life."</p> + +<p class="normal">Linda opened her heart to the golden scene before her, and said: "How +must all this delight in a poem! But I know not what I have to object +to the fact that it now exists so in the real reality."</p> + +<p class="normal">"What has this same reality," said Idoine, playfully, "taken away from +you or done to you? I love it; where then are <i>you</i> to be found for us +except in reality?" "I," said Julienne, "am thinking of something quite +different; one is ashamed here, that one has yet done so little with +all one's willing. From willing to doing is, however, to be sure, a +long step here," she subjoined, while she placed her little finger on +her <i>heart</i>, and stretched the fore-finger as if vainly attempting to +span from there to her <i>head</i>. "Idoine, tell me, how then can one think +of what is great and what is little at once?" "By thinking of the +greatest first," said she; "when one looks into the sun, the dust and +the midges become most visible. God is, surely, the sun of us all."</p> + +<p class="normal">The earthly sun stood now looking toward them far down on an +immeasurable plain amid mild roses of Heaven. A distant windmill flung +its arms broadly through the fair purple glow; on the mountain +declivities children sang near the pastured herds, and their smaller +brothers and sisters were playing under their eye; the evening bell, +which in Arcadia was always tolled at the farewell of the sun, rocked +sun and earth to slumber with its vibrations; not only in youthful, but +even in childlike beauty lay the soft little village and its world +round about them. No storm, one said to one's self, can intrude into +this soft land, no winter stalk in in heavy panoply of ice: here, one +thought, only spring winds and rosy clouds come and go: no rains fall, +except early rains, and no leaves, except those of the blossoms: only +dust from the flowers rises here; and the rainbow,—only forget-me-nots +and May-flowers hold it upon their little blue and white leaves; the +landscape and life and all seemed here to be only a continuous morning +twilight, so fresh and new, full of presentiment and contentment, +without glow or glitter, and with a few stars over the morning red.</p> + +<p class="normal">Children with wreaths of grain in their hands sat on other people's +wagons full of sheaves, and rode proudly in.</p> + +<p class="normal">Idoine hung with hearty love, as if this evening made it all new, upon +the double groups. "Only the countryman is so fortunate," said she, "as +to live on in all the Arcadian relations of his childhood. The old man +sees nothing around him but implements and labors which as a child he +also saw and plied. At last he goes up into that garden over yonder, +and sleeps it out." She pointed to the churchyard on the hill, which +was a veritable garden, with flower-beds and a wall of fruit-trees. +Julienne looked thither with agitation,—she saw the dark curtain +tremble behind which her sick brother was soon to be borne.</p> + +<p class="normal">Transparent evening gold-dust was wafted over the garden; the loud +day was muffled, and life peaceful; olive-branches and their blossoms +sank slowly down out of the quiet heavens. "There is the only place," +said Idoine, "where man concludes an eternal peace with himself and +others, as a French clergyman so beautifully said to me." "Such +Christian-catholic night-thoughts," replied Linda, "are as disagreeable +to me as the clergymen themselves. We can as little experience an +immortality as an annihilation." "I do not understand that," said +Julienne. "Ah, Idoine, if now there were no immortality, what would you +do?" "<i>J'aimerais</i>," said she to her, in a low voice.</p> + +<p class="normal">Suddenly they heard some one singing before them, as at a +great distance: "Taste"—then after some time—"of life's"—at +last—"pleasure."<a name="div2Ref_121" href="#div2_121"><sup>[121]</sup></a> "That is the echo from the churchyard," said +Idoine, and endeavored to persuade the party to return. "Echo and +moonshine and churchyard together," she continued playfully, "may well +be too strong for female hearts." At the same time she touched her eye, +with a hint to Julienne, as much as to say how sorry she was that the +eyes of the Countess could only see through a mist the beautiful +evening coming on afar off. "The singing voice sounds so familiar to +me," said Linda. "It's Roquairol, that's all; shall we go on?" said +Julienne. But Linda begged to stay, and Idoine courteously agreed.</p> + +<p class="normal">Now did the echo—the moonlight of sound—give back tones like dirges +from the funeral choir; and it was as if the united shades of the +departed sang them over in their holy-week under the ground,—as if the +corpse-veil stirred on the white lip, and out of the last hollows +sounded again a hollow life. The singing ceased; Alpine horns began on +the mountains; then the echo of the concert came over again in +enchanting tones, as if the departed still played behind the breastwork +of the grave-mound, and rehabilitated themselves in echoed tones,<a name="div2Ref_122" href="#div2_122"><sup>[122]</sup></a> +All men bear dead or dying ones in their breast; so did the three +maidens. Tones are the garments of the past fluttering back with a +glimmer, and they excite the heart too much thereby.</p> + +<p class="normal">They wept, and neither could say whether for sadness or joy. The +hitherto so moderate Idoine grasped Linda's hand, and laid it softly on +her heart, and let it sink again. They turned round silently and with +one accord. Idoine held Linda by the hand. The subterranean waters of +the echoes of the dead and the Alpine horns murmured after them, though +more distantly. It did not escape Julienne how Idoine continually +turned her face, merely in order to withdraw it from <i>her</i>, with the +great drops in her large eyes, towards the thickly-veiled Linda; and +she inferred therefrom that Idoine knew and was acquainted with much, +and respected the bride of the youth to whom she had by her fair +resemblance given back a happy life.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What now do we get from all this?" said Idoine, by and by, and near +the village. "We foresee that we should be too tender, and yet we give +ourselves up. For that very reason men call us weak. They prepare +themselves for their future by mere hardenings, and only we do +it with mere softening processes." "What shall one do, then," said +Julienne,—"leap into rivers, up mountains, on horseback, and so on?" +"No," said Idoine. "For I see it by my peasant-women: they suffer in +their nerves, with all their muscular labor, as well as others. With +the mind, I imagine, we must all do and seek more; but we always let +only the fingers and eyes exercise and stir themselves. The heart +itself knows nothing thereof, and does what it pleases the while: it +dreams, weeps, bleeds, dances. A little philosophizing would be of +service to us; but, as it is, we give ourselves up, bound, to all +feelings, and if we think, it is merely to give them additional aid."</p> + +<p class="normal">They came back into the village; it was full of busy evening noise. +Children came dancing to meet Idoine; alp-horns sounded in from the +heights, and from the houses flutes and songs. Idoine gave cheerfully +evening commands. "How easily, after all," said she, "outward +tranquillity breaks up the internal. A busied heart is like a vessel of +water swung round; hold it still, and it runs over."</p> + +<p class="normal">Julienne had already several times, but in vain, snatched at the helm +of the hour and the conversation, to carry out her plan; now, when she +observed Linda's silence, emotion, and dreaminess, she fancied she had +hit upon the long-expected, favorable moment when some words which +Idoine let drop on the subject of marriage would find in Linda a +softened soil for their roots. By the easy turn of a eulogy which she +pronounced upon Idoine for her spirited opposition against launching +into a hated princely marriage, and her gain of a perpetual young life, +she brought the Countess to the point of expressing her heretical +hatred of marriage, and saying that it laid the flower painfully +fastened with a sharp iron ring to its frame; that love without +freedom, and from duty, was nothing but hypocrisy and hatred; and that +acting according to morality, so called, was as much as if one should +choose to think or poetize according to a system of logic which he had +before him, and that the energy, the will, the heart of love, was +something higher than morals and logic.</p> + +<p class="normal">At this moment came a note from the Minister's lady, wherein she +excused her to-day's absence on the score of the too sad farewell which +her son had this evening so strangely and as if forever bid her. +However many silent thoughts this intelligence left behind in Julienne +and Linda, Idoine was not drawn by it out of the lively emotion into +which the previous discourse had thrown her; but, with a noble +indignation, which made out of the beautiful maiden a beautiful youth, +and put Minerva's helmet on her head, she made to her lofty adversary, +who was less to be roused by others' passions than by opposing +sentiments, this declaration of war: Certainly her aversion to marriage +was chargeable only upon her other aversion to "priests"; for was the +marriage bond anything else than eternal love, and did not every real +love hold itself for an eternal one? A love which thinks to die at some +time or other was already dead, and that which feared to live forever, +feared in vain. If even friends were joined at the altar, as is said to +be somewhere or other the case,<a name="div2Ref_123" href="#div2_123"><sup>[123]</sup></a> they would at most only be more +sacredly attached to each other in love. One might count quite as many +if not more unhappy intrigues than unhappy marriages. One might, +indeed, be a mother, but not a father, without marriage, and the latter +must honor the former and himself by a decent respect for morality. "I +am a German," she concluded, "and respect the old knightly ladies, my +ancestors, highly. Blessed is a woman like Elizabeth and a man like +Götz von Berlichingen, in their holy wedlock." All at once she found +herself surprised by her warmth and her fluency. "I have really," she +added, smiling, "become a pedantic parson's widow. This comes of my +being the highest authority in the village, and from the fact that, as +in almost every cottage a happy refutation of single blessedness +dwells, I do not love to let other sentiments come up here."</p> + +<p class="normal">"O," said Julienne, pleasantly, because she saw Linda serious, "girls +always talk together about love and marriage a little; they love to +draw flowers for themselves out of a bride's bouquet."</p> + +<p class="normal">"That, as you know, I could not well do," said Idoine, alluding to the +sworn promise which she had been obliged to give her parents, who were +suspicious of her enthusiastic boldness, never to marry below her +princely rank, which, to her, according to her sharp propensities and +parts, amounted to as much as celibacy. "You were right, however," +pursued Julienne, and would fain continue in her mirthful mood; +"love without marriage is like a bird of passage, who seats himself +upon a mast, which itself moves along. I praise, for my part, a fine, +green-rooted tree, which stays there and admits a nest."</p> + +<p class="normal">Contrary to her custom, Linda did not laugh at this, but went alone, +without saying a word, down into the garden and the moonlight.</p> + +<p class="normal">"The Countess," said Idoine to her friend, troubled about the meaning +of that silent seriousness, "has not, I hope, misunderstood us." "No," +said Julienne, with glad looks at the thought of having gained her +point so far that the discourse had made an impression on Linda; "she +has the rarest gift to understand, and the most common misfortune not +to be understood." "The two things always go together," said she, +remained a moment in thought, looked at Julienne, and at last said, "I +must be entirely true. I knew the Countess's relation through my +sister. Friend, is he entirely worthy of her?"—a question whose source +the Princesse could seek only in the supposition of revengeful +insinuations on the part of the Princess.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Entirely!" answered she, strongly. "I gladly believe you," replied +Idoine, with rapidity in her tones, but tranquillity in her looks. She +looked longer and longer upon the sister of Albano; her great, blue +eyes gleamed more and more strongly; Minerva's helmet was removed from +the maidenly head; the soft countenance appeared lovely, tranquil, +clear, not more strongly moved than a prayer to God permits it to be, +and with as little of passionate desire as a glorified saint has, and +yet shining more and more celestially. Julienne's fair heart leaped up; +she saw Liana again, as if she had come from heaven to press the +beloved man with a blessing to a new heart; she said, with tears, +"Thou, thou didst once give him peace." Idoine was surprised; two tears +gushed from her bright eyes; with emphasis she answered, "Gave!" in an +agitated and passionate manner pressed herself to her friend, saying, +"I loved you long ago," and they said nothing further.</p> + +<p class="normal">Quickly she collected herself, reminded Julienne of Linda's +night-blindness, and begged her to go directly after her as her friend, +although she herself would gladly steal this service from her if she +dared. Julienne hastened into the garden, but remembered with emotion +that Idoine had not reciprocated her <i>thou</i>; Idoine avoided the female +<i>thou</i>. Unlike the Oriental women, who leave off the veil before +relations, she, like her fair French neighbors, transferred the +delicate laws of <i>politesse</i> into matters of the heart.</p> + +<p class="normal">Julienne found her friend in the garden in a dark bower, still, with +deep, sunken eyes, buried in dreams. Linda started up: "She loves him!" +said she, with pain and heat. "Hear it, Julienne: she loves him!" The +latter, upon this utterance of a truth with which she had herself come +directly from Idoine's arms, could do nothing but express her terror; +but Linda took it for astonishment, and went on: "By Heaven! my eye has +detected her. O, once she was not by far so lively and earnest and +sensitive and soft. Her deep emotion at beholding me, and her weeping +at Roquairol's voice because it resembles his, and her long and earnest +marriage-sermon, and her soul-like glances at me,—O, did she not see +him in the great, glorious moment when the blooming one knelt weeping, +and lifted his godlike head to heaven, and called down the saint and +peace? O, that she should have so much as ventured to personate either +before him! And can she forget that?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Julienne at last got the word: "Well, suppose it, then; is not Idoine, +however, noble and good?" "I have nothing to say against her or for +her," answered Linda. "But when he sees her now, when he finds the +saintly one once more like the departed, when his whole first love +returns and triumphs over the second ... By Heaven! No," she added, +proudly and strongly, "no, that I cannot brook; I will not beg, will +not weep nor resign, but I will battle for him. Am not I, too, +beautiful? I am more so, and my spirit is more boldly shaped for his. +What can she give which I cannot offer him three times over? I will +give it to him,—my fortune, my being, even my liberty; I can marry him +as well as she; I will ... O speak, Julienne! But thou art a cold +German, and secretly attached to her from like godliness. O God, +Julienne! am I, then, beautiful? Assure me of it, I pray. Am I not at +all like the glorified one? Should I not look exactly as he would wish! +Why was I not his first love, and his Liana, and even dead too? Good +Julienne, why dost thou not speak?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Only <i>let</i> me speak," said she, although not with entire truth. She +had been struck and punished by Linda's home-coming truth, and by her +own consciousness that she had laid out a plan of doing away Linda's +prejudices against marriage, the very supports of which plan had been +anticipated and reckoned over by Linda as justifications of jealousy, +and that she had set a rock in motion on the point of a rock, and +brought it to the point of falling, which she could now no longer +manage. She was confounded, too, yes, angered, by what she felt to be a +strange impetuosity of love, before which she could not at all speak +out the Job's-comfort that Albano would always act according to the +<i>obligations</i> of fidelity. Beautifully was she surprised by the +prospered conversion to a readiness for marriage. With some uncertainty +as to the result, however, on the part of Linda, who by the moonlight +and the mild, distant mountain-music had only been made more stormy, +she continued: "I would not willingly interrupt thee with praise of thy +marriage resolution; in all other particulars thou art wrong. To be +sure, she is now more serious; but she stood at the deathbed of her +likeness, and saw herself grow pale in Liana; that does much to +chasten. Touching him, had he seen thee earlier ..."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Did he not see early the image on <i>Lago Maggiore</i>, but unlike, as he +said?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"I will, then, confess it to thee, wild one," replied Julienne, +"because one must not surprise thee, that I yesterday begged him to +join us in our visit to the Princesse, and that he, even out of regard +and dislike to all resemblances, gave me a downright refusal; but he +awaits us to-morrow in the Prince's garden."</p> + +<p class="normal">Changed, softened, with transfigured eyes, and with sinking voice, +Linda said, "Does my friend love me so greatly? But I love him +exceedingly too,—the pure one. To-morrow will I say to him, take my +freedom, and stay forever with me. We will go from the altar, my +Julienne,—thou and I and he,—to Valencia, to Isola Bella, or +whithersoever he will, and stay together. Thanks, dear moon and music! +How childlike the tones and the rays play with each other! Embrace me, +my beloved; forgive that Linda has been naughty!" Here the storm of her +heart dissolved into sweet weeping. So, in countries upon which the sun +shines vertically down, is the blue sky daily transformed into thunder, +tempest, and black rain, and daily the sun goes down again blue and +golden.</p> + +<p class="normal">Julienne only replied, "Beautiful! now will we go up!"—being less +capable than Linda of swift transitions. When they saw, above, the +tranquil, bright, contented Idoine again,—always steadfastly and +serenely active,—undisturbed by regret or expectation,—wearing only +the harvest-wreath of action, never the flowery bridal-wreath,—so +many white blossoms at her feet, lying ungathered for garland or +festoon,—her pure, radiant soul like a clear, bright tone, which bears +the charm of its melody through moist, cloudy air, undisturbed and +unbroken,—then did she feel that Idoine was connected with her by a +more sisterly tie than Linda. The former was to her an <i>ideal</i> and a +constellation in her heaven above her; the latter, an unknown one, +which sparkles far off and invisible in a second hemisphere of the +heavens; but in her the womanly power of loving on, almost even to the +degree of hatred, worked on more intensely than in any one woman, and +she remained constant to her old friend. Idoine was one of those female +souls which resemble the moon; pale and faint must she stand in the +magnificent evening sky, which splendor and burning clouds adorn, and +not a single shadow can she dislodge on the earth, and mounts with +invisible rays, but all other light grows pale, and hers grows out of +the shadow, until at last her supernatural radiance invests the earthly +night, and transforms it into a second world, and all hearts love her, +weeping, and the nightingales sing in her beams.</p> + +<p class="normal">All was now settled and ended. Linda kept herself reserved, and merely +from respect to the law of social propriety, which she never +overstepped. Idoine, guessing a change, softly drew herself back out of +her former familiarity. Early in the dark morning they parted, but +Julienne told not her friend, how, when they left each other, she had +seen Idoine turn away with wet eyes.</p> +<br> +<h3>126. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">Albano had, during Linda's absence, received from Roquairol a request +not to travel long just now, so that he might in a few days see his +tragedy of "The Tragedian." Gaspard, whom he found displeased at +Linda's shyness of marriage, gave him a singular note on a card for +Linda, containing nothing but this, from her invisible father:—</p> +<br> + +<p class="normal">"I approve thy love. I wait for thee to seal it, that I may at length +embrace my daughter.</p> + +<p class="right">"<span class="sc">The Future One</span>."</p> +<br> + +<p class="normal">So many weighty wishes of others concurring with his own, took away now +from his tender sense of honor the suspicion of selfishness and +importunity, if he should ask of her the fairest festival of his life. +He gave his father great satisfaction by his resolution to do this. +Gaspard communicated to him private war intelligence, and told him, +jokingly, it would be soon time now, that he should help fight for his +friends, the modern French. Albano said it was even his earnest +purpose. He was glad to hear that from a youth, Gaspard said; war +trained one to business, and the right or wrong of it had nothing to do +with the case, and concerned others, namely, those who declared the +war.</p> + +<p class="normal">Albano took his journey, happy through remembrance, still happier +through hope. He had now courage to imagine to himself the day when +Linda, a queen, should entwine with the shining crown of her spirit the +soft bridal-wreath,—when this sun should rise as a Luna,—when a +father, whom his own father loved, should interrupt the high festival +by one of the highest,—and when for once two beings might say to each +other: Now we love each other forever. So blest, and with an infinite +love and sunny-warm soul, he arrived at the Prince's garden.</p> + +<p class="normal">He always, in his passionate punctuality, came much too early. No one +was yet there but two—departing ones, Roquairol and the Princess. +These two were now so often and so openly seen together, that the +appearing seemed intentional. Roquairol came courteously to meet him +and reminded him of the received billet. "This is the theatre, dear +friend," said he, "where I next play; most of the preparations I have +already made, particularly to-day. My excellent Princess has granted me +this spot." "You are surely coming, too," said that lady in a friendly +manner to Albano. "I have already promised him as much," said Albano, +who felt two ice-cellars blowing upon him in the midst of his spring. +Fraülein von Haltermann alone showed him great and decided scorn. +"Shall we go first to my sister's?" asked Roquairol of the Princess, as +he escorted her away. Albano did not understand that. The Princess +nodded. They took leave of him. Fraülein von Haltermann seemed to +forget him. They flew away, stopped up on a hill encircled by the whole +blooming landscape, near a little flower-garden, and then rolled along +down.</p> + +<p class="normal">The Charles's-wain with the beloved maidens came now into the French +princely garden. Ardently did Albano and Linda press each other to +their hearts, which to-day,—just as if those hearts had been a second +time created and adorned for each other by destiny,—they would once +more, with new hopes and worlds, give each other in exchange! All was +so resplendent around them, all new, rare, tranquil; the whole world a +garden full of high, fluttering fountains, which, drunk with splendor, +flung their rainbows through each other in the sun. Julienne drew him +aside to tell him of Linda's fair resolve; but he anticipated her with +the intelligence of his. She strengthened him with her intelligence, +delighted at the singular playing together of the wheels of fortune.</p> + +<p class="normal">When Albano and the bride were together again, they felt a new warmth +of heart; not such as comes from a dull, consuming coal, which at last +crumbles into blackness, but that of a higher sun, which out of loud +flames makes peaceful rays, and which surrounds men with a warm, mild +spring day. Albano neither delayed nor introduced the matter, but gave +her the note of her father, and said during the reading, with trembling +voice, "Thy father begs with me and for me." Linda's tears gushed,—the +youth trembled,—Julienne cried: "Linda, see how he loves thee!" Albano +took her to his heart,—Linda stammered, "Take, then, my dear freedom, +and stay with me." "Till my last hour," said he. "And till mine, and +thou goest to no war," said she, with a tenderly low voice. He pressed +her confusedly and ardently to his heart. "Am I not right, thou +promisest it, my dear?" she repeated.</p> + +<p class="normal">"O thou divine one, think of something fairer now," said he. "Only yes! +Albano, yes?" she continued. "All will be solved by our love," said he. +"Yes? Say only yes!" She begged,—he was silent,—she was terrified. +"Yes?" said she, more vehemently. "O Linda, Linda!" he stammered,—they +sank out of each other's arms,—"I cannot," said he. "Human creatures, +understand each other!" said Julienne. "Albano, speak thy word," said +Linda, severely. "I have none," said he. Linda raised herself, +offended, and said, "I, too, am proud,—I am going now, Julienne." No +prayer of the sister could melt the astounded maiden or the astounded +youth. Anger, with its speaking-trumpet and ear-trumpet, spoke and +heard everything too strongly.</p> + +<p class="normal">The Countess went out, and commanded to harness the horses. "O ye +people, and thou obstinate one," said Julienne; "go, I pray, after her, +and appease her." But the leaves of the sensitive-plant of his honor +were now crushed; this (to him) new excitement, this shower of +indignation had agitated him; he asked not after her. "Look up at that +garden," said his sister, beside herself; "there lies buried thy first +bride; O spare the second!" This worked exactly the opposite effect to +what she had intended. "Liana," said he, coldly, "would not have been +so; just go and attend the Countess!" "O ye men!" cried she, and went.</p> + +<p class="normal">Soon after he saw the two drive away. Gradually the wild horde of +indignation scattered and vanished. But he could not, he felt, have +done otherwise. He had journeyed to meet her and she him with such new +tenderness,—neither knew of it on the other's part,—and hence the +incomprehensible contrast enraged both so exceedingly. He hated, even +in other men, begging, how much more in himself, and never was he +capable of setting right a person who misunderstood him. He looked +now around him; all sparkling fountains of joy had suddenly sunk, the +skies were desolate, and the water murmured in its depths. He rode up +to the garden where Liana's grave should be. Only flower-beds and a +linden-tree with a circular bench did he see there, but no grave. +Stunned and confounded, he looked in and around over the shining +spaces. Obdurate,—tearless,—with a heart suffocated in the +regurgitating stream of love,—gazing out into the wide future, which +ran between mountains into crooked valleys and hid itself, he rode +gloomily home. Here he lighted upon the following leaf from Schoppe, +which the uncle, hastening on in advance from Spain, had left for him.</p> +<br> + +<p class="normal">"It is all right,—I found the well-known portrait,—I bring it along +with me in my hunting-pouch,—I come in a few days or weeks,—I have +encountered the Baldhead, and killed him dead enough,—I am very +much in my senses. Thy singular uncle travelled with me for a long +time. S."</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<p class="center"><img src="images/barstart.png" alt="barstart"></p> +<br> +<h2><a name="div1Ref_32" href="#div1_32">THIRTY-SECOND JUBILEE.</a></h2> + +<h3><span class="sc2">Roquairol.</span></h3> +<br> +<h3>127. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">Linda had spent the whole subsequent day in silent anguish of spirit, +thinking of the beloved, who seemed to her, as Liana had once seemed to +him, not to live in the whole living fire of love, as she did,—she had +been long besieged by the Princess, and then robbed by her of Julienne, +whom she carried off on a pleasure-drive, and who could only throw her +the intelligence, that Albano had also made an excursion to-day, in +order the earlier to embrace Schoppe,—she had remained quiet, +according to her principle, that female pride commands silence, +calmness, and even oblivion,—when at evening she received by the blind +maiden from Blumenbühl, whom she had taken into her service, the +following letter:—</p> +<br> + +<p class="normal">"Thou once mine! Be so again! I will still die, but only for thee, not +for a people on the battle-field. Forgive yesterday and bless to-day. I +have given up again my purpose of an excursion to meet a friend, in +order to throw myself upon thy heart this very day and draw out of +thy heaven and fill mine. I cannot wait until Julienne comes back; +my heart burns for thee. To-morrow I must at all events be in the +Prince's garden, where Roquairol at last gives his Tragedian. Come this +evening—I implore thee by our love—at eight o'clock, either, if it is +clear, into the cavern of Tartarus, whose gravedigger's finery and +Orcus-furniture will certainly be only ridiculous to thee,—or, if it +is cloudy, to the end of the flute-dell.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Thou must take only thy blind maiden with thee. Thou well knowest the +espionage that besets us on all sides. I expect and desire no answer +from thee, but at the stroke of eight, I steal through Elysium to see +where stands the goddess, my heaven, my sun, my bliss, thyself.</p> + +<p class="right">"<span class="sc">Thy Albano</span>."</p> +<br> + +<p class="normal">As by a lightning beam from heaven, her whole being was melted into a +soft, blissful glow; for she believed what the handwriting said, that +the note was from Albano,—however unexpected so sudden a conversion +appeared to her in him;—although it was really written by Roquairol. +Let us go back even to the gloomy source of the rushing hell-flood +which stretches out its ice-cold arm after innocence and heaven.</p> + +<p class="normal">Roquairol had remained through the winter, with all the mortifications +of his ungovernable wishes, tolerably happy and good; the evening star +of love, although for him it rather waned than waxed, stood, however, +not yet below the horizon, but only under clouds. But so soon as Linda +had travelled off with Julienne—and indeed as he immediately guessed +and early learned—to Italy; then did a new storm sweep through his +life, which tore off his last blossoms and beclouded him with the +long-laid dust; for he now, as he had himself predicted to Albano, saw +the net coming up stream toward <i>him</i> and the Countess, which should +take both prisoners. The eating poison of his old passion for many gods +and many mistresses ran round again hotly in all the veins of his +heart:—he fell into extravagant expense, play, debts, as deeply as he +possibly could,—set luck and life at stake,—threw his iron body into +the jaws of death, who could not immediately destroy it,—and +intoxicated himself with the sorrow of a savage over his murdered life +and hopes in the funeral bowl of debauchery; a league which sensuality +and despair have often before this struck with each other on earth, on +theatres of war, and in great cities.</p> + +<p class="normal">Only one thing still held the Captain upright, the expectation that +Albano would keep his present distance from Linda, and then, that she +would come back. At this stage the Princess returned, still keeping +fresh all her hatred of the cold Albano, whose "dupe" she held herself +to be. Roquairol easily induced his father to bring him nearer to her, +as he hoped with her to find news about Albano and everything else. He +soon became of consequence to her by the similarity of his voice and +his former friendship for her foe, and still more by his rare tact of +being to a woman always exactly what she desired.</p> + +<p class="normal">As she had already known long since all his earlier connections and +wishes, accordingly so soon as her telegraphs of Albano had given her +the intelligence of his new love, she readily dropped him a hint on the +subject. Despite the warm part which Roquairol had to play toward her, +he was nevertheless furiously pale in her presence, breathless, +alternately trembling and stiffening; "Is it so?" he asked, in a low +tone. She showed him a letter. "Princess," said he, furiously pressing +her hand to his lips, "thou wast right; forgive me all now."</p> + +<p class="normal">How great an idea he had had of Albano he now for the first time saw, +by his astonishment at what was the most natural thing in the world. +Never does the heart hate more bitterly than when it is compelled at +length to hate, without respecting, the object which it had formerly +been compelled to respect amidst its very hatred; just as, on the same +ground, the bad man is much more deeply and selfishly provoked by +another's hypocrisy than the good man. Roquairol fancied now he had +leave to make a real foe of the proud friend; he became, instead of a +German ruin, an Italian one, full of scorpions. The Princess was the +hot climate which makes the scorpions for the first time really +poisonous. She related to him how Albano had so long sought to win her, +and to decoy her over his deep-laid mines, merely in order, at their +explosion, to have the enjoyment of coldness and contempt, and how +indifferently he had spoken of the Captain, without condescending so +much as to hate him.</p> + +<p class="normal">The Princess allowed the Captain to mount up one step after another on +her throne, till not another remained except her own person. She +offered him even the last step on condition of avenging her. He said he +would avenge her and himself, for Albano had solemnly in Tartarus +resigned the Countess to him. Thus did both seem to hide their real +love under the mask of revenge; the Princess hers for the Captain, he +his for Linda.</p> + +<p class="normal">She brought closer and closer before his eye a plan which he did not +discern, however much she stimulated him by the remark that Albano was +and would be a greater favorite with women than one had hitherto +thought; that even her excellent, discreet sister Idoine, if one might +judge by her silent questions in letters, and other signs, had almost +lost through him both of the things which she had restored to him by +his sick-bed,—health and peace; and that he must never hope to see or +even to make the Countess inconstant.</p> + +<p class="normal">At last she said, slowly, the fearful words, "Roquairol, you have his +voice, and she has by night no eye." "Heaven and hell!" he exclaimed, +turning alternately red and pale, and looking at once into heaven and +hell, whose doors sprang open before him. "<i>Va!</i>"<a name="div2Ref_124" href="#div2_124"><sup>[124]</sup></a> he added, +quickly, without having yet fathomed the black depth of this +white-foaming sea. The Princess embraced him ardently, he her still +more so. "In a poetic fiction," said he, "<i>thy</i> thought would easily +have come to me, but in actual life I have no cunning!" "O knave!" said +she. As soon and as long as he might venture, he said Thou, because he +knew the heart, especially woman's. Soon after, when they had been +still more frank towards each other, said she: "If she remains innocent +with you, then you have offended no one, and no one has lost; if not, +then either she <i>was not</i> so, or she deserved the proof and punishment +of being deluded." "Yes, that is divine,—that fits into the +magnificent <i>Tragedian</i>, just before the end," said he, but would not +explain himself on the subject.</p> + +<p class="normal">Now was an object and centre supplied to the wild circles of his +action. He coldly dissected Albano's love-letters into great and little +characters, merely in order to copy them faithfully; hence it was that +Albano once found at Rabette's his handwriting without his thoughts. He +inquired of Rabette about all Albano's lesser relations, in order to +elaborate his parts, even to the smallest particular, and even so he +read all Italian tourists, in order to speak freely with Linda about +every beautiful spot, where he, as the sham-Albano, had enjoyed with +her Hesperian life. It tickled him that he could thus, with the flame +in his breast, and with the cold ice-light in his head, now for once +lay out and considerately manage, in real life, all theatrical +preparations and complications, just as he had once done for the stage.</p> + +<p class="normal">He saw Albano, whose haughty treatment he had experienced, come from +his journey; he saw the blooming goddess walk in Lilar; he heard, +through the spies of the Princess, of their engagement; high heaved his +dead sea in heavy waves, and sought to drag down its victims from their +flight, even from heaven. Immediately after the tragedy which he +proposed to enact with Linda, his own was to come in the Prince's +garden, which he from time to time promised and postponed; he had to +wait and spy long till a time should appear into which so many teeth of +a double machinery might catch at once.</p> + +<p class="normal">At length the time appeared, and he wrote the above-exhibited letter to +Linda. All was reckoned upon and settled, and every assistance of +accident woven in with the plan. His tragedy had long been committed to +memory by his acquaintances, although never rehearsed, because he, as +he said, meant to surprise his fellow-players themselves with his part +in the very midst of the play. The pleasure which he always had in +bidding farewell,—because here the emotion refreshed him at once by +its shortness and by its strength,—he now gave himself with as many as +loved him. From Rabette he parted with so tempestuous a tenderness that +she said to him, with alarm, "Charles, I hope this does not signify +anything evil?" "All is evil in me, just now," said he.</p> + +<p class="normal">Through the intercession of the Princess the most important spectators +were invited for the next day to his tragedy, even Gaspard and +Julienne, together with the court. The mystery took. Even from the +Princess his part was concealed. Only his father, who would have been +glad to follow the court, he struck off the list by putting him into a +great rage, for he knew of no other way of keeping him back than by +this thorn-hedge. His mother and Rabette he had conjured by their +welfare, by his welfare, not to be spectators of his play.</p> + +<p class="normal">A new wind of fortune had come to help him raise his flying-machine, +through the singular brother of the Knight, who heard with such joy of +the Iron Mask of his tragic mask, that he came to him with the proposal +of introducing to him a new and wonderful player. "All the parts are +taken up," said the poet. "Make a chorus between the acts, and give it +to one," said the Spaniard. Roquairol asked after the player's name. +The Spaniard led him to his hotel. No sooner had they entered, than a +voice from within his chamber called, in a guttural, animal's voice, +"Back again so soon, my master?" They found within nothing but a black +jay. "Post the bird on the stage, let him be the Chorus; let him repeat +in half-song,<a name="div2Ref_125" href="#div2_125"><sup>[125]</sup></a> <i>mezza voce</i>, only two or three lines; the effect +will be felt," said the Spaniard.</p> + +<p class="normal">Roquairol was astonished at the long recitations of the jay. The +Spaniard begged him to dictate a still longer one, that he might with +his own ears hear him drill it into the bird. Roquairol gave him, "In +life dwells deception, not on the stage." The Spaniard gave out, at +first, merely a word to be repeated, then another, repeated it three +times, then said, snapping his fingers by way of incitement to the +creature, "<i>Allons diablesse!</i>" and the animal stuttered out, in a +deep, hollow tone, the whole line. Roquairol found in this comic +bestial-mask something frightful, and accepted the proposal to compose +some lines of a chorus and assign them to the bird, on one unique +condition, namely, that the Spaniard would, the evening previous, draw +away his nephew Albano from Pestitz, under some pretext or other, and +then appear with him in the Prince's garden. The Spaniard said, "Sir +Captain, I need no pretext; I have a true reason. I am to travel with +him to meet his friend Schoppe, who will come to-morrow evening; he, +too, will be one of your spectators."</p> + +<p class="normal">Albano, in his perplexed frame of mind toward Linda, and in his +impatient expectation of Schoppe, could not have accepted anything so +readily as a little plan for an excursion, by which he might the +earlier have this beloved Schoppe on his breast. Julienne was entreated +by the Princess, in the presence of the sick Prince, to accompany her +to Idoine, who waited for her half-way at a frontier castle, and to go +back the next day into the Prince's garden. She declined. The sick +brother, according to concert between him and the Princess, put in the +petitions which had been requested of him. The sister fulfilled them.</p> + +<p class="normal">And now all was arranged for the evening on which Roquairol was to see +Linda. So glimmer by night in the sheds of an innocent hamlet the +inserted brands of the incendiary; the storm-wind roars around the +weary, sleeping inmates; the robbers stand on the mountains in the +mists of evening, and look down in expectation of the moment when the +fiery swords of the flames shall gleam out on all sides through the +mist, and rob and murder with them, as they rush down on the dismayed +and defenceless.</p> +<br> +<h3>128. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">Linda read the letter innumerable times over, wept for sweet love, and +never once thought of—forgiving. This breeze of love, which bends all +the flowers and breaks none, she had herself so long wished; and now, +all at once, after the foggy dead-calm of the heart, it came fresh and +living, through the garden of her life. She could hardly wait for eight +o'clock. She helped herself while away the time by selecting her dress, +which at last consisted of the veil, hat, and all the things which she +had worn when she found her lover for the first time on the island of +Ischia.</p> + +<p class="normal">She placed upon her beating bosom the paradise, or orange-blossoms, the +indexes of that time and world, and went at the appointed hour, with +the blind maiden on her arm, down into the garden. As well from hatred +of Tartarus as from compliance with the letter, she took the road to +the flute-dell. The night was obscure to her eye, and the blind maiden +acted as her guide.</p> + +<p class="normal">Overhead, on the altar-mount of Lilar, like the evil spirit on the +battlement of Paradise, stood Roquairol, looking sharply down into the +garden, to find Linda and her path. His festive-steed had been fastened +down below in the deep thicket to some foreign shrubbery. Full of fury +he saw Dian and Chariton still walking in the garden with the children, +and up in the thunder-house a little light. He cursed every disturbing +soul, for he was determined to murder this evening, in case of +necessity, every stormer of his heaven. At last he saw Linda's tall, +red-dressed form move toward the flute-dell, go up to the threshold of +bush-work, and disappear behind it.</p> + +<p class="normal">He hastened down the long, spiral mountain, warm as a poisoned snake. +He heard behind him some one hurrying after in the long windings of the +bushes. In a fury he drew a sword-cane, which, with a pocket-pistol, he +had by him. At last he saw an odious form, like an evil spirit, running +after him; it attacked him. It was the long-armed ape of the Princess. +He run him through on the spot, in order not to be followed by him.</p> + +<p class="normal">Below, in the open garden, he went slowly, in order not to awaken any +suspicion. He stole softly as death, when on the thunder-car of a cloud +he sails unheard through the air over a blossoming tree, beneath which +a virgin leans, and hid the murderous thunder-bolt in his breast. He +opened the high gate-shrubbery of the flute-dell; all was still within +there and dark; only in the upper heavens a singular, roaring storm +swept along and chased the herd of clouds, but on the earth it sounded +low, and not a leaf stirred. "Is any one there?" asked the blind +gate-keeper. "Good evening, maiden," said Roquairol, in order by the +tone of his speech to pass for Albano.</p> + +<p class="normal">Deep in the vale, which now grew narrower and more leafy, Linda was +singing softly an old Spanish melody of her childhood's time. At last +she was visible; the giant-snake made the poisonous spring at the sweet +form, and she was entwined in a thousand-fold embrace.</p> + +<p class="normal">He hung on her speechless, breathless; the cloud of his life broke; +burning tears of passion and pain and joy gushed out; all the arms into +which the stream of his love had hitherto run round in shallows, rushed +together roaring, and grasped and bore <i>one</i> form. "Weep not, my good +Albano; we surely love each other again forever," said Linda, and the +tender, beautiful lip gave him the first, fervent kiss. Then the +fire-wheel of ecstasy whirled round and bore him with it, and around +the head which hung lashed thereto the circling flames waved high. From +a dread of being seen, if he should look, and from pleasure, he had +closed his eyes; now he opened them,—and there, so near to him and in +his arms, he beheld the lofty form, the proud, blooming countenance and +the moist, warm eyes of love. "Thou heavenly one," said he, "kill me in +this hour, that so I may die in heaven. How can I wish to live any +longer after it? O that I could pour my soul into my tears and my life +into thine, and then be no more!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Albano," said she, "why art thou to-day so altered, so sad, so +tender?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Call me rather," said he, "by <i>thy</i> name, as lovers exchange names in +Otaheite. Perhaps I have drunk a little, too; but I truly repent of +yesterday, and I truly love thee anew. Ah, thou, dost thou, then, also +love my very innermost self, Linda?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Sweet youth, can I then, now, choose but love thee eternally? I do, +indeed, henceforth cleave to thee and thou to me."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Ah, thou dost not know me. When does man know, then, that precisely +he, this very <i>I</i>, is meant and loved? Only forms are embraced, only +the fleshly covering is enfolded in the arms; who, then, clasps a +person to a person? <i>Perchance God</i>."</p> + +<p class="normal">"And I do thee," said Linda.</p> + +<p class="normal">"O Linda, wilt thou still love me in my grave, when the chaff of life +is flown away,—still love me in my hell, when I have deceived thee out +of love to thee? Is love, then, love's justification?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"I love thee always, so long as thou lovest me. Art thou the +poison-flower; then am I the bee, and die on the sweet cup."</p> + +<p class="normal">The bride sank on his neck. He clasped her passionately, and grew more +and more like the glacier, which by very warmth rolls further onward, +and in melting desolates. Around him danced the pleasures with heavenly +faces, but showed him in their hands the masks of furies.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Thou wilt die of love; I am already dead from love. O, thou knowest +not how long ago I loved thee!" he answered.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Glowing heart," said she, "think of this night when thou one day seest +Idoine!" "Then shall I see only my risen <i>sister</i>," said he, but +instantly trembled at the truth's having escaped his lips. "One sees," +he added, hastily, "the risen Herculaneum, but one dwells overhead in +the blooming Portici. Thou and I saw in Baja's gold, under the sea, the +sunken arches and gates, and we sailed on farther toward living cities. +Is even Roquairol, I pray, like me in so many things, and does he love +thee so much, and has he loved thee so long, and died once, too, like +Liana?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"But that creature I had never loved, and now am I thy eternal bride."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Poor fellow! But I did wrong, however, I think, when I once, in the +cavern of Tartarus, renounced thee, the unseen, beforehand, out of love +toward my friend."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Certainly not. But how have we both fallen upon the subject of this +uncomfortable being?" said she, kissing him.</p> + +<p class="normal">"<i>Uncomfortable</i>,<a name="div2Ref_126" href="#div2_126"><sup>[126]</sup></a> indeed," replied he, with bitter emphasis, +blazing up in revengeful love, in a discord of rage and lust, and +determined now to weave the funeral veil over her whole future. He beat +his dark eagle's wings about his victim, and stifled and awakened +kisses; he tore the orange-blossoms from her bosom and threw them +behind him. "Love is living and dying and heaven and hell," said he; +"love is murder and fire and death and pain and pleasure. Caligula +would have placed his Cæsonia on the rack only for the sake of learning +from her why he so loved her. I could also..."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Divine Albano, do not drink so any more! Thou art too impetuous; even +thy eyebrows storm! What art thou like?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"All things at once, like a tempest full of glowing heat,—and my +heaven is luminous with lightning,—and I throw cold hail, and one +destruction after another; and a warm rain falls upon the flowers, and +a still bow of peace knits together heaven and earth."</p> + +<p class="normal">At this moment he saw in heaven the storm-clouds, like storm-birds, +already flying more brightly between the stars and near the angry, +bloody eye of Mars; the moon, that came to scare and betray him, soon +threw upon him the judging eye of a god. In defiance of fate, he tore +open for his violent kisses the nun's veil and saintly splendor of the +virgin's bosom. Far off stood the beacon-tower of conscience enveloped +in thick clouds. Linda wept, trembling and glowing, on his breast. "Be +my good genius, Albano," said she. "And thy evil one. But call me only +one single time Charles," said he, full of passion. "O, be <i>called</i> +Charles, but remain my former Albano, my holy Albano," said she.</p> + +<p class="normal">Suddenly the flutes in the dell began, which the pious father caused to +play at his evening devotions. Like tones of music on the battle-field, +they called down murder. Then did Linda's golden throne of life and of +happiness melt away, and the white, bridal garment of her innocence was +rent and burnt to ashes.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Now am I thine until my death!" said she, softly, with streams of +tears. "Only till mine!" said he, and wept now softly with the weeping +flutes. Upon the golden ball on the mountain already glimmered the +moon, which, like an armed comet, like a one-eyed giant, pressed on, to +drive the sinner out of his Eden. "Stay till the moon comes, that I may +look into thy face," she begged. "No, thou divine one, my festive steed +already neighs; the death-torch burns down into my hand," said he, in a +low, tragic tone. The storm had passed from heaven down to the earth. +She replied, "The storm is so loud, what saidst thou, love?" He wildly +kissed again her lips and her bosom. He could not go; he could not +stay. "Go not to-morrow," said he, "to the Tragedian, I entreat thee; +the end, I hear, is too agitating."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Besides, I never like such things. O, stay, stay longer; I am sure I +shall not see thee again to-morrow." He pressed her to himself, closed +her eyes with his face. The moon had already reared its Gorgon head in +the east; he would let go life when he let her go from his arms; and +yet every stammered word of love consumed the short moment. The storm +labored in the torn trees, and the flute-tones glided away like +butterflies, like innocent children beneath the great wing. Roquairol, +as if confounded by such a presence, was near upon the point of saying, +look at me, I am Roquairol; but the thought quickly placed itself +between, she does not deserve that of thee; no, let her learn it for +the first time in that hour when one forgives everything! Yet once more +he held her passionately clasped to himself; already the moonlight fell +in upon both; he repeated a thousand words of love and tenderness, +thrust her back, turned swiftly round, and stalked away in Albano's +dress through the vale.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Good night, maiden," said he to the blind girl, in passing. Linda sang +not again as before. The stars looked down upon him; the storm winds +spake to him; the pleasures went along by him, but they had now the +masks of the furies on their faces. An arm struck down from heaven, an +arm grasped up from hell, and both would seize him, to tear him +asunder. "Well, well," said he, "I was fortunate indeed, but I might +have been still more so had I been her curséd Albano," and flung +himself upon his festive horse, and flew the same night to the Prince's +garden.</p> +<br> +<h3>129. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">Albano and his uncle went on to meet the announced Schoppe from village +to village. The uncle continually pushed back the hope before them like +a horizon, farther and farther, as they advanced. Once, at evening, the +Count fancied he heard Schoppe's voice close beside him; in vain, the +beloved man came not yet to his heart, and with longing impatience +Albano saw the clouds in heaven sail along over the way which his +precious one was taking beneath them on the earth. The uncle told him a +long story of a secret trouble which often weighed down the Librarian, +and of his liability to attacks of madness, which had some time ago +repelled him from him, because among all men there was none he dreaded +so much as the madman. Of Romeiro's portrait he seemed to know nothing. +Albano was silent with vexation, for the Spaniard was one of those +insufferable men who, with sleek, steady face, and with screwed-up and +helmed soul, can let another's contradiction flutter around them +without any contradiction on their part, without echo, without a +reflection or alteration, and to whom another's discourse is only a +still dew, the fall of which wears away no stone. To this was added +Albano's exasperation against his new falsehood about Schoppe's +nearness, and against his own incapacity of listening for a good, long +hour incredulously to what a liar is saying.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Schoppe is, upon my word, already arrived at the Prince's garden by +another route," said the Spaniard at last, in quite a lively mood, and +advised turning back, in the comfortable enjoyment of that cool, +impudent faculty he had of jamming up every one who did not do homage +to him, between sharp, tedious ice-fields.</p> + +<p class="normal">They arrived before the princely garden in the midst of nothing but +carriages, out of which were alighting the spectators of to-day's +dramatic festival. Albano found among them already his father, the +Princess, and Julienne, and, among the actors, Bouverot, his old +exercise-master Falterle, and the yellow-dressed merchant's lady in the +red shawl, who had once been less <i>in</i> than <i>on</i> Roquairol's heart, +and +finally Roquairol himself. The Captain stepped up immediately, first +and foremost, to the well-known Albano, and said, with elaborate ease, +the play would begin soon, only Dian with his wife was still expected. +Dian, always easily moved, most of all by an invitation, could least of +all resist one when art was the occasion; through him Chariton also was +soon gained for the play, but not without one condition,—that she was +to play in the piece the part of a beloved to no one but her spouse. +When Roquairol spoke with Albano, he found it hard to laugh easily, or +to raise his eyelids, as if his face were frozen or swollen; and an +avenging, humiliating spirit inwardly weighed his down to the earth +before the pure and happy friend out of whose spring he had torn and +cast away the bright sun, and over whose life he had hung an eternal +plague-cloud.</p> + +<p class="normal">Amidst the tumult of garden talk, and in the fruitless wish to impart +to his sister Julienne three soft words for the Linda of whose presence +he had been so long deprived, Albano saw the carriage of the Countess +roll along on the heights up to Liana's last garden, there stop, and +her and Dian and Chariton alight from it.</p> + +<p class="normal">Then he thought of nothing but to fly to the long-missed loved one,—an +act which, before the many eyes, easily assumed the appearance of a +longing for Dian; and at this moment, in the thirst of love, he, in +fact, asked no question about eyes. "Ah, here I am, after all!" said +Linda, and came to meet him, interweaving the delicate vine-tendrils of +soft glances with his, so shyly and so lovingly; and the evening blush +of bashfulness, like a spring-redness in the night, mantled her heaven, +and the white moon of innocence stood in the midst of it. Albano was +dissolved with the melting wind of this forgiveness, reproached himself +with his sweet joy at her conversion, as if it were a selfish pride in +his victory, and could hardly, in the fair confusion of good fortune, +command his sweet astonishment and his melting heart, which would fain +dissipate itself before her like a tempest into evening dew. He threw +his soul into his eye, and gave it to his beloved. Before Chariton he +felt that he must veil himself. To Dian and Linda he said, as they +looked into the setting sun, only the word, "Ischia!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"There lies dear Anastasius," said Chariton to Dian, "my good friend +Liana buried, and one knows not properly whereabouts in the garden, for +one sees really nothing but flowers and flowers; however, she so +ordered it." "That is very sad and fine," said Dian; "but let it +be,—gone is gone, Chariton!" and led her aside, out of indulgence to +the lovers. Albano, who overlooked nothing, and overheard everything, +showed plainly enough how much he had been agitated by Chariton's +words. Linda, too, perceived it. "Only speak out thy sadness," said +she; "I do truly love <i>her</i> too." "I am thinking upon the living," said +he, collecting himself, and looked timidly, not upon the flower-garden, +but upon the sun-enchanted<a name="div2Ref_127" href="#div2_127"><sup>[127]</sup></a> evening landscape; "can one, then, +sufficiently forgive, and think no evil upon the earth? Linda, O how +thou forgivest me to-day!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Friend," said she, "when you sin you shall receive forgiveness; but +until then, I pray you be quiet!" He looked upon her significantly. +"Hast thou not already forgiven, and have not I too? But couldst +thou have known how intimately I lived with thee during these days on +the way to my Schoppe, and brought over the divine past into the +future—ah, can I then tell thee all in this place?" Fortunately +she—like other women, attending less to words than to looks, gestures, +and actions—heard more with the spiritual than the bodily ear, and +stepped not over the brink of the abyss which his words laid open so +near her. Thus did these two now play, like children, near the cold +thunder-charged lightning-rod, out of which at the smallest nearer +approach must dart the flashing scythe of death.</p> + +<p class="normal">Both went on with their illusions near the lightning. The sun went down +with his flames by the little mountain and the smooth flowery grave +over into the distant plains. Out of the depths of the princely garden +came tones fluttering up through the long evening rays and deified the +golden landscape. The rays were solitary wings, that sought their +heart, and joined it, and then flew onward—and the loving hearts +became full of wings. The rays sank, the tones soared. Around Linda and +Albano lay a golden circle of gardens and mountains and green valleys, +and every flower rocked with its riches under the last lingering gold, +and became the cradle of the eye, the cradle of the heart. The lovers +looked at each other, and upon the earth, with inspired looks; the +shining world appeared to them only in the magic mirror of their +hearts, and they were, themselves, both, only floating images therein.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Linda, I will be more gentle," said he. "I swear it by the saint in +whose garden we stand!" "Be so, dear one; in Lilar thou wast not so!" +said she. He understood it of his storminess toward Liana. "Bury this +recollection in thy love!" said he, reddening. She looked upon him like +a virgin,—her inner being had remained virginal and innocent,—as the +peach turns its red and glowing side toward the sun, but keeps under +the leaves the tender white. Her eye drank from his, his drank from +hers; the heavens mingled with her heaven, the purple sun glimmered +back out of the warm dew of loving eyes. "O that I might now kiss +thee!" said Albano. "Ah, that thou mightest!" said Linda. "So goldenly +did the sun once go down into the sea!" said he. "And afterward we gave +each other the first kiss!" said she. "We will see each other now much +oftener," said he. "Yes, indeed, and longer by day; by night I, poor +one, have, indeed, no eye. Even now is my eye already going down +yonder," said she, as the sun sank from sight.</p> + +<p class="normal">It was a good, gentle spirit, or Liana's own,—that spirit which +conducts man by the gradual transition of twilight over into night, +which pours soothing tears into sorrow and into ecstasy, and which +suffers not the short path of love's evening star to be overcast with +clouds,—this spirit it was which saved their tongues and ears from the +terrible sound which would at once have torn up the golden magic circle +of evening into an all-surrounding blaze of hell.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Who is that coming so hastily yonder?" said Linda. "My foe," said +Albano. Roquairol had missed him, and had heard of Linda's arrival; in +the hell-torment of anxiety, lest what had happened the night before +might reveal itself before them this evening, he hurried, under the +pretext of going to get Dian as a performer and Albano as a hearer, up +the mountain. Like a centaur, half man, half wild beast, he broke in +upon the melodious souls and joys with the hollow, confused war of his +whole being. But hardly had he perceived in their looks the +consecration of rapture, and seen that the black curtain still lay fast +upon his murder, when the grim spirit of jealousy reared itself within +him. "She is now my betrothed," he said to himself; and the solar +eclipse of confused repentance was eclipsed by the tempest of chagrin. +Linda, kindling into anger from an inward shudder at his similarity of +voice, stood before him like a diamond, clear, sparkling, hard and +cutting; but Albano, amidst the echoes of the harmony, stood gently on +the churchyard of the sister of this brother, and not without some +confusion. Roquairol was haunted again by yesterday's unclean +suspicion, that perhaps Albano and Linda were no longer innocent.</p> + +<p class="normal">Angrily, he now invited Linda to make one of the spectators at his +tragedy. "You told me," said she to Albano, "it concluded so +tragically; I am no friend of that." "He is not at all acquainted with +it," said Roquairol. "No," said Albano. As the serpent looked down upon +the paradise of the first pair, so looked he with the pleasing +consciousness that he could hand them the apple from the tree of +knowledge which should immediately drive them out from theirs. +"Besides," she subjoined, "I see badly in the evening, or not at all." +Roquairol affected to be surprised at that, joked upon the gain which +it would be to him as first lover in the play, if she only <i>heard</i> him, +and begged Dian to unite in entreating her. Not inborn, but acquired +coldness, has at command the highest falsehood; the former is capable +only of dissimulation, the latter of simulation also, because it at +once knows and uses all ways and means of kindling a fire, and keeps +its firm standing on slippery ice by the ashes of former heat. When +Albano himself at length advised her to take part in the tragic +enjoyment, and grant her friends of both sexes below there the fair, +pure enjoyment of her presence, then she consented, not without +wondering at his retraction.</p> + +<p class="normal">She took Chariton into her carriage. The men walked on ahead. On the +way Roquairol said to Dian, who had to play the character of Albano in +the piece, "So soon as I have said, in the fourth act, 'Even spiritual +love goes to meet sensual, and, after all, like a seafarer on his way +eastward, arrives at last in the lands of sundown,' then you fall in." +Dian laughed, and said, "I'll fall in. In Italy, however, the passage +begins at once as a southerly and westerly one." Albano was silent for +vexation, and repented having helped persuade Linda to this doubtful +festival. The Princess cast sundry rapid glances of contempt at the +cheated Linda, and she answered them with the like; distinguished women +betray their sex most in hostile contact with distinguished ones.</p> +<br> +<h3>130. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">Most of the spectators had in the beginning come more for the sake of +the spectators and performers than of the play; but soon they were +attracted by the mystery and by the extraordinary stage itself. The +scene was laid on the so-called Island of Slumber in the Prince's +garden, which was covered with a wild, thick tangle of flowers, bushes, +and high trees. Its eastern side showed an open, free foreground, on +which the performance was to take place, with a white Sphinx on an +empty tomb farther in among the green. The wings of the scenes were the +dark leafy parts; pit and boxes the shore opposite, which was separated +from the island by a lake, about as broad as a moderate-sized ship. +From two trees of the two opposite shores hung down like a lantern out +over the middle of the lake the cage of the jay or chorus, suspended +there by way of bringing her deep, dull voice nearer to the spectators. +"I am, to tell the truth, 'curious," said the Knight to his son, "to +know whence you will draw the tragical." "Leave me alone for that!" +said Roquairol, who had hitherto been walking backward and forward +silently and uneasily, with his eyes on the ground; "only I must make a +general request of the company to be pardoned the delay. When I address +the moon in the fifth act, I can very well use the real one, if I only +begin just so that her rising shall coincide with the last scene."</p> + +<p class="normal">At length he embarked, with a face that was growing pale, in the +Charon's boat, as he said, and ferried over alone. Then the other +players sailed over one after another. All were lost behind the trees; +and now, from behind in the embowered western parts of the island, +the immortal overture from Mozart's Don Juan rose like an invisible +spirit-realm slowly and grandly into the air.</p> + +<p class="normal">"<i>Diablesse!</i>" cried thereupon the brother of the Knight to the jay, +and clapped his hands at the same time as a signal.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Open the coffin," the creature began, in a hollow voice, accompanied +by single, lugubrious, tones of the orchestra,—"open the coffin in the +churchyard, and show for the last time the breast of the corpse and his +dry eyelid, and then shut it to forever."</p> + +<p class="normal">At this moment Lilia (Chariton) and Carlos (Dian) stepped forth,—two +lovers yet in the earliest time of the first love. No sad rain of tears +yet swept away the golden morning dew, they are so true to each other. +Lilia rejoices with him that her brother Hiort is just coming back from +his travels to find his youthful friend Carlos her eternal one. +"Perhaps he, too, is right fortunate," said Lilia. "O, certainly so," +said Carlos; "he is indeed that, and everything else." At times both +were silent in happy contemplation of each other; then tones went up +out of the veiled west of the island and bore the mute joy into the +ether, and showed it to them hovering and glorified. A sweet sympathy +diffused itself among the spectators for Dian's and Chariton's +imitation of their own fair reality, so delicate, yet mingled with +southern glow; they heard and saw Greeks. All at once Lilia fled behind +the flower-bushes, for her enemy, <i>Salera</i>, Carlos's father, came, +personated by Bouverot.</p> + +<p class="normal">Salera angrily announced to his son the arrival of his bride, +<i>Athenais</i>. Carlos made known to him now the mystery of his earlier +love, and showed himself armed against a whole future. Salera cried, +with exasperation, "Would that she were not, as she is, beautiful, so +that I might have the pleasant duty of forcing and punishing thee! But +thou wilt see her, and obey me, and yet I shall hate thee." Carlos +replied, "Father, I have already seen Lilia." Salera went off with +angry repetitions, and Carlos wished now still more ardently for +Hiort's return, in order with him more easily to abduct his sister +through his persuasion and attendance. Here closed the first act.</p> + +<p class="normal">The brother of the Knight called to the jay, "<i>Diablesse!</i>" and scraped +with his foot, as a signal.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Appear, pale man!" spake the creature; "the clock vibrates the hour; +man of sorrow, land upon the still island!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Hiort stepped forth, with his cheeks painted pale, with open breast, +looked upon the tomb, and said, from his innermost soul, "At last!" The +music played a dance. "Yes, indeed, island of slumber thou may'st well +be called; our days end with a sleep," he added. Now came his Carlos. +"Hiort, art thou dead?" cried he, in terror, over the corpse. "I am +only pale," said he. "O, how dost thou come back so out of the +beautiful, gay earth?" said Carlos. "Exhausted, Charles, with stillborn +hopes; my present is disinherited by the past; the foliage of the +sensual is fallen off; not even beautiful nature do I longer fancy, and +clouds like mountains are more dear to me than real mountains. I have +truly reaped the bitter weeds of life, and yet must I, in this empty +breast, carry about with me a destroying angel, who eternally digs and +writes, and every letter is a wound. No advice! You call it conscience. +But bring me a little sleep-draught hither on the island of sleep, +Charles!"</p> + +<p class="normal">They brought wine. He now gave his friend an account of his life,—his +faults, among which he adduced the very one in which he was just +persisting, namely, drinking; his self-reproducing vanity, even with +its self-acknowledgment; his conquests of women, which made him a +magnetic mountain, full of the attracted nails from ships that had +thereby fallen to pieces; his propensity, like Cardan, to offend his +friends, to break in upon his own or another's good fortune, as, even +when a child, he longed to interrupt the preacher,<a name="div2Ref_128" href="#div2_128"><sup>[128]</sup></a> or in the midst +of the finest tune to smash the harpsichord, and in a fit of enthusiasm +to think the most licentious thoughts.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Once I had still, after all, two distinct and different selves,—one +that promised and lied, and one that believed the other; now they both +lie to each other, and neither believes." Carlos answered, "Horrible! +But thy sorrow is verily itself a help and a gift." "Ah, what!" he +replied. "Man condemns less his iniquity than the past situation +wherein he committed it, while, in a fresh situation, he finds it new +and sweet again, and loves it as much as ever. What lies cold yonder, +that is my image [pointing to the Sphinx], that stirs itself, living, +in my bloody breast. Help me! draw out the rending monster!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Albano fired with rage in his innermost soul at the guilty repetition +of that tender confessional night with him.<a name="div2Ref_129" href="#div2_129"><sup>[129]</sup></a> "He is bold enough," +said Gaspard, in a whisper to Albano, "because, as I hear, he is really +to personate himself; but when he sees himself so, he is surely better +than he sees himself." "O," said Albano, "so I thought once! But is, +then, the contemplation of a bad condition itself a good condition? Is +he not so much the worse that he bears this consciousness, and so much +the weaker that he sees an incurable cancer-sore growing upon him? The +highest thing he has, at all events, lost,—innocence." "A fleeting +cradle virtue! He has, after all, a bright, bold, reflecting faculty," +said Gaspard. "Only effeminate, shameless, double-meaning, many-sided +debility of heart he has; talks of power, and cannot tear through the +thinnest mesh of pleasure," said Albano.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Charles," said Hiort, tenderly, as if answering him, "yes, there is +yet one help. When on the ground of life one fresh color after another +fades,—when existence is now nothing, neither comedy nor tragedy, only +a stale show-piece,—still is there one heaven open to man, which shall +receive him,—love. Let this close against him, and he is damned +forever. Carlos, my Carlos, I could still be happy, for I have seen +<i>Athenais</i>; but I can be still more unhappy than I am, for she loves me +not. In my heart lies this blazing, but continually sharp-cutting +diamond, upon which it bleeds as often as it beats." Everywhere now did +Roquairol let Linda's image play in. At this crisis, Carlos at first +threw his friend into an internal uproar, with the intelligence that +Athenais had been selected by his father for <i>his</i> bride, and was +coming soon; but he calmed him, when his sister Lilia appeared, by +quickly taking her hand, and saying, "This one only do I love." They +spoke of the obstacles on the part of old Salera, whom Carlos called a +glacier, which bore fruit under no sun, and could not be built upon. +"Stand by me, Charles," said Hiort; "think what thou wrotest to me: +'Like two streams will we blend together, and grow, and bear, and dry +up together.'"<a name="div2Ref_130" href="#div2_130"><sup>[130]</sup></a> Thus did the three beings mutually understand, +bind, elevate each other; all had one end,—their common welfare. +Carlos swore eternal rebellion against his father; Hiort, to protect +his sister, and cried, "At last the empty cornucopia of Time, which +hitherto has given out nothing but hollow sounds, pours out flowers +again." "O, the women! How common and commonplace are almost all men! +But almost every woman is new." Gaspard said, with a smile, "Women say +the reverse of us and themselves." The second act closed in gladness +and peace.</p> + +<p class="normal">"<i>Diablesse!</i>" cried the Spaniard, and stretched his right hand high in +the air.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Fleeting," began the black jay, amid tones of music, "is man, more +fleeting is his bliss, but earlier than all dies the friend with his +word."</p> + +<p class="normal">The third act followed immediately upon the heels of the preceding, and +broke up, by the uninterrupted continuance of the artistic enchantment, +which should belong to every play and every work of art that is to be +read, all cold, prosaic astonishment, even that which arose from the +wonderful speaking of the jay on the lake. A great, beautiful, proud +lady appeared,—Athenais (personated by the merchant's wife, +Roquairol's by-mistress), full of hope in her old friend Lilia, who +called herself "the little Athenais," and, sweetly dreaming over the +dream of former days, Lilia sinks into her arms with twofold tears; +Athenais does indeed bear in her hand three heavens and three hells. +"How beautiful thou returnest! My poor brother!" said Lilia softly. +"Name him not," said she proudly, "he can die for me, but I cannot live +for him." Here Carlos flies in to his Lilia,—stops and stiffens in his +flight,—collects himself, and approaches Lilia. She says, "Count +Salera,—Athenais—" He grew pale, she red. A constraining, painful +confusion entangled them all three; every honey drop was taken from a +thorn-hedge. Lilia, with a shudder, is made more and more strongly +aware of Athenais's sudden victory over her fortune and love. Athenais +went away. The two lovers look upon each other for a long time with +trembling. "Am I right?" asked Lilia. "Am I in fault?" said Carlos. +"No," said she, "for thou art a mortal, and, what is still worse, a +man." "What shall I do, then?" replied Carlos. "Thou shalt," said she, +solemnly, "after one year go into a garden on a hill, and look around +thee and seek me in the garden,—in the garden—under the beds,—deep +below one,—I know not how deep." She hastened away, as if frantic, and +sang, "All over, all over with loving and living!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Carlos stood some minutes with his wild look on the ground, and said, +in a low, hollow tone, "God, it is thy work!" and went off,—met his +friend, who called out impetuously and joyfully, "She is here!" but he +hastened on proudly, and only called back, "Not now, Hiort!" To him +came Lilia, weeping, and led him onward. "Come," said she, "do not look +upon the tomb; we are both too unhappy."</p> + +<p class="normal">Then came out old Salera with Athenais,—seized on ice for fire, and +took his cold coin for warm,—praised her like a man, and his son like +a father,—and said, as in a play, There comes himself. "Here, son," +said he, "I set before thee thy happiness, if thou canst deserve it." +Carlos had lost Lilia's heart,—his father's wish, the might of beauty, +the omnipotence of loving beauty, stood before him, his longing and the +thought of cruelty toward this goddess, and finally a world within him, +which stood so near to her sun, prevailed over a double fidelity;—he +sank on his knee before her, and said, "I am guiltless, if I am happy." +The pair go off on one side; Salera on the other, and encounters Lilia, +whose hand he takes, with the words, "You, as a friend of my house and +son, certainly take the deepest interest in his latest happiness as the +possessor of Athenais." So ended the third act, which, by its unjust, +all-distorting allusions, filled and fired Albano with an exasperated +desire for the end, merely that he might call Roquairol to account for +this assassin-like brandishing of the tragic dagger. "The old +fellow,"<a name="div2Ref_131" href="#div2_131"><sup>[131]</sup></a> said Gaspard, laughing, "fancies he is painting me too +herein; I wish, however, he would take stronger colors."</p> + +<p class="normal">Before the fourth act commenced, the Spaniard threw up his left hand, +and the black jay spoke immediately: "Sin punishes sin, and the foe the +foe; untamable is love, untamable also vengeance. See, now comes the +man whom they no more love, and brings with him his wounds and his +wrath." There stood Hiort, as if before his grave, which drew down his +head,—weeping and drinking enormously,—soft evening tones of music +melted away with his dissolving life. "Ah, so it is," cried he, out of +a deep, agonized breast,—"only throw them away at length, the two +last roses of life:<a name="div2Ref_132" href="#div2_132"><sup>[132]</sup></a> too many bees and thorns lurk in them; they +draw thy blood and give thee poison— O, how I loved! thou Almighty One +on high, how I loved!—but ah, not thee! And so now I stand empty and +poor and old: nothing, nothing is left me,-not a single heart,—no, not +my own: that is already gone down into the grave. The wick is drawn out +of my life, and it runs away in darkness. O ye children of men! ye +stupid children of men! why do ye then believe that there is still any +love here below? Look at me, I have none. An airy colored ribbon of +love, a rainbow, draws itself out and winds itself around under us +shifting clouds, as if it would bind the clouds and bear them. +Ridiculous! it is itself cloud and mere falling weather,—in the +beginning glisten gay drops of gladness, then dash down black drops of +rain!"</p> + +<p class="normal">He was silent,—went slowly up and down,—looked seriously at a +war-dance and masquerade of internal spectres,—then stopped. The +shadows of dark deeds played through each other around him: suddenly he +started up; a lightning-flash of a thought had darted into his heart; +he ran to and fro, cried, "Music! let me have horrible music!" and the +wedding music from Don Juan, which had hitherto accompanied him, raised +the murder-cry of terror. "Divine!" said he; and only single words, +only tiger spots, appeared and vanished on the monster as he passed by. +"Devilish! the rose's being, the blossom's being,—aye, well! I will +bury myself in the avalanche, and roll down; and then I die beautifully +on my slumber-island," he concluded, in a soft, faint voice.</p> + +<p class="normal">"O Lilia! insure me one prayer!" cried he, going to meet his +approaching sister. "Any one which hinders not my dying," said she. He +laid before her the prayer, that she would this very night persuade her +friend Athenais into the "night-arbor" of the island, under the pretext +that her bridegroom, Carlos, wished to show her to-day two mysteries +about Lilia. "I have," he added, "Carlos's voice; with it I can declare +to her my loving heart, and then, if she loves me, I will call myself +Hiort." "Is thy request sincere?" asked the sister. "As true as that I +will be still alive to-morrow," said he. "Then is it soon fulfilled, +for Athenais expects me even in the night-arbor; only follow me after +seven minutes." She went; he looked after her, and said to himself, +"Hasten, arrange the heaven! Fair slumber-island, at once the +sleeping-place for the bridal-chamber and for the eternal sleep. O, how +few minutes stand between me and her heart!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Thou art still here, surely?" said he, and looked for his pistol. +"Now," cried he, solemnly, in departing, "is the time for the +<i>clear-obscure</i> deed, then the bier-cloth is thrown over it," and went +swiftly into the arbor.</p> + +<p class="normal">The Spaniard threw a twig into the water, and the black jay spake, in a +low tone, "Silent is bliss; silent is death."</p> + +<p class="normal">"The man," said Gaspard, "has something through the whole play like +real earnest. I will not answer that he does not shoot himself dead +before us all." "Impossible!" said Albano, alarmed; "he has not the +force for such a reality." Nevertheless, he could not, after all, +properly free himself from the anxious thought of this possibility.</p> + +<p class="normal">Disturbed, impetuous, with dishevelled hair, Hiort came back, and said, +in a low voice, "It is done; I was blest; no one will be so after me." +"With that yellow one,<a name="div2Ref_133" href="#div2_133"><sup>[133]</sup></a> and now in the night-hour, I will answer +for nothing," said Gaspard. Albano reddened with shame at the impudent +presumption, and still more at Roquairol's crime of dishonoring and +seducing, even in the play, his holy beloved. "Music, but tender and +good!" he cried, and let himself be fanned by the zephyr of harmony, +and drank incessantly "funeral draughts," or wine,—both to the +annoyance of the Knight, who abhorred drinking, and shunned music, +because this or both made one weak.</p> + +<p class="normal">He laid himself down on the turf, and the pistol beside him, and said, +stammering, "So, then, I lie in the warm ashes of my burnt-out life, +and my cold ashes will be added soon." He put his double opera-glass +close to his eyes, and cast sparkling looks over at Linda. "I have had +her on my heart, the divine beauty, my eternal love,—my tulip, which +at evening closes at length over the bee, that he may die in the +flower-cup. On the roses of my life I rest and die; I still look with +bliss on the sweet one; I cannot repent. Only forgive, poor Carlos; I +wipe away the crime with blood, but with tears of penitence I cannot. +Should that which time has washed away from this shore cleave again to +the shore of eternity, then it must fare badly with me there: I can +change there as little as here."</p> + +<p class="normal">At this moment a cannon-shot was fired in the city to announce a +deserter. He took his pistol into his hand. "Yes, yes, a shot signifies +a fugitive,—a fugitive out of the world, too. O, when shall the sharp +sickle lift itself in the east, and cut life in twain? I am so weary!" +He looked toward the eastern heavens, but a cloud, which already +faintly thundered, overcast the gateway of the moon. He smiled +bitterly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Even this little, last joy also destiny begrudges me! I shall see the +moon no more. Well, I shall, perhaps, mount higher than it or its +storm-cloud,—only my dear spectators and auditors of my death are +driven away from me by the rain. Yes, if thou art out, then am I out!" +He pointed to the flask.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Wild, awful tones, come up from the deep! Bring me my bloody bridal +dress! It is time; declining joy casts behind a long, lengthening +shadow." Albano and Julienne recognized with a shudder, in the little +coat which they brought him, the blood-sprinkled one which he had worn +at the masquerade, when, as a boy, he had meant to murder himself +before Linda. "You must lay it on my cold breast," said he, as he +received it from Falterle. The thunder rolled nearer, the lightnings +became more glowing, and one cloud after another swelled the tempest. +He drank the glasses fast. "Nothing can now harm me," said he; +"even the lightning not specially, although I lie under trees; in this +tube there is a lightning that defies all lightnings,—a real +lightning-rod." The hastening storm drove him, on the spectators' +account, to the conclusion, and he was roused to indignation at the +mockery of Providence over his theatrical preparations.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Nothing is more pleasant and timely than this tempest," said Gaspard; +"however, talking and waiting seem to gratify him tolerably." The other +spectators were agonized by the scene, and yet not one tore himself +away. Orders had been given to the fellow-performers to take the +shot as the signal-word, and not to come before it. He said, "The +death-snake rattles in the neighborhood; yonder, on the wave of the +future, the corpse comes swimming on." They perceived that he spoke at +random and extempore, vexed by the storm. He looked upon the pistol. "A +glance at thee! So is the look at life taken, and again hidden under +the eyelid. A spark, a single spark, and the theatre-curtain blazes up, +and I see the spectators stand, spirits, or even nothing at all, and +the eternal, heavy cloud fills the wide ether of the world. So stand I, +then, by the dead sea of eternity; so black, still, wide, deep it lies +below me; one step, and I am in there, and sink forever. Let it come! I +swam therein even before my birth. Now, now," said he, while it +sprinkled, and he took the last glass, "the rain will chill the poor +wretch already sinking into the chill of death. Play now something soft +and beautiful, good people!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Thereupon he cocked his weapon, stood up, said, weeping, "Farewell, +beautiful and hard life! Ye two fair stars, ye that still look down +from above, may I come nearer to you? Thou holy earth, thou wilt still +often quake, but no more shall he quake with thee who sleeps in thy +bosom; and ye good, far-off beings who loved me, and ye near ones whom +I so loved, may you fare better than I, and condemn me not too harshly! +I do verily punish myself, and God immediately judges me. Farewell, my +dear, offended, but very hard Albano, and thou, thou even unto death +ardently loved Liana, forgive me, and weep for me! Liana, if thou still +livest, then stand by thy brother in the last hour, and pray for me +before God!" Here he suddenly pointed the weapon at his forehead, +fired, and fell headlong; some blood flowed from the cloven skull, and +he breathed yet once, and then no more.</p> + +<p class="normal">Bouverot flew out, according to his part, and began it: "Even now, my +dear Hiort, my Carlos bethinks himself"; but he started back before the +corpse, stammering, "<i>Mais! mon Dieu! il s'est tué re vera! Diable! il +est mort! Oh! qui me payera?</i>" Linda sank powerless on Julienne's +bosom, and the latter stammered, "O, the sinner and suicide!" The +Princess exclaimed, indignantly, "<i>Oh, le traitre!</i>" Albano cried, "Ah, +Charles! Charles!" and plunged into the lake, and swam over, threw +himself upon the shattered form, and groaned, weeping, "O, had I known +this! Brother and sister dead! and I am to blame! O, had I remained +unsuccessful! Ah, my Charles, Charles, forgive! I was not thy foe. How +deplorably shattered it lies there,—the great temple!" "Be more calm, +I pray," said Gaspard, who had at last come over in the boat, and who +bore every mutilation with an anatomical coldness and curiosity; "he +had his regiment debts also, and feared the investigation which a new +administration would bring about. Now, one can, after all, have respect +for him; he has actually carried through his character."</p> + +<p class="normal">Albano raised himself up erect, and said, in the deafness of anguish, +"Who spake that? you, miserable Bouverot? you know nothing but debts!" +"Monsieur le Comte!" said he, defyingly. "I said it," said Gaspard to +his son. "O my Dian!" cried Albano, and stretched out his hand toward +him, who, himself weeping, held his weeping Chariton, "come thou +hither; let us bandage him; there may yet be help for it."</p> + +<p class="normal">The Counsellor of Arts Fraischdörfer stepped up to the astounded +Princess, who remained upon her side of the lake, with the words, by +way of diverting her attention, "Viewed on the side of art merely, it +were a question whether this situation was not borrowed with effect. +One must, as in that wonderful creation of Hamlet, weave a play into +the play, and in that make the pretended death a real one; of course it +were then only a show of show, playing reality in real play, and +thousand-fold, wonderful reflex! But how it rains now!" Something was +whispered in the ear of the Princess by her Haltermann. She flung up +her arms, and cried, "O, monster! homicide! My poor, innocent Gibbon! +Thou monster!" She had heard of the ape's murder, and departed +inconsolable.</p> + +<p class="normal">All at once the naked moon emerged into the deep blue, and every one +remarked it; but the rain previous no one but Fraischdörfer had been +aware of. Albano saw now full clearly the dead eyes and white, stiff +lips. "No, they stir not," said he. Then it sounded as if out of +Roquairol's breast and iron mouth, "Be still; I am judged!" And +immediately began the jay, as concluding chorus of the last act, "The +poor man now lies fast asleep, and you can cover him up!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Gaspard looked very earnestly at his brother. "By heavens!" replied the +latter, "it is written so in his part."</p> + +<p class="normal">The whole starry sky cleared up. The company went homeward. Albano and +Dian, with Chariton, stayed by the corpse.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<p class="center"><img src="images/shieldstart.png" alt="shieldstart"></p> +<br> +<h2><a name="div1Ref_33" href="#div1_33">THIRTY-THIRD JUBILEE.</a></h2> + +<h3><span class="sc2">Albano And Linda.—Schoppe and the Portrait.—The Wax +Cabinet.—The Duel.—The Madhouse.—Leibgeber.</span></h3> +<br> +<h3>131. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">Albano meant to incarcerate himself the next day, weep bitterly, and do +penance, and not cheer himself with the sunshine of love; but he found +at evening the following billet, written by an unknown hand, on his +table:—</p> +<br> + +<p class="normal">"<span class="sc">Sir Count</span>: You are hereby informed, that on Friday night, when you +were gone journeying, the deceased Captain R. von Froulay played +your part with the Countess Romeiro through <i>all</i> the acts, in the +flute-dell. You must, for the sake of rivals, get yourself another +voice, and the Countess eyes to use by night, although to her it may +not be altogether disagreeable to be often deceived respecting you in +this manner. Farewell, and be in future a little more discreet!"</p> +<br> + +<p class="normal">With pale face he stared at the skeleton which two giant hands forcibly +held up before him, drawn out all at once from the flesh of blooming, +youthful limbs. But the fire of pain speedily shot up again and +illumined the whole circle of woe. With the might of agony, with bloody +arms, must his spirit hurl back and forth the thought, heavy as a rock, +the tombstone of his life, in order to prove whether it fitted into the +burial vault;—the dreadful thought fell in so completely with +Roquairol's whole play and end and life,—but not, on the other hand, +with Linda's character, and with the divine moment which he had spent +with her in Liana's last garden,—and yet it did, again, very much with +her sudden reconciliation and with single, detached words,—and yet, +perhaps, after all, this poisoned letter was only a fruit of the +vengeance of the Princess, of whose indignation at Roquairol's murder +of himself and the ape Dian had told him.</p> + +<p class="normal">So painfully did he move himself on his wounds to and fro, and at last +he resolved, this very evening to seek out Linda, wherever she might +be, when he received from her the following billet:—</p> +<br> + +<p class="normal">"Come to me, I pray, this evening, to Elysium; it will certainly be +fair. I give the invitation now, as thou didst lately. Thou shalt lead +me upon the fair mountains, and it shall be enough for me if only thou +canst see and enjoy. Julienne we need less and less. Thy father urges +our union with proposals which you shall this evening hear and weigh. +Come without fail! In my heart there are still standing so many sharp +tears about the evil tragedy. Thou must change them into tears of +another kind, my beloved!</p> + +<p class="right">"<span class="sc">The Blind One</span>."</p> +<br> + +<p class="normal">He laughed at the <i>changing</i>. "Into frozen ones, rather," said he. Hot +love was to him a passionate kiss into his wound. He went to Lilar +gloomily and hastily, deeply enveloped in a red cloak, as if against +foul weather,—blind and deaf to himself and the world,—and like a +dying man who awaits the moment when he either shall vanish in smoke +and be annihilated, or soar away reanimated into divine worlds.</p> + +<p class="normal">When he entered the precincts of Lilar, the garden did not distort +itself as lately, but it merely disappeared, from him. He went along +close by some disguised people, who seemed to be making a grave. "It's +wrong, I vow," said one of them; "he ought to be buried out in the +meadow, like other cattle." Albano looked that way, saw a covered +corpse, and thought with a shudder it was the suicide, until he heard +the second grave-digger say, "An ape, Peter, if he is kept with +distinction, in clothes, looks more reputable than many a man, and I +believe he, too, would rise again from the dead, if he were only +regularly baptized."</p> + +<p class="normal">Just as this Gibbon of the Princess, whom they were burying here, +recalled before his soul that stormy Friday, he espied Linda, not far +from the Dream-temple, on the arm of a seeing gentlewoman. She gave +him, according to her manner before others, only a slight greeting, and +said to the woman, "Justa, stay here in the Dream-temple; I am going to +walk up and down here."</p> + +<p class="normal">By this limitation of herself to the visual range of the Dream-temple +she excluded every fair, visible sign of love, and Albano knew already +that silent contentment of hers, with the mere presence of the beloved +one, just as he did sometimes the wildness of her sweet lips. When he +touched her with trembling, and saw her again near him, then did this +powerful being come back to him with the whole divine past. But he +deferred not the infernal question, "Linda, who was with thee on Friday +evening?" "No one, dearest; where?" replied she. "In the flute-dell," +he stammered. "My blind maiden," she answered, calmly. "Who else?" he +asked. "God! thy tone distresses me," said she. "Roquairol killed the +ape that night. Did he meet thee?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"O horrible murderer! Me?" he cried; "I was travelling all night long; +I was not with thee in any flute-dell." "Speak out, man," cried Linda, +grasping him violently with both hands; "didst thou not write to me of +having given up thy journey, and then didst thou not come?" "No, +nothing like it," said he; "all infernal lies. The dead monster +Roquairol used my voice,—thy eyes,—and so it was,—tell the rest." +"<i>Jesu Maria!</i>" screamed she, struck by the dashing flood into which +the black cloud burst, and grasped with both arms through the leafy +branches of the wooded avenue, and pressed them to her, and said +supplicatingly, "Ah, Albano, thou wast certainly with me."</p> + +<p class="normal">"No, by the Almighty, not! Tell the rest," said he.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Fly from me forever; I am <i>his</i> widow!" said she, solemnly. "That thou +remainest," said he, severely, and called Justa out of the temple of +dream.</p> + +<p class="normal">"So it must live on,—thy pain, my pain: I see thee nevermore. I will +say a farewell to thee. Say thou none to me!" said he. She was silent, +and he went. Justa came, and he still heard her praying in the arbor: +"Leave me, O God, this eclipse to-morrow; spare the gloomy widow thy +daylight!" The maiden roused her, took her by the hand, and she +rejoiced, when hanging on her arm, in her night-blindness.</p> + +<p class="normal">Albano went out into the night. All at once he stood as if he had been +carried up on a jagged, rocky peak, below which dashed a foaming +stream. He turned back and said, "Thou mistakest, evil genius; I loathe +suicide; it is too easy, and belongs to ape-murderers,—but there is +something better, and thou shalt attend me."</p> + +<p class="normal">He lost himself,—could not find his way to the city,—thought he was +in Lilar again, and ran round anxiously without any way of egress, +until at last he sank exhausted, and as if drawn down into the arms of +slumber. When he awoke in the morning, he was in the Prince's garden, +and the slumber island waved with its tree-tops before him. A jagged +rocky peak over a rushing stream there was not in the whole landscape.</p> + +<p class="normal">He looked upon the heavens, and the day, and his heart. "Yes, such, +then, is life and love," said he. "A good, true fire-work, especially +when one is to have a Linda after many preparations! Long it stands +there with a gay, high scaffolding, full of statues, with smaller +edifices, columns, and wondrous is it, and promises still more than it +hides and betrays. Then comes the night in Ischia; a spark darts, the +moulds burst, white, shining palaces and pyramids and a hanging city of +the sun hover in heaven,—in the night-air a busy, flying world unfolds +itself majestically between the stars, and fills the eye and the poor +heart, and the happy spirit, itself a fire between heaven and earth, +hovers too,—for the space of a whole instant; then it becomes night +again and a blank waste, and in the morning there stands the +scaffolding dull and black."</p> +<br> + +<h3>132. CYCLE</h3> + +<p class="normal">"War,"—this word alone gave Albano peace; science and poetry only +thrust their flowers into his deep wounds. He made himself ready +for a journey to France. Only one thing still delayed his breaking +up,—Schoppe's non-appearance, whom he with his riddles must await and, +if possible, induce to go away with him. He kept himself in the woods +all day so as to avoid his father and Julienne and everybody. Linda's +unhappy night had sunk deep into his breast, and only he alone saw down +into it, no stranger. He hoped that she herself would keep silent +toward Julienne, because the latter, according to the sacred, womanly +rules of her order, knew no indulgence for this sin. His first jealous +ebullition had now given place to a painful sympathy for the deceived +Linda, whose holy temple had been rifled. What pained him insufferably +was the feeling of humiliation with which the proud fair one must now, +as he imagined, think of him, and which he, with his present bitter +contempt of Roquairol, entertained so much the more strongly. "Never, +never, though she were my sister, can we see each other more; I can +well see her bleeding before me, but not bowed down," he said to +himself. Sometimes there came over him a cold fury against a destiny, +which always swept with a sudden whirlwind through his embraces, and +forced all asunder,—then an indignation against Linda, who had not +acted like a Liana, and who was herself partly guilty of the error of +the substitution by her principle of forgiving love everything,—then +again deep sympathy, since she could not have confounded persons +without any spiritual resemblances, as the secret tribunal of +conscience told him, and since she now alone was atoning for it, that +she was willing to sacrifice herself to him, even to him.</p> + +<p class="normal">Inexpressibly did he hate the dead seducer, because by his act his +death had become only a cowardly flight. The poor deserter, whose +escape had been reported during the tragedy, he saw led along as a +prisoner before him; but his captain had escaped the hand of vengeance +forever. After some days papers of the dead were put into his hands; +but, full of abhorrence, he could not look on them. They contained +justifications, and at the same time additional sins. Roquairol had, +after the pleasure-night, spent the whole morning in the Prince's +garden writing, in order to color the remembrance, which alone (so he +wrote) had rewarded and satisfied him, that he had not that very night +played out the fifth act of the drama of life.</p> + +<p class="normal">The Lector delivered in Albano's absence short letters from Julienne, +wherein she begged him to make his appearance, and appointed him place +and time at the castle, whither she had gone from Lilar. He went not. +Sometimes it seemed to him as if distant men tracking him stole round +him in wide circles.</p> + +<p class="normal">Once at evening he was still standing at the foot of a woody hill, when +he espied overhead a wolf stalk out of the thicket; the wolf saw him, +sprang down upon him, and changed into Schoppe's wolf-dog. Soon his +friend himself, with an old man, stepped out from the trees above, saw +him, hurriedly gave the man money, and came down to him slower than he +went up to him. "Ah, a good evening, Albano," said Schoppe, with the +old coldness with which he spoke, when he did not write, and smiled at +the same time with so many lines and wrinkles that he appeared to +Albano altogether strange. Albano pressed him tightly to his heart, and +transformed the hot words which his friend did not love into hot tears. +It was an old star out of the spring morning when his Liana still lived +and loved; it had gone down before him on a grave in that night of his +journey; now it rose, and Albano was again unhappy.</p> + +<p class="normal">Schoppe surveyed with visible complacency Albano's ripened form, and +drew asunder, as it were, the young man's shining wings. "Thou hast," +said he, "spread out and colored thyself right well,—hast May and +August on one bough, like an orange-tree." Albano took no pleasure in +this. "Only relate to me thy life, my brother," said he. "Thou shouldst +tell thine first, methinks; I am tired even to stupidity," said +Schoppe, seating himself and unbuckling his hunting-pouch. "Hereafter," +replied Albano, "what thou hast occasion for I will tell thee. I got +thy letters,—I really loved the well-known one,—a misfortune divided +us,—I am innocent and she is great;—O God, be satisfied with this for +to-day!" Never could he complain of misfortunes to his friends; still +less now expose the misery of a beloved. "And still longer," replied +Schoppe; "only say, does it add new misery if I bring with me from +Spain and proceed to unpack proofs of your being related as brother and +sister?" "No," said Albano, "I need tremble at no past." "Thou art +still going to France?" asked Schoppe. "To-morrow, if thou wilt go +too," replied Albano.</p> + +<p class="normal">"By all means, as thy regiment chaplaincy. Not for want of the spirit +of art, as thou writest from Rome, but from a superfluity of it, thou +goest among soldiers. I should see it with pleasure, if thou wert to +consider that even Dante, Cæsar, Cervantes, Horace, served before they +wrote so preciously,—only students invert it, and compose something +short and sweet, and take up service afterward. To come to my +travels,—it costs me much, namely, time, merely to tell thee that I +caught thy absurd uncle with a carriage full of baggage in the little +nest of <i>Ondres</i>, a post and a half from Bayonne. I owned to him +I was going to Valencia to dissect the silk-stocking-weavers' looms +in that place, to enjoy, at the same time, my drop of ice and a +waistcoat-pocket full of Valencia almonds, and to visit the few +professors who had produced the best compends for three thousand +reals.<a name="div2Ref_134" href="#div2_134"><sup>[134]</sup></a> He should certainly arrive before me, he said. We arranged +to put up at the same inn in Valencia. I found my account in him, as he +could most easily introduce me to Romeiro's house. But I waited and +watched there for him fourteen days in vain. With the steward of the +house I found no hearing, although I cut out his stupid profile five +times, with the request that he would unlock to a travelling painter +the picture cabinet, where I wished to find the maternal picture of the +Countess.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Now was I half and half resolved to become pregnant, and in this guise +to demand everything for my satisfaction, which even the Spanish King +refuses to no pregnant woman.<a name="div2Ref_135" href="#div2_135"><sup>[135]</sup></a> In Italy they carry the child on the +arm, in order to beg; in Spain it needs not so much as this +visibleness. But fortunately thy uncle came. The picture-gallery door +was thrown open. I set myself to copying a stupid kitchen-piece, and +looked everywhere after my island portrait. But nothing was to be +seen." (Here he drew a wooden case out of his hunting-bag, and +laid it before him and went on.) "Until at last I saw it,—a picture +leaned on the floor against the wall, turning toward me its back- and +wintry-side,—it was the child of my pencil, and I was touched by the +neglect it had suffered,—inwardly vexed, but outwardly calm, I put it +by,—and snapped off short in the kitchen-piece in the middle of a +half-finished pole-cat. Look at the likeness!"</p> + +<p class="normal">He took off the box-cover, and Linda beamed upon his friend with a +stream of mind and charms, only dressed in older fashion. Albano could +scarcely stammer for emotion. "That were my father's spouse and my dear +mother? And thou knowest assuredly that this picture here is the one +you made of her on Isola Bella?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"I'll just make it manifest," said he, and scoured away at a rose in +the picture about the region of the heart. "My then Paphos-name +<i>Loewenskiould</i> lies <i>sub rosa</i> and will be immediately forthcoming. +Had I already scraped it open on the road, then you would have believed +I had on the road for the first written myself in." As from a ghostly +writing hand Albano started back shuddering, when actually an L and an +Ö came forth from under the rose: "I shall clear away no further now," +said Schoppe, "the rest I keep for her." Albano now poured out his +heart before his honest heart's-friend; to him he could say and object +that Julienne was his sister,—"against which I have nothing at all to +say," said Schoppe,—and that Gaspard had approved an intended marriage +between him and Linda. "There is no getting away from it," he added; +"if she is his daughter, then I am not his son,—I cannot possibly make +his sacred word of honor a lie—and, God! into what a monstrous pit and +pool of crime must one then look down!" "Touching the word and the +pool," said Schoppe, quite coldly, "there are specious proofs to be +adduced (although, to be sure, I have before this spoken superfluously +on the subject with thy father, and with the Countess), that +the Baldhead, who, as he confessed to me, has been thy father's +mass-assistant, groomsman, and bear-leader, was not a man of the +freshest morals, but that he—although otherwise upright in many +saddles <i>except</i> the moral—had his hours and centuries when he acted +as such a dog and highwayman, that my hound there is a calendar-saint +and father of the Church to him. Only I ought not to have blown out the +lamp of his life, which of course stank more than it shone."</p> + +<p class="normal">Albano could not disguise from him his horror at the deed. "I cannot +repent it; listen," said Schoppe, and gave this account: "Even in +Valencia thy uncle told me that he had met in Madrid such and such a +fellow,—exactly like the Baldhead,—who carried round for show a +wax-figure-cabinet of nothing but crazy creatures; often the whole +cabinet would speak, and he himself would sit therein too, and help +discourse; thy superstitious uncle procured and lent him spirits, too, +and made evil and frightful things out of it all.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Once in a <i>Posada</i><a name="div2Ref_136" href="#div2_136"><sup>[136]</sup></a> I heard in a sleeping chamber near mine all +sorts of voices murmuring through each other and saying, 'Schoppe also +is coming to us.' I rose; the strange chamber was shut. I listen and +hear it again, the devilish cry, 'Schoppe comes in also.' My room had a +balcony out of which I could, through the neighboring window, see by +the moonlight into the noisy chamber. In horrible, frizzled shapes +sat a mass of wax therein and spake, the waxen baldhead in the midst; +but I sought the living one. The wax beasts exchange with one another +their fixed ideas and slip me in among them: 'There is our honorary +fellow-member peeping in,' said the wax baldhead. By Heaven! I must be +short, my blood boils and burns again through my heart. I grow furious, +take my weapon, and petition God for a peaceable, forbearing +disposition. Unfortunately I observe, in a back corner not lighted by +the moon, near a father of death and a pregnant woman of wax, a black +cloak which stirs, and out of which peeps the living tone-leader, the +Baldhead. 'Black master of ventriloquism,' cried I, 'hold thy tongue +for God's sake; I see thee behind there and fire in.' I took it for +ventriloquism.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Now for the first time the crazy-house properly began; I heard it +laugh,—call me in and dub me a comrade and member of the club. +'<i>Presses</i>,' said I, 'I am notoriously a man, and see thee quite +distinctly.' It availed nothing; the waxen baldhead so much the more +replied, 'Yes, there sits brother Schoppe already,' and I actually saw +myself also embossed and modelled on the spot. 'He is to be had here +also,' cried I, grimly, and fired away at the master of the lodge, who +tumbled bleeding to the floor.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I made off with myself in the same hour. As to the uncle, I came +across his track afterward for a short time. He dreads madmen, and +would not have me long with him, for fear I myself should strike up a +bargain with the aforesaid set. He asked me whether the director of the +wax-figure travelling madhouse had encountered me. I could not place +much confidence in him; I have the secret alone."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Thou art a wild, true man," said Albano, with such an intense desire +to embrace him; "thou dost much for others, and art, after all, much +for thyself. I can now leave thee no more. My former life-island, with +all its flowers, lies deep under water, and I must cast myself into the +infinite sea of the world. Give me thy hand, and swim with me. We +travel to-morrow to France."</p> + +<p class="normal">"To-morrow?" said Schoppe. "Well, yes! then I go this evening to the +Countess, and then to Don Cesara." "Tell her," begged Albano, "that I +would not visit her even as a brother, if I were such, not from +coldness, but because I revere her great spirit; say that to her, and +God help thee!" Albano was about to go, and leave him to wander alone +into the neighboring Lilar. "No, accompany me, my master," said +Schoppe, vehemently; "I have discharged the old churl over there +in the woods by fair payment of escort-money, and should now be alone +<i>vis-à-vis de moi</i>." "I do not understand thee," said Albano; "what art +thou afraid of?" "Albano," said he, in a low and important tone, and +his generally direct looks glanced shyly sidewise, and innumerable +great wrinkles encircled his smiling mouth, "the 'I' might come; yes, +yes!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Wondering, and asking who that might be, Albano looked into his face. +"Plague take it!" said Schoppe; "I apprehend you full well; you hold me +to be not one eighth as rational as yourself, but mad. Wolf, come up! +Thou, beast, wast frequently, on lonely roads and lanes, my exorcist +and devil-catcher, against the 'I.' Sir, he who has read Fichte, +and his vicar-general and brain-servant Schelling, out of sport as +often as I, will make serious work enough out of it at last. The thing +called 'I' presupposes itself, and the person called 'I,' together with +that remainder which most call the world. When philosophers deduce +anything—for example, an idea or themselves—out of themselves, so do +they also deduce whatever else there is about them—the remaining +universe—in the same manner. They are exactly that drunken churl who +made water into a fountain, and stood there all night before it, +because he heard no cessation, and of course set down all the +subsequent continuing sound to his own account. The 'I' conceives +itself; it is therefore ob-subject, and at the same time the +residing-place of both. Gadzooks! there is an empiric and a pure 'I.' +The last phrase which the crazy Swift, according to Sheridan and +Oxford, uttered, shortly before his death, was, 'I am I.' Philosophical +enough!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"And what fearful conclusion dost thou draw from it all?" said Albano, +with the deepest sorrow. "I can bear anything and everything," said +Schoppe, "only not the <i>me</i>,—the pure, intellectual <i>me</i>,—the god of +gods. How often have I not already changed my name, like my namesake +and cousin in renown, <i>Scioppius</i>, or <i>Schoppe</i>, and become every year +another person! but still the pure 'I' perceptibly runs after me and +besets me. One sees this best on journeys, when one looks at one's +legs, and sees them stride along, and then asks, Who in the world is +that marching along so with me down below there? I tell you he is +eternally talking with me; if he were once to start up in bodily +presence before me, I should not be the last to grow weak and deadly +pale. To be sure, no dog has occasion to use tooth-powder; but children +one should paint up, it stands to reason and propriety. For my part, I +have observed the age so so, and smile, because I say nothing. Men, +like napkins, are broken up into the finest and greatest variety of +forms,—into night-caps, pyramids, cross-bills—zounds, Albano! into +what shape are they not folded? But the consequence, brother,—O +heavens, the consequence! I say nothing: curse it, I am still as a +mouse,—few as much so; but times may come when a gentleman shall haply +remark, Men and music-notes, music-notes and men; short and sweet and +plain, with both it is now heads up, now tails,—that is to say, when +it has to go quick. These are similes, I am well aware, best friend; +but the bakers announce a slack batch by a stony or clayey one in the +shop, whereas men announce their hardest things, among which belongs +the heart, by their softest, to which appertain words."</p> + +<p class="normal">Speechless with astonishment at these effusions, Albano led him by the +hand to Lilar before Linda's residence. All was dark therein; not a +light was stirring. "Speak thy word softly up there, my Schoppe, and +to-morrow we journey farther!" said Albano below, in a soft tone at +parting, and left him to go up alone into the gloomy castle of +mourning. "What a meeting!" said Albano, on his way back through the +garden.</p> +<br> +<h3>133. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">Long did Albano wait for his friend on the following day; no one +appeared, no man knew anything of him. On the second morning a report +got wind that the Countess in the night, and Gaspard in the morning, +had travelled off. "Has Schoppe driven both away by the truth?" he +asked himself, forsaken and alone. In vain did he try to track Schoppe +for several days after; not once had he been seen. "Thou, too, dear +Schoppe!" said he, and shuddered at the barbarity of fate toward +himself. As he thus surveyed himself, and looked out over the still, +dark waste of his life, all at once it seemed to him as if his life +suddenly lighted up, and a sun-glance fell upon the whole liquid mirror +of the dark time which had elapsed. A voice, spake within him: "What +has there been then? Men, dreams, blue days, black nights, have flown +hither without me, without me flown away again, like the flitting +summer, which the hand of man can neither weave nor hold fast. What is +there left? A wide woe over the whole heart; but the heart, too, +remains,—empty, of course, but firm, sound, hot. Loved ones are lost, +not love itself; the blossoms are fallen, not the branches. Verily, I +still wish; I still will; the past has not stolen from me the future. +Arms I still have to embrace withal, and a hand to lay upon the sword, +and an eye to survey the world. But what has gone down will come again, +and flee again, and only that will remain true to thee which is +forsaken,—thyself alone. Freedom is the glad eternity; calamity is for +the slave the breaking out of a fire in the prison. No; I will <i>be</i>, +not <i>have</i>. What! can the holy storm of tones only stir a particle of +dust, while the rude, agitated air displaces mountains of ashes? Only +where like tones and strings and hearts dwell, there do they move +softly and invisibly. Only sound on, then, sacred string-music of the +heart, but wish not to change anything in the rough, hard world, which +owns and obeys only the winds, not tones."</p> + +<p class="normal">At this moment, he was found by the Lector Augusti, who brought, by +word of mouth, instant entreaties from the Princesse Julienne to go +with him to Gaspard's chamber, where she had the weightiest words to +say to him about Schoppe. He complied readily; he expected, first and +chiefly, to find with her a key to his Schoppe's covered fate; he saw, +too, from the bold choice of a messenger, how important to his poor +sister his appearance must be.</p> + +<p class="normal">In Gaspard's apartment Augusti suddenly left him to announce him, +and—leave him, alone. Through his life rolled now a slow thunder; +whether it came from heaven, from a stream, or only from a mill, as yet +he knew not. Julienne burst in, weeping, unable to speak for the +violent beating of her heart. "Thou art going away?" asked she. "Yes!" +said he, and besought her to be less passionate; for he knew how easily +another's impetuosity set him on fire, as he could not even play chess +or fence, for any length of time, without becoming angry. She entreated +him still more passionately only to stay till Gaspard came back. "Is he +coming back?" asked Albano. "How otherwise? But not the unworthy +bride," said she. "Julienne," replied he, seriously, "O, be not as hard +against her as fate has been, and let me be silent!" "I hate now all +men, and thee, too," said she. "That comes of your poetical souls. O, +what honest bride would have let herself so easily be blinded by such a +suicide? Who? But I see thou dost not know all." "But is it of any +use?" he asked.</p> + +<p class="normal">Surprised at this question, she began without reply the narration:—</p> + +<p class="normal">On the day when Albano found Schoppe, Julienne would fain visit again +her friend Linda whom she had not seen since the evening of the +tragedy. All apartments in Lilar were closely curtained against +daylight. Julienne found her sitting in darkness, with downcast, +half-open eyelids, outwardly very tranquil, only at long intervals a +little tear stole out from her eyes. The sweeping stream went high over +the wheels of her life and they stood far under it and still. "Is it +thou, Julienne?" she said, softly. "Pardon the darkness; night is green +now, to my eyes. It pains me to see anything." The bridal torch of her +existence was quenched; she wished now night for night.</p> + +<p class="normal">Julienne put anxious questions of astonishment; she gave no answer to +them. "Is there any trouble between thee and my brother?" asked +Julienne, in whom relationship always created a warmer concern than +friendship. "Only wait for the Knight," answered she; "I have sent an +entreaty to him to come hither."</p> + +<p class="normal">Just at that moment he entered. She begged him to accommodate himself +to this short night. After some silence, she rose proudly from her +seat; her black-dressed, tall form raised, in the presence of the +Knight, whom she saw not, its great eyes to heaven, her proud life, +hitherto enveloped in the winding-sheet, flung back the cloth and rose, +blooming, from the dead, and she addressed the Knight: "Respected +Gaspard, you promised me, as also did my father, that he would appear +to me on my marriage day. The day is gone by. I am a widow: now let him +appear to me."</p> + +<p class="normal">Here the Knight interrupted her: "Gone by? O quite right! Is he, then, +anything more discreet and moral than a man?" and jested, contrary to +his usual manner, with a glow of indignation, because he supposed it +was of Albano, whom he had so long trusted, that she was speaking.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You misunderstand me," said Linda; "I speak of a deceased one." +Suddenly before Julienne Roquairol's shadow passed; distant according +tones from the Princess had ushered it in. "Almighty God!" she +screamed, "the cursed suicide's play is true?" "He played what actually +occurred," said Linda calmly. "We separate. I travel. I desire nothing +but my father." Here Gaspard held out toward the Countess an arm +petrified by palsy, as if armed with a drawn dagger,—the darkness made +the apparition blacker and wilder,—but he broke the ice of death +asunder again with cold hands, and stirred and answered with lamed +tongue: "God and the Devil! Thy father is at hand. He will take it +all—as it is. Does <i>he</i> know it?" "Who?" asked Linda. "And what did he +determine? Heavens! I mean Albano." Gaspard had, in a passion, at once +Cromwell's imbecility of tongue and ingenuity of action; and remained +therefore as averse and as far from every ebullition, even of love, as +from tameness, which was to him (as he said) "even more odious than +downright crime."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I know not," said Linda. "I belong to the dead one alone, who has +twice died for me. Say that to my father. O, I would have followed him +long ago, the monster, into the deep realm; I would not stand here +before the cold reproach of malice or Christian amazement, for there +are still daggers to be used against life!—But I am a <i>mother</i>, and +therefore I live!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"I will see you again this evening," said Gaspard composedly, and +hurried away. "I believe, dear Julienne," said Linda, "we now no longer +quite understand each other, at least not to the highest point, just as +we earlier differed about your <i>belle-sœur</i>, and you thought her +coquetry, but I precisely her prudery, great and immoral." "That may +well be true," said Julienne, coldly; "you are so truly poetic, +I am so prosaic and old-maidishly pious and orthodox. To love a +monster for this, because he cheats me as horribly as he does his +regiment-treasury, or because he generally allows himself as much +freedom as his regiment, or because after his death he still leaves +parts for the remaining players, or letters to me, deceived one—" "Did +he so?" asked Albano. "She praised it even as a sign of genius in him," +replied Julienne. "To love such a one, said I, or such people as love +him, I cannot find it in my heart to do that. Fare you then as well as +may be." Linda answered, "I hate all wishes"; gave her her hand, +pressed not hers, and remained in profound silence, looking into her +night. She knew little of the easy and careless departure of her lost +friend.</p> + +<p class="normal">That same night Linda, after a long private talk with the Knight, +travelled off entirely alone, wrapped in her veil, in a carriage +without torches, and no one knew whether she had wept or not.—</p> + +<p class="normal">When Albano had heard his sister out, he said, with a soft voice of +emotion: "Make peace with the past; man cannot assail it. Leave to the +great unhappy one the night into which she of herself has been drawn. +But why were you so eager to have me with you? Particularly if thou +knowest aught of my Schoppe, I entreat thee to impart it." "I will +answer thee," said she, weeping and wondering; "but, brother, assure me +that thy silence is not again the curtain of a new misfortune. I +recognize you men by that, one must hate you all, and I do so, too." "I +have nothing sad in my mind; before God I affirm it. You women, you who +will only quench your hell with tears, and kindle it with the breath of +sighs, comprehend not, that often a single hour's thinking can give a +man a staff or wings, which shall lift him at once out of hell, and +then it may burn on for all him." "Show me, then," said she, in a +tearfully comic manner, "<i>thy</i> wing." "This," replied he, "that I build +not upon man, but upon God in me and above me. The foreign ivy winds +around us, runs up on us, stands as a second summit beside ours, and it +is thereby withered. Spirits should grow beside each other, not upon +each other. We should, like God, as imperishable ones, love the +perishable."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Very good," said she, "if it only insures thee peace. As touching thy +poor Schoppe, he has been thrust into the madhouse by way of +punishment; but first let me give you a regular account. He dressed up +a story about a second sister of thine before thy already so much +excited father. One could have let this new distraction of intellect +pass; but thy uncle was called, who told him to his face he had +murdered the Baldhead; and the choice was haughtily left him between +imprisonment and the madhouse; so he betook himself to the latter. +Stay, stay! The weightiest is to come. Whatever I may think of him, I +see he is thy honest friend; and to speak out freely, even Linda, +before her departure, inserted in her last letter to me an intercession +for him. He not only made the farcical journey to Spain for thee, he +also effected thy cure; perhaps thou owest him thy life. I wonder that +I, or somebody or other, has never before mentioned it to thee."</p> + +<p class="normal">She began now upon Idoine's sound and generous character, her Arcadia, +and the last day she had spent with her and looked into her clear soul. +She passed on to his bed of fever and his mourning beside Liana's bier, +and old Schoppe's talks and runnings to and fro, and his noble victory, +when he had brought at length the glorified Liana, in Idoine's form, +before his eye, that she might pronounce the healing words: "Have +peace!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Now was he in a storm, and Julienne at peace. "Therefore," she +continued, "I hold it to be my duty to interest myself a little in thy +friend. The poor devil is innocent,—through stingings of conscience +and even by his present situation he may completely lose what +understanding he still has,—altogether innocent, I say; for thy uncle, +whom I have long hated, and who only a short time ago for the first +time, but in vain, sought to come as a ghostly and murderous apparition +to my sick brother,—he would also have probably done the same with +Liana, if she had lived to admit of it,—this man is—(why may I not +make it notorious, now that all has changed and revolutionized +itself?)—one and the selfsame person with the Baldhead, and is a +ventriloquist! Brother?"</p> + +<p class="normal">But Albano had already flown from her.</p> +<br> +<h3>134. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">Albano would fain set his friend free before avenging him; therefore he +would hasten first to Schoppe and then to his uncle. But as he passed +by the lighted apartments of the latter, a sudden indignation seized +him, and he must needs go up. The tall, haggard uncle came slowly to +meet the excited youth, with the jay on his hand. Albano, without any +circumstances, with flaming eyes, charged him with his double part, his +heaven-crying destruction of Schoppe, and the illusory operations +against himself, and demanded answer and satisfaction. "Yes, yes," said +the Spaniard, stroking his <i>diablesse</i>; "I have the pistols: I have no +time,—no time for talking." "You must have it," said Albano. "I have +none, <i>Deo patre et filio et spiritu sancto testibus</i>; it will soon be +between eleven and twelve, and the gloomy one stands here." "Heavens! +why this silly, tragic scenery? O God, is it not possible, then, that +you are even a man,"—looking with horror at the skin of his face, +which absolutely could not look joyful or loving,—"so that you can +tremble, blush, repent, exult? What knew you of my Schoppe, when you +once in Ratto's cellar made believe as if you knew a frightful deed of +his?" "No one needs know anything," he replied; "one says to a man, 'I +am acquainted with thy villanous deed'; the man sends his thoughts +back, he finds such a one." "But what had he done to you?" asked +Albano, with agitation. Dryly he replied, "He said to me, 'Thou hound!' +It strikes eleven o'clock; I say nothing more than what I will."</p> + +<p class="normal">Here the Spaniard brought two pistols and a bag, showed him that they +were not loaded, asked him to load one (giving him powder and lead), +but not the other. "Into the bag, each into the bag," said he; "we draw +lots!" The bolder, the better, thought Albano. The Spaniard shook both +up, and requested Albano to tread upon one of them, as a sign of his +choice. He did so. "We shoot at the same time," said the uncle, "as +soon as it has struck the two quarters." "No," said Albano, "you fire +at the first stroke, I at the second." "Why not?" replied he.</p> + +<p class="normal">They posted themselves over against each other in opposite corners of +the chamber, with the pistols in their hands, awaiting the stroke of +half past eleven. The Spaniard closed his eyes in dumb listening. As +Albano looked into this blind, bust-like face, it seemed to him as if +no sin at all could be committed upon such a being, least of all a +death-stroke. Suddenly there was a murmuring in the still chamber of +five voices among each other, as if they came from the old +philosophers' busts on the walls; the father of death, the Baldhead, +the jay seemed to speak, and an unknown voice, as if it were the +so-called Gloomy One. They said to one another, "Gloomy One, is it not +so, have I told any falsehood? I bring five tears, but cold ones,—I +bear the wheels of the hearse on my head,—I lead the panther by the +noose,—I cut him free,—I point with white finger at <i>him</i>,—I bring +the mist,—I bring the coldest frost,—I bring the terrible thing!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Here the bell sounded the first stroke, and the Spaniard fired,—at +the second Albano blazed away;—both stood there without a wound; +powder-smoke floated round, but nowhere was there any appearance of a +splintering, as if the ball had been only a glass ball filled with +quicksilver. With grim contempt, Albano looked at him on account of the +previous voices. "I was forced to," said the uncle.</p> + +<p class="normal">Suddenly the Lector broke in, breathless, whom Julienne had despatched +to hinder a probable duel. "Count!" he stammered, "has anything +happened?" "Something," replied the uncle, "must have happened in the +neighborhood, the smoke came in; we were just on the point of embracing +and bidding each other good night." He rang, and commanded the servant +to ask the host who was firing so late at night. Albano was astounded, +and could only say in parting, "So be it! But fear the madman, whom I +unchain!" "Ah, do it not!" said the Spaniard, and seemed to fear.</p> + +<p class="normal">Augusti waited upon him down to the street, nor did he let him go till +after he had given his word of honor not to go up there again. But +Albano flew, even at this late hour of the night, to the house of woe +and to the tormented heart.</p> +<br> +<h3>135. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">Hardly had Albano made known to the overseer of the madhouse, a young, +sleek, rosy little man, his name, which the little man already knew, +and his petition for Schoppe's liberty, together with his security for +him, when the overseer smiled upon him with uncommon complacency, and +said, "I have quietly watched the whole house for years. I seize +greedily the minutest traits for a future, philosophical public; and so +also did I apply myself very seriously to Mr. Schoppe. But never, Sir +Count, never have I detected in him a trait or trick which would have +promised insanity; on the contrary, he reads all my English and German +works on the subject, and converses with me upon the modes of treatment +in hospitals for the insane. A disciple of Fichte he may be (I infer it +from his 'I'), and a humorist, too; now if each of these is, of itself, +hard to distinguish from craziness, how much more their union! with +what joyful anticipation of the coincidence of our observations I give +you here the key to his chamber, conceive for yourself!" "If he +is not a fool," said his wife, "why then does he smash all the +looking-glasses?" "For that very reason," replied the overseer; "but if +he is a fool, then is thy husband a still greater."</p> + +<p class="normal">Never did Albano open a door with heavier heart than this to Schoppe's +little chamber. "I am come to take thee away, my brother," he cried +immediately, by way of sparing himself and him the redness of shame. +But when he looked at the old lion more nearly, he found him in this +trap quite altered,—not tame, creeping, wagging, but broken in two, +and with shattered claws weighed down to the earth. The charge of +murder, which he had honestly admitted, united to Gaspard's unmerciful +sentence, had filled and eaten up his proud, free breast with poisonous +shame. "I fare well here, only I feel symptoms of ill health," said +Schoppe, with lustreless eye and toneless voice. Albano could not hide +his tears; he clung around the sick man, and said, "Magnanimous man, +thou gavest me once in my sickness, health and salvation again, and I +knew it not, and thanked thee not. Go with me; I must nurse thee in +this thy sickness, heal and comfort thee as I can; then we travel."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Dost thou imagine, my Criton," he replied, strengthened by the balsam +of his wounded pride, "that I am not a sort of Socrates, but will +really go out of my <i>torre del filosopho</i>? A word of <i>honor</i> is a +thick +chain." "Tell me all, spare no one; but I will tell thee thereafter a +piece of news, at which thy chain shall instantly melt down!" said +Albano.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Ha! Meanwhile, this place here, for its part, is well enough, as +aforesaid, a <i>torre del filosopho, quai de Voltaire</i>, and Shakespeare's +street, and whatever else one might, could, would, or should name. +Moreover, I always hear by night one or another man speak close by me, +and so I have no fear at all that the 'I' will come. I throw every day +five little bread-balls: if they form a cross, then it signifies (think +what thou wilt) that I do not yet appear to myself. But they always +make one. I have been, in this Anticyra here, so quieted about so many +a phantom, even by those books,—look at them, nothing but treatises on +madness,—that I, although it touches my Mordian<a name="div2Ref_137" href="#div2_137"><sup>[137]</sup></a> quite as little +as it does me, am glad to have been here. My intercourse is not the +safest, I own, though I talk with the keeper and wife alone (a rhyme), +both of whom cleverly understand the prison-fever that prevails here. +The man has got the fixed idea into his head, and his wife thereby into +hers, that he is our present overseer, and has to assist, oversee, and +read excellent books which fall in with his office. Those treatises are +by the fool. It is to be presumed he has let his overseeing idea peep +out too broadly in the city, and the medical college clapped him in +with his serviceable idea; because, in the end, to be sure, every +overseer must have it in order to exercise his office, whether he is +mad or not. Amongst all here in the house, we two please each other +most. He sounded me to my advantage, and I can make great use of him +for my liberty, only I must not attack his foul, fixed spot. Only I +often improvisate for them an evening blessing,—because they have no +prayer-book,—and weave in with the blessing hints which might be of +medical service to the pair, if they chose. So we two wander round in +the mazes of this labyrinth along before the patients,—behind him, the +incurable hub of the whole wheel, I walk quite tolerant. In the club, +universal polemics and scepticism reign as in no other university hall. +'It is a thing to make one become crazy,' he says to me, in a low tone. +'To make one <i>be</i> crazy,<a name="div2Ref_138" href="#div2_138"><sup>[138]</sup></a> they say in this <i>palais d'égalité</i>,' I +reply. I cut him out the profiles of the patients for his manuscript. +As children still have something which appears to them childish, so +have madmen something which seems even to them madness. But I never +become any more pointed with him, and keep sharper jokes to myself. Ah, +what is man, especially a discreet one, and how thin are his sticks and +staves! Is there anything about me that moves thee, Albano? My dull, +pale face, perhaps?"</p> + +<p class="normal">But Albano could not possibly confess to him, that this wreck of a +noble man, with his delusions, and even with his style, whose wings had +also wheels on them, brought the tears into his eyes, but he said +merely, "Ah, I think of many things, but now, at last, I pray, to thy +story, dear friend!" But Schoppe had already forgotten again what he +was to tell. Albano named the issue of the portrait-affair with the +Countess, and Schoppe began:—</p> + +<p class="normal">"The Princess Julienne was just jumping into her carriage, when I led +the blind maiden up the steps, to let it be said, the Librarian Schoppe +was here from Spain. I was ushered into a darkened apartment, wherein I +walked quietly up and down waiting or watching for people, until the +Countess greeted me out of the gloom 'This darkness,' said I, 'is just +what I like for the light which I have to give, only I would rather +speak Irish or Lettonian<a name="div2Ref_139" href="#div2_139"><sup>[139]</sup></a> or Spanish, because I don't know who may +be eavesdropping about here.' 'Spanish!' said she, seriously. I related +to her how I had known thy mother, and painted her, and so forth, and +inserted my name indelibly into the likeness; after a long time, had +met her in the market-place of this city, and taken her for the +looking-glass image of thy mother, so like was she to her own. 'I know +not,' said she, breaking in here with heated pride upon the midst of my +narrative, 'how far your secrets can become mine.' 'You may,' said I, +seriously, 'by letting me ring for a light; for I hold here in my hand +the portrait of the Frau von Cesara and von Romeiro, two names of one +person.' She comprehended nothing of it, wanted to know nothing of it, +and I must not ring. I acknowledged to her that I saw myself +necessitated to adorn myself with the rhetorical chessman, generally +called repetition of the narrative, and proceeded to move the piece. +But as soon as in so doing I came upon thy name again, she said I had +probably in my mind relations now entirely done away. 'No,' said I, 'I +have an eternal and restored relation in my mind, and bring with me his +greeting, full of the most profound regard.' The greeting seemed to +touch her sensibilities, just as if one held her to be in need of such +an assurance, and she begged me rather to leave thee out. 'Heavens! he +is your brother, and here I have about me the portrait of your mother, +stolen from Valencia, and only no light to show it by.'</p> + +<p class="normal">"Light was then ordered. As the flame set the tall, imposing form in +gold, I said right out to myself, she was fully as deserving as her +brother that one should make that long pilgrimage to the family tree of +both, for she is not without her charms. Albano, were I her brother, as +thou hast the honor to be, and had she a gondola, but no river of +paradise for it, my blood would have to be made navigable for her; I +would bear her up not only in my hands, but, like an æquilibrist, on my +nose and mouth, the unfortunate one! She no sooner saw the portrait +than she cried, 'Mother, mother!' and kept passing her hand over her +eyes, complaining that they were now still worse than ever. I resumed +my scraping, and at last dug out before her eyes my whole name, +<i>Loewenskiould</i>, even with the addition, which had escaped me, 'Loves +much.'</p> + +<p class="normal">"'Was that the painter's name?' she asked. 'Are you he? You loved her +too?' 'Beauty is a cliff,' replied I, seriously, 'on which one and +another man seeks to shipwreck himself, because it lies full of pearls +and oysters.' She begged of me, in a friendly manner, the most distinct +repetition of the repetition; she wished to attend better; hearing and +thinking were as hard and heavy for her now as living. Albano, you +should have despatched me to her with more preparatory information. As +it was, I was half confused and cloudy, and when, during my picture of +the Long Lake Isle,<a name="div2Ref_140" href="#div2_140"><sup>[140]</sup></a> something moist sprang from her eyes, I sank +in the drops, and almost drowned therein, and not till after some time +could I rub myself to life. At the end of my discourse, she stood up, +folded her hands, and prayed, with weeping, as if she gave thanks: 'O +God, O God! thou hast spared me!'—which I, after all, do not wholly +understand."</p> + +<p class="normal">Albano understood it well,—namely, that she thanked fate for the +accidental delay of Schoppe's arrival, which had spared her the short +but fearful transformation of Roquairol into a brother.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Thereupon she broke out into too many thanks to the painter, robbers +and purveyors of the painted birth-certificate. He whose heart has gone +to sleep like an arm, and is feelingless and hard to move, finds a +something very droll run through and over the awaking member when he +stirs it. 'I could not do less,' said I, 'for your holy brother; the +sunny side is, then, the moon-side.' She turned suddenly to the subject +of thy father, and asked, as he was immediately coming, whether she or +I should propose to him these riddles. 'Or rather both!' I had hardly +replied, when he stepped wildly in.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Now, Gaspard is, to be sure and decidedly, thy own and thy sister's +natural father, and filial love toward him is never to be set down +against <i>thee</i> as a fault; but if I chose to tell thee he was no bear, +no rhinoceros, no werewolf or other kind of wolf, I should do it more +from singular politeness than from any other cause. He snorted to me a +good evening; so did I to him. Many men resemble glass,—smooth and +slippery and flat so long as one does not break them, but <i>then</i> +cursedly cutting, and every splinter stings. The matter was laid before +him with the accompanying frontispiece of the portrait. Wert thou more +distantly related to him, I would let myself out on this subject; for +his face was overspread with the northern light of grim fury; out of +his eyes yellow wasps flew at me; straight lines shot up on his +tempestuous brow like electrical lances, particularly two perpendicular +lines of discomfort. But, as was said, thou art, to my knowledge, his +son. 'My friend,' he thundered away, 'with what <i>right</i> do you steal +pictures, then?' 'That ought to be a hard question for me to answer,' +replied I, gently; 'but I have an <i>inability</i> to look at an unrighteous +deception; I march right in.' 'Countess,' said he, gasping, 'in three +minutes you shall know this <i>gentleman</i> well enough.' O no, no! he used +another word than <i>gentleman</i>, but I will one day clasp him to my +breast for it, and though we stood on the highest steps of God's +throne, and wrestled in the glory." "Schoppe!" said Albano. "Don't +excite me!" replied Schoppe, and went on.</p> + +<p class="normal">"He rang; a servant flew in with a card; we all were silent. +'Indulgence, Countess,' said he, 'only for the space of one minute.' He +thereupon gave her some miserable court-news, but she looked silently +on the ground. Then came thy tall uncle, nodded sixteen times with his +little head, for that he takes to be an obeisance, and stepped far off +from me. 'Brother, simply say, what has this gentleman here done back +of Valencia?' 'Murdered, murdered!' said he, rapidly. 'Under what +circumstances?' asked thy father. Here he began to depose the minutest +particulars of my shot of distress at the Baldhead with such an +incomprehensible sharpness that I said, 'That is true!' and went on +myself, and kept asking, 'Is it not so?' and he hurriedly nodded, till +I had come to the end. Then I asked, 'But, Spaniard, tell me, by +Heaven! whence have <i>you</i>, then, derived this knowledge?' 'From me!' +answered a strange, hollow voice, exactly like the Baldhead's.</p> + +<p class="normal">"My heart grew cold as a dog's nose, and my tongue full of stone. +'As <i>convictus</i> and <i>confessus</i>,' began thy father, 'you can now +prophesy your fate.' 'To be sure,' murmured the uncle, pulling out and +putting back his handkerchief, taking the picture up and laying it +away,—'prophesy, prophesy!' 'Meanwhile,' thy father continued, 'it is +freely left with you whether you will, until a nearer investigation, +choose, instead of the prison, which belongs to you in consideration of +the murder and theft, a milder place, the madhouse, which befits you in +consideration of your journey; if you do not choose, then I choose for +you.' 'To the madhouse, to the madhouse!' cried I, 'for the sake of +true sociability, on my honor. But I make no questions about anything; +on the washing-bill of my conscience stands no murder. Do you only burn +yourselves white and clean. Your chariot of the sun and triumphal car +goes up to the very hub in dung. Countess, let, I pray, everything be +cleared up by you in the best manner, and think unceasingly of me, in +order to get a father, like the students' father of his country, to be +sure, who consists in a hole through the hat.'<a name="div2Ref_141" href="#div2_141"><sup>[141]</sup></a> 'Step farther +back!' said thy father to thy uncle, 'the madness is broken out.' Upon +that the hare made eighteen springs down over thresholds and steps. I +executed my own orders of march and halt. Thy father still crawled +after me with a licking, flamy look. I charged my eye with poison, and +saw him, down below at the door, fall headlong at the stroke."</p> + +<p class="normal">Albano shuddered, and inquired about the how. Then Schoppe was silent, +buried in thought, for a long time, and said, in a troubled tone, +"That, to be sure, was only a dream of mine; but so do I now confound +dream with reality, and the reverse. I ought to be more moved about +Schoppe; he is, after all, an old man, and old men weep like the +jester, when it goes down hill." "I will comfort thee now, my friend," +said Albano, with distracted breast; "I will remove an error from thy +faithful heart, and then thou wilt certainly go with me. This Baldhead, +our mocker and juggler, is, according to the holy word of my sister, +one and the same person with my uncle, and is a ventriloquist."</p> + +<p class="normal">Schoppe stood for a long time like one dead, as if he had not heard a +word. Suddenly, with radiant face and sparkling eye, he threw himself +on his knee, and stammered, "Heaven, Heaven! make me mad! The rest I +will do." Here he made a wicked neck-wringing motion with his hands, +and said, in a tone of restored strength, "I can follow thee." He +really could now, but before he had hardly been able to stand. And so +Albano led the unhappy, excited friend with heavy heart to his own +lodgings.</p> +<br> +<h3>136. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">Albano now left no stone unturned which friendship could lift, for the +sake of setting the noble patient to rights again, and renewing his +youth, inwardly and outwardly. Especially did he seek to set up again +the bridge over which all his strings were drawn, and which the Knight +and his brother had overturned in the presence of Linda, namely, his +pride of character, which had been brought so very low by this +barbarous humiliation. As only pure brotherly respect and holy worship +of a divine relic can softly warm and reanimate a wounded pride, the +faithful Albano took this course. But without satisfaction from the +Spaniard, the contriver of the mischief and the misleader of the +Knight, his backbone, Schoppe said, would never run perpendicular +again, and his spinal marrow would remain bent. Only Albano's duel with +the uncle was a fresh draught of cool water to him; he had to have it +told over to him several times. His thirsty wish was to be as well as +he needed to be in order to fight with the Spaniard, and then, as a +madman, to extort from him on a death-bed, whereupon he thought to lay +him, the confession of all his tricks and juggleries. "Then," he added, +all the time smiling, "it can well be <i>égal</i> to me whether the world is +round or angular, and to France is my first step."</p> + +<p class="normal">Albano had to let this Greek fire of wrath, which in the end worked as +a strengthening cure to a body frozen by humiliation, burn deeper and +deeper under itself, since every attempt to extinguish merely fed it; +only he had to watch, that he did not get a free, solitary moment, to +fly off in a blaze and seek out the Spaniard. Albano stirred not day +nor night from his sofa-bed, and that for other reasons also. For if +Schoppe should be left alone, and his Mordian fall asleep (whom he +never woke, because the dog, he said, evidently dreamed, and then went +flying and nosing about in ideal worlds, snuffing things whereof in the +streets of the actual hardly a trace of a shadow was to be scented), +if, then, he should be alone with the quiet animal (for when it was +awake he had society enough), and his eye should accidentally fall upon +his legs or hands, then would his cold fear creep over him that he +might appear to himself as his own apparition, and see his own "I." The +looking-glass had to be overhung, that he might not come across +himself.</p> + +<p class="normal">His nights were sleepless, but dreams moved nakedly and boldly round +him. Albano readily devoted to him his own well nights, yet could not +drive away any of his friend's dreams, those spectres which generally +flee or sink before the living. They crept and peeped about in the +shadows of the corners of the room. Once toward midnight Albano had +gone out, and on returning found him just in the act of grasping one +hand with the other, and exclaiming, "Whom have I here, man?" "O good, +best Schoppe," cried Albano, half in anger, "such irrational plays! +Quite as well might one finger catch the other!" "Yes, to be sure," +replied he. "But listen," said he softly, and squatted, ducked his +head, and pointed with the right index-finger up over his nose into the +air, "thou calledst me Schoppe; that is not my name: but I may not +utter my real name; the 'I' who has been so long seeking me would hear +it, and come stalking along,—a long gravestone lies on the name. +Schoppe or <i>Scioppius</i> I could very well call myself, because my +many-named namesake and name-father (it is all found in Bayle) called +himself, now so, now so, now Junipere d'Amone, now Denig Bargas, or +Grosippe, or Krigsöder, Sotelo, and now Hay. I must appear to have +wholly forgotten that the man was, after all, veritable Titular Prince +of Athens and Duke of Thebes by Ottoman chancery and grace, if I should +choose to remain Maltese Librarian. In fact, I used to go from one +hotel to another with many a name, which magnificently played with and +played upon the 'I,' that forever hunted and haunted me; for example, +Löwenskiould, Leibgeber, Graul, Schoppe, too, Mordian (which I +afterward gave my dog), Sacramentierer, and once <i>huleu</i>,—many I may +have entirely forgotten. The true one," said he, shyly whispering, "is +a ss or S—s,<a name="div2Ref_142" href="#div2_142"><sup>[142]</sup></a>—give me a <i>third</i> hand here. The name is cut out of +grave-clothes, and I lie therein already buried in the ground. 'I am +I.' Such were the last words of the fine old Swift, who otherwise +said little in his long madness. I might not venture, however, to +be so much myself as that. Well, courage! Infinite Wisdom has created +all,—madness, too,—in the lump. Only God grant, that God may never +say to himself, 'I!' The universe would tremble to pieces, I believe; +for God finds no third hand."</p> + +<p class="normal">Albano shuddered at the sense of this nonsense. Schoppe seemed ice; +then he threw himself suddenly on the brotherly bosom; neither said +aught upon the subject, and Albano began sunny descriptions of the +happy Hesperia.</p> + +<p class="normal">Thus patiently and solitarily did he spend with his sick friend, in +nursing, indulging, caressing, the days which he would gladly have made +use of for his flight out of Germany; and loved him more and more +passionately, the more he did and endured in his behalf. He absolutely +would not suffer it at the hand of fate, that such a world full of +ideas should approach its conflagration, and so free a heart, full of +honesty, its last beating. Schoppe had in the youth's heart even a +greater realm than Dian; for he took life more freely, deeply, greatly, +bravely; and if the law of Dian's life was beauty, his was freedom, and +he tended, like our solar system, to the constellation Hercules.</p> + +<p class="normal">Notwithstanding all entreaties, he took no medicines from Dr. Sphex; +for he had already, he said, committed his case to an old, well-known +practitioner and circuit-physician, Time. He readily allowed Sphex to +draw up a recipe, to bring it; willingly looked it through, disputed +about the contents, remarked it was easier to <i>be</i> sanitary-counsel +than to give it, and he saw, indeed, that he hit his case, because he +pursued a weakening treatment, which was the first thing with crazy +people; he added, however, that reason was not just the thing he +desired, but only a couple of valiant shanks to walk with and stand +upon, and a couple of arms well filled out to strike home withal; and +for the rest, he told him he did not like him, because he cut up dogs. +Albano, too, at last, took the position, that, if Schoppe could only +get muscular strength again for a social journey with him, then the +frenzy-dream into which the unsocial one had thrown him would readily +fly away of itself.</p> + +<p class="normal">Schoppe was always flying out at the Doctor particularly. Once the +latter said: "Follow, if not me, at least your second self," and +pointed to Albano. "To the Devil," he replied, "with my second +self,—that may be you: I feel shy enough of you to make it +probable,—but he, there, is certainly, I have every reason to hope, +hardly my sixth, twentieth self, or the like."</p> + +<p class="normal">Meanwhile Sphex stuck to his opinion, that his sthenic sleeplessness, +which was alternately the daughter and the mother of his fever-visions, +especially of the Baldhead, barred up the way to relief, and must be +conquered by weakening processes. When one day Dian, who often visited +his friend Albano, heard this, he asked, why one would not deceive and +cure him directly with the tidings of the Spaniard having travelled off +for fear of him, say to France. Albano replied: "Truly I should be glad +to say it, but I cannot; I could as soon will to tell a lie to God or +myself." "Whims!" said Dian; "I'll tell him myself." "Just what +I had expected of that Spaniard," replied Schoppe to the official +recipe-falsehood. When Dian had gone out, he asked Albano: "Do I not +sit now much cooler and more icy here? And, truly, since hearing that +the Baldhead is in France, I have become almost a new man. Of course I +am lying, but Dian lied first."</p> + +<p class="normal">At last the physician resolved to mix at once a sleeping potion in his +drink. Albano allowed it. Schoppe got it; glowed and phantasied for a +space of some minutes; at last the mist of sleep came up and soon +covered the patient over.</p> + +<p class="normal">Albano, then, after so long a time, visited again the green of the +earth and the blue of heaven, and his Dian in Lilar. What a +transformation had taken place in the interval; how had things been +confounded, and changed places, with each other! How many leaves had +become budgeons again! And many a foam of life which had once gladdened +him with its whiteness and delicacy and lightsomeness, now chilled his +bosom like gray, heavy water, and he had retained almost nothing except +his courage to meet life. At Dian's he heard of new changes, of the +Prince's approaching death, of Idoine's approaching visit to her sister +in anticipation of the bereavement. In what a strange bewilderment did +his soul open its eyes out of its winter-sleep into the warm sunshine +which this image of Liana diffused over his life! In many a still night +by Schoppe's ghostly tent had he already, since Julienne for the first +time let him see the apparition of this peace-angel without the veil, +beheld the olden time and former love come up again like a heaven of +distant stars, and in the clear-obscure of dreams disrobed of sleep he +saw on the sea of time a far, far-off island,—whether behind him or +before him, he knew not,—where a white, averted form, resembling or +suggesting Liana's, hovered and sang as an echo of the olden strain. +Now close upon the death-month of the brother followed the death-month +of the sister Liana. Were it possible that the celestial one would step +out again from the still mirror of the second world and out of its +immeasurable distances, into this earthly atmosphere, and after her +transfiguration again walk embodied here below?</p> + +<p class="normal">But friendship demanded room for its sorrows, and these cloud-images +were soon covered over or destroyed by it. He could not find courage in +his heart, however much he wished it, to demand of Schoppe, or even to +receive from him, a description of that healing-night, in which Idoine +had been Liana; and yet this form was the only live-playing jewel in +the death-ring on the skeleton of stern time, which stood before him. +What days! What the graves had not stolen from him and swallowed up, +the earth had snatched away, and Gaspard, once his exalted father on a +serene throne of the heavens, had now appeared to his fancy with +frightful hell-powers and weapons down below, sitting on a throne of +the abyss.</p> + +<p class="normal">So much the more mildly did he feel, flowing around him, when he was in +Dian's house, the stiller presence, the thought of the reposing friend, +the sight of the neighboring Dream-temple, where Liana had once been +Idoine, and the annunciation that the living image of the loved one was +drawing near. He portrayed to himself the sweet and bitter terror of +her apparition before him; for as in the stream the bending flower +sketches not only its <i>form</i>, but its <i>shadow</i> also, so is she Liana's +beautiful form and shadow at once, and in the living one would a lost +and a glorified appear to him at the same time.</p> + +<p class="normal">In this dreamy chiaroscuro and evening twilight, made up of past +and future flowing together, he came back to his house. A sharp +lightning-flash darted white across the dreamy redness. His Schoppe +had, after a few minutes of forced sleep, wildly started up and madly +sprung out, nobody knew whither. The doctor came, and said decisively, +either he had thrown himself overboard or everybody else; he had run +wildly away, and had taken his sword-cane with him, too.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<p class="center"><img src="images/hornstart.png" alt="hornstart"></p> +<h2><a name="div1Ref_34" href="#div1_34">THIRTY-FOURTH JUBILEE.</a></h2> + +<h3><span class="sc2">Schoppe's Discoveries.—Liana.—The Chapel of the +Cross.—Schoppe and the "I" and the Uncle.</span></h3> +<br> +<h3>137. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">As Schoppe had taken with him his great sword-cane, Albano presumed he +had gone after the Spaniard, as destroying-angel. He hurried to his +uncle's hotel. A servant told him a red cloak with a thick cane had +been there, and desired to be admitted to the gentleman, but that they +had despatched him, according to the directions of the latter, to the +palace, and meanwhile the gentleman had posted off to the Prince's +garden to meet his strong brother. Albano asked, "Who is the strong +brother?" "His Excellency your father," replied the servant. Albano +hastened to the palace. Here all was haste and confusion about the +sickbed of the Prince, who threatened soon to exchange it for the bed +of state. Hurrying servants met him. One could tell him he had seen a +red mantle go into the great mirror-room. Albano stepped in; it was +empty, but full of strange traces. A great mirror lay on the floor, an +arras door behind stood open, an open souvenir, wheels, and articles of +female apparel, were scattered about an old waxen head. It seemed to +him he saw something he had seen before, and yet could not name to +himself. Suddenly he beheld in a corner-mirror a second reflection of +himself far in behind the image of his youthful face, but covered with +age, and similar to the waxen head. He looked round him, a relieved +cylindrical mirror unlocked to him, as it were, time itself, and he saw +in its depths his gray old age.</p> + +<p class="normal">Shuddering, he left the singular apartment. A gentlewoman of Julienne +came across his way. She could tell him that she had seen the +"Profile-cutter," in a red mantle, with a pocket spy-glass in his hand, +go out across the castle yard. He hastened after, when Augusti came to +meet him below the gate, with the request of the Prince, that he would +visit him once more. "Cannot possibly now; I must first have my crazy +Schoppe again," replied he. In his bosom no one lived but his friend; +moreover, he took the Prince, in this case, to be only the mask of his +talkative sister. "I saw him on the way to Blumenbühl," said the +Lector. He darted off. At the gate, Augusti's intelligence was +confirmed by the guard.</p> + +<p class="normal">On the road to Blumenbühl he was met by the carriage of the court +chaplain, Spener, who was on his way to the Prince. Albano asked after +Schoppe. Spener informed him he had talked with him for some time +before a solitary house, where he had stopped an hour for the sake of a +sick old penitent daughter; had found him well, uncommonly sensible, +only older and more reserved than usual. To the question as to his +route, the court chaplain replied he had gone toward the city. This +appeared to him impossible, but Spener's people confirmed the story, +and spoke of the man as wearing a green coat. Albano spoke of a red +cloak; Spener and all the rest stuck to the green coat.</p> + +<p class="normal">He turned back to his own house, where, perhaps, he thought, Schoppe +might be seeking and awaiting him. The bondman of the Doctor, the lank +Malt, ran to meet him with the intelligence that Herr von Augusti had +just been looking for him, and that the sick gentleman had gone out at +the old gate in a new green coat. It was the street to the Prince's +garden, which, according to Albano's presumption, he had certainly +taken, so soon as he had been informed of the Spaniard's having taken +the same. Out of doors it was confirmed by Falterle, who related how he +had, in his way out, overtaken him, and immediately inquired: "Whither +so fast, Mr. Librarian?" whereupon he had stood still, looked at him +seriously, and given the answer, "Who are you? You are mad," and then +hastened on. Albano inquired about the dress. "In green," replied +Falterle. Now his way was decided. The loitering rider could even +avouch that the uncle had previously taken the same.</p> + +<p class="normal">Late in the evening Albano arrived at the Prince's garden. He saw some +carriages at the yard of the little garden castle. At last people of +his father's met him, who could tell him Schoppe had walked about, +tranquil and cheerful, for some time in the garden, with a Mr. von +Hafenreffer of Haarhaar, and had gone with him to the city. "With a man +he has, to be sure, a guardian genius and keeper again," thought +Albano, and the cold rain which had hitherto annoyed him passed away, +although the heavens still remained dull. With his agitated heart, +surrounded as it was in this landscape only by a dark horizon, he +shunned all society, and therefore now the pleasure-castle. Passing by +at a distance, he ventured to cast mournful glance at the island of +slumber, where Roquairol's grave-hill, like a burnt-out volcano, was to +be seen near the white Sphinx. "There, at last, lies the ungovernable +balance-wheel, broken and still, lifted out of the stream of time; only +with the grave closed the Janus-temple of thy life, thou tormented +and tormenting spirit," thought Albano, full of pity, for he had once +loved the dead one so much. Over on the garden-mountain, with the +linden-tree, reposed the gentle sister, the friendly, lovely angel of +peace, amidst the war-din of life,—she, eternal peace, as he, eternal +war. He determined to go up thither, and to be alone with the bride of +heaven, and to seek out, on the soil consecrated to flowers, the bed +beneath which her flower-ashes lay covered up from storms. At the mere +thought of such a purpose, streams of tears, like sorrows, burst from +his eyes; for he had been dissolved into dreaminess by his previous +night-vigils and anxieties, and by so many a misfortune, too, which in +so short a time had pierced through his fair, firm life, from one end +to the other, with poisonous sting and tooth.</p> + +<p class="normal">As he went up the hill in the yet moonless, but richly starred +twilight, wherein the evening star was the only moon, as it were a +smaller mirror of the sun, he saw a couple of gray-clad persons make +earnest signs out of the Prince's garden, as if they would forbid his +proceeding. He went on unconcerned; indeed, he did not even know +whether his brain, glowing from its vigils and agitated by the shocks +of life, did not cause these forms to flutter before him, as out of a +concave mirror.</p> + +<p class="normal">As if he were entering a roofless, Grecian temple, so did he step into +the holy cloister-garden of the still nun, wherein the linden-tree +spoke loud, and the silent flowers, like children, played above the +reposing one, and nodded and rocked. High and far stretched the starry +arches, like glimmering triumphal arches, over the little spot of +earth, over the hallowed spot, where Liana's mortal veil, the little +luminous and rosy cloud, had sunk down, when it had no longer to bear +the angel, who had gone up into the ether, and needed no cloud any +more. Suddenly the shuddering Albano beheld the white form of Liana +leaning against the linden, and turned toward the evening star and the +ruddy evening glow. Long did he contemplate, in the averted form, the +heavenly descending facial line with which Liana had so often +unconsciously stood as a saint beside him. He still believed some +dream, the Proteus of man's past, had drawn down the airy image from +heaven, and made it play before him, and he expected to see it pass +away. It lingered, though quiet and mute. Kneeling down, as before the +open gate of the wide, long heaven full of transfiguration and +divinity, and as if he had been caught up out of these earthly vales, +he exclaimed, "Apparition, comest thou from God? art thou Liana?" and +it seemed to him as if he were dying.</p> + +<p class="normal">Quickly the white form looked round, and saw the youth. She rose +slowly, and said, "My name is Idoine; I am innocent of the cruel +deception, most unhappy youth." Then he covered his eyes, from a +sudden, sharp pang at the return of the cold, heavy reality. Thereupon +he looked at the fair maiden again, and his whole being trembled at her +glorified resemblance to the departed. So smiled once Liana's delicate +mouth in love and sorrow; so opened her mild eye; so fell her fine hair +around a dazzling-white, sweet face; so was her whole beautiful soul +and life painted upon her countenance. Only Idoine stood there greater, +like a risen one, prouder and taller her stature, paler her complexion, +more thoughtful the maidenly brow. She could not, when he looked upon +her so silently and comparingly, repress her sympathy for the deceived +and unhappy one, and she wept, and he too.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Do I, too, distress you?" said he, in the highest emotion. With the +tone of the virgin who lay beneath the flowers, Idoine innocently said, +"I only weep that I am not Liana." Quickly she added, "Ah, this place +is so holy, and yet the human heart is not enough so." He understood +not her self-reproach. Reverence and openheartedness and inspiration +mastered him; life stood up and stood out shining from the narrow +bounds of troublous reality, as out of a coffin; heaven came down +nearer with its lofty stars, and the two stood in the midst of them. +"Noble Princess," said he, "we have neither of us any apology to make +here; the holy spot, like a second world, takes away all sense of +mutual strangeness. Idoine, I know that you once gave me peace; and, +before the hidden tabernacle of the spirit in whose sense you spoke, I +here thank you."</p> + +<p class="normal">Idoine answered, "I did it without knowing you, and therefore I could +allow myself the short use or abuse of a fleeting resemblance. Had it +depended upon me, I certainly never would have so painfully awakened +your recollections with so insignificant a resemblance as an external +one is. But her heart deserves your remembrance and your sorrow. They +wrote me you were no longer in the linden city." She sought now to +hasten her departure. "In a few days," he answered, "I, too, shall +travel. I seek comfort in war from the peace of the grave, and the +solitude which makes my life still." "Earnest activity, believe me, +always reconciles one with life at last," said Idoine; but the tranquil +words were borne by a trembling voice, for, by help of her sister, she +had got a sight of the whole gray, rainy land of his present existence, +and her heart was full of deep sympathy for her kind.</p> + +<p class="normal">Here he looked at her sharply; her nun-like eyelids, which always, +during her speaking, drooped over the whole of her large eyes, made her +so like a slumbering saint. He was reminded by her last words of her +beneficent life in Arcadia, where the gay flower-dust of her ideas and +dreams, unlike the heavy, dead gold-dust of mere riches, lightly +fluttering round in cheerful life, enlivening all with unobserved +influence, at length displayed its fruit in firm woods and gardens on +the earth. Everything within him loved her, and cried, "She only could +be thy last as well as thy first love"; and his whole heart, opened by +wounds, was unfolded to the still soul. But a serious, severe spirit +closed it again: "Unhappy one, love no one again; for a dark, +destroying angel goes behind thy love with a sword, and whatever rosy +lip thou pressest to thine he touches with the sharp edge or poisoned +point, and it withers or bleeds to death!"</p> + +<p class="normal">He saw already the glitter of this sword glide through the long +darkness; for Idoine had made a vow never to stretch out her hand in +the covenant of love below her princely rank. So stood the two beside +each other, separate in one heaven, a sun and a moon, divided by an +earth. She hastened her departure. Albano thought it not right to +accompany her, as he now divined that the gray-clad persons who had +beckoned him back were her servants, placed there to guard her +solitude. She offered him her hand at the garden-gate, and said, "May +you live to be more happy, dear Count; one day I hope to find you again +as happy as you ought to make yourself." The touch of the hand, like +that of a heavenly one offering itself out of the clouds, streamed +through him with a glorified fire from that world where risen ones +hover, light and luminous, and the lofty, awe-awakening form inspired +his heart. He could not say what he subdued and buried within him, but +neither could he say any other cold, disguised word. He knelt down, +pressed her hand to his bosom, looked with tears to the starry heaven, +and only said, "Peace, all-gracious one!" Idoine turned hastily away, +and, after a few swift steps, passed slowly down the little hill into +the Prince's garden.</p> + +<p class="normal">A few minutes after, he saw the torches of her carriage fly through the +night, in which she loved to brave the danger of travelling. Around the +hill it was dark; the evening redness and the evening star had gone +down; the earth was a smoke and rubbish-heap of night; a mausoleum of +clouds reared itself on the horizon. But in Albano there was a certain +incomprehensible gladness, a luminous point in the darkness of the +heart; and, as he looked upon the gleaming atom, it spread itself out, +became a splendor, a world, a boundless and endless sun. Now he +recognized it; it was the real infinite and divine love, which can be +still and suffer, because it knows only <i>one</i> good, but not its own.</p> + +<p class="normal">He was rejoiced at having veiled his breast, and at his resolve not to +see her again in the city. "So silently," he said, half praying, half +aloud, "will I love her forever. Her peace, her bliss, her fair +aspiration, shall be ever holy to me, and her form hidden from me, and +remote as that of her heavenly sister; but when the battle for right +begins, and the tones of music flutter with the banners in the air, and +the heart beats more eagerly, to bleed more profusely, then let thy +form, O Idoine, hover before me in the heavens, and I will fight for +thee; and if, in the tumult, an unknown destroying angel draws the +poisoned edge across my breast, then will I hold thee fast in my +fainting heart till the earth is to me no more.".</p> + +<p class="normal">He looked round serenely, after this prayer, at the churchyard of the +virgin heart; he felt that Liana alone might be permitted to know, and +that she would bless it.</p> +<br> +<h3>138. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">Albano could not spend a night in a region where the single columns and +arches of the ruined sun-temple of his youth lay scattered round; but +he betook himself, in a mournfully dreamy mood, toward the city. On the +road he found the Provincial Director Wehrfritz on horseback, who was +in quest of him. "Respected son," said he, "there have come to my hands +the weightest things from thy intimate friend Mr. Schoppe, which I, in +turn, have to deliver only into thine own, which I accordingly hereby +make haste to do; for, by Heaven, I have little spare time. The Prince +has dropped off this evening, from fright, because somebody said his +old father, who had promised to appear to him a second time as a sign +of his death, was to be seen in the mirror-room, which, however, I +hear, turned out to be only something of wax. The articles which +I have to deliver up are, first, a perspective-glass, wherewith thou +wilt see thy mother and sister painted (I use carefully Mr. Schoppe's +own expressions); secondly, a written packet addressed to 'Albano, +foster-son of Wehrfritz,' half of which is still enclosed in a black, +broken marble slab; and, thirdly, thy portrait." The portrait resembled +Albano at his present age, it was discovered,—so far as the stars +permitted one to see,—though, in fact, he had never let himself be +painted. The black marble slab and the perspective-glass brought before +his soul his father's prophecy on Isola Bella,<a name="div2Ref_143" href="#div2_143"><sup>[143]</sup></a>—that a female form +would step toward him out of the wall of a picture-gallery, and +describe to him a place where he was to find the black slab, having +previously shown him one where he should find the telescope, of which +the eye-glass would make for him, out of the old image of his sister, a +young recognizable one, and the object-glass, out of the young image of +his mother, an old recognizable one.</p> + +<p class="normal">Albano put anxious questions about Schoppe and the history of the +finding of the rare freight. "With Herr Schoppe it fares well enough," +said Wehrfritz; "he must be somewhere in the neighborhood with a +strange gentleman." Albano inquired after his dress; this, to his +astonishment, had grown out of a green into a red again. Hardly had +Wehrfritz begun giving the wonderful history how Schoppe came by those +wonderful things, when Albano, who gathered therefrom the solution of +the paternal prophecy, in the eagerness of his expectation interrupted +the intelligence with the request that he would accompany him to the +neighboring Chapel of the Cross, around which several lanterns stood. +He had both medallions always with him, and was now so curious to see +the face of his mother through the object-glass, as well as to read the +paper.</p> + +<p class="normal">At the outermost lantern they stopped. Albano took out the medallion of +the decrepit form, under which was inscribed, "<i>Nous nous verrons un +jour, mon frère</i>"; he surveyed it through the eye-glass; behold, the +old face was the young one of his Julienne. Confidently he held the +age-imparting glass to the young image, under which was inscribed, +"<i>Nous ne nous verrons jamais, mon fils</i>"; there appeared a friendly +old face, smiling across out of a long life, whose original lay, as +having been seen by him, in a deep, dark memory, but nameless; of +Linda's mother it had, however, no feature.</p> + +<p class="normal">All at once he heard a familiar voice: "<i>Ecco, ecco!</i><a name="div2Ref_144" href="#div2_144"><sup>[144]</sup></a> my +nephew, sir!" It was Albano's uncle, who seemed to drag along the +black-dressed, wailing Schoppe, and weepingly addressed his nephew: +"Ah, <i>neveu!</i> O, I speak the truth, only truth <i>pour jamais</i>." He +looked +laughing, and thought he wept. The black coat stepped nearer, become a +green coat, and said, "Sir Count, don't let yourself be deceived a +minute; our acquaintance begins with a mutual loss." "My Schoppe," said +Albano, agitated, "knowest thou me no more?" "O that I were he now! My +name is Siebenkäs," replied the green coat, and threw up his hands into +the air in token of lamentation. "He lies there, however, in the +chapel," said the Spaniard; "I will relate all so truly that it is +beautiful." Albano cast a glance into the chapel, and, with a cry of +pain, fell headlong.</p> +<br> +<h3>139. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">Schoppe's history was, according to Wehrfritz's and the uncle's +telling, this: He had started up glowing out of the constrained +slumber; the snorting war-steed of vindictive fury against the Spaniard +had hurried him away. In the hotel-yard of the latter the servant had +directed him with a lie to the castle. Here, amidst the confused tumult +about the suffering Prince, he had reached, unasked, unseen, the +mirror-room where he had once begged of the Countess Linda Idoine's +word of peace for his distracted friend. When the cylindrical mirror +which graves the long years of age on the young face, and shakes +thereon the moss and rubbish of time, threw out at him his image wasted +with madness, said he, "Ho, ho! the old <i>I</i> lurks somewhere in the +neighborhood," and looked grimly round. Out of the mirrors of the +mirrors he saw a whole people of <i>I</i>'s looking at him. He sprang upon a +chair, to unhang a long mirror. While he was starting the nail of the +same, a clock in the wall struck twelve times. Here the prediction of +Gaspard came into his head, which his friend had confided to him, and +all the rules which the latter had prescribed to him for the solution +of the riddles. The prediction mentioned, indeed, a picture-gallery, +but a mirror-room is itself one, only more vacillating, and deeper in +behind the wall. He took down the mirror, according to the rules given +by Gaspard, found and opened the arras-door corresponding to the size +of the mirror; the wooden female form, with the open souvenir in her +left hand and the crayon in her right, sat behind there. He pressed, +according to the prescription, the ring on the left middle finger; the +form stood up, with the rolling of an inward machinery, stepped out +into the apartment, stopped at the opposite wall, drew a line down +thereon with the crayon in its hand. He drew up the border of the +wall-hanging; the perspective-glass and the waxen impression of the +coffin-key lay in a compartment behind there. Now he pressed the +ring-finger; the figure set the crayon upon the souvenir, and wrote, +"Son, go into the princely vault in the Blumenbühl church, and open the +coffin of the Princess Eleonore, and thou wilt find the black slab."</p> + +<p class="normal">When that was done (the Knight had told Albano), if the marble slab, +nevertheless, was not found in the coffin, then he must press the third +ring on the little finger, whereupon something would appear which he +himself did not foreknow. Schoppe tried the pressure of this finger +before going into the Blumenbühl Church,—the figure remained +standing,—but something began to roll inside,—the arms stretched +themselves out and fell down,—wheels rolled out,—at last the whole +form dismembered itself by a mechanical suicide, and there appeared an +old head of wax.</p> + +<p class="normal">Here Schoppe went off, to run to Blumenbühl and fetch out of the vault +the light required for this night-piece. Though it was noonday, church +and vault were left open,—perhaps because they were making room for +the new cavern-guest who was just dying. Without stopping to transform +the waxen key into an iron one, he violently broke open the coffin with +an iron tool, and quickly snatched out the marble slab and Albano's +portrait. He broke the slab behind a bush. When he read the +superscription, he examined no farther; he hastened to Albano's house +to deliver all. But the two were simultaneously seeking each other in +vain. Meanwhile he lighted upon the honest Wehrfritz, through whom +alone he could despatch such important booty; he himself was now on the +scent after his deadly foe, the Spaniard, and no power could drive him +off the hunting-ground of his wrath.</p> + +<p class="normal">At sundown Schoppe espied the Spaniard, who, flying out of the Prince's +Garden to escape the fac-simile, Siebenkäs, came running into his +hands. He stiffened at the sight of the madman, cried, "Lord and God, +are you behind me and before me, are you red and green?" and rushed +sidewards into the old Chapel of the Cross, to fall on his knees and +invoke the Holy Virgin. Schoppe stretched out his condor wings, shot +off and dropped them together before the chapel. "Turn thyself round, +Spaniard, I'll devour thee from top to toe," said he. "Holy mother of +God, help me,—good, bad spirit, stand by me, O gloomy one!" prayed the +Baldhead. "Step round, knave, without further trick," said Schoppe, +describing from behind with his sword a horse-shoe in the air. He +turned round piteously on his knees, and his head hung slackly down +from his neck. Schoppe began: "Now I've got thee, villain! thou prayest +to me to no purpose on thy knees; I hold the sword of judgment,—mad am +I, too,—in a few minutes, when we have said our say, I stick this +present cane-sword into thee,—for I am a madman, full of fixed ideas." +"Ah, sir," replied the Baldhead, "you are certainly entirely rational +and in your head and yourself; I beg to live; killing is so great a +deadly sin." Schoppe replied: "As to my understanding, of that another +time! I have already shot thee in effigy, now will I not carry round in +vain the deadly sin and the sting of conscience, but set myself about +it <i>in naturâ</i>, thou hangman of souls, thou trepan of hearts!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Schoppe, Schoppe!" cried at this moment, several times over, at great +distances, a something with Albano's voice. He looked swiftly round; +nothing was to be seen. "Good Schoppe," it continued, "let my uncle +go!" Now Schoppe blazed up, and raised his dagger for a thrust. "Thou +absolutely too abominably petrified ventriloquist! Should not one +immediately stick the trumpery here as they do a wounded horse? Seest +thou not, then, the hellish, cursed murder- and death-stroke before thy +nose, thy pest-cart already tackled up, the stuffed-out skeleton of +death cased in this flesh of mine, and just lifting the scythe? +Confess, Spaniard, for Jesus' sake, confess! Fly, ere I stick, spit +thee! Thou wilt thereby have some plea with the devils in hell; +otherwise thou art, even down below there, an utterly ruined man."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Where sits the Pater? I will confess, indeed," said the Spaniard.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Here stands thy gallows-Pater; behold the shorn poll," said Schoppe, +shaking off the hat from his bending, close-shaven head.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Hear my confession! But by night the gloomy one suffers me not to tell +the truth,—he comes certainly, he comes to take me, Pater! fumigate +me, baptize me against the devil!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Step-penitent and thief, am I not father-confessor and Pater +enough for thee, who will soon baptize thee? Just say all, hound, I +absolve thee, and then strike thee dead for penitence. Say on, thou +coronation-mint of the Devil, art thou not the Baldhead, and the Father +of Death, and the monk at the same time, whose figure full of gas went +up toward heaven in Mola, and hadst ventriloquism and wax-moulding and +considerable knavery at hand?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, father, ventriloquism and wax-images and the knave. But the evil +spirit was always by; often I said nothing, and yet it was said, and +the figures ran."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Mordian," said Schoppe, waxing furious upon this subject, "seize the +hound! Dost thou still lie,—thou cloaca dug in Paradise!—into the ear +of the great Fatal Sister, thou mimic mummery? Does thy death's head +without lip and tongue still bestir itself to lie? O God, what are thy +human creatures!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"O Pater, they are no lies! but the gloomy one wills them by night; I +have made a league with him,—I have seen him this evening; he looked +like you, and was in green. Holy Mary, O Pater, I have spoken the +truth; there he comes in green,—O Pater, O Mary, and has your form and +a fiery eye in his hand—"</p> + +<p class="normal">"No one has my form," said Schoppe, agitated, "but the 'I.'"</p> + +<p class="normal">"O glance round! The evil spirit comes to me—absolve—stab—I will die +off!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Schoppe at last looked behind him. The striding cast of his form came +moving along towards him,—the fiery eye in the hand ascended into the +face,—the mask of the <i>I</i> was clad in green. "Evil spirit, I am just +in the act of auricular confession; thou canst not come hither; I am +holy," cried the Spaniard, and grasped Schoppe. The dog seized <i>him</i>. +Schoppe stared at the green form,—the sword fell from his hand. "My +Schoppe," it cried, "I seek thee, dost thou not know me?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Long enough! Thou art the old <i>I</i>,—only bring thy face along hither +and put it to mine, and make this stupid existence cold," cried +Schoppe, with a last effort of manly force. "I am Siebenkäs," said the +Fac-simile, tenderly, and stepped quite near. "So am I; I resemble I," +said he once more, in a low tone; but at that moment the overpowered +man collapsed, and this cleansing storm became a sighing, still breath +of air. With a face growing white, spasmodically shutting-to his stiff +eyes, he fell; the playing fingers seemed still to be calling the dog, +and the lips were just making themselves up for a joke which they did +not utter. His friend Siebenkäs, who could not guess anything of the +matter, raised, weeping, the cold, fast-closed hand to his heart, to +his mouth, and cried: "Brother, look up, thy old friend from Baduz +stands verily beside thee, and sees thee in the pangs of death; he bids +thee a thousand times farewell,—farewell!"</p> + +<p class="normal">This seemed to convey into the breaking heart, through the ears still +open to life, sweet tones of the dear old times and pleasant dreams of +eternal love;—the mouth began a faint smile, traced at once by +pleasure and death,—the broad breast filled, and heaved once more for +a sigh of pleasure: it was the last sigh of life, and the dead one sank +back, smiling, on the earth.</p> + +<p class="normal">Now hast thou ended thy course here below, stern, steadfast spirit! and +into the last evening-tempest on thy bosom there still streamed a soft, +playing sun, and filled it with roses and gold. The earth-ball, and all +the earthly stuff out of which the fleeting worlds are formed, was +indeed far too small and light for thee. For thou soughtest behind, +beneath, and beyond life, something higher than life; not thy <i>self</i>, +thy <i>I</i>,—no mortal, not an immortal, but the Eternal, the Original +One, God! This present <i>seeming</i> was so indifferent to thee, the evil +as well as the good. Now thou art reposing in real <i>being</i>,—death has +swept away from the dark heart the whole sultry cloud of life, and the +eternal light stands uncovered which thou didst so long seek, and thou, +its beam, dwellest again in the fire.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<p class="center"><img src="images/rivetstart.png" alt="rivetstart"></p> +<h2><a name="div1Ref_35" href="#div1_35">THIRTY-FIFTH JUBILEE.</a></h2> + +<h3><span class="sc2">Siebenkäs.—Confession of the Uncle.—Letter from Albano's +Mother.—The Race for the Crown.—Echo and Swan-song of the Story.</span></h3> +<br> +<h3>140. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">Long lay Albano in the solitary, dark abyss, till at length light +illuminated the depths and the green height from which he had been +precipitated. The once life-colored, manly face of his friend lay white +before him; the red mantle only heightened the snow of the corpse. The +dog lay with his head on his breast, as if he would warm and protect +it. When Albano saw the naked blade, he looked round him on all sides, +shuddered at the cold uncle, at the living brotherly image of the dead, +and at the first shadow of a doubt whether it had been murder or +suicide, and asked in a low tone, "How did he die?" "By me," said +Siebenkäs; "our similarity killed him; he thought he saw himself, as +this gentleman here will assure you." The uncle related several +particulars. Albano turned eye and ear away from him, but he buried in +the warm reflection of the friend's face that look to which the +daylight of friendship had sunk below the horizon of earth. Siebenkäs +seemed to assert himself by a rare manly bearing. Even Albano, the +younger friend, concealed his anguish that he had lost so much, and +that his orphan-heart was now exposed, like a helpless child, in the +wilderness of life.</p> + +<p class="normal">Wehrfritz asked him whether he should still send him a horse to ride +into the city. "Me! I ever go into the city again?" asked Albano. "No, +good father; Schoppe and I go to-day into the Prince's garden." He was +terrified at the mere black churchyard-landscape of the city, where +once had bloomed for him a golden sunshine, and leafy avenues and +heaven's-gates full of flowery festoons. O, the young honey of love, +the old wine of friendship; both were indeed poured by fate into +graves!</p> + +<p class="normal">The dead man was carried into the new castle of the Prince's garden. +Only Albano and Siebenkäs followed him. When they were alone, Albano +saw for the first time that the friend of his friend trembled and +wavered, and that until now only the spirit had sustained the body. +"Now can we both," said Albano, "mourn before each other; but only in +you do I believe. God, how then was his end?" Siebenkäs described to +him the last looks and tones of the poor man. "O God!" said Albano, "he +died not easily; when the madness of months became one minute,—rending +must have been the hell-flood which snatched away so firm a life." +Siebenkäs could with difficulty admit the belief of his madness, +because the deceased had so often, in his best moments, been similarly +misapprehended; but Albano at last convinced him. He related further, +that on his journey home he had been startled, when the repeated +mistaking of his person for the deceased led him to the presumption +that his long separated Leibgeber must be sojourning here, although he +could not but dread to think of the first appearing and comparison. +"For, Sir Count," said he, "years and business, particularly +juristical, ah! and life itself, always draw man farther down,—at +first out of ether into air, then out of the air on to the earth. 'Will +he know me?' said I. I am truly no more the man that I was, and the +physiognomical likeness might well have still remained the only and +strongest one. But this, too, had passed away; the blessed one there +looks still as he did ten years ago. O, only a free soul never grows +old! Sir Count, I was once a man, who played one and another joke with +life, and with death too, and I would cry out, 'Heavens! if hell should +get loose!' and more of the like. Ah, Leibgeber, Leibgeber! Time has +delicate little waves, but the sharpest-cornered pebble, after all, +becomes smooth and blunt therein at last."<a name="div2Ref_145" href="#div2_145"><sup>[145]</sup></a></p> + +<p class="normal">"Enumerate to me every trifle of his former days," begged +Albano,—"every dew-drop out of his morning redness: he was so chary of +his dark history!" "And that to every one," said the stranger. "This +much will I one day prove to you, from dates gathered on the spot, that +he is a Dutchman, like Hemsterhuis, and properly named <i>Kees</i>, like +Vaillant's ape, to which he prefixed <i>Sieben</i>, or seven; for Siebenkäs +is his first name. He drew his income out of the Bank of Amsterdam. +Every New Year's night he burnt up the papers of the preceding year; +and how his <i>Clavis Leibgeriana</i><a name="div2Ref_146" href="#div2_146"><sup>[146]</sup></a> has become known I do not yet +comprehend." Thereupon he related his first change of name, when +Schoppe took from him the name Leibgeber; then every hour and act of +his true heart toward the (former) poor-man's-attorney; then their +second exchange of names, when Siebenkäs let himself nominally be +buried, and went on as Leibgeber, and their eternal farewell in a +village of Voigtland.</p> + +<p class="normal">As Siebenkäs here stopped in his narrative, he grasped the cold hand, +with the words: "Schoppe, I thought I should not find thee till I found +thee with God!" and bent weeping over the dead. Albano let his tears +stream down, and took the other dead hand and said: "We grasp true, +pure, valiant hands." "True, pure, valiant," repeated Siebenkäs, and +said, with a Schoppeish smile, "His dog looks on and testifies as +much." But he became pale with emotion, and looked now exactly like the +dead. Then did he and Albano, sinking, touch the cold face to theirs, +and Albano said, "Be thou, too, my friend, Leibgeber; we can love each +other, because he loved us. Pale one, let thy form be the seal of my +love toward thy old friend!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Albano now pushed up the window, and showed him a grave in the east, +and one in the south, near the third open one, out there in the night, +and said, "Thus have I thrice wept over life." Siebenkäs pressed his +hand, and only said, "The Fates, and Furies, too, glide with linked +hands over life, as well as the Graces and Sirens." He looked upon the +singular, beautiful, fiery youth with the most hearty love; but Albano, +who always imagined himself to be loved but little, and whom the fiery +meteors of a Dian and a Roquairol had accustomed to bad habits of +thinking, knew not how very much he had won this more tranquil heart.</p> +<br> +<h3>141. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">On the morrow more sunshine and strength returned to Albano's breast. +He had now himself to heave up the mountain in the flat-pressed +plain of his life. Only to <i>see</i> Pestitz again, where all the +tournament-pleasures of his shining days had vanished, except the single +Dian,—he abhorred the thought. "When this friend has once his +grave-mound over his breast, then I go, and take leave of no one," +said he.</p> + +<p class="normal">Just then the hated uncle arrived, with the carriages full of magic +wands, and said, weepingly, he was going to the Carthusian cloister, to +atone for many sins, and he would first willingly explain to his +nephew, as well with words as by the carriages, all that he desired. "I +believe nothing you say," said Albano. "I can now tell the whole truth, +for the gloomy one has nothing more to do with me, I think, <i>cousin</i>," +replied the Spaniard. "Is not that," he added, in a low tone, with a +shy look at Siebenkäs, "the gloomy one, <i>cousin?</i>" Albano would not +know nor hear anything. Siebenkäs asked him who the gloomy one was. It +was the infinite man, he began, very black and gloomy, and had for the +first time stalked over toward him across the sea, when he stood on the +coast before a fog. At night he had often heard him call, and sometimes +had repeated his ventriloquial speeches. He had immediately appeared to +him, with a handful of threatenings, whenever he had told many truths +after sundown. Therefore had he feared exceedingly before the present +gentleman in the Chapel of the Cross; but now, since he had been +converted without suffering any harm in the chapel, he would tell +truths all day long, and in the Carthusian convent he intended to do so +still more.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Cloisters are the very places where they do not generally dwell; for +this reason, I suppose, the vow of silence is required, the observance +of which is always more favorable to truth than its breach is," replied +Siebenkäs. "O heretic, heretic!" cried the Spaniard, with such an +unexpected anger that Albano at once received, through this sign of +human feeling, pledges of his present sincerity, as well as of his +narrower spiritual circumference. Now, for the first time, he asked him +outright about the soil and the seed which he had hitherto used, in +order to force the swift flowers of his miracles.</p> + +<p class="normal">At this question he caused a casket to be brought up. "Ask," said he. +"How did Romeiro's form rise out of <i>Lago Maggiore?</i>" said Albano. The +uncle unlocked the casket, showed a wax figure, and said, "It was only +her mother." Albano shuddered before this near mock-sun of his sunken +one, and at the presumption of relationship with which Schoppe had +inspired him. "Am I related to her?" he quickly asked. The uncle +replied, with confusion, "It may haply be otherwise." Albano asked +about the monk who made the heavenly ascension in Mola. "He stood +overhead filled with gas;<a name="div2Ref_147" href="#div2_147"><sup>[147]</sup></a> I down below on the wall," said the +uncle. Albano would hear no further. The casket contained, besides, +ear-trumpets and speaking-trumpets, a face-skin, blue glass, through +which landscapes appeared snowed over, silk flowers, with powder of an +<i>endormeur</i>, &c. Albano would not see anything more.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Evil being! who set thee on to this?" asked Albano. "My strong +brother," said the uncle, for so he usually called the Knight. "He gave +me my living, and he would fain shoot me dead; for he laughs very much +when men are very finely cheated." "O, not a syllable of that!" cried +Albano, painfully, whose anger against the Knight made all his veins +spirt out fiery tears and poison. "Wretch! how didst thou become what +thou art?" "So! a wretch am I?" he asked, with icy coldness. He then +stated—but in an abrupt and confused manner, which attended him in +every language in his own part, whereas in a strange name (for +instance, the Baldhead's) he could speak long and well—that he had a +dark-gray and a blue eye, a hidden bald head, and a remarkable memory +since coming to manhood, and had therefore wished to become an actor, +because he had nothing to do, for he had never been in love; but, so +long as he did not improvisate, it had not gone well with him. He had +always had in his mind Joseph Clark, who could counterfeit any grown +person, and the deceiver Price, who went round in a threefold +character. Then the gloomy one had again come over to him one evening +in a shore fog across the water, and had murmured, as out of a belly, +"<i>Peppo</i>, <i>Peppo</i>,<a name="div2Ref_148" href="#div2_148"><sup>[148]</sup></a> swallow back the true word; I will directly +utter another"; and from that hour forth he had had the faculty of +ventriloquizing. He had thereby caused dead and dumb persons, and +speaking-machines, and parrots, and sleepers, and strange people in the +theatre, to speak well, but never any one in church, and that was +indeed a satisfaction to him. He had often given an unceasing echo to +rocks, so that men did not know at all when to go away. He had also +once caused a whole battle-field full of dead men to talk with itself, +in all languages, to the astonishment of the old general.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Where was that?" asked Siebenkäs. The Spaniard came to himself, and +replied, "I don't know; is it true, then? '<i>Omnes homines sunt +mendaces</i>,' says the Holy Scripture." "As little true," said Albano, +"as your gloomy ghost!" "O Mary, no!" said he, decidedly; "when I +predicted anything, he caused it indeed, after all, to turn out true. +Then he appeared to me, and said, 'Dost thou see, Peppo, mind and only +never speak a truth!' And in the night, when I went by your side to +Lilar, he went down in the valley as a man through the air." "I saw +that too," said Albano; "he floated onward without stirring." "That was +one," said Siebenkäs, smiling, "who stood, with his legs hidden, in a +boat that glided onward, and nothing more." Then the Spaniard looked at +this fac-simile of the corpse with the old horror with which he had +hitherto secretly taken it for the gloomy spirit himself, murmured in +Albano's ear, "See, this being knows it," and said, in justification of +his truths, "The sun is not yet gone down," and, without listening to +human entreaties, whose power had never been known to him, without +sorrow or joy, hurried off to enter before sundown into the neighboring +Carthusian monastery. All the implements of deception he had left where +they were.</p> + +<p class="normal">"A frightful man!" said Siebenkäs. "Some time ago, when he would fain +rejoice at something, he looked as if a pang seized upon his face. And +that he should stand there so thin and haggard, and look down sidewise, +and swallow his syllables! I am certain he could kill without changing +his look, even to anger." "O, he is the gloomy spirit that he sees; +don't call him up!" said Albano, hurrying away into a wholly new world, +which had now suddenly risen before his spirit.</p> +<br> +<h3>142. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">He thought, namely, of the paper, hitherto hidden by the cloud of +sorrow, which Schoppe had brought out of the princely vault, and of the +maternal image which he was to have found under the ocular glass. +Before he began to read, he held the image under the glass before the +stranger, to see if by any accident he might know it. "Very well! It is +the deceased Princess Eleonore, so far as a frontispiece engraving to +the provincial hymn-book allows one to presume upon resemblances; for +the Princess herself I never saw."</p> + +<p class="normal">With emotion, Albano drew the paper out of the cracked marble capsule; +but he was still more moved when he read the signature, "Eleonore," and +then the following in French:—</p> +<br> + +<p class="normal">"<span class="sc">My Son</span>: To-day have I seen thee again,<a name="div2Ref_149" href="#div2_149"><sup>[149]</sup></a> after long times in thy B. +(Blumenbühl); my heart is full of joy and anxiety, and thy beautiful +image floats before my weeping eyes. Why can I not have thee about me +and in my daily sight? How am I bound and distressed! But always did I +forge for myself fetters, and beg others to fasten them upon me. Hear +thine own history from the mouth of thy mother; from no other will it +come to thee more acceptably and truly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"The Prince and I lived long in an unfruitful marriage, which flattered +our cousin Hh. (Haarhaar) with more and more lively hopes of the +succession. At a late period thy brother L. (Luigi) annihilated them. +One could hardly forgive us that. The Count C. (Cesara) retains the +proofs of some dark actions (<i>de quelques noirceurs</i>) which were to +cost thy poor brother, otherwise weakly, his life. Thy father was with +me in Rome just as we learned it. 'They will surely get the better of +us at last,' said thy father. In Rome we made the acquaintance of the +Prince di Lauria, who would not give his beautiful daughter to the +Count C. (Cesara) till he should have become Knight of the Golden +Fleece. The Prince procured this order for him at the Imperial Court.</p> + +<p class="normal">"For this Madam Cesara thought she ought to be very grateful to me, +<i>une femme fort décidée, se repliant sur elle-même, son individualité +exagératrice perca à travers ses vertus et ses vices et son sexe</i>. We +learned to love each other. Her romantic spirit communicated with mine, +particularly in the Land of Romance. This result was helped by the fact +that she and I found ourselves at the same time in the right condition +of female enthusiasm, namely, the hope of being mothers. She was +confined with an exquisitely beautiful girl, exactly like her, +Severina, or as she was called afterward, Linda. Here we made the +singular contract, that, if I bore a son, we would exchange; I could +educate a daughter without hazard, and with her my son could grow up +without incurring that danger which had always threatened thy brother +in my house. She said, too, I could better guide a daughter, she a son, +as she had little respect for her sex. The Count was well satisfied +with the plan; the Hh. Court had just before refused him the oldest +princess, for whom he had been a suitor, under the ironical and +insulting pretext of her yet childish youth, and he for the sake of +avenging offended honor and injured vanity,—for he was a very handsome +man, and used only to victory,—was ready for any measures and contests +against the haughty court. Only the Prince did not approve of it; he +considered an education abroad, &c., quite ambiguous and critical. But +we women interwove ourselves so much the more deeply into our romantic +idea.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Two days after I brought forth thee and—Julienne at a birth. On this +rich emergency no one had reckoned. Here much turned up quite otherwise +and more easily than had been expected. 'I keep,' said I to the +Countess, 'my daughter, thou keepest thine; as to Albano (so shall he +be called), let the Prince decide.' Thy father allowed that thou +shouldst be brought up as son of the Count, indeed, but under his eye, +with the honest W. (Wehrfritz). Meanwhile he made provisions whose +solid value I then, in the fanciful enthusiasm of friendship, was not +in a condition wholly to weigh. At present I only wonder that I was +then so full of spirit. The documents of thy genealogy were not only +thrice made out,—I, the Count, and the Court Chaplain Spener, were put +in possession of them,—but subsequently thou wast presented even to +the Emperor Joseph II. as our princely son, and his gracious letter, +which I shall one day commit to thy brothers and sisters, is of itself +sufficiently decisive.</p> + +<p class="normal">"The Count himself now took an active part in the mystery,—whether out +of love for his daughter or from spite against the H. court,—by +demanding, as a reward for his participation, that one day thou and +Linda should make a match. Here the Countess stepped in again with her +wonders and fancies. 'Linda will certainly resemble me in soul as she +now does in form,—force can then never move her,—but magic of the +heart, of the fairy-world, the charm of wonder, may draw and melt and +bind her.' I know her very words. A singular plan of enchantment was +then sketched, whose limits the Count, through the submissiveness with +which his brother, adept in a thousand arts, let himself be hired for +everything, extended still further, beside making the plan thereby more +agreeable. Linda will, long before thou hast read this, have appeared +to thee; her name will have been named; thy birth mysteriously +announced. May thy spirit, O may it be happily reconciled to it all, +and may the difficult play pour winnings into thy lap when the cards +are turned up. I am anxious; how can I be otherwise? O what tidings +have I not received even from Italy through the Count, before which now +all the hopes I have set upon my Lewis (Luigi) are at once +extinguished! Now would Hh. (Haarhaar) have conquered through the +wicked B. (Bouverot), had it not been that thou livest. And I cannot +but be so happy, that thou livest clear of his poisonous influences. +Yes, it seems as if the Count had intentionally and gladly let the +destruction of thy brother take place in order to strike so much the +stronger terror with thy resurrection. Yet I will not do him injustice. +But whom shall a mother trust, whom mistrust, at court? And which +danger is the greater?</p> + +<p class="normal">"For the space of three years thou wast obliged, for appearance' sake, +to stay on Isola Bella with thy pretended twin-sister, Severina, +although under the eye of the Prince, while I, with Julienne, went +back to Germany. Longer, however, it could not last, much as thy +foster-mother wished it; thou wast too much like thy father. This +resemblance cost me many tears,—for on this account thou couldst never +go from B. to P. (Pestitz) so long as the Prince still wore youthful +features,—even the portraits of his youthful form I had, therefore, +gradually to steal away and give in charge to the faithful Spener. Yes, +this learned man told me that a convex mirror, which transformed young +faces into old ones, had to be put aside, because thou immediately +stoodst there as the old Prince when thou didst look into it. O, when +my good, pious prince in his feeble days unconsciously prattled all +sorts of things, and made me more and more anxious about the fate of +the weighty secret, how I trembled, when he one morning (fortunately +only Spener and a certain daughter of the Minister von Fr., a gentle, +pure spirit, were by), said right out and joyfully, 'Our dear son, +Eleonore, was up at the altar last evening; he is certainly a good +young man, he knelt down and prayed beautifully, and I said to him +only, for I would not discover myself, Go home, go home, my friend; the +thunder is already near.'<a name="div2Ref_150" href="#div2_150"><sup>[150]</sup></a> I know that several individuals have +already let fall hints about a natural son of the Prince.</p> + +<p class="normal">"The Countess C. (Cesara) went off with S. (Severina) to V. (Valencia); +previously, however, giving herself the name R. (Romeiro), and her +daughter the name L. (Linda). The Prince di Lauria had to be drawn into +this game, and his consent obtained, for the sake of the inheritance. +By this change of names all could be covered up as closely as it now +stands. Nine years after, the noble R. (Romeiro) died, and the Count +had, under the prerogative of a guardian, the daughter in his sole +protection and care.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I saw her here shortly after the death of her mother.<a name="div2Ref_151" href="#div2_151"><sup>[151]</sup></a> When the +flower has entirely unfolded itself out of this full bud, it belongs, +as the fullest rose, to thy heart; only may the ghostly game, which I +have too light-mindedly sworn to the Countess, pass over without +mishap! Should I come to my death-bed before the Prince, I must also +draw thy sister and thy brother into thy secret, so as to close my eyes +in perfect assurance. Ah, I shall not live to be permitted openly to +clasp my son in my arms! The symptoms of my decline come more and more +frequent. May it go well with thee, dearest child! Grow up to be holy +and honest as thy father! God guide all our weak expedients for the +best!</p> + +<p style="margin-left:50%; text-indent:-20%">"Thy faithful mother,<br> + +"<span class="sc">Eleonore</span>.</p> + +<p class="normal"> +"P. S. Certain other very weighty secrets I cannot trust to paper, but my +dying lips shall let them sink into the heart of thy sister. Farewell! +Farewell!" +</p> +<br> +<h3>143. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">Albano stood for a long time speechless, looked to heaven, let the leaf +fall, and folded his hands, and said, "Thou sendest peace,—I must not +choose war,—well, my lot is fixed!" Joy of life, new powers and plans, +delight in the prospect of the throne, where only mental effort tells, +as rather physical does on the battle-field, the images of new parents +and relations, and displeasure at the past, stormed through each other +in his spirit. He tore himself loose from his whole former life, the +ropes of the whole previous death-chime were broken, he must, in order +to win Eurydice out of Orcus, like Orpheus, shun looking back upon the +way which he had past. He unveiled all to his new friend, for he +battled, he said, now at length, on a free open field for his hitherto +concealed right, and should set out immediately for the city. During +the recital, the long and daring game which had been played with his +holiest rights and relations incensed him still more, and his mistrust +of his powers and weapons against the adversaries to whom Luigi fell a +victim, and that very brother himself, who could hitherto embrace him +in so hard and unbrotherly a mask. "How different was the true sister!" +said he. "Why," he went on, "did they oblige me to owe so many thanks +to so many a proud, stern spirit for my mere—birthright? Why did they +not trust my silence quite as well? O, thus was I forced to +misinterpret the poor dead one over yonder,<a name="div2Ref_152" href="#div2_152"><sup>[152]</sup></a> because she, in that +hostile night, at the altar sacrificed her fair heart to my revealed +rank! Thus was I compelled by presumptions and purposes to injure so +many a genuine soul! How innocent might I be but for all this!" "Calm +yourself," said Siebenkäs, with keen resentment, "the strength of the +foe is driven to resistance, and drawn off from the defeat; and what +would a victory have been on an empty battle-field?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Siebenkäs had, at the revelation of his friend's illustrious rank, and +at seeing the fire of his passionateness, which he knew only in common, +not in noble manifestations, stepped back some paces,—a movement which +Albano did not observe, because he had not presumed upon it. Siebenkäs +sought as well as he could,—for his inner man was gradually unfolding +again its limbs, which had been frozen stiff in the grave of his +friend,—to win back his gentle mirthfulness, and with these flowery +chains to bind the impetuous youth. "I rejoice," said he, "that I am +the first to offer you wishes on your birth- and coronation-day, all +which, however, merge in the single one that you may always assert your +baptismal name,—for Alban is the well-known patron saint of the +peasants. Except the Haarhaar Prince, whom the Knight truly hits off +with the device of the founder of his order, Philip: <i>ante ferit quam +flamma micet</i>,<a name="div2Ref_153" href="#div2_153"><sup>[153]</sup></a> no one, perhaps, is to be pitied in this connection +but the financial stamp-cutter, who now receives nothing new to cut, as +the old line continues in power." He added lightly, because he had +never seen the heavy wooded and cloud-bearing rock, Gaspard: "What a +singular game of names, which few <i>Cavalleros del Tuzone</i> have ever +played, it is, that he happens to call himself <i>De Cesara</i>, since, as +you know, the Spaniards, like the old Romans, often appropriate to +themselves the names of their actions or accidents. Thus it is +everywhere known from the <i>Pieces Interassantes</i>, Tom. I., that +Orendayn, for example, took the name <i>La Pas</i>, because he, in 1725, +signed the peace between Austria and Spain,—he baptized himself with a +third name, <i>Transport Real</i>, in order to remember and remark that he +had carried away the Infante to Italy. <i>Cesara</i> is of course more +accidental."</p> + +<p class="normal">Albano was, for the first time, by such resemblances of spirit to the +free Schoppe, really drawn to his heart. He took leave of him, and +said, "Friend of our friend, will we keep together?" "Verily, the doubt +which rests upon the decision of your fate, Prince," replied Siebenkäs, +"were alone sufficient to settle that, if only my heart alone had the +business of settling it; but—" Albano shrugged his shoulders, as if +irritated, but was silent; "meanwhile I will remain here," the other +continued, more softly, "until the earth rests on the deceased; then I +set up the black wooden cross over it, and write all his names +thereupon." "Well, so be it!" said Albano. "But his dog I take, because +he has been longer acquainted with me. I am a young man, still young in +lost years, but already very old in lost times, and understand as well +as many another who is bent by age what it is to lose fellow-creatures. +Singular it is, that I always find on graves mirrors wherein the dead +walk and look, alive again. Thus I found on Liana's grave her living +image and echo; my old prostrate Schoppe I found, also, as you know, +erect and stirring, behind a looking-glass, which my hand could as +little break through. I assure you, even my parents were conjured +before me; my father I can see in a cylindrical mirror, and my mother +through an object-glass. Here, now, there is nothing to do, when one +stands in a night, where all stars of life move downward, but stand +very firm therein. But to my old humorist must I still say <i>Adio</i>."</p> + +<p class="normal">He went into the chamber of death. Silently Siebenkäs followed him, +struck with the unwonted quaintness of his—grief. With dry eyes, +Albano drew the white cloth from the earnest face, whose fixed eyebrows +no longer shaped themselves for any joke, and which slept away in an +iron sleep without time. The dog seemed to be shy of the cold man. +Albano sought, by sharp, vehement, dry looks, to imprint the dead face, +even to every wrinkle, deeply on his brain, as in plaster, especially +as the most living copy, the friend, had escaped him. Then he lifted +the heavy hand, and placed it on the brow which was to wear the +princely hat, as if therewith to bless and consecrate it. At last he +bent down to the face, and lay for a long time on the cold mouth; but, +when he finally raised himself up, his eyes were weeping, and his whole +heart, and he tremblingly held out his hand to the spectator, and said, +"Well, so mayest thou, too, fare well!" "No," cried Siebenkäs; "I +cannot do that, if I go. Schoppe! I stay with thy Albano!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Just then came Wehrfritz and Augusti, and interrupted the weeping +solemnity of the threefold love with gay looks and words.</p> +<br> +<h3>144. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">The old foster-father called him Prince, indeed, and no longer thou; +but, in patriotic rapture, he fervently pressed the nursling of his +house to his heart. Augusti handed him, with grave courtliness and a +brief congratulation, the following epistle from Julienne:—</p> +<br> + +<p class="normal">"<span class="sc">Dearest Brother</span>: Now, at length, I can, for the first time, call thee +rightly brother. I have in one eye tears of mourning, and yet in the +other tears of gladness, now that all clouds are taken from thy birth; +and in Haarhaar, too, all goes tolerably well. The Lector is despatched +to tell thee all: where should I find time? He must also tell thee of +Herr von Bouverot, whose red nose and bent-up chin, and greedy +barbarity toward his few people and many creditors, and whose grossness +and sensuality and dry malice I hate to such a degree. However, he is +now so properly punished by thy manifestation. Of course all is, like +myself, in disorder and confusion. Ludwig's testament was opened this +morning, according to his will, and he gave thee thy whole right. I +will not be angry about this, brother, in the midst of weeping. He was +properly hard toward his brother and sister,—toward me exceedingly so; +for he hated all women, even to his wife, who is only of some use when +it goes well with her, and works of art themselves really hardened him +against men. But let him rest in his peace, of which, indeed, he has +found little! He must this very evening, on account of the nature of +his complaint, and on account of the length of the way to Blumenbühl, +be interred temporarily. Here am I now with thy foster-parents, in the +neighborhood of our buried parents. On this account, come without fail! +Thou art my only solace in the night of sadness. I must hold thee again +to my heart, which will beat hard against thine, and weep and speak, if +it only can. Do come! Now, at length, surely, as all stands ready in +the hall for the dance, God will let no cold spectres or frightful +masks creep in, I pray. Ah, only on thy account am I so happy, and weep +enough.</p> + +<p class="right">"<span class="sc">Julia</span>."</p> +<br> + +<p class="normal">Hardly had Albano given his foster-father the joyful promise to be this +evening at his house, when the latter, without further words, hastened +off to prepare his "folks" for the joy of the twofold visit.</p> + +<p class="normal">The Lector was now entreated for his news, with which he seemed to +hesitate cautiously on account of Siebenkäs, till Albano begged him +freely to impart all to him and his new friend. His account, including +some interpolations which came to Albano afterward, was this:—</p> + +<p class="normal">Bouverot (with whom he began at the questioning of Albano, whose +curiosity was excited) had been hitherto in secret league with the +aspiring Prince of Haarhaar, and had, in the confident calculation of +making through him his permanent fortune, and even an unexpected +marriage, upon his word unhung his order-cross of a German <i>Herr</i>, +linked at once to infamy and income, and caused to be delivered to the +sister of this Prince, Idoine, through the Prince himself, who stood +pledged to him for the repeal of her similar vow,<a name="div2Ref_154" href="#div2_154"><sup>[154]</sup></a> a miniature of +her, which he insisted that he had stolen in his flight, together with +half a picture-gallery, and with many fine allusions to his adopted +name <i>Zefisio</i>, as that of a Romish Arcadian, and to the name of her +Arcadia. "<i>Oh la différence de cet homme au diable, comme est-elle +petite!</i>" said Augusti, with quite an unexpected vehemence. Albano must +needs ask why. "He passed off an entirely different picture for that of +the Princess," said the Lector. Of course it was Liana's own, Albano +concluded, and had easily, by a few questions, drawn out that mournful +history of the blind Liana chased by the tiger Bouverot.</p> + +<p class="normal">"O wretched me!" cried Albano, half in fury, and half in pain. It +distressed him to think of the sufferings wherewith the holy heart had +had to pay for its short, pure, chary love toward him,—who became +blind the first time because she so loved his father,<a name="div2Ref_155" href="#div2_155"><sup>[155]</sup></a> and the +second time because the son misunderstood and loved her. But he +restrained himself, and spoke not on the subject; the past was to him, +as echo is to bees, hurtful. Siebenkäs testified his joy at Bouverot's +punishment through the miscarriage of all his plans.</p> + +<p class="normal">Albano heard that even Luigi had assumed the appearance of supporting +Bouverot's connubial intentions, merely for the sake of seeing him fall +from so much the higher elevation. "With what a long, cold, bitter, +malicious pleasure," thought Albano, "could my brother, in the hope of +the ditch which his death would dig for the hostile court and its +adherents, look upon all their expectations, and graciously accept all +their measures, from the marriage of the Princess even to the +congratulations thereto appertaining, while he hated the Princess and +all! And how could he maintain that life-long silent coldness toward +me?" But Albano neglected to consider two reasons,—his own proud +deportment toward the Prince, and the customary avarice of princes, +which is shy of apanage<a name="div2Ref_156" href="#div2_156"><sup>[156]</sup></a> moneys.</p> + +<p class="normal">Gaspard's transactions in Haarhaar, which the Lector gave, only with +some omissions enjoined by Julienne, were these:—</p> + +<p class="normal">With characteristic pleasure and silence had the Knight looked, of old, +upon the intricacies of human relations, and given them over to their +own disentanglement or dilaceration. Here he let all the dreams of +others grow more and more lively and wild, until, with one snatch at +the breast, he swept them all from the sleeper at once. His old +indignation at the proud refusal of the princely bride was appeased, +when he could show them, below the glittering triumphal gate of their +wishes and efforts, the documents of Albano's birth, from the hand of +the old Prince down even to that of the brother Luigi, as just the same +number of armed guards, who should drive them back again out of the +gate of victory. A sympathetic astonishment was expressed; nothing was +agreed to. Albano had neither been presented to the country nor the +empire. Gaspard brought on very calmly an early acknowledgment from +Joseph II. This, too, was found out of rule and invalid. Thereupon he +confessed, with the determined anger with whose lightning-sparks he so +often suddenly pierced through men and relations, that he was going to +unveil, without further ceremony, the whole conduct of the court toward +Luigi in his eighth year and in his travelling years to all the courts +of Europe.</p> + +<p class="normal">Here they broke off in terror the forenoon's negotiations, to prepare +themselves for new ones in the afternoon. In these—which the Lector +was ordered to conceal from Albano—the wish of a continued nearer +union between the two houses was shown at a distance. By the union was +meant Idoine, whose resemblance to Liana, and thereby Albano's love for +the latter, had long been known as gossip. But the involving of this +guiltless angel ran counter to Gaspard's whole plan of his complete +satisfaction; he—who with his high, jagged antlers easily flew through +the confused low brush-wood of worldly life—pushed against the +barriers of his complete power, gave a downright No! and they broke off +in a rage, with the courtly reminder that Herr von Hafenreffer was to +accompany him as plenipotentiary and transact the rest of the business +in Pestitz.</p> + +<p class="normal">So both arrived. Hafenreffer, quite as fine and cold as he was honest, +easily searched out all the real relations of the case. Gaspard +imparted to Julienne—still fancying that she retained her old love for +his daughter Linda—the wish of the rival Court; but he was astounded +at her disclosures, which spoke as much for Idoine as her former secret +influences upon Albano. In addition to this, she further provoked him, +in the confused twilight of her situation, by the well-meant offer to +make good to him in some measure his paternal outlays upon Albano. "The +Spaniard reads no household accounts, he merely pays them," said he, +and sensitively took leave forever, in order to travel over all the +islands of the earth. Albano he wished not to see any more, from +chagrin at the accident that he had been cheated out of the enjoyment, +by Schoppe's church- and grave-robbery, of punishing and humbling +Albano, by the disclosure that he was only Linda's father and not his, +for cherishing bold doubts of his worth. Whither Linda had gone on that +night of his discovery as father, he coldly concealed from all.</p> + +<p class="normal">Thereupon he took also solemn leave of his former bride, the Prince's +widow. "He held it as his bounden duty," he said to her, "to let her +into the secret of the newest succession, since he had in some measure +let himself be entangled in the progress of the business." Never was +her look more proud and poisonous. "You seem," said she, composedly, +"to have been led off into more than one error. If it so interests you, +as you seem upon the whole to be interested for this land, then I take +pleasure in telling you, that I dare no longer hesitate about making +known the good fortune which I anticipate, of sparing the country, +perhaps, by a son of their beloved, deceased Prince, the necessity of +any change. At least, we cannot, before time has decided the thing, +admit any foreign admixture." Gaspard, enraged at what he had expected, +spoke in reply merely an infinitely impudent word—because he had a +faculty of more easily forgetting and violating <i>sex</i> than <i>rank</i>,—and +thereupon took his courteous leave of her, with the assurance that he +was certain, wherever he might be, to receive confirmation of this +already so agreeable intelligence, and that it would then pain him to +be obliged, out of love for the truth, to make public against her some +extraordinary—judicial papers, which he would not gladly put in +circulation. "You are a real devil," said the Princess, beside herself. +"<i>Vis-à-vis d'un ange? Mais pourquoi non?</i>" replied he, and departed +with the old ceremonies.—</p> + +<p class="normal">Albano, whose heart had in all these depths and abysses naked, wounded +roots and fibres, could not say a word. But his friend Siebenkäs +declared, without further ceremony, that "Gaspard, at every step, and +with his everlasting, fine dallying and hesitating,—as, for example, +about the marriage of his daughter, and other things,—had betrayed +nothing but the incarnate Spaniard, as Gundling, in the first part of +his <i>Otia</i>, so well portrays him." Augusti wondered at this openness, +while it seemed to him more tolerable and decorous than Schoppe's +roughness. "What would strike me most," added Siebenkäs, who, as it +seemed, had taken the world's history as a subordinate department, +"would be the long concealment of so weighty a pedigree among so many +partakers of the secret, if I did not know too well from Hume, that the +Gunpowder Plot, under Charles I., had been kept secret for a whole year +and a half by more than twenty conspirators."</p> + +<p class="normal">Much wounded, and yet thoroughly cleansed, Albano departed, in the +afternoon after these narrations, into the discordant kingdom, but with +cheerful, holy boldness. He was conscious to himself of higher aims and +powers than any of the hard souls would dispute with him; from the +serene, free, ethereal sphere of eternal good he would not let himself +be drawn down into the dirty isthmus of common existence; a higher +realm than what a metallic sceptre sways, one which man first creates, +in order to govern it, opened itself before him; in every, even the +smallest country, was something great,—not population, but prosperity; +the highest justice was his determination, and the promotion of old +foes, particularly of the sensible Froulay. Thus did he now, full of +confidence, leap out of his former slender vessel, propelled only by +strange hands, on to a free earth, where he can move himself alone +without strange rudder, and instead of the empty, bare watery way, find +a firm, blooming land and object. And with this consolation he parted +from the dead Schoppe and the living friend.</p> +<br> +<h3>145. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">In the twilight he came upon the mountain, whence he could overlook, +but with other eyes than once, the city, which was to be the circus and +the theatre of his powers. He belongs now to a German house,—the +people around him are his kinsmen,—the prefiguring ideals, which he +had once sketched to himself at the coronation of his brother, of the +warm rays wherewith a prince as a constellation can enlighten and +enrich lands, were now put into his hands for fulfilment. His pious +father, still blessed by the grandchildren of the country, pointed to +him the pure sun-track of his princely duty: only actions give life +strength, only moderation gives it a charm. He thought of the beings +who lay sunk in graves around him, hard and barren indeed as rocks, but +high as rocks, too,—of the beings whom fate had sacrificed, who would +fain have used the <i>milky-way</i> of <i>infinity</i> and the <i>rainbow</i> of +<i>fancy</i> as a bow in the hand, without ever being able to draw a string +across it. "Why did not, then, I, too, go down like those whom I +esteemed? Did not, in me also, that scum of excess boil up and +overspread the clearness?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Fate now carried on again games of repetition with him; a flaming +carriage rolled away on a road leading off sidewise from the Prince's +garden; slowly moved the hearse of the brother with dead lights up the +Blumenbühl mountain. "The slow carriage I know; whose is the swift +one?" asked Albano of the Lector. "Herr von Cesara has left us," +replied he. Albano was silent, but he experienced the last pang which +the Knight would give him. He begged the Lector earnestly to let him go +alone on the way to Blumenbühl, because he should take altogether +circuitous routes.</p> + +<p class="normal">He wished to visit in Tartarus the grave of the paternal heart without +a breast. As he passed through the noisy suburbs, an old man stared at +him for a long time, suddenly fled away with terror, and cried to a +woman, who met him, "The old man is walking round!" The man had been in +his youth a servant of the Prince, had become blind and had recovered +again a short time since; therefore he took the son for the father +whom he so resembled. In the city the usual public joy at change was +making itself heard. In one house was a children's ball, in another a +group of players at proverbs; while the public mourning shut up every +dancing-hall and every theatre. Strange, merry sons of the muses were +looking out of Roquairol's chamber. In the hotel of the Spaniard a boy +had the jay by a string. He heard some people say in passing, "Who +would have dreamed of it?" "Quite natural," replied the other; "I was +helping make, at the very time, a wall to the princely vault, and saw +him as I see thee." In the upper city all the rows of windows in the +palace of mourning were brightly illuminated, as if there were a +happier festival. In the house of the Minister all were dark; overhead +among the statues on the roof a single little light crept round.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No," thought Albano, "I need not reflect, why I, too, sank not with +them. O enough, enough has fallen from me into graves. I must surely +yearn forever after all the beings who have flown from me; like divers, +the dead swim along with me below, and hold my life-bark or bear the +anchor." He saw the old corpse-seeress standing out there on the +Blumenbühl road, who once met him in the company of the Baldhead; she +stared up after the lighted hearse and fancied she was seeing dreams +and the future, when she was looking at reality. Everywhere in his path +lay the quivering spider-feet which had been torn out from the crushed +Tarantula of the past. He saw life through a veil, though not a black +but a green one.</p> + +<p class="normal">Passing through Tartarus, he longingly, but with a shudder, because the +past with its spirits glided after him, arrived at the Moravian +churchyard, where, in a garden without flowers, surrounded by sunken, +slumbering mourning-birches, the white altar with the paternal heart +and the golden inscription glimmered: "Take my last offering, +all-gracious one!" Before the heart shut up in a breast of stone, in +which nothing stirred, not even a particle of dust, he made his +childlike prayer to God, and felt that he would have loved his parents, +and swore to himself to please them, if their lofty eyes still looked +down into the low vale of life. He pressed the cold stone like a breast +to himself; and went away with soft steps, as if the old man were +walking along beside him in this his own form, so like his.</p> + +<p class="normal">He looked up from his road to the mountain where his father had found +him at evening on Whitsuntide and Sacrament day, as to a Tabor of the +past; and in his walk through the little birch wood he still +recollected well the spot<a name="div2Ref_157" href="#div2_157"><sup>[157]</sup></a> where once two voices (his parents) had +pronounced his name. Thus consecrated by the holy past, he arrived in +the village of his childhood, and saw the church, as well as the house +of Wehrfritz, filled with lights, the former, however, for a mournful +object, and the latter for the glad one of welcoming of guests.</p> +<br> +<h3>146. CYCLE.</h3> + +<p class="normal">Albano found in the glorification, wherein Heaven was to him only the +magnifying mirror of a glimmering earth, and the past only the +fatherland and mother-country of holy parents,—in this splendor of the +soul he found the house of his boyhood, into which he entered, festal +and like a temple, and everything common and clumsy refined or only +represented as upon a stage. His mother Albina and his sister Rabette +came with their glad looks as higher beings to his moved heart. They +drew hastily back, Julienne flew down stairs and kissed her brother, +for the first time openly, in a silent blending of pleasure and +sadness. When she released him, the tolling began out of the gloom of +the church-tower, as a signal that the dead brother was passing into +the church; then she rushed back upon Albano, and wept infinitely. She +went up with him, without saying whom he should find up there with his +foster-father. An old flute-clock, whose laborious music was offered +from time immemorial to rare guests, welled out to welcome him, as he +opened the door, with the resonances of the days of his childhood.</p> + +<p class="normal">A tall, black-dressed female form, with a veil falling down sidewise, +who sat talking with his foster-father, turned round towards him +as he entered. It was Idoine; but the old magic semblance passed again +over his to-day so excited soul, as if it were Liana from heaven, +arrayed in immortality, prouder and bolder in the possession of +unearthly powers, retaining nothing more of her former earth than +goodness and charms. Both met each other again here with mutual +astonishment. Julienne—conscious to herself of her little concealments +and arrangements—saw a little red cloud of displeasure flit across +Idoine's mild face; it was, however, gone below the horizon, so soon as +Idoine perceived that the sister during the tolling for her brother's +funeral could not restrain her tears, and she went kindly to meet her, +seeking her hand. Idoine, easily inclined by her severity to fits of +vexation, that little skirmish of wrath, had freed herself by long, +sharp exercise from this finest, but strongest poison of the soul's +happiness, till she at last stood in her heaven as a pure, light moon, +without a rainy and cloudy atmosphere of earth.</p> + +<p class="normal">Albano, to whom the earth, filled with the past and the dead, had +become an air-globe that soared into the ether, felt himself free +amidst his stars, and without earthly anxiety. He approached +Idoine,—although with the consciousness of the conflicting relations +of his and her house, yet with holy courage. "Her last wish in the last +garden," he said, "had been heard by Heaven." With maiden-like decision +of perception she went through the wilderness wherein she had to bend +aside, now flowers, now thorns, in order to be neither embarrassed nor +injured. She answered him, "I rejoice from my heart that you have found +your faithful sister forever." Wehrfritz was quite as much delighted as +astonished at the frankness with which she honestly spoke the truth +against all family relations. "So must one always lose much on the +earth," Albano replied to her, "in order to gain much," and turned to +his sister, as if he would thereby guard this word against a more +ambiguous sense.</p> + +<p class="normal">The funeral bell tolled on. The strange, happy and sad mingling of +earthly lots gave all a solemn and free tone of spirit. Albina and +Rabette came up, arrayed in festive dark dresses, for the procession to +the burial church. Julienne divided herself between two brothers, and +never did her heart, which stood at once in tears and flames, swell +more romantically. She guessed how her friend Idoine thought respecting +her brother Albano, for she knew her to have a steadier voice than +to-day's was, and her sweet confusion was most easily evident to her +from the short report which the open soul had made to her of meeting +Albano again in Liana's garden; the slight maidenly recoil, too, of her +pride to-day, when she was embarrassed to find herself taken everywhere +for a risen Liana, that beloved of the youth, made Julienne not more +doubtful, but more sure.</p> + +<p class="normal">"On a fine evening," said Albano to Idoine, "I once looked down into +your lovely Arcadia, but I was not in Arcadia." "The name," replied +she, and her clear eyes sank again to the earth, "is nothing more than +play; properly it is an alp, and yet only with herdsmen's huts in a +vale." She raised not again her large eyes, when Julienne silently took +her hand and drew her away, because now the funeral bell sounded out +with single, sad strokes, as a sign that the funeral ceremony was +coming on, in which Julienne could not possibly deny her sisterly heart +the comfort of participating. "We are going to the church," said Idoine +to the company. "So are we all, indeed," replied Wehrfritz, quickly. As +the two maidens passed by Albano, he observed for the first time on +Idoine three little freckles, as it were traces of earth and life, +which made her a mortal. He looked after the lofty, noble form, with +the long floating veil, who, beside his sister, appeared like Linda, +quite as majestically, only more delicately built, and whose holy gait +announced a priestess, who had been wont to walk in temples before +gods.</p> + +<p class="normal">Hardly had the two disappeared, when Albano's old acquaintances, +especially the women, to whom Julienne's presence had always held near +in view Albano's family-tree, crowded on his heart with all signs of +long-repressed cordiality, full of wishes, joys, and tears. "Be my +parents still," said Albano. "Bravery is everything in this world," +said the Director. "I did my part like a mother," said Albina, "but who +could have known <i>this!</i>" Rabette said nothing; her joy and love were +overpowering as her recollections. "My sister Rabette," said Albano, +"gave me, when I first went to Italy, the words embroidered on a purse, +'Think of us.' This prayer I will fulfil for you all in every +vicissitude of fortune";—and here, although too modest to say it, he +thought of things which he might perhaps do, as Prince, for his +foster-father, among which came first the restoration of his reverting +male fee. "Thus, then, is many a former sorrow of the heart, for us—" +began Albina. "O, what's to do with hearts? what's to do with sorrows?" +said Wehrfritz; "to-day all is right and smooth." But Rabette +understood her mother very well.</p> + +<p class="normal">All betook themselves on their way to the temple of mourning. They +heard as they approached the church the music of the hymn, "How softly +they rest"; at a considerable distance bugles were essaying gladder +tones. Rabette pressed Albano's hand and said, very softly, "It has +been well with me, because I have learned all." She had, since hearing +how Roquairol had murdered a manifold happiness and himself, cast all +her love after the wretched man into his grave to moulder with him, +without shedding a tear as she did it. Her heart leaped at the thought +of Idoine's goodness, of her resemblance, with the mention of which her +father had to-day made the angel blush, and of her beautiful comforting +of Julienne, who had wept incessantly before Albano's arrival. Albina +praised Julienne more on account of her sisterly affection. Rabette was +silent about her; the two were sisterly rivals; moreover, Julienne had, +according to her sharp, inexorable system, looked upon her very coldly +as a victim of the Roquairol whom she so despised; whereas Idoine, who, +by her greater knowledge of human nature, had learned to unite mildness +toward female errors of the heart and moment with severity toward men, +had only been gentle and just.</p> + +<p class="normal">When they stepped into the church full of mourning lamps, Albano stole +away into an unlighted corner, so as neither to disturb nor be +disturbed. At the bright altar stood the serene and venerable Spener, +with his uncovered head full of silver locks; the long coffin of the +brother stood before the altar between rows of lights. In the arch +of the church hung night, and forms were lost in the gloom; below +rays and bright shadows and people crossed each other. Albano saw the +iron-grated door of the hereditary sepulchre, through which his blessed +parents had gone down, standing open like a gate of death; and it was +to him as if once more Schoppe's tumultuous spirit stalked in, to break +into the last house of man. The thought of his brother affected him but +little, but the neighborhood of his still parents, who had so long +watched for him, and whom he had never thanked, and the incessant tears +of his sister, whom he saw in the gallery over the gate of death, took +mighty hold of his heart, out of which the deep, eternal tones of +lamentation drew tears, like the warm blood of sorrow and of love. He +saw Idoine, with her half red, half white Lancaster rose on the black +silk, standing beside his sister, drawing the veil over her eyes +against many a comparing look. Here, near such altar-lights, had once +the oppressed Liana knelt while swearing the renunciation of her love. +The whole constellation of his shining past, of his lofty beings, had +gone down below the horizon, and only <i>one</i> bright star of all the +group stood glimmering still above the earth: Idoine.</p> + +<p class="normal">Just then the youth was seen by his friend Dian, who came hastening +towards him. Without much ceremony, the Greek embraced him, and said, +"Hail, hail to the beautiful transformation! There stands my Chariton; +she, too, would greet thee after the manner of her speech."<a name="div2Ref_158" href="#div2_158"><sup>[158]</sup></a> But +Chariton was looking continually at Idoine, on account of her +resemblance. "Well, my good Dian, I have paid many a heart and fortune +for it, and I wonder that fate has spared me thee," said Albano. +Thereupon he asked him, as architect of the church, about the condition +of the hereditary sepulchre, because he wished afterward to have the +ashes of his parents uncovered, in order at least to kneel down before +them in silent gratitude. "Of that," said Dian, surprised, "I know very +little; but it is a shocking purpose, and what good is to come of it?"</p> + +<p class="normal">The music ceased; Spener, in a low tone, began his discourse. He spoke +not, however, of the Prince at his feet, nor yet of his loved ones in +the hereditary tomb, but of the real life that knows no death, and +which man must beget in himself. He said that, for himself, though an +old man, he wished neither to die nor to live, because one could +already, even here, be with God, so soon as one only had God within +him, and that we ought to be able to see without grief our holiest +wishes wither like sunflowers, because, after all, the lofty sun still +beams on, which forever raises and nourishes new ones, and that a man +must not so much prepare himself for eternity as plant in himself the +eternity which is still, pure, light, deep, and everything.</p> + +<p class="normal">Many a human breast in the church felt the poisonous point of the past +broken off by this discourse. On Albano's rising sea it had poured +smooth oil, and all about his life was even and radiant. Julienne's +eyes had grown dry and full of serene light, and Idoine's had filled +with glimmering moisture, for her heart had to-day been stirred too +often not to weep in this sweet, devout, and exalting emotion. Once it +seemed to Albano, as he looked towards her, as if she shone +supernaturally, and as if, just as the sun from under the earth beams +upon a moon, so Liana from the other world were beaming upon her +countenance, and adorning this likeness of herself with a holiness +beyond the reach of earth.</p> + +<p class="normal">At the close of the discourse, Albano went quietly to the two friends, +pressed his sister's hand, and begged her not to wait for the end of +the sad festival. She was comforted and willing. As they stepped out of +the church, a wondrous bright moonlight was spread over earth, like a +sweet morning light of the higher world. Julienne begged them, instead +of going in between four walls, into the prison of eyes and words, and +the midst of all the din, rather to behold first the still, bright +landscape.</p> + +<p class="normal">All of them bore in their breasts the holy world of the serene old man +out into the fair night. Not a speck of cloud, not a breath of air, +stirred through the wide heaven; the stars reigned alone; earthly +distances were lost in the depth of white shadows; and all mountains +stood in the silvery fire of the moon. "O, how I love your serene, holy +old man!" said Idoine to Albano, when she had already often pressed +Julienne's hand. "How happy I am! Ah, life, like the water of the sea, +is not quite sweet till it rises towards heaven." Suddenly distant +bugle-tones came pealing out to them, which well-meaning country-folk +sounded as a greeting before Albano's foster-home. "How comes it," said +Julienne, "that in the open air and at night even the most +insignificant music is pleasant and stirring?" "Perhaps because our +inner music harmonizes with it more clearly and purely," said Idoine. +"And because, before the spheral music of the universe, human art and +human simplicity are, at last, equally great!" added Albano. "That is +just what I meant, for that is also, after all, only within ourselves," +said Idoine, and looked lovingly and frankly into his eyes, which sank +before hers, as if the moon, the mild after-summer of the sun, now +dazzled him with its splendor.</p> + +<p class="normal">Since the church festival, she had addressed herself to him oftener; +her sweet voice was more tender, though more tremulous; her maidenly +shyness of the resemblance to Liana seemed conquered or forgotten, as +on that evening in the last garden. During Spener's discourse, her +existence had decided itself within her, and on her virgin love, as on +a spring soil by one warm evening rain, all buds had been opened into +bloom. As he now looked upon this clear, mild eye, under the pure, +cloudless brow, and the fine mouth, with inexhaustible good-will +towards every living thing breathing over it, he could hardly conceive +that this delicate lily, this light incense exhaled from morning +redness and morning flowers, was the habitation of that firm spirit +which could rule life, just as the tender cloud or the little +nightingale's breast contains the thrilling peal of sound.</p> + +<p class="normal">They stood now on the bright mountain, covered with the evergreen of +youthful remembrance, where Albano had once slumbered in dreams of the +future, as on a light and lofty island in the midst of the shadow-sea +of two vales. The mountain-ridges of the linden city, the eternal goal +of his youthful days, were snowed over by the moon, and the +constellations stood upon them gleaming and great. He looked now upon +Idoine: how truly did this soul belong among the stars! "When the world +is purged from this low day; when heaven, with its holiest, farthest +suns, looks upon this earthly land; when the heart and the nightingale +alone speak,—then only does her holy time come up in heaven; then is +her lofty, tranquil spirit seen and understood, and by day only her +charms," thought Albano.</p> + +<p class="normal">"How many a time, my good Albano," said the sister, "hast thou here, in +thy long-left youthful years, looked toward the mountains for thine own +ones,—for thy hidden parents and brothers and sisters,—for thou hadst +always a good heart!" Here Idoine unconsciously looked at him with +inexpressible love, and his eye met hers. "Idoine," said he,—and their +souls gazed into each other, as into suddenly rising heavens, and he +took the maiden's hand,—"I have that heart still; it is unhappy, but +unstained." Then Idoine hid herself quickly and passionately in +Julienne's bosom, and said, scarce audibly, "Julienne, if Albano +rightly knows me, then be my sister!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"I do know thee, holy being!" said Albano, and clasped to <i>one</i> +bosom sister and bride; and from all of them there wept but <i>one</i> +joy-enraptured heart. "O ye parents," prayed the sister, "O thou God, +bless, then, both of them and me, that so it may be forever!" And as +she lifted her eyes to heaven, while the lovers lingered in the short, +holy elysium of the first kiss, innumerable immortals looked down out +of the deep-blue eternity, the distant tones and the mild rays were +blended together, and the slumbering realm of the moon resounded. "Look +up to the fair heaven!" cried the sister to the lovers, in the ecstasy +of her joy; "the rainbow of eternal peace blooms there, and the +tempests are over, and the world is all so bright and green. Wake up, +my brother and sister!"</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_01" href="#div2Ref_01">Footnote 1</a>: Jean Paul here Germanizes (or Frenchifies) the Latin word +<i>territio</i> (a terrifying). The meaning is, that this marriage might +well be an <i>in terrorem</i> affair to poor Luigi (as well as to the bride, +according to Schoppe's droll conceit, that all this furor of joy was a +mere noise made to scare her <i>back</i>). The only other case in which the +author uses this word is near the end of the third paragraph of Cycle +15, where the reader should have been informed that <i>real territion</i> is +an expression borrowed from the inquisitors, who, when <i>verbal</i> +threatenings fail, bring on <i>ocular</i> ones by showing the instruments of +torture to the victim. This is applied to Froulay's system with his +children. In this sense the rod which used to hang over the fireplace +or looking-glass when some of us were children was a <i>real +territion</i>.—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_02" href="#div2Ref_02">Footnote 2</a>: <i>Schach</i> means both chess and the Persian king,—the +Shah—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_03" href="#div2Ref_03">Footnote 3</a>: In the (French and German) sense of active property, +namely, that does something, brings in something. <i>Active debts</i> are +one's assets.-Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_04" href="#div2Ref_04">Footnote 4</a>: Referring, of course, to her refusal of him.—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_05" href="#div2Ref_05">Footnote 5</a>: A French name for candlesticks.—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_06" href="#div2Ref_06">Footnote 6</a>: Frightfully is this true cry of humanity echoed in Hess's +Flying Journeys, Part IV. p. 156; at present a more humane +administration has quieted it by means of the game-tax.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_07" href="#div2Ref_07">Footnote 7</a>: It was to him a hearty pleasure to present such a +marriage-poem with the rhymes, flights, and notes of admiration and +exclamation by the very best new-year's rhymer in the world; and +the consciousness of his pure, though satirical, purpose set him +entirely at ease about any charge of being elaborate or too servile +in particular applications. [The Pereat-Carmen means, an Ode of +Anathema.—Tr.]</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_08" href="#div2Ref_08">Footnote 8</a>: Poison administered to obtain a succession or inheritance. +Adler.—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_09" href="#div2Ref_09">Footnote 9</a>: Between every two windows stood a pier-glass, which +blended its reflection of the distant vista with those of the windows. +Opposite each mirror stood only one window; the interval between the +two was filled and concealed with foliage.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_10" href="#div2Ref_10">Footnote 10</a>: "I am but a dream."</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_11" href="#div2Ref_11">Footnote 11</a>: "Cherished sister."</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_12" href="#div2Ref_12">Footnote 12</a>: An allusion, of course, to the theological dogma of the +procession of the Holy Spirit from Father and Son.—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_13" href="#div2Ref_13">Footnote 13</a>: "Nor let a god interpose unless a knot occurs which is +worthy of such helper."</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_14" href="#div2Ref_14">Footnote 14</a>: "Nor let a fourth person (i. e. when you have the married +couple and friend) intrude his advice."</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_15" href="#div2Ref_15">Footnote 15</a>: Angels' Song in Faust, where the sun completes his course +with <i>Donnergang</i>.—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_16" href="#div2Ref_16">Footnote 16</a>: <i>Nebelflechen</i> and <i>Marktflecken</i> are the German words; +<i>Flecken</i>, like our spot, having two meanings, as if we should say +spots of mist and dwelling-<i>spots</i>.—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_17" href="#div2Ref_17">Footnote 17</a>: A coquetting with virtue as a virtuoso, of course Gaspard +means. The word corresponds to <i>religiosity</i>.—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_18" href="#div2Ref_18">Footnote 18</a>: Where the Prince had died and she had been made blind.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_19" href="#div2Ref_19">Footnote 19</a>: <i>Gesichts-schwester</i>. Visionary is here used in the sense +of <i>seen in vision</i>, as in the line where Æneas describes seeing +Hector's ghost,</p> + +<p class="center">"I wept to see the <i>visionary</i> man."</p> + +<p class="continue">The reference probably is to the scene in the dream-temple, where Liana +personated Idoine, Cycle 78.—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_20" href="#div2Ref_20">Footnote 20</a>: <i>Stein-pflaster</i> means <i>pavement</i>.—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_21" href="#div2Ref_21">Footnote 21</a>: Or one might paraphrase Schoppe's half-punning and +half-proverbial saying: "Who has never known her <i>durance</i>, never +learns endurance."—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_22" href="#div2Ref_22">Footnote 22</a>: Schoppe here alludes to the poem of Schiller, "Auch ich +war in Arcadien geboren."—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_23" href="#div2Ref_23">Footnote 23</a>: His <i>Lettres sur les Aveugles</i>.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_24" href="#div2Ref_24">Footnote 24</a>: <i>Bunt auf weiss</i> is the German phrase, answering to +"<i>Schwarz auf weiss</i>" (in black and white). There seems to be no way in +English of keeping up the analogous neatness of the expression.—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_25" href="#div2Ref_25">Footnote 25</a>: This word is in English in the original, and Jean Paul +adds in a foot-note: <i>Die helle Kammer</i> (the bright chamber). Does he +mean the <i>camera obscura</i>?—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_26" href="#div2Ref_26">Footnote 26</a>: This passage may throw some light for the reader on a +somewhat obscure one at the end of the first paragraph in Cycle 31, +where Jean Paul seems to intimate the wish that, as there are surgeons +employed at the rack to point out how far torture may go without +killing the victim, and so defeating the very object of the cruelty, so +there might be in regard to the enjoyments of princes, in order to +point out how far they may go without spoiling themselves and imposing +sickly, worthless, burdensome rulers upon the country.—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_27" href="#div2Ref_27">Footnote 27</a>: Titles of the chapters respectively in "The Invisible +Lodge," in "Hesperus," and in "Quintus Fixlein."—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_28" href="#div2Ref_28">Footnote 28</a>: Where Albano for the last time was happy with Liana.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_29" href="#div2Ref_29">Footnote 29</a>: Jean Paul does not quote Gray's Elegy, though this +somewhat literal translation might seem to imply it.—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_30" href="#div2Ref_30">Footnote 30</a>: The Chinese could once paint fishes and other shapes on +porcelain, which were only visible when one filled up the vessel. +<i>Lettres Edifiantes</i>, etc., XII. Recueil.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_31" href="#div2Ref_31">Footnote 31</a>: "Strike, but hear me."—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_32" href="#div2Ref_32">Footnote 32</a>: Linda.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_33" href="#div2Ref_33">Footnote 33</a>: For instance, the German imperial court allows no +servants' livery.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_34" href="#div2Ref_34">Footnote 34</a>: Buildings in Rome which appear to consist of one or the +other of these have only an outside layer thereof.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_35" href="#div2Ref_35">Footnote 35</a>: "Pretended secret of making one's self invulnerable." +Adler.—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_36" href="#div2Ref_36">Footnote 36</a>: These distinctions are given for the German <i>Princessinn</i> +and <i>Fürstinn</i>.—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_37" href="#div2Ref_37">Footnote 37</a>: These distinctions are given for the German <i>Princessinn</i> +and <i>Fürstinn</i>.—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_38" href="#div2Ref_38">Footnote 38</a>: 5. Cycle.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_39" href="#div2Ref_39">Footnote 39</a>: The Diana-tree of the chemists is a crystallized +composition of silver, mercury, and spirits of nitre.—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_40" href="#div2Ref_40">Footnote 40</a>: Literally, the <i>pastoral</i>, &c.—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_41" href="#div2Ref_41">Footnote 41</a>: Symmer observed the following: White and black stockings +drawn over each other in dry, cold weather, when one draws them apart, +the outer by the lower end, the inner by the upper end, become charged +with opposite electricities, the white positive, the black negative; +when separate, they swell out toward each other, and seek each other; +when in contact, they hang down flat and broad.—Fisher's <i>Physical +Dictionary</i>, Vol. I.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_42" href="#div2Ref_42">Footnote 42</a>: The <i>pastoral</i> hour of sentimental love.—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_43" href="#div2Ref_43">Footnote 43</a>: The "vant-courier" of the "thunderbolt."—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_44" href="#div2Ref_44">Footnote 44</a>: On Wilhelmshöhe a long musical tone precedes the falling +of the water.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_45" href="#div2Ref_45">Footnote 45</a>: Both are names of the old German God of Thunder; he means +himself, however, by this.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_46" href="#div2Ref_46">Footnote 46</a>: The Molossi called all beautiful women Proserpines.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_47" href="#div2Ref_47">Footnote 47</a>: Thus ought Schiller's Holy Virgin to be named.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_48" href="#div2Ref_48">Footnote 48</a>: His Albano.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_49" href="#div2Ref_49">Footnote 49</a>: Schoppe means very south-east.—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_50" href="#div2Ref_50">Footnote 50</a>: So the Vandals named Death.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_51" href="#div2Ref_51">Footnote 51</a>: Simon and Judas's day, when the weather was apt to be +stormy. See Act I. Scene 1, of Schiller's William Tell. "To-day is +Simon and Judas's day. Hark! how the deep howls!"—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_52" href="#div2Ref_52">Footnote 52</a>: "Two of a trade can never agree."—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_53" href="#div2Ref_53">Footnote 53</a>: An Englishman observed, that, among the fixed ideas of +the madhouse, that of subserviency rarely occurs; its inhabitants being +mostly gods, kings, popes, savants.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_54" href="#div2Ref_54">Footnote 54</a>: Who and what and with what help and why and how and +when.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_55" href="#div2Ref_55">Footnote 55</a>: Where, as is well known, the uncorrupted corpses lean +against each other.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_56" href="#div2Ref_56">Footnote 56</a>: Who had appeared to him on Isola Bella.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_57" href="#div2Ref_57">Footnote 57</a>: Where she had melted away from him in the cloud when he +was about to embrace her.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_58" href="#div2Ref_58">Footnote 58</a>: The swan, with a stroke of her wing, can break an arm.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_59" href="#div2Ref_59">Footnote 59</a>: The reader may not remember that "the little Linda" was +the cipher under which Julienne disguised in her letters the name of +Liana, as mentioned in the third paragraph of the 43d Cycle.—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_60" href="#div2Ref_60">Footnote 60</a>: She regarded her present life as a quiet play-life, like +that of children, and only the second as the actual one.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_61" href="#div2Ref_61">Footnote 61</a>: Here and henceforward she talks, indeed, wildly; but she +knows, nevertheless, that the wreath of wild-flowers is from Chariton's +children.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_62" href="#div2Ref_62">Footnote 62</a>: I am only a dream.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_63" href="#div2Ref_63">Footnote 63</a>: She sees the autumn-foliage.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_64" href="#div2Ref_64">Footnote 64</a>: The passage reads in Cardan. Præcept. ad Filios, c. 16, +thus: "Longobardo rubro, Germano nigro, Hetrusco lusco, Veneto claudo, +<i>Hispano longo et procero</i>, mulieri barbatæ, viro crispo, Græco nulli +confidere nolite." [Let no ruddy Lombard, black German, purblind +Etrurian, limping Venetian, <i>long and lean Spaniard</i>, bearded woman, +curly-haired man, nor any Greek at all, be trusted.]</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_65" href="#div2Ref_65">Footnote 65</a>: E. g. the Leader Naumann.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_66" href="#div2Ref_66">Footnote 66</a>: He would have said <i>assonance</i>.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_67" href="#div2Ref_67">Footnote 67</a>: He would have said <i>co-secant</i>.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_68" href="#div2Ref_68">Footnote 68</a>: Walkyres are charming maidens, who plan battles +beforehand, and mark out the heroes who are to fall.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_69" href="#div2Ref_69">Footnote 69</a>: Here begins Jean Paul's fourth volume of Titan, to which +he prefixed the following note (which needs for explanation only the +statement that the Author—agreeably to an intimation in the +Introductory Programme—accompanied each of the first two volumes with +a so-called <i>Comic Appendix</i>, full of all sorts of quizzes having no +connection with the Romance):—"This volume concludes the whole Titan, +exclusive of any further comic appendices, for which, however, the +Author hopes and fears to find still time and material enough. +Wide-awake heads may perhaps take the usual learned criticisms on the +work for the regular comic appendices thereto. And, indeed, the gay, +loose dust on the poetic butterfly-wings turn out often—when more +closely examined—to be real plumage. Meiningen, December, 1802. J. P. +F. Richter."</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_70" href="#div2Ref_70">Footnote 70</a>: The corpse is borne uncovered to burial; its attendants +follow muffled up.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_71" href="#div2Ref_71">Footnote 71</a>: Such, for instance in Hungary, is the designation of a +deacon.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_72" href="#div2Ref_72">Footnote 72</a>: <i>Screaming</i> and <i>outscreamed</i> are Richter's bold +words.— +Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_73" href="#div2Ref_73">Footnote 73</a>: Curiously enough, the German phrase is constructed here +so as to mean, in strict grammar, "<i>all tall travellers</i>."—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_74" href="#div2Ref_74">Footnote 74</a>: Compact, account.—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_75" href="#div2Ref_75">Footnote 75</a>: Ten o'clock.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_76" href="#div2Ref_76">Footnote 76</a>: Of Jupiter Tonans.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_77" href="#div2Ref_77">Footnote 77</a>: The body in the Pantheon, the head in St. Luke's Church.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_78" href="#div2Ref_78">Footnote 78</a>: One is reminded here of the manner in which Macduff +receives Rosse's announcement that his wife and children were "all +well."—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_79" href="#div2Ref_79">Footnote 79</a>: Strasburg cathedral.—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_80" href="#div2Ref_80">Footnote 80</a>: The hall of the Pantheon seems too low, because a part of +its steps is hidden by the rubbish.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_81" href="#div2Ref_81">Footnote 81</a>: This opening in the roof is twenty-seven feet in +diameter.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_82" href="#div2Ref_82">Footnote 82</a>: The pole-star, as well as other northern constellations, +stands lower in the south.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_83" href="#div2Ref_83">Footnote 83</a>: The sum and system of electric, galvanic, chemical, +anatomical experiments, tactics, a <i>corpus juris</i>, &c., may well put us +to astonishment; but humanity itself appears no greater for gigantic +structures, which are put together by millions of <i>elephant-ants</i>; but +when an elephant carries a building, when an individual shows any one +power in new degrees and relations,—Newton the power of mathematical +intuition; Raphael the plastic; Aristotle, Lessing, Fichte, +penetration; or another goodness, firmness, wit, &c,—then does +humanity gain and extend its limits.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_84" href="#div2Ref_84">Footnote 84</a>: In Greenland the intense cold makes people black and +blind.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_85" href="#div2Ref_85">Footnote 85</a>: Wherein since the time of Servius Tullius all potshards +have been thrown.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_86" href="#div2Ref_86">Footnote 86</a>: This expression seems to be borrowed from Goethe's +"Fisher":—</p> + +<p class="normal">"Lockt dich dein eigen Angesicht, +Nicht her in <i>ewigen Thau</i>?"—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_87" href="#div2Ref_87">Footnote 87</a>: See Titan, 3d Cycle. [<i>Painting</i>, i. e. rouging of the +cheeks.—Tr.]</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_88" href="#div2Ref_88">Footnote 88</a>: How beautiful he is!</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_89" href="#div2Ref_89">Footnote 89</a>: This is the Latin <i>esse</i>, <i>being</i>, and is defined in +German as "well-being." The phrase means here something like what we +call <i>being in one's element</i>.—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_90" href="#div2Ref_90">Footnote 90</a>: Roquairol.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_91" href="#div2Ref_91">Footnote 91</a>: Gaeta.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_92" href="#div2Ref_92">Footnote 92</a>: The island Ischia, with its mountain Epomeo high as +Vesuvius, Capri, &c.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_93" href="#div2Ref_93">Footnote 93</a>: "Die Myrte still, und hoch der Lorbeer +steht."—<i>Goethe</i>.—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_94" href="#div2Ref_94">Footnote 94</a>: Receptions.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_95" href="#div2Ref_95">Footnote 95</a>: Borgho d' Ischia.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_96" href="#div2Ref_96">Footnote 96</a>: He means the vintage, which comes in thrice a year there, +in December, March, and August.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_97" href="#div2Ref_97">Footnote 97</a>: Falsetto?—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_98" href="#div2Ref_98">Footnote 98</a>: The island of Ischia itself.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_99" href="#div2Ref_99">Footnote 99</a>: Day-sight (hemeralopy) is common in hot countries; the +strongest degree is, to be blind in the night even to light, and only +in the morning able to see again.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_100" href="#div2Ref_100">Footnote 100</a>: There are metamorphosing mirrors which represent young +forms as decrepit.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_101" href="#div2Ref_101">Footnote 101</a>: Him and Liana.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_102" href="#div2Ref_102">Footnote 102</a>: Campania Felice.—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_103" href="#div2Ref_103">Footnote 103</a>: Spurge is a plant which has an emetic effect.—If any +reader will try his hand at improving this desperate imitation (or +evasion) of an untranslatable pun, of which (in the mouth of the witty +Princesse herself) the author might have said, with an equally noted +<i>artiste</i>, in a smaller sphere,—"One of our failures,"—he is informed +that the German phrases are "Eine bessere Laufbahn" and "Einen bösem +Laufgraben."—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_104" href="#div2Ref_104">Footnote 104</a>: The reader, however, will know how to explain it who +recalls the adventure which Roquairol told Albano of Linda with the +snake, when she was a young girl. See Vol. I. p. 331.—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_105" href="#div2Ref_105">Footnote 105</a>: At Baja.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_106" href="#div2Ref_106">Footnote 106</a>: Question her no longer, for her father will come (it is +said) on the day of the nuptials.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_107" href="#div2Ref_107">Footnote 107</a>: A very beautiful Carthusian convent at Valencia.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_108" href="#div2Ref_108">Footnote 108</a>: Singing-birds are rare in Italy, because they are sold +in the market for the kitchen.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_109" href="#div2Ref_109">Footnote 109</a>: Dian did not love Virgil.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_110" href="#div2Ref_110">Footnote 110</a>: So heavily and slowly does the broad lava-stream roll +down, that a man can travel on in advance of this glowing death-flood, +which swallows up, suffocates, and melts down everything it touches, +and can see the destruction behind him, without indulging an +apprehension of danger to himself.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_111" href="#div2Ref_111">Footnote 111</a>: Luther's version differs here (for the better) from +ours, which makes it a negative assertion instead of a negative +question,—"I was <i>not</i> in safety," &c.—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_112" href="#div2Ref_112">Footnote 112</a>: Schoppe says <i>schellen</i> (diamonds), but <i>laub</i> means +both <i>leaves</i> and <i>spades</i> (in cards), and therefore a liberty has +been +taken.—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_113" href="#div2Ref_113">Footnote 113</a>: Püsterich or Püster, the well-known old German idol, +full of holes, flames, and water.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_114" href="#div2Ref_114">Footnote 114</a>: Of course, Jean Paul himself, a great friend of +Schoppe's.—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_115" href="#div2Ref_115">Footnote 115</a>: The Baldhead who prophesied that he would go mad in +fourteen months.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_116" href="#div2Ref_116">Footnote 116</a>: These blanks will fill themselves out in the +sequel.—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_117" href="#div2Ref_117">Footnote 117</a>: Of the Septuagint Old Testament.—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_118a" href="#div2Ref_118a">Footnote 118a</a> and <a name="div2_118b" href="#div2Ref_118b">118b</a>: Similarity of nature, identity of being. Terms of +old theological controversy.—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_119" href="#div2Ref_119">Footnote 119</a>: The uncle had lied again, for he had previously, as we +have seen, gone to Rome, where he delivered to the knight and the +Princess the letters from Pestitz.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_120" href="#div2Ref_120">Footnote 120</a>: The German word <i>partie</i> means a match in matrimony or +in cards.—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_121" href="#div2Ref_121">Footnote 121</a>: A familiar and favorite German song, "Freut euch des +Lebens."—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_122" href="#div2Ref_122">Footnote 122</a>: This passage reminds the translator of a beautiful poem +of Lenau's, in which the postilion passing a graveyard in the mountains +at night, where an old fellow-postilion lies buried, blows an air which +the dead man used to love; and a passenger hearing the echo from the +mountain-churchyard, says:—</p> +<div class="poem"> +<p class="t4">"And a blast upon the air</p> +<p class="t5">From the heights came flying:</p> +<p class="t4">Was the dead postilion there</p> +<p class="t5">To his strains replying?"—Tr.</p> +</div> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_123" href="#div2Ref_123">Footnote 123</a>: See Customs of the Morlacks. From the Italian. 1775.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_124" href="#div2Ref_124">Footnote 124</a>: Go! (Done!)—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_125" href="#div2Ref_125">Footnote 125</a>: Chant?—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_126" href="#div2Ref_126">Footnote 126</a>: Linda had called him <i>unheimlich</i> ("discomfortable," to +use Shakespeare's word); Roquairol, playing on the word, replies, +"<i>heimlich</i> (close, sly) I should rather say." But the conceit seems +untranslatable.—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_127" href="#div2Ref_127">Footnote 127</a>: The German <i>sonnentrunken</i> (sun-drunken) is somewhat +strong for our English speech—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_128" href="#div2Ref_128">Footnote 128</a>: Richter represents the hero of one of his shorter works +as being, when a child, afflicted with such sensitive nerves, that +when, during the Sunday sermon, some passage of peculiar eloquence +startled the congregation into silence, the awful pause would so +oppress and tempt him with the thought, "Supposing thou shouldst cry +out, 'I'm here too, Mr. Parson!'" that he absolutely had to run out of +the church.—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_129" href="#div2Ref_129">Footnote 129</a>: See Vol. I. p. 328.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_130" href="#div2Ref_130">Footnote 130</a>: A passage from Albano's letter to Roquairol, Vol. I. p. +280.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_131" href="#div2Ref_131">Footnote 131</a>: <i>Patron</i> in German.—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_132" href="#div2Ref_132">Footnote 132</a>: Love and friendship.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_133" href="#div2Ref_133">Footnote 133</a>: He means the yellow-dressed Athenais, enacted by his +quondam mistress, whose dress was described in Vol. I. p. 322.—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_134" href="#div2Ref_134">Footnote 134</a>: So much prize-money does every professor get for every +best grammar and every best compend; so for every dissertation fifty +ducats, &c.—<i>Tychse's Supplement to Bourgoing's Travels</i>, Vol. II.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_135" href="#div2Ref_135">Footnote 135</a>: One such, e. g. desired to see the king; he appeared on +the balcony, and stayed till she was satisfied.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_136" href="#div2Ref_136">Footnote 136</a>: A Spanish inn.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_137" href="#div2Ref_137">Footnote 137</a>: His dog.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_138" href="#div2Ref_138">Footnote 138</a>: <i>Es ist zum Tollwerden and es ist zum Tollsein</i> are the +two German phrases.—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_139" href="#div2Ref_139">Footnote 139</a>: Livonian?—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_140" href="#div2Ref_140">Footnote 140</a>: Isola Bella in Lago Maggiore (literally, greater +lake).—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_141" href="#div2Ref_141">Footnote 141</a>: See in Howitt's "Student Life in Germany," p. 301, &c., +an account of the ceremony at the singing of the "Landesvater," or +consecration song, the most impressive part of which is that every +student pierces his cap with his sword.—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_142" href="#div2Ref_142">Footnote 142</a>: S—s means Siebenkäs. It is known—from the <i>Flower</i>-, +<i>Fruit</i>-, <i>and Thorn-pieces</i>—that Schoppe at an earlier period called +himself Siebenkäs,—then gave this name away to his friend Liebgeber, +who resembled him even to the face, and from whom he had taken +his,—and that the friend for show had a gravestone made and marked +"Siebenkäs."</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_143" href="#div2Ref_143">Footnote 143</a>: See Vol. I. p. 35.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_144" href="#div2Ref_144">Footnote 144</a>: Look! look!</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_145" href="#div2Ref_145">Footnote 145</a>: This and what follows will be remembered by the reader +of the "Flower-, Fruit-, and Thorn-Pieces."—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_146" href="#div2Ref_146">Footnote 146</a>: Or "Clavis Fichtiana," a little work of Jean +Paul's.—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_147" href="#div2Ref_147">Footnote 147</a>: One edition has <i>glas</i> (glass) instead of gas,—palpably +a blunder,—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_148" href="#div2Ref_148">Footnote 148</a>: Josey! Josey!</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_149" href="#div2Ref_149">Footnote 149</a>: Vol. I. pp. 145, 146.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_150" href="#div2Ref_150">Footnote 150</a>: Vol. I. p. 143.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_151" href="#div2Ref_151">Footnote 151</a>: Vol. I. p. 103.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_152" href="#div2Ref_152">Footnote 152</a>: He means Liana, whom Spener, by the solemn revelation of +Albano's birth and destiny, forced to renounce a love which had grown +up among nothing but poisonous flowers.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_153" href="#div2Ref_153">Footnote 153</a>: He strikes before the iron is hot, makes it hot by +striking,—seizes opportunity by the forelock.—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_154" href="#div2Ref_154">Footnote 154</a>: Never to marry beneath her rank.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_155" href="#div2Ref_155">Footnote 155</a>: Liana became, as is well known, when her brother held +his discourse upon the breast without a heart beside the old Prince, +sick and blind.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_156" href="#div2Ref_156">Footnote 156</a>: Portion settled on a younger son in royal families, or +on a prince foregoing the succession.—Tr.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_157" href="#div2Ref_157">Footnote 157</a>: Vol. I. p. 82.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_158" href="#div2Ref_158">Footnote 158</a>: Namely, rejoice!</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h3>THE END.</h3> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<hr class="W50"> +<h5>Cambridge: Stereotyped and Printed by Welch, Bigelow, & Co.</h5> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Titan: A Romance, by Jean Paul + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TITAN: A ROMANCE *** + +***** This file should be named 36403-h.htm or 36403-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/4/0/36403/ + +Produced by Charles Bowen, from page images provided by Google Books + +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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