Part 11

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. P.

"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 _in person_; 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 _genre_ 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,

"Your highborn grace's submissive

"Joachim Spener, _Court Chaplain_.

"P. S. If your highness does not come directly with the messenger, I beg earnestly the favor of a few lines in reply."

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.

96. CYCLE.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

"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.

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[59] that she speaks of dying,--seest thou haply that I was then in the right? Bring me the leaf yonder!"

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?"

"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.

"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;[60] for Lilar's fair flowers.... The children of my Chariton have put them on me.[61] ... _Je ne suis qu'un songe_.[62] 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!"

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.

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[63] lies already upon the trees."

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.

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.

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.

"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.

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.

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.

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.

"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.

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.

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.

"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.

"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.

"To-morrow, my father!" said he languidly and beseechingly to the Knight; and shut himself in. Nothing more was heard from him.

TWENTY-FOURTH JUBILEE.

The Fever.--The Cure.

97. CYCLE.

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!"

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.