Part 13
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:--
"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,[68] 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.
"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.
"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.
"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 _upward_ here!'
"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.
"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.'
"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.
"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.'
"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.
"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."
100. CYCLE.
"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.
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.
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.
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.
TWENTY-SIXTH JUBILEE.[69]
The Journey.--The Fountain.--Rome.--The Forum.
101. CYCLE.
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 _he_ 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,[70]--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.
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.
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 _nothing_ 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 _after_ 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 _lies_, but still they are _likenesses_. The spirit, forever an exile among bodies, desires spirits." "That is just about what I meant, too," said Gaspard.
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 _thy_ 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.
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.
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'[71] 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.
"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."
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.