Part 30

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.

"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.

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.

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.

"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."

THIRTY-SECOND JUBILEE.

Roquairol.

127. CYCLE.

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:--

"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.

"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.

"Thy Albano."

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.

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 _him_ 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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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. "_Va!_"[124] 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, "_thy_ 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 _was not_ so, or she deserved the proof and punishment of being deluded." "Yes, that is divine,--that fits into the magnificent _Tragedian_, just before the end," said he, but would not explain himself on the subject.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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,[125] _mezza voce_, only two or three lines; the effect will be felt," said the Spaniard.

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, "_Allons diablesse!_" 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."

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.

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.

128. CYCLE.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 _one_ 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!"

"Albano," said she, "why art thou to-day so altered, so sad, so tender?"

"Call me rather," said he, "by _thy_ 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?"

"Sweet youth, can I then, now, choose but love thee eternally? I do, indeed, henceforth cleave to thee and thou to me."

"Ah, thou dost not know me. When does man know, then, that precisely he, this very _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? _Perchance God_."

"And I do thee," said Linda.

"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?"

"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."

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.

"Thou wilt die of love; I am already dead from love. O, thou knowest not how long ago I loved thee!" he answered.