Part 13

"In regard to that our friend Hercules had better views, who could occupy fifty maidens in a single night for the welfare of humanity, and all of them heroic maids too. He did those labors of his, too, and slew many a furious monster. But the goal of his career was always a noble leisure, and for that reason he has gained entrance to Olympus. Not so, however, with this Prometheus, the inventor of education and enlightenment. To him you owe it that you can never be quiet and are always on the move. Hence it is also, when you have absolutely nothing to do, that you foolishly aspire to develop character and observe and study one another. It is a vile business. But Prometheus, for having misled man to toil, now has to toil himself, whether he wants to or not. He will soon get very tired of it, and never again will he be freed from his chains."

When the spectators heard this, they broke out into tears and jumped upon the stage to assure their father of their heartfelt sympathy. And thus the allegorical comedy vanished.

CONSTANCY AND PLAY

"Of course you are alone, Lucinda?"

"I do not know--perhaps--I think--"

"Please! please! dear Lucinda. You know very well that when little Wilhelmina says 'please! please!' and you do not do at once what she wants, she cries louder and louder until she gets her way."

"So it was to tell me that that you rushed into my room so out of breath and frightened me so?"

"Do not be angry with me, sweet lady, I beg of you! Oh, my child! Lovely creature! Be a good girl and do not reproach me!"

"Well, I suppose you will soon be asking me to close the door?"

"So? I will answer that directly. But first a nice long kiss, and then another, and then some more, and after that more still."

"Oh! You must not kiss me that way--if you want me to keep my senses! It makes one think bad thoughts."

"You deserve to. Are you really capable of laughing, my peevish lady? Who would have thought so? But I know very well you laugh only because you can laugh at me. You do not do it from pleasure. For who ever looked so solemn as you did just now--like a Roman senator? And you might have looked ravishing, dear child, with those holy dark eyes, and your long black hair shining in the evening sunlight--if you had not sat there like a judge on the bench. Heavens! I actually started back when I saw how you were looking at me. A little more and I should have forgotten the most important thing, and I am all confused. But why do you not talk? Am I disagreeable to you?"

"Well, that _is_ funny, you surly Julius. As if you ever let any one say anything! Your tenderness flows today like a spring shower."

"Like your talk in the night."

"Oh sir, let my neckcloth be."

"Let it be? Not a bit of it! What is the use of a miserable, stupid neckcloth? Prejudice! Away with it!"

"If only no one disturbs us!"

"There she goes again, looking as if she wanted to cry! You are well, are you not? What makes your heart beat so? Come, let me kiss it! Oh, yes, you spoke a moment ago about closing the door. Very well, but not that way, not here. Come, let us run down through the garden to the summer-house, where the flowers are. Come! Oh, do not make me wait so!"

"As you wish, sir."

"I cannot understand--you are so odd today."

"Now, my dear friend, if you are going to begin moralizing, we might just as well go back again. I prefer to give you just one more kiss and run on ahead of you."

"Oh, not so fast, Lucinda! My moralizing will not overtake you. You will fall, love!"

"I did not wish to make you wait any longer. Now we are here. And you came pretty fast yourself."

"And you are very obedient! But this is no time to quarrel."

"Be still! Be still!"

"See! Here is a soft, cosy place, with everything as it should be. This time, if you do not--well, there will be no excuse for you."

"Will you not at least lower the curtain first?"

"You are right. The light will be much more charming so. How beautiful your skin shines in the red light! Why are you so cold, Lucinda?"

"Dearest, put the hyacinths further away, their odor sickens me."

"How solid and firm, how soft and smooth! That is harmonious development."

"Oh no, Julius! Please don't! I beg of you! I will not allow it!"

"May I not feel * * *. Oh, let me listen to the beating of your heart! Let me cool my lips in the snow of your bosom! Do not push me away! I will have my revenge! Hold me tighter! Kiss upon kiss! No, not a lot of short ones! One everlasting one! Take my whole soul and give me yours! Oh, beautiful and glorious Together! Are we not children? Tell me! How could you be so cold and indifferent at first, and then afterward draw me closer to you, making a face the while as if something were hurting you, as if you were reluctant to return my ardor? What is the matter? Are you crying? Do not hide your face! Look at me, dearest!"

"Oh, let me lie here beside you--I cannot look into your eyes. It was very naughty of me, Julius! Can you ever forgive me, darling? You will not desert me, will you? Can you still love me?"

"Come to me, sweet lady--here, close to my heart. Do you remember how nice it was, not long ago, when you cried in my arms, and how it relieved you? Tell me what the matter is now. You are not angry with me?"

"I am angry with myself. I could beat myself! To be sure, it would have served you right. And if ever again, sir, you conduct yourself so like a husband, I shall take better care that you find me like a wife. You may be assured of that. I cannot help laughing, it took me so by surprise. But do not imagine, sir, that you are so terribly lovable--this time it was by my own will that I broke my resolution."

"The first will and the last is always the best. It is just because women usually say less than they mean that they sometimes do more than they intend. That is no more than right; good will leads you women astray. Good will is a very nice thing, but the bad part of it is that it is always there, even when you do not want it."

"That is a beautiful mistake. But you men are full of bad will and you persist in it."

"Oh no! If we seem to be obstinate, it is only because we cannot be otherwise, not because our will is bad. We cannot, because we do not will properly. Hence it is not bad will, but lack of will. And to whom is the fault attributable but to you women, who have such a super-abundance of good will and keep it all to yourselves, unwilling to share it with us. But it happened quite against my will that we fell a-talking about will--I am sure I do not know why we are doing it. Still, it is much better for me to vent my feelings by talking than by smashing the beautiful chinaware. It gave me a chance to recover from my astonishment over your unexpected compunction, your excellent discourse, and your laudable resolution. Really, this is one of the strangest pranks that you have ever given me the honor of witnessing; so far as I can remember, it has been several weeks since you have talked by daylight in such solemn and unctuous periods as you used in your little sermon today. Would you mind translating your meaning into prose?"

"Really, have you forgotten already about yesterday evening and the interesting company? Of course I did not know that."

"Oh! And so that is why you are so out of sorts--because I talked with Amalia too much?"

"Talk as much as you please with anybody you please. But you must be nice to me--that I insist on."

"You spoke so very loud; the stranger was standing close by, and I was nervous and did not know what else to do."

"Except to be rude in your awkwardness."

"Forgive me! I plead guilty. You know how embarrassed I am with you in society. It always hurts me to talk with you in the presence of others."

"How nicely he manages to excuse himself!"

"The next time do not pass it over! Look out and be strict with me. But see what you have done! Isn't it a desecration? Oh no! It isn't possible, it is more than that. You will have to confess it--you were jealous."

"All the evening you rudely forgot about me. I began to write it all out for you today, but tore it up."

"And then, when I came?"

"Your being in such an awful hurry annoyed me."

"Could you love me if I were not so inflammable and electric? Are you not so too? Have you forgotten our first embrace? In one minute love comes and lasts for ever, or it does not come at all. Or do you think that joy is accumulated like money and other material things, by consistent behavior? Great happiness is like music coming out of the air--it appears and surprises us and then vanishes again."

"And thus it was you appeared to me, darling! But you will not vanish, will you? You shall not! I say it!"

"I will not, I will stay with you now and for all time. Listen! I feel a strong desire to hold a long discourse with you on jealousy. But first we ought to conciliate the offended gods."

"Rather, first the discourse and afterward the gods."

"You are right, we are not yet worthy of them. It takes you a long time to get over it after you have been disturbed and annoyed about something. How nice it is that you are so sensitive!"

"I am no more sensitive than you are--only in a different way."

"Well then, tell me! I am not jealous--how does it happen that you are?"

"Am I, unless I have cause to be? Answer me that!"

"I do not know what you mean."

"Well, I am not really jealous. But tell me: What were you talking about all yesterday evening?"

"So? It is Amalia of whom you are jealous? Is it possible? That nonsense? I did not talk about anything with her, and that was the funny part of it. Did I not talk just as long with Antonio, whom a short time ago I used to see almost every day?"

"You want me to believe that you talk in the same way with the coquettish Amalia that you do with the quiet, serious Antonio. Of course! It is nothing more than a case of clear, pure friendship!"

"Oh no, you must not believe that--I do not wish you to. That is not true. How can you credit me with being so foolish? For it is a very foolish thing indeed for two people of opposite sex to form and conceive any such relation as pure friendship. In Amalia's case it is nothing more than playing that I love her. I should not care anything about her at all, if she were not a little coquettish.

"Would that there were more like her in our circle! Just in fun, one must really love all the ladies."

"Julius, I believe you are going completely crazy!"

"Now understand me aright--I do not really mean all of them, but all of them who are lovable and happen to come one's way."

"That is nothing more than what the French call _galanterie_ and _coquetterie_."

"Nothing more--except that I think of it as something beautiful and clever. And then men ought to know what the ladies are doing and what they want; and that is rarely the case. A fine pleasantry is apt to be transformed in their hands into coarse seriousness."

"This loving just in fun is not at all a funny thing to look at."

"That is not the fault of the fun--it is just miserable jealousy. Forgive me, dearest--I do not wish to get excited, but I must confess that I cannot understand how any one can be jealous. For lovers do not offend each other, but do things to please each other. Hence it must come from uncertainty, absence of love, and unfaithfulness to oneself. For me happiness is assured, and love is one with constancy. To be sure, it is a different matter with people who love in the ordinary way. The man loves only the race in his wife, the woman in her husband only the degree of his ability and social position, and both love in their children only their creation and their property. Under those circumstances fidelity comes to be a merit, a virtue, and jealousy is in order. For they are quite right in tacitly believing that there are many like themselves, and that one man is about as good as the next, and none of them worth very much."

"You look upon jealousy, then, as nothing but empty vulgarity and lack of culture."

"Yes, or rather as mis-culture and perversity, which is just as bad or still worse. According to that system the best thing for a man to do is to marry of set purpose out of sheer obligingness and courtesy. And certainly for such folk it must be no less convenient than entertaining, to live out their lives together in a state of mutual contempt. Women especially are capable of acquiring a genuine passion for marriage; and when one of them finds it to her liking, it easily happens that she marries half a dozen in succession, either spiritually or bodily. And the opportunity is never wanting for a man and wife to be delicate for a change, and talk a great deal about friendship."

"You used to talk as if you regarded us women as incapable of friendship. Is that really your opinion?"

"Yes, but the incapability, I think, lies more in the friendship than in you. Whatever you love at all, you love indivisibly; for instance, a sweetheart or a baby. With you even a sisterly relation would assume this character."

"You are right there."

"For you friendship is too many-sided and one-sided. It has to be absolutely spiritual and have definite, fixed bounds. This boundedness would, only in a more refined way, be just as fatal to your character as would sheer sensuality without love. For society, on the other hand, it is too serious, too profound, too holy."

"Cannot people, then, talk with each other regardless of whether they are men or women?"

"That might make society rather serious. At best, it might form an interesting club. You understand what I mean: it would be a great gain, if people could talk freely, and were neither too wild nor yet too stiff. The finest and best part would always be lacking--that which is everywhere the spirit and soul of good society--namely, that playing with love and that love of play which, without the finer sense, easily degenerates into jocosity. And for that reason I defend the ambiguities too."

"Do you do that in play or by way of joke?"

"No! No! I do it in all seriousness."

"But surely not as seriously and solemnly as Pauline and her lover?"

"Heaven forbid! I really believe they would ring the church-bell when they embrace each other, if it were only proper. Oh, it is true, my friend, man is naturally a serious animal. We must work against this shameful and abominable propensity with all our strength, and attack it from all sides. To that end ambiguities are also good, except that they are so seldom ambiguous. When they are not and allow only one interpretation, that is not immoral, it is only obtrusive and vulgar. Frivolous talk must be spiritual and dainty and modest, so far as possible; for the rest as wicked as you choose."

"That is well enough, but what place have your ambiguities in society?"

"To keep the conversations fresh, just as salt keeps food fresh. The question is not _why_ we say them, but _how_ we say them. It would be rude indeed to talk with a charming lady as if she were a sexless Amphibium. It is a duty and an obligation to allude constantly to what she is and is going to be. It is really a comical situation, considering how indelicate, stiff and guilty society is, to be an innocent girl."

"That reminds me of the famous Buffo, who, while he was always making others laugh, was so sad and solemn himself."

"Society is a chaos which can be brought into harmonious order only by wit. If one does not jest and toy with the elements of passion, it forms thick masses and darkens everything."

"Then there must be passion in the air here, for it is almost dark."

"Surely you have closed your eyes, lady of my heart! Otherwise the light in them would brighten the whole room."

"I wonder, Julius, who is the more passionate, you or I?"

"Both of us are passionate enough. If that were not so, I should not want to live. And see! That is why I could reconcile myself to jealousy. There is everything in love--friendship, pleasant intercourse, sensuality, and even passion. Everything must be in it, and one thing must strengthen, mitigate, enliven and elevate the other."

"Let me embrace you, darling."

"But only on one condition can I allow you to be jealous. I have often felt that a little bit of cultured and refined anger does not ill-become a man. Perhaps it is the same way with you in regard to jealousy."

"Agreed! Then I do not have to abjure it altogether."

"If only you always manifest it as prettily and as wittily as you did today."

"Did I? Well, if next time you get into so pretty and witty a passion about it, I shall say so and praise you for it."

"Are we not worthy now to conciliate the offended gods?"

"Yes, if your discourse is entirely finished; otherwise give me the rest." [32]

METAMORPHOSES

The childlike spirit slumbers in sweet repose, and the kiss of the loving goddess arouses in him only light dreams. The rose of shame tinges his cheek; he smiles and seems to open his lips, but he does not awaken and he knows not what is going on within him. Not until after the charm of the external world, multiplied and reinforced by an inner echo, has completely permeated his entire being, does he open his eyes, reveling in the sun, and recall to mind the magic world which he saw in the gleam of the pale moonlight. The wondrous voice that awakened him is still audible, but instead of answering him it echoes back from external objects. And if in childish timidity he tries to escape from the mystery of his existence, seeking the unknown with beautiful curiosity, he hears everywhere only the echo of his own longing.

Thus the eye sees in the mirror of the river only the reflection of the blue sky, the green banks, the waving trees, and the form of the absorbed gazer. When a heart, full of unconscious love, finds itself where it hoped to find love in return, it is struck with amazement. But we soon allow ourselves to be lured and deceived by the charm of the view into loving our own reflection. Then has the moment of winsomeness come, the soul fashions its envelop again, and breathes the final breath of perfection through form. The spirit loses itself in its clear depth and finds itself again, like Narcissus, as a flower.

Love is higher than winsomeness, and how soon would the flower of Beauty wither without the complementary birth of requited love. This moment the kiss of Amor and Psyche is the rose of life. The inspired Diotima revealed to Socrates only a half of love. Love is not merely a quiet longing for the infinite; it is also the holy enjoyment of a beautiful present. It is not merely a mixture, a transition from the mortal to the immortal, but it is a complete union of both. There is a pure love, an indivisible and simple feeling, without the slightest interference of restless striving. Every one gives the same as he takes, one just like the other, all is balanced and completed in itself, like the everlasting kiss of the divine children.

By the magic of joy the grand chaos of struggling forms dissolves into a harmonious sea of oblivion. When the ray of happiness breaks in the last tear of longing, Iris is already adorning the eternal brow of heaven with the delicate tints of her many-colored rainbow. Sweet dreams come true, and the pure forms of a new generation rise up out of Lethe's waves, beautiful as Anadyomene, and exhibit their limbs in the place of the vanished darkness. In golden youth and innocence time and man change in the divine peace of nature, and evermore Aurora comes back more beautiful than before.

Not hate, as the wise say, but love, separates people and fashions the world; and only in its light can we find this and observe it. Only in the answer of its Thou can every I completely feel its endless unity. Then the understanding tries to unfold the inner germ of godlikeness, presses closer and closer to the goal, is full of eagerness to fashion the soul, as an artist fashions his one beloved masterpiece. In the mysteries of culture the spirit sees the play and the laws of caprice and of life. The statue of Pygmalion moves; a joyous shudder comes over the astonished artist in the consciousness of his own immortality, and, as the eagle bore Ganymede, a divine hope bears him on its mighty pinion up to Olympus.

TWO LETTERS

I

Is it then really and truly so, what I have so often quietly wished for and have never dared to express? I see the light of holy joy beaming on your face, and you modestly give me the beautiful promise. You are to be a mother!