Part 15
Finally I became conscious that it was now nearly over. The brow was no longer smooth and the locks were becoming gray. My career was ended, but not completed. The best strength of life was gone, and still Art and Virtue stood ever unattainable before me. I should have despaired, had I not perceived and idolized both in you, gracious Madonna, and you and your gentle godliness in myself.
Then you appeared to me, beckoning with the summons of Death. An earnest longing for you and for freedom seized me; I yearned for my dear old fatherland, and was about to shake off the dust of travel, when I was suddenly called back to life by the promise and reassurance of your recovery.
Then I became conscious that I had been dreaming; I shuddered at all the significant suggestions and similarities, and stood anxiously by the boundless deep of this inward truth.
Do you know what has become most obvious to me as a result of it all? First, that I idolize you, and that it is a good thing that I do so. We two are one, and only in that way does a human being become one and a complete entity, that is, by regarding and poetically conceiving himself as the centre of everything and the spirit of the world. But why poetically conceive, since we find the germ of everything in ourselves, and yet remain forever only a fragment of ourselves?
And then I now know that death can also be felt as beautiful and sweet. I understand how the free creature can quietly long in the bloom of all its strength for dissolution and freedom, and can joyfully entertain the thought of return as a morning sun of hope.
A REFLECTION
It has often struck my mind how extraordinary it is that sensible and dignified people can keep on, with such great seriousness and such never-tiring industry, forever playing the little game in perpetual rotation--a game which is of no use whatever and has no definite object, although it is perhaps the earliest of all games. Then my spirit inquired what Nature, who everywhere thinks so profoundly and employs her cunning in such a large way, and who, instead of talking wittily, behaves wittily, may think of those naïve intimations which refined speakers designate only by their namelessness.
And this namelessness itself has an equivocal significance. The more modest and modern one is, the more fashionable does it become to put an immodest interpretation upon it. For the old gods, on the contrary, all life had a certain classic dignity whereby even the immodest heroic art is rendered lifelike. The mass of such works and the great inventive power displayed in them settles the question of rank and nobility in the realm of mythology.
This number and this power are all right, but they are not the highest. Where does the longed-for ideal lie concealed? Or does the aspiring heart evermore find in the highest of all plastic arts only new manners and never a perfected style?
Thinking has a peculiarity of its own in that, next to itself, it loves to think about something which it can think about forever. For that reason the life of the cultured and thinking man is a constant study and meditation on the beautiful riddle of his destiny. He is always defining it in a new way, for just that is his entire destiny, to be defined and to define. Only in the search itself does the human mind discover the secret that it seeks.
But what, then, is it that defines or is defined? Among men it is the nameless. And what is the nameless among women?--The Indefinite.
The Indefinite is more mysterious, but the Definite has greater magic power. The charming confusion of the Indefinite is more romantic, but the noble refinement of the Definite has more of genius. The beauty of the Indefinite is perishable, like the life of the flowers and the everlasting youth of mortal feelings; the energy of the Definite is transitory, like a genuine storm and genuine inspiration.
Who can measure and compare two things which have endless worth, when both are held together in the real Definiteness, which is intended to fill all gaps and to act as mediator between the male and female individual and infinite humanity?
The Definite and the Indefinite and the entire abundance of their definite and indefinite relations--that is the one and all, the most wonderful and yet the simplest, the simplest and yet the highest. The universe itself is only a toy of the Definite and the Indefinite; and the real definition of the definable is an allegorical miniature of the life and activity of ever-flowing creation.
With everlasting immutable symmetry both strive in different ways to get near to the Infinite and to escape from it. With light but sure advances the Indefinite expands its native wish from the beautiful centre of Finiteness into the boundless. Complete Definiteness, on the other hand, throws itself with a bold leap out of the blissful dream of the infinite will into the limits of the finite deed, and by self-refinement ever increases in magnanimous self-restraint and beautiful self-sufficiency.
In this symmetry is also revealed the incredible humor with which consistent Nature accomplishes her most universal and her most simple antithesis. Even in the most delicate and most artistic organization these comical points of the great All reveal themselves, like a miniature, with roguish significance, and give to all individuality, which exists only by them and by the seriousness of their play, its final rounding and perfection.
Through this individuality and that allegory the bright ideal of witty sensuality blooms forth from the striving after the Unconditioned.
Now everything is clear! Hence the omnipresence of the nameless, unknown divinity. Nature herself wills the everlasting succession of constantly repeated efforts; and she wills, too, that every individual shall be complete, unique and new in himself--a true image of the supreme, indivisible Individuality. Sinking deeper into this Individuality, my Reflection took such an individual turn that it presently began to cease and to forget itself.
"What point have all these allusions, which with senseless sense on the outward boundaries of sensuality, or rather in the middle of it, I will not say play, but contend with, each other?"
So you will surely ask, and so the good Juliana would ask, though no doubt in different language.
Dear Beloved! Shall the nosegay contain only demure roses, quiet forget-me-nots, modest violets and other maidenlike and childlike flowers? May it not contain anything and everything that shines strangely in wonderful glory?
Masculine awkwardness is a manifold thing, and rich in blossoms and fruits of all kinds. Let the wonderful plant, which I will not name, have its place. It will serve at least as a foil to the bright-gleaming pomegranate and the yellow oranges. Or should there be, perhaps, instead of this motley abundance, only one perfect flower, which combines all the beauties of the rest and renders their existence superfluous?
I do not apologize for doing what I should rather like to do again, with full confidence in your objective sense for the artistic productions of the awkwardness which, often and not unwillingly, borrows the material for its creations from masculine inspiration.
It is a soft Furioso and a clever Adagio of friendship. You will be able to learn various things from it; that men can hate with as uncommon delicacy as you can love; that they then remold a wrangle, after it is over, into a distinction; and that you may make as many observations about it as pleases you.
JULIUS To ANTONIO
You have changed a great deal of late. Beware, my friend, that you do not lose your sense for the great before you realize it. What will that mean? You will finally acquire so much modesty and delicacy that heart and feeling will be lost. Where then will be your manhood and your power of action? I shall yet come to the point of treating you as you treat me, since we have not been living with each other, but near each other. I shall have to set limits for you and say: Even if he has a sense for everything else that is beautiful, still he lacks all sense for friendship. Still I shall never set myself up as a moral critic of my friend and his conduct; he who can do that does not deserve the rare good fortune to have a friend.
That you wrong yourself first of all only makes the matter worse. Tell me seriously, do you think there is virtue in these cool subtleties of feeling, in these cunning mental gymnastics, which consume the marrow of a man's life and leave him hollow inside?
For a long time I was resigned and said nothing. I did not doubt at all that you, who know so much, would also probably know the causes that have destroyed our friendship. It almost seems as if I was mistaken, since you were so astonished at my attaching myself to Edward and asked how you had offended me, as if you did not understand it. If it were only that, only some one thing like that, then it would not be worth while to ask such a painful question; the question would answer and settle itself. But is it not more than that, when on every occasion I must feel it a fresh desecration to tell you everything about Edward, just as it happened? To be sure you have done nothing, have not even said anything aloud; but I know and see very well how you think about it. And if I did not know it and see it, where would be the invisible communion of our spirits and the beautiful magic of this communion? It certainly cannot occur to you to want to hold back still longer, and by sheer finesse to try to end the misunderstanding; for otherwise I should myself really have nothing more to say.
You two are unquestionably separated by an everlasting chasm. The quiet, clear depth of your being and the hot struggle of his restless life lie at the opposite ends of human existence. He is all action, you are a sensitive, contemplative nature. For that reason you should have sense for everything, and you really do have it, save when you cultivate an intentional reserve. And that really vexes me. Better that you should hate the noble fellow than misjudge him. But where will it lead, if you unnaturally accustom yourself to use your utmost wit in finding nothing but the commonplace in what little of greatness and beauty there is in him, and that without renouncing your claim to a liberal mind?
Is that your boasted many-sidedness? To be sure you observe the principle of equality, and one man does not fare much better than another, except that each one is misunderstood in a peculiar way. Have you not also forced me to say nothing to you, or to anyone else, about that which I feel to be the highest? And that merely because you could not hold back your opinion until it was the proper time, and because your mind is always imagining limitations in others before it can find its own. You have almost obliged me to explain to you how great my own worth really is; how much more just and safe it would have been, if now and then you had not passed judgment but had believed; if you had presupposed in me an unknown infinite.
To be sure my own negligence is to blame for it all. Perhaps too it was idiosyncrasy--that I wanted to share with you the entire present, without letting you know anything about the past and the future. Somehow it went against my feelings, and I regarded it too as superfluous; for, as a matter of fact, I gave you credit for a great deal of intelligence.
O Antonio, if I could be doubtful about the eternal truths, you might have brought me to the point of regarding that quiet, beautiful friendship, which is based merely upon the harmony of being and living together, as something false and perverse.
Is it now still incomprehensible if I quite go over to the other side? I renounce refined enjoyment and plunge into the wild battle of life. I hasten to Edward. Everything is agreed upon. We will not only live together, but we will work and act in fraternal unison. He is rough and uncouth, his virtue is strong rather than sensitive. But he has a great manly heart, and in better times than ours he would have been, I say it boldly, a hero.
II
It is no doubt well that we have at last talked with each other again. I am quite content, too, that you did not wish to write, and that you spoke slightingly of poor innocent letters because you really have more genius for talking. But I have in my heart one or two things more that I could not say to you, and will now endeavor to intimate with the pen.
But why in this way? Oh, my friend, if I only knew of a more refined and subtle mode of communicating my thoughts from afar in some exquisite form! To me conversation is too loud, too near, and also too disconnected. These separate words always present one side only, a part of the connected, coherent whole, which I should like to intimate in its complete harmony.
And can men who are going to live together be too tender toward each other in their intercourse? It is not as if I were afraid of saying something too strong, and for that reason avoided speaking of certain persons and certain affairs. So far as that is concerned, I think that the boundary line between us is forever destroyed.
What I still had to say to you is something very general, and yet I prefer to choose this roundabout way. I do not know whether it is false or true delicacy, but I should find it very hard to talk with you, face to face, about friendship. And yet it is thoughts on that subject that I wish to convey to you. The application--and it is about that I am most concerned--you will yourself easily be able to make.
To my mind there are two kinds of friendship. The first is entirely external. Insatiably it rushes from deed to deed, receives every worthy man into the great alliance of united heroes, ties the old knot tighter by means of every virtue, and ever aspires to win new brothers; the more it has, the more it wants. Call to mind the antique world and you will find this friendship, which wages honest war against all that is bad, even were it in ourselves or in the beloved friend--you will find this friendship everywhere, where noble strength exerts influence on great masses, and creates or governs worlds. Now times are different; but the ideal of this friendship will stay with me as long as I live.
The other friendship is entirely internal. A wonderful symmetry of the most intimately personal, as if it had been previously ordained that one should always be perfecting himself. All thoughts and feelings become social through the mutual excitation and development of the holiest. And this purely spiritual love, this beautiful mysticism of intercourse, does not merely hover as the distant goal of a perhaps futile effort. No, it is only to be found complete. There no deception occurs, as in that other heroic form. Whether a man's virtue will stand the test, his actions must show. But he who inwardly sees and feels humanity and the world will not be apt to look for public disinterestedness where it is not to be found.
He only is capable of this friendship who is quite composed within himself, and who knows how to honor with humility the divinity of the other.
When the gods have bestowed such friendship upon a man, he can do nothing more than protect it carefully against everything external, and guard its holy being. For the delicate flower is perishable.
LONGING AND PEACE
Lightly dressed, Lucinda and Julius stood by the window in the summer-house, refreshing themselves in the cool morning air. They were absorbed in watching the rising sun, which the birds were welcoming with their joyous songs.
"Julius," asked Lucinda, "why is it that I feel a deep longing in this serene peace?"
"It is only in longing that we find peace," answered Julius. "Yes, there is peace only when the spirit is entirely free to long and to seek, where it can find nothing higher than its own longing."
"Only in the peace of the night," said Lucinda, "do longing and love shine full and bright, like this glorious sun."
"And in the daytime," responded Julius, "the happiness of love shines dimly, even as the pale moonlight."
"Or it appears and vanishes suddenly into the general darkness," added Lucinda, "like those flashes of lightning which lighted up the room when the moon was hidden."
"Only in the night," said Julius, "does the little nightingale utter wails and deep sighs. Only in the night does the flower shyly open and breathe freely the fragrant air, intoxicating both mind and senses in equal delight. Only in the night, Lucinda, does the bold speech of deep passion flow divinely from the lips, which in the noise of the day close with tender pride their sweet sanctuary."
LUCINDA
It is not I, my Julius, whom you portray as so holy; although I would fain wail like the nightingale, and although I am, as I inwardly feel, consecrated to the night. It is you, it is the wonderful flower of your fantasy which you perceive in me, when the noise has died down and nothing commonplace distracts your noble mind.
JULIUS
Away with modesty and flattery! Remember, you are the priestess of the night. Even in the daylight the dark lustre of your abundant hair, the bright black of your earnest eyes, the majesty of your brow and your entire body, all proclaim it.
LUCINDA
My eyes droop while you praise, because the noisy morning dazzles and the joyous songs of the merry birds strengthen and awe my soul. At another time my ear would eagerly drink in my lovely friend's sweet talk here in the quiet, dark coolness of the evening.
JULIUS
It is not vain fantasy. My longing for you is constant and everlastingly unsatisfied.
LUCINDA
Be it what it may, you are the object in which my being finds peace.
JULIUS
Holy peace, dear friend, I have found only in that longing.
LUCINDA
And I have found that holy longing in this beautiful peace.
JULIUS
Alas, that the garish light is permitted to lift the veil that so concealed those flames, that the play of the senses was fain to cool and assuage the burning soul.
LUCINDA
And so sometimes the cold and serious day will annihilate the warm night of life, when youth flies by and I renounce you, even as you once more greatly renounced great love.
JULIUS
Oh, that I might show you my unknown friend, and her the wonder of my wondrous happiness.
LUCINDA
You love her still and will love her forever, though forever mine. That is the wonder of your wondrous heart.
JULIUS
No more wondrous than yours. I see you, clasped against my breast, playing with your Guido's locks, while we twain in brotherly union adorn your serious brow with eternal wreaths of joy.
LUCINDA
Let rest in darkness, bring not forth into light, that which blooms sacredly in the quiet depths of the heart.
JULIUS
Where may the billow of life be sporting with the impulsive youth whom tender feeling and wild fate vehemently dragged into the harsh world?
LUCINDA
Uniquely transfigured, the pure image of the noble Unknown shines in the blue sky of your pure soul.
JULIUS
Oh eternal longing! But surely the futile desire, the vain glare, of the day will grow dim and go out, and there will be forever more the restful feeling of a great night of love.
LUCINDA
Thus does the woman's heart in my ardent breast feel, when I am allowed to be as I am. It longs only for your longing, and is peaceful where you find peace.
DALLYINGS OF THE FANTASY
Life itself, the delicate child of the gods, is crowded out by the hard, loud preparations for living, and is pitifully stifled in the loving embrace of apelike Care.
To have purposes, to carry out purposes, to interweave purposes artfully with purposes for a purpose: this habit is so deeply rooted in the foolish nature of godlike man, that if once he wishes to move freely, without any purpose, on the inner stream of ever-flowing images and feelings, he must actually resolve to do it and make it a set purpose.
It is the acme of intelligence to keep silent from choice, to surrender the soul to the fantasy, and not to disturb the sweet dallyings of the young mother with her child. But rarely is the mind so intelligent after the golden age of its innocence. It would fain possess the soul alone; and even when she supposes herself alone with her natural love, the understanding listens furtively and substitutes for the holy child's-play mere memories of former purposes or prospects of new ones. Yes, it even continues to give to the hollow, cold illusions a tinge of color and a fleeting heat; and thus by its imitative skill it tries to steal from the innocent fantasy its very innermost being.
But the youthful soul does not allow itself to be cheated by the cunning of the prematurely old Understanding, and is always watching while its darling plays with the beautiful pictures of the beautiful world. Willingly she allows her brow to be adorned with the wreaths which the child plaits from the blossoms of life, and willingly she sinks into waking slumber, dreaming of the music of love, hearing the friendly and mysterious voices of the gods, like the separate sounds of a distant romance.
Old, well-known feelings make music from the depths of the past and the future. They touch the listening spirit but lightly, and quickly lose themselves in the background of hushed music and dim love. Every one lives and loves, complains and rejoices, in beautiful confusion. Here at a noisy feast the lips of all the joyful guests open in general song, and there the lonely maiden becomes mute in the presence of the friend in whom she would fain confide, and with smiling mouth refuses the kiss. Thoughtfully I strew flowers on the grave of the prematurely dead son, flowers which presently, full of joy and hope, I offer to the bride of the beloved brother; while the high priestess beckons to me and holds out her hand for a solemn covenant to swear by the pure eternal fire eternal purity and never-dying enthusiasm. I hasten away from the altar and the priestess to seize my sword and plunge with the host of heroes into a battle, which I soon forget, seeing in the deepest solitude only the sky and myself.
The soul that has such dreams in sleep continues to have them even when it is awake. It feels itself entwined by the blossoms of love, it takes care not to destroy the loose wreaths; it gladly gives itself up a prisoner, consecrates itself to the fantasy, and willingly allows itself to be ruled by the child, which rewards all maternal cares by its sweet playfulness.