Part 12

"By this flower," replied the old gardener; "all my life I have been wishing to be able once to find it, but never had the fortune; for it is very rare, and grows only on the mountains. I set out in quest of thee, because thy mother is dead, and the solitude at home was too oppressive and afflicting to me. I knew not whither to direct my way. At last I wandered through the mountains, dreary as the journey seemed to me. By the way, I sought for this flower, but could nowhere discover it; and now, quite unexpected, I find it here, where the beautiful plain lies stretched before me; thereby I knew that I should find thee soon; and, see! how truly the dear flower has prophesied!"

They embraced each other again, and Christian wept for his mother; but the old man grasped his hand, and said: "Let us be going, that we may soon lose sight of the mountain shadows. My heart is always sad at the steep wild shapes, the horrid chasms, the gurgling waterfalls. Let us again visit the kind, harmless level country."

They wandered back; and Christian became more cheerful. He told his father of his new fortune, of his child and of his home: his speech made him as if intoxicated; and, in talking, he now for the first time felt truly how nothing more was wanting to his happiness. Thus, amid tales joyful and melancholy, they arrived at the village. All were rejoiced at the speedy termination of the journey; most of all, Elizabeth. The old man took up his abode with them, joined his little fortune to their estate, and they formed, together, the most contented and united circle among men. The field increased; the cattle throve; Christian's house became in a few years one of the most considerable in the village; and he soon saw himself the father of several children.

Five years had in this manner passed away, when a stranger, on his journey, stopped, and took up his abode in Christian's house, as being the most respectable in the village. He was a friendly, communicative man, who related many things of his journey, played with and gave presents to the children, and, in short, was kind to every one. He was so pleased with the neighbourhood, that he was resolved to spend some days there; but the days grew to weeks, and at length to months. His sojourn surprised no one, for all had already been accustomed to regard him as belonging to the family. Only Christian often sat musing; for it occurred to him that he had already aforetime known the traveller, and yet he could not recollect the occasion when he could have seen him.

At last, after three months, the stranger took his leave, and said, "My dear friends, a wonderful destiny and strange expectations impel me forward into the nearest mountains; a magical form, which I cannot withstand, allures me. I now leave you, and know not whether I shall return to you. I have a sum of money by me, which is safer in your hands than in mine, and therefore I pray you to take charge of it: should I not come back in a year's time, then keep it, and take it as a thank-offering for your kindness shewn to me."

So the stranger departed; and Christian took the money into his keeping. He carefully locked it up; and at times, in the excess of anxiety, looked over it, counted it to see that none was missing, and made himself much ado with it.

"This sum would make us right happy," he once said to his father, "should the stranger not return; we and our children would then be for ever provided for."

"Let alone the gold," said the old man; "therein lies no blessing: hitherto, praise God, we have wanted nothing, and by all means put this thought away from thee."

Christian often arose in the night to waken the servants to their labour, and himself to look after every thing. The father was anxious lest, through excessive diligence, he should injure his youth and health; therefore, one night, he arose in order to admonish him on the subject, when, to his astonishment, he saw him sitting at a table, and with the greatest eagerness counting over the gold.

"My son," said the old man, in sadness, "shall it come to this with thee? has this cursed metal been brought under the roof only to our unhappiness? Bethink thyself, my son, or the wicked fiend will consume thy blood and life."

"Yes," said Christian, "I no longer comprehend myself; neither by night nor by day have I any rest; see now how it looks at me, till the ruddy glow goes deep into my heart. Listen how it clinks, this golden blood; it calls me when asleep; I hear it when music sounds, when the wind blows, when people are talking in the street. If the sun shines, I see only these yellow eyes, with which it blinks at me, and wishes to whisper secretly a word of love into my ear: so I am obliged nightly to get up, though only to satisfy its strong desire, and then I feel it inwardly exulting and rejoicing; when I touch it with my fingers, it grows ruddier and more glorious in its joy. Only look yourself now at the glow of its rapture!"

The grey-haired man, shuddering and weeping, took his son in his arms, prayed, and then said, "Christel, thou must turn again to the word of God; thou must more diligently and devoutly go to church: otherwise thou wilt languish, and in the saddest misery pine thyself away."

The money was again locked up. Christian promised to betake himself to other subjects; and the old man was composed. A year and more had already passed, and no tidings heard of the stranger: the old man at last yielded to the entreaties of his son; and the relinquished money was laid out in lands and other ways. The young farmer's wealth was soon talked of in the village; and Christian seemed extremely contented and joyful, so that his father thought himself happy at seeing him so well and cheerful; all fear had now vanished from his soul. What, then, must have been his astonishment when, one evening, Elizabeth took him aside, and told him, with tears, that she could no longer understand her husband; he spoke so wildly, especially at night; he had perplexing dreams; would often in his sleep for a long time walk about the room without knowing it, and tell of wondrous things which oft made her shudder. But most frightful to her was his merriment in the daytime; his laugh was wild and boisterous, his look strange and wandering. The father stood terror-struck; and the troubled wife continued: "He is always speaking of the stranger, and maintains that otherwise he has long known him, for that this stranger-man is really none other than a woman of wondrous beauty; he also will no longer go out into the field, nor work in the garden, for he says that he hears underground a fearful groaning when he only pulls up a root; he starts and seems terrified at the plant and herbs, as if they were spectres."

"Merciful God!" exclaimed the father, "is the frightful hunger so fast grown within him that it has come to this? Then is his enchanted heart no longer human, but of cold metal; he who loves not flowers, has lost all love and fear of God."

The following day the father went for a walk with his son, and repeated to him much of what he had heard from Elizabeth; he exhorted him to piety, and to devote his spirit to holy contemplations.

Christian replied, "Willingly, my father; and often I feel quite happy, and every thing succeeds well with me: for a long time, for years, I can forget the true form of my inward being, and lead, as it were, a strange life with cheerfulness: but then suddenly, like a new moon, the ruling star, which I myself am, arises on my heart, and vanquishes the foreign influence. I could be quite happy, but that once, on an extraordinary night, a mysterious sign was impressed through my hand deeply within my soul; often the magic figure sleeps and is at rest; I think it has passed away, when suddenly it springs forth again as a poison, and makes its way in all directions. Then I can think and feel nothing else; all around me is changed, or, rather, is by this form swallowed up. As the madman shudders at the water, and the infused poison within him becomes more venomous, so it happens to me with every cornered figure, every line, every beam; all will then unbind the form that dwells within me, and promote its birth; and my body and soul feel the anguish; as my spirit received it by a feeling from without, so into an outward feeling she desires, with agonising throes, to work it forth again, that she may be free from it and at rest."

"It was an unlucky star," said the old man, "that drew thee away from us. Thou wert born for a still life; thy mind tended to quietness and plants; then thy impatience led thee away into the society of savage stones; the rocks, the rent cliffs, with their rugged shapes, have overset thy spirit, and planted within thee the desolating hunger after metal. Thou oughtest ever to have been on thy guard, and kept thy view from the mountains. So I thought to bring thee up; but it was not so to be. Thy humility, thy calmness, thy childlike feelings, have been all overturned by obstinacy, wildness, and overbearing."

"No," said the son; "I remember quite distinctly that it was a plant which first made known to me the misery of the whole earth; only then I understood the sighs and lamentations which are every where perceptible in all nature, if only one will listen. In plants, herbs, flowers, and trees, there moves and stirs painfully only one general wound; they are the corpse of former glorious worlds of rock, they present to our eye the frightfullest corruption. Now I well understand that it was this which that root with its deep-fetched moaning wished to say to me; in its agony it forgot itself, and told me all. Therefore are all green plants so angry with me, and wait for my life; they desire to obliterate the loved figure in my heart; and every spring, with their distorted deathly looks, to win my soul. With unpermitted and malicious art have they deceived thee, old man; for they have gained complete possession of thy soul. Only ask the rocks, thou wilt be astonished when thou hearest them speak."

The father looked at him a long while, but could answer him no more. They went silently back to the house, and the old man was likewise horrified at his son's mirth; for it seemed quite foreign to him, and as if another being was, as from a machine, sporting and awkwardly labouring within him.

The harvest-feast was again to be celebrated; the people went to church, and Elizabeth, with her children, set out to be present at the service; her husband also prepared to accompany them; but at the church-door he turned aside, and, deep in thought, went forth out of the village. He seated himself on the height, and looked down on the smoking cottages beneath him; heard the singing and organ-tones coming from the church; and saw children gaily clad dancing and sporting upon the village-green. "How have I lost my life in a dream!" said he to himself: "years have passed away since I went down this hill among the children; those who then were playing are to-day serious in the church; I also went into the sacred building; but Elizabeth is now no more a blooming child-like maiden; her youth is gone by; I cannot with the longing of that time seek for the glance of her eyes: thus have I wantonly neglected a high eternal happiness, to gain one that is only passing and transitory."

Full of strange desires, he walked to the neighbouring wood, and buried himself in its thickest shades. A shuddering stillness encompassed him; no breeze stirred amid the leaves. Meanwhile he saw a man approaching him from the distance, whom he imagined to be the stranger; he was struck with terror, and his first thought was, that he would demand back his money. But as the form came nearer, he saw how greatly he had been mistaken; for the features which he had fancied, dissolved away as into one another, and an old woman of the extremest ugliness came up to him. She was clad in dirty rags; a tattered cloth bound together some grey hairs; and she hobbled on a crutch. With frightful voice she spoke to Christian, and asked after his name and station. He answered her minutely, and added, "But who art thou?"

"I am called the Woodwoman," said she; "and every child can tell of me. Hast thou never known me?" With the last words she turned herself about, and Christian thought he again recognised among the trees the golden veil, the lofty gait, the majestic limbs. He wished to hasten after her, but he had sight of her no more.

Meanwhile something glittering drew his eye down to the grass. He took it up, and saw again the magic tablet with its coloured precious stones and remarkable figure, that he had lost so many years before. The form and its varied light pressed all his senses with a sudden power. He grasped it firmly, to assure himself that he had it once more in his hands, and then hastened back with it to the village. His father met him.

"See," cried he to him, "that of which I have so often told you, and which I thought only to have seen in a dream, is now truly and surely mine."

The old man contemplated the tablet a long while, and said: "My son, my heart quite shudders as I view the aspect of these stones, and foreboding guess the meaning of this inscription. See here, how cold they sparkle, what cruel looks they cast up, bloodthirsty, like the red eye of the tiger! Throw away this writing, which makes thee cold and cruel, which will turn thy heart to stone.

See the tender flowers beaming, As from out themselves they waken; Like as children from their dreaming, In smiling loveliness are taken.

Their various hues in playful bliss All turn they to the golden sun; And when they feel his burning kiss, 'Tis then their happiness is won.

And on his kisses so to languish, To pine in love and melancholy; Then smiling in their dearest anguish, Soon fade in soft tranquillity.

This is to them the highest joy, The fond delight they love to cherish; Themselves in death to glorify, Beneath their lover's glance to perish.

Then all around their perfum'd treasure They profluent pour in raptur'd calm; Until the air grows drunk with pleasure, Enliven'd with the odorous balm.

Love comes all human hearts approving, Responsive touching every chord; Well may the conscious soul record, 'Now I know the due reward, The gladness, sadness, pain of loving.'"

"Wonderful incalculable treasures," answered the son, "must there still be in the depths of the earth! Could some one but explore them, raise them up, and snatch them to himself! Could he but so press to his bosom the earth as a beloved bride, that in anguish and love she would willingly grant to him what she had most precious! The Woodwoman has called me; I go to seek her. Close by is an old ruined shaft, which centuries ago some miner has dug open; perhaps there I shall find her."

He hastened forward. In vain the old man strove to detain him; he soon vanished from his sight. Some hours afterwards, the father, with much exertion, arrived at the old shaft: he saw footsteps impressed on the sand at the entrance; and returned in tears, convinced that his son had, in his madness, gone in, and been drowned in the depths of the old collected waters.

From that time he was always melancholy and in tears. The whole village mourned for the young farmer. Elizabeth was inconsolable; the children lamented aloud. Half a year after the old father died; Elizabeth's parents soon followed him, and she was obliged to take the sole management of the large estate. Her many avocations removed her somewhat from her sorrow; the education of her children, the superintendence of her property, left her no time for care and grief. So after two years she resolved on a new marriage, and gave her hand to a young sprightly man, who had loved her from his youth. But soon all things in the house assumed another form. The cattle died; men and maid-servants were unfaithful; the barns filled with grain were consumed by fire; people in the town who owed them various sums fled away with the money. The landlord soon found himself compelled to sell some fields and meadows; but a failure in the crops, and a year of scarcity, only brought him into new embarrassments. It seemed nought else than as if the gold, so wondrously obtained, were in all ways seeking a speedy flight.

Meanwhile the family increased; and Elizabeth, as well as her husband, became careless and dilatory from despair. He endeavoured to drown his cares by drinking much of intoxicating wine, which made him irritable and passionate, so that Elizabeth often bewailed her misery with bitter tears.

As soon as their fortune declined, their friends in the village kept aloof; so that in a few years, they found themselves quite forsaken, and with the greatest difficulty could struggle on from week to week.

They had only a few sheep and one cow remaining; which Elizabeth herself often tended with her children. She was once sitting thus with her work on the grass, Leonora by her side, and a child at her breast, when they saw from the distance a strange form coming towards them. It was a man in a coat all in tatters, barefoot, his countenance sunburnt to a dark-brown, and still more disfigured by a long rough beard; he wore no covering on his head, but had a garland of green leaves twisted through his hair, which made his wild appearance still more strange and incomprehensible. On his back he carried in a fast-bound sack a heavy burden; in walking he supported himself on a young fir-tree.

When he came nearer, he set down his load, and heavily fetched his breath. He wished the lady good-day; she was terrified at his presence, the child clung closely to her mother. When he had rested a while, he said: "I have just come from a very fatiguing journey among the roughest mountains upon earth; but have, at last, succeeded in bringing with me the most precious treasures which imagination can conceive or heart can wish. Look here and wonder!" Hereupon he opened his sack, and emptied it; it was full of pebbles, mixed with large pieces of flint and other stones. "It is only," he continued, "that these jewels are not yet ground and polished, that they fail to take the eye. The outward fire, with its brightness, is yet too deeply buried in their inmost heart; but one has only to strike it out, and make them feel that no dissimulation will any more serve them, then you will see of what spirit they are the offspring." With these words, he took one of the hard stones and struck it vehemently against another, so that red sparks sprang forth between them, "Did you see the glance?" he cried. "Thus are they all fire and light; they illuminate the darkness with their laughter, but as yet they do it not willingly." So saying, he again packed all up carefully in his sack, which he tied fast together. "I know thee very well," he then said sadly; "thou art Elizabeth." She started with terror.

"How earnest thou to know my name?" she asked, with foreboding shudder.

"Ah, good God!" said the unhappy one; "I am indeed Christian, who once came to thee as a hunter. Dost thou, then, know me no more?"

She knew not, in her horror and deepest compassion, what to say. He fell upon her neck and kissed her. Elizabeth exclaimed, "O God! my husband is coming!"

"Be tranquil," said he; "I am as good as dead to thee. There in the forest my fair one awaits me; the powerful one, she that is adorned with the golden veil. This is my dearest child Leonora. Come hither, my dear, beloved heart; give me too a kiss,--one only,--that I may once again feel thy mouth upon my lips, then I will leave you."

Leonora wept; she clasped close to her mother, who, in sobs and tears, half turned her towards the wanderer; he half drew her to himself, took her in his arms, and pressed her to his bosom. Then he went silently away, and in the wood they saw him speaking with the frightful Woodwoman.

"What is the matter?" asked the husband, as he found mother and daughter pale and dissolved in tears. Neither would answer him.

But the unhappy one was from that day never again seen.

THE MYSTERIOUS CUP.

The forenoon bells were sounding from the great cathedral. On the open place, men and women were moving in various directions, carriages passing along, and priests going to their churches. Ferdinand stood upon the stairs regarding the multitude, and contemplating those who went up to be present at high mass. The sunshine glistened on the white stones; every one sought shelter against the heat; he only had been long standing in meditation, leaning against a pillar, under the burning beams, without feeling them; for he was lost amid the recollections which had risen up in his thoughtfulness. He thought on his former life, and inspired himself with the feeling which had penetrated his being, and extinguished all other wishes.

At the same hour he had stood here in the former year, to see the women and maidens going to service; with listless heart and smiling eye he had contemplated the various forms. Then there came across the square a youthful form in black, tall and noble, her eyes modestly cast before her on the ground; unembarrassed she ascended the stairs with lovely grace; her silken dress lay around the most beautiful of forms, and vibrated as in music about the moving limbs. She was going to mount the highest step, when unconsciously she raised her eye, and its azure beam met his glance. He was pierced as by lightning. She stumbled, and quickly as he sprang forward, he could not hinder but that for a moment she, in the most charming posture, lay kneeling at his feet. He raised her; she looked not at him, but was all a blush, nor answered his inquiry whether she was hurt. He followed her into the church, and saw only the image as she had knelt before him, and the loveliest of bosoms bent towards him. The following day he again visited the threshold of the temple; for him the place was consecrated. He had intended to take his departure, his friends were impatiently expecting him at home; but now from henceforth this was his father-land; his heart was inverted.

He saw her often--she did not shun him--yet only for separate and stolen moments; for her rich family sufficiently watched her, still more a powerful and jealous bridegroom. They confessed to each other their love, but knew not in their situation what to counsel; for he was a stranger, and could offer his beloved no such great fortune as she was entitled to expect. Now he felt his poverty; yet when he thought on his former way of life, he seemed to himself surpassingly rich, for his existence was hallowed, his heart floated for ever in the fairest emotion. Nature was now friendly to him, and her beauty revealed to his meditations, he felt himself no longer a stranger to devotion and religion; and now he trod this threshold, the mysterious dimness of the temple, with far other feelings than in those days of levity. He withdrew from his former acquaintances, and lived only to love. Whenever he passed through her street, and only saw her at the window, that day was for him a happy one. He had often spoken to her in the twilight of evening, as her garden adjoined to that of a friend, who, however, did not know his secret. Thus a year had elapsed.