Part 13

No fairer forenoon could prepare the way for an afternoon in which a man was to betroth himself forever, and to unite the exchanged rings with the Ring of Eternity. Except the bridal pair, there was none present but an ancient pair; the mother and the long Guardian. The bridegroom wrote out the marriage-contract or marriage-charter with his own hand; hereby making over to his bride, from this day, his whole movable property (not, as you may suppose, his pocket-library, but his whole library; whereas, in the Middle Ages, the daughter of a noble was glad to get one or two books for marriage-portion);--in return for which, she liberally enough contributed--a whole nuptial coach or car, laden as follows: with nine pounds of feathers, not feathers for the cap such as we carry, but of the lighter sort such as carry us;--with a sumptuous dozen of godchild-plates and godchild-spoons (gifts from Schadeck), together with a fish-knife;--of silk, not only stockings (though even King Henry II. of France could dress no more than his legs in silk), but whole gowns;--with jewels and other furnishings of smaller value. Good Thiennette! in the chariot of thy spirit lies the true dowry; namely, thy noble, soft, modest heart, the morning-gift of Nature!

The Parson--who, not from mistrust, but from "the uncertainty of life," could have wished for a notary's seal on everything; to whom no security but a hypothecary one appeared sufficient; and who, in the depositing of every barleycorn, required quittances and contracts--had now, when the marriage-charter was completed, a lighter heart; and through the whole evening the good man ceased not to thank his bride for what she had given him. To me, however, a marriage-contract were a thing as painful and repulsive,--I confess it candidly, though you should in consequence upbraid me with my great youth,--as if I had to take my love-letter to a Notary Imperial, and make him docket and countersign it before it could be sent. Heavens! to see the light flower of Love, whose perfume acts not on the balance, so laid like tulip-bulbs on the hay-beam of Law; two hearts on the cold councillor and flesh-beam of relatives and Advocates, who are heaping on the scales nothing but houses, fields, and tin,--this, to the interested party, maybe as delightful as, to the intoxicated suckling and nursling of the Muses and Philosophy, it is to carry the evening and morning sacrifices he has offered up to his goddess into the book-shop, and there to change his devotions into money, and sell them by weight and measure.----

From Cantata-Sunday to Ascension, that is, to marriage-day, are one and a half weeks--or one and a half blissful eternities. If it is pleasant that nights or winter separate the days and seasons of joy to a comfortable distance; if, for example, it is pleasant that birthday, Saint's-day, betrothment, marriage, and baptismal day, do not all occur on the same day (for with very few do those festivities, like Holiday and Apostle's day, commerge),--then is it still more pleasant to make the interval, the flower-border, between betrothment and marriage, of an extraordinary breadth. Before the marriage-day are the true honey-weeks; then come the wax-weeks; then the honey-vinegar-weeks.

In the Ninth Letter-Box our Parson celebrates his wedding; and here, in the Eighth, I shall just briefly skim over his way and manner of existence till then; an existence, as might have been expected, celestial enough. To few is it allotted, as it was to him, to have at once such wings and such flowers (to fly over) before his nuptials; to few is it allotted, I imagine, to purchase flour and poultry on the same day, as Fixlein did;--to stuff the wedding-turkey with hangman-meals;--to go every night into the stall, and see whether the wedding-pig, which his Guardian had given him by way of marriage-present, is still standing and eating;--to spy out for his future wife the flax-magazines and clothes-press-niches in the house;--to lay in new wood-stores in the prospect of winter;--to obtain from the Consistorium directly, and for little smart-money, their Bull of Dispensation, their remission of the threefold proclamation of banns;--to live not in a city, where you must send to every fool (because you are one yourself), and disclose to him that you are going to be married; but in a little angular hamlet, where you have no one to tell aught, but simply the Schoolmaster that he is to ring a little later, and put a knee-cushion before the altar.----

O, if the Ritter Michaelis maintains that Paradise was little, because otherwise the people would not have found each other,--a hamlet and its joys are little and narrow, so that some shadow of Eden may still linger on our Ball.----

I have not even hinted that, the day before the wedding, the Regiments-Quartermaster came uncalled, and killed the pig, and made puddings gratis, such as were never eaten at any Court.

And besides, dear Fixlein, on this soft, rich oil of joy there was also floating gratis a vernal sun,--and red twilights,--and flower-garlands,--and a bursting half-world of buds!...

How didst thou behave thee in these hot whirlpools of pleasure?--Thou movedst thy Fishtail (Reason), and therewith describedst for thyself a rectilineal course through the billows. For even half as much would have hurried another Parson from his study; but the very crowning felicity of ours was, that he stood as if rooted to the boundary-hill of Moderation, and from thence looked down on what thousands flout away. Sitting opposite the Castle-windows, he was still in a condition to reckon up that _Amen_ occurs in the Bible one hundred and thirty times. Nay, to his old learned laboratory he now appended a new chemical stove; he purposed writing to Nuernberg and Baireuth, and there offering his pen to the Brothers Senft, not only for composing practical _Receipts_ at the end of their _Almanacs_, but also for separate _Essays_ in front under the copperplate title of each Month, because he had a thought of making some reformatory cuts at the common people's mental habitudes ... And now, when in the capacity of Parson he had less to do, and could add to the holy resting-day of the congregation six literary creating-days, he determined (even in these Carnival weeks) to strike his plough into the hitherto quite fallow History of Hukelum, and soon to follow the plough with his drill....

Thus roll his minutes, on golden wheels-of-fortune, over the twelve days, which form the glancing star-paved road to the third heaven of the thirteenth, that is, to the

NINTH LETTER-BOX.

Or to the Marriage.

Rise, fair Ascension and Marriage day, and gladden readers also! Adorn thyself with the fairest jewel, with the bride, whose soul is as pure and glittering as its vesture; like pearl and pearl-muscle, the one, as the other, lustrous and ornamental! And so over the espalier, whose fruit-hedge has hitherto divided our darling from his Eden, every reader now presses after him!--

On the 9th of May, 1793, about three in the morning, there came a sharp peal of trumpets, like a light-beam, through the dim-red May-dawn; two twisted horns, with a straight trumpet between them, like a note of admiration between interrogation-points, were clanging from a house in which only a parishioner (not the Parson) dwelt and blew; for this parishioner had last night been celebrating the same ceremony which the pastor had this day before him. The joyful tallyho raised our Parson from his broad bed (and the Shock from beneath it, who some weeks ago had been exiled from the white, sleek coverlet), and this so early, that in the portraying tester, where on every former morning he had observed his ruddy visage, and his white bedclothes, all was at present dim and crayoned.

I confess, the new-painted room, and a gleam of dawn on the wall, made it so light, that he could see his knee-buckles glancing on the chair. He then softly awakened his mother (the other guests were to lie for hours in the sheets), and she had the city cook-maid to awaken, who, like several other articles of wedding-furniture, had been borrowed for a day or two from Flachsenfingen. At two doors he knocked in vain, and without answer; for all were already down at the hearth, cooking, blowing; and arranging.

How softly does the Spring day gradually fold back its nun-veil, and the Earth grow bright, as if it were the morning of a Resurrection!--The quicksilver-pillar of the barometer, the guiding Fire-pillar of the weather-prophet, rests firmly on Fixlein's Ark of the Covenant. The Sun raises himself, pure and cool, into the morning-blue, instead of into the morning-red. Swallows, instead of clouds, shoot skimming through the melodious air ... O, the good Genius of Fair Weather, who deserves many temples and festivals (because without him no festival could be held), lifted an ethereal, azure Day, as it were, from the well-clear atmosphere of the Moon, and sent it down, on blue butterfly-wings,--as if it were a _blue_ Monday,--glittering below the Sun, in the zigzag of joyful, quivering descent, upon the narrow spot of Earth, which our heated fancies are now viewing .... And on this balmy, vernal spot stand, amid flowers, over which the trees are shaking blossoms instead of leaves, a bride and a bridegroom.... Happy Fixlein! how shall I paint thee without deepening the sighs of longing in the fairest souls?

But soft! we will not drink the magic cup of Fancy to the bottom at six in the morning; but keep sober till towards night!

At the sound of the morning prayer-bell, the bridegroom, for the din of preparation was disturbing his quiet orison, went out into the churchyard, which (as in many other places), together with the church, lay round his mansion like a court. Here on the moist green, over whose closed flowers the churchyard wall was still spreading broad shadows, did his spirit cool itself from the warm dreams of Earth; here, where the white flat gravestone of his Teacher lay before him like the fallen-in door on the Janus's-temple of Life, or like the windward side of the narrow house, turned towards the tempests of the world; here, where the little shrunk metallic door on the grated cross of his father uttered to him the inscriptions of death, and the year when his parent departed, and all the admonitions and mementos, graven on the lead;--there, I say, his mood grew softer and more solemn; and he now lifted up by heart his morning prayer, which usually he read; and entreated God to bless him in his office, and to spare his mother's life, and to look with favor and acceptance on the purpose of to-day. Then over the graves he walked into his fenceless little angular flower-garden; and here, composed and confident in the Divine keeping, he pressed the stalks of his tulips deeper into the mellow earth.

But on returning to the house, he was met on all hands by the bell-ringing and the Janizary-music of wedding-gladness;--the marriage-guests had all thrown off their nightcaps, and were drinking diligently;--there was a clattering, a cooking, a frizzling;--tea-services, coffee-services, and warm beer-services, were advancing in succession; and plates full of bride-cakes were going round like potters' frames or cistern-wheels.--The Schoolmaster, with three young lads, was heard rehearsing from his own house an _Arioso_, with which, so soon as they were perfect, he purposed to surprise his clerical superior.--But now rushed all the arms of the foaming joy-streams into one, when the sky-queen besprinkled with blossoms, the bride, descended upon Earth in her timid joy, full of quivering, humble love;--when the bells began;--when the procession-column set forth with the whole village round and before it;--when the organ, the congregation, the officiating priest, and the sparrows on the trees of the church-window, struck louder and louder their rolling peals on the drum of the jubilee-festival.... The heart of the singing bridegroom was like to leap from its place for joy, "that on his bridal-day it was all so respectable and grand."--Not till the marriage benediction could he pray a little.

Still worse and louder grew the business during dinner, when pastry-work and marchpane-devices were brought forward,--when glasses and slain fishes (laid under the napkins to frighten the guests) went round;--and when the guests rose, and themselves went round, and at length danced round; for they had instrumental music from the city there.

One minute handed over to the other the sugar-bowl and bottle-case of joy; the guests heard and saw less and less, and the villagers began to see and hear more and more, and towards night they penetrated like a wedge into the open door,--nay, two youths ventured even, in the middle of the parsonage-court, to mount a plank over a beam, and commence seesawing. Out of doors, the gleaming vapor of the departed Sun was encircling the Earth, the evening star was glittering over parsonage and churchyard; no one heeded it.

However, about nine o'clock,--when the marriage-guests had wellnigh forgotten the marriage-pair, and were drinking or dancing along for their own behoof; when poor mortals, in this sunshine of Fate, like fishes in the sunshine of the sky, were leaping up from their wet, cold element; and when the bridegroom, under the star of happiness and love, casting like a comet its long train of radiance over all his heaven, had in secret pressed to his joy-filled breast his bride and his mother,--then did he lock a slice of wedding-bread privily into a press, in the old superstitious belief, that this residue secured continuance of bread for the whole marriage. As he returned, with greater love for the sole partner of his life, she herself met him with his mother, to deliver him in private the bridal-nightgown and bridal-shirt, as is the ancient usage. Many a countenance grows pale in violent emotions, even of joy; Thiennette's wax-face was bleaching still whiter under the sunbeams of Happiness. O never fall, thou lily of Heaven, and may four springs instead of four seasons open and shut thy flower-bells to the sun! All the arms of his soul as he floated on the sea of joy were quivering to clasp the soft, warm heart of his beloved, to encircle it gently and fast, and draw it to his own....

He led her from the crowded dancing-room into the cool evening. Why does the evening, does the night, put warmer love in our hearts? Is it the nightly pressure of helplessness; or is it the exalting separation from the turmoil of life; that veiling of the world, in which for the soul nothing more remains but souls;--is it therefore, that the letters in which the loved name stands written on our spirit appear, like phosphorus-writing, by night _in fire_, while by day in their _cloudy_ traces they but smoke?

He walked with his bride into the Castle-garden; she hastened quickly through the castle, and past its servants'-hall, where the fair flowers of her young life had been crushed broad and dry, under a long, dreary pressure; and her soul expanded, and breathed in the free open garden, on whose flowery soil destiny had cast forth the first seeds of the blossoms which to-day were gladdening her existence. Still Eden! Green flower-checkered _chiaroscuro_!--The moon is sleeping under ground like a dead one; but beyond the garden the sun's red evening-clouds have fallen down like rose-leaves; and the evening-star, the brideman of the sun, hovers, like a glancing butterfly, above the rosy red, and, modest as a bride, deprives no single starlet of its light.

The wandering pair arrived at the old gardener's hut; now standing locked and dumb, with dark windows in the light garden, like a fragment of the Past surviving in the Present. Bared twigs of trees were folding, with clammy, half-formed leaves, over the thick, intertwisted tangles of the bushes.--The Spring was standing, like a conqueror, with Winter at his feet.--In the blue pond, now bloodless, a dusky evening-sky lay hollowed out, and the gushing waters were moistening the flower-beds.--The silver sparks of stars were rising on the altar of the East, and falling down extinguished in the red sea of the West.

The wind whirred, like a night-bird, louder through the trees; and gave tones to the acacia-grove, and the tones called to the pair who had first become happy within it: "Enter, new mortal pair, and think of what is past, and of my withering and your own; and be holy as Eternity, and weep not only for joy, but for gratitude also!"--And the wet-eyed bridegroom led his wet-eyed bride under the blossoms, and laid his soul, like a flower, on her heart, and said: "Best Thiennette, I am unspeakably happy, and would say much, and cannot.--Ah, thou Dearest, we will live like angels, like children together! Surely I will do all that is good to thee; two years ago I had nothing, no nothing; ah, it is through thee, best love, that I am happy. I call thee Thou, now, thou dear good soul!" She drew him closer to her, and said, though without kissing him: "Call me Thou always, Dearest!"

And as they stept forth again from the sacred grove into the magic-dusky garden, he took off his hat; first, that he might internally thank God, and secondly, because he wished to look into this fairest evening sky.

They reached the blazing, rustling marriage-house, but their softened hearts sought stillness; and a foreign touch, as in the blossoming vine, would have disturbed the flower-nuptials of their souls. They turned rather, and winded up into the churchyard to preserve their mood. Majestic on the groves and mountains stood the Night before man's heart, and made it also great. Over the _white_ steeple-obelisk the sky rested _bluer_ and _darker_; and behind it wavered the withered summit of the May-pole with faded flag. The son noticed his father's grave, on which the wind was opening and shutting, with harsh noise, the little door of the metal cross, to let the year of his death be read on the brass plate within. An overpowering sadness seized his heart with violent streams of tears, and drove him to the sunk hillock, and he led his bride to the grave, and said: "Here sleeps he, my good father; in his thirty-second year he was carried hither to his long rest. O Thou good, dear father, couldst thou to-day but see the happiness of thy son, like my mother! But thy eyes are empty, and thy breast is full of ashes, and thou seest us not."--He was silent. The bride wept aloud; she saw the mouldering coffins of her parents open, and the two dead arise and look round for their daughter, who had stayed so long behind them, forsaken on the Earth. She fell upon his heart, and faltered: "O beloved, I have neither father nor mother; do not forsake me!"

O thou who hast still a father and a mother, thank God for it, on the day when thy soul is full of joyful tears, and needs a bosom wherein to shed them....

And with this embracing at a father's grave, let this day of joy be holily concluded.--

TENTH LETTER-BOX.

St. Thomas's-Day and Birthday.

An Author is a sort of bee-keeper for his reader-swarm; in whose behalf he separates the Flora kept for their use into different seasons, and here accelerates, and there retards, the blossoming of many a flower, that so in all chapters there be blooming.

The goddess of Love and the angel of Peace conducted our married pair on tracks running over full meadows, through the Spring; and on footpaths hidden by high corn-fields, through the Summer; and Autumn, as they advanced towards Winter, spread her marble leaves under their feet. And thus they arrived before the low, dark gate of Winter, full of life, full of love, trustful, contented, sound, and ruddy.

On St. Thomas's-day was Thiennette's birthday as well as Winter's. About a quarter past nine, just when the singing ceases in the church, we shall take a peep through the window into the interior of the parsonage. There is nothing here but the old mother, who has all day (the son having restricted her to rest, and not work) been gliding about, and brushing, and burnishing, and scouring, and wiping; every carved chair-leg, and every brass nail of the waxcloth-covered table, she has polished into brightness;--everything hangs, as with all married people who have no children, in its right place, brushes, fly-flaps, and almanacs;--the chairs are stationed by the room-police in their ancient corners;--a flax-rock, encircled with a diadem, or scarf of azure riband, is lying in the Schadeck-bed, because, though it is a half-holiday, some spinning may go on;--the narrow slips of paper, whereon heads of sermons are to be arranged, lie white beside the sermons themselves, that is, beside the octavo paper-book which holds them, for the Parson and his work-table, by reason of the cold, have migrated from the study to the sitting-room;--his large furred doublet is hanging beside his clean bridegroom-nightgown; there is nothing wanting in the room but He and She. For he had preached her with him to-night into the empty Apostle's-day church, that so her mother, without witnesses,--except the two or three thousand readers who are peeping with me through the window,--might arrange the provender-baking, and whole commissariat department of the birthday-festival, and spread out her best table-gear and victual-stores without obstruction.

The soul-curer reckoned it no sin to admonish, and exhort, and encourage, and threaten his parishioners, till he felt pretty certain that the soup must be smoking on the plates. Then he led his birthday helpmate home, and suddenly placed her before the altar of meat-offering, before a sweet title-page of bread-tart, on which her name stood baked, in true _monastic characters_, in tooth-letters of almonds. In the background of time and of the room, I yet conceal two--bottles of Pontac. How quickly, under the sunshine of joy, do thy cheeks grow ripe, Thiennette, when thy husband solemnly says: "This is thy birthday; and may the Lord bless thee, and watch over thee, and cause his countenance to shine on thee, and send thee, to the joy of our mother and thy husband especially, a happy, glad _recovery_. Amen!"--And when Thiennette perceived that it was the old mistress who had cooked and served up all this herself, she fell upon her neck, as if it had been not her husband's mother, but her own.

Emotion conquers the appetite. But Fixlein's stomach was as strong as his heart; and with him no species of movement could subdue the peristaltic. Drink is the friction-oil of the tongue, as eating is its drag. Yet, not till he had eaten and spoken much, did the pastor fill the glasses. Then indeed he drew the corksluice from the bottle, and set forth its streams. The sickly mother, of a being still hid beneath her heart, turned her eyes, in embarrassed emotion, on the old woman only; and could scarcely chide him for sending to the city wine-merchant on her account. He took a glass in each hand, for each of the two whom he loved, and handed them to his mother and his wife, and said: "To thy long, long life, Thiennette!--And your health and happiness, Mamma!--And a glad arrival to our little one, if God so bless us!" "My son," said the gardeneress, "it is to thy long life that we must drink; for it is by thee we are supported. God grant thee length of days!" added she, with stifled voice, and her eyes betrayed her tears.