Part 2
When it struck twenty-three o'clock (the hour before sundown), and Albano would have counted up the tedious strokes, he was so excited that he was not in a condition to ascend the long tone-ladder;[2] he must away to the shore of the Lago, in which the up-towering islands rise like sceptred sea-gods. Here stood the noble youth, his inspired countenance full of the evening glow, with exalted emotions of heart, sighing for his veiled father, who, hitherto, with an influence like that of the sun behind a bank of clouds, had made the day of his life warm and light. This longing was not filial love,--_that_ belonged to his foster-parents, for childlike love can only spring up toward a heart whereon we have long reposed, and which has protected us, as it were, with the first heart's-leaves against cold nights and hot days,--his love was higher or rarer. Across his soul had been cast a gigantic shadow of his father's image, which lost nothing by Gaspard's coldness. Dian compared it to the repose on the sublime countenance of the Juno Ludovici; and the enthusiastic son likened it to another sudden chill which often comes into the heart in company with too great warmth from another's heart, as burning-glasses burn feeblest precisely in the hottest days. He even hoped he might perchance melt off by his love this father's heart, so painfully frozen to the glaciers of life: the youth comprehended not how possible it was to resist a true, warm heart, at least his.
Our hero, reared in the Carthusian monastery of rural life, and more in past ages than his own, applied to every subject antediluvian gigantic standards of measurement; the invisibility of the Knight constituted a part of his greatness, and the Moses'-veil doubled the glory which it concealed. Our youth had, in general, a singular leaning toward extraordinary men, of whom others stand in dread. He read the eulogies of every great man with as much delight as if they were meant for him; and if the mass of people consider uncommon spirits as, for that very reason, bad,--just as they take all strange petrifactions to be Devil's bones,--in him the reverse was the case: in him _love_ dwelt a neighbor to _wonder_, and his breast was always at the same time wide and warm. To be sure, every young man and every great man who looks upon another as great, considers him for that very reason as too great. But in every noble heart burns a perpetual thirst for a nobler, in the fair, for a fairer; it wishes to behold its ideal out of itself, in bodily presence, with glorified or adopted form, in order the more easily to attain to it, because the lofty man can ripen only by a lofty one, as diamond can be polished only by diamond. On the other hand, does a litterateur, a cit, a newspaper carrier or contributor wish to get a glimpse of a great head,--and is he as greedy for a great head as for an abortion with three heads,--or a Pope with as many caps,--or a stuffed shark,--or a speaking-machine or a butter-machine,--it is not because his inner man is burdened and beset by the soul-inspiring ideal of a great man, pope, shark, three-headed monster, or butter-model, but it is because he thinks, in the morning, "I can't help wondering how the creature looks," and because, in the evening, he means to tell how he looks, over a glass of beer.
Albano looked from the shore with increasing restlessness across the shining water toward the holy dwelling-place of his past childhood, his departed mother, his absent sister. The songs of gladness thrilled through him as they came floating along on the distant boats; every running wave--the foaming surge--raised a higher in his bosom; the giant statue of St. Borromæus,[3] looking away over the cities, embodied the exalted one (his father) who stood erect in his heart, and the blooming pyramid, the island, was the paternal throne; the sparkling chain of the mountains and glaciers wound itself fast around his spirit, and lifted him up to lofty beings and lofty thoughts.
The first journey, especially when Nature casts over the long road nothing but white radiance and orange-blossoms and chestnut-shadows, imparts to the youth what the last journey often takes away from the man,--a dreaming heart, wings for the ice-chasms of life, and wide-open arms for every human breast.
He went back, and with his commanding eye begged his friends to set sail this very evening, although Don Gaspard was not to come to the island till to-morrow morning. Often, what he wanted to do in a week, he proposed to himself for the next day, and at last did it at once. Dian tapped the impetuous Boreas on the head lovingly, and said: "Impatient being, thou hast here the wings of a Mercury, and down there too (pointing to his feet)! But just cool off! In the pleasant after-midnight we embark, and when the dawn reddens in the sky we land." Dian had not merely an artistic eye to his well-formed darling, but also a tender interest in him, because he had often, in Blumenbühl, where he had business as public architect, been the friend and guide of his childhood and youth, and because now on the island he must tear himself from his arms for some time and be absent at Rome. Since he (the public architect) considered the same extravagance which he would rebuke in an old man to be no extravagance in a youth,--an inundation to be no inundation in Egypt, though it would be in Holland,--and since he assumed a different average temperature for every individual, age, and people, and in holy human nature found no string to be cut off, but only at most to be tuned, surely Cesara must have cherished toward the cheerful and indulgent teacher, on whose two tables of laws stood only, Joy and moderation! a right hearty attachment, even more hearty than for the laws themselves.
The images of the present and of the near future and of his father had so filled the breast of the Count with greatness and immortality, that he could not comprehend how any one could let himself be buried without having achieved both, and that as often as the landlord brought in anything, he pitied the man, particularly as he was always singing, and, like the Neapolitans and Russians, in the minor key, because he was never to be anything, certainly not immortal. The latter is a mistake; for he gets his immortality here, and I take pleasure in giving place and life to his name, _Pippo_ (abbreviated from Philippo). When, at last, they paid and were about to go, and Pippo kissed a Kremnitz ducat, saying, "Praised be the holy Virgin with the child on her _right_ arm," Albano was pleased that the father took after his pious little daughter, who had been all the evening rocking and feeding an image of the child Jesus. To be sure, Schoppe remarked, she would carry the child more _lightly_ on her left arm;[4] but the error of the good youth is a merit in him as well as the truth.
Beneath the splendor of a full moon they went on board the bark, and glided away over the gleaming waters. Schoppe shipped some wines with them, "not so much," said he, "that there is nothing to be had on the island, as for this reason, that if the vessel should leak, then there would be no need of pumping out anything but the flagons,[5] and she would float again."
Cesara sank, silently, deeper and deeper into the glimmering beauties of the shore and of the night. The nightingales warbled as if inspired on the triumphal gate of spring. His heart grew in his breast like a melon under its glass-bell, and his breast heaved higher and higher over the swelling fruit. All at once he reflected that he should in this way see the tulip-tree of the sparkling morn and the garlands of the island put together only like an artificial, Italian silk-flower, stamen by stamen, leaf by leaf; then was he seized with his old thirst for one single draining draught from Nature's horn of plenty; he shut his eyes, not to open them again, till he should stand upon the highest terrace of the island before the morning sun. Schoppe thought he was asleep; but the Greek smilingly guessed the epicurism of this artificial blindness, and bound, himself, before those great insatiable eyes the broad, black taffeta-ribbon, which, like a woman's ribbon or lace mask, contrasted singularly and sweetly with his blooming but manly face.
Now the two began to tease and tantalize him in a friendly way with oral night-pictures of the magnificent adornments of the shores between which they passed. "How proudly," said Dian to Schoppe, "rises yonder the castle of Lizanza, and its mountain, like a Hercules, with twelvefold girdles of vine-clusters!" "The Count," said Schoppe in a lower tone to Dian, "loses a vast deal by this bandaging of his eyes. See you not, architect, to speak poetically, the glimmer of the city of Arona? How beautifully she lays on Luna's blanc d'Espagne, and seems to be setting herself out and prinking up for to-morrow in the powder-mantle of moonshine which is flung around her! But that is nothing; still better looks St. Borromæus yonder, who has the moon on his head like a freshly-washed night-cap; stands not the giant there like the Micromegas of the German body politic, just as high, just as stiff and stark?"
The happy youth was silent, and returned for answer a hand-pressure of love;--he only dreamed of the present, and signified he could wait and deny himself. With the heart of a child from whom the curtains and the after-midnight hide the approaching Christmas present of the morrow, he was borne along in the pleasure-boat, with tightly bandaged eyes, toward the approaching, heavenly kingdom. Dian drew, as well as the double light of the moonshine and the aurora permitted, a sketch of the veiled dreamer in his scrap-book. I wish I had it here, and could see in it how my darling, with the optic nerves tied up, strains at once the eye of dream directed toward the inner world, and the ear of attention so sharply set toward the outer. How beautiful is such a thing, painted,--how much more beautiful realized in life!
The mantle of night grew thinner and cooler,--the morning air fanned livingly against the breast,--the larks mingled with the nightingales and with the singing boatmen,--and he heard, beneath his bandage, which was growing lighter and lighter, the joyful discoveries of his friends, who saw in the open cities along the shore the reviving stir of human life, and on the waterfalls of the mountains the alternate reflections of clouds and ruddy sky. At last the breaking splendors of morn hung like a festoon of Hesperides-apples around the distant tops of the chestnut-trees; and now they disembarked upon Isola Bella.
The veiled dreamer heard, as they ascended with him the ten terraces of the garden, the deep-drawn sigh and shudder of joy close beside him, and all the quick entreaties of astonishment; but he held the bandage fast, and went blindfold from terrace to terrace, thrilled with orange-fragrance, refreshed by higher, freer breezes, fanned by laurel-foliage,--and when they had gained at last the highest terrace, and looked down upon the lake, heaving its green waters sixty ells below, then Schoppe cried, "Now! now!" But Cesara said, "No! the sun first!" and at that moment the morning wind flung up the sunlight gleaming through the dark twigs, and it flamed free on the summits,--and Dian snatched off the bandage, and said, "Look round!" "O God!" cried he with a shriek of ecstasy, as all the gates of the new heaven flew open, and the Olympus of nature, with its thousand reposing gods, stood around him. What a world! There stood the Alps, like brother giants of the Old World, linked together, far away in the past, holding high up over against the sun the shining shields of the glaciers. The giants wore blue girdles of forest, and at their feet lay hills and vineyards, and through the aisles and arches of grape-clusters the morning winds played with cascades as with watered-silk ribbons, and the liquid brimming mirror of the lake hung down by the ribbons from the mountains, and they fluttered down into the mirror, and a carved work of chestnut woods formed its frame.... Albano turned slowly round and round, looked into the heights, into the depths, into the sun, into the blossoms; and on all summits burned the alarm-fires of mighty Nature, and in all depths their reflections,--a creative earthquake beat like a heart under the earth and sent forth mountains and seas.... O then, when he saw on the bosom of the infinite mother the little swarming children, as they darted by under every wave and under every cloud,--and when the morning breeze drove distant ships in between the Alps,--and when _Isola Madre_ towered up opposite to him, with her seven gardens, and tempted him to lean upon the air and be wafted over on level sweep from his summit to her own,--and when he saw the pheasants darting down from the _Madre_ into the waves,--then did he seem to stand like a storm-bird with ruffled plumage on his blooming nest, his arms were lifted like wings by the morning wind, and he longed to cast himself over the terrace after the pheasants, and cool his heart in the tide of Nature.
Ashamed, he took, without looking round him, the hands of his friends and pressed them in mute fervor, that he might not be obliged to speak. The magnificent universe had painfully expanded, and then blissfully overflowed his great breast; and now, when he opened his eyes, like an eagle, wide and full upon the sun, and when the blinding brightness hid the earth, and he began to be lonely, and the earth became smoke and the sun a soft, white world, which gleamed only around the margin,--then did his whole, full soul, like a thunder-cloud, burst asunder and burn and weep, and from the pure, white sun his mother looked upon him, and in the fire and smoke of the earth his father and his life stood veiled.
Silently he went down the terraces, often passing his hand across his moist eyes to wipe away the dazzling shadow which danced on all the summits and all the steps.
Exalted Nature! when we see and love thee, we love our fellow-men more warmly; and when we must pity or forget them, thou still remainest with us, reposing before the moist eye like a verdant chain of mountains in the evening red. Ah, before the soul in whose sight the morning dew of its ideals has faded to a cold, gray drizzle,--and before the heart, which, in the subterranean passages of this life, meets no longer men, but only dry, crooked-up mummies on crutches in catacombs,--and before the eye which is impoverished and forsaken, and which no human creature will any longer gladden,--and before the proud son of the gods whom his unbelief and his lonely bosom, emptied of humanity, rivet down to an eternal, unchangeable anguish,--before all these thou remainest, quickening Nature, with thy flowers and mountains and cataracts, a faithful comforter; and the bleeding son of the gods, cold and speechless, dashes the drop of anguish from his eyes, that they may rest, far and clear, on thy volcanoes, and on thy Springs, and on thy suns!
2. CYCLE.
I could wish nothing finer for one whom I held dear, than a mother,--a sister,--three years of living together on Isola Bella,--and then in the twentieth, a morning hour when he should land on the Eden-island, and, enjoying all this with the eye and memory at once, clasp and strain it to his open soul. O thou all too happy Albano, on the rose-parterre of childhood,--under the deep, blue sky of Italy,--in the midst of luxuriant, blossom-laden citron-foliage,--in the bosom of _beautiful_ nature, who caresses and holds thee like a mother, and in the presence of _sublime_ nature, which stands like a father in the distance, and with a heart which expects its own father to-day!
The three now roamed with slow, unsteady steps through the swimming paradise. Although both of the others had often trodden it before, still their silver age became a golden age, by sympathy with Albano's ecstasy; the sight of another's rapture wakes the old impression of our own. As people who live near breakers and cataracts speak louder than others, so did the majestic sounding of the swollen sea of life impart to them all, even Schoppe, a stronger language; only he never could hit upon such imposing words, at least gestures, as another man.
Schoppe, who must needs fling a farewell kiss back to dear Italy, would gladly still have conserved the last scattered drops that hung around the cup of joy, which were sweet as Italian wines, full of German fire without the German acid. By acid he meant leave-taking and emotion. "If fate," said he, "fires a single retreating shot, by Heaven, I quietly turn my nag and ride whistling back. The deuce must be in the beast (or on him) if a clever jockey could not so break his mourning steed that the creature should carry himself very well as a companion-horse to the festive steed.[6] I school my sun-horse as well as my sumpter-horse far otherwise."
First of all, now, they took possession of this Otaheite-island by marches, and every one of its provinces must pay them, as a Persian province does its emperor, a different pleasure. "The lower terraces," said Schoppe, "must deliver to us squatter-sovereigns the tithe of fruit and sack, in citron and orange fragrance,--the upper pays off the imperial tax in _prospects_,--the Grotto down below there will pay, I hope, Jews-scot in the _murmur_ of waters, and the cypress-wood up yonder its princess's tribute in _coolness_,--the ships will not defraud us of their Rhine and Neckar toll, but pay that down by showing themselves in the distance."
It is not difficult for me to perceive that Schoppe, by these quizzical sallies, aimed to allay the violent commotions of Cesara's brain and heart; for the splendor of the morning enchantment, although the youth spoke composedly of lesser things, had not yet gone from his sight. In him every excitement vibrated long after (one in the morning lasted the whole day), for the same reason that an alarm-bell keeps on humming longer than a sheep-bell; although such a continuing echo could neither distract his attention nor disturb his actions or his words.
The Knight was to come at noon. Meanwhile they roamed and revelled and went humming about in stiller enjoyment with bees-wings and bees-probosces through the richly-honeyed Flora of the island; and they had that serene naturalness of children, artists, and Southern people, which sips only from the honey-cup of the moment; and, accordingly, they found in every dashing wave, in every citron-frame, in every statue among blossoms, in every dancing reflection, in every darting ship, more than one flower which opened its full cup wider under the warm sky, whereas, with us, under our cold one, it fares as with the bees, against whom the frosts of May shut the flowers up. O, the islanders are right! Our greatest and most lasting error is, that we look for life, that is, its happiness, as the materialists look for the soul, in the combination of parts, as if the whole or the relation of its component parts could give us anything which each individual part had not already. Does then the heaven of our existence, like the blue one over our heads, consist of mere empty air, which, when near to, and in little, is only a transparent nothing, and which only in the distance and in gross becomes blue ether? The century casts the flower-seeds of thy joy only from the porous sowing-machine of minutes, or rather, to the blest eternity itself there is no other handle than the instant. It is not that life consists of seventy years, but the seventy years consist of a continuous life, and one has lived, at all events, and lived enough, die when one may.
3. CYCLE.
When, at length, the three sons of joy were about to seat themselves in the dining-hall of a laurel grove before their meat-and-drink offering, which Schoppe had stored away in the provision ship at Sesto, at that moment, a genteel stranger, elegantly dressed in one color, came through the twigs, with slow, stately steps, up to the reclining company, and addressed himself, forthwith, without inquiry, to Cesara, in slow, soft, and precisely pronounced German: "I am intrusted with an apology to Sir Count Cesara."--"From my father?" asked he quickly. "Beg pardon,--from my prince," replied the stranger; "he forbade your noble father, who arose ill, to travel in the cool of the morning, but towards evening he will meet you. In the mean time," he added, with a gracious smile and a slight bow, "I sacrifice something on the noble Knight's account, in commencing the pleasure of being longer with you hereafter, Sir Count, by bringing you disappointment." Schoppe, who was neater at guessing than at speaking, immediately broke out,--for he never let himself be imposed upon by any man: "We are then pedagogic copartners and confederates. Welcome, dear Gray-leaguesman!"[7] "It gives me pleasure," said the stranger, coldly, who was dressed in gray.
But Schoppe had hit it; the stranger was hereafter to occupy the place of chief tutor to Cesara, and Schoppe was collaborator. To me this seems judicious; the electric-sparkling Schoppe could serve as the cat's-skin, the fox-tail, the glass cylinder, which should completely charge our youth, composed as he was of conductors and non-conductors; the chief tutor, as principal, being the operator and spark-taker, who should discharge him with his Franklin's-points.
The man was named Von Augusti, was Lector to the prince, and had lived much in the great world; he seemed, as is the case with all of this court-stamp, ten years older than he really was, for he was in fact only just thirty-seven.
One would have to suffer for it from the inverted ink-pots of the reviewing Xanthippes, if one should leave the reviewers or Xanthippes in any uncertainty as to who the prince really was of whom we have all made mention above. It was the hereditary Prince of Hohenfliess, in whose village of Blumenbühl the Count had been brought up, and into whose chief city he was next to remove. The Hohenfliess Infante was hurrying back, in a great dust and all out of breath, from Italy, wherein he had left much spare coin and land-scrip, to Germany, in order there to coin, upon his own account, allegiance-medals, because his reigning father was going down the steps into the hereditary sepulchre, and was even now within a few paces of his coffin.