Part 28
At this moment came a note from the Minister's lady, wherein she excused her to-day's absence on the score of the too sad farewell which her son had this evening so strangely and as if forever bid her. However many silent thoughts this intelligence left behind in Julienne and Linda, Idoine was not drawn by it out of the lively emotion into which the previous discourse had thrown her; but, with a noble indignation, which made out of the beautiful maiden a beautiful youth, and put Minerva's helmet on her head, she made to her lofty adversary, who was less to be roused by others' passions than by opposing sentiments, this declaration of war: Certainly her aversion to marriage was chargeable only upon her other aversion to "priests"; for was the marriage bond anything else than eternal love, and did not every real love hold itself for an eternal one? A love which thinks to die at some time or other was already dead, and that which feared to live forever, feared in vain. If even friends were joined at the altar, as is said to be somewhere or other the case,[123] they would at most only be more sacredly attached to each other in love. One might count quite as many if not more unhappy intrigues than unhappy marriages. One might, indeed, be a mother, but not a father, without marriage, and the latter must honor the former and himself by a decent respect for morality. "I am a German," she concluded, "and respect the old knightly ladies, my ancestors, highly. Blessed is a woman like Elizabeth and a man like Götz von Berlichingen, in their holy wedlock." All at once she found herself surprised by her warmth and her fluency. "I have really," she added, smiling, "become a pedantic parson's widow. This comes of my being the highest authority in the village, and from the fact that, as in almost every cottage a happy refutation of single blessedness dwells, I do not love to let other sentiments come up here."
"O," said Julienne, pleasantly, because she saw Linda serious, "girls always talk together about love and marriage a little; they love to draw flowers for themselves out of a bride's bouquet."
"That, as you know, I could not well do," said Idoine, alluding to the sworn promise which she had been obliged to give her parents, who were suspicious of her enthusiastic boldness, never to marry below her princely rank, which, to her, according to her sharp propensities and parts, amounted to as much as celibacy. "You were right, however," pursued Julienne, and would fain continue in her mirthful mood; "love without marriage is like a bird of passage, who seats himself upon a mast, which itself moves along. I praise, for my part, a fine, green-rooted tree, which stays there and admits a nest."
Contrary to her custom, Linda did not laugh at this, but went alone, without saying a word, down into the garden and the moonlight.
"The Countess," said Idoine to her friend, troubled about the meaning of that silent seriousness, "has not, I hope, misunderstood us." "No," said Julienne, with glad looks at the thought of having gained her point so far that the discourse had made an impression on Linda; "she has the rarest gift to understand, and the most common misfortune not to be understood." "The two things always go together," said she, remained a moment in thought, looked at Julienne, and at last said, "I must be entirely true. I knew the Countess's relation through my sister. Friend, is he entirely worthy of her?"--a question whose source the Princesse could seek only in the supposition of revengeful insinuations on the part of the Princess.
"Entirely!" answered she, strongly. "I gladly believe you," replied Idoine, with rapidity in her tones, but tranquillity in her looks. She looked longer and longer upon the sister of Albano; her great, blue eyes gleamed more and more strongly; Minerva's helmet was removed from the maidenly head; the soft countenance appeared lovely, tranquil, clear, not more strongly moved than a prayer to God permits it to be, and with as little of passionate desire as a glorified saint has, and yet shining more and more celestially. Julienne's fair heart leaped up; she saw Liana again, as if she had come from heaven to press the beloved man with a blessing to a new heart; she said, with tears, "Thou, thou didst once give him peace." Idoine was surprised; two tears gushed from her bright eyes; with emphasis she answered, "Gave!" in an agitated and passionate manner pressed herself to her friend, saying, "I loved you long ago," and they said nothing further.
Quickly she collected herself, reminded Julienne of Linda's night-blindness, and begged her to go directly after her as her friend, although she herself would gladly steal this service from her if she dared. Julienne hastened into the garden, but remembered with emotion that Idoine had not reciprocated her _thou_; Idoine avoided the female _thou_. Unlike the Oriental women, who leave off the veil before relations, she, like her fair French neighbors, transferred the delicate laws of _politesse_ into matters of the heart.
Julienne found her friend in the garden in a dark bower, still, with deep, sunken eyes, buried in dreams. Linda started up: "She loves him!" said she, with pain and heat. "Hear it, Julienne: she loves him!" The latter, upon this utterance of a truth with which she had herself come directly from Idoine's arms, could do nothing but express her terror; but Linda took it for astonishment, and went on: "By Heaven! my eye has detected her. O, once she was not by far so lively and earnest and sensitive and soft. Her deep emotion at beholding me, and her weeping at Roquairol's voice because it resembles his, and her long and earnest marriage-sermon, and her soul-like glances at me,--O, did she not see him in the great, glorious moment when the blooming one knelt weeping, and lifted his godlike head to heaven, and called down the saint and peace? O, that she should have so much as ventured to personate either before him! And can she forget that?"
Julienne at last got the word: "Well, suppose it, then; is not Idoine, however, noble and good?" "I have nothing to say against her or for her," answered Linda. "But when he sees her now, when he finds the saintly one once more like the departed, when his whole first love returns and triumphs over the second ... By Heaven! No," she added, proudly and strongly, "no, that I cannot brook; I will not beg, will not weep nor resign, but I will battle for him. Am not I, too, beautiful? I am more so, and my spirit is more boldly shaped for his. What can she give which I cannot offer him three times over? I will give it to him,--my fortune, my being, even my liberty; I can marry him as well as she; I will ... O speak, Julienne! But thou art a cold German, and secretly attached to her from like godliness. O God, Julienne! am I, then, beautiful? Assure me of it, I pray. Am I not at all like the glorified one? Should I not look exactly as he would wish! Why was I not his first love, and his Liana, and even dead too? Good Julienne, why dost thou not speak?"
"Only _let_ me speak," said she, although not with entire truth. She had been struck and punished by Linda's home-coming truth, and by her own consciousness that she had laid out a plan of doing away Linda's prejudices against marriage, the very supports of which plan had been anticipated and reckoned over by Linda as justifications of jealousy, and that she had set a rock in motion on the point of a rock, and brought it to the point of falling, which she could now no longer manage. She was confounded, too, yes, angered, by what she felt to be a strange impetuosity of love, before which she could not at all speak out the Job's-comfort that Albano would always act according to the _obligations_ of fidelity. Beautifully was she surprised by the prospered conversion to a readiness for marriage. With some uncertainty as to the result, however, on the part of Linda, who by the moonlight and the mild, distant mountain-music had only been made more stormy, she continued: "I would not willingly interrupt thee with praise of thy marriage resolution; in all other particulars thou art wrong. To be sure, she is now more serious; but she stood at the deathbed of her likeness, and saw herself grow pale in Liana; that does much to chasten. Touching him, had he seen thee earlier ..."
"Did he not see early the image on _Lago Maggiore_, but unlike, as he said?"
"I will, then, confess it to thee, wild one," replied Julienne, "because one must not surprise thee, that I yesterday begged him to join us in our visit to the Princesse, and that he, even out of regard and dislike to all resemblances, gave me a downright refusal; but he awaits us to-morrow in the Prince's garden."
Changed, softened, with transfigured eyes, and with sinking voice, Linda said, "Does my friend love me so greatly? But I love him exceedingly too,--the pure one. To-morrow will I say to him, take my freedom, and stay forever with me. We will go from the altar, my Julienne,--thou and I and he,--to Valencia, to Isola Bella, or whithersoever he will, and stay together. Thanks, dear moon and music! How childlike the tones and the rays play with each other! Embrace me, my beloved; forgive that Linda has been naughty!" Here the storm of her heart dissolved into sweet weeping. So, in countries upon which the sun shines vertically down, is the blue sky daily transformed into thunder, tempest, and black rain, and daily the sun goes down again blue and golden.
Julienne only replied, "Beautiful! now will we go up!"--being less capable than Linda of swift transitions. When they saw, above, the tranquil, bright, contented Idoine again,--always steadfastly and serenely active,--undisturbed by regret or expectation,--wearing only the harvest-wreath of action, never the flowery bridal-wreath,--so many white blossoms at her feet, lying ungathered for garland or festoon,--her pure, radiant soul like a clear, bright tone, which bears the charm of its melody through moist, cloudy air, undisturbed and unbroken,--then did she feel that Idoine was connected with her by a more sisterly tie than Linda. The former was to her an _ideal_ and a constellation in her heaven above her; the latter, an unknown one, which sparkles far off and invisible in a second hemisphere of the heavens; but in her the womanly power of loving on, almost even to the degree of hatred, worked on more intensely than in any one woman, and she remained constant to her old friend. Idoine was one of those female souls which resemble the moon; pale and faint must she stand in the magnificent evening sky, which splendor and burning clouds adorn, and not a single shadow can she dislodge on the earth, and mounts with invisible rays, but all other light grows pale, and hers grows out of the shadow, until at last her supernatural radiance invests the earthly night, and transforms it into a second world, and all hearts love her, weeping, and the nightingales sing in her beams.
All was now settled and ended. Linda kept herself reserved, and merely from respect to the law of social propriety, which she never overstepped. Idoine, guessing a change, softly drew herself back out of her former familiarity. Early in the dark morning they parted, but Julienne told not her friend, how, when they left each other, she had seen Idoine turn away with wet eyes.
126. CYCLE.
Albano had, during Linda's absence, received from Roquairol a request not to travel long just now, so that he might in a few days see his tragedy of "The Tragedian." Gaspard, whom he found displeased at Linda's shyness of marriage, gave him a singular note on a card for Linda, containing nothing but this, from her invisible father:--
"I approve thy love. I wait for thee to seal it, that I may at length embrace my daughter.
"The Future One."
So many weighty wishes of others concurring with his own, took away now from his tender sense of honor the suspicion of selfishness and importunity, if he should ask of her the fairest festival of his life. He gave his father great satisfaction by his resolution to do this. Gaspard communicated to him private war intelligence, and told him, jokingly, it would be soon time now, that he should help fight for his friends, the modern French. Albano said it was even his earnest purpose. He was glad to hear that from a youth, Gaspard said; war trained one to business, and the right or wrong of it had nothing to do with the case, and concerned others, namely, those who declared the war.
Albano took his journey, happy through remembrance, still happier through hope. He had now courage to imagine to himself the day when Linda, a queen, should entwine with the shining crown of her spirit the soft bridal-wreath,--when this sun should rise as a Luna,--when a father, whom his own father loved, should interrupt the high festival by one of the highest,--and when for once two beings might say to each other: Now we love each other forever. So blest, and with an infinite love and sunny-warm soul, he arrived at the Prince's garden.
He always, in his passionate punctuality, came much too early. No one was yet there but two--departing ones, Roquairol and the Princess. These two were now so often and so openly seen together, that the appearing seemed intentional. Roquairol came courteously to meet him and reminded him of the received billet. "This is the theatre, dear friend," said he, "where I next play; most of the preparations I have already made, particularly to-day. My excellent Princess has granted me this spot." "You are surely coming, too," said that lady in a friendly manner to Albano. "I have already promised him as much," said Albano, who felt two ice-cellars blowing upon him in the midst of his spring. Fraülein von Haltermann alone showed him great and decided scorn. "Shall we go first to my sister's?" asked Roquairol of the Princess, as he escorted her away. Albano did not understand that. The Princess nodded. They took leave of him. Fraülein von Haltermann seemed to forget him. They flew away, stopped up on a hill encircled by the whole blooming landscape, near a little flower-garden, and then rolled along down.
The Charles's-wain with the beloved maidens came now into the French princely garden. Ardently did Albano and Linda press each other to their hearts, which to-day,--just as if those hearts had been a second time created and adorned for each other by destiny,--they would once more, with new hopes and worlds, give each other in exchange! All was so resplendent around them, all new, rare, tranquil; the whole world a garden full of high, fluttering fountains, which, drunk with splendor, flung their rainbows through each other in the sun. Julienne drew him aside to tell him of Linda's fair resolve; but he anticipated her with the intelligence of his. She strengthened him with her intelligence, delighted at the singular playing together of the wheels of fortune.
When Albano and the bride were together again, they felt a new warmth of heart; not such as comes from a dull, consuming coal, which at last crumbles into blackness, but that of a higher sun, which out of loud flames makes peaceful rays, and which surrounds men with a warm, mild spring day. Albano neither delayed nor introduced the matter, but gave her the note of her father, and said during the reading, with trembling voice, "Thy father begs with me and for me." Linda's tears gushed,--the youth trembled,--Julienne cried: "Linda, see how he loves thee!" Albano took her to his heart,--Linda stammered, "Take, then, my dear freedom, and stay with me." "Till my last hour," said he. "And till mine, and thou goest to no war," said she, with a tenderly low voice. He pressed her confusedly and ardently to his heart. "Am I not right, thou promisest it, my dear?" she repeated.
"O thou divine one, think of something fairer now," said he. "Only yes! Albano, yes?" she continued. "All will be solved by our love," said he. "Yes? Say only yes!" She begged,--he was silent,--she was terrified. "Yes?" said she, more vehemently. "O Linda, Linda!" he stammered,--they sank out of each other's arms,--"I cannot," said he. "Human creatures, understand each other!" said Julienne. "Albano, speak thy word," said Linda, severely. "I have none," said he. Linda raised herself, offended, and said, "I, too, am proud,--I am going now, Julienne." No prayer of the sister could melt the astounded maiden or the astounded youth. Anger, with its speaking-trumpet and ear-trumpet, spoke and heard everything too strongly.
The Countess went out, and commanded to harness the horses. "O ye people, and thou obstinate one," said Julienne; "go, I pray, after her, and appease her." But the leaves of the sensitive-plant of his honor were now crushed; this (to him) new excitement, this shower of indignation had agitated him; he asked not after her. "Look up at that garden," said his sister, beside herself; "there lies buried thy first bride; O spare the second!" This worked exactly the opposite effect to what she had intended. "Liana," said he, coldly, "would not have been so; just go and attend the Countess!" "O ye men!" cried she, and went.
Soon after he saw the two drive away. Gradually the wild horde of indignation scattered and vanished. But he could not, he felt, have done otherwise. He had journeyed to meet her and she him with such new tenderness,--neither knew of it on the other's part,--and hence the incomprehensible contrast enraged both so exceedingly. He hated, even in other men, begging, how much more in himself, and never was he capable of setting right a person who misunderstood him. He looked now around him; all sparkling fountains of joy had suddenly sunk, the skies were desolate, and the water murmured in its depths. He rode up to the garden where Liana's grave should be. Only flower-beds and a linden-tree with a circular bench did he see there, but no grave. Stunned and confounded, he looked in and around over the shining spaces. Obdurate,--tearless,--with a heart suffocated in the regurgitating stream of love,--gazing out into the wide future, which ran between mountains into crooked valleys and hid itself, he rode gloomily home. Here he lighted upon the following leaf from Schoppe, which the uncle, hastening on in advance from Spain, had left for him.
"It is all right,--I found the well-known portrait,--I bring it along with me in my hunting-pouch,--I come in a few days or weeks,--I have encountered the Baldhead, and killed him dead enough,--I am very much in my senses. Thy singular uncle travelled with me for a long time. S."
THIRTY-SECOND JUBILEE.
Roquairol.
127. CYCLE.
Linda had spent the whole subsequent day in silent anguish of spirit, thinking of the beloved, who seemed to her, as Liana had once seemed to him, not to live in the whole living fire of love, as she did,--she had been long besieged by the Princess, and then robbed by her of Julienne, whom she carried off on a pleasure-drive, and who could only throw her the intelligence, that Albano had also made an excursion to-day, in order the earlier to embrace Schoppe,--she had remained quiet, according to her principle, that female pride commands silence, calmness, and even oblivion,--when at evening she received by the blind maiden from Blumenbühl, whom she had taken into her service, the following letter:--
"Thou once mine! Be so again! I will still die, but only for thee, not for a people on the battle-field. Forgive yesterday and bless to-day. I have given up again my purpose of an excursion to meet a friend, in order to throw myself upon thy heart this very day and draw out of thy heaven and fill mine. I cannot wait until Julienne comes back; my heart burns for thee. To-morrow I must at all events be in the Prince's garden, where Roquairol at last gives his Tragedian. Come this evening--I implore thee by our love--at eight o'clock, either, if it is clear, into the cavern of Tartarus, whose gravedigger's finery and Orcus-furniture will certainly be only ridiculous to thee,--or, if it is cloudy, to the end of the flute-dell.
"Thou must take only thy blind maiden with thee. Thou well knowest the espionage that besets us on all sides. I expect and desire no answer from thee, but at the stroke of eight, I steal through Elysium to see where stands the goddess, my heaven, my sun, my bliss, thyself.
"Thy Albano."
As by a lightning beam from heaven, her whole being was melted into a soft, blissful glow; for she believed what the handwriting said, that the note was from Albano,--however unexpected so sudden a conversion appeared to her in him;--although it was really written by Roquairol. Let us go back even to the gloomy source of the rushing hell-flood which stretches out its ice-cold arm after innocence and heaven.
Roquairol had remained through the winter, with all the mortifications of his ungovernable wishes, tolerably happy and good; the evening star of love, although for him it rather waned than waxed, stood, however, not yet below the horizon, but only under clouds. But so soon as Linda had travelled off with Julienne--and indeed as he immediately guessed and early learned--to Italy; then did a new storm sweep through his life, which tore off his last blossoms and beclouded him with the long-laid dust; for he now, as he had himself predicted to Albano, saw the net coming up stream toward _him_ and the Countess, which should take both prisoners. The eating poison of his old passion for many gods and many mistresses ran round again hotly in all the veins of his heart:--he fell into extravagant expense, play, debts, as deeply as he possibly could,--set luck and life at stake,--threw his iron body into the jaws of death, who could not immediately destroy it,--and intoxicated himself with the sorrow of a savage over his murdered life and hopes in the funeral bowl of debauchery; a league which sensuality and despair have often before this struck with each other on earth, on theatres of war, and in great cities.
Only one thing still held the Captain upright, the expectation that Albano would keep his present distance from Linda, and then, that she would come back. At this stage the Princess returned, still keeping fresh all her hatred of the cold Albano, whose "dupe" she held herself to be. Roquairol easily induced his father to bring him nearer to her, as he hoped with her to find news about Albano and everything else. He soon became of consequence to her by the similarity of his voice and his former friendship for her foe, and still more by his rare tact of being to a woman always exactly what she desired.
As she had already known long since all his earlier connections and wishes, accordingly so soon as her telegraphs of Albano had given her the intelligence of his new love, she readily dropped him a hint on the subject. Despite the warm part which Roquairol had to play toward her, he was nevertheless furiously pale in her presence, breathless, alternately trembling and stiffening; "Is it so?" he asked, in a low tone. She showed him a letter. "Princess," said he, furiously pressing her hand to his lips, "thou wast right; forgive me all now."