Part 29
How great an idea he had had of Albano he now for the first time saw, by his astonishment at what was the most natural thing in the world. Never does the heart hate more bitterly than when it is compelled at length to hate, without respecting, the object which it had formerly been compelled to respect amidst its very hatred; just as, on the same ground, the bad man is much more deeply and selfishly provoked by another's hypocrisy than the good man. Roquairol fancied now he had leave to make a real foe of the proud friend; he became, instead of a German ruin, an Italian one, full of scorpions. The Princess was the hot climate which makes the scorpions for the first time really poisonous. She related to him how Albano had so long sought to win her, and to decoy her over his deep-laid mines, merely in order, at their explosion, to have the enjoyment of coldness and contempt, and how indifferently he had spoken of the Captain, without condescending so much as to hate him.
The Princess allowed the Captain to mount up one step after another on her throne, till not another remained except her own person. She offered him even the last step on condition of avenging her. He said he would avenge her and himself, for Albano had solemnly in Tartarus resigned the Countess to him. Thus did both seem to hide their real love under the mask of revenge; the Princess hers for the Captain, he his for Linda.
She brought closer and closer before his eye a plan which he did not discern, however much she stimulated him by the remark that Albano was and would be a greater favorite with women than one had hitherto thought; that even her excellent, discreet sister Idoine, if one might judge by her silent questions in letters, and other signs, had almost lost through him both of the things which she had restored to him by his sick-bed,--health and peace; and that he must never hope to see or even to make the Countess inconstant.
At last she said, slowly, the fearful words, "Roquairol, you have his voice, and she has by night no eye." "Heaven and hell!" he exclaimed, turning alternately red and pale, and looking at once into heaven and hell, whose doors sprang open before him. "_Va!_"[124] he added, quickly, without having yet fathomed the black depth of this white-foaming sea. The Princess embraced him ardently, he her still more so. "In a poetic fiction," said he, "_thy_ thought would easily have come to me, but in actual life I have no cunning!" "O knave!" said she. As soon and as long as he might venture, he said Thou, because he knew the heart, especially woman's. Soon after, when they had been still more frank towards each other, said she: "If she remains innocent with you, then you have offended no one, and no one has lost; if not, then either she _was not_ so, or she deserved the proof and punishment of being deluded." "Yes, that is divine,--that fits into the magnificent _Tragedian_, just before the end," said he, but would not explain himself on the subject.
Now was an object and centre supplied to the wild circles of his action. He coldly dissected Albano's love-letters into great and little characters, merely in order to copy them faithfully; hence it was that Albano once found at Rabette's his handwriting without his thoughts. He inquired of Rabette about all Albano's lesser relations, in order to elaborate his parts, even to the smallest particular, and even so he read all Italian tourists, in order to speak freely with Linda about every beautiful spot, where he, as the sham-Albano, had enjoyed with her Hesperian life. It tickled him that he could thus, with the flame in his breast, and with the cold ice-light in his head, now for once lay out and considerately manage, in real life, all theatrical preparations and complications, just as he had once done for the stage.
He saw Albano, whose haughty treatment he had experienced, come from his journey; he saw the blooming goddess walk in Lilar; he heard, through the spies of the Princess, of their engagement; high heaved his dead sea in heavy waves, and sought to drag down its victims from their flight, even from heaven. Immediately after the tragedy which he proposed to enact with Linda, his own was to come in the Prince's garden, which he from time to time promised and postponed; he had to wait and spy long till a time should appear into which so many teeth of a double machinery might catch at once.
At length the time appeared, and he wrote the above-exhibited letter to Linda. All was reckoned upon and settled, and every assistance of accident woven in with the plan. His tragedy had long been committed to memory by his acquaintances, although never rehearsed, because he, as he said, meant to surprise his fellow-players themselves with his part in the very midst of the play. The pleasure which he always had in bidding farewell,--because here the emotion refreshed him at once by its shortness and by its strength,--he now gave himself with as many as loved him. From Rabette he parted with so tempestuous a tenderness that she said to him, with alarm, "Charles, I hope this does not signify anything evil?" "All is evil in me, just now," said he.
Through the intercession of the Princess the most important spectators were invited for the next day to his tragedy, even Gaspard and Julienne, together with the court. The mystery took. Even from the Princess his part was concealed. Only his father, who would have been glad to follow the court, he struck off the list by putting him into a great rage, for he knew of no other way of keeping him back than by this thorn-hedge. His mother and Rabette he had conjured by their welfare, by his welfare, not to be spectators of his play.
A new wind of fortune had come to help him raise his flying-machine, through the singular brother of the Knight, who heard with such joy of the Iron Mask of his tragic mask, that he came to him with the proposal of introducing to him a new and wonderful player. "All the parts are taken up," said the poet. "Make a chorus between the acts, and give it to one," said the Spaniard. Roquairol asked after the player's name. The Spaniard led him to his hotel. No sooner had they entered, than a voice from within his chamber called, in a guttural, animal's voice, "Back again so soon, my master?" They found within nothing but a black jay. "Post the bird on the stage, let him be the Chorus; let him repeat in half-song,[125] _mezza voce_, only two or three lines; the effect will be felt," said the Spaniard.
Roquairol was astonished at the long recitations of the jay. The Spaniard begged him to dictate a still longer one, that he might with his own ears hear him drill it into the bird. Roquairol gave him, "In life dwells deception, not on the stage." The Spaniard gave out, at first, merely a word to be repeated, then another, repeated it three times, then said, snapping his fingers by way of incitement to the creature, "_Allons diablesse!_" and the animal stuttered out, in a deep, hollow tone, the whole line. Roquairol found in this comic bestial-mask something frightful, and accepted the proposal to compose some lines of a chorus and assign them to the bird, on one unique condition, namely, that the Spaniard would, the evening previous, draw away his nephew Albano from Pestitz, under some pretext or other, and then appear with him in the Prince's garden. The Spaniard said, "Sir Captain, I need no pretext; I have a true reason. I am to travel with him to meet his friend Schoppe, who will come to-morrow evening; he, too, will be one of your spectators."
Albano, in his perplexed frame of mind toward Linda, and in his impatient expectation of Schoppe, could not have accepted anything so readily as a little plan for an excursion, by which he might the earlier have this beloved Schoppe on his breast. Julienne was entreated by the Princess, in the presence of the sick Prince, to accompany her to Idoine, who waited for her half-way at a frontier castle, and to go back the next day into the Prince's garden. She declined. The sick brother, according to concert between him and the Princess, put in the petitions which had been requested of him. The sister fulfilled them.
And now all was arranged for the evening on which Roquairol was to see Linda. So glimmer by night in the sheds of an innocent hamlet the inserted brands of the incendiary; the storm-wind roars around the weary, sleeping inmates; the robbers stand on the mountains in the mists of evening, and look down in expectation of the moment when the fiery swords of the flames shall gleam out on all sides through the mist, and rob and murder with them, as they rush down on the dismayed and defenceless.
128. CYCLE.
Linda read the letter innumerable times over, wept for sweet love, and never once thought of--forgiving. This breeze of love, which bends all the flowers and breaks none, she had herself so long wished; and now, all at once, after the foggy dead-calm of the heart, it came fresh and living, through the garden of her life. She could hardly wait for eight o'clock. She helped herself while away the time by selecting her dress, which at last consisted of the veil, hat, and all the things which she had worn when she found her lover for the first time on the island of Ischia.
She placed upon her beating bosom the paradise, or orange-blossoms, the indexes of that time and world, and went at the appointed hour, with the blind maiden on her arm, down into the garden. As well from hatred of Tartarus as from compliance with the letter, she took the road to the flute-dell. The night was obscure to her eye, and the blind maiden acted as her guide.
Overhead, on the altar-mount of Lilar, like the evil spirit on the battlement of Paradise, stood Roquairol, looking sharply down into the garden, to find Linda and her path. His festive-steed had been fastened down below in the deep thicket to some foreign shrubbery. Full of fury he saw Dian and Chariton still walking in the garden with the children, and up in the thunder-house a little light. He cursed every disturbing soul, for he was determined to murder this evening, in case of necessity, every stormer of his heaven. At last he saw Linda's tall, red-dressed form move toward the flute-dell, go up to the threshold of bush-work, and disappear behind it.
He hastened down the long, spiral mountain, warm as a poisoned snake. He heard behind him some one hurrying after in the long windings of the bushes. In a fury he drew a sword-cane, which, with a pocket-pistol, he had by him. At last he saw an odious form, like an evil spirit, running after him; it attacked him. It was the long-armed ape of the Princess. He run him through on the spot, in order not to be followed by him.
Below, in the open garden, he went slowly, in order not to awaken any suspicion. He stole softly as death, when on the thunder-car of a cloud he sails unheard through the air over a blossoming tree, beneath which a virgin leans, and hid the murderous thunder-bolt in his breast. He opened the high gate-shrubbery of the flute-dell; all was still within there and dark; only in the upper heavens a singular, roaring storm swept along and chased the herd of clouds, but on the earth it sounded low, and not a leaf stirred. "Is any one there?" asked the blind gate-keeper. "Good evening, maiden," said Roquairol, in order by the tone of his speech to pass for Albano.
Deep in the vale, which now grew narrower and more leafy, Linda was singing softly an old Spanish melody of her childhood's time. At last she was visible; the giant-snake made the poisonous spring at the sweet form, and she was entwined in a thousand-fold embrace.
He hung on her speechless, breathless; the cloud of his life broke; burning tears of passion and pain and joy gushed out; all the arms into which the stream of his love had hitherto run round in shallows, rushed together roaring, and grasped and bore _one_ form. "Weep not, my good Albano; we surely love each other again forever," said Linda, and the tender, beautiful lip gave him the first, fervent kiss. Then the fire-wheel of ecstasy whirled round and bore him with it, and around the head which hung lashed thereto the circling flames waved high. From a dread of being seen, if he should look, and from pleasure, he had closed his eyes; now he opened them,--and there, so near to him and in his arms, he beheld the lofty form, the proud, blooming countenance and the moist, warm eyes of love. "Thou heavenly one," said he, "kill me in this hour, that so I may die in heaven. How can I wish to live any longer after it? O that I could pour my soul into my tears and my life into thine, and then be no more!"
"Albano," said she, "why art thou to-day so altered, so sad, so tender?"
"Call me rather," said he, "by _thy_ name, as lovers exchange names in Otaheite. Perhaps I have drunk a little, too; but I truly repent of yesterday, and I truly love thee anew. Ah, thou, dost thou, then, also love my very innermost self, Linda?"
"Sweet youth, can I then, now, choose but love thee eternally? I do, indeed, henceforth cleave to thee and thou to me."
"Ah, thou dost not know me. When does man know, then, that precisely he, this very _I_, is meant and loved? Only forms are embraced, only the fleshly covering is enfolded in the arms; who, then, clasps a person to a person? _Perchance God_."
"And I do thee," said Linda.
"O Linda, wilt thou still love me in my grave, when the chaff of life is flown away,--still love me in my hell, when I have deceived thee out of love to thee? Is love, then, love's justification?"
"I love thee always, so long as thou lovest me. Art thou the poison-flower; then am I the bee, and die on the sweet cup."
The bride sank on his neck. He clasped her passionately, and grew more and more like the glacier, which by very warmth rolls further onward, and in melting desolates. Around him danced the pleasures with heavenly faces, but showed him in their hands the masks of furies.
"Thou wilt die of love; I am already dead from love. O, thou knowest not how long ago I loved thee!" he answered.
"Glowing heart," said she, "think of this night when thou one day seest Idoine!" "Then shall I see only my risen _sister_," said he, but instantly trembled at the truth's having escaped his lips. "One sees," he added, hastily, "the risen Herculaneum, but one dwells overhead in the blooming Portici. Thou and I saw in Baja's gold, under the sea, the sunken arches and gates, and we sailed on farther toward living cities. Is even Roquairol, I pray, like me in so many things, and does he love thee so much, and has he loved thee so long, and died once, too, like Liana?"
"But that creature I had never loved, and now am I thy eternal bride."
"Poor fellow! But I did wrong, however, I think, when I once, in the cavern of Tartarus, renounced thee, the unseen, beforehand, out of love toward my friend."
"Certainly not. But how have we both fallen upon the subject of this uncomfortable being?" said she, kissing him.
"_Uncomfortable_,[126] indeed," replied he, with bitter emphasis, blazing up in revengeful love, in a discord of rage and lust, and determined now to weave the funeral veil over her whole future. He beat his dark eagle's wings about his victim, and stifled and awakened kisses; he tore the orange-blossoms from her bosom and threw them behind him. "Love is living and dying and heaven and hell," said he; "love is murder and fire and death and pain and pleasure. Caligula would have placed his Cæsonia on the rack only for the sake of learning from her why he so loved her. I could also..."
"Divine Albano, do not drink so any more! Thou art too impetuous; even thy eyebrows storm! What art thou like?"
"All things at once, like a tempest full of glowing heat,--and my heaven is luminous with lightning,--and I throw cold hail, and one destruction after another; and a warm rain falls upon the flowers, and a still bow of peace knits together heaven and earth."
At this moment he saw in heaven the storm-clouds, like storm-birds, already flying more brightly between the stars and near the angry, bloody eye of Mars; the moon, that came to scare and betray him, soon threw upon him the judging eye of a god. In defiance of fate, he tore open for his violent kisses the nun's veil and saintly splendor of the virgin's bosom. Far off stood the beacon-tower of conscience enveloped in thick clouds. Linda wept, trembling and glowing, on his breast. "Be my good genius, Albano," said she. "And thy evil one. But call me only one single time Charles," said he, full of passion. "O, be _called_ Charles, but remain my former Albano, my holy Albano," said she.
Suddenly the flutes in the dell began, which the pious father caused to play at his evening devotions. Like tones of music on the battle-field, they called down murder. Then did Linda's golden throne of life and of happiness melt away, and the white, bridal garment of her innocence was rent and burnt to ashes.
"Now am I thine until my death!" said she, softly, with streams of tears. "Only till mine!" said he, and wept now softly with the weeping flutes. Upon the golden ball on the mountain already glimmered the moon, which, like an armed comet, like a one-eyed giant, pressed on, to drive the sinner out of his Eden. "Stay till the moon comes, that I may look into thy face," she begged. "No, thou divine one, my festive steed already neighs; the death-torch burns down into my hand," said he, in a low, tragic tone. The storm had passed from heaven down to the earth. She replied, "The storm is so loud, what saidst thou, love?" He wildly kissed again her lips and her bosom. He could not go; he could not stay. "Go not to-morrow," said he, "to the Tragedian, I entreat thee; the end, I hear, is too agitating."
"Besides, I never like such things. O, stay, stay longer; I am sure I shall not see thee again to-morrow." He pressed her to himself, closed her eyes with his face. The moon had already reared its Gorgon head in the east; he would let go life when he let her go from his arms; and yet every stammered word of love consumed the short moment. The storm labored in the torn trees, and the flute-tones glided away like butterflies, like innocent children beneath the great wing. Roquairol, as if confounded by such a presence, was near upon the point of saying, look at me, I am Roquairol; but the thought quickly placed itself between, she does not deserve that of thee; no, let her learn it for the first time in that hour when one forgives everything! Yet once more he held her passionately clasped to himself; already the moonlight fell in upon both; he repeated a thousand words of love and tenderness, thrust her back, turned swiftly round, and stalked away in Albano's dress through the vale.
"Good night, maiden," said he to the blind girl, in passing. Linda sang not again as before. The stars looked down upon him; the storm winds spake to him; the pleasures went along by him, but they had now the masks of the furies on their faces. An arm struck down from heaven, an arm grasped up from hell, and both would seize him, to tear him asunder. "Well, well," said he, "I was fortunate indeed, but I might have been still more so had I been her curséd Albano," and flung himself upon his festive horse, and flew the same night to the Prince's garden.
129. CYCLE.
Albano and his uncle went on to meet the announced Schoppe from village to village. The uncle continually pushed back the hope before them like a horizon, farther and farther, as they advanced. Once, at evening, the Count fancied he heard Schoppe's voice close beside him; in vain, the beloved man came not yet to his heart, and with longing impatience Albano saw the clouds in heaven sail along over the way which his precious one was taking beneath them on the earth. The uncle told him a long story of a secret trouble which often weighed down the Librarian, and of his liability to attacks of madness, which had some time ago repelled him from him, because among all men there was none he dreaded so much as the madman. Of Romeiro's portrait he seemed to know nothing. Albano was silent with vexation, for the Spaniard was one of those insufferable men who, with sleek, steady face, and with screwed-up and helmed soul, can let another's contradiction flutter around them without any contradiction on their part, without echo, without a reflection or alteration, and to whom another's discourse is only a still dew, the fall of which wears away no stone. To this was added Albano's exasperation against his new falsehood about Schoppe's nearness, and against his own incapacity of listening for a good, long hour incredulously to what a liar is saying.
"Schoppe is, upon my word, already arrived at the Prince's garden by another route," said the Spaniard at last, in quite a lively mood, and advised turning back, in the comfortable enjoyment of that cool, impudent faculty he had of jamming up every one who did not do homage to him, between sharp, tedious ice-fields.
They arrived before the princely garden in the midst of nothing but carriages, out of which were alighting the spectators of to-day's dramatic festival. Albano found among them already his father, the Princess, and Julienne, and, among the actors, Bouverot, his old exercise-master Falterle, and the yellow-dressed merchant's lady in the red shawl, who had once been less _in_ than _on_ Roquairol's heart, and finally Roquairol himself. The Captain stepped up immediately, first and foremost, to the well-known Albano, and said, with elaborate ease, the play would begin soon, only Dian with his wife was still expected. Dian, always easily moved, most of all by an invitation, could least of all resist one when art was the occasion; through him Chariton also was soon gained for the play, but not without one condition,--that she was to play in the piece the part of a beloved to no one but her spouse. When Roquairol spoke with Albano, he found it hard to laugh easily, or to raise his eyelids, as if his face were frozen or swollen; and an avenging, humiliating spirit inwardly weighed his down to the earth before the pure and happy friend out of whose spring he had torn and cast away the bright sun, and over whose life he had hung an eternal plague-cloud.
Amidst the tumult of garden talk, and in the fruitless wish to impart to his sister Julienne three soft words for the Linda of whose presence he had been so long deprived, Albano saw the carriage of the Countess roll along on the heights up to Liana's last garden, there stop, and her and Dian and Chariton alight from it.
Then he thought of nothing but to fly to the long-missed loved one,--an act which, before the many eyes, easily assumed the appearance of a longing for Dian; and at this moment, in the thirst of love, he, in fact, asked no question about eyes. "Ah, here I am, after all!" said Linda, and came to meet him, interweaving the delicate vine-tendrils of soft glances with his, so shyly and so lovingly; and the evening blush of bashfulness, like a spring-redness in the night, mantled her heaven, and the white moon of innocence stood in the midst of it. Albano was dissolved with the melting wind of this forgiveness, reproached himself with his sweet joy at her conversion, as if it were a selfish pride in his victory, and could hardly, in the fair confusion of good fortune, command his sweet astonishment and his melting heart, which would fain dissipate itself before her like a tempest into evening dew. He threw his soul into his eye, and gave it to his beloved. Before Chariton he felt that he must veil himself. To Dian and Linda he said, as they looked into the setting sun, only the word, "Ischia!"