32. CYCLE.
The Court now caused to be made known in writing (it could not speak for sorrow) that the dead Nestor had departed this life. I set aside here the lamentation of the city, together with the rejoicing of the same over the new perspective. The Land-physicus Sphex had to eviscerate the Regent like a mighty beast,—whereas we subjects are served up with all our viscera, like snipes and ground-sparrows, on the table of the worms. At evening, there reposed the pale one on his bed of state,—the princely hat and the whole electrical apparatus of the throne-thunder lay quite as still and cold beside him on a Tabouret; he had the suitable torches and corpse-watchers around him. These Swiss-guards of the dead (the sound of the word rings through me, and I at this moment see Liberty lying on her bed of state in the Alps, and the Swiss guarding her) consist, as is well known, of two regency-counsellors, two counsellors of the exchequer, and so on. One of the exchequer-counsellors was Captain Roquairol. It can be only touched upon here, in the way of interpolation, how this youth, who of financial matters understood little more than a treasury-counsellor in ——h,[52] arose, nevertheless, to be a counsellor in war-matters there,—namely, against his own will, through old Froulay, who (in himself no very sentimental gentleman) was always reviving and retouching the youthful remembrances of the old Prince, because, in this tender mood, one could get from him by begging what one would. How odious and low! so can a poor prince have not a smile, not a tear, not a happy thought, out of which some court-mendicant, who sees it, will not make a door-handle to open something for himself, or a dagger-handle to inflict a wound; not a sound can he utter which some forester and bugle-master of the chase shall not pervert to the purpose of a mouth-piece and tally-ho.
Julienne, at nine o'clock in the evening, visited the only heart which, in the whole court, beat like hers and for hers,—her good Liana. The latter gladly offered her forehead to her commencing sick-headache, and sought only to feel and to still another's pain. The friends, who, before strangers' eyes, only displayed pleasantry, and before each other only a tender, enthusiastic seriousness, sank more and more deeply into this mood before the severe and religious lady of the Minister, who never found in Julienne so much soul as in the soft hour after weeping, as stock-gilliflowers begin to scent the air when they are sprinkled. Not the struggle, but the flight of pain, beautifies the person; hence the countenance of the dead is transfigured, because the agonies have cooled away. The maidens stood enthusiastically together at the window, the waxing moonlight of their fancy was made full moonlight by that of the outer world; they formed the nun's-plan to live together, and go in and out together for life. Often it seemed to them, in this still hour of emotion (and the thought made them shudder), as if the murmuring wings of departed souls swept by over them (it was only a couple of flies, who, with feet and wings, had caught a few tones on the harp of the Minister's lady); and Julienne thought most bitterly of her dead father in Lilar.
At last she begged the sister of her soul to ride with her this night to Lilar, and to share and assuage the last and deepest woe of an orphan. She did it willingly; but the "yes" was hard to extort from the Minister's lady. I see the gentle forms step, from their long embrace in the carriage, out into the mourning chamber at Lilar,—Julienne, the smaller of the two, with quivering eyes and changing color; Liana, more pale with megrim and mourning, and milder and taller than her companion, having completed her growth in her twelfth year.[53]
Like supernatural beings the two maidens beamed upon Roquairol's soul, already burning in every corner. A single tear-drop had power to bring into this calcining oven boiling and desolation. Already this whole evening had he been glancing at the old man with fearful shudderings at the childish end of that faded spirit, which once had been as fiery as his own now was; and the longer he looked, so much the thicker smoke-clouds floated from the open crater of the grave over into his green-blooming life, and he heard therein a thundering, and he saw therein an iron hand glowing and threatening to grasp at human hearts.
Amidst these grim dreams, which illuminated every inner stain of his being, and which sternly threatened him that a day would come, when, in his volcano too, there would remain nothing fruitful but the—ashes, the mournful maidens entered, who, on their way, had wept only over the face that had grown cold, and now wept still more heavily over the form that had grown beautiful; for the hand of death had effaced from it the lines of the last years,—the prominent chin, the fire-mounds of the passions, and so many pains underscored with wrinkles, and had, as it were, painted upon the earthly tabernacle the reflection of that fresh, still morning light which now invested the disrobed soul. But upon Julienne a black taffeta-plaster on the eyebrows, which had been left behind by a blow,—this sign of wounds made a more violent impression than all signs of healing: she observed only the tears, but not the words of Liana. "O, how beautifully he rests there!" "But why does he rest?" said her brother, with that voice, murmuring from his innermost being, which she recognized as coming from the amateur-stage; and grasped her hand with agitation, because he and she loved each other fervently, and his lava broke now through the thin crust: "for this reason,—because the heart is cut out of his breast, because the wheel is broken at the cistern, because the fire-wheel of rapture, the fountain-wheel of tears, moves therein no more!"
This cruel allusion to the opening of the body wrought terribly on the sick Liana. She must needs avert her eyes from the covered breast, because the anguish cramped the breath in her lungs; and yet the wild man, desolating others as well as himself, who had hitherto been silent by the side of the stiff corpse-guard, went on with redoubled crushing: "Feel'st thou how painfully this cricket-ball of fate, this Ixion's wheel of the wishes, rolls within us? Only the breast without a heart is calm."
At once Liana took a longer and more intense look at the corpse; an ice-cold edge, as if of death's scythe, cut through her burning brain,—the funeral torches (it seemed to her) burned dimmer and dimmer,—then she saw in the corner of the chamber a dark cloud playing and growing up;—then the cloud began to fly, and, full of gushing night, rushed over her eyes,—then the thick night struck deep roots into her wounded eyes, and the affrighted soul could only say, "Ah, brother, I am blind!"
Only hard man, but no woman, will be able to conceive that an æsthetic pleasure at the murderous tragedy found its way into Roquairol's frightful anguish. Julienne left the dead, and her old sorrow, and, with the new one, flung herself around her neck, and moaned: "O my Liana, my Liana! Seest thou not yet? Do look up at me!" The distracted and distracting brother led on the sister, upon whose pale cheeks only single drops fell like hard, cold water, with the sharp question: "Does no destroying angel, with red wings, whiz through thy night; hurls he no yellow vipers at thy heart, and no sword-fish into thy network of nerves, in order that they may be entangled therein, and whet their saw-teeth in the wounds? I am happy in my pain; such thistles scratch us up,[54] according to good moralists, and smooth us down too. Thou anguish-stricken blind one, what say'st thou,—have I made thee truly miserable again?" "Madman!" said Julienne, "let her alone: thou art destroying her." "O, he is not to blame for that," said Liana; "the headache long since made it misty to my eyes."
The friends took their departure in double darkness, and therein will I leave it with all its agonies. Then Liana begged her maiden to say nothing of it to her mother so little time before sleep, since it might, perhaps, go away in the night. But in vain; the Minister's lady was accustomed to close her day on the bosom and lips of her daughter. The latter now came in, led along, and sought her mother's heart with a groping, sidelong motion, and, in this beloved neighborhood, could no longer refrain from a softer weeping; then, indeed, all was betrayed and confessed. The mother first sent for the Doctor before she, with wet eyes and with her gentle arms around her, heard her afflicted daughter's story. Sphex came, examined the eyes and pulse, and made no more of it than a nervous prostration.
The Minister, who had everywhere in the house leading-hounds with fine—ears, came in, upon being informed; and while Sphex stood by, he made, except long strides, nothing but this little note, "Voyez, Madame, comme votre le Cain[55] joue son rôle à merveille."
As soon as Sphex had gone out, Froulay let loose several billion-pounders and hand-grenades upon his lady. "Such," he observed, "are the consequences of your visionary scheme of education (to be sure his own, in respect to his son, had not turned out specially well). Why did you let the sick ninny go?" He would himself have still more gladly allowed it from courtly views; but men love to blame the faults which they have been saved the trouble of committing; in general, like head-cooks, they had rather apply the knife to the white- than to the dark-feathered fowl. "Vous aimez, ce me semble, à anticiper le sort de cette reveuse un peu avant qu'il soit decidé de nôtre."[56] Her silence only made him the more bitter. "O, ce sied si bien à votre art cosmétique que de rendre aveugle et de l'être, le dieu de l'amour s'y prête de modèle." Wounded by this extreme severity,—especially as the Minister himself had chosen and commanded this very cosmetic education of Liana, against the maternal wishes, to gratify his political ones,—the mother had to go and hide and dry her wet eyes in her daughter's bosom. Married men and the latest literati regard themselves as flints, whose power of giving light is reckoned according to their sharp corners. Our forefathers ascribed to a diamond belt the power to kindle love between spouses. I also still find in jewels this power; only this stone (which appertains to the flint species) leaves one, after the marriage-compact, as cold and hard as it is itself. Probably Froulay's marriage-bond was one of such precious stone.
But the lady only said, "Dear Minister, leave we that! only spare you the sick one." "Voilà précisement ce qui fût votre affaire," said he, laughing scornfully. In vain did Liana eloquently and touchingly pour out to him her mistaken yet moving convictions, (aimed at the wall, however,) and plead for her brother, which everlasting advocacy of all sorts of people (which proved too much) was her only failing;—all in vain, for his sympathy with an afflicted one consisted in nothing but fury against the tormentors, and his love toward Liana showed itself only in hatred of the same. "Peace, fool! But Monsieur le Cain comes not into my house, madam, till further orders!" Out of forbearance, I say nothing further to the old conjugal bully than go—to the devil, or at least to bed.