43. CYCLE.
Lilar is not, like so many princely gardens, a torn-out leaf of a Hirschfeld,—a dead landscape-figurant and mimic- and miniature-park,—one of those show-dishes which are now served up and sketched at every court, of ruins, wildernesses, and woodland-cottages, but Lilar is the lusus naturæ and bucolic poem of the romantic and sometimes juggling fancy of the old Prince. We shall soon enter in a body behind our hero, but only into Elysium. Tartarus is something entirely different, and the second part of Lilar. This separation of the contrasts I praise even more than all. I have long wanted to go into a better garden than the common chameleonic ones are, where one hands you China and Italy, summer-house and charnel-house, hermitage and palace, poverty and riches (as in the cities and hearts of the proprietors), all on one dish, and where day and night, without an aurora, without a mezzotinto, are placed side by side. Lilar, on the contrary,—where the Elysium justifies its happy name by connected pleasure-tents and pleasure-groves, as the Tartarus does its gloomy one, by lonesome, veiled horrors,—that is drawn right out of my heart.
But where is our youth now going with his dreams? He is yet on the romantic road that leads into Lilar, properly the first garden-walk of the same. He strolled along an embowered road, which gently rose over hills, with open orchards, and into yellow-blooming grounds, and which, like the Rhine, now forced its way through green, ivy-clad rocks, and now opened its flying, smiling shores behind the twigs. Now the white benches under jessamine bushes and the white country-seats became more frequent; he drew nearer, and the nightingales and canary-birds[82] of Lilar came roving along, like birds announcing land. The morning blew fresh through the spring, and the indented foliage yet held fast its light, ethereal drops. A carrier lay sleeping on his rack-wagon, which the beasts, browsing right and left, safely drew along the smooth road. Albano heard, in the Sunday stillness, not the war-cry of oppressive labor, but the peace-bells of the towers: in the morning chime the future speaks, as in evening chimes the past; and at this golden age of the day there stood, also, a golden age in his fresh bosom.
Now the fork-tailed chimney-swallows began to quiver with their purple breasts over the heavenly blue of the wild germanders, announcing the approach of our dwellings as well as their own; when his road seemed about to pass through an old, open, ruined castle, overhung with rich, thick leaves, like scales, at whose entrance, or egress, a red arm, pointing aside with the white inscription, "Way out of Tartarus into Elysium," stretched out toward a neighboring thicket.
His heart rose within him at this double nearness of such opposite days. With long steps he pressed on toward the Elysian wood, which seemed to be cut off from him by a broad ditch. But he soon came out of the bush-work before a green bridge, which flung its arch like a giant serpent across the ditch, not, however, on the earth, but among the summits of the trees. It bore him in through a blooming wilderness of oaks, firs, silver-poplars, fruit-trees, and lindens. Then it brought him out into the open country, and now Lilar, from the east, flung, over the wide-extending spikes of grain, the splendor of a high golden ball to meet him. The bridge sank gently with him again into fragrant, glimmering broom, and beneath and beside him sang and fluttered canary-birds, thrushes, finches, and nightingales, while the well-fed brood slept under the covert of the bridge. At last, after passing an arched avenue, it came up again to the light, and now he saw the blooming mountain cupola with the white altar, whereon he had knelt on a night of his youth; and farther to the south behind him, the veil and dividing-wall of Tartarus, a high-reared wood; and as he stepped onward, Elysium opened upon him more broadly,—a lane of small houses with Italian roofs full of little trees, smiled joyfully and familiarly upon the sight out of the green world-map of dells, groves, paths, lakes; and in the east five triumphal gates opened passages into a wide-extending plain, waving on like a green-glistening sea, and in the west five others stood opposite to them with opened lands and mountains.
As Albano passed down along the slowly-descending sweep of the bridge, there came forth into view, now blazing fountains, now red beds, now new gardens enfolded in the great one, and every step created the Eden anew. Full of awe he stepped out, as upon a hallowed soil, on the consecrated earth of the old Prince and the pious father[83] and Dian and Liana; his wild course was arrested, and entangled, as if by an earthquake; the pure paradise seemed made merely for Liana's pure soul; and now for the first time a timid question about the propriety of his hasty journey, and the loving fear of meeting for the first time her healed eye, made his happy bosom grow uneasy.
But how festal, how living, is all around him! On the waters which gleam through the groves swans are gliding; the pheasant stalks away into the bushes, deer peep curiously behind him out of the wood through which he has come, and white and black pigeons run busily under the gates, and on the western hills hang bleating sheep by the side of reposing lambs; even the breast of the turtle-dove in some hidden valley trembles with the languido of love. He strode through a long, high-bushed rose-field, that seemed a settlement and plantation of hedge-sparrows and nightingales, which hopped out of the bushes on the growing grass-banks, and ran out in vain after little worms; and the lark sailed away on high over this second world, made for the more innocent of God's creatures, and sank behind the gates into the grain-fields.
Intoxicate thyself more and more, good youth, and link thy flowers into a chain as closely as the boy toward whom thou art hastening. For, overhead, on the Italian roof, before whose balustrade-breastwork silver-poplars, girdled about with broad vine-leaves, played, and which, in the spring-night, he had taken for a bower in roses, stood a blooming boy bent forward, who was letting down a chain of marigolds, and kept fastening on new rings to the too short green cable. "My name is Pollux," he answered briskly to Alban's soft question, "but my sister is named Helena,[84] but my little brother is named Echion." "And thy father?" "He is not here now, he is away off there in Rome; just go in to mother Chariton, I am coming immediately." On what fairer day, in what fairer place, with what fairer hearts could he come into the holy family of the beloved Dian, than on this morning, and with this mood?
He went into the bright, laughing house, which was full of windows and green Venetian blinds. When he entered into the spring-room he found Chariton, a young, slender woman, looking almost like a girl of seventeen,[85] with the little Echion at her breast, defending herself against the sickly and excitable Helena, who, standing in a chair under the window, kept swinging in a many-leaved sling of a vine-branch, and trying to girdle and blind therewith the eyes of her mother. With charming confusion, wishing at once to rise, with her left hand to remove the leafy fetters without tearing, and to cover up the suckling more closely, she stepped forward, inclining her head, to meet the beautiful youth, with childlike friendliness and warmth, but with infinite shyness, not on account of the rank indicated by his dress, but because he was a man, and looked so noble, even like her Greek. He told her, with an enchanting love, which, perhaps, she had never seen so magnificently pictured, on his strong countenance, his name, and the gratitude which his heart kept in store for her husband, and the news and greetings which he had brought from him. How the innocent fire blazed out of the dark eyes of the timid creature! "Was then my lord," so she called her husband, "very well and happy?" And so she began now, unembarrassed as a child, a long examination all about her husband.
Pollux came dancing in with his long chain. Alban playfully took out the Doctor's medicine from his pocket, and said, "This is what you are to take." "Must I drink it right down, mother?" said the hero. Here she inquired quite as naively after the detailed prescriptions of the Doctor, until the little suckling at her breast rebelled, and drove her into a by-room to sit over the cradle. She excused herself, and said the little one must go to sleep, because she was going to walk with Liana, for whom she was looking every minute.
Children love powerful faces. Alban was at once the favorite of children and dogs, only he could never act with the little jumping troop, on the childish playground, when grown spectators were in the boxes.
"I can do a good many things!" said Pollux. "And I can read, sir!" rejoined Helena to her brother. "But then only in German; but I can read Latin letters splendidly, you!" replied the little man to her, and ran round through the room after readings and specimens; but in vain. "Man, wait a little!" said he, and ran up-stairs into Liana's chamber, and brought one of Liana's letters.
43a. CYCLE.
Albano knew not that Liana had the upper—so bloomingly shaded—chamber reserved for her own private use, wherein she frequently—especially when her mother remained behind in the city—drew, wrote, and read. The childlike Chariton, inspired with the love-draught of friendship, did not know at all how she could possibly so much as show her warmth of kindness to the fair, affectionate friend: ah, what was a chamber? Now into this always open room came the children, whom Liana sometimes heard read; and thus was Pollux able on the present occasion to fetch out of the solitary room the sheet which she had written this morning.
While Albano, during the errand, sat so alone in the keeping-room of the far-off friend of his youth, near his still, pale daughter, who looked now at him and now at a toy sheep-fold, as well known to him as Liana's eastern chamber, when the morning breeze swept in the glorious hum through the cool window, especially when, in the light cut-work of the floor the Chinese shadows of the vine and poplar foliage crinkled into each other, and when, at length, Chariton began to sing the suckling to sleep with a quicker, louder lullaby, which sounded to him like her echoing sigh after the fair land of her youth; then was his full heart, which had been already so stirred by all the events of the morning, wondrously moved, and—especially by the flickering sham-fight of the shadows—almost to tears; and the child looked up more and more meaningly into his face.
Then came Pollux back with his two quarto leaves, and now set himself at once to his lesson. The very first page composed the melody to Alban's inner songs; but he could neither guess the authoress nor the date of the letter, except further along, by a desultory sort of reading to and fro. The leaves belonged to previous ones; not so much as a grain of writing-sand evinced their recent birth (for Liana was too courtly to use any); further, all the names were disguised; that is to say, Julienne, to whom they were directed, had unfortunately in Argenson's bureau de décachetage, where she resided, i.e. at court, demanded them in cipher, and she accordingly took the name of Elisa; Roquairol was called Charles, and Liana her little Linda. Linda, as will be well remembered, is the baptismal name of the young Countess of Romeiro, with whom the Princess on the day of that (for Roquairol) so bloody masquerade had established an eternal heart- and letter-alliance; Liana, to whose pure, poetic eyes every noble woman became a blessed saint and heroine, the opaque jewel a bright, pure, transparent one, loved the high Countess as if with the heart of her brother and her female friend at once, and the gentle soul named herself, unconscious of her worth, only the little Linda of her Elisa.
Nor did Albano recognize the delicate running-hand; Julienne loved the French language even to its letters, but Liana's resembled not the scrawled Gallic protocols, but the neatly-rounded handwriting of the English.
Here is her leaf at last. O thou lovely being! how long have I thirsted for the first sounds of thy refreshing soul!
"Sunday Morning.
"... But to-day, Elisa, I am so profoundly happy, and the evening-mist is transformed to an aurora in heaven. I ought not to give thee yesterday's work at all. I was too much troubled. But might not my dear mother, who had come hither merely for my sake, become thereby still sicker, whatever appearances of tolerable health she might, for that very reason, assume with me? And then came thy form, beloved one, and all thy sorrow and the painful neighborhood,[86] and our last evening here. O how reproachfully did all that pass before my heavy heart! So, as we stopped before the house of dear Chariton, and she kissed my mother's hand with tears of joy; then was I so weak that I too turned aside and shed tears, but other tears,—I wept for the rejoicing one herself, who indeed could not know whether at that hour her precious friend in Rome might not be sick or dying.
"But now the dark, gray mist is wholly blown away from the flower-garden of thy little Linda, and all the blossoms of life shine in their pure, high colors before her. After midnight my mother's headache passed almost entirely away, and she was still sleeping so sweetly this morning. O, what were my feelings then! Soon after five o'clock I went down into the garden and shrunk back at the splendor which burned in the dew and between the leaves; the sun was just looking in under the triumphal gates,—all the lakes sparkled in a broad fire,—a gleaming haze floated like a saintly halo around the edge of the earth which the heaven touched,—and a high waving and singing streamed through the splendor of morn.
"And into this unlocked world I had come back restored and so happy. I wanted continually to cry out: 'I have thee again, thou bright sun! and you, ye lovely flowers! and ye proud mountains, ye have not changed! and ye are green again, and, like me, renewed, ye sweet scented trees!' I floated, as if transfigured, in an endless felicity, Elisa, weak, but light and free; I had, so it seemed to me, put off this burdensome clay under the earth and kept only the beating heart, and in my enraptured bosom warm tear-fountains gushed down, as if over flowers, and covered them with brightness.
"'Ah, God!' said I, trembling at the very greatness of my joy, 'was it then a mere sleep, that immovable repose of mother?' and I must needs (smile on!) before I went further, go up to her again. I crept breathless to the bedside, bent listeningly over her, and my good mother opened slowly her still gently dozing eyes, looked upon me languidly but affectionately, and closed them again without stirring, and gave me only her dear hand.
"Now could I right blissfully return to my garden; I bore, however, a morning-greeting to the ever-cheerful Chariton, and told her that I might be found on the broad way to the altar,[87] if I should be wanted for anything. Ah, Elisa, what feelings then were mine! And why had I not thee by the hand, and why could not my distressed Charles see that his sister was so happy? As, after a warm rain, the evening-red and the liquid sunlight run from all the gold-green hills, so stood a quivering splendor over my whole inner being and over my past, and everywhere lay bright tears of joy. A sweet gnawing consumed away my heart as if to death, and all was so near to me and so dear! I could have answered the whispering aspen and thanked the spring-breezes which fanned so coolingly my hot eye! The sun had laid itself with a motherly warmth on my heart, and brooded over us all,—the cold flower, the naked young bird, the stiff butterfly, and every creature. Ah, such should man be too, thought I; and I took the sandy path, and spared the life of the poor little blade of grass and the flower that peeped so lovingly, which truly breathe and wake like us. I drove not away the thirsty white butterflies and pigeons which stood beside each other and bent down from the moist turf to drink. O, I could have stroked the waves ... this creation is truly so precious and from God's hand, and every the smallest-shaped heart has surely its blood and a longing, and into every little eye-point under the leaf the whole sun and a little spring enter and abide!
"I leaned, a little exhausted, under the first triumphal arch, ere I ascended to the altar, and looked out into the glimmering landscape full of villages and orchards and hills; and the glistening dew, and the ringing of the village-bells, and the chime of the herd-bells, and the floating of the birds over all, filled me with peace and light. Yes, in such peace and seclusion and serenity will I spend my fleeting life, thought I: does not the little Sad-cloak persuade me, who, before my eyes, with his wings torn by autumn, nevertheless flutters again around his flowers; and does not the night-butterfly admonish me, who clings, chilled, to the hard statue, and cannot soar to the blossoms of day? Therefore will I never stir from my mother; only let the precious Elisa stay with us as long as her Linda lives, and call her noble friend soon,[88] that I may see and heartily love her!
"I went up the green-shaded mountain, but with pain: joy weakens me so much. Think of me, Elisa: I shall some time die of a great joy or of a great, all too great woe! The spiral path to the altar was painted with the hues of the blossom-dust, and overhead, not colored and stationary, but shifting, burning rainbows quivered through the twigs of the mountain. Why stood I to-day in a splendor such as I never knew before?[89] And when the morning breeze fanned and lifted me, and when I dipped myself deeper into the blue heaven, then said I, 'Now thou art in Elysium.' Then it was to me as if a voice said, 'This is the earthly Elysium, and thou art not yet sanctified for the other.' O, how ardently did I then form the purpose to disentangle myself from so many faults, and especially to renounce that too hasty imagination of offence, which I may indeed conceal from others, but through which I nevertheless injure them. And then I prayed at the altar, and thanked the Eternal Goodness, and wept unconsciously; perhaps too much, but yet without my eyes smarting.
"At last I wrote the poem of thanks which I append to this, and which I will put into verse, if the pious father approves.
"Poem of Thanks.
"'Do I then gaze again with blessed eyes into thy blooming world, thou All-loving One, and weep again, because I am happy? Why did I then fear? When I went under the earth in the darkness like the dead, and caught only a distant sound of the loved ones and of spring above me, why was my feeble heart in fear that there was no more hope for life and light? For thou wast by me in the darkness, and didst lead me up out of the vault into thy spring; and around me stood thy joyous children, and the serene heavens, and all my smiling loved ones! O, I will now hope more steadfastly! Continue thou to break off from the sick plant all rank flowers, that the rest may more fully ripen! Thou dost indeed lead thy human creatures into thy heaven and to thyself over a long mountain; and they go through the storms of life along the mountain, only overshadowed, not smitten, by the clouds, and only our eye grows wet. But when I come to thee, when Death again throws his dark cloud over me, and draws me away from all that I love into the deeper cavern, and thou, All-gracious, settest me free once more, and bearest me into thy spring,—into a still fairer one than this, which is itself so magnificent,—will then my frail heart, near thy judgment-seat, beat as gladly as to-day, and will the mortal bosom dare to breathe in thy ethereal spring? O, make me pure in this earthly one, and let me live here, as if I were already walking in thy heaven!'"
If even you, ye friends, who have never seen her, are yet won and touched by the patient, pure form, which can resignedly rejoice that the storm-cloud has, after all, only sent down rain-drops upon it, and no hailstones, how must she then have agitated the deeply-moved heart of her friend! He felt a consecration of his whole being, just as if Virtue came down incarnate in this shape from heaven, to hallow him with her smile, and then flew back in a shining path, and he followed, inspired and exalted, in her track.
He urged the boy instantly to carry back the leaves, in order to spare her and himself—as she might appear any moment—the most painful of surprises; yet he firmly resolved—cost what it might—to be true, and confess to her, this very day, what he had done.
The little fellow ran up stairs and down again, remained a long time before the door, and came in with Liana by the hand, who was dressed in white, with a black veil. She looked in and around a little perplexed, as she with both hands pushed back the veil from her friendly face; but she heard Chariton's lullaby. She did not know him till he spoke; and then her whole beautiful being reddened like an illuminated landscape after an evening shower: she had the pleasure, she said, of knowing his father. Probably she knew the son still better by Julienne's and Augusti's pictures, and on more congenial sides; her sisterly heart was certainly moved, too, by his brotherly voice; for the charm, and even preferableness, of resemblance and copy is so great, that one who looks like even an indifferent person becomes more dear to us, like the echo of an empty sound, merely because, in this case as in the imitative art, the past and absent, shining through the fancy, become a present.
The gradually lowering tone of the mother's lullaby announced the sinking of the infant to slumber, and at last the diminuendo died away, and Chariton, with glistening eyes, ran to take Liana's hand. A frank and serene friendship bloomed between the innocent hearts, and held them entwined, as the vine does the neighboring poplars. Chariton related to her what Albano had related, with a reliance upon her most fervent sympathy. Liana listened to her friend with eager attention; but that was quite as much as if she were looking at the historical source itself that was so near at hand.