49. CYCLE.
The blue day on which an ascension, a rendering of allegiance, and a birthday were to be celebrated already stood over Pestitz, after having cast off its morning-red,—two horses were already harbingers of four, the lowly coach-box, of the highest,—the country nobility already went down, uncomfortably frizzled, into the rooms of the inn, and scolded at being cheated out of the fairest weather for heath-cock coupling, and the city nobility, yet unpowdered, spoke of the day, but without real earnestness,—the court-micrometer,[110] the court-marshal, was surrounded by all his quartermasters,—the court-transit-instruments,[111] the courtiers, instead of their half-holiday, when they work only in the afternoon, had a whole working-day, and were already standing at the wash-table,—the allegiance-preacher, Schäpe, believed almost every word of his discourse, because he had read it too many times over, and the nearness of publication infused emotion into him,—there was no longer a domino to be had for the evening, except among the Jews,—when a man alighted at the door of the Doctor's house, who among all others was the most honest and hearty about the allegiance, the Director Wehrfritz. There were a son and a father in each other's arms, a fiery youth and a fiery man. Albano seemed to him no longer to be the old Albano, but—warmer than ever. He brought with him from "his women," as he called them, congratulatory letters and birthday presents; he himself made not much of the birthday or forgot it, and Albano had only celebrated it a little just after waking. These festivals belong more to the other sex, who gladly toy with times and seasons in the way of loving and giving.
The Titular Librarian marched out to a village, named Klosterdorf, where the Mayor with his family, after an ancient custom, had to imitate the Prince with his, and so, as commissioner, drive in the allegiance of the neighboring circle; this, Schoppe said, he still was pleased with, but the other worked too fatally on his inwards. The Director, dazzled by the prospects of the day, and posted in the front with an official speech to the chivalry, fell into a quarrel with Schoppe. "The Exchequer and the Court," said he, "have been, of course, from time immemorial, such as they are; but the Princes, dear sir, are good; they are themselves sucked dry, and then they seem to be the suckers." "Somewhat," rejoined Schoppe, "as the death-vampyres only give out blood from themselves, while they appear to take it; but I make up for that again by attributing wholly to the Regents, besides the sins of others, the merits, victories, and sacrifices of others also; herein they are the pelicans, who shed a blood for their children which really at a distance seems to be their own."
All went off: Schoppe, out into the country; Wehrfritz, to church with the procession; Albano, into a spectator's-box in the allegiance-hall; for he would not in any wise be stuck into the train of the Prince, not even as embroidery. Soon the noisy stream of pomp came sounding back into the hall. The chivalry, the spirituality, and the cities mounted the stage, where the oath was to be taken. In the court-yard of the castle one foot stood upon another, and a needle might, to be sure, have reached the ground, but no one could do so, to pick it up; everybody looked up at the balcony, and cursed before he swore. The Prince, too, stayed not away; the throne, that graduated and paraphrased princely seat, stood open, and Fraischdörfer had decorated it with beautiful mythological and heraldic shoulder-pieces and appendages.
Opposite the Count bloomed the court-dames, and below them a rose and a lily, Julienne and Liana. As one lifts his eye from the stiff frosty landscape of winter to the blue breathing heavens which looked down upon our spring evenings, and wherein the light summer clouds floated and the rainbow stood, so did he glance over the shining snow-light of the court at the lovely Grace of spring, around whom remembrances hung, like flowers, and who now stood so far aloof, so cut off, so imprisoned in the heavy finery of the court! Only through her friend, who sits beside her, was she gently melted and harmonized with the dazzling present.
Now began fine official speeches, the longest being made by the old Minister, the shortest by Wehrfritz: the Prince let the warm eulogies glide over his December-visage without thawing it down,—a mistaken indifference! For the praise of the Minister, as well as of other court-servants, may yet help him with posterity, since, according to Bacon, no praise is of more consequence than that which servants give, because they surely know their master best.
Then the Upper-Secretary, Heiderscheid, read Luigi's genealogical table, and illuminated the hollow family-tree, together with its dryness, and the last pale green twig; with sunken eyes Julienne heard this amid the vivat of the people, and Albano, never subdued by one thought alone, saw her eyes, and could not, however intently the Regent listened, avoid the funeral picture, how, one day, and that very soon, this extinguished man would bear down after him the name of his whole race into the vault; he saw them carving the inverted arms and hanging the shield upside down, and heard the shovels strike against the helmet and fling the earth after the coffin. Gloomy idea! the tender sister would certainly have wept, had she only been alone!
At last the turn came to those, to whom it never comes first, although they are the only ones who have a hearty meaning in such ceremonies. Heiderscheid stepped out on the balcony, and caused the noisy swarming multitude to stretch out the forefinger and thumb, and repeat the oath after him. The mass, always fascinated, shouted their vivat; in the dazzled eyes gleamed the confident expectation of a better regency and love for the unknown individual. The Count, whom a multitude generally made enthusiastic, as it did Schoppe melancholy, glowed with the inspiration of brotherly love and thirst for achievement; he saw princes, like omnipotent ones, holding sway on their eminences, and saw the blooming provinces and the gay cities of a wisely-ruled land spread out before him; he represented to himself how he, were he a prince, could, with the electric sparkling of the sceptre-point, dart, with an animating shock, into millions of united hearts at once, whereas he could now, with so great difficulty, scarcely kindle a few of the nearest; he saw his throne, as a mountain in morning light, pouring out, instead of lava, navigable streams through the lands, and breaking the storms, with a hum of harvests and festivals around its feet; he thought to himself how far, from such a high place, he could send light abroad, like a moon, which does not hide the sun by day, but, from her elevation, flings his distant brightness into the night,—and how he would, instead of only defending, create and educate freedom, and be a regent for the sake of forming self-regents.[112] "But why am I not one?" said he mournfully.
Noble youth! do thy estates, then, furnish thee no subjects? But just so does the lesser prince believe he would govern a duchy quite otherwise, and the higher one believes the same in regard to a kingdom, and so does the highest, in regard to universal monarchy.
Meanwhile, all through this singular uneasy day, wild perspectives of youth passed to and fro before him, and the old spirit-voice, which he was going to meet to-day, repeated in him the dark exhortation, Take the crown! Wehrfritz came back in the evening with a red face from the fiery allegiance-banquet, and Albano took an agitated leave of him, as if of the ebb and calm of life—his childish youth; for to-day he launched out deeper into its waves. Schoppe came back and wanted to have him before the sight-hole of his show-box, wherein he slid through the vicariate-allegiance-swearing in Klosterdorf, in a series of comic pictures; but these contrasted too severely with higher ones, and gave little pleasure.
At night Albano put on his beautiful, serious character-mask, that of a knight-templar,—for a comic one his form, and almost his mood, was too great;—the latter was made still more solemn by this funeral dress of a whole murdered knightly order. After he had caused to be described to him once more the awful paths of Tartarus, and the burial-place of the Prince's heart, to avoid mistaking of the way in the night, he went forth, about ten o'clock, with a high-heaving bosom, which the night-larvæ[113] of fancy, together with friendship and love and the whole future, conspired to excite.