72. CYCLE.
The hour of departure came rolling on with swifter and swifter wheels; more constellations of joy went down than came up. Thus do the blooming vineyards of life always grow green on the ups and downs of a mountainous way, never on a smooth plain. The two lovers needed quiet now, not walks. They took the nearest, the path to the thunder-house. They stepped into the glimmering vesper-grounds as into a new land; at mid-day man is awakened from one dream after another, and has always forgotten and sees things always new. In Albano the golden splendor of the strings of joy still lingered under the declining sun; he told her gladly, how often he would visit her at her parents', and how he certainly hoped to find them friendly. Liana, as a daughter and a lover, retouched all his hopes with her own. But now she let her hitherto light heart, which had been rocking itself on the flowers of sport, sink back upon the solid ground of earnest.
When there is peace and fulness in a man, he wishes not to enjoy anything else but himself; every motion, even of the body, jostles the full nectar-cup. They hastened out of the loud, lively garden into the still, dark thunder-house. But when, as if parted from the world, which lay out around the windows, brightly glistening and far receding, they stood alone together in the little twilight, and looked upon each other,—and when Albano's soul became like a sun-drunken mountain at evening, light, warm, firm, and fair, and Liana's soul like an up-gushing spring on the mountain, which glides away purely bright and cool and hidden, and only under the touch of the evening-beam glows in rosy redness,—and now that these souls had just found each other in the wide, unharmonious world,—then did a mighty joy thrill through them like a prayer, and they cast themselves upon each other's hearts, and glowed and wept and looked upon each other exaltedly in the embrace;—and, on the Æolian-harp, suddenly the folding doors of an inspired concert-hall flew open, and outswelling harmonies floated by, and suddenly again the gates shut to.
They seated themselves at the breezy eastern window, before which the mountains of Blumenbühl and Lilar's hills and paths lay in the sunlight. Around them was evening shade, and all was still, and the Æolian-harp breathed low. They only looked at each other, and felt joy to their innermost being that they loved and possessed each other. How ecstatically did they look, from the protection of this citadel, down into the sounding, stirring world! Down below the wind blew the blaze of poppies and tulips far and wide, and in among the heavy, yellow harvest. The silver-poplars, wearing eternal May-snow, fluttered with uptossing splendor; a flock of pigeons went rustling away, and dipped into the blue; and overhead, amid flying clouds, stood those round temples of God, the mountains, in rows, beside each other, bearing alternate nights and days; and the pious father stood alone on his hill, and handed his roe tender branches.
"Thus may we ever remain!" said Albano, and pressed her dear hand with both of his to his heart. "Here and hereafter!" said she. "Albano, how often have I wished thou wert at the same time my female friend, that I might speak with thee of thyself! Who on the earth knows how I esteem thee, except myself alone?" "Here and hereafter? Liana, I am happier than thou, for I alone believe in our long life here," said he, all at once changed.
Whatever, now, may have been the reason,—whether that man is not at all accustomed to be happy in a pure present, severed from all future and past, because his inner heaven, like the natural one, directly over his head and close to him, always looks dark-blue, and only round about the distant horizon radiant; or that there is a bliss so tender and unearthly as, like the moonshine, to be made too dark by every passing cloud, whereas a sturdy one, like daylight, can bear the broadest; or that Albano was too much like men who always in joy feel their powers so strongly that they would rather kick over the table of the gods than see a dish or a loaf of the heavenly bread less thereupon, rather be perfectly miserable than not perfectly happy;—suffice it, he could not and would not be guilty of longer fear and concealment.
So, when Liana, instead of answering, only embraced him, and was silent, because she meant to remain the whole day true to her promise not to dash the festal tapestry of fair days with a shade of mourning-cloth, then, as if urged on by a strange spirit, he spoke out: "Thou answerest nothing? Only joys, not sorrows, shall I share? Thou hast not thy veil? Wilt thou spare me as a weakling? and thee alone shall thy death-belief continue to oppress? Liana, I will have pangs, too, and all thine,—tell all!"
"Truly, I only meant to keep my promise," said she, "and no more. But what then shall I say to thee, dear?"
"Dost thou believe, then, that thou art certainly to die after a year, superstitious one?—heavenly one!" said he.
"In so far as it is God's will, certainly," said she. "O my good Albano, how can I help my belief, much as it pains thee too?" And here she could no longer restrain her tears, and all the crucifixes of memory started up alive in the fair soul, and bled intensely.
"God's will?" asked he. "Quite as well might he at this moment precipitate a winter as an iceberg, into this happy summer. God?" he repeated, looked up, knelt down, and prayed, "O thou all-loving God—But thou shalt not die to me!" He turned, as if in anger, towards her, incapable of continuing his prayer, for the cry of his heart, and wiping hastily with both hands over his moist face. Now he prayed on, with a soft, trembling voice: "No, thou all-loving One! kill not this fair, young life! Leave us together long in purity and in peace."
She knelt involuntarily at his side;—to-day more exhausted with pleasures and unknown inner victories, even with long walking, so much the more intensely struck by a moving reality that she had been spoiled and softened by moving fancies, and inexpressibly afflicted at Albano's sorrow;—she could not speak; her head and neck bowed, as under a burden suddenly laid upon them; and thus, as one heavily overclouded by a whole life, she looked down upon the floor. The embracing death-flood sounded with one arm around her; then did she see, without looking up, her Caroline pass by somewhere in bridal dress, and with the white, gold-spangled veil trailing along far over life; and she saw clearly how the celestial shape, when Albano begged for her life, shook its head slowly to and fro. "Cease to pray!" she cried, inconsolably. "But listen to me, thou cold apparition, and only make him happy!" she prayed, but she saw nothing more; and, with inexpressible love, she hid her face, marked all over with the lines of agony, upon his breast.
Here her brother called up, that the carriage was ready. She threw down a quick, thin-voiced "Yes." "Must we part?" asked Albano; the fiery rain of ecstasy had now fallen back into his open soul, in the shape of a darker rain of ashes; and so he went on without any bounds to his anguish. "Then have we seen each other for the last time?" and under the closed eyelid his noble eye wept.
"No! in the name of the All-gracious, no!" said she, and rose to go. "Stay!" said he, and she staid, and embraced him again. "But do not accompany me!" she entreated. "Not!" said he, and held her for some time as she withdrew, by the tips of the fingers; it pained him so much, when he saw the sufferings which had been brought upon this still form, that these white wings of innocence had beaten themselves bloody against his cliffs and mountain-horns. He drew her again to himself, ere he let her and his salvation go from him. He looked after her as she slowly stole down along the sunny mountain, drying her eyes under the twigs, and went with bowed head along all the gay, blooming paths of the forenoon's walk. But he gazed not after, when her carriage rolled away across the joyous wood; he stood at the eastern window, and saw his childhood's mountains tremble, because he had forgotten to dry his eyes.
