To make a long story short, in a few days I too was “in love.” I let Elvira pour out to me her enthusiasm and her accounts of what had so greatly pleased her about him, and what she had felt all this time with this hidden passion in her heart; I called back to my memory the features of him who was so glowingly admired; and soon I could not understand how it was that I had not also fallen in love on the spot—now, now, the fire began to burn in my heart too. I remember exactly how at a certain time it came over me clearly, the consciousness that I was equally in love with the irresistible Friedrich. In the night I had dreamed vividly of Wiesbaden. Again I danced the quadrille with the ensign, his elder sister vis-à-vis,—I felt the pressure of his hand in the chaîne anglaise and heard the tone of his voice. In the morning, on waking, I had the feeling that something new, rich, warm, gladsome, was inundating my soul. What could this be? For a few seconds I had no answer to this question, but then, with the recollection of the dream, I knew what it was: love.

I relate this because this sensation remained so distinctly stamped on my memory that I have derived from it a piece of knowledge which perhaps not every one has discovered, or not every one preserved in memory,—to wit, that in youth being in love comes upon one like something elemental, like a newly existing sort of material so to speak, and is then carried around with one as a possession, as a treasure. If it be even a hapless love, by this very misfortune one feels himself enriched, elevated, transformed. It may be a suffering, but it is a suffering which is unspeakably sweeter than all hitherto-known joys. That my love was a hapless, nay, a tragic love, was a thing of which I was conscious not without pride. The humorous side of the whole thing did not become clear to me till long afterward. At the time I saw only the frightful situation—I loved the same man for whom the friend of my bosom was burning, therefore I loved hopelessly.

Was I to confide in her, or lock my terrible secret in the depths of my soul? I decided for the former. I had reproached her too bitterly for having so long kept silence toward me—and we had then exchanged the promise that henceforth we would impart to each other everything, everything. I owed her a confession, therefore, and I made it in the way of inscribing on the page of her album the lamentable word “Past!” in English.

But now Elvira showed herself in her whole greatness. She said, “My friendship shall not only be sworn, it shall be proved too.—I step back, I renounce—be Friedrich von Hadeln yours.” And I could set down in the album, “On the 8th of July you have proved your friendship.” For a while I hesitated to accept the self-sacrificing present, but in a short time I seem to have given in, since so soon as July 13th I could set down that it was no longer past. “You are beautiful, you are brilliant,—by the gift of your hand he will become a thousand times happier than by insignificant me—therefore I renounce, not only for your sake but for his.” These reasons she adduced, and such as these; and I took possession of the sweetheart so nobly resigned to me, took possession so thoroughly that henceforth our games of puff assumed a new form. I remained the heroine, but the hero no longer played different parts; he was always Friedrich von Hadeln again and again, only in different situations.

But the drollest thing about this schoolgirl romance is that next summer we really made the journey to Wiesbaden again, that we met Him there, and that he paid neither of us the least attention. This reality speedily sobered us. We did not laugh at each other as we deserved, for we had too much respect for the conflicts of soul that we had undergone; but we were cured. And in later years we laughed, too, over the story.

III
AN AUTOGRAPH ALBUM
Anastasius Grün · Friedrich Halm · Grillparzer · Wagner · Lenau’s sister · Military autographs · King Ludwig of Bavaria · Schiller’s daughter · Liebig · Schücking · Mädler · Körner · Anderssen · Meyerbeer · Rückert · Hebbel · Gregorovius · Lamartine · Victor Hugo · Manzoni · Dickens

I will still linger over that album. There sounds forth from the book, as it were, a whole chime of tones from the past; a whole procession of spirits—right illustrious spirits among them—goes by. Ah, that is the fine thing about youth, that it operates with as many hopes as old age does with memories; to it the joyous “will be” beckons from every quarter—to age the gloomy “has been” shows itself at all points.

So let us turn the leaves. Here is a letter from Anastasius Grün[[4]] to Elvira, in its envelope. The poet writes:

Esteemed young Lady:

Your letter addressed to my dear wife bespeaks so unaffected a frame of mind, so noble an aspiration, and at the same time so tender and womanly a disposition, that it would in any case come very hard for me to decline the request addressed—properly speaking, to me—in so earnest a tone, even were it one less easy of fulfillment. Busied as I am at this moment, I must to-day limit myself to these few lines, that I may not again, as I lately did by inadvertency, miss a date set by you. I hope the opposite leaf [it is not in the album] may meet with a friendly reception from you.