I returned like a clairvoyant from heaven again to earth, and remarked only that in this second Christmas festival Ruprecht[9] did not precede, but followed it, for on my way home I met a messenger coming for me, and was severely scolded for running away. Usually after such warm silver beams of a blessed sun there falls a closing, stormy gust. What was its effect on me? The stream of words could not drain my paradise,—for does it not bloom even to-day around and forth from my pen?
It was, as I have said, the first kiss, and, as I believe, will be the last; for I shall not, probably, although she lives yet, journey to Schwarzenbach to give a second. As usual, during my whole Schwarzenbach life I was perfectly contented with my telegraphic love, which yet sustained and kept itself alive without any answering telegram. But truly no one could blame her less than I that she was silent at that time, or that she continues so now after the death of her husband; for later, in stranger loves and hearts, I have always been slow to speak. It did not help me that I stood with ready face and attractive outward appearance; all corporeal charms must be placed over the foil of the spiritual before they can sufficiently shine and kindle and dazzle. But this was the cause of failure in my innocent love-time, that without any intercourse with the beloved, without conversation or introduction, I displayed my whole love bursting from the dry exterior, and stood before her like the Judas-tree, in full blossom, but without branch or leaf.
An incident previously referred to has been thus embodied in verse:
THE GUERDON.
Alain, the poet, fell asleep one day
In the lords’ chamber, when it chanced the queen
With her twelve maids of honor passed that way,—
She like a slim white lily set between
Twelve glossy leaves, for they were robed in green.