I continued, however, staring at the open door, momentarily expecting that it would open, and that my horrible double would enter in propria persona. Nothing appeared, however, and I soon recovered from the delirium and horror which had seized upon me.
The physician insisted that I was much worse than I supposed myself to be, and attributed all the mental derangement and wildness that I had betrayed, to the effects of my long imprisonment, and the agitation which, on account of my trial, I must have undergone.
I submissively used whatever sedative remedies he prescribed; but what most of all contributed to my recovery was, that the horrible knocking was not heard any more, and that the intolerable double seemed to have forsaken me altogether.
CHAPTER VI.
The delightful season of spring had now once more returned. Every morning the birds serenaded me at the window of my lodgings, which were in a garden-house, near a street called the Parterre, not far from the river. Doubtless, the year is never so delightful and interesting as when all things are yet undeveloped, and in their prime; when the gardener is yet going about, with his hatchet, and bill-hook, and large sheers, lopping the branches, though the flourishing boughs are already redolent of green buds, that give out their fresh odours in the warm sun. One says to himself—Let the gardener, or pruner, do his worst—let him remove every unprofitable branch, so that the daylight may fall into the most secret recesses, where the loves of a former year have been celebrated and are gone by, yet the trees will, ere long, be in their full luxuriance—all that he has lopped away will soon be more than amply replaced.
It is the season of hope and bright anticipations. Every new flower that rises from the teeming earth, and every bright green leaf that breaks forth along the southern slope of the forest, calls forth responsive feelings of buoyancy and delight in the soul.
Thus it happened, that one morning the vernal sun darted his unclouded golden gleams into my chamber. Sweet odours of flowers streamed through the open window, for the wind was in the south-west. The birds, as usual, cheered me with their songs.
An irresistible longing urged me to go forth, and wander at will through the open country. Despising, therefore, the directions of my physician, I dressed, went down stairs, and betook myself, in the first place, to the Prince's park. There the trees and shrubs, rustling with their new-born green leaves, greeted the weakly convalescent. It seemed as if I had just awoke from a long and heavy dream; and deep sighs were the inexpressive tokens of rapture which I breathed forth, amid the joyous carolling of birds, the humming of insects, and gladness of all nature.
Ay, life itself now appeared to me like a heavy and frightful dream, not only for the time lately passed, but through the whole interval since I had left the convent. I now found myself in a walk, shaded by dark platanus trees, which give out their green leaves very early in the year; and gradually I became lost in reverie. Methought I was once more in the garden of the Capuchin Convent at Königswald. Out of the distant thickets rose already the well-known lofty crucifix, at which I had so often prayed with fervent devotion for strength to resist all temptation.