Memories: A Story of German Love

by F. Max Müller

Suddenly an image approached me as it were from life; she stood before me, not like a memory but as a vision, and I realized for the first time how beautiful she was. It was not that beauty of form and face which dazzles us at the first sight of a lovely maiden, and then fades away as suddenly as a blossom in spring. It was much more the harmony of her whole being, the reality of every emotion, the spirituality of expression, the perfect union of body and soul which blesses him so who looks upon it. The beauty which nature lavishes so prodigally does not bring any satisfaction, if the person is not adapted to it and as it were deserves and overcomes it. On the other hand, it is offensive, as when we look upon an actress striding along the stage in queenly costume, and notice at every step how poorly the attire fits her, how little it becomes her. True beauty is sweetness, and sweetness is the spiritualizing of the gross, the corporeal and the earthly. It is the spiritual presence which transforms ugliness into beauty. The more I looked upon the vision which stood before me, the more I perceived, above all else, the majestic beauty of her person and the soulful depths of her whole being. Oh, what happiness was near me! And was this all—to be shown the summit of earthly bliss and then be thrust out into the flat, sandy wastes of existence? Oh, that I had never known what treasures the earth conceals! Once to love, and then to be forever alone! Once to believe, and then forever to doubt! Once to see the light, and then forever to be blinded! In comparison with this rack, all the torture-chambers of man are insignificant.

Thus rushed the wild chase of my thoughts farther and farther away until at last all was silent. The confused sensations gradually collected and settled. This repose and exhaustion they call meditation, but it is rather an inspection—one allows time for the mixture of thoughts to crystallize themselves according to eternal laws, and regards the process like an observing chemist; and the elements having assumed a form, we often wonder that they, as well as ourselves, are so entirely different from what we expected.

When I awoke from my abstraction, my first words were, "I must away." I immediately sat down and wrote the Hofrath that I should travel for fourteen days and submit entirely to him. I easily made an excuse to my parents, and at night I was on my way to the Tyrol.

SEVENTH MEMORY.

Wandering, arm in arm with a friend, through the valleys and over the mountains of the Tyrol, one sips life's fresh air and enjoyment; but to travel the same road solitary and alone with your thoughts is time and trouble lost. Of what interest to me are the green mountains, the dark ravines, the blue lake, and the mighty cataracts? Instead of contemplating them they look at me and wonder among themselves at this solitary being. It smote me to the heart that I had found no one in all the world who loved me more than all others. With such thoughts I awoke every morning, and they haunted me all the day like a song which one cannot drive away. When I entered the inn at night and sat down wearied, and the people in the room watched me, and wondered at the solitary wanderer, it often urged me out into the night again, where no one could see I was alone. At a late hour I would steal back, go quietly up to my room and throw myself upon my hot bed, and the song of Schubert's would ring through my soul until I went to sleep: "Where thou art not, is happiness." At last the sight of men, whom I continually met laughing, rejoicing and exulting in this glorious nature, became so intolerable that I slept by day, and pursued my journey from place to place in the clear moonlight nights. There was at least one emotion which dispelled and dissipated my thoughts: it was fear. Let any one attempt to scale mountains alone all night long in ignorance of the way—where the eye, unnaturally strained, beholds distant shapes it cannot solve—where the ear, with morbid acuteness, hears sounds without knowing whence they come—where the foot suddenly stumbles, it may be over a root which forces its way through the rocks, or on a slippery path which the waterfall has drenched with its spray—and besides all this, a disconsolate waste in the heart, no memory to cheer us, no hope to which we may cling—let any one attempt this, and he will feel the cold chill of night both outwardly and inwardly. The first fear of the human heart arises from God forsaking us; but life dissipates it, and mankind, created after the image of God, consoles us in our solitariness. When even this consolation and love, however, forsake us, then we feel what it means to be deserted by God and man, and nature with her silent face terrifies rather than consoles us. Even when we firmly plant our feet upon the solid rocks, they seem to tremble like the mists of the sea from which they once slowly emerged. When the eye longs for the light, and the moon rises behind the firs, reflecting their tapering tops against the bright rock opposite, it appears to us like the dead hand of a clock which was once wound up, and will some day cease to strike. There is no retreat for the soul, which feels itself alone and forsaken even among the stars, or in the heavenly world itself. One thought brings us a little consolation: the repose, the regularity, the immensity, and the unavoidableness of nature. Here, where the waterfall has clothed the gray rocks on either side with green moss, the eye suddenly recognizes a blue forget-me-not in the cool shade. It is one of millions of sisters now blossoming along all the rivulets and in all the meadows of earth, and which have blossomed ever since the first morning of creation shed its entire inexhaustible wealth over the world. Every vein in its leaves, every stamen in its cup, every fibre of its roots, is numbered, and no power on earth can make the number more or less. Still more, when we strain our weak eyes and, with superhuman power, cast a more searching glance into the secrets of nature, when the microscope discloses to us the silent laboratory of the seed, the bud and the blossom, do we recognize the infinite, ever-recurring form in the most minute tissues and cells, and the eternal unchangeableness of Nature's plans in the most delicate fibre. Could we pierce still deeper, the same form-world would reveal itself, and the vision would lose itself as in a hall hung with mirrors. Such an infinity as this lies hidden in this little flower. If we look up to the sky, we see again the same system—the moon revolving around the planets, the planets around suns, and the suns around new suns, while to the straining eye the distant star-nebulae themselves seem to be a new and beautiful world. Reflect then how these majestic constellations periodically revolve, that the seasons may change, that the seed of this forget-me-not may shed itself again and again, the cells open, the leaves shoot out, and the blossoms decorate the carpet of the meadow; and look upon the lady-bug which rocks itself in the blue cup of the flower, and whose awakening into life, whose consciousness of existence, whose living breath, are a thousand-fold more wonderful than the tissue of the flower, or the dead mechanism of the heavenly bodies. Consider that thou also belongest to this infinite warp and woof, and that thou art permitted to comfort thyself with the infinite creatures which revolve and live and disappear with thee. But if this All, with its smallest and its greatest, with its wisdom and its power, with the wonders of its existence, and the existence of its wonders, is the work of a Being in whose presence thy soul does not shrink back, before whom thou fallest prostrate in a feeling of weakness and nothingness, and to whom thou risest again in the feeling of His love and mercy—if thou really feelest that something dwells in thee more endless and eternal than the cells of the flowers, the spheres of the planets, and the life of the insect—if thou recognizest in thyself as in a shadow the reflection of the Eternal which illuminates thee—if thou feelest in thyself, and under and above thyself, the omnipresence of the Real, in which thy seeming becomes being, thy trouble, rest, thy solitude, universality—then thou knowest the One to Whom thou criest in the dark night of life: "Creator and Father, Thy will be done in Heaven as upon earth, and as on earth so also in me." Then it grows bright in and about thee. The daybreak disappears with its cold mists, and a new warmth streams through shivering nature. Thou hast found a hand which never again leaves thee, which holds thee when the mountains tremble and moons are extinguished. Wherever thou may'st be, thou art with Him, and He with thee. He is the eternally near, and His is the world with its flowers and thorns, His is man with his joys and sorrows. "The least important thing does not happen except as God wills it."

With such thoughts I went on my way. At one time, all was well with me; at another, troubled; for even when we have found rest and peace in the lowest depths of the soul, it is still hard to remain undisturbed in this holy solitude. Yes, many forget it after they find it and scarcely know the way which leads back to it.

Weeks had flown, and not a syllable had reached me from her. "Perhaps she is dead and lies in quiet rest," was another song forever on my tongue, and always returning as often as I drove it from me. It was not impossible, for the Hofrath had told me she suffered with heart troubles, and that he expected to find her no more among the living every morning he visited her. Could I ever forgive myself if she had left this world and I had not taken farewell of her, nor told her at the last moment how I loved her? Must I not follow until I found her again in another life, and heard from her that she loved me and that I was forgiven? How mankind defers from day to day the best it can do, and the most beautiful things it can enjoy, without thinking that every day may be the last one, and that lost time is lost eternity! Then all the words of the Hofrath, the last time I saw him, recurred to me, and I felt that I had only resolved to make my sudden journey to show my strength to him, and that it would have been a still more difficult task to have confessed my weakness and remained. It was clear to me that it was my simple duty to return to her immediately and to bear everything which Heaven ordained. But as soon as I had laid the plan for my return journey, I suddenly remembered the words of the Hofrath: "As soon as possible she must go away and be taken into the country." She had herself told me that she spent the most of her time, in summer, at her castle. Perhaps she was there, in my immediate vicinity; in one day I could be with her. Thinking was doing; at daybreak I was off, and at evening I stood at the gate of the castle.

The night was clear and bright. The mountain peaks glistened in the full gold of the sunset and the lower ridges were bathed in a rosy blue. A gray mist rose from the valleys which suddenly glistened when it swept up into the higher regions, and then like a cloud-sea rolled heavenwards. The whole color-play reflected itself in the gently agitated breast of the dark lake from whose shores the mountains seemed to rise and fall, so that only the tops of the trees and the peaks of the church steeples and the rising smoke from the houses defined the limits which separated the reality of the world from its reflection. My glance, however, rested upon only one spot—the old castle—where a presentiment told me I should find her again. No light could be seen in the windows, no footstep broke the silence of the night. Had my presentiment deceived me? I passed slowly through the outer gateway and up the steps until I stood at the fore-court of the castle. Here I saw a sentinel pacing back and forwards, and I hastened to the soldier to inquire who was in the castle. "The Countess and her attendants are here," was the brief reply, and in an instant I stood at the main portal and had even pulled the bell. Then, for the first time, my action occurred to me. No one knew me. I neither could nor dare say who I was. I had wandered for weeks about the mountains, and looked like a beggar. What should I say? For whom should I ask? There was little time for consideration, however, for the door opened and a servant in princely livery stood before me, and regarded me with amazement.

I asked if the English lady, who I knew would never forsake the Countess, was in the castle, and when the servant replied in the affirmative, I begged for paper and ink and wrote her I was present to inquire after the health of the Countess.

The servant called an attendant, who took the letter away. I heard every step in the long halls, and every moment I waited, my position became more unendurable. The old family portraits of the princely house hung upon the walls—knights in full armor, ladies in antique costume, and in the center a lady in the white robes of a nun with a red cross upon her breast. At any other time I might have looked upon these pictures and never thought that a human heart once beat in their breasts. But now it seemed to me I could suddenly read whole volumes in their features, and that all of them said to me: "We also have once lived and suffered." Under these iron armors secrets were once hidden as even now in my own breast. These white robes and the red cross are real proofs that a battle was fought here like that now raging in my own heart. Then I fancied all of them regarded me with pity, and a loftier haughtiness rested on their features as if they would say, Thou dost not belong to us. I was growing uneasy every moment, when suddenly a light step dissipated my dream. The English lady came down the stairs and asked me to step into an apartment. I looked at her closely to see if she suspected my real emotions, but her face was perfectly calm, and without manifesting the slightest expression of curiosity or wonder, she said in measured tones, the Countess was much better to-day and would see me in half an hour.