“Here thou art unjust to him!” interrupted his wife; “do not place a fine upon him, else I will place thee in a vaudeville! Thy life is in politics; our cousin’s in theatrical life; Wilhelm’s in thorough-bass; and Mr. Thostrup’s in learned subjects. Each of you is thus a little nail in the different world-wheels; whoever despises others shows that he considers his wheel the first, or imagines that the world is a wheelbarrow, which goes upon one wheel! No, it is a more complicated machine.”
Later in the evening, when the company broke up, Otto and Wilhelm went together.
“I do not think,” said Wilhelm, “that thou hast yet said thou to me. Is it not agreeable to thee?”
“It was my own wish, my own request,” replied Otto. “I have not remarked what expressions I have employed.” He remained silent. Wilhelm himself seemed occupied with unusual thoughts, when he suddenly exclaimed: “Life is, after all, a gift of blessings! One should never make one’s self sorrows which do not really exist! ‘Carpe diem,’ said old Horace.”
“That will we!” replied Otto; “but now we must first think of our examination.”
They pressed each other’s hands and parted.
“But I have heard no thou!” said Wilhelm to himself “He is an oddity, and yet I love him! In this consists, perhaps, my own originality.”
He entered his room, where the hostess had been cleaning, and had arranged the books and papers in the nicest order. Wilhelm truly called it disorder; the papers in confusion and the books in a row. The lamp even had a new place; and this was called order!
Smiling, he seated himself at the piano; it was so long since they had said “Good day” to each other! He ran over the keys several times, then lost himself in fantasies. “That is lovely!” he exclaimed. “But it is not my property! What does it belong to? It melts into my own feelings!” He played it again. It was a thema out of “Tancredi,” therefore from Rossini, even the very composer whom our musical friends most looked down upon; how could he then guess who had created those tones which now spoke to his heart? His whole being he felt penetrated by a happiness, a love of life, the cause of which he knew not. He thought of Otto with a warmth which the latter’s strange behavior did not deserve. All beloved beings floated so sweetly before his mind. This was one of those moments which all good people know; one feels one’s self a member of the great chain of love which binds creation together.
So long as the rose-bud remains folded together it seems to be without fragrance; yet only one morning is required, and the fine breath streams from the crimson mouth. It is only one moment; it is the commencement of a new existence, which already has lain long concealed in the bud: but one does not see the magic wand which works the change. This spiritual contrast, perhaps, took place in the past hour; perhaps the last evening rays which fell upon the leaves concealed this power! The roses of the garden must open; those of the heart follow the same laws. Was this love? Love is, as poets say, a pain; it resembles the disease of the mussel, through which pearls are formed. But Wilhelm was not sick; he felt himself particularly full of strength and enjoyment of life. The poet’s simile of the mussel and the pearl sounds well, but it is false. Most poets are not very learned in natural history; and, therefore, they are guilty of many errors with regard to it. The pearl is formed on the mussel not through disease; when an enemy attacks her she sends forth drops in her defense, and these change into pearls. It is thus strength, and not weakness, which creates the beautiful. It would be unjust to call love a pain, a sickness; it is an energy of life which God has planted in the human breast; it fills our whole being like the fragrance which fills each leaf of the rose, and then reveals itself among the struggles of life as a pearl of worth.