Wrap up well! He wrapped one up in himself!
Half fascinated, half panting for free air, but wholly flattered and enamoured, she wrote at once to break off with Janko and surrender to her Satanic Ferdinand.
"Yes, friend Satan, the child wills! A drop of your diabolical blood has passed into her veins. I am yours for life. But first try reasonable means. Make my parents' acquaintance, cover up your horns and tail, try and win me like a bourgeois. If that fails, there is always Egypt. But quick, quick: I cannot bear scenes and delays and comments. Once we are married, let society stare. With you to lean on I snap my fingers at the world. The obstacles are gigantic, but you are also a giant, who with God's help smashes rocks to sand, that even my breath can blow away. I must stab the beautiful dream of a noble youth, but even this—frightfully painful for me as it is—I do for you. I say nothing of the disappointment to my parents, of the pain of all I love and respect. I am writing to Holthoff, my father-confessor. We must have him for us, with us, near us. God has destined us for each other."
A telegram replied: "Bravissimo! I am on my way to join you."
And to the Countess, fighting rheumatism at the waters of Wildbad in the Black Forest, he wrote: "The rain has passed, the long fog has gone. The mountains stand out mighty and dazzling, peak beyond peak, like the heights of a life. What a sunset! The Eiger seemed wrapped in a vapor of burning gold. My sufferings are nearly all wiped out. I am joyous, full of life and love. And I have also finished at last with that terrible correspondence for the Union. Seventy-six pages of minute writing have I sent to Berlin yesterday and to-day, and I breathe again. In my yesterday's letter I broke Helene to you. It is extraordinarily fortunate that on the verge of forty I should be able to find a wife so beautiful, so sympathetic, who loves me so much, and who, as you and I agreed was indispensable, is entirely absorbed in my personality. In your last letter you throw cold water on my proposed journey to Hamburg; and perhaps you are right in thinking the coup I planned not so great and critical as I have been imagining. But how you misunderstand my motives when you write: 'Cannot you, till your health is re-established, find contentment for a while in science, in friendship, in Nature?' You think politics the breath of my nostrils. Ah, how little you are au fait with me! I desire nothing more ardently than to be quite rid of all politics, and to devote myself to science, friendship, and Nature. I am sick and tired of politics. Truly I would burn as passionately for them as any one, if there were anything serious to be done, or if I had the power or saw the means, a means worthy of me; for without supreme power nothing can be done. For child's play, however, I am too old and too great. That is why I very reluctantly undertook the Presidentship. I only yielded to you, and that is why it now weighs upon me terribly. If I were but rid of it, this were the moment I should choose to go to Naples with you. But how to get rid of it? For events, I fear, will develop slowly, so slowly, and my burning soul finds no interest in these children's maladies and petty progressions. Politics means actual, immediate activity. Otherwise one can work just as well for humanity by writing. I shall still try to exercise at Hamburg a pressure upon events. But up to what point it will be effective I cannot say. Nor do I promise myself much from it. Ah, could I but get out of it!
"Helene is a wonderful creature, the only personality I could wed. She looks forward to your friendship. I know it. For I am a good observer of women without seeming to be. That dear enfant du diable, as everybody calls her at Geneva, has a deep sympathy for you, because she is, as Goethe puts it, an original nature. Only one fault—but gigantic. She has no Will. But if we became husband and wife, that would cease to be a fault. I have enough Will for two, and she would be the flute in the hands of the artist. But till then—"
The Countess showed herself a kind Cassandra. His haste, she replied, would ruin his cause. He had to deal with Philistines. The father was a man of no small self-esteem—he had been the honored tutor of Maximilian II., and was now in high favor at the Bavarian court, even controlling university and artistic appointments. A Socialist would be especially distasteful to him. Twenty years ago Varnhagen von Ense had heard him lecture on Communism—good-humoredly, wittily, shrugging shoulders at these poor, fantastic fools who didn't understand that the world was excellently arranged centuries before they were born. Helene herself, with her weak will, would be unable to outface her family. Before approaching the parents, had he not better wait the final developments of his law-case? If he had to leave Germany temporarily to escape the imprisonment, would not that be a favorable opportunity for prosecuting his love-affairs in Switzerland? And what a pity to throw up his milk-cure! "Enfin, I wish you success, mon cher enfant, though I will only put complete trust in my own eyes. In feminine questions you have neither reason nor judgment."
Lassalle's response was to enclose a pretty letter from Helene, pleading humbly for the Countess's affection. Together let them nurse the sick eagle. She herself was but a child, and would lend herself to any childish follies to drive the clouds from his brow. She would try to comprehend his magnificent soul, his giant mind, and in happiness or in sorrow would remain faithful and firm at his side.
The Countess knit her brow. Then Lassalle was already with this Helena in Berne.