It was a week of delicious happiness, niched amid the eternal mountains, fused with skies and waters.
With an accommodating chaperon who knew no German, the couple could do and say what they pleased. Lassalle, throwing off the heavy burdens of prophet and politician, alternated between brilliant lover and happy-hearted boy. It was almost a honeymoon. Now they were children with all the overflowing endearments of plighted lovers. Now they were on the heights of intellect, talking poetry and philosophy, and reading Lassalle's works; now they were discussing Balzac's Physiologie du Mariage. Anon Lassalle was a large dog, gambolling before his capricious mistress. "Lie down, sir," she cried once, as he was reading a poem to her. And with peals of Homeric laughter Ferdinand declared she had found the only inoffensive way of silencing him. "If ever I displease you in future, you have only to say, 'Lie down, sir!'" And he began barking joyously.
And in the glow of this happiness his sense of political defeat evaporated. He burgeoned, expanded, flung back his head in the old, imperial way. "By God!" he said, marching up and down the room feverishly, "you have chosen no mean destiny. Have you any idea of what Ferdinand Lassalle's wife will be? Look at me!" He stood still. "Do I look a man to be content with the second rôle in the State? Do you think I give the sleep of my nights, the marrow of my bones, the strength of my lungs, to draw somebody else's chestnuts out of the fire? Do I look like a political martyr? No! I wish to act, to fight, and also to enjoy the crown of victory, to place it on your brow."
A vision of the roaring streets and floral arches of the Rhenish cities flashed past him. "Chief of the People, President of the German Republic,—there's the only true sovereignty. That was what kings were once—giants of brain and brawn. King—one who knows, one who can! Headship is for the head. What is this mock dignity that stands on the lying breaths of winking courtiers? What is this farcical, factitious glamour that will not bear the light of day? The Grace of God? Ay, give me god-like manhood, and I will bend the knee. But to ask me to worship a stuffed purple robe on a worm-eaten throne! 'Tis an insult to manhood and reason. Hereditary kingship! When you can breed souls as you breed racehorses it will be time to consider that. Stand here by my side before this mirror. Is not that a proud, a royal couple? Did not Nature fashion these two creatures in a holiday mood of joy and intoxication? Vive la République and its Queen with the golden locks!"
"Vive la République and its eagle King!" she cried, intoxicated, yet with more of dramatic enjoyment than of serious conviction.
"Bravo! You believe in our star! Since I met you I see it shining clearer over the heights. We mount, we mount, peak beyond peak. We have enemies enough now, thick as the serpents in tropic forests. Well, let them soil with their impure slaver the hem of our garments. But how they will crawl fangless when Ferdinand—the Elect of the People—makes his solemn entry into Berlin. And at his side, drawn by six white horses, his blonde darling, changed into the first woman of Germany." He, too, though to him the fancy was real enough for the moment, enjoyed it with a certain artistic aloofness.
XII
In honor of the fiancés—for such they openly avowed themselves, Geneva and Helene's family being sufficiently distant to be temporarily forgotten—the American Consul at Berne gave a charming dinner. There was a gallant old Frenchman, a honey-tongued Italian, a pervasive air of complimentary congratulation. Helene returned to her hotel, thrilling with pleasure and happy auguries. The night was soft and warm. Before undressing she leaned out of the window of her room on the ground floor, and gazed upon the eternal glaciers, sparkling like silver under the full moon. Through every sense she drank in the mystery and perfume of the night, till her spirit seemed at one with the stars and the mountains. Suddenly she felt two mighty arms clasped about her. Lassalle stood outside. Her heart throbbed violently.
"Hush!" he said, "don't be frightened. I will stay outside here, good and quiet, till you are tired and say, 'Lie down, sir!' Then I will go!"
"My gentle Romeo!" she whispered, and bent her fragrant lips to meet his—the divine kiss of god and goddess in the divine night. "My Ferdinand!" she breathed. "If we should be parted after all. I tremble to think of it. My father will never consent."