She had often mentioned this to him, and oftener yet to her sewing-customers. However, he would have forgotten all about it but for the Superintendent-General Ziethen, who had printed a book in which he reminded him of the 11th of February. The superintendent had given due notice, in this work of his, that on the 11th of February, 1786, a segment of South Germany would be sent down, by an earthquake, into the realms below, like so much corn laid by a summer storm. As a consequence, the Kuhschnapplers would have been lowered, upon the dropped coffin-cords or lowered drawbridges of sinking soil, into hell by entire companies at a time, instead of going there as single envoyés, as theretofore was the usage. However, nothing came of all this.
On the day before the earthquake, and before Lenette’s birthday, Firmian repaired to the lifting-crane—the springboard of his soul—namely, the old height where his Henry had taken his farewell. The forms of his friend and wife stood, dim and vague, before his soul’s sight. He thought upon the circumstance that since his friend had left him there had been about the same number of ruptures and divisions in his married life as, according to Moreri, took place in the Church from the time of the Apostles down to Luther’s days, namely, 124. Labourers, innocent and simple, silent and happy, were smoothing the spring’s path. He had passed by gardens where they were clearing the moss and the autumn-leaves away from the trees—by beehives and vine-stocks being transplanted, cleaned, pruned—by osiers being trimmed and dressed. The sun shone bright and warm over the land, all rich with buds; and suddenly he was struck by one of these sensations which often come upon imaginative men—and this is why these are somewhat apt to be a little fanciful and visionary—it seemed to him as if his life dwelt, not in a bodily heart, but in some warm and tender tear, as if his heavy-laden soul were expanding and breaking away through some chink in its prison, and melting into a tone of music—a blue æther wave.
“I must and will forgive her, on her birthday,” cried his softened heart and soul; “I have little doubt that I have been too hard upon her all this time.” He resolved that he would have the Schulrath into the house, and the calico-gown beforehand, and make her a birthday present of the pair, and of a new sewing-cushion. He grasped his watch-chain and pulled out that Elijah’s and Faust’s mantle, which was to bear him away over all his ills by being converted into cash. He went home with every corner of his heart glowing with sunshine, artfully made his watch stop, and told Lenette he must take it to the watchmaker’s to be repaired (and indeed its movements hitherto had been like those of the planets above us, a forward movement at the beginning of the terrestrial or clock-day, afterwards stationary, and latterly retrograde). In this fashion he concealed his projects from her. He took the watch himself to the market-place and sold it, though he knew very well he would never be able to write with comfort unless it was ticking on his table (like the nobleman mentioned by Locke, who could only dance in one particular room, in which there was an old box standing). Also, in the evening, the redeemed, checked shirt-of-blood, or seedbag of evil weeds, was clandestinely introduced into the house. Towards evening Firmian went to the Schulrath, and with all the warmth of his eloquent heart told him of his resolve and everything connected with it—the birthday, the return of the calico, his request to him to come and see them again, his own imminent death, and his resignation to everything. Warm breath of life was breathed into Stiefel, long languishing in absence and love (which, together, had gnawed him into paleness, as lime does the shadows of a fresco), when he heard that on the morrow the beloved voice of his Lenette, longed for during all this weary time (she could hear his, by-the-by, in church, of course), would once more stir the chords of his being.
I must here just glance at a defence, for a moment, as well as an accusation. The former relates to my hero, who seems rather to have rumpled his honour’s patent of nobility to a greater or less extent, by having made this request to Stiefel; but, then, we must consider that his intention in making it was to do a great kindness to his suffering wife, and a small one to himself. The fact is, that the very strongest and roughest of men cannot hold out in the long run against the everlasting feminine sulking and undermining. For the sheer sake of a little peace and quietness, a man who may have sworn a thousand oaths before marriage that he would have his own way in that condition of life, comes, in the long run, to let his wife have hers. The remainder of Siebenkæs’ conduct I have no need to defend, since ’tis not possible to do so, but only necessary. The accusation to which I alluded is against my own fellow-labourers, and it is—that they differ so widely in their romances from this Biography and from real life, in describing the ruptures and reconciliations of their characters as being possible, and as actually occurring, in periods of time so brief that one might stand by and time them with a stop-watch in one’s hand. But a man does not break with a person he loves all in an instant; the rendings alternate with little re-bindings with bands of silk and flowers, till at length the long alternation between seeking and shunning ends in complete separation, and it is then, and not till then, that we wretched creatures are at our wretchedest. The same is generally true of the union of souls; for though at times an unseen infinite Arm seems suddenly to press us upon some new heart, yet we have always long known this heart, in the Gallery of the Saints of our longing devotion and often taken the picture down, uncovered, and adored it. It became impossible to Firmian (sitting in the evening in his lonesome chair of anxiety and suspense) to keep all that love of his waiting with any sort of patience for the morrow. The very restraint which was upon him made his love wax warmer; and when his old familiar fear—that he would die before the equinox came round—fell upon him, it terrified him more than it was wont; but not the thought of death. What shook him was the idea of Lenette’s difficulties, and how she would ever find the money requisite for the performance of the final trial, the anchor-proof[[57]] of his humanity. As it chanced, he had plenty of money among his fingers at this very moment. He sprang up and ran that very evening to the manager of the corpse lottery, so that, at all events, his wife should be entitled to a capital of fifty florins at his death, and be able to cover his body decently over with a little earth. I don’t know the exact sum he paid; but I am quite accustomed to embarrassments of this description, which novel-writers, who can invent any sum they please in a case of this sort, have no idea of, but which are exceedingly troublesome to a writer of actual biography, who does not put down anything which he is not in a position to substantiate by documentary evidence, and a reference to records.
On the morning of the 11th of February, that is to say on the Saturday, Firmian entered his room, feeling very tender-hearted (for every illness and weakness softens our heart—loss of blood, for instance, and trouble), and all the more so because he was looking forward to a kindly, peaceful day. We love much more warmly when we are looking forward to making somebody happy than we do half an hour after, when we have done it. It was as windy this morning as if the gales were holding tournament, or riding at the ring, or as if Æolus were shooting his winds out of air-guns. Hence many people thought either that the earthquake was beginning, or that a few people here and there had hanged themselves for fear of it. Firmian met a pair of eyes in Lenette’s face, from which, even at that early hour, there had fallen a warm blood-rain of tears, on this first of her days. She had not in the slightest degree guessed at his tenderness towards her, or at that which he had in his mind. She had had no thought of anything of the kind; her only idea had been, “Ah, me! since my poor father and mother have been dead and gone, there is not a soul that ever remembers I have a birthday.” Something or other was evidently pre-occupying her. She looked once or twice, very inquiringly, into his eyes, and seemed to be making up her mind to something; so he put off for a time the outpouring of his full heart, and the unveiling of his twofold birthday-present. At last she came up to him slowly, with the colour in her face, tried in a troubled way to get his hand into hers, and said, with downcast eyes, in which, as yet, there were no tears, “We will be friends again to-day. If you have hurt me, and given me a little pain, what I want is to forgive you from my heart. Do you the same to me.” This address rent his warm breast in twain, and at first all he could do was to be dumb, and clasp her in this silence to his o’er-fraught heart, saying, after a time, “Forgive thou me only! for, ah! I love thee far more than thou lovest me.” And here, at the thought of bygone days, the heavy tear-drops rose from the depths of his laden heart, and flowed, silent and slow, as the deep streams flow. She gazed at him much astonished, saying, “We are going to be friends, then, are we, to-day? and it is my birthday. But, ah, me! it is a sad, sad birthday, too.” It was only at this point that he remembered his birthday-present. He ran and brought it that is to say, the cushion, the calico-dress, and the news that Stiefel was coming in the evening. At this she began to shed tears, and said, “Ah! did you really do all this yesterday? And you remembered that this was my birthday? Oh! it was so kind of you, and I do so thank you for it; particularly—particularly—for the delightful—cushion. I never thought you would remember anything about my wretched birthday at all!” His manly, beautiful soul, which kept no watch upon its enthusiasm (as women’s do), told her everything, including the fact that he had joined the corpse-lottery the day before, so that she might be able to put him under ground at less expense. Her emotion became as strong and as visible as his own. “No, no,” she cried at length, “God will preserve you; but, then, there’s this terrible day; who knows if we shall ever see another morning. Tell me, what does Mr. Stiefel think about the earthquake?” “Don’t distress yourself on that score,” said Firmian; “he says there won’t be anything of the kind.”
Reluctantly he let her away from his glowing heart. Until he went out into the free air (for writing was utterly impossible) he gazed continually upon her bright, shining face, whence all the clouds were quite cleared away. He practised upon himself an old trick he had (which I have learnt from him); when he wished to love some dear person very dearly, and forgive him everything, he looked long on his face. For we (that’s to say he and I) see in a human face, when it is old, the finger-board, the counting board, of all the bitter pains and sorrows which have passed so rudely over it; and when it is young, it is like a bed of flowers on the slope of a volcano, whose next eruption will split it into shivers. Either the future or the past is written on every face—making us gentle and tender, if not sad.
Firmian would have been delighted to have held his new-found, restored Lenette to his heart all the day long; at all events till evening came; but her house-work and other occupations were so many bars’ rest in this music, and her lachrymal ducts were sources of appetite, as well as of tears. And she had not the courage to question him concerning the metallic source of his gold-bearing stream, upon whose gentle waves she was floating now. But her husband gladly divulged the secret of the sale of his watch. The actual estate of matrimony was to-day to him what the pre-nuptial period is always—a cymbale d’amour—having a sounding-board at each of its faces which doubles, not the strings of the instrument, but the tone of those it has. The entire day was like a piece cut out of the full moon, unclouded by the slightest haze, or rather out of the second world, into which the people of the moon themselves proceed. Lenette, in her morning glow, was like the (so-called) Moss of Violet Stone—the Iolite—which gives out the perfume of a miniature-bed of violets, if you but rub it till it gets a little warm.
At evening finally appeared the Rath, all a-shake with agitation. He looked just the least bit haughty, but when he tried to wish Lenette many happy returns of the day, he could not do it for tears, which were in his throat quite as much as in his eyes. His embarrassment served to conceal hers; but at length the opaque mist cleared away from among them, and they were able to look at one another. And then they were very happy; Firmian forced himself to be so; the other two required no constraining.
The heavy storm-clouds, then, ceased for a time to hang and sweep so low, as they had been doing of late, over their comforted, softened hearts. The boding comet of the future was shorn of its sword, and went sweeping on, far brighter and whiter, into the blue expanse of heaven, passing athwart more brilliant constellations. And there came into their evening a brief letter from Leibgeber, of which the joy-bringing lines bedeck and adorn our hero’s evening, as well as our next chapter.
Thus did the quick, transient, quivering Flower-pieces of Fantasy mature in the brains of our triple alliance (as in the reader’s own) into actual and living flowers of joy—as the fever-patient takes the flowers patterned upon his waving bed-curtain to be real and tangible forms. In truth, this winter night, like one of summer, would hardly quite cool down and die out on their horizon, and when they parted at midnight they said, “We have all had a very happy time.”