“I desire to lift my hand away from this, my evening paper, to-night for the last time, ere it becomes an absolute martyrology. If one could give away his life as a gift, I should be very happy to give mine to any dying person who would care to accept it. At the same time, let nobody suppose that because there chances to be a total eclipse of the sun above my head, I think, for a moment, that there must be one in America as well; or that I imagine the Gold Coast must be snowed up for the winter because a snowflake or two happen to be falling in front of my own nose. Life is warm and beautiful; even mine was so once. If it must be that I am to melt away, even before these snowflakes, I beg of my heirs, and of all Christian people, that they will not publish any part of my selection from the ‘Devil’s Papers,’ except that which I have copied out fair, which extends as far as the ‘Satire upon Women’ (inclusively). And as regards this diary of mine, in which one or two satirical fancies crop out here and there, I beg, also, that not a single one of these may be put into print.
“Should any curious inquirer into the history of this day-and-night-book of mine be anxious to discover what the heavy weights, the nests, the clothes hung out to dry upon my branches, really consisted of, that they should so bend my top shoot and my branches down (and all the more curious to know it, inasmuch as I have written humorous satires)—(though, indeed, my sole object has been to nourish and support myself by help of these satire prickles of mine, absorbent vessels, to me, like those of the torch-thistle), I beg to inform him that he seeks to know more than I know myself, and more than I mean to tell. For man and the horseradish are most biting when grated; and the satirist is sadder than the jester, for the same reason that the Urang-Utang is more melancholy than the ape, namely, because he is nobler. If this paper does really reach your hands, my Henry, my beloved, and you wish to hear somewhat concerning the hail which has kept falling deeper and deeper upon my young seed-crop—count not the melted hailstones, but the broken stalks. I have nothing left to give me joy, save your affection—everything else is battered down into ruin. Since, for more reasons than one,[[59]] it is most unlikely that I shall ever come to you at Bayreuth, let us part, on this page, like spirits, giving each other hands of air. I detest the sentimental, but Fate has wellnigh grafted it on to me at last, in spite of myself, and I swallow great spoonsful of that satiric Glauber’s salt, which is generally so good a remedy for it—as sheep, who have caught the rot from feeding in damp meadows, are cured by licking salt. I say I swallow great spoonsful, about the size of my prizes at the bird-shooting, without the least perceptible effect. But, on the whole, it matters little. Fate, unlike our Sheriffs’ Courts, does not wait until we are well before she inflicts her sentence. My giddiness and other premonitory symptoms of apoplexy, give me to understand, with sufficient clearness, that I shall soon be subjected to a good Galenian blood-letting,[[60]] by way of remedy for the nose-bleedings of this life. I cannot say that I am particularly glad of it, or anxious for it. On the contrary, I am annoyed with people who demand that Fate shall at once unswaddle them (for we are swaddled in our bodies, the nerves and arteries being the swaddling-bands)—as a mother does her infant just because it cries, and has a little pain in its stomach. I should be glad to remain swaddled for a while to come among the rest of the ‘Children of the Rope,’[[61]] particularly as I cannot but fear that, in the next world, I shall be able to make little or no use of my satirical humour. However, I shall have to go. But when that comes to pass, I should like to ask you, Henry, to come some day to this town, and make them uncover your friend’s quiet face, which will scarce manage to put on the Hippocratic mien again. Then, my Henry, when you gaze long upon the grey, spotty, new moon-face there, and think that very little sunshine ever fell thereon—no sunshine of love, of fame, or fortune—you will not be able to look up to heaven, and cry out to God, ‘And now, at last, after all his sorrows and troubles, Thou, O God, hast annihilated him altogether; when he stretched his arms, in death, towards Thee, and that world of thine, Thou hast broken him in sunder as he lies there—poor soul!’ No, Henry, when I die, you will be compelled to believe in Immortality.
“Now that I have finished this ‘Evening Paper’ of mine, I am going to put out the light, for the full moon is shedding broad, imperial sheets of brightness into the room. Then, as there is no one else awake in the house, I will sit down in the twilight stillness, and, while I gaze at the moon’s white magic amid the black magic of night, and listen to great flocks of birds of passage as they come flying hither from warmer lands through the blue, clear moonlight—while I am passing away into a sister country—I will stretch my feelers out from my snail’s shell once more before the last frost closes it up for ever. Henry, I want to picture to myself to-night, clearly and brightly, all that is now over and past; the May of our friendship—every evening when we were too much moved by emotion and could not but fall into each other’s arms—my hopes, so old and grey now that I hardly know them to be mine—five old, but bright and happy, springs which I still remember—my dead mother, who, when she was dying, gave me a lemon, which she thought would be put into her coffin, and said, ‘Ah, I wish it were going into my bridal garland.’ And I will picture to myself, also, that moment, now so near, of my own death, when thy image will rise before the broken sight of my soul for the last time—when I shall part from thee, and, with a dark, inward pang, which can no more bring a tear into my cold and glazing eyes, sink away from thy shadowy form into the dark, and from amid the thick and heavy clouds of death, call to thee with a faint and hollow cry, ‘Henry, good-night! good-night! Ah, fare thee well! for I can say no more.’”
End of the ‘Evening Paper.’
CHAPTER XII.
THE FLIGHT OUT OF EGYPT—THE GLORIES OF TRAVEL—THE UNKNOWN—BAYREUTH—BAPTISM IN A STORM—NATHALIE AND THE HERMITAGE—THE MOST IMPORTANT CONVERSATION IN ALL THIS BOOK—AN EVENING OF FRIENDSHIP.
Once, in the Easter week, when Firmian came home from a half-hour’s pleasure-trip full of forced marches, Lenette asked him why he had not come back sooner, because the postman had been with a great, enormous packet, and had said that the husband must sign the receipt for it himself. In a small establishment like Siebenkæs’ an occurrence such as this ranks among the world’s greatest events, or the principal revolutions in its history. The moments of waiting lay on their souls like cupping-glasses and drawing plasters. At length the postman, in his yellow uniform, put an end to the bitter-sweet hemp beating of their arteries. Firmian acknowledged the receipt of fifty dollars, while Lenette asked the postman who had sent them, and where they came from. The letter commenced thus:—
“My dear Siebenkæs,
“I have received your ‘Evening Paper’ and ‘Devil’s Selections’ all safely. The rest by word of mouth.