His friend fell on his heart, and said with vivid conviction, “We do not go out! Farewell a thousand times. We shall meet where there is no parting. By my soul! we do not go out. Farewell, farewell.”
And so they parted. Henry passed slowly and with drooping arms through the footpaths between the stubble-fields, raising neither hand nor eye, that he might give no sign of sorrow. But a deep grief fell on Siebenkæs, for men who rarely shed tears shed all the more when they do weep. So he went to his house and laid his weary melting heart to rest on his wife’s untroubled breast (there was not even a dream stirring it). But far on into the forecourt of the world of dreams did the thought of the days in store for Lenette attend him—and of his friend’s night journey under the stars, which he would be looking up at without any hope of ever being nearer to them; and it was chiefly for his friend that his tears flowed fast.
Oh ye two friends—thou who art out in the darkness there, and thou who art here at home! But wherefore should I be continually harping back upon the old emotion which you have once more awakened in me—the same which in old days used to penetrate and refresh me so when I read as a lad about the friendship of a Swift, an Arbuthnott and a Pope in their letters? Many another heart must have been fired and aroused as mine was at the contemplation of the touching, calm affection which the hearts of these men felt for one another; cold, sharp, and cutting to the outer world, in the inner land which was common to them they could work and beat for each other; like lofty palm trees, presenting long sharp spines towards the common world below them, but at their summits full of the precious palm-wine of strong friendship.
So, in their lesser degree, I think we may find something of a similar kind to like and to admire in our two friends, Leibgeber and Siebenkæs. We need not inquire very closely into the causes which brought about their friendship; for it is hate, not love, which needs to be explained and accounted for. The sources whence everything that is good wells forth from this universe upwards to God himself, are veiled by a night all thick with stars; but the stars are very far away.
These two men, while as yet in the fresh, green springtime of university life, at once saw straight through each other’s breasts into each other’s hearts, and they attracted each other with their opposite poles. What chiefly delighted Siebenkæs was Leibgeber’s firmness and power, and even his capability of anger, as well as his flights and laughter over every kind of sham grandeur, sham fine feeling, sham scholarship. Like the condor, he laid the eggs (of his act or of his pregnant saying) in no nest, but on the bare rock, preferring to live without a name, and consequently always taking some other than his own. On which account the poor’s advocate used to tell him, ten times over, the two following anecdotes, just to enjoy his irritation at them.
The first was, that a German professor in Dorpat, who was delivering a eulogistic address on the subject of the reigning grand duke Alexander, suddenly stopped in the middle of it, and gazed for a long time in silence on a bust of that potentate, saying at length, “The speechless heart has spoken.”
The second was that Klopstock sent finely got-up copies of his ‘Messiah’ to schoolporters, with the request that the most deserving among them might scatter spring-flowers on the grave of his own old teacher, Stubel, while softly pronouncing his (Klopstock’s) name. To which, if Leibgeber had anything to adduce on the subject, Siebenkæs would go on to add that the poet had called up four new porters to give them three readings apiece from his ‘Messiah,’ rewarding each with a gold medal provided by a friend. After telling him this he would look to see Leibgeber’s foaming and stamping at a person’s thus worshipping himself as a species of reliquary full of old fingers and bones.
What Leibgeber, on the other hand,—more like the Morlacks, who, as Towinson and Forlis tell us, though they have but one word to express both revenge and sanctification (osveta), do yet have their friends betrothed to them with a blessing at the altar—chiefly delighted in and loved about his satirical foster-brother was the diamond brooch which in his case pinned together poetry, kindly temper, and a stoicism which scorned this world’s absurdities. And lastly, each of them daily enjoyed the gratification of knowing that the other understood him completely and wonderfully, whether he were in jest or in earnest. But it is not every friend who meets with another of this stamp.
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER II.
GOVERNMENT OF THE IMPERIAL MARKET BOROUGH OF KUHSCHNAPPEL.