He hoped, he replied, that very few princesses, even in America, had yet been married, in whose affections he could not have become completely entangled, and that merely from pity for such a poor, tender creature or heraldic beast, pressed under the seal-stamp and then on the contracts, which were often the only children of these marriages. "The young Mothers of the Country are really, like bee-mothers, set up for sale in their queen's prison, and wait to see into what hive the bee-father, or Father of the Country, will this year trade them off again."
A woman cannot possibly comprehend how a man whom she esteems can fall in love, except with her; and she can hardly wait to get sight of his beloved. Quite as curious is she about this man's style in his love,—that is, whether it is of the Flemish or French or Italian school. The Chaplain's wife questioned her confidential guest on this point also.
"My harem," he began, "reaches from this watchtower to the Cape, and away round the globe: Solomon is but a yellow straw-widower compared with me. I have in it even his wives; and, from Eve with her Sodom's Borsdorf-apple down to the latest Eve with an Imperial apple, and even to a marchioness with a mere fruit-piece, they are all in my hold and breast."
A lady excuses esteem for her sex on the ground that she is included therein. Women themselves have not so much as an idea of the peculiarities of their sex.
"But what says the favorite Sultana to this?" asked the Grand Inquisitress.
"She—" He paused, less from embarrassment than as one sunk in the fulness of glowing dreams. "She, of course—" he continued. "I pledge my head, meanwhile, that every youth has two periods, or, at least, moments. In the first, he stakes his head that he would sooner let his heart mould in his thorax or chest, and his poples or knee-joint grow lame, than that either should stir for any other woman than the very best of her sex,—for a real angel, a decided Quinterne.[[37]] He absolutely insists on the highest prize in the marriage Loto,—that is, in the first period; for the second comes, and cheats him out of so much. The female Quinterne would naturally require a male one; and, in case he were that,...
"I am a stupid drawing, an ambe, a double number, I say, and absolutely refuse to let the period have its talk out; but I shall still be on the look-out for the Quinterne.... And here let me ask, What would be the use of being a man if one were not a fool? Well, now, if I should draw the above-mentioned Quinterne,—which, to be sure, without any extravagant hope, I may well presuppose,—I should not be indifferent on the subject, but in raptures. Good heavens! I must instanter be frizzled, and have my profile taken. I should make verses and pas, and both with their traditional pedes (or feet); I should bend myself oftener than a devout monk, to make bows and (where there was anything to gather) bouquets; body, soul, and spirit I should have consist with me of so many finger-tips and feelers, that I should perceive at once (the Quinterne would perceive it still quicker) if our two shadows should come in collision. The touch of the smallest little end of a ribbon would be a good conductor to the electrical ether, which would shoot out from me in lightnings, as she would be charged negatively and I positively; and as to touching her hair, that could not create any less explosion than if a world should fall into the dishevelled[[38]] hair of a bearded comet....
"And yet what does it all amount to, if I have sense, and consider what she deserves, this good creature, this faithful, this undeserved one? What, in fact, were dull verses, sighs, shoes (boots I should put away), one or two hands pressed, a sacrificing heart, but a slight gratial and don gratuit, if thereby a creature was to be obtained who, as I see more and more, has everything belonging to the fairest angel that conducts man through life (invisibleness perhaps excepted); who has all virtues, and arrays them all in beauties; who gleams and gladdens like this spring evening, and yet, like it, conceals her flowers and all her stars, except the star of love; into whose all-powerful and yet gentle harmonica of the heart I would fain be so absorbed in listening; in whose eyes I would behold with such extraordinary delight the tear-drops of the tenderer soul, and the beamings of the loftier one; by whose side I could so fondly remain standing through the whole flying opera buffa and seria[[39]] of life,—so fondly, I say, that so the poor Sebastian might at least, when, in life's holy evening, his shadow grew longer and longer, and the landscape around—him melted away to a broad shadow, and he himself, too, that I might at least behold both shadowy hands," (one of them Flamin was just then holding,) "and exclaim—" (Checking himself:) "Here comes the-old bellows-blower, too, with something in one of his!"
As he could no longer either hide his emotion behind jest, nor the signs of it in his eyes behind some low-hanging linden-leaves, it was a real piece of good luck, that, just at the second when his voice was about to give way to it, he looked over the watch-tower, and saw the coachman come racing over again. The man cried from below, "he had got it from Seebass, but not till this moment." Agatha flew down passionately, and, after reading a billet below, darted off across the meadow. The bellows-blower ascended slowly, like a barometer before settled weather, and lifted himself and the billet he had brought back with him,—not a minute the sooner for all the beckoning overhead there,—with his levers, to the top of the tower. In the billet was written, in Clotilda's hand, "Come to thy bower, beloved friend!"
All eyes now ran after the runner, and fluttered with her through the clear-obscure of evening into the Parsonage, around whose arbor, however, no one could yet be seen. Hardly had Agatha caught sight of the opening of the latter, when her hurrying became flying; and when she was almost up to it, a white form flew out with widespread arms and into hers, but the arbor concealed the end of the embrace, and the eyes of all lingered long in vain expectation up in the cloister of love.