Around the weeping-birch swelled an unaccountable melodious murmur, which he had this very day heard on the island. At length he stood up there under the birch, and the music, like that of an harmonica which has just stolen over paradises and through hedges of flowers, was loud around him; but he saw nothing further, save a high grassy altar (the birthplace of Emanuel's letter) and a low grassy bench. From what invisible hand, he thought with awe, can these tones issue, which seem to glide off from angels, as they fly over the next world, from mingling souls, when a too great bliss breathes itself out into a sigh, and the sigh dissipates itself into distant dying sound? It must be forgiven him, if on such a day, which threw his soul into growing agitations, in this awful hour of night, under this melodious mourning-tree, on this Holy of Holies of the invisible Emanuel, he at last came to believe that he had this evening taken his flight from life, and that his soul, full of love, was still floating around him in these echoes and yearnings for the first and last embrace. He lost himself more and more in the tones and in the silence round about them,—his soul grew to a dream within him, and the whole nocturnal landscape grew to a cloud made of the sleep in which this light dream hung,—the fountain of endless life, flung up by the Eternal, flew far above the earth in the immeasurable arch with the spraying silver-sparks of suns over immensity; gleaming it encircled the whole vault of night, and the reflection of the Infinite overspread the dark eternity.
O Eternal One, if we saw not thy starry heaven, how much would our heart, sunk into the mire of earth, know of thee and of immortality?—
Suddenly in the east the night grew lighter, because the floating glimmer of the moon darted up on the Alpine ridges that hid the orb, and all at once the unaccountable tones and the leaves and the night-wind grew louder. Then Victor awoke as out of a dream and out of life, and clasped the harmonious, fleeting airs to his languishing bosom, and, amidst the gushing tears which, like a rain-cloud, veiled from him the whole landscape, he cried out, beside himself: "Ah, Emanuel, come!—Ah, I thirst for thee—Float no more in sound, thou blessed one; take thy deposed human face, and appear to me, and slay me by a shudder, and keep me in thy arms!" ...
Lo! while the dim tear-drop still stood in his eye, and the moon still lingered behind the Alps, there came up the mountain a white form with closed eyes,—smiling, transfigured, blissful,—turning toward Sirius....
"Emanuel, dost thou appear to me?" cried Horion, trembling, and melted into a new flood of tears. The form opened its eyes,—it spread out its arms. Victor saw not,—heard not; he glowed and trembled. The form flew to meet him, and he gave himself up, saying, "Take me!" They touched each other,—they embraced each other,—the night-wind swept through them,—the strange music sounded nearer,—a star shot down,—the moon flew up over the Alps....
And when with its Eden-light it suffused the cheeks of the unknown apparition, Victor recognized that it was his dear teacher, Dahore, who had to-day cast his image into the mirror on the island. And Dahore said: "Beloved son, dost thou still know thy teacher? I am Emanuel and Dahore." Then the embrace grew closer. Horion would fain have compressed his gratitude for a whole childhood into one kiss, and lay dissolved in the arms of the teacher and in the arms of loving ecstasy.
Twine around each other tightly, ye blessed ones; press your full hearts to each other even till you press tears out of them; forget heaven and earth, and prolong the sublime embrace!—Ah! so soon as it is dissolved, then has this frail life henceforward nothing firmer wherewith to knit you together than the beginning of the—second....
At last Emanuel drew himself out of the attitude of love, and, bending aside, gazed like a sun, with large and open look, into Horion's face, and confronted with rapture the ennobled spirit and countenance of his blooming favorite. The latter sank before the look of love involuntarily on his knee, and said, with uplifted face: "O my teacher, my father! O thou angel! dost thou, then, still love me so exceedingly?"—But he wept too much for utterance, and his words were unintelligible, and died in his heart....
Without answering, Emanuel laid his hand on the head of the kneeling pupil, and turned his glorified eye toward the glittering heavens, and said, with solemn voice: "This head, thou Eternal One, dedicates itself now to thee in this great night. Let only thy second world fill this head and this heart, and may the little, dark earth never satisfy them!—O my Horion! here on this mountain, on which, after a year, I go up from the earth, I conjure thee, by the great second world above us, by all the great thoughts wherewith the Eternal at this moment appears in thee,—I conjure thee to be still good, even when I shall have long been dead."
Emanuel knelt down to him, held up the exhausted youth, and bent towards his paling face, and said, in a low and prayerful tone, "My beloved! my beloved! when we both are dead, in the second world may God never part us,—never part me and thee!"—He wept not, and yet could say no more; their two hearts, knit together, rested on each other, and night veiled silently their mute love and their great thoughts.