Thou teachest me, dear Philippina, that the noblest feelings do not always exclude vanity, and that, except the business of loving thee, I can have no better than that of scolding thee--and thy medical adviser, Fenk, too, who indulges toward thee in too great a degree his reckless humor; fortunately she is still at an age, when maidens always love the one they have talked with longest, and when their heart, like the magnet, lets the old iron drop, when one applies to it a new one.
Beata and Gustavus touched each other's sore souls like two snow-flakes; even in the voice and in the movement was pictured a tender, forbearing, honorable, self-sacrificing reserve. O if even the denials of coquetry itself give so much, how much more must the present ones of virtue give!
The afternoon had sped away on the wings of the butterflies, which sought by our side their lower flowers; the conversation like the eyes, increased in interest, and we sauntered (or shall I write sawntered?)[[95]] along on the terraced alley which winds round the mountain like a girdle and in which the eye can pass over the hedges of the vale into the pastures. Toward the west a tempest strode across the heavens with its thunder-tread and hung its bier-cloth of black cloud over the sun. The country looked like the life of a great but unhappy man; one mountain glowed under the sun's fiery glance, the other darkled under the descending night of a cloud--over in the western region there pealed forth in the heavens instead of the song of birds the heavenly pedal, the thunder, and in rows of white water-columns the warm rain came down from heaven and filled again its flower-cups and summits out of which it had ascended--it was to the soul as solemn as if a throne were set up for God and all were waiting for him to come down and sit thereon.
Gustavus and Beata, swallowed up in this heaven, went forward on the terrace; the Doctor, my sister, and I at a little distance behind them. At last single rain drops pattered down on the foliage of the alley, which flew and fell over us out of the border of the broad storm-cloud; thus does a thundering, lightning-flashing calamity of a neighborhood only sprinkle the distant lands with a few tears, that steal from the eye of sympathy. We all betook ourselves to the shelter of the nearest trees. Gustavus and Beata stood, for the first time, again in many months, alone beside each other, without ear-witnesses, though with eye-witnesses not far off. They faced the west and were silent. There are situations, in which man feels himself too great to start a conversation, or to be polite or to make allusions. Both remained mute, till Gustavus in the hottest solstice of his emotions turned round from the deluged western country toward the eyes of Beata--hers raised themselves slowly and openly to his and the lips beneath them remained quiet and her soul was with no one but God and virtue.
The cloud had emptied itself and disappeared. The Doctor had to hurry home. No one could break from his blissful silence. In this perfect silence we had all come down the terrace--and everything had already gone from under its leafy umbrella--when, all at once, the low sun blazed through the black cloud canopy and rent it asunder, and flung the funereal veil of the tempest far back and gleamed over us and over the glistening thickets and every fiery bush.... All birds screamed, all human creatures were mute--the earth became a sun--the heavens trembled tearfully over the earth for joy and embraced her with hot, immeasurable rays of light.
The landscape burned around us in the heavenly rain of fire; but our eyes saw it not and hung blindly on the great sun. In the effort to set the heart free from blood and joy, Gustavus's hand sank into Beata's--he knew not what he took--she knew not what she gave--and their present feelings were exalted far above insignificant refusals. At last the thunder-beset sun laid himself down like a philosopher under the cool earth, his evening glow calmly reposed under the flashes of the retiring tempest, he seemed like a soul gone to God and a clap of thunder followed his death.
Twilight came on.... Nature was a mute prayer.... Man stood more sublime therein, like a sun; for his heart apprehended the speech of God.... But when that language comes into the heart and it grows too great for its breast and its world, then does the great genius whom it thinks and loves breathe the tranquillizing love of humanity into the stormy bosom and the infinite lets himself be tenderly loved by us in the person of the finite....
Gustavus felt the hand which pulsed in his and struggled to escape from it--he held it more faintly and looked back into the loveliest eyes--his own begged Beata in an infinitely touching manner for forgiveness of the past days and seemed to say: "O! in this blissful hour take my last sorrow away also!"--And now when, in a tone that was as much as a good deed, he asked softly: "Beata?" and when he could say no more and she turned her blushing face to the earth and ceased to draw her hand out of his, and with deep emotion looked up again and showed him the tear that said to him: "I will forgive thee;" then the two souls which were still greater than the nature around them became two angels and they felt the heaven of the angels; they stood silent, lost in endless gratitude and rapture. At length, agitated with reverent joy, he took her trembling arm and joined us.
The Sabbath closed with silent thoughts, silent raptures, silent recollections and a still rain out of all discharged tempests.