"Ah, I am afraid in there," said she to Albano; "they are all too clever, and I am now so stupid!" He found beside the domestic trio the Princess also, and the little Helena from Lilar, that lovely medallion of a fine day to his stirred heart. Indescribably was he smitten with Liana's womanly advances to Rabette, as if he shared her with her. With courtesy and tenderness, a mildness also, which was without falsehood or pride, came to the help of the embarrassed playmate, on whose face the inborn gayety and eloquence of nature now singularly contrasted with her artificial dumb gravity. Charles, with his ready familiarity, was more in a condition to entangle than to extricate her; only Liana gave to her soul and tongue, if only by the embroidery-frame, a free field; Rabette could write with the embroidering needle, no illuminated and initial letters, indeed, but still a good running-hand.
She gave—turning her face toward her brother's, in order to pluck courage therefrom—a clear report of the dangerous road and upsets, laughing all the while, after the manner of the people when they are telling their mishaps. Her brother was to her, at the company's expense, both company and world; upon him alone streamed forth her warmth and speech. She said she could from her chamber see him "play on the harpsichord." Liana immediately led both thither. How richly and sublimely, beyond Rabette's demands upon city-life, was the maidenly hospitium set out, from the tulip (not a blooming one, but a work-basket of Liana's,—although every tulip is such a basket for the finger of spring) even to the piano-forte, of which she, of course, for the present can use no more than seven treble-keys for half a waltz? Five moderate trunks of clothes—for therewith she thought to come out, and show the city that the country too could wear clothes—represented to him in their well-known flower-pieces and tin bands the old impressions (incunabula) of his earliest days of life; and to-day every trace of the old season of love refreshed him. She made him look for his windows, from one of which the Librarian was fixing a hard gaze on a paving-stone in the street to see how often he could hit it by spitting.
Here alone, in the presence only of the brother, Liana spoke more loudly to the sister the word of friendship, and assured her how happy she meant to make her, and how sincere she was in all that she promised. O look not into the flame of the pure, religious, sisterly love with any yellow eye of jealousy! Can you not comprehend that this fair soul even now distributes its rich flames among all sisterly hearts, until love concentrates them into one sun; as, according to the ancients, the scattered lightnings of night gather themselves in the morning into one solid solar orb? She was, everywhere, an eye for every heart; like a mother, she never once forgot the little in the great; and she poured out (let no one deny me the privilege of printing this minute example) for little Helena the cup of coffee, which the Doctor forbade, half full of cream, in order that it might be without strength or harm.
The impatient Princess had already looked ten times toward the heavens, through which now beams of light, now rain-columns flew, till at length out of the consumed cloud-snow the broad fields of blue grew up, and Julienne could lead out the delighted young people into the garden, to the annoyance of the Minister's lady, who did not like to expose Liana to the Serein,—five or six blasts of the evening-wind, and the wading through rain-water that stood a nineteenth of a line[159] deep. She herself stayed behind. How new-born, glistening, and inviting was all down below! The larks soared out of the distant fields like tones, and warbled near over the garden,—in all the leaves hung stars, and the evening air threw the liquid jewelry, the trembling earrings, from the blossoms down upon the flowers, and bore sweet incense to meet the bees. The Idyl of the year, Spring, parcelled its sweet pastoral land among the young souls. Albano took his sister's hand, but he listened vacantly to her intelligence from home. Liana went far in advance with the Princess, and bathed herself in the open heavens of confidential communion.
Suddenly Julienne stood still, chatting playfully with her, in order to let the Count come up, and to inquire after letters from Don Gaspard, and after tidings of the Countess Romeiro. He communicated, with glowing countenance, the contents of to-day's letter. In Julienne's physiognomy there was a smile almost of raillery. To the intelligence of Linda's intended journey she replied: "That is just herself; she will fain learn everything,—travel over everything. I wager she climbs up on Mont Blanc and into Vesuvius. Liana and I call her, for this reason, the Titaness." How graciously did Liana listen, with her eyes wholly on her female friend! "You are not acquainted with her?" she inquired of the tortured one. He answered, emphatically, in the negative. Roquairol came up; "Passéz, Monsieur," said she, making room, and giving him a sign to move on. Liana looked very earnestly after. "La voici!" said Julienne, letting the cover of a likeness spring up, by a pressure, on a ring of her little hand. Good youth! it was exactly the form which arose, that magic night, out of Lago Maggiore, sent to thee by the spirits! "She is hit there, exactly," said she to the agitated man. "Very," said he, confusedly. She did not investigate this contradictory[160] "very"; but Liana looked at him; "very—beautifully and boldly!" he continued; "but I do not love boldness in women." "O, one can readily believe that of men!" replied Julienne; "no hostile power loves it in the other party."
They passed along now through the chestnut avenue by the holy spot where Albano had seen, for the first time, the bride of his hopes shining and suffering behind the water-jets. O it was here that he would gladly, with that soul of his painfully excited by the mutual reaction of wonderful circumstances, have knelt down before the still angel so near him! The tender Julienne perceived that she had to spare an agitated heart; after a tolerably loud silence, she said, in a serious tone: "A lovely evening,—we'll go to the water-house. There is where Liana was cured, Count! The fountains must leap, too." "O the fountains!" said Albano, and looked with indescribable emotion upon Liana. She thought, however, he meant those in the flute-dell. Helena cried out behind for them to wait, and came tripping along after with two little hands full of dewy auriculas, which she had plucked, and gave them all to Liana, expecting from her, as collatress of benefices, the flower-distribution. "The little one, too, still thinks of the beautiful Sunday at Lilar," said Liana. She gave the Princess one or two, and Helena nodded; and when Liana looked at her, she nodded again, as a sign the Count should have something too: "More yet!" she cried, when he had got some; and the more Liana gave, the more did the child cry, "More,"—as children are wont to do, in the hyperboles of their tendency to the infinite.
They went over a green bridge, and came into a neat room. Instead of the piano-forte formerly there, stood a glass chapel of the goddess of music, a harmonica. The Captain screwed in behind a tapestry-door, and immediately all the confined spring-waters shot up outside with silvery wings toward heaven. O how the sprinkled world burned as they stepped out on the top!
Why wast thou, my Albano, just at this hour not entirely happy? Why, then, do pains pierce through all our unions,—and why does the heart, like its veins, bleed most richly when it is heated? Above them lay the still, wounded heavens in the bandage of a long, white mass of cloud; the evening sun stood as yet behind the palace, but on both sides of it his purple mantle of clouds floated in broad folds away across the sky; and if one turned round toward the east to the mountains of Blumenbühl, green living flames streamed upward, and, like golden birds, the ignes fatui danced through the moist twigs and on the eastern windows, but the fountains still threw their white silver into the gold.
Then the sun swam forth, with red hot breast, drawing golden circles in the clouds, and the arching water-shoots burned bright. Julienne bent upon Albano—near whom she had constantly remained, as if by way of atonement—a hearty look, as if he were her brother, and Charles said to Liana, "Sister, thy evening song!" "With all my heart," said she; for she was right glad of the opportunity to withdraw herself, with the melancholy seriousness of her enjoyment, and down below in the solitary room to utter aloud, on the harmonica-bells, all that which rapture and the eyes bury in silence.
She went down; the melodious requiem of the day went up,—the zephyr of sound, the harmonica, flew, waving, over the garden-blossoms,—and the tones cradled themselves on the thin lilies of the up-growing water, and the silver lilies burst aloft for pleasure, and from the brightness of the sun, into flamy blossoms, and over yonder reposed mother sun in a blue pasture, and looked greatly and tenderly upon her human children. Canst thou, then, hold thy heart, Albano, so that it shall remain concealed with its joys and sorrows, when thou hearest the peaceful virgin walking in the moonlight of tones? O when the tone which trickles down in the ether announces to her the early wasting away of her life, and when the soft, long-drawn melodies flow away from her like the rose-oil of many crushed days; dost thou not think of that, Albano? How the human creature plays! The little Helena flings up auriculas at the flashing water-veins, in order that she may dash one of them with the spray of the intercepted jet, and the youth Zesara bends far over the balustrade, and lets the stream of water leap off from his sloping hand upon his hot face and eye, in order to cool and conceal himself. The fiery veil was snatched from him by his sister; Rabette was one of those persons whom this musical tremor gnaws upon even physically, just as, on the other hand, the Captain was little affected by the harmonica, and indeed was always least moved when others were most so; there were no pains with which the innocent girl was less familiar than with sweet ones; the bitter-sweet melancholy into which she sank away in the idle solitude of Sundays, she and others had scolded at as mere sullenness. At this moment she felt all at once, with a blush, her stout heart seized, whirled round, and scalded through as by hot whirlpools. Besides it had to-day already been swayed to and fro by the meeting with her brother again, the leaving of her mother, and her confused bashfulness before strangers, and even by the sight of the sunny-red mountain of Blumenbühl. In vain did the fresh brown eyes and the overripe full lip battle against the uprending pain; the hot springs tore their way through, and the blooming face with the strong chin grew red and full of tears. Painfully ashamed, and dreading to be taken for a child, especially as all her companions' emotions had remained invisible, she pressed her handkerchief over her burning face, and said to her brother, "I must go away, I am not well, I shall choke,"—and ran down to the gentle Liana.