71. CYCLE.
On Sunday morning, when all the blue heavens stood open, and the earth was festally decked with pearls and twigs, a gentle finger tapped at Albano's door, which could belong to none but a female hand. It was Liana who entered at so early an hour; Rabette and Charles without uttered a loud greeting. On his exulting breast fell the beautiful maiden, blooming from, her walk, with blessed, bright eyes, a freshly bedewed rose-bud. It was his finest morning; he had a clear feeling of Liana's love. As the Æolian-harp sounded in, she looked towards it, remembered with a blush that fairest evening of the covenant, and listened in silence, and dried her eyes when she turned them again towards Albano. But he could not enter into this temple of joy without having cleansed and healed himself by a frank confession of his late errors. What a sweet rivalry ensued between them of confessing and forgiving, when Liana lovingly exclaimed and owned that she had not understood him lately, that only she was the blamable one, and that she would begin this very moment to speak better. She could not give herself any comfort about the secret pangs which she had caused her friend. As mahogany furniture cracks in no temperature, and contracts no spots, and needs no polishing, so was it with this heart, Albano's felt, as he now swore to himself always, even when he did not understand her, to say to himself, She is right.
She solved for him the riddle of her appearing to-day with those friendly looks which a good nature redoubles, when it has anything to sweeten,—namely, she was going back to Pestitz to-day; but the carriage would not come till late, till evening, in fact, about tea-time, and so there remained a whole day before them; and she hoped her father would not take this circuitous route through Lilar as a breach of her promise. A loving maiden grows unconsciously more bold. Thereupon she sought to make him quite calm about the peaceful intentions of her father, and represented his strictness, in subjecting himself and others to convenience, as the reason of his prohibition, as well as of her being summoned back to the wedding-festival. Albano, so soon after the oath which he had just sworn to himself, kept it, and said, She is right.
The Captain came in with the red-cheeked Rabette, whose eyes glistened with joy. The small apartment did not, by narrowness and confusion, make the pleasure less. Charles, generally so much like Vesuvius, which in the first hours of morning is still covered with snow, presented already a warm summit; he seated himself at the instrument and thundered into the noisy presence with a prestissimo (which lay open) of Haydn's,—that true hour-caller of rejoicing hours,—and played, to the astonishment of the females, the hardest part so easily, at sight, that he rather played into it, than from it, and kept composing much (for instance, the bass) himself; whereas Albano, with almost comic fidelity, gave you the exact truth in music quite as much as in history, which, again, always became in Charles's mouth a piece of his own personal biography. The morning added wings to all their souls, whereas noon always binds men's wings down,—hence Aurora goes with winged steeds, and the god of day with wingless ones. "But how now are our seven pleasure-stations to be made out?" inquired Charles, "for the day lies like a garden-hall, with nothing but pleasure-avenues on all sides open before us." "Charles, is it not, then, a matter of indifference where a man loves?" said Albano. Blessed one, whose heart needs nothing but one heart more, no park into the bargain, no opera seria, no Mozart, no Raphael, no eclipse of the moon, not so much as moonlight, and no read or acted romance!
"First, I must see my Chariton," said Liana. "Yes," added her brother, immediately, "she can bring our dinner after us into the gothic temple." He proposed, namely, on this lovely day, to dine in the twelfth century, and to sit by a sombre, motley window-light, and on sharp-cornered, heavy, thick furniture, and, as it were, darkly under the earth of a green present, glistening overhead, to sit with blooming faces; for thus did he overload the fullest enjoyments with external contrasts, and enjoyed every happy present most in the near gleam and reflection of the sharpened sickle which was to mow them away.[190] "God forbid and avert it, friend!" said Rabette. Albano, too, deemed the friendly Greek, her laughing children, and the neighboring rose-fields far preferable, and, with the aid of Liana, prevailed. Before the embowered cottage the children came running to meet them, Helena, with her little apron full of orange-blossoms, which she had picked up, for the breaking of them off had been forbidden her, and Pollux, in the last, light bandage of his broken arm, the hand of which had now been obliged to work with its companion, the right hand, at puckering up and cracking the rose-leaves. Both gave notice: "Mother was not ready yet, and had dressed them first." But presently, neat and simple as a priestess destined to dance around the altar of gods of joy, sprang Chariton to meet her Liana, and, as she came, continued adjusting her hastily donned clothes by a light hitching and twitching. "This," said Roquairol, after he had easily obtained from Rabette a nodding assent thereto, because she had not understood his French request for the same, "is my spouse since yesterday,"—and he enjoyed without further circumstance the right of thouing her, which she, since the friendly encouragement of the Minister, accepted the more fondly with maidenly presentiments.
When Liana kindly announced four noonday guests for Chariton, there stood in the dark eyes of the Greek gleams of joy, and the little face, with great arched Italian eyebrows, became a stereotype smile, which was not culinary embarrassment, but merely tongueless joy; which only made her white semicircle of teeth shine more broadly, when Charles spoke right out: "Surely thou canst help her, wife!" "Of course!" said Rabette, quite delighted; because her heart had no longer any other lips than her two hands, for which, if they could only lay hold of hard work, it was full as much as if they were pressed by the hand of a lover. Did she not again and again curse her awkward, hesitating throat, when Roquairol, in her presence, poured out his sounding and fiery torrents of speech? On this occasion, when he had again set off the surroundings with artificial, shadowy refinements, he insisted upon it, of course, that Chariton should be executive secretary, and Rabette only corresponding secretary. Liana, too, out of a like womanliness, would fain do something for her darling; but since she, as a maiden of rank, could not cook anything, but only bake a little, accordingly it was assigned her,—but reluctantly on the part of her friend, who never loved to see the sweet form anywhere else than, like other butterflies, by his side among the flowers,—at a quite late moment, and for a space of ten minutes, with her eyes and in extraordinary cases with her three writing-fingers, to co-operate in making the snow-balls, which were to close and crown the dessert.
Never had kitchen ball-queen a broader canopy, or a more beautifully carved sceptre and apple, or fairer dames d'atour[191] than Chariton, and vessels and fire were quite thrown into the shade thereby.
Now the happy couples—and the children too—went out into the joyful day, into the youthful garden, in order, like planets, with their moons, to stand now near each other, now far off, now in opposition, and now in conjunction, on their heavenly orbit around the same sun. "We will launch out at a venture," said Charles, in port, "and see whether we do not meet." Albano went with Liana after the children, who were already skipping along on the little houses through the rose-walks, on the bridge over the singing wood. He whose heart beats in such calm blissfulness, seeks in the invisible church no visible one: the whole temple of nature is the temple of love, and everywhere stand altars and pulpits. On the smoothly descending life-stream man stands without rudder, happy in his skiff, and leaves it to its own will.