Then the children, mindful of the maternal prohibition against excursions, led the way up along the right, over the bridged eminence, to the western triumphal arch; and Helena, merely as guide of the little convalescent, ran forward quite unexpectedly and wildly with his hand. How gladly did Albano follow the little pilots and pointers! Heavens! when they looked round them on the magnificent height, and into the rich outspread day, and then into each other's eyes, how freely and broadly did the arches of their life-bridge rear themselves, and ships, with swollen sails and proudly towering masts, sail away beneath! Rose-trees clambered up the triumphal arches, the children reached up, snatched roses from their summits, and trudged away (working out and proving the unusual obedience) over four gates, in order, from the fifth, to look down into the smooth, shining lake, and to descend into the "enchanted wood," where art, like the children, played her pranks.
Out of the entrance of the wood came forth Charles and Rabette, on their way back to Chariton over the arches, the former bound to the wine-cellar (he had something empty therefrom in his hand), and she intending to run a moment into the kitchen. He went blissfully, as if on wings, and said: "Life travels to-day in the constellation of the wain, far away through the blue." He turned round, however, to let the Pleiades rise before them, that is, the so-called "inverted rain," which ascends only for the space of five minutes, and properly only in an illumination. He led them all into the wondrous wood, through a light that lay in noonday slumber, glowing under free trees, whose stems, standing far asunder, only tendered each other their long twigs. At the focus of the picturesque paths, he let them await the play of the rain. The children sprang after him with their hopes, and, backed by the courage of the grown ones, sat down by them, on designated seats of the gods, or children's seats, between two little round lakes.
While Charles ran swiftly up and down in zigzag, attending to the hydraulic and other mechanism,—nearly according to the points of the labyrinth-garden in Versailles,—they could fly about through the magic wood that rose everywhere. An all-powerful arm of the Rosana, which swept by without, struck in among the flowers, and bore a heavy, rich world; now the water was a fixed mirror, now a winding, beating vein, now a gushing spring, now a flash of lightning behind flowers, or a dark eye behind leafy veils; tapering shores, short beds, children's gardens, round islands, little hills, and tongues of land lay between: they held their motley, blooming children on arm and bosom, and the blue eyes of the forget-me-not, and the full tulip-cheeks, and the white-cheeked lilies played together like brothers and sisters apart from strangers, but roses ran through all. Now they heard a murmuring and purling; the lakes beside them bubbled up; on a peeled May-tree, fenced in on an island, the yellow fir-needles began to drop from above; from the hanging birches on the tongue of land, an inner rain dripped and glided down; out of the two lakes beside them water-jets flew like flying-fishes toward heaven. Now it gushed everywhere, and rows of fountains, those water-children, played with the flower-children. Like birds, streams fluttered with broad wings out of the laurel-hedges, and fell into the groups of roses. On a hill full of oaks, a water-snake crawled up; victoriously shot out from all the mouths of the shores besieging arches to the summits; suddenly the cheated spectators found themselves overhung with rainbows, for the lakes flung their waters high across over them, so that the wavering sun blazed through the lattice-work of drops, as through a shivered jewel-world. The children screamed with a terror of joy. The scared birds cruised through the shower; night butterflies were cast down; the turtle-doves shook themselves on the ground, beaten down in the torrents; the banks and the beds held their blooming little ones beneath the heavens.
After five minutes the whole was over, and nothing remained, save that in all flowers and eyes the moist radiance trembled, and on the waves the stars continued to glisten. The children ran after the wonder-worker, Charles. "All is over outwardly," said Albano, "but not within us. I am to-day perfectly and peacefully happy; for thou lovest me, and the whole world, too, is friendly. Art thou, too, happy, Liana?" She answered, "Still more happy, and I must needs weep for joy if I told how happy I am." But she was weeping already. "See! drops!" said she, naively, as he looked upon her, and wiped his, which were the sprinklings of the rainbow, softly from his cheeks. His lips touched her holy, tender eye, but the other remained open, and her love looked out from it at him, and never did her holy soul hover nearer to him.
After a few minutes this inverted heavenward shower was also over. They went across the middle of the free gardens to the eastern parts and gates. How brightly lay the coasts of the future before them, with thick, high green, and nightingales flying around the shores! Rapture makes the manly heart more womanly. The voice of his full bosom spoke but softly to Liana, on whose countenance, turned sidewise and heavenward, lay a still, pious gratitude; his fiery glance moved but slowly, and rested on the beautiful world; and he went without hasty strides around the smallest points of land. The young nightingale whet her well-fed bill against the twig, and shook herself merrily; the old one sang a short lullaby, and skipped chanting after fresh food; and everywhere flew and screamed across each other's paths the children of spring and their parents. Little white peacocks ran, without their pride, like little children in the grass. Blissfully floated the swan between her waves, with the white arch over the eyes that dipped under, and blissfully hovered the glistening music-fly, like a fixed star, undisturbed in the air, over a distant, flowery bell. The butterflies, flying flowers, and the flowers, fettered butterflies, sought and sheltered each other, and laid their variegated wings to wings; and the bees exchanged flowers only for blossoms, and the rose which has no thorns for them they exchanged only for the linden.
"Liana," said Albano, "how I love the whole world to-day, on thy account! I could give the flowers a kiss, and press myself into the very heart of the full trees; I could not tread in the way of the long chafer down there." "Should one," she replied, "ever feel otherwise? How can a human being, I have often thought, who has a mother, and knows her love, so afflict and rend the heart of a brute mother? But Spener says, we do not forgive beasts even their virtues." "Let us go to him," said he.
They came out through the eastern gate on the mountain-way behind the flute-dell, up to the house of old Spener, which lay in noonday brightness; but, as they heard loud reading and praying, they chose rather to walk by at a great distance, in order not to throw so much as their shadow into his holy heaven.
They gazed into the fair, still flute-dell, and would fain go directly in; at length it spoke up to them with one flute. Their friends seemed to be down below there. The flute continued long to complain, as if lonely and forsaken; no sisters and no fountains murmured in with it. At last there rose, panting, in company with the flute, a timid, trembling singer's voice, struggling forth. It was Rabette, behind the tall bushes. She stirred both to the depths of the soul, because the poor creature, with the labor of her helpless voice, was rendering her loved one the meek sacrifice of obedience. "O my Albano," said Liana, twining around him with ecstasy, "what sweetness to think that my brother is happy, and has found peace of soul, and that through thy sister!" "He deserves all my peace," said he, with emotion; "but we will not disturb the two, but go back the old way." For Rabette's tones were often cut short, but it was uncertain whether by fear, or by kisses, or by emotion.
When they came in again through the eastern gate, the songstress and Charles came out of the green portal to meet them, both with wet eyes. Charles, stepping impetuously over living beds, and with wandering eyes, grasped a hand of both with his, and said, "This is, for once in this rainy world, a day which does not look like a night. Brother, but when one is so deeply blest, and catches the music of the spheres, the tones are such as were once heard in token that from Mark Antony his patron deity, Hercules, was departing." Thus are joys, like other jewels, mechanical poisons, which only in the distance shine, but, when touched and swallowed, eat into us. But Albano replied, smiling, "Since thou now fearest, dear friend, thou hast nothing to fear; for thou art not perfectly happy. I, however, alas! fear nothing." "Bravo!" said Charles; "now go into your kitchen, maiden!" He went into the so-called "Temple of Dreams," but soon hastened after her into the forbidden kitchen.
Albano visited Liana's spring chamber. Here he painted to himself from memory that bright Sunday when Liana led him through Lilar, and he let the past soothingly glimmer into the present; but the latter overpowered the former with its beams. Out in the garden stood and shone, so it seemed to him, the pure pillars of his heaven, the supporters of his temple, the trees; and all that he here saw near him belonged again to his happiness, Liana's books and pictures and flowers, and every little mark of her tender hand.