The Minister's lady, never opposing his changeable plans in the sketch, but only in the execution, easily became reconciled with his latest one, because it at least seemed rather to stand in no auxiliary relation to the old one of the bethrothal to Bouverot.
One evening, unfortunately, the fatal, anxious Lector—who pasted the smallest visiting-card to a Fulda's historic chart—arrived in her presence with his packet-ship, and came ashore having under his two arms the state and imperial advertisements of her two children; he had one of them under each; and yet why do I fly out upon the man? Could a double-romance, especially when played in the open air, remain better concealed than a single one?
Her astonishment can be compared with the greater astonishment of her husband, who happened to have just been screwing on in the third chamber his tin ear,—made by Schropp of Magdeburg,—in order to listen to the servants, and who now caught a number of things. Nevertheless, the double-ear, with the broad meshes of its nocturnal lark-net, had only fished up from Augusti's low, whispering, courtly lips single, long, proper names,—such as Roquairol and Zesara. Hardly had the soft-spoken Lector gone out, when he stepped gayly into the chamber, with his ear in his hand, and demanded of her a report of the reports. He held it beneath his dignity either to patch up or disguise his suspicion,—which, even in the friendliest and gayest mood, would never shut its Argus ears and eyes,—or to dissemble his eavesdropping, with so much as a syllable or a blush of shame; the fair lilies of the most colorless impudence were not painted, but branded on him. The Minister's lady immediately seized upon the female expedient, of telling the truth—half-way; namely, the agreeable truth of Roquairol's well-received advances at the house of Wehrfritz, whose estate and provincial directorship had been cast into a very fitting shape for a father-in-law. Meanwhile the Minister had seen in his lady's face the mourning-border around this pleasant notification-document, far too clearly and broadly not to inquire about that prominent word "Zesara," which his delicate tin searcher had also caught up, but he inquired in vain; for the mother held her good daughter too dear to set this wolf on the scent for her into her Eden; she hoped to get her out of it in a gentler way, by a divine voice and angels; and so evaded his question.
But the wolf now ran farther on in his track; he got the gout in his stomach,—so it was reported to Dr. Sphex,—demanded of him speedy aid, and also some intelligence of his tenant, the Count. Doctor and Madam Sphex had already a grudge against the inflated youth; through their four juvenile envoys, as enfans perdus in every sense, as four hearing-organs of every city rumor, much might be brought in on advice-yachts from Blumenbühl and Lilar. In short, the auricular organs fitted in so well to those of others, that Froulay, in a few days, was in a situation to ask, with his lily brow, the Greek woman for a letter to his son, which he offered to take along with him.
He found one, which he broke open with great joy, without, however, finding anything therein from Albano's or Liana's hand, but only some stupid allusion of Rabette to that couple, which, to the Minister, were as much as if, with his sharp exciseman's-probes, he had bored into Liana's heart and lighted upon contraband there. Without any long, slavish copying of the former seal, he set a second upon the letter, and went away enlightened by it.
We can all follow him, when we have detained ourselves only a few minutes for his justification, with my
Apology and Defence[201] in the Matter of the Second Seal upon Letters in State Affairs.
Whether the examination of other people's letters pertains to old Froulay as minister or father,—(although the latter presupposes the former, the father of the country implying every other father and his own too,)—I will not decide, except by the parenthesis just inserted. The state which tackles on the post-horses before letters has, it should seem, the right to examine more narrowly, under the closed visor of the seal, these not so much blind as blinding passengers,[202] in order to know whether it is not using its horses in the service of its enemies. The state, an ever-drawing light-magnet, means certainly only to have light in the case, and particularly light upon all light in general; it requires only the naked truth, without cover or covering. All that rides and fares through its gates must, though it were dressed in a surtout, just open its red mouth, and say what name and business.
As the common soldier must first show his letters to his officer, the garrison-soldier of the Bastile to the governor, the monk his to the prior, the American colonist his to the Dutchman,[203]—in order that he may burn them up, if they find fault with him,—so, surely, can no statesman, whether he regards the state as a barrack, or as an Engelsburg, or as a monasterium duplex, or as a European possession in Europe, deny it the right to keep all its letters as open as bills of lading, patents of nobility, bills of sale, and apostolic epistles are. The only mistake is, that it does not get hold of the letters before they are enveloped and sealed. That is immoral enough; for it necessitates the government to open and shut,—to draw the letter out of the case, and put it back again, as the cook with pains turns the snail out of his shell, and then, when he is once taken off from the fire, shoves him back again into it, to serve him up therein.
This last is the point of the compass and cardinal wind which is to guide us onward; for universally acknowledged as it is, just as custom and observance are, that the government, on the same ground on which it opens the last will, must have the power to unseal also the last but one, and the one before that, and finally the very first, before its heir can do it, and that a prince must be able still more readily to bring servants' letters into the same deciphering chancery (and into their antechamber, the unsealing chamber), wherein the letters of princes and legates fly open before the caper-spurge,[204] nevertheless the cork-drawing of letters,—the joint seal, the vicariate seal, the laborious imitation of the L. S., or loco sigilli,—all this is something very annoying and almost detestable; out of the wrong a right must therefore be made by constitutional repetition.