19. CYCLE.
All these occupations and thorns were to Albano right good, sharp earthquake-conductors, since in his bosom already more subterranean storm-matter circulated than is needed to burst the thin wall of a man's chest. Now he began to get on deeper and deeper into the wild thunder-months of life. The longing to see Don Zesara caught new warmth from the Roman history, which lifted up on high before him Caesar's colossal image, and wrote under it, "Zesara." The veiled Linden-city was carried over by his fancy and set upon seven hills, and exalted to a Rome. A post-horn rang through his innermost being, like a Swiss Ranz des Vaches, which builds out into the ether all summits of our wishes in long and shining mountain-chains; and it blew for him the signal of a tent-striking, and all cities of the earth lay with open gates and with broad highways round about him. And when, at this period, on a cool, clear summer morning, he marched along metrically by the side of a regiment on its way to Pestitz, so long as he could hear the sound of the drums and fifes, then did his soul celebrate a Handel's Alexander's Feast; the past became audible,—the rattling of the triumphal cars, the movement of the Spartan bands and their flutes, and the clear trumpet of Fame,—and, as if at the sound of the last trumpets, his soul arose among none but glorified dead on the unbolted earth, and, with them, still marched onward.
When History leads a noble youth to the plains of Marathon, and up to the Capitol, he would fain have at his side a friend,—a comrade,—a brother-in-arms, but no more than this,—no sister-in-arms; for a heroine injures a hero greatly. Into the energetic youth friendship enters earlier than love: the former appears, like the lark, in the early spring of life, and goes not away till late autumn; the latter comes and flees, like the quail, with the warm season. Albano already heard this lark warbling, invisible, in the air: he found a friend, not in Blumenbühl, not in the Linden-city, not in any place, but in his own bosom; and the name of that friend was—Roquairol.
The case was this: For people like myself, country life is the honey wherein they take the pill of city life. Falterle, on the contrary, could not worry down the bitter country life without the silvering-over of city life: thrice every week he ran over to Pestitz, either into the boxes of the amateur-theatre as dramaturgist, or on the stage itself as actor. Now, on every such occasion, he took his little part-book out into the village with him, and there, relying on this rehearsal of the play, studied his part independently of those of his colleagues; just as, to this day, every state-servant commits his to memory without a glance at those of his fellow-performers: hence every one of us consists of only one faculty, and, as in the Russian hunting-music, knows how to fife only one tone, and must throw his strength into the pauses. Into these fragments of theatricals, then, borrowed from Falterle, Albano entered with a rapture which his master soon sought to increase by exchanging for these limited sectors of the globe the whole dramatic world.
The Viennite had long since eulogized before him the suicidal mad-cap Roquairol as a genius in learning,—and himself as particularly such in teaching; and now he adduced the proof of it from the great parts which the mad-cap always played so well. For the rest, it was not his fault that he did not exceedingly disparage the Minister's son, whom he envied, not only for his theatrical, but for his erotic achievements. For the inventively rich Roquairol had with that shot at himself in his thirteenth year saluted and won the whole female sex, and made himself, out of a sacrificial victim, priest of sacrifices, and manager of the amateuress-theatre, attached to the amateur-theatre; whereas the shy, stupid Falterle, with his still-born fancy, could never bring a charmer to any other step than the pas retrograde in a minuet, or to anything more than a setting of the fingers, when he wanted to get himself set in her heart. But the vain man cannot deny others any praise which is also his own.
How must all this have won our friend's admiration for a youth whom he saw pass through his soul now as Charles Moor, now as Hamlet, as Clavigo, as Egmont! As regards the notorious masquerade-shot described in a former Jubilee period, our so inexperienced Hercules, dazzled as he was by the naked dagger of Cato, must have accredited that shot to such a kindred Heraclide, as one of his twelve tragical labors. The fee-court-provost Hafenreffer even tells me, Albano once disputed with the Vienna gentleman, who had long since let himself down from a schoolmaster to a schoolmate, about the finest ways of dying, and, in opposition to the tender Falterle, who declared himself in favor of the sleeping-potion, declared himself on Roquairol's side, even with the stronger addition: "He should like best of all to stand on the top of a tower and draw the lightning on his head!" In this latter article he shows the high feeling of the ancients, who held death by lightning to be no damnation, but a deification; but might not physical causes also have had something to do with it, for his elbows and his hair often flashed out, in the dark, electric fire, and more than once a holy circle streamed out round his head even in the cradle? The Provost is strong for this view of the matter.
Albano, at last, could find no way to cool his fiery heart but by taking paper and writing to the invisible friend, and giving it in charge to the gentleman from Vienna. Falterle, who was complaisance itself—and withal untruth itself, too—in spite of his aversion to Roquairol, took the letters with him, and was heartily glad to do it ("I am quite at home at the Minister's," said he); but never delivered a single one of them, since he had as little influence in the proud Froulay-palace as with the son himself, and so he merely brought back with him every time a new and valid reason why Roquairol had not been able to answer: he was either too very busy, or in the sick-chair, or in company,—but every letter had delighted him; and our unsuspecting youth firmly believed it all, and kept on writing and hoping. It would have been handsomely done of the Legation's-counsellor, had he only, that is to say, if he could, been so obliging as to hand over to me Albano's palm-leaves of a loving heart; not for the archives of this book, but merely for my documents relating to the case, for the catalogue of petals, which I for my own private use am stitching and gluing together, of Albano's flowering-time.
20. CYCLE.
Our Zesara, on entering into the years when the song of poets and nightingales flows more deeply into the softened soul, became suddenly another being. He grew stiller and wilder at once, more tender and more impetuous, as, for instance, he once flew in the highest rage to the help of a dog yelping under the blows of the cudgel. Heaven and earth, which hitherto in his bosom, as in the Egyptian system, had run into each other, that is to say, the ideal and the real, worked themselves free from each other, and Heaven ascended and receded, pure and high and brilliant,—upon the inner world rose a sun and upon the outer a moon, but the two worlds and hemispheres attracted each other and made one whole,—his step became slower, his bright eye dreamy, his athlete-gymnastics less frequent,—he could not now help loving all human beings more warmly, and feeling them more near to him; and often with closed eyes he fell trembling upon the neck of his foster-mother, or out in the open air bade his foster-father, at his starting on his journeys, a more lonely and heartfelt farewell.
And now before such clear and sharp eyes the Isis-veil of Nature became transparent, and a living Goddess looked down into his heart with features full of soul. Ah, as if he had found his mother, so did he now find Nature,—now for the first time he knew what spring was, and the moon, and the ruddy dawn, and the starry night.... Ah, we have all once known it, we have all once been tinged with the morning-redness of life!... O, why do we not regard all first stirrings of human emotion as holy, as firstlings for the altar of God? There is truly nothing purer and warmer than our first friendship, our first love, our first striving after truths, our first feeling for Nature: like Adam, we are made mortals out of immortals; like Egyptians, we are governed earlier by gods than by men; and the ideal foreruns the reality, as, with some trees, the tender blossoms anticipate the broad, rough leaves, in order that the latter may not set before the dusting and fructifying of the former.