Albano, on the contrary, stood in buskins. In general, every one who simply came from Pestitz, had, in his eyes, consecrated holy earth on his soles; and here he looked with the loving reverence of a village youth upon a somewhat oldish, but red-cheeked and tall-built princess, whose chin was bent up by time, and whose friendly face—perhaps, by way of hiding the many wrinkles—was buried deep in a whole bush of millinery. She kept this head moving to and fro with a smiling comparison, as of brother and sister, between him and Rabette; for mothers always look, in mothers, for the children first. He should have further known that he had before him a friend of Liana in the frizzle-headed little princess, who, although already of his age, yet with a friendly liveliness, which can never be subscribed to by the court-marshalship, looked up at all, and even took Rabette by the hand, and drew from her an indescribably good-natured and stiff smile. The formidable one of the party was to him the Minister, a man full of strong parts, both of body and soul, full of furious, murderous passions, only that they lay bound with flowery chains, and with respect to whom, although his hard face was written over only out of courtliness with the twelve friendly signs of the zodiac of love, it would not be specially apparent how one could be father and guide to the weak-nerved Liana, when the iron parts, of which man carries more in his blood than any other animal, had settled, not as in the case of Götz of Berlichingen, into his hand, but into his brow and heart.
I give merely a flying glance at the only member of the company who was intolerable to Albano,—the art-counsellor, Fraischdörfer, who had thrown off his face, like the drapery of the ancients, into folds of simple and noble greatness. This man, I must explain, had wanted for many years to have our bashful little hero sit to him, even to the very pit of his stomach, in order to represent, whether in a crayon likeness or a medallion I know not, his face, and the broad, high, Plato-like breast shining out from his shirt-frills. But the bashful child played about himself with his hands and feet so lustily, that nothing could possibly be caught and copied except the naked face without the pedestal, the thorax. Before me, on the contrary, dear academy, must thou now for years keep thyself on the model-stand, like a stylite, and expose to my drawing-pen thy head and thy breast, together with its cubic contents, not to mention the groupings at all.
He had, perhaps, to thank his noble form for it, that the beautifully built, straight-nosed, and magnificently slender Dian—with his raven hair and black, eagle eye, who in every pliant motion showed a higher freedom of carriage than is gained in ball-rooms and court-saloons—came up to him warmly, and, with very few glances, saw to the green bottom of the deep but clear sea of the young man, and discerned the pearl-banks there. Albano, with his too loud, vehement voice,—with his respectful but sharply-moving eyes,—with his rooted posture,—expressed an agreeable mixture of inward culture and ascendency with external rustic modesty and mildness, like a tulip-tree not as yet cut up for a tulip-bed,—a rural hermitage and log-house with golden furniture. He had the faults of youth in its recluseness; but men and winter radishes must be sowed far apart, in order that they may grow large: men and trees that stand near together have, it is true, a more slender and tapering trunk, but no power to brave the tempest, nor such a rich crown and branching as those that stand free. With the most unembarrassed heartiness, the architect disclosed to the glowing youth, "They should from this time forth see each other every week, since he was to come daily to oversee the building of the church."
The whole Wehrfritz household is now peeping out after the majestic procession, even to the last disappearing chariot-wheel, and is, of course, eager to say three words upon the lavender-water of joy that leaves such a fragrance behind it, which the procession had sprinkled into all corners and upon all pieces of furniture. From the Master of exercises—who, with the compression-machines on his feet, stood only so far as the excrescences in Purgatory, but from there up to the crown of his head in heaven (because the affable Princess had remembered very well his five positions)—even to the modest Rabette, the eulogist of her victorious rival,—and even to Albina, who was agreeably impressed with such warm, motherly love in a Fürstinn toward the Princess,—and even to the Director, who looked back with pleasure on the nobly sustained blade- and anchor-proof of his foster-son and the universal probity of this converted portion of the great world, because the man never observed that Princes and Ministers, just as they have in their wardrobes mountain- and mining-habits, so also carry about in their dressing-chamber Directorate-dresses, furred gowns of justice, consistorial sheep-skins, and women's opera-dresses;—from all these, even to the Director, the glad echo swelled, to die away in Zesara with an alarm-cannon. His ambition took arms; his liberty-tree shot forth into blossoms; the standards of his youthful wishes were consecrated and flung to the breeze of heaven; and on the myrtle crown he covered a heavy helm with a glittering, high-waving, plumed crest....
The following Cycle is composed merely for the purpose of showing how all this is to be taken.
25. CYCLE.
It is also my opinion that the antiphonious double choir of the two educational colleagues, Wehmeier and Falterle, had hitherto trained our Norman, as well as two similar gymnasiarchs, Governess England and domestic French instructress France, have actually educated the charity-school-girl Germany according to the best school-books, so that now we, in our turn, are in a condition to school the Poles, and, with the ferule, from the desk of our princely schools, to kantschu them down as much as is necessary.
But now too much had waked up in Albano. He felt overswelling energies which found no teacher. His father, roving round through Italy, seemed to be neglecting him. That seat of the muses, Pestitz,—which now had one more muse added to its number,—seemed to be unjustly barred against him. Often he knew not how to stay away. Fancy, heart, blood, and ambition were at boiling heat. In such a case, as in every fermenting cask, nothing is more dangerous than an empty space, whether from a want of knowledge or of occupation.
Dian filled up the cask.
He came each week from the city, as if he had to arrange the hammer-work of the church, according to plans, as well as the building of its walls. A youth who sees his first Greek cannot, at the outset, rightly believe it at all; he takes him for a classic glorification,—a printed sheet out of Plutarch. And if his heart burns like that of my hero, and if his Greek is of Spartan descent, like Dian,—namely, an unconquered Mainotte, who has been brought up in the classic double choir of the æsthetic singing-schools in Atiniah (Athens) and Rome,—then is it natural that the inspired youth should stand every day in the dust-and rubbish-clouds of the falling church-walls, and wait to see his commander come forth from behind the cloudy pillar.