And now march on, that soon ye may come back again, and we may at last for once fairly enter Pestitz! It may well be expected that thou, good child (I should rather say, wild-bee), wilt take thy flight from the rural honey-tree into the glass beehive of the city, with deeper pangs than thou hadst imagined beforehand,—has not even the old foster-father gone off on his journey without saying his farewell, only to escape thine?—and, as to thy good mother, it seems to her as if one of the angry Parcæ were tearing a son from her breast, as if his tender love-bond, woven only of childish familiarity, would not stretch out into the far future,—and thy sister locks herself up in the attic, her rustic heart raging with fiery torments, and cannot say anything to thee, nor give thee anything, but a letter-case previously and privately worked by her with the silken circumscription: "Remember us!" and even on thy laurel-seeking head will the triumphal arch or rainbow of leave-taking, when thou passest under it, fling down heavy, heavy drops, (ah, they will continue to hang longer on the eyes that look after thee!) thy honest old teacher Wehmeier will pour out upon thee the last stream of his words and tears, and say, and thy tender heart will not smile at it: "He is a worn out, old fellow, and has now nothing before him but the hole (the grave); thou, on the contrary, art a fresh, young blood, full of languages and antiquities and magnificent, god-given talents,—of course he shall not live to see thee make a famous man, but his children well may; and these poor worms,—thou must one day adopt them, young master!"
Thou pure soul, on every familiar house, on every dear garden and valley will sorrow, indeed, sharpen her clasp-knife, and tear open therewith softly gushing wounds in thy glowing, tender heart. What do I say? even from thy friendly morning- and evening-heights, the nunnery-gratings of thy holiest hopes, and from Liana herself, thou wilt seem to be stealing away.
But cast thy weeping eyes over the broad, blue Italy, and dry them in the spring breezes. Life begins,—the signals for the martial exercises and tournaments of manly youth are given, and, in the midst of the Olympic battle-games, thou wilt hear the music of neighboring concert- and dancing-halls magnificently pealing around thee.
What phantasies are these I am playing here? What! is it not more than too well known to all of us, that he has been gone this long time, ever since the very first Jubilee-period,—yes, and come back again, and has already, ever since the second—and we are now counting the fourth—been sitting in company with the Librarian and the Lector, on horseback, before Pestitz, unable to get in, on account of the barricade of the——
FOOTNOTES:
[38] In Catania, the veil of St. Agatha is the only antidote to Etna.
[39] Allusion to the torches, before which the Colosseum and the Antiques and the glaciers, which are both, are seen magically gleaming.
[40] As the Queen of Heaven, Juno is always, by the ancients, clothed in a blue veil.—Hagedorn on Painting.
[41] An old machine that fires many shots at once.