Eighth.
Love lessens woman's delicacy and increases man's.
Ninth.
When two persons, in suddenly turning a corner, knock their heads together, each begins anxiously to apologize, and thinks only the other feels the pain and that he himself has all the blame. (Only I excuse myself without any embarrassment, for the very reason that I know, by my persecutions, how the other party thinks.) Would to God we did not invert this in the case of moral offences!
Last Persecution of the Reader.
Deluded and darkened man, living on from the mourning veil to the corpse-veil, thinks there is no further evil beyond that which he has immediately to overcome; and forgets that after the victory the new situation brings a new struggle. Hence, as before swift ships there swims a hill of water and a corresponding billowy abyss glides along close behind, so always before us is there a mountain, which we hope to climb, and behind us still a deep valley out of which we seem to have ascended.
Thus does the reader vainly hope now, after having stood out ten persecutions, to ride into the haven of the story, and there to lead a peaceable life, free from the troubled one of my characters; but can any spiritual or worldly arm, then, protect him against scattered similes,—against hemispherical headaches,—whimsies,—reviews,—curtain-lectures,—rainy months,—or in fact honey-moons, which come in at the end of every volume?—
Now for our History! In the evening Albano and Augusti went with the paternal letter of credit to the Minister's. The frostiness and pride of that individual the Lector endeavored, on their way, to varnish over by praising his laboriousness and discernment. With a knocking at his heart the Count seized the door-knocker to the heaven- or hell-gate of his future destiny. In the antechamber—that higher servant's apartment and Limbus infantum et patrum—there were still people enough, for Froulay regarded an antechamber as a stage, which must never be empty, and on which, as in the Jewish temple, according to the Rabbins, for those who kneel and pray, it is never too close. The Minister's lady was not present as a patient here, merely because she was looking after one of her own elsewhere. The Minister also was not here,—because he made few ceremonies, and only demanded uncommonly many,—but in his working-cabinet; he had heretofore had his head under the warm throne-canopy and taken a deep bite into the forbidden apple of the Empire, therefore he willingly made a sacrifice (not to others, but of others), and let himself, as a saintly statue, be hung round with votive limbs, without having to bestir his own, and, like St. Franciscus at Oporto, with letters of thanks and petitions which he never opens.
Froulay came, and was—as ever, aside from business—as courteous as a Persian. For Augusti was his home friend,—i. e. the Minister's lady was his home-friend,—and Albano was not a good person to run against; because one had occasion for his foster-father in the votes of the Province, and because the youth by a peculiar and proper pride of his own commanded men. There is a certain noble pride through which merits shine brighter than through modesty. Froulay had not the most comfortable part before him; for the Court of Haarhaar was as disaffected toward the Knight of the Fleece, as he was toward it;[65] but Haarhaar was to be without doubt (according to all Italian surgical reports) and in a few years (according to all nosological ones) the heir of his inheritance and throne. Now the bad thing about it was, that the Minister, who, like a good Christian, looked mainly to the future, had to creep along between the German Herr von Bouverot, on the one hand, who was secretly a creature of Haarhaar, and the demands of the present moment, on the other.
He received the Count, I said, in an uncommonly obliging manner, as well as the Lector, and disclosed to the two that he must present to them his lady, who desired their acquaintance. He sent word to her, but, without waiting an answer, conducted them both into her apartment. Now was it to the youth as if the heavy door of a still and holy temple turned on its hinges. Even I too, at this moment, during their passage through the rooms, share so in his foolishness that I fall into full as great anxiety, as if I went in behind them. When we entered the eastern room, which was extended out at pleasure by picturesque paper-tapestry into a latticed arbor of woodbine, there sat merely the Minister's lady, who received us pleasantly, with firm and cold reserve in look and tone. Her severely closed and faintly-marked lips mutely spoke a seriousness which is the gift of a good heart, and a stillness which is the ornament of beauty,—as many wings, only when they are folded, shower down peacocks'-eyes,—and her eye gleamed with the good-will of reason; but the eyelids had been, by stern years, drawn deeply in, with a sickly expression, over the mild sight. Ah, as oftentimes between newly-married people a dividing sword was laid, so did Froulay grind daily at a three-edged one which separated him and her! Singularly did the impure roil on his face contrast with the aftersummer serenity on hers, although before witnesses, as it seemed, he took away the irony from his courteousness towards her, and kept hatred, as others do love, only for solitude.