The Lector was terrified, leaned forward toward the box-piece, and threw out a few opinions beforehand which should guide the half-blind one in forming her own; but after she had passed it two or three times obliquely against the lights and near before her eyes, she was able to express an original opinion herself, that the child illuminated by the half-sunken sun, who is drawn aloft by a flower-chain under the triumphal arch, was, to her feelings, "so very lovely." Here—and I have observed the same case in a half-blind lady of powerful fancy and receptive sense of art—the effort and the artistic sense, or the spiritual eye, came to meet the bodily half-way. The box, as well as its snuff, was presented farther on, and came down along to the Counsellor of Arts, Fraischdörfer, upon whom the new Prince's love of the arts and the favorite's knowledge in them now placed new crowns; he found fault with nothing but the white of the blossoms. "Spring," said he, "is, by reason of its wearisome whiteness, a mere monochrome; I have visited Lilar only in autumn." "There is the nightingale's song, too, which we of course cannot paint, but yet we can hear it," said Liana, cheerfully; he was her teacher, and now, in the technology of painting, even her father's. Over all her acquisitions and inner fruits and blossoms the rose of silence had been painted; to that her tyrannical father had entirely accustomed her, and especially before men, in whom she always revered copied fathers.
When the landscape came to Albano, and he held before him in miniature that spring night when Lilar and the noble old man appeared to him so enchantingly,—and as he touched what the dear soul had handled,—and now in his own soul all accordant strings trembled,—just then the Devil struck again a dissonant chord of the seventh:—
"The Prince, gracious sir," said the Minister to the German gentleman, "was yesterday buried in private; only eight days hence we have the public interment. We are obliged to hasten, because the suspension of the court-mourning lasts until the inauguration, on ascension-day, is gone by." I am too much excited to express myself upon the eternal master of ceremonies, Froulay, who would have raised a lantern-tax in the sun, and bridge-toll before park-bridges and asses'-bridges; but Albano, dazzled by so many side-lights and glancing rays,—reminded of Liana's sorrow over the old man, of his birthday, of the heart without a breast, and of the madness of the world,—was not in a condition, however much he had intended appearing in gentleness and lambs' clothes before Froulay, to keep the latter on; but he must needs (and louder than he meant), in opposition to his next neighbor, the Church Counsellor, Schäpe, with too great youthful exasperation (not lessened by the eager listening of Liana for the brotherly voice) declare himself against many things,—against the everlasting dead sham-life of men,—against the ceremonial haughtiness of a soulless form,—against this starving on love merely from making false shows of it;—ah, his whole heart burned on his lip!
The honest Schäpe, whom I just now called a scoundrel, took, with several expressions of countenance, Albano's part. But I do not by any means, friend Albano!—thou hast yet to learn for the first time that men, in respect to ceremonies, modes, and laws, like a flock of sheep, will, in a body, provided the bell-wether can only be got to leap over a pole, continue to leap carefully over the same place when the pole has been taken away;—and the most and highest leaps, in the state, are those we make without the pole. But a youth would be an ordinary one who should love civil life very early, however certain it is that he and we all judge too bitterly the faults of every office which we do not ourselves hold.
The company listened in silence, and, out of politeness, only inwardly admired; on Liana fell a tender seriousness.
They rose,—the closeness vanished,—so did his zeal;—but, whether it came from the speaking, or the contemplation of the loved object, or from a youthful over-leaping of the hedges of visiting-propriety,—(it arose not, however, from want of manners),—the fact is not to be denied (and I do my best, too, to give it exactly) that the Count left the poor old lady who had been escorted in by him,—Hafenreffer himself knows not her name,—left her standing, and, I believe unconsciously, took Liana under his escort. Ah, her! What shall I say of the magic nearness of the dreamed-of soul,—of the light resting of her hand, felt only by the arm of the inner man, not of the outer,—of the shortness of the heavenly way, which should have been at least as long as Frederick Street? Verily, he himself said nothing,—he thought merely of the abominable Inhibitorial-room, where their separation must take place,—he trembled at every effort to speak. "You have, perhaps," said Liana, lightly and openly, who loved to hear the friendly voice, especially after the warm discourse, "already visited our Lilar?"—"Truly not; but have you?" he said, too much confused. "My mother and I have made it our favorite home every spring."
Now were they in the parting-chamber. Alas! there and thus he stood with her, who saw nothing, for some seconds immovable, and looked straight before him, wanting to say something, till he was aroused by her mother, who was eagerly seeking, for her affection, which the whole evening had been nourishing, a sequestered hour on her daughter's heart,—and so all was over, for both vanished like apparitions.
But Alban was as a man who is deserted by a glorious dream, and who all the morning is so inwardly blest, but remembers the dream no more. And yet, stands not Lilar open to him, and will he not surely see it, so soon as ever Liana can see it too?
Never was he more gentle. The attentive Lector, in this warm, fruitful seed-time, threw in some good seed. He said, as they looked out together into the moonlit night, Albano had this evening hardly brought forward anything but thorny and exaggerated truths, which only imbitter, but do not enlighten. At another time the Count would have asked him whether he should have carried himself like Froulay and Bouverot, who, with all possible tolerance, presented theses and antitheses to each other, like an academical respondent and opponent, who previously prepare in concert logical wounds and plasters of equal length;—but to-day he was very kindly disposed towards him. Augusti had so delicately and affectionately cared for mother and daughter,—he had, without blackening or whitewashing, said much good, but nothing hastily, and his expositions had been calmly listened to: he had neither flattered nor offended. Albano, therefore, replied, softly: "But it is surely better to imbitter, dear Augusti, than to put to sleep. And to whom shall I then say the truth but to those who have it not nor any faith in it? Surely not to others." "One can speak any truth," said he, "but one cannot reckon as truth every mode and mood in which he speaks it."
"Ah!" said Albano, and looked up; beneath the starry heaven stood the marble Madonna of the palace, like a patron saint, softly illuminated,—and he thought of her sister,[81]—and of Lilar,—and of spring,—and of many dreams,—and how full his heart was of eternal love, and that he had as yet no friend and no loved one.