"Good night, maiden," said he to the blind girl, in passing. Linda sang not again as before. The stars looked down upon him; the storm winds spake to him; the pleasures went along by him, but they had now the masks of the furies on their faces. An arm struck down from heaven, an arm grasped up from hell, and both would seize him, to tear him asunder. "Well, well," said he, "I was fortunate indeed, but I might have been still more so had I been her curséd Albano," and flung himself upon his festive horse, and flew the same night to the Prince's garden.
129. CYCLE.
Albano and his uncle went on to meet the announced Schoppe from village to village. The uncle continually pushed back the hope before them like a horizon, farther and farther, as they advanced. Once, at evening, the Count fancied he heard Schoppe's voice close beside him; in vain, the beloved man came not yet to his heart, and with longing impatience Albano saw the clouds in heaven sail along over the way which his precious one was taking beneath them on the earth. The uncle told him a long story of a secret trouble which often weighed down the Librarian, and of his liability to attacks of madness, which had some time ago repelled him from him, because among all men there was none he dreaded so much as the madman. Of Romeiro's portrait he seemed to know nothing. Albano was silent with vexation, for the Spaniard was one of those insufferable men who, with sleek, steady face, and with screwed-up and helmed soul, can let another's contradiction flutter around them without any contradiction on their part, without echo, without a reflection or alteration, and to whom another's discourse is only a still dew, the fall of which wears away no stone. To this was added Albano's exasperation against his new falsehood about Schoppe's nearness, and against his own incapacity of listening for a good, long hour incredulously to what a liar is saying.
"Schoppe is, upon my word, already arrived at the Prince's garden by another route," said the Spaniard at last, in quite a lively mood, and advised turning back, in the comfortable enjoyment of that cool, impudent faculty he had of jamming up every one who did not do homage to him, between sharp, tedious ice-fields.
They arrived before the princely garden in the midst of nothing but carriages, out of which were alighting the spectators of to-day's dramatic festival. Albano found among them already his father, the Princess, and Julienne, and, among the actors, Bouverot, his old exercise-master Falterle, and the yellow-dressed merchant's lady in the red shawl, who had once been less in than on Roquairol's heart, and finally Roquairol himself. The Captain stepped up immediately, first and foremost, to the well-known Albano, and said, with elaborate ease, the play would begin soon, only Dian with his wife was still expected. Dian, always easily moved, most of all by an invitation, could least of all resist one when art was the occasion; through him Chariton also was soon gained for the play, but not without one condition,—that she was to play in the piece the part of a beloved to no one but her spouse. When Roquairol spoke with Albano, he found it hard to laugh easily, or to raise his eyelids, as if his face were frozen or swollen; and an avenging, humiliating spirit inwardly weighed his down to the earth before the pure and happy friend out of whose spring he had torn and cast away the bright sun, and over whose life he had hung an eternal plague-cloud.
Amidst the tumult of garden talk, and in the fruitless wish to impart to his sister Julienne three soft words for the Linda of whose presence he had been so long deprived, Albano saw the carriage of the Countess roll along on the heights up to Liana's last garden, there stop, and her and Dian and Chariton alight from it.
Then he thought of nothing but to fly to the long-missed loved one,—an act which, before the many eyes, easily assumed the appearance of a longing for Dian; and at this moment, in the thirst of love, he, in fact, asked no question about eyes. "Ah, here I am, after all!" said Linda, and came to meet him, interweaving the delicate vine-tendrils of soft glances with his, so shyly and so lovingly; and the evening blush of bashfulness, like a spring-redness in the night, mantled her heaven, and the white moon of innocence stood in the midst of it. Albano was dissolved with the melting wind of this forgiveness, reproached himself with his sweet joy at her conversion, as if it were a selfish pride in his victory, and could hardly, in the fair confusion of good fortune, command his sweet astonishment and his melting heart, which would fain dissipate itself before her like a tempest into evening dew. He threw his soul into his eye, and gave it to his beloved. Before Chariton he felt that he must veil himself. To Dian and Linda he said, as they looked into the setting sun, only the word, "Ischia!"
"There lies dear Anastasius," said Chariton to Dian, "my good friend Liana buried, and one knows not properly whereabouts in the garden, for one sees really nothing but flowers and flowers; however, she so ordered it." "That is very sad and fine," said Dian; "but let it be,—gone is gone, Chariton!" and led her aside, out of indulgence to the lovers. Albano, who overlooked nothing, and overheard everything, showed plainly enough how much he had been agitated by Chariton's words. Linda, too, perceived it. "Only speak out thy sadness," said she; "I do truly love her too." "I am thinking upon the living," said he, collecting himself, and looked timidly, not upon the flower-garden, but upon the sun-enchanted[[127]] evening landscape; "can one, then, sufficiently forgive, and think no evil upon the earth? Linda, O how thou forgivest me to-day!"
"Friend," said she, "when you sin you shall receive forgiveness; but until then, I pray you be quiet!" He looked upon her significantly. "Hast thou not already forgiven, and have not I too? But couldst thou have known how intimately I lived with thee during these days on the way to my Schoppe, and brought over the divine past into the future—ah, can I then tell thee all in this place?" Fortunately she—like other women, attending less to words than to looks, gestures, and actions—heard more with the spiritual than the bodily ear, and stepped not over the brink of the abyss which his words laid open so near her. Thus did these two now play, like children, near the cold thunder-charged lightning-rod, out of which at the smallest nearer approach must dart the flashing scythe of death.
Both went on with their illusions near the lightning. The sun went down with his flames by the little mountain and the smooth flowery grave over into the distant plains. Out of the depths of the princely garden came tones fluttering up through the long evening rays and deified the golden landscape. The rays were solitary wings, that sought their heart, and joined it, and then flew onward—and the loving hearts became full of wings. The rays sank, the tones soared. Around Linda and Albano lay a golden circle of gardens and mountains and green valleys, and every flower rocked with its riches under the last lingering gold, and became the cradle of the eye, the cradle of the heart. The lovers looked at each other, and upon the earth, with inspired looks; the shining world appeared to them only in the magic mirror of their hearts, and they were, themselves, both, only floating images therein.