Suddenly he heard several times an almost exasperated cry of lamentation. At length he beheld, near a stream, outstretched white sleeves or arms; he went to the female form. "Alas! I am blind of God," said she; "I too was at the illumination, and have strayed away; I am generally acquainted with road and lane; over yonder lies our village; I hear the shepherd dog, but I cannot find the bridge over the water." It was the grown-up blind girl of the herdsman's hut. "Does it still go on pleasantly there?" he asked, as he guided her along. "All over!" said she. On the bridge of the Rosana she would not, out of vanity, let herself be directed any farther.
He returned through the pleasant bushes, which were already dripping with the dew of morning, to an eminence before Lilar. All was still down below there; a few scattered lamps flickered in the flute-dell, and in Tartarus a couple, like deadly tiger-eyes, still lingered. He went down into the vacant land away over the silent, flat grave,—up through his gloomy, downward-ascending cavern-avenue,—and into his bed. "To-morrow!" said he with energy, and meant his vow of steadfastness.
[EIGHTEENTH JUBILEE.]
Gaspard's Letter.—The Blumenbühl Church.—Eclipse of the Sun and of the Soul.
79. CYCLE.
If in the foregoing night a strange, hostile spirit cruelly drove against each other and away from each other human beings with bandaged eyes, so will that spirit on the morning after, when from a cold cloud he surveyed his battle-field with sparkling eyes, have almost smiled at all the joys and harvests which lie prostrate round about him down below there.
In Blumenbühl, Rabette, in lonely corners, wrings her hands with trembling arms, and breathes upon the wall-plaster, to wipe away the redness of wet eyes; out of Lilar comes Albano, gloomily looks upon the earth instead of its inhabitants, and from the astronomical tower gazes eagerly into the heavens, and seeks no friend; Roquairol musters up horses and riders, and makes himself, out in the country, a merry, drunken evening; Augusti shakes his head over letters from Spain, and reflects upon them disagreeably, but deeply; Liana leans in an easy-chair, all crushed, with her face falling towards her shoulder, and nothing blooming in it any longer save innocence; her father strides up and down, with a reddish-brown complexion; she answers but faintly, lifting from time to time her folded hands a little. Before the night-spirit on the cloud men's time goes swiftly by, as a fleeting pair of wings without beak or tail; the spirit has near him the distant week when Albano shall see by night from the observatory how in the Blumenbühl church there burns an altar-light, how Liana kneels therein with uplifted hands, and how an old man lays his own on her serene, shining brow, which directs itself with tearless eyes toward heaven.
The spirit looks down deeper into the months; he writhes around himself for delight, and grins over all dwelling-places and pleasure-haunts of men which lie about him; often a laugh runs round along all his open hell-teeth, only sometimes he gnashes them under the cover of the lip-flesh.
Look away,—for he too sees and wills it,—and step down from the wintry spectre among the warm children of men, and on the firm ground of reality, where flying time, like the flying earth, seems to rest upon steadfast roots, and where only eternity, like the sun, seems to rise.