"Fleeting," began the black jay, amid tones of music, "is man, more fleeting is his bliss, but earlier than all dies the friend with his word."
The third act followed immediately upon the heels of the preceding, and broke up, by the uninterrupted continuance of the artistic enchantment, which should belong to every play and every work of art that is to be read, all cold, prosaic astonishment, even that which arose from the wonderful speaking of the jay on the lake. A great, beautiful, proud lady appeared,—Athenais (personated by the merchant's wife, Roquairol's by-mistress), full of hope in her old friend Lilia, who called herself "the little Athenais," and, sweetly dreaming over the dream of former days, Lilia sinks into her arms with twofold tears; Athenais does indeed bear in her hand three heavens and three hells. "How beautiful thou returnest! My poor brother!" said Lilia softly. "Name him not," said she proudly, "he can die for me, but I cannot live for him." Here Carlos flies in to his Lilia,—stops and stiffens in his flight,—collects himself, and approaches Lilia. She says, "Count Salera,—Athenais—" He grew pale, she red. A constraining, painful confusion entangled them all three; every honey drop was taken from a thorn-hedge. Lilia, with a shudder, is made more and more strongly aware of Athenais's sudden victory over her fortune and love. Athenais went away. The two lovers look upon each other for a long time with trembling. "Am I right?" asked Lilia. "Am I in fault?" said Carlos. "No," said she, "for thou art a mortal, and, what is still worse, a man." "What shall I do, then?" replied Carlos. "Thou shalt," said she, solemnly, "after one year go into a garden on a hill, and look around thee and seek me in the garden,—in the garden—under the beds,—deep below one,—I know not how deep." She hastened away, as if frantic, and sang, "All over, all over with loving and living!"
Carlos stood some minutes with his wild look on the ground, and said, in a low, hollow tone, "God, it is thy work!" and went off,—met his friend, who called out impetuously and joyfully, "She is here!" but he hastened on proudly, and only called back, "Not now, Hiort!" To him came Lilia, weeping, and led him onward. "Come," said she, "do not look upon the tomb; we are both too unhappy."
Then came out old Salera with Athenais,—seized on ice for fire, and took his cold coin for warm,—praised her like a man, and his son like a father,—and said, as in a play, There comes himself. "Here, son," said he, "I set before thee thy happiness, if thou canst deserve it." Carlos had lost Lilia's heart,—his father's wish, the might of beauty, the omnipotence of loving beauty, stood before him, his longing and the thought of cruelty toward this goddess, and finally a world within him, which stood so near to her sun, prevailed over a double fidelity;—he sank on his knee before her, and said, "I am guiltless, if I am happy." The pair go off on one side; Salera on the other, and encounters Lilia, whose hand he takes, with the words, "You, as a friend of my house and son, certainly take the deepest interest in his latest happiness as the possessor of Athenais." So ended the third act, which, by its unjust, all-distorting allusions, filled and fired Albano with an exasperated desire for the end, merely that he might call Roquairol to account for this assassin-like brandishing of the tragic dagger. "The old fellow,"[[131]] said Gaspard, laughing, "fancies he is painting me too herein; I wish, however, he would take stronger colors."
Before the fourth act commenced, the Spaniard threw up his left hand, and the black jay spoke immediately: "Sin punishes sin, and the foe the foe; untamable is love, untamable also vengeance. See, now comes the man whom they no more love, and brings with him his wounds and his wrath." There stood Hiort, as if before his grave, which drew down his head,—weeping and drinking enormously,—soft evening tones of music melted away with his dissolving life. "Ah, so it is," cried he, out of a deep, agonized breast,—"only throw them away at length, the two last roses of life:[[132]] too many bees and thorns lurk in them; they draw thy blood and give thee poison— O, how I loved! thou Almighty One on high, how I loved!—but ah, not thee! And so now I stand empty and poor and old: nothing, nothing is left me,-not a single heart,—no, not my own: that is already gone down into the grave. The wick is drawn out of my life, and it runs away in darkness. O ye children of men! ye stupid children of men! why do ye then believe that there is still any love here below? Look at me, I have none. An airy colored ribbon of love, a rainbow, draws itself out and winds itself around under us shifting clouds, as if it would bind the clouds and bear them. Ridiculous! it is itself cloud and mere falling weather,—in the beginning glisten gay drops of gladness, then dash down black drops of rain!"
He was silent,—went slowly up and down,—looked seriously at a war-dance and masquerade of internal spectres,—then stopped. The shadows of dark deeds played through each other around him: suddenly he started up; a lightning-flash of a thought had darted into his heart; he ran to and fro, cried, "Music! let me have horrible music!" and the wedding music from Don Juan, which had hitherto accompanied him, raised the murder-cry of terror. "Divine!" said he; and only single words, only tiger spots, appeared and vanished on the monster as he passed by. "Devilish! the rose's being, the blossom's being,—aye, well! I will bury myself in the avalanche, and roll down; and then I die beautifully on my slumber-island," he concluded, in a soft, faint voice.
"O Lilia! insure me one prayer!" cried he, going to meet his approaching sister. "Any one which hinders not my dying," said she. He laid before her the prayer, that she would this very night persuade her friend Athenais into the "night-arbor" of the island, under the pretext that her bridegroom, Carlos, wished to show her to-day two mysteries about Lilia. "I have," he added, "Carlos's voice; with it I can declare to her my loving heart, and then, if she loves me, I will call myself Hiort." "Is thy request sincere?" asked the sister. "As true as that I will be still alive to-morrow," said he. "Then is it soon fulfilled, for Athenais expects me even in the night-arbor; only follow me after seven minutes." She went; he looked after her, and said to himself, "Hasten, arrange the heaven! Fair slumber-island, at once the sleeping-place for the bridal-chamber and for the eternal sleep. O, how few minutes stand between me and her heart!"
"Thou art still here, surely?" said he, and looked for his pistol. "Now," cried he, solemnly, in departing, "is the time for the clear-obscure deed, then the bier-cloth is thrown over it," and went swiftly into the arbor.
The Spaniard threw a twig into the water, and the black jay spake, in a low tone, "Silent is bliss; silent is death."
"The man," said Gaspard, "has something through the whole play like real earnest. I will not answer that he does not shoot himself dead before us all." "Impossible!" said Albano, alarmed; "he has not the force for such a reality." Nevertheless, he could not, after all, properly free himself from the anxious thought of this possibility.