Disturbed, impetuous, with dishevelled hair, Hiort came back, and said, in a low voice, "It is done; I was blest; no one will be so after me." "With that yellow one,[[133]] and now in the night-hour, I will answer for nothing," said Gaspard. Albano reddened with shame at the impudent presumption, and still more at Roquairol's crime of dishonoring and seducing, even in the play, his holy beloved. "Music, but tender and good!" he cried, and let himself be fanned by the zephyr of harmony, and drank incessantly "funeral draughts," or wine,—both to the annoyance of the Knight, who abhorred drinking, and shunned music, because this or both made one weak.
He laid himself down on the turf, and the pistol beside him, and said, stammering, "So, then, I lie in the warm ashes of my burnt-out life, and my cold ashes will be added soon." He put his double opera-glass close to his eyes, and cast sparkling looks over at Linda. "I have had her on my heart, the divine beauty, my eternal love,—my tulip, which at evening closes at length over the bee, that he may die in the flower-cup. On the roses of my life I rest and die; I still look with bliss on the sweet one; I cannot repent. Only forgive, poor Carlos; I wipe away the crime with blood, but with tears of penitence I cannot. Should that which time has washed away from this shore cleave again to the shore of eternity, then it must fare badly with me there: I can change there as little as here."
At this moment a cannon-shot was fired in the city to announce a deserter. He took his pistol into his hand. "Yes, yes, a shot signifies a fugitive,—a fugitive out of the world, too. O, when shall the sharp sickle lift itself in the east, and cut life in twain? I am so weary!" He looked toward the eastern heavens, but a cloud, which already faintly thundered, overcast the gateway of the moon. He smiled bitterly.
"Even this little, last joy also destiny begrudges me! I shall see the moon no more. Well, I shall, perhaps, mount higher than it or its storm-cloud,—only my dear spectators and auditors of my death are driven away from me by the rain. Yes, if thou art out, then am I out!" He pointed to the flask.
"Wild, awful tones, come up from the deep! Bring me my bloody bridal dress! It is time; declining joy casts behind a long, lengthening shadow." Albano and Julienne recognized with a shudder, in the little coat which they brought him, the blood-sprinkled one which he had worn at the masquerade, when, as a boy, he had meant to murder himself before Linda. "You must lay it on my cold breast," said he, as he received it from Falterle. The thunder rolled nearer, the lightnings became more glowing, and one cloud after another swelled the tempest. He drank the glasses fast. "Nothing can now harm me," said he; "even the lightning not specially, although I lie under trees; in this tube there is a lightning that defies all lightnings,—a real lightning-rod." The hastening storm drove him, on the spectators' account, to the conclusion, and he was roused to indignation at the mockery of Providence over his theatrical preparations.
"Nothing is more pleasant and timely than this tempest," said Gaspard; "however, talking and waiting seem to gratify him tolerably." The other spectators were agonized by the scene, and yet not one tore himself away. Orders had been given to the fellow-performers to take the shot as the signal-word, and not to come before it. He said, "The death-snake rattles in the neighborhood; yonder, on the wave of the future, the corpse comes swimming on." They perceived that he spoke at random and extempore, vexed by the storm. He looked upon the pistol. "A glance at thee! So is the look at life taken, and again hidden under the eyelid. A spark, a single spark, and the theatre-curtain blazes up, and I see the spectators stand, spirits, or even nothing at all, and the eternal, heavy cloud fills the wide ether of the world. So stand I, then, by the dead sea of eternity; so black, still, wide, deep it lies below me; one step, and I am in there, and sink forever. Let it come! I swam therein even before my birth. Now, now," said he, while it sprinkled, and he took the last glass, "the rain will chill the poor wretch already sinking into the chill of death. Play now something soft and beautiful, good people!"
Thereupon he cocked his weapon, stood up, said, weeping, "Farewell, beautiful and hard life! Ye two fair stars, ye that still look down from above, may I come nearer to you? Thou holy earth, thou wilt still often quake, but no more shall he quake with thee who sleeps in thy bosom; and ye good, far-off beings who loved me, and ye near ones whom I so loved, may you fare better than I, and condemn me not too harshly! I do verily punish myself, and God immediately judges me. Farewell, my dear, offended, but very hard Albano, and thou, thou even unto death ardently loved Liana, forgive me, and weep for me! Liana, if thou still livest, then stand by thy brother in the last hour, and pray for me before God!" Here he suddenly pointed the weapon at his forehead, fired, and fell headlong; some blood flowed from the cloven skull, and he breathed yet once, and then no more.
Bouverot flew out, according to his part, and began it: "Even now, my dear Hiort, my Carlos bethinks himself"; but he started back before the corpse, stammering, "Mais! mon Dieu! il s'est tué re vera! Diable! il est mort! Oh! qui me payera?" Linda sank powerless on Julienne's bosom, and the latter stammered, "O, the sinner and suicide!" The Princess exclaimed, indignantly, "Oh, le traitre!" Albano cried, "Ah, Charles! Charles!" and plunged into the lake, and swam over, threw himself upon the shattered form, and groaned, weeping, "O, had I known this! Brother and sister dead! and I am to blame! O, had I remained unsuccessful! Ah, my Charles, Charles, forgive! I was not thy foe. How deplorably shattered it lies there,—the great temple!" "Be more calm, I pray," said Gaspard, who had at last come over in the boat, and who bore every mutilation with an anatomical coldness and curiosity; "he had his regiment debts also, and feared the investigation which a new administration would bring about. Now, one can, after all, have respect for him; he has actually carried through his character."
Albano raised himself up erect, and said, in the deafness of anguish, "Who spake that? you, miserable Bouverot? you know nothing but debts!" "Monsieur le Comte!" said he, defyingly. "I said it," said Gaspard to his son. "O my Dian!" cried Albano, and stretched out his hand toward him, who, himself weeping, held his weeping Chariton, "come thou hither; let us bandage him; there may yet be help for it."
The Counsellor of Arts Fraischdörfer stepped up to the astounded Princess, who remained upon her side of the lake, with the words, by way of diverting her attention, "Viewed on the side of art merely, it were a question whether this situation was not borrowed with effect. One must, as in that wonderful creation of Hamlet, weave a play into the play, and in that make the pretended death a real one; of course it were then only a show of show, playing reality in real play, and thousand-fold, wonderful reflex! But how it rains now!" Something was whispered in the ear of the Princess by her Haltermann. She flung up her arms, and cried, "O, monster! homicide! My poor, innocent Gibbon! Thou monster!" She had heard of the ape's murder, and departed inconsolable.