Schoppe's Discoveries.—Liana.—The Chapel of the Cross.—Schoppe and the "I" and the Uncle.
137. CYCLE.
As Schoppe had taken with him his great sword-cane, Albano presumed he had gone after the Spaniard, as destroying-angel. He hurried to his uncle's hotel. A servant told him a red cloak with a thick cane had been there, and desired to be admitted to the gentleman, but that they had despatched him, according to the directions of the latter, to the palace, and meanwhile the gentleman had posted off to the Prince's garden to meet his strong brother. Albano asked, "Who is the strong brother?" "His Excellency your father," replied the servant. Albano hastened to the palace. Here all was haste and confusion about the sickbed of the Prince, who threatened soon to exchange it for the bed of state. Hurrying servants met him. One could tell him he had seen a red mantle go into the great mirror-room. Albano stepped in; it was empty, but full of strange traces. A great mirror lay on the floor, an arras door behind stood open, an open souvenir, wheels, and articles of female apparel, were scattered about an old waxen head. It seemed to him he saw something he had seen before, and yet could not name to himself. Suddenly he beheld in a corner-mirror a second reflection of himself far in behind the image of his youthful face, but covered with age, and similar to the waxen head. He looked round him, a relieved cylindrical mirror unlocked to him, as it were, time itself, and he saw in its depths his gray old age.
Shuddering, he left the singular apartment. A gentlewoman of Julienne came across his way. She could tell him that she had seen the "Profile-cutter," in a red mantle, with a pocket spy-glass in his hand, go out across the castle yard. He hastened after, when Augusti came to meet him below the gate, with the request of the Prince, that he would visit him once more. "Cannot possibly now; I must first have my crazy Schoppe again," replied he. In his bosom no one lived but his friend; moreover, he took the Prince, in this case, to be only the mask of his talkative sister. "I saw him on the way to Blumenbühl," said the Lector. He darted off. At the gate, Augusti's intelligence was confirmed by the guard.
On the road to Blumenbühl he was met by the carriage of the court chaplain, Spener, who was on his way to the Prince. Albano asked after Schoppe. Spener informed him he had talked with him for some time before a solitary house, where he had stopped an hour for the sake of a sick old penitent daughter; had found him well, uncommonly sensible, only older and more reserved than usual. To the question as to his route, the court chaplain replied he had gone toward the city. This appeared to him impossible, but Spener's people confirmed the story, and spoke of the man as wearing a green coat. Albano spoke of a red cloak; Spener and all the rest stuck to the green coat.
He turned back to his own house, where, perhaps, he thought, Schoppe might be seeking and awaiting him. The bondman of the Doctor, the lank Malt, ran to meet him with the intelligence that Herr von Augusti had just been looking for him, and that the sick gentleman had gone out at the old gate in a new green coat. It was the street to the Prince's garden, which, according to Albano's presumption, he had certainly taken, so soon as he had been informed of the Spaniard's having taken the same. Out of doors it was confirmed by Falterle, who related how he had, in his way out, overtaken him, and immediately inquired: "Whither so fast, Mr. Librarian?" whereupon he had stood still, looked at him seriously, and given the answer, "Who are you? You are mad," and then hastened on. Albano inquired about the dress. "In green," replied Falterle. Now his way was decided. The loitering rider could even avouch that the uncle had previously taken the same.
Late in the evening Albano arrived at the Prince's garden. He saw some carriages at the yard of the little garden castle. At last people of his father's met him, who could tell him Schoppe had walked about, tranquil and cheerful, for some time in the garden, with a Mr. von Hafenreffer of Haarhaar, and had gone with him to the city. "With a man he has, to be sure, a guardian genius and keeper again," thought Albano, and the cold rain which had hitherto annoyed him passed away, although the heavens still remained dull. With his agitated heart, surrounded as it was in this landscape only by a dark horizon, he shunned all society, and therefore now the pleasure-castle. Passing by at a distance, he ventured to cast mournful glance at the island of slumber, where Roquairol's grave-hill, like a burnt-out volcano, was to be seen near the white Sphinx. "There, at last, lies the ungovernable balance-wheel, broken and still, lifted out of the stream of time; only with the grave closed the Janus-temple of thy life, thou tormented and tormenting spirit," thought Albano, full of pity, for he had once loved the dead one so much. Over on the garden-mountain, with the linden-tree, reposed the gentle sister, the friendly, lovely angel of peace, amidst the war-din of life,—she, eternal peace, as he, eternal war. He determined to go up thither, and to be alone with the bride of heaven, and to seek out, on the soil consecrated to flowers, the bed beneath which her flower-ashes lay covered up from storms. At the mere thought of such a purpose, streams of tears, like sorrows, burst from his eyes; for he had been dissolved into dreaminess by his previous night-vigils and anxieties, and by so many a misfortune, too, which in so short a time had pierced through his fair, firm life, from one end to the other, with poisonous sting and tooth.
As he went up the hill in the yet moonless, but richly starred twilight, wherein the evening star was the only moon, as it were a smaller mirror of the sun, he saw a couple of gray-clad persons make earnest signs out of the Prince's garden, as if they would forbid his proceeding. He went on unconcerned; indeed, he did not even know whether his brain, glowing from its vigils and agitated by the shocks of life, did not cause these forms to flutter before him, as out of a concave mirror.
As if he were entering a roofless, Grecian temple, so did he step into the holy cloister-garden of the still nun, wherein the linden-tree spoke loud, and the silent flowers, like children, played above the reposing one, and nodded and rocked. High and far stretched the starry arches, like glimmering triumphal arches, over the little spot of earth, over the hallowed spot, where Liana's mortal veil, the little luminous and rosy cloud, had sunk down, when it had no longer to bear the angel, who had gone up into the ether, and needed no cloud any more. Suddenly the shuddering Albano beheld the white form of Liana leaning against the linden, and turned toward the evening star and the ruddy evening glow. Long did he contemplate, in the averted form, the heavenly descending facial line with which Liana had so often unconsciously stood as a saint beside him. He still believed some dream, the Proteus of man's past, had drawn down the airy image from heaven, and made it play before him, and he expected to see it pass away. It lingered, though quiet and mute. Kneeling down, as before the open gate of the wide, long heaven full of transfiguration and divinity, and as if he had been caught up out of these earthly vales, he exclaimed, "Apparition, comest thou from God? art thou Liana?" and it seemed to him as if he were dying.
Quickly the white form looked round, and saw the youth. She rose slowly, and said, "My name is Idoine; I am innocent of the cruel deception, most unhappy youth." Then he covered his eyes, from a sudden, sharp pang at the return of the cold, heavy reality. Thereupon he looked at the fair maiden again, and his whole being trembled at her glorified resemblance to the departed. So smiled once Liana's delicate mouth in love and sorrow; so opened her mild eye; so fell her fine hair around a dazzling-white, sweet face; so was her whole beautiful soul and life painted upon her countenance. Only Idoine stood there greater, like a risen one, prouder and taller her stature, paler her complexion, more thoughtful the maidenly brow. She could not, when he looked upon her so silently and comparingly, repress her sympathy for the deceived and unhappy one, and she wept, and he too.