"Dearest Brother: Now, at length, I can, for the first time, call thee rightly brother. I have in one eye tears of mourning, and yet in the other tears of gladness, now that all clouds are taken from thy birth; and in Haarhaar, too, all goes tolerably well. The Lector is despatched to tell thee all: where should I find time? He must also tell thee of Herr von Bouverot, whose red nose and bent-up chin, and greedy barbarity toward his few people and many creditors, and whose grossness and sensuality and dry malice I hate to such a degree. However, he is now so properly punished by thy manifestation. Of course all is, like myself, in disorder and confusion. Ludwig's testament was opened this morning, according to his will, and he gave thee thy whole right. I will not be angry about this, brother, in the midst of weeping. He was properly hard toward his brother and sister,—toward me exceedingly so; for he hated all women, even to his wife, who is only of some use when it goes well with her, and works of art themselves really hardened him against men. But let him rest in his peace, of which, indeed, he has found little! He must this very evening, on account of the nature of his complaint, and on account of the length of the way to Blumenbühl, be interred temporarily. Here am I now with thy foster-parents, in the neighborhood of our buried parents. On this account, come without fail! Thou art my only solace in the night of sadness. I must hold thee again to my heart, which will beat hard against thine, and weep and speak, if it only can. Do come! Now, at length, surely, as all stands ready in the hall for the dance, God will let no cold spectres or frightful masks creep in, I pray. Ah, only on thy account am I so happy, and weep enough.
"Julia."
Hardly had Albano given his foster-father the joyful promise to be this evening at his house, when the latter, without further words, hastened off to prepare his "folks" for the joy of the twofold visit.
The Lector was now entreated for his news, with which he seemed to hesitate cautiously on account of Siebenkäs, till Albano begged him freely to impart all to him and his new friend. His account, including some interpolations which came to Albano afterward, was this:—
Bouverot (with whom he began at the questioning of Albano, whose curiosity was excited) had been hitherto in secret league with the aspiring Prince of Haarhaar, and had, in the confident calculation of making through him his permanent fortune, and even an unexpected marriage, upon his word unhung his order-cross of a German Herr, linked at once to infamy and income, and caused to be delivered to the sister of this Prince, Idoine, through the Prince himself, who stood pledged to him for the repeal of her similar vow,[[154]] a miniature of her, which he insisted that he had stolen in his flight, together with half a picture-gallery, and with many fine allusions to his adopted name Zefisio, as that of a Romish Arcadian, and to the name of her Arcadia. "Oh la différence de cet homme au diable, comme est-elle petite!" said Augusti, with quite an unexpected vehemence. Albano must needs ask why. "He passed off an entirely different picture for that of the Princess," said the Lector. Of course it was Liana's own, Albano concluded, and had easily, by a few questions, drawn out that mournful history of the blind Liana chased by the tiger Bouverot.
"O wretched me!" cried Albano, half in fury, and half in pain. It distressed him to think of the sufferings wherewith the holy heart had had to pay for its short, pure, chary love toward him,—who became blind the first time because she so loved his father,[[155]] and the second time because the son misunderstood and loved her. But he restrained himself, and spoke not on the subject; the past was to him, as echo is to bees, hurtful. Siebenkäs testified his joy at Bouverot's punishment through the miscarriage of all his plans.
Albano heard that even Luigi had assumed the appearance of supporting Bouverot's connubial intentions, merely for the sake of seeing him fall from so much the higher elevation. "With what a long, cold, bitter, malicious pleasure," thought Albano, "could my brother, in the hope of the ditch which his death would dig for the hostile court and its adherents, look upon all their expectations, and graciously accept all their measures, from the marriage of the Princess even to the congratulations thereto appertaining, while he hated the Princess and all! And how could he maintain that life-long silent coldness toward me?" But Albano neglected to consider two reasons,—his own proud deportment toward the Prince, and the customary avarice of princes, which is shy of apanage[[156]] moneys.
Gaspard's transactions in Haarhaar, which the Lector gave, only with some omissions enjoined by Julienne, were these:—
With characteristic pleasure and silence had the Knight looked, of old, upon the intricacies of human relations, and given them over to their own disentanglement or dilaceration. Here he let all the dreams of others grow more and more lively and wild, until, with one snatch at the breast, he swept them all from the sleeper at once. His old indignation at the proud refusal of the princely bride was appeased, when he could show them, below the glittering triumphal gate of their wishes and efforts, the documents of Albano's birth, from the hand of the old Prince down even to that of the brother Luigi, as just the same number of armed guards, who should drive them back again out of the gate of victory. A sympathetic astonishment was expressed; nothing was agreed to. Albano had neither been presented to the country nor the empire. Gaspard brought on very calmly an early acknowledgment from Joseph II. This, too, was found out of rule and invalid. Thereupon he confessed, with the determined anger with whose lightning-sparks he so often suddenly pierced through men and relations, that he was going to unveil, without further ceremony, the whole conduct of the court toward Luigi in his eighth year and in his travelling years to all the courts of Europe.
Here they broke off in terror the forenoon's negotiations, to prepare themselves for new ones in the afternoon. In these—which the Lector was ordered to conceal from Albano—the wish of a continued nearer union between the two houses was shown at a distance. By the union was meant Idoine, whose resemblance to Liana, and thereby Albano's love for the latter, had long been known as gossip. But the involving of this guiltless angel ran counter to Gaspard's whole plan of his complete satisfaction; he—who with his high, jagged antlers easily flew through the confused low brush-wood of worldly life—pushed against the barriers of his complete power, gave a downright No! and they broke off in a rage, with the courtly reminder that Herr von Hafenreffer was to accompany him as plenipotentiary and transact the rest of the business in Pestitz.