Just then the youth was seen by his friend Dian, who came hastening towards him. Without much ceremony, the Greek embraced him, and said, "Hail, hail to the beautiful transformation! There stands my Chariton; she, too, would greet thee after the manner of her speech."[[158]] But Chariton was looking continually at Idoine, on account of her resemblance. "Well, my good Dian, I have paid many a heart and fortune for it, and I wonder that fate has spared me thee," said Albano. Thereupon he asked him, as architect of the church, about the condition of the hereditary sepulchre, because he wished afterward to have the ashes of his parents uncovered, in order at least to kneel down before them in silent gratitude. "Of that," said Dian, surprised, "I know very little; but it is a shocking purpose, and what good is to come of it?"
The music ceased; Spener, in a low tone, began his discourse. He spoke not, however, of the Prince at his feet, nor yet of his loved ones in the hereditary tomb, but of the real life that knows no death, and which man must beget in himself. He said that, for himself, though an old man, he wished neither to die nor to live, because one could already, even here, be with God, so soon as one only had God within him, and that we ought to be able to see without grief our holiest wishes wither like sunflowers, because, after all, the lofty sun still beams on, which forever raises and nourishes new ones, and that a man must not so much prepare himself for eternity as plant in himself the eternity which is still, pure, light, deep, and everything.
Many a human breast in the church felt the poisonous point of the past broken off by this discourse. On Albano's rising sea it had poured smooth oil, and all about his life was even and radiant. Julienne's eyes had grown dry and full of serene light, and Idoine's had filled with glimmering moisture, for her heart had to-day been stirred too often not to weep in this sweet, devout, and exalting emotion. Once it seemed to Albano, as he looked towards her, as if she shone supernaturally, and as if, just as the sun from under the earth beams upon a moon, so Liana from the other world were beaming upon her countenance, and adorning this likeness of herself with a holiness beyond the reach of earth.
At the close of the discourse, Albano went quietly to the two friends, pressed his sister's hand, and begged her not to wait for the end of the sad festival. She was comforted and willing. As they stepped out of the church, a wondrous bright moonlight was spread over earth, like a sweet morning light of the higher world. Julienne begged them, instead of going in between four walls, into the prison of eyes and words, and the midst of all the din, rather to behold first the still, bright landscape.
All of them bore in their breasts the holy world of the serene old man out into the fair night. Not a speck of cloud, not a breath of air, stirred through the wide heaven; the stars reigned alone; earthly distances were lost in the depth of white shadows; and all mountains stood in the silvery fire of the moon. "O, how I love your serene, holy old man!" said Idoine to Albano, when she had already often pressed Julienne's hand. "How happy I am! Ah, life, like the water of the sea, is not quite sweet till it rises towards heaven." Suddenly distant bugle-tones came pealing out to them, which well-meaning country-folk sounded as a greeting before Albano's foster-home. "How comes it," said Julienne, "that in the open air and at night even the most insignificant music is pleasant and stirring?" "Perhaps because our inner music harmonizes with it more clearly and purely," said Idoine. "And because, before the spheral music of the universe, human art and human simplicity are, at last, equally great!" added Albano. "That is just what I meant, for that is also, after all, only within ourselves," said Idoine, and looked lovingly and frankly into his eyes, which sank before hers, as if the moon, the mild after-summer of the sun, now dazzled him with its splendor.
Since the church festival, she had addressed herself to him oftener; her sweet voice was more tender, though more tremulous; her maidenly shyness of the resemblance to Liana seemed conquered or forgotten, as on that evening in the last garden. During Spener's discourse, her existence had decided itself within her, and on her virgin love, as on a spring soil by one warm evening rain, all buds had been opened into bloom. As he now looked upon this clear, mild eye, under the pure, cloudless brow, and the fine mouth, with inexhaustible good-will towards every living thing breathing over it, he could hardly conceive that this delicate lily, this light incense exhaled from morning redness and morning flowers, was the habitation of that firm spirit which could rule life, just as the tender cloud or the little nightingale's breast contains the thrilling peal of sound.
They stood now on the bright mountain, covered with the evergreen of youthful remembrance, where Albano had once slumbered in dreams of the future, as on a light and lofty island in the midst of the shadow-sea of two vales. The mountain-ridges of the linden city, the eternal goal of his youthful days, were snowed over by the moon, and the constellations stood upon them gleaming and great. He looked now upon Idoine: how truly did this soul belong among the stars! "When the world is purged from this low day; when heaven, with its holiest, farthest suns, looks upon this earthly land; when the heart and the nightingale alone speak,—then only does her holy time come up in heaven; then is her lofty, tranquil spirit seen and understood, and by day only her charms," thought Albano.
"How many a time, my good Albano," said the sister, "hast thou here, in thy long-left youthful years, looked toward the mountains for thine own ones,—for thy hidden parents and brothers and sisters,—for thou hadst always a good heart!" Here Idoine unconsciously looked at him with inexpressible love, and his eye met hers. "Idoine," said he,—and their souls gazed into each other, as into suddenly rising heavens, and he took the maiden's hand,—"I have that heart still; it is unhappy, but unstained." Then Idoine hid herself quickly and passionately in Julienne's bosom, and said, scarce audibly, "Julienne, if Albano rightly knows me, then be my sister!"
"I do know thee, holy being!" said Albano, and clasped to one bosom sister and bride; and from all of them there wept but one joy-enraptured heart. "O ye parents," prayed the sister, "O thou God, bless, then, both of them and me, that so it may be forever!" And as she lifted her eyes to heaven, while the lovers lingered in the short, holy elysium of the first kiss, innumerable immortals looked down out of the deep-blue eternity, the distant tones and the mild rays were blended together, and the slumbering realm of the moon resounded. "Look up to the fair heaven!" cried the sister to the lovers, in the ecstasy of her joy; "the rainbow of eternal peace blooms there, and the tempests are over, and the world is all so bright and green. Wake up, my brother and sister!"