She manifested to her mother almost a feverish gayety,—a sunshine on the last day of the year. She said, how it refreshed her, that she could now speak freely with her dear mother of her former lovely days. She portrayed to her Albano's great, glowing heart, and how he deserved the sacrifice, and the "pearly hours" which they had lived together. "After all," said she, cheerfully, but in such a way that tears came into the hearer's eyes, "nothing of it has really passed away. Remembrances last longer than present reality, as I have conserved blossoms many years, but never fruits." Yes, there are tender female souls which intoxicate themselves only among the blossoms of the vineyard of joy, as others do only with the berries of the vine-hill. The Lector's note arrived with the intelligence that Albano was awaiting her in Lilar.
Now, as the hour of interview drew so near, she grew more and more uneasy. "If I can only persuade him," said she, "that I have acted as an upright maiden!" Before exchanging her morning chamber for the mourning-carriage, she set all things to rights there for drawing, when she should return; she had, she said, had a very bad dream, but she hoped it would not come to pass.
With her work-basket on her arm, in which the letters lay, she stepped into the carriage, which they had to open, because its sultry air oppressed her. But the sultriness was the breath and atmosphere of her own spirit, and everything beautiful which met her became to her to-day a benumbing poison-flower. Fearfully she kept grasping and pressing the hand of her mother, because every cry, every form that darted by, fluttered over her like a rustling storm-bird; a crier, with his rough tone, cut across her nerves; they trembled more gently again, only when a pastor and his servant passed by with the sick-cup for the evening drink of weary people. O, the fair way was long to her! She had so long to hold together with fainting powers the breaking heart, which was to speak so firmly and decidedly and distinctly with her beloved.
The sky was blue, and yet neither of them remarked that it was beginning to be dark without clouds, since the moon already stood with her night upon the sun. As they passed over the woodland bridge into the living Lilar, where on all branches hung the old bridal-dresses of a decorated past, Liana said, with intense earnestness, to her mother: "For God's sake, not into the old castle of the dead!"[[18]] "But which way then? That is his rendezvous," said the mother. "Anywhere else,—into the Dream-temple. He sees us already; yonder he goes over the gates," said she. "God Almighty be with thee, and speak not long," said the weeping mother, as she went from her into the temple, in whose mirrors she could behold the parting of the innocent beings.
Albano came slowly along down through the walks; he had cleared his eye of tears and his heart of storms. O, how had he hitherto, like a long-tossed mariner, peered into his dark clouds, in order between their misty peaks to discover the mountain-peaks of a green continent!—that he was to-day to lose so much, namely all, his most mournful conclusions had not gone so far as that; nay, he maintained so much tranquillity, that he sent back overhead the little Pollux, who came dancing after, not with threats, but with presents.
At last he stood with quivering lips before the beloved, beautiful form, who, childlike, pale, trembling, and watching her work-basket, looked upon him a little, and then struggled with her sinking eyes. Then his heart melted; the flood of old love rushed back high into his life. "Liana," said he, in the softest tone, and drops fell from his eyes, "art thou still my Liana? I am still the same as ever; and hast thou too not changed?" But she could not say no. A gash was made into the arteries of her life, and tears sprang up instead of blood. His good form, his familiar, brotherly voice stood again so near to her, and his hand held hers again, and yet all was over; a hot sun-glance flashed across her former flowery garden-life, and showed it in a melancholy illumination, but it lay far from her. "Let us," he went on, "be strong now at this singular meeting again. Tell me very briefly everything, why thou hast hitherto been so silent and done so. I have nothing to say,—then let all be forgotten." He had unconsciously raised her hand, but the hand pressed itself down and trembled withal. "Dost thou tremble, or do I?" said he. "I, Albano," said she, "but not from any fault: I am true, O God, I am true even unto death!" He looked upon her with a wild, wondering look. "To you, to you I am so, but it is all over," she cried, confounded and confounding. "No," she added, commandingly, as he was accidentally on the point of going with her out of the perspective range of the Dream-temple,—"no, my mother wishes to see us from the Dream-temple yonder."
He grew red at the maternal espionage; his eye flashed into hers a certain resentment against the "you," and his hot looks wanted to draw out of her agitated face the delaying riddle. Necessity commanded strength; she began.
"Here"—she stammered, and could hardly raise the basket for trembling, "your letters to me!" He took them gently. "I have resigned you," she continued; "my parents are not to blame, although they did not like our love. There is a mystery, which concerns merely you and your happiness, that has constrained me to part from you and from every joy." "Do you wish your letters too?" said he. "My parents—" said she. "The mystery about me?" said he. "An oath binds me," said she. "Last night in the church at Blumenbühl before the priest?" he asked. She covered her eyes with her hand and nodded slowly.
"O God!" cried he, weeping aloud, "is it thus with life and joy and all truth? So? How ye have lied"—he looked at his letters—"about eternal fidelity and love! Whom did you mean then, ye hellish liars?" He flung them away. Liana was about to pick them up; he trod on them violently, and looked bitterly upon the affrighted one. Now he fell into a storm, and drew and poured out, like a water-wheel during the influx of the floods, his tumultuous, suffering breast, and ceased not his cruel pictures of his love, her weakness, her coldness, his pain, her former oaths, and her present violated one about his mysterious fortune, which he said he did not want at all. Her silence wrought him up to a wilder whirl. Her quick, intense breathing he heard not.
"Do not torment thyself. It is all impossible now," she answered, imploringly. "O," said he indignantly, "I will not re-change the change, for the Lector and the Pope would again change that!" He fell now into that induration and palsy of the heart which is peculiar to man; the stream of love hung as a frozen, jagged waterfall over the rocks.