From hour to hour Schoppe grew more and more out of humor with the father; he thanked God now—when he considered how the Knight's treatment had beat upon and washed over this fruit-bearing island—that Albano had not only the heat, but also the hardness of a rock.
Dr. Sphex, equally fond of his art and his reputation, watched like a threatening Esculapius-serpent over the pillow, and grew more hilarious. Schoppe lingered there, nerved against any degree of severity. The Knight took leave of every one in his son's name, and sent all soft hearts home; for the foster-mother, Albina and others, were not suffered so much as to see the sleeper,—because tears were to him a cold, disagreeable Scotch mist. The Princess and her retinue were already streaming along with the gay pennons of hope on their way to the shining Italy.
The evening was now irrevocably set for departure, especially as, in the night, the sleeping Liana was to be carried into the bed-chamber, which men never again open.
Already was the blooming Endymion overspread with smiles and radiance of joy, as a precursive morning-star of his waking day. His soul roamed, smiling, through the sparkling-cave of subterranean treasures, which the genius of dream unlocks; while the common waking eye stood blind before the spirit's Eldorado, so near and yet walled round by sleep. At last an unknown over-measure of bliss opened Albano's eye,—the youth immediately rose with vigor,—threw himself with the rapture of a first recognition on his father's breast, and seemed, in the first dreamy intoxication, not to remember the spent storm behind him, but only the blissful dream,—and in ecstasy related it thus:—
"I sailed in a white skiff on a dark stream which shot along between smooth, high marble walls. Chained to my solitary wave, I flew anxiously through the winding, rocky narrows, into which, at times, a thunderbolt darted. Suddenly the stream whirled round and descended, growing broader and wilder, over a winding stairway. There lay a broad, flat, gray land around me, tinged by the sickle of the sun with a loathsome, lurid, earthy light. Far from me stood a coiled-up Lethe-flood, which crawled round and round itself. On an immense stubble-field innumerable Walkyres,[[68]] on spider's-threads, shot by to and fro with arrowy swiftness, and sang, 'The fight of life 'tis we that weave'; then they let one flying summer after another soar invisibly to heaven.
"Overhead swept great worlds; on every one dwelt a human being; he stretched out his arms imploringly after another, who also stood on his world and looked across; but the globes ran with the hermits round the sun-sickle, and the prayers were in vain. I, too, felt a yearning. Infinitely far before me reposed an outstretched mountain-ridge, whose entire back, looming out of the clouds, glittered with gold and flowers. Painfully dragged the skiff through the flat, lazy waste of the shallow stream. Then came a sandy tract, and the stream squeezed through a narrow channel with my jammed-up skiff. And near me a plough turned up something long; but when it came up it was covered with a pall—and the dark cloth melted away again into a black sea.
"The mountain-ridge stood much nearer, but longer and higher before me, and cut through the lofty stars with its purple flowers, over which a green wild-fire flew to and fro. The worlds, with the solitary beings, swept away over the mountains, and came not back; and the heart yearned to mount up and soar away after them. 'I must, I will,' cried I, rowing. After me came stalking an angry giant, who mowed away the waves with a sharp moon-sickle; over me ran a little condensed tempest made out of the compressed atmosphere of the earth; it was called the poison-ball of heaven, and sent down incessant pealings.
"On the high mountain-ridge a friendly flower called me up; the mountain waded to meet and dam up the sea, but it almost reached now to the worlds that were flying over, and its great fire-flowers seemed only like red buds scattered through the deep ether. The water boiled,—the giant and the poison-ball grew grimmer,—two long clouds stood pointing down like raised drawbridges, and the rain rushed down over them in leaping waves; the water and my little bark rose, but not enough. 'No waterfall,' said the giant, laughing, 'runs upward here!'
"Then I thought of my death, and named softly a holy name. Suddenly there came swimming along high in heaven a white world under a veil, a single glistening tear fell from heaven into the sea, and it rose with a roar,—all waves fluttered with fins, broad wings grew on my little skiff, the white world went over me, and the long stream snatched itself up thundering, with the skiff on its head, out of its dry bed, and stood on its fountain and in heaven, and the flowery mountain-ridge beside it, and lightly glided my winged skiff through green rosy splendor and through soft, musical murmuring of a long flower-fragrance, into an immense radiant morning-land.
"What a broad, bright, enchanted Eden! A clear, glad morning sun, with no tears of night, expanded with an encircling rose-wreath, looked toward me and rose no higher. Up and down sparkled the meadows, bright with morning dew. 'Love's tears of joy lie down below there,' sang the hermits overhead on the long, sweeping worlds, 'and we, too, will shed them!' I flew to the shore, where honey bloomed, while on the other bloomed wine; and as I went, my gayly decorated little skiff, with broad flowers puffed out for sails, followed, dancing after me over the waves. I went into high blooming woods, where noon and night dwelt side by side, and into green vales full of flower-twilights, and up sunny heights, where blue days dwelt, and flew down again into the blooming skiff, and it floated on, deep in wave-lightnings, over precious stones, into the spring, to the rosy sun. All moved eastward, the breezes and the waves, and the butterflies and the flowers, which had wings, and the worlds overhead; and their giants sang down, 'We fondly look downward,—we fondly glide downward, to the land of love, to the golden land.'