118. CYCLE.
The first solitary minute which Albano found with his sister he devoted to an inquiry about her Latin intelligence that Linda's father would appear precisely on her marriage-day; but she referred him to his own father, who could tell him all about Linda's, and begged him "to indulge Linda, not only in her tenderness, but also in her characteristic shyness of marriage, which went very far. She could not, upon one occasion, accompany a female friend to the nuptial altar," Julienne added; "she called it the place of execution of woman's liberty, the funeral pile of the fairest, freest love, and said the heroic poem of love became then, at the highest, the pastoral poem of marriage. Of course she knows not whither such principles ultimately lead." "I hope, too, that thou trustest her," said Albano, making other and higher deductions from this singularity than his strict sister. She suddenly broke off, to impart to him a piece of advice which he was to take with him to Pestitz,—namely, to shun the Princess, who was, to the very core, cold, false, revengeful, and selfish. "She has something in view with thee, and, indeed, much; and her hatred toward the Countess must now be added. Linda clearly apprehends her, but yet she lets herself, out of passionateness, be carried away and made use of by all whom she foresees and surveys." Albano adhered to his old, milder judgment of the Princess,—so much the more, as he already knew Julienne's moral severity towards every woman of genius, from her misjudgment in the case of Liana,—but he readily gave her his word to shun the Princess, without telling her the reason,—namely, the love which the woman had for him, and of which it was so hard to disenchant her. To his tender feelings, there was no greater rudeness than this public breaking open and reading of a love-letter, this masculine catching and proclaiming of a woman's sigh of love through a speaking-trumpet for the people.
All came together again, encamped themselves upon a spot which commanded the lake and the Alps, and the shadows of the blossoms. The day cooled its glow, and sank from beauty to beauty down into evening. "On this exquisite island," said Dian, "already the Northern nature begins, and we shall soon find ourselves at home under a peaked roof." "Well, yes," said Julienne; "but, after all, one is glad too, at last, when one sees again a neat man, a blonde, and a shadow, and hears a bird or two."[[108]] "I think not here of Tivoli and Ischia and Posilippo," said Albano; "I think of my childhood and of the Alps. Over on the shore of the long lake (Lago Maggiore) of course the two sugar-loaves may not represent themselves to the best advantage, but, as a compensation for that, here from the sugar-loaf the shore and the lake appear so much the better, and for him who stands on this alp of the lake, it is, after all, made." "All is indifferent to me," said Linda; "for I find myself here entirely well. Remarking upon fine landscapes is also a Northern characteristic, because there one can become acquainted with them only through books. The Italian, who has them, enjoys them as he enjoys health, and is conscious only of the deprivation of them; for this reason he is not even a great landscape-painter."
"One should," said Dian, "celebrate in song the magnificent Italy, even upon the boundary-line, if one could get a guitarre from the Castellain." He went and brought one. He now began to improvisate in Italian. He sang: "Apollo felt his old love for his former pastoral land on the earth and for the lost, veiled Daphne, wake again within him; he came down from heaven to find both. Jupiter had given him Momus as a companion of his journey, who should show him all that was odious, that he might flee back. As a beautiful, smiling youth he went over the islands, through the ruins of the temples, through eternal blossoms; he passed along before divine paintings of an unknown, exalted virgin with a child, and before new tones of music, and moved as over the magic circle of a new and fairer earth. In vain did Momus show him the monks and pirates, and his temples prostrated by the hand of time, and quizzingly make him take columns of thermæ for temple-columns. The god looked up at the high, cold Olympus, and looked down upon this warm land, upon this great, golden sun, these clear, blue nights, these ever-blooming perfumes, these cypresses, these myrtle and laurel woods, and said, 'Here is elysium, not in the subterranean world, not on Olympus.' Then Momus gave him a laurel-twig from Virgil's grave,[[109]] and said, 'That is thy Daphne.' Now did his great sister Diana grow indignant. She gave Daphne her form and dress, as if she had come over out of the woods of the Pyrenees; but he recognized his beloved, and went back with her into Olympus." As Dian sang this, and let the strains fly with the tones of the strings, there stood high over in heaven the eternal, radiant mountains of ice; from the mountains fluttered streams and shadows into the bright lake, and the evening bestirred itself with kindling and enchanted glow. Then the silent Albano seized the strings, buried his eye in the gleaming of the mountains, and blushing, began: "Linger awhile, O singer, among the lofty spirits who marched, killing, dying, over the battle-field, and who built up the everlasting temples of humanity; linger among the pure diamonds that remained firm and bright under the hammer of destiny; linger in the olden time, in the sea of Rome, which bore upon its bosom one quarter of the world, and undermined the others; but flee before the time which sank its summit in its own crater. Linger, singer, on the heights, and look down into the garden of the world, which is the play of human life. The ruin becomes a rock, and the rock a ruin; on the high promontory the blossom breathes fragrance, below lies the sea with open jaws; over Scylla gleam beautiful houses and streets amidst the lair of frightful rocks. And the god flies over the land and sees the child on the temple-column by the shore, and the temples of the gods full of monks, the marshes full of nameless ruins, and the coasts full of blossoms and grottoes, and the blooming myrtles and grapes, and the fire mountains and the islands, and Ischia."
But the storm-swept guitarre sank from his hands, and his voice died away; his eye lost itself in the depths of heaven and of human life, and he withdrew himself to still his loud heart. In the cooling solitude he observed how far already the sun had flown down, as on Cupid's wings, through a colder heaven; he speedily turned back, and in the evening redness his parting-hour struck.
When he came back, Linda was alone, for Julienne, under the pretext of inspecting the picture cabinet, had drawn away his Dian from the lovers, to whom, besides, only the shortest day of bliss had been to-day allotted, and his beloved looked on him significantly. "Dian, strictly speaking, sang better," said she, "and more epically, but your lyric nature I also hold very dear." She looked at him again and again, then into his eye; then she embraced him impulsively, and not a sound betrayed the sudden kiss. "We will go up on the terrace," said she, softly. They mounted the lovely height of the ten terraces, which fill the sight with laurel and citron trees, and with pyramids and colossal statues, and with the prospect of the distant shore surrounded with villages and alps, and where once Albano had seen his father flee. "Thou pleasest me more and more, Albano," said Linda. "I almost believe thou canst really love. Tell me thy first love; I have told thee my story." "O Linda," said he, "how much thou desirest! But I am true, and tell thee all. Thou wilt love her as she loved thee. See here thy picture, which with her dying hand she made and gave me!"
He handed her the little sketch, and her eye grew moist. Thereupon he began, in a low and solemn tone, the picture of his first love; how he had reverenced and sought her early, when she was yet unseen, and in the first morning beams of life, and how he found her; and how she made him happy, and was not so herself; how gentle she was, and he so wild and harsh; how he demanded of her his own impetuosity of heart; how barbarously he took her renunciation, and how she perished through him. "O, I have dealt hardly, good Linda!" said he. "No," said she, "I weep for you both." "I have great imperfections," said he. "I forgive thee all," said she, "if thou canst only love. But the lovely creature also committed many faults, and against love." She checked herself, then asked, in a low voice, "Albano, is she still in thy heart?" "Yes, Linda," said he. "O thou honest and true man!" cried she, with inspiration, and laid her head upon his breast and prayed, "Holy God, give thy immortals everything, only leave me forever this man's breast, that he may be really loved, inexpressibly, and that I may not sink!" "If thou wilt, dear," she whispered suddenly, and raised herself up, looking upon him with infinite love and resignation, "that I dwell in Lilar, only command it."
This womanly, waiting submission of so free, mighty a spirit, made him speechless. Like an eagle, the flame of love seized him and bore him aloft. He glowed on her blooming countenance, and the bridal torch of the setting sun darted in with great flames between the two. "Linda," he began at length, with trembling, solemn voice, "if we could know that we should ever lose or forsake each other! O Linda," he continued, with difficulty, through his tears and his kisses, "if that were possible, whether through my fault or through cold fate, were it not then better that we at this moment plunged into the lake and died in our love?" The glow of the sun burned in like an aurora, snatching away youths and virgins to the gods, and the twilight of life was kindled into a bright morning redness. "If thou knowest that," said Linda, "then die now with me!" Just then Julienne's distant voice awoke both; at last she came herself with Dian, to take leave. They looked round, awaking, dazzled with the sun and with love, and all was changed. The sun had sunk, the broad lake was overhung with misty shadows, and the world was chilly; only the lofty glaciers blazed still with rosy redness into the blue, like memorial pillars of the flaming covenant-hour.
Before Albano's soul stood even now the form of destiny, so coldly dividing human beings, the veiled rocky form, whose veil is also of stone, which no one raises. He would now fain have burst through it, and directly, without cowardly delay, dashed down into the midst of winter. "O till Hesperus has gone down, pardon me!" whispered Linda. He stayed; but neither had words any longer, only eyes; the reined-in eagles, which had formerly hurried the celestial Venus-car through the heavens, fluttered wildly in the traces. The evening star went down; the half-moon, in mid-heaven, touched the earth with her beams, as with magic wands, and transformed it into a pale, holy world of the heart. "Only let the great star go down now," said she, and looked upon him longingly. He did so. The nightingales skipped musically among the silvery twigs; only the human beings had a voiceless heaven and love.
"Only one little star more!" she begged. He obeyed, touched by the very expression, but she summoned up her resolution, and said, "No, go!" "We will, Dian!" said he. Dian, indulgent to love, led the way down the terraces. Long and ardently lay the brother and sister on each other's hearts, and wished each other a pleasant, undisturbed reunion. Linda gave him only her hand, and said not a word. As the still heaven of night covers its hot sun, so was her flaming heart concealed; and when he went, without looking after him, she clasped his sister to her heaving bosom.