"You gods, swear by all that is sacred to you in heaven and upon earth that you will present this evening as a thank offering in sacrifice to the Genius of Silence! That never will pass your lips what your eyes see, never will your eyes betray the memory that shall dwell within your hearts!"
"We swear it by all that is sacred in heaven and upon earth!" cry the gods.
"Ye goddesses all, ye have heard!" cries Zeus, the enthroned. "Now do homage to Truth, as she to the Genius of Silence! Away with falsehood and deceit! Away with your masks!"
And the plump, wanton arms of the goddesses are raised, and the rosy-fingered hands tear the silvery veils from their heads and cast them triumphantly behind them, and triumphantly the gods greet the beaming countenances of the goddesses, their sparkling eyes and rosy lips, the haunts of sweet, seductive smiles.
"Long live the gods and goddesses of Olympus! No earthly memories cleave to them; if perchance they have borne earthly names, who knows it, who remembers it? The present only belongs to the gods—this hour is one of precious joy."
Only those two sitting there at the table of the gods, arm linked in arm, only they remember, for not alone the present but the future, too, belongs to them. The gods and goddesses call the two Venus and Endymion, but they, in tender whispers, call each other Ludovicka and Frederick. No one disturbs himself about them, no one notices the happy pair, and they observe and regard no one, for they are thinking only of themselves.
"Oh, my beloved," whispers the Prince, "how stale and insipid seems this fantastic feast to me to-night! Once it would have charmed me, and would have been to me as embodied poesy. But to-night it leaves me cold and empty, and I feel that the true and real contain in themselves the highest poetry."
"You are indeed right, my Endymion," says she softly—"you are indeed right: love is the highest poetry, and he who possesses the true and real needs not the fantastic semblance. Still, this is a feast of gods; therefore let us enjoy it with glad hearts and swelling joy. For is it not our wedding feast, and are not all these gods and goddesses unwittingly solemnizing the hymeneal of our love? Rejoice then, my darling, rejoice and sing with the convivial, open your heart to the ravishing hour, drink into thy soul the delight and rapture of the gods!"
A shadow stole over Endymion's high, clear brow, and he gently shook his head. "I love you so deeply and truly that I can not be merry in this hour," he said thoughtfully; "and this wild tumult and this uproarious joy seem not to me like a glorification of our love, but rather its profanation. Ah! my dear love, would that I were alone with you in the open air, beneath the broad high arch of heaven, instead of here beneath this artificial one; would that we sat hand in hand in one of those quiet shady spots in your park, where I could pour into your ear the holy secrets of my heart and tell you sweet stories of our love, and you should listen to me with tranquil, reverent heart, and you and I would solemnize together a glorious feast divine, more glorious than this mad joy can furnish us! He who is happy flees noisy pleasures, and he who loves ardently and truthfully longs for quiet and solitude, to meditate upon his love."
"We shall be solitary and alone, my Frederick, when we belong to one another—when nothing more can separate us, when we shall no more have to meet under the veil of secrecy, no more have to conceal the fair, divine reality under borrowed tinsel! You know, love, to-night we flee."