He walked on a few steps, absorbed in deep thought, then paused suddenly and passed his hand across his brow. "Good Heavens! I had nearly forgotten it while occupied with all this baseness; Edwin and Leah receive their friends to-night! I'll go there. I must see some good people, to restore my faith in humanity."
And whistling the adagio from the symphony in C. minor--his invariable remedy when he wanted to drive a bitter taste from his tongue--he turned toward the zaunkönig's little house.
BOOK V.
CHAPTER I.
At the moment when after a lapse of four years we resume the thread of our story, we find Edwin sitting at the open window of a hotel, attired in a costume very similar to the one which he wore when we made his acquaintance on a certain moonlight night. Again he wears an unpretending grey summer suit, with a black tie fastened loosely around his neck, and a straw hat, which, despite the changing fashions, is in shape nearly identical to one worn long before, lies on the table, adorned with a fresh bouquet of heather blossoms. Even his features show no trace of the four years that have passed; indeed he might now be taken for a younger man, his cheeks are slightly bronzed by the air and sun, the line between the brows has disappeared, the restless glance has vanished. He has just completed a long letter, and now lays down the pen to feast his eyes a moment on the forest clad heights, which, rise behind the trim little city. The time is twilight of a warm summer evening; the air, as usual after the crimson light of sunset has faded, is full of tremulous, translucent brightness; a silver grey sky which merges into white, and relieves the eyes by forming a background to the masses of tree tops and the mountain ridges upon whose crest is uplifted the lofty tower of the old church, like a black silhouette against a sheet of silver paper. In the foreground a few faint local colors and hundreds of individual details fill out the picture. The railway station only separated from the hotel by the wide street, swarms with people; but it is Sunday and as if in deference to the day there is no noisy bustle, no goods loaded and unloaded, and only persons traveling for pleasure seem to be waiting for the next train, which is to leave in an hour.
Meantime it rapidly grew dark. Edwin is compelled to move nearer the window, in order to read, and we, as old friends, may be permitted to look over his shoulder and see what he has written to his Leah.
"My Beloved Wife:
"I have been here just two hours, during which time I have slept as soundly as I ever did at midnight. It was a foolish whim of mine, the desire to reach this place to-day; for to do so I was compelled to walk in the heat of the noonday sun. I might have known Mohr would not tear himself away from his home one instant before the term began, and of course I have not found him here and may be obliged to wait several days. However, his dilatoriness has procured me the pleasure of strolling through this mountain region by moonlight, which I have done for the last four stages of my journey. Dearest, it was unspeakably delightful, to leave at moon-rise the hot rooms where I had spent the day and then walk through the silent woods, which grew cooler and cooler, until when the moon was about to set I reached some cosy nest which was ready to receive me. To be sure he who wants to write a hand-book of travel, must manage differently; the moon is the poet that transfigures all things, but it is after the style of Eichendorff, who with his rustling tree tops, flashing streams, and distant baying of dogs always conjures up the same dreamy mood; so that at last it makes no difference where we wander, whether in Italy or the Thuringian forest. For me, who only wanted to thoroughly shake off the school dust and forget everything that could remind me of the agreement of triangles and the theory of parallelograms, this twilight mood was exactly the right one, in which all forms blend together and I as it were returned with a living body into the Infinite. 'Give my soul full freedom'--how often I've repeated the words! How often I've thought of and pitied you, because, as a woman, you can never enjoy the strange, sweet wondrous delight, which I inhaled in full draughts with the night breeze. The spell can only work in perfect solitude. The ear must hear but one footstep, when the night reveals its secrets and there rises that wierd vibrating hum, a noise like that our earth might make, moving through the grooves of space. It is like a fairy dream, dearest, to look up to the stars and become absorbed in the measureless silent enigmas; the countless 'burning questions,' which nevertheless burn only the souls of dreamers and night wanderers. And amid the depression caused by the loneliness of the world it was a grand feeling of triumph the consciousness of loving and being loved, that though fallen in the deepest abysses we are never really given over solitary and hopeless, to the spectres of night, since we can raise above us a shield our pure, honest purpose, our strength and love of good, and feel ourselves allied to all our struggling brothers, and throughout all this journey you were always by my side, beloved, and on the other walked our Balder, often in such bodily presence, that I actually saw your eyes sparkle, and thought I distinctly heard your voice as it sounds when you steal behind me and whisper in my ear: 'do I disturb you?'
"As I said before, I deprived myself of all this, when the fancy seized me to come hither in the day time. Now in order to assure myself of your presence, I must take up my pen which will not lend wings to my thoughts, after my hot walk in the dog days. But if I keep silence longer, I fear you may take some jealous fancy and imagine Frau Christiane to be the cause, and that, instead of the moonlight, in which I stagger intoxicated with the beauty of nature, perhaps the moonlight sonata, which to be sure I have recently heard with fresh delight, has gone to my head. No, dear Wisdom, on this point you can be as much at ease as you were four years ago; nay, more so, for even your old and at that time not wholly to be rejected hypothesis, that your dear husband's extreme loneliness had made a fatal impression upon the unoccupied mind of our artist, has proved, on a nearer inspection of the facts and circumstances, entirely untenable. You must erase this conquest from the list of my victories, which thereby is considerably diminished. That we heard nothing of our friends for years, that they did not even inform us of their marriage and only remembered the old friendship a short time ago, arose from entirely different reasons--concerning which I have promised to keep silence, even to you, although to do so will be difficult enough. I have so accustomed myself to sharing everything with you, not keeping in my mind and heart even the smallest 'arrière-boutique,' as Montaigne calls it, closed to you, that I should have preferred not to learn, the strange circumstances through which these two people have found each other, at the cost of being compelled to conceal them from you, my beloved keeper of the Great Seal, especially as I know that this time, too, we should have agreed in our judgment and feelings.
"Oh! dearest! the hour in which our old friend broke at last the seal of the dark secret he had kept so long, because he could not endure that there should be a mystery between us, the way in which he told the unspeakable secret, how he conquered hopeless despair by his deep, earnest love--never, never will the smallest syllable of this confession vanish from my memory. How these two mortals have battled for their happiness, nay how bravely they must still daily defend themselves against the ghosts of the past! Never have I heard a more touching story than the account of his ceaseless quest of the lost one, after he had at last found her in the most sequestered corner of the world, his unwearied persistency, which nothing could rebuff, to make her again accustomed to the light of day, the vital warmth of her profession and his faithful love. For the first time I have learned to thoroughly know this strange man, and understand how he was able to accomplish the tremendous task of saving for the second time, this apparently lost life. How much I should like to show you my old friend, as I know him, one of the best, noblest, and most unselfish heroes, I have ever met. For do not suppose that, blinded by his passion, without a struggle and only keeping the object of possessing her before his eyes--but enough, I'm on the way to say more than I am permitted to utter. Let this hint be sufficient for you, dear heart, and promise me never to allude to it again, nor even, if it's possible, to strive to discover what is concealed behind it. Have I not myself given you a beautiful example of how we can stifle even the most lawful curiosity, by not even inquiring what motives you could have for not accompanying me on this vacation's journey, and refraining at your request from all meditations upon whether the point in question was a grand cleaning festival, a new carpet in our study, or some other unsuspected and thoughtful expenditure of the traveling expenses you have saved?