Yet she did tell me more of her experiences in Berlin. She had heard Milder in some of Gluck's operas and in "The Vestal," and described her appearance, her figure, her execution; then, assuming a majestic attitude, she herself sang several passages which had specially touched her. Her fair face flushed crimson, and her eyes sparkled.
I believe it was on that evening that she enthralled my heart forever. Not a word was exchanged between us concerning the events of the afternoon or of my sermon. But I was too happy to find that she gave me her confidence so far, not to forget myself and my petty vanity.
We rambled over the fields for an hour, until it grew perfectly dark, and returned to the castle just at tea-time. The Canoness had arranged her bouquet very gracefully and laid it beside her aunt's cup, who patted her arm with a grateful glance. She looked past her uncle into vacancy, without moving a muscle. The latter was in the worst possible humor, which he even vented on Mademoiselle Suzon during the game of chess.
Soon after I went to my tower-room, Fräulein Luise began to sing below. I listened at my open window in a perfect rapture of every sense. Outside, the nightingales were trilling, beneath me this magnificent voice, in which so strong, so pure, so noble a woman's soul appealed to me--I felt as if my whole being had been encompassed with iron bands, and in this "moonlit, magic night" one after another burst asunder, and I could breathe freely for the first time.
Much might be said of the days that followed. They were the happiest of my young life. But memorable as they are still, distinctly as I can recall all the trivial events and rapturous joys of many, I shall avoid relating them in detail.
Though a man should speak of his first and only love with the tongue of an angel, he would find no patient listeners.
Yet, for truth's sake, I must here remark that I did not deceive myself for an instant in regard to the hopelessness of my passion. But, strangely enough, this clear perception of the heights and depths which separated me from the woman I worshiped did not make me unhappy. Nay, it would only have crippled the lofty flight of my feelings had I flattered myself that this peerless, unattainable being might some day prosaically descend from her height and become the wife of a commonplace village pastor. True, I can not assert that this state of mere spiritual aspiration would always have continued. If she gave me her hand, if her dress brushed me, or my foot even touched the shoes she had put outside her chamber-door in the evening to be cleaned, an electric shock thrilled me, which doubtless had some other origin than mere devotion and the worship we pay to saints.
Still, it never entered my mind to imagine that I could put my arm around her and press her lips. I believe I should have actually fallen lifeless from ecstasy if such a thing had occurred.
Externally everything remained precisely as before--our lesson-hours, which she always attended as a duenna, our Sunday conversations in the kitchen-garden, now and then a meeting at Mother Lieschen's. Yet I felt more and more plainly that she trusted me and had forgiven my former follies. My hair was now parted wholly on the left side, and no longer combed behind my ears.