Blanden, too, seemed to be transfigured by the soothing influence of sickness, in the loneliness of the sick room, far removed from the world: like one of those thoughtful hermits, who, upon mossy banks in sacred groves, amongst flowers and gazelles, ponder upon the mystery of the world. She thus forgot that he, far from belonging to inactive dreamers, had only lately given a proof of western knightliness which is very different from the blood-fearing Hindoo; but yet he was filled with the warmest sympathy for Hindoo thinkers and poets.
"How profound," said he often, "is the blending of the soul with all that their wise men teach. If the form break, the spirit becomes united with the Divine soul of the world, as a bottle in the deep mingles its contents with the sea, if it break against the rocks."
Four lines of poetry, however, were, above all others, ineffaceably impressed in her memory, reflecting her situation, her mood, so truly that she trembled in her very soul when Blanden first recited them to her, verses culled from one of the two great hero books of India, containing such depth of thought as is not to be found either in the heroic poetry of Greece or Germany--
"Oh earthly happiness ever trembling on the brink,
As dew drops kiss the flowers a moment but to sink;
As logs on the ocean may meet and then sever
So men here on earth, and to meet again--never."
Blanden was obliged to kiss the tears from Giulia's eyes, which the grand verses of the Ramayana and the song of "trembling earthly happiness" had called forth.
"You often appear to me," said Blanden, "like a charming Savitri, and although you also are my goddess of fire, I do not mean her, but the child which bore her name. A dark prophecy dedicated the beloved one to death after the lapse of a year, but before the fatal respite drew near, she performed daily penances, praying and fasting; and like a marble goddess standing before the altar, and when the blood-red god of death appeared, with the thin rope in his hand, and had already extracted her beloved one's soul, she knew how to move him by her prayers, entreaties, and her touching faithfulness, until he granted her her husband's life. You, too, with faithful care and touching prayer have won my life from the blood-red Yamna."
"It was my own life," replied Giulia; "without you I could not have lived, you yourself told me that the funereal pile is lighted with sacred fire into which the Hindoo widow casts herself. That pure flame was the fire of your love for me; they die for him who had lived for them, how much more must I have sought death for him who would have died for me?"
Trembling in the bliss of such devoted affection, she thought of Beate and her errand with eagerness as terrified as that with which the Hindoo maidens follow the flower-clad little boats, carrying burning lamps, and which they have confided to the waves of the Ganges; if the lamp extinguish, then extinguishes the light of hope, and a silent desire entrusted to the stream, finds its watery grave. When Blanden told her this, how she had thought of her light-ship that was now tossing upon the waves of the Orta lake; perhaps already the north wind which blew through the passes of the Simplon had extinguished the little lamp of her hopes.
It was a weird shadow which followed her through life. Oh, how she envied the gods and peris who dwelled in enchanted gardens far above the everlasting snow upon the summits of the Himalayas, envied them not the flowers of Paradise, not the ethereal light, not the glorious song of the Gandharvos, not because they drink the Indian ambrosial amreeta in fox-gloves out of the moon, which, for fourteen days, the sun has filled with that drink, but only the one privilege, that of walking in light and casting no shadow behind them. An unshadowed bliss, this for her was unattainable for evermore!
Even the measures of precaution by which she had intended to conceal from Blanden her defeat upon the stage, were only successful for a time. One day a deputation of students, in caps of every hue, came to Blanden. Salomon was the speaker.