Not by reasonings, but by pleasantries, is the ice most easily melted in
our choked-up wheel-work. After a chatty hour, not much more was left of
all that had passed in the youth's mind than a vexatious feeling and a
happy one; the former, to think that he had not taken the monk by the
cowl and carried him before the Knight; and the latter, at the
remembrance of the noble female form, and at the very prospect of a life
full of adventures. Still, when he closed his eyes, monsters full of
wings, worlds full of flames, and a deep-weltering chaos, swept around
his soul.
At last, in the cool of the after-midnight, his tired senses, under a
slow and dissolving influence, approached the magnetic mountain of
slumber; but what a dream came to him on that still mountain! He lay (so
he dreamed) on the crater of Hecla. An upheaved column of water lifted
him with it, and held him balanced on its hot waves in mid-heaven. High
in the ethereal night above him stretched a gloomy tempest, like a long
dragon, swollen with devoured constellations; near below hung a bright
little cloud, attracted by the tempest,--through the light gauze of the
little cloud flowed a dark red, either of two rose-buds or of two lips,
and a green stripe of a veil or of an olive-twig, and a ring of
milk-blue pearls or of forget-me-not,--at length a little vapor diffused
itself over the red, and nothing was there but an open, blue eye, which
looked up to Albano infinitely mild and imploring; and he stretched out
his hands towards the enveloped form, but the water-column was too low.
Then the black tempest flung hailstones, but in their fall they became
snow, and then dew-drops, and at last, in the little cloud, silvery
light; and the green veil swept illuminated in the vapor. Then Albano
exclaimed, "I will shed all my tears and swell the column, that I may
reach thee, fair eye!" And the blue eye grew moist with longing, and
closed with love. The column grew with a loud roaring, the tempest
lowered itself, and pressed down the little cloud before it, but he
could not touch it. Then he tore open his veins and cried, "I have no
more tears, but all my blood will I pour out for thee, that I may reach
thy heart." Under the bleeding the column rose higher and faster,--the
broad, blue ether began to swim, and the tempest was dissipated like
spray, and all the stars that it had swallowed came forth with living
looks,--the little cloud, hovering freely, floated gleaming down to the
column,--the blue eye, as it approached, opened slowly, and suddenly
closed and buried itself deeper in its light; but a soft sigh whispered
in the cloud, "Draw me to thy heart!" O, then he flung his arms through
the flashing light and swept away the mist, and snatched a white form,
that seemed to be made of moonlight, to his glowing breast. But ah! the
melting snow of the light escaped from his hot arms,--the beloved one
melted away and became a tear, and the warm tear found its way through
his breast, and sank into his heart, and burned therein; and his heart
began to dissolve, and seemed as if it would die.... Then he opened his
eyes.
But what an unearthly waking! The little, white, spent cloud, stained
with storm-drops, still hung bending down over him, in Heaven,--it was
the bright, lovingly near moon, that had come in above him. He had bled
in his sleep, the bandage of his wounded arm having been pushed off by
its violent movement. His raptures had melted the night-frost of
ghostly terror. In a transfiguring euthanasia, his firm being fluttered
loosely around like an uncertain dream,--he had been wafted and rocked
upward into the starry heaven as on a mother's breast, and all the stars
had flowed into the moon and enlarged her glory,--his heart, flung into
a warm tear, gently dissolved therein,--out of him was only shadow,
within him dazzling light,--the wind of the flying earth swept by before
the upright flame of his soul, and it bent not. Ah, his Psyche glided
with keen, unruffled, inaudible falcon-pinions, in silent ecstasy
through the thin air of life....
It appeared to him as if he were dying, for it was some time before he
became aware of the increasing warmth of his bleeding left arm, which
had lifted him into the long Elysium that reached over from his dreaming
into his waking state. He refastened the bandage more tightly.
All at once he heard, during the operation, a louder plashing below him
than mere waters could make. He looked over the balcony, and saw his
father and Dian, without a farewell,--which, with Gaspard, was
only the poisonous meadow-saffron in the autumnal moment of
leave-taking,--fleeing, like blossom-leaves dropped out of the
flower-wreath of his life, away across the waves amid the swan-song of
the nightingales!... O, thou good young man, how often has this night
befooled and robbed thee! He spread out his arms after them,--the pain
of the dream still continued, and inspired him,--his flying father
seemed to him a loving father again,--in anguish he called down,
"Father, look round upon me! Ah, how canst thou thus forsake me without
a syllable? And thou too, Dian! O comfort me, if you hear me!" Dian
threw kisses to him, and Gaspard laid his hand upon his sick heart.
Albano thought of that copyist of death, the palsy, and would gladly
have held out his wounded arm over the waves, and poured out his warm
life as a libation for his father, and he called after them, "Farewell!
farewell!" Languishing, he pressed the cold, stony limbs of a colossal
statue to his burning veins, and tears of vain longing gushed down his
fair face, while the warm tones of the Italian nightingales, trilling in
response to each other from bank and island, sucked his heart till it
was sore with soft vampyre-tongues.----Ah, when thou shalt be loved,
glowing youth, how thou wilt love!--In his thirst for a warm,
communicative soul, he woke up his Schoppe, and pointed out to him the
fugitives. But while the latter was saying something or other
consolatory, Albano gazed fixedly at the gray speck of the skiff, and
heard not a word.