All these occupations and thorns were to Albano right good, sharp
earthquake-conductors, since in his bosom already more subterranean
storm-matter circulated than is needed to burst the thin wall of a man's
chest. Now he began to get on deeper and deeper into the wild
thunder-months of life. The longing to see Don Zesara caught new warmth
from the Roman history, which lifted up on high before him Caesar's
colossal image, and wrote under it, "Zesara." The veiled Linden-city was
carried over by his fancy and set upon seven hills, and exalted to a
Rome. A post-horn rang through his innermost being, like a Swiss Ranz
des Vaches, which builds out into the ether all summits of our wishes in
long and shining mountain-chains; and it blew for him the signal of a
tent-striking, and all cities of the earth lay with open gates and with
broad highways round about him. And when, at this period, on a cool,
clear summer morning, he marched along metrically by the side of a
regiment on its way to Pestitz, so long as he could hear the sound of
the drums and fifes, then did his soul celebrate a Handel's Alexander's
Feast; the past became audible,--the rattling of the triumphal cars, the
movement of the Spartan bands and their flutes, and the clear trumpet of
Fame,--and, as if at the sound of the last trumpets, his soul arose
among none but glorified dead on the unbolted earth, and, with them,
still marched onward.
When History leads a noble youth to the plains of Marathon, and up to
the Capitol, he would fain have at his side a friend,--a comrade,--a
brother-in-arms, but no more than this,--no sister-in-arms; for a
heroine injures a hero greatly. Into the energetic youth friendship
enters earlier than love: the former appears, like the lark, in the
early spring of life, and goes not away till late autumn; the latter
comes and flees, like the quail, with the warm season. Albano already
heard this lark warbling, invisible, in the air: he found a friend, not
in Blumenbühl, not in the Linden-city, not in any place, but in his own
bosom; and the name of that friend was--Roquairol.
The case was this: For people like myself, country life is the honey
wherein they take the pill of city life. Falterle, on the contrary,
could not worry down the bitter country life without the silvering-over
of city life: thrice every week he ran over to Pestitz, either into the
boxes of the amateur-theatre as dramaturgist, or on the stage itself as
actor. Now, on every such occasion, he took his little part-book out
into the village with him, and there, relying on this rehearsal of the
play, studied his part independently of those of his colleagues; just
as, to this day, every state-servant commits his to memory without a
glance at those of his fellow-performers: hence every one of us consists
of only one faculty, and, as in the Russian hunting-music, knows how to
fife only one tone, and must throw his strength into the pauses. Into
these fragments of theatricals, then, borrowed from Falterle, Albano
entered with a rapture which his master soon sought to increase by
exchanging for these limited sectors of the globe the whole dramatic
world.
The Viennite had long since eulogized before him the suicidal mad-cap
Roquairol as a genius in learning,--and himself as particularly such in
teaching; and now he adduced the proof of it from the great parts which
the mad-cap always played so well. For the rest, it was not his fault
that he did not exceedingly disparage the Minister's son, whom he
envied, not only for his theatrical, but for his erotic achievements.
For the inventively rich Roquairol had with that shot at himself in his
thirteenth year saluted and won the whole female sex, and made himself,
out of a sacrificial victim, priest of sacrifices, and manager of the
amateuress-theatre, attached to the amateur-theatre; whereas the shy,
stupid Falterle, with his still-born fancy, could never bring a charmer
to any other step than the pas retrograde in a minuet, or to anything
more than a setting of the fingers, when he wanted to get himself set in
her heart. But the vain man cannot deny others any praise which is also
his own.
How must all this have won our friend's admiration for a youth whom he
saw pass through his soul now as Charles Moor, now as Hamlet, as
Clavigo, as Egmont! As regards the notorious masquerade-shot described
in a former Jubilee period, our so inexperienced Hercules, dazzled as he
was by the naked dagger of Cato, must have accredited that shot to such
a kindred Heraclide, as one of his twelve tragical labors. The
fee-court-provost Hafenreffer even tells me, Albano once disputed with
the Vienna gentleman, who had long since let himself down from a
schoolmaster to a schoolmate, about the finest ways of dying, and, in
opposition to the tender Falterle, who declared _himself_ in favor of
the sleeping-potion, declared himself on Roquairol's side, even with the
stronger addition: "He should like best of all to stand on the top of a
tower and draw the lightning on his head!" In this latter article he
shows the high feeling of the ancients, who held death by lightning to
be no damnation, but a deification; but might not physical causes also
have had something to do with it, for his elbows and his hair often
flashed out, in the dark, electric fire, and more than once a holy
circle streamed out round his head even in the cradle? The Provost is
strong for this view of the matter.
Albano, at last, could find no way to cool his fiery heart but by taking
paper and writing to the invisible friend, and giving it in charge to
the gentleman from Vienna. Falterle, who was complaisance itself--and
withal untruth itself, too--in spite of his aversion to Roquairol, took
the letters with him, and was _heartily glad to do it_ ("I am quite at
home at the Minister's," said he); but never delivered a single one of
them, since he had as little influence in the proud Froulay-palace as
with the son himself, and so he merely brought back with him every time
a new and valid reason why Roquairol had not been able to answer: he was
either too very busy, or in the sick-chair, or in company,--but every
letter _had delighted him_; and our unsuspecting youth firmly believed
it all, and kept on writing and hoping. It would have been handsomely
done of the Legation's-counsellor, had he only, that is to say, if he
could, been so obliging as to hand over to me Albano's palm-leaves of a
loving heart; not for the archives of this book, but merely for my
documents relating to the case, for the catalogue of petals, which I for
my own private use am stitching and gluing together, of Albano's
flowering-time.