The blue day on which an ascension, a rendering of allegiance, and a
birthday were to be celebrated already stood over Pestitz, after having
cast off its morning-red,--two horses were already harbingers of four,
the lowly coach-box, of the highest,--the country nobility already went
down, uncomfortably frizzled, into the rooms of the inn, and scolded at
being cheated out of the fairest weather for heath-cock coupling,
and the city nobility, yet unpowdered, spoke of the day, but
without real earnestness,--the court-micrometer,[110] the
court-marshal, was surrounded by all his quartermasters,--the
court-transit-instruments,[111] the courtiers, instead of their
half-holiday, when they work only in the afternoon, had a whole
working-day, and were already standing at the wash-table,--the
allegiance-preacher, Schäpe, believed almost every word of his
discourse, because he had read it too many times over, and the nearness
of publication infused emotion into him,--there was no longer a domino
to be had for the evening, except among the Jews,--when a man alighted
at the door of the Doctor's house, who among all others was the most
honest and hearty about the allegiance, the Director Wehrfritz. There
were a son and a father in each other's arms, a fiery youth and a fiery
man. Albano seemed to him no longer to be the old Albano, but--warmer
than ever. He brought with him from "his women," as he called them,
congratulatory letters and birthday presents; he himself made not much
of the birthday or forgot it, and Albano had only celebrated it a little
just after waking. These festivals belong more to the other sex, who
gladly toy with times and seasons in the way of loving and giving.
The Titular Librarian marched out to a village, named Klosterdorf, where
the Mayor with his family, after an ancient custom, had to imitate the
Prince with his, and so, as commissioner, drive in the allegiance of the
neighboring circle; this, Schoppe said, he still was pleased with, but
the other worked too fatally on his inwards. The Director, dazzled by
the prospects of the day, and posted in the front with an official
speech to the chivalry, fell into a quarrel with Schoppe. "The Exchequer
and the Court," said he, "have been, of course, from time immemorial,
such as they are; but the Princes, dear sir, are good; they are
themselves sucked dry, and then they seem to be the suckers."
"Somewhat," rejoined Schoppe, "as the death-vampyres only give out blood
from themselves, while they appear to take it; but I make up for that
again by attributing wholly to the Regents, besides the sins of others,
the merits, victories, and sacrifices of others also; herein they are
the pelicans, who shed a blood for their children which really at a
distance seems to be their own."
All went off: Schoppe, out into the country; Wehrfritz, to church with
the procession; Albano, into a spectator's-box in the allegiance-hall;
for he would not in any wise be stuck into the train of the Prince, not
even as embroidery. Soon the noisy stream of pomp came sounding back
into the hall. The chivalry, the spirituality, and the cities mounted
the stage, where the oath was to be taken. In the court-yard of the
castle one foot stood upon another, and a needle might, to be sure, have
reached the ground, but no one could do so, to pick it up; everybody
looked up at the balcony, and cursed before he _swore_. The Prince, too,
stayed not away; the throne, that graduated and paraphrased princely
seat, stood open, and Fraischdörfer had decorated it with beautiful
mythological and heraldic shoulder-pieces and appendages.
Opposite the Count bloomed the court-dames, and below them a rose and a
lily, Julienne and Liana. As one lifts his eye from the stiff frosty
landscape of winter to the blue breathing heavens which looked down upon
our spring evenings, and wherein the light summer clouds floated and the
rainbow stood, so did he glance over the shining snow-light of the court
at the lovely Grace of spring, around whom remembrances hung, like
flowers, and who now stood so far aloof, so cut off, so imprisoned in
the heavy finery of the court! Only through her friend, who sits beside
her, was she gently melted and harmonized with the dazzling present.
Now began fine official speeches, the longest being made by the old
Minister, the shortest by Wehrfritz: the Prince let the warm eulogies
glide over his December-visage without thawing it down,--a mistaken
indifference! For the praise of the Minister, as well as of other
court-servants, may yet help him with posterity, since, according to
Bacon, no praise is of more consequence than that which servants give,
because they surely know their master best.
Then the Upper-Secretary, Heiderscheid, read Luigi's genealogical table,
and illuminated the hollow family-tree, together with its dryness, and
the last pale green twig; with sunken eyes Julienne heard this amid the
_vivat_ of the people, and Albano, never subdued by _one_ thought alone,
saw her eyes, and could not, however intently the Regent listened,
avoid the funeral picture, how, one day, and that very soon, this
extinguished man would bear down after him the name of his whole race
into the vault; he saw them carving the inverted arms and hanging the
shield upside down, and heard the shovels strike against the helmet and
fling the earth after the coffin. Gloomy idea! the tender sister would
certainly have wept, had she only been alone!
At last the turn came to those, to whom it never comes first, although
they are the only ones who have a hearty meaning in such ceremonies.
Heiderscheid stepped out on the balcony, and caused the noisy swarming
multitude to stretch out the forefinger and thumb, and repeat the oath
after him. The mass, always fascinated, shouted their _vivat_; in the
dazzled eyes gleamed the confident expectation of a better regency and
love for the unknown individual. The Count, whom a multitude generally
made enthusiastic, as it did Schoppe melancholy, glowed with the
inspiration of brotherly love and thirst for achievement; he saw
princes, like omnipotent ones, holding sway on their eminences, and saw
the blooming provinces and the gay cities of a wisely-ruled land spread
out before him; he represented to himself how he, were he a prince,
could, with the electric sparkling of the sceptre-point, dart, with an
animating shock, into millions of united hearts at once, whereas he
could now, with so great difficulty, scarcely kindle a few of the
nearest; he saw his throne, as a mountain in morning light, pouring out,
instead of lava, navigable streams through the lands, and breaking the
storms, with a hum of harvests and festivals around its feet; he thought
to himself how far, from such a high place, he could send light abroad,
like a moon, which does not hide the sun by day, but, from her
elevation, flings his distant brightness into the night,--and how he
would, instead of only defending, _create_ and _educate_ freedom, and be
a regent for the sake of forming self-regents.[112] "But why am I not
one?" said he mournfully.
Noble youth! do thy estates, then, furnish thee no subjects? But just so
does the lesser prince believe he would govern a duchy quite otherwise,
and the higher one believes the same in regard to a kingdom, and so does
the highest, in regard to universal monarchy.
Meanwhile, all through this singular uneasy day, wild perspectives of
youth passed to and fro before him, and the old spirit-voice, which he
was going to meet to-day, repeated in him the dark exhortation, Take the
crown! Wehrfritz came back in the evening with a red face from the fiery
allegiance-banquet, and Albano took an agitated leave of him, as if of
the ebb and calm of life--his childish youth; for to-day he launched out
deeper into its waves. Schoppe came back and wanted to have him before
the sight-hole of his show-box, wherein he slid through the
vicariate-allegiance-swearing in Klosterdorf, in a series of comic
pictures; but these contrasted too severely with higher ones, and gave
little pleasure.
At night Albano put on his beautiful, serious character-mask, that of a
knight-templar,--for a comic one his form, and almost his mood, was too
great;--the latter was made still more solemn by this funeral dress of a
whole murdered knightly order. After he had caused to be described to
him once more the awful paths of Tartarus, and the burial-place of the
Prince's heart, to avoid mistaking of the way in the night, he went
forth, about ten o'clock, with a high-heaving bosom, which the
night-larvæ[113] of fancy, together with friendship and love and the
whole future, conspired to excite.