A CONVERSATION.
Jacobi had left. October was come, with its storms and its long
twilight, which is so dark and heavy for all such as have it not cheered
by kindly glances and bright thoughts.
One evening, as Henrik came down to tea, he was observed to look
uncommonly pale, and in answer to the inquiry of his sisters as to the
cause, he replied that he had headache, and added, half in jest, half in
earnest, that it would be very beautiful to be only once freed from this
heavy body--it was so sadly in one's way!
"How you talk!" said Louise; "at all events, it is right to treat it
well and rationally; not to go sitting up all night and studying so that
one has headache all day!"
"Thank your majesty most submissively for the moral!" said Henrik; "but
if my body will not serve my soul, but will subject it, I have a very
great desire to contend with it, and to quarrel with it!"
"The butterfly becomes matured in the chrysalis," said Gabriele, smiling
sweetly, whilst she strewed rose-leaves upon some chrysalises which were
to sleep through the winter on her flower-stand.
"Ah, yes," replied Henrik; "but how heavily does not the shell press
down upon the wings of the butterfly! The earthly chrysalis weighs upon
me! What would not the soul accomplish? how could it not live and enjoy,
were it not for this? In certain bright moments, what do we not feel and
think? what brilliancy in conception! what godlike warmth of feeling in
the heart!--one could press the whole world to one's bosom at such a
time, seeing, with a glance, through all, and penetrating all as with
fire. Oh, there is then an abundance, a clearness! Yes, if our Lord
himself came to me at such a moment, I should reach forth my hand to him
and say, 'Good day, brother!'"
"Dear Henrik!" said Louise, somewhat startled, "now I think you do not
rightly know what you say."
"Yes," continued he, without regarding the interruption, "so can one
feel, but only for a moment; in the next, the chrysalis closes heavily
again its earthly dust-mantle around our being, and we are stupified and
sleep, and sink deep below that which we so lately were. Then one sees
in books nothing but printed words, and in one's soul one finds neither
feeling nor thought, and towards man, for whom so shortly before the
very heart seemed to burn, one feels oneself stiff and disinclined. Ah,
it were enough to make one fall into despair!"
"It would be far better," said Louise, "that such people went to sleep,
and then they would get rid of headache and heaviness."
"But," said Henrik, smiling, "that is a sorrowful remedy according to my
notions. It is horrible to require so much sleep! How can any one who is
a seven-sleeper become great? 'Les hommes puissans veillent et veulent,'
says Balzac with reason; and because my miserable heavy nature requires
so much sleep, so certainly shall I never turn out great in any way.
Besides, this entrancement, this glorification produces such wakeful
moments in the soul, that one feels poor and stripped when they are
extinguished. Ah! I can very well comprehend how so many make use of
external excitement to recal or to prolong them, and that they endeavour
through the fire of wine to wake again the fire of the soul."
"Then," said Louise, "you comprehend something which is very bad and
irrational. They are precisely such excitements as these that we have to
thank for there being so many miserable men, and so many drunkards in
Sweden, that one can scarcely venture to go out in the streets for
them!"
"I do not defend it, dear Louise," said Henrik, gently smiling at the
zeal of his sister, "but I can understand it, and in certain cases I can
excuse it. Life is often felt to be so heavy, and the moments of
inspiration give a fulness to existence; they are like lightning flashes
out of the eternal life!"
"And so they certainly are," said Leonore, who had listened attentively
to her brother, and whose mild eyes had become moist by his words; "and
life will certainly," continued she, "feel thus clear, thus full, when
we shall have become ever entirely freed from the chrysalis; not from
the bonds of the body only, but of the soul also. Perhaps these moments
are given to us here on earth to allure us up to the Father's house, and
to let us feel its air."
"A beautiful thought, Leonore," said her brother. "Thus these gleams of
light are truly revelations of our inward, actual, here-yet-enslaved
life. Good God! how glorious that--But ah! the long, long moments of
darkness, what are they?"
"Trials of patience, times of preparation," replied Leonore, tenderly
smiling. "Besides, the bright moments come again and gladden us with
their light, and that so much the more frequently the further one
advances in perfection. But one must, at the same time, learn to have
patience with oneself, Henrik, and here, in this life, to wait for
oneself."
"You have spoken a true word, sister. I must kiss your hand for it,"
said Henrik. "Ah, yes, if----"
"Be now a little less sensible and aesthetic," exclaimed "our eldest,"
"and come here and drink a cup of tea! See here, Henrik, a cup of strong
warm tea, which will do your head good. But this evening and to-morrow
morning you must take a table-spoonful of my elixir!"
"From that defend us all, ye good--_Vi ringrazia carissima sorella!_"
said Henrik. "But--but charming Gabriele! a drop of port wine in the tea
would make it more powerful, without turning me into one of those
miserable beings of whom Louise is so afraid! Thanks, sister dear!
_Fermez les yeux_, O Mahomet!" and with an obeisance before Louise,
Henrik conveyed the cup to his lips.
Later in the evening Henrik stood in one of the library windows looking
out into the moonlight. Leonore went up to him and looked into his face
with that mild, humbly questioning glance to which the heart so
willingly opened itself, and which was peculiar to her.
"You are so pale, Henrik," said she, disquieted.
"It is extraordinary," said he, half laughing at himself; "do you see,
Leonore, how the tops of the fir-trees there in the churchyard bow
themselves in the wind and beckon? I cannot conceive why, but this
nodding and beckoning distresses me wonderfully; I feel it in my very
heart."
"That comes naturally enough, Henrik," returned she, "because you are
not well. Shall we not go out a little? It is such lovely moonshine! The
fresh air will perhaps do you good."
"Will you go with me, Leonore?" said he. "Yes, that is a good idea!"
Gabriele found it, however, rather poor, and called her brother and
sister Samoyedes, Laplanders, Esquimaux, and such like, who would go
wandering about in the middle of a winter's night. Nevertheless these
two went forth jestingly and merrily arm in arm.
"Is it not too windy for you?" asked Henrik, whilst he endeavoured
carefully to shield his sister from the wind.
"The wind is not cold," replied Leonore, "and it is particularly
charming to me to walk by your side while it roars around us, and while
the snow-flakes dance about in the moonshine like little elves."
"Nay, you feel then like me!" said Henrik; "with you, sisters, I am
ever calm and happy; but I don't know how it is, but now for some time
other people often plague and irritate me----"
"Ah, Henrik," remarked Leonore, "is not that someway your own fault?"
"Are you thinking of Stjernhoek, Leonore?" asked he.
"Yes."
"So am I," continued he, "and perhaps you are right; yes, I will
willingly concede that I have often been unjust towards him, and
unreasonably violent, but he has excited me to it. Why has he made me so
often oppressively feel his superiority? so often taken away from me my
own joy in my own endeavours, and almost always treated me with coldness
and depreciation?"
Leonore made no answer, the moonlight lit a quiet tear in her eye, and
Henrik continued with increasing violence:
"I could have loved him so much! He had, through the originality of his
character, his strength, and his whole individuality, a great influence,
a great power over me; but he has misused it; he has treated me
severely, precisely in the instances in which I approached him nearest.
He has flung from him the devotion which I cherished for him. I will
tell you the whole truth, Leonore, and how this has happened between us.
You know that in the University, about three years ago, a sort of
literary society of young men gathered themselves about me. Perhaps they
esteemed my literary talents too highly, and might mislead me--I could
almost believe so myself, but I was the favourite of the day in the
circle in which my life moved; perhaps, on that account, I became
presumptuous; perhaps a tone of pretension betrayed itself in me, and a
false, one-sided direction was visible in the poems which I then
published: nevertheless, these poems made some little noise in the
world. Shortly, however, after their appearance a criticism on them came
out, which made a yet greater noise, on account of its power, its
severity, and also its satirical wit. Its acrimony spared neither my
work nor my character as a poet, and it produced almost universally a
re-action against me. It appeared to me severe and one-sided; and even
now, at this moment, it appears to me not otherwise, although I can now
see its justice much better than at the time.
"The anonymous author of the critique upon me was Stjernhoek, and he did
not in the slightest deny it. He considered it as being much less
directed against me personally, than against the increasing influence of
the party of which I was a sort of chief. Even before this I had begun
to withdraw myself from his power, which I always felt to be oppressive;
and this new blow did not, by any means, tend to reunite us. His severe
criticism had made me observant of my faults; but yet I do not know
whether it would have produced any other effect than pain, had I not at
this time returned home to you; and at home, through the beneficial
influence of my own family, a new strength and a purer direction had
been aroused in me. That was the time in which my father, with
indescribable goodness, and in complot with you all, sold the half of
his library to furnish me with the means of foreign travel. Yes, you
have called forth a new being in me; and all my poems, and all my
writings, are now designed to prove to you that I am not unworthy of
you. Ah, yes! I love you warmly and deeply--but it is all over with
Stjernhoek; the love which I cherished for him has changed itself into
bitterness."
"Ah, Henrik, Henrik, do not let it be so!" said Leonore. "Stjernhoek is
indeed a noble, a good man, even if, at the same time, too severe. But
really he loves you as well as we, but you two will not understand one
another; and Henrik, the last time you were really unjust to him--you
seemed as if you could hardly bear him."
"I hardly can, Leonore," said he. "It is a feeling stronger than myself.
I don't know what evil spirit it is which now, for some time, has set
itself firmly in my heart; but there it is steadfastly rooted; and if I
am aware only of Stjernhoek's presence, it is as if a sharp sword passed
through me; before him my heart contracts itself; and if he only touch
me, I feel as if burning lead went through my veins."
"Henrik! dearest Henrik!" exclaimed Leonore with pain, "it is really
terrible! Ah! make only the attempt with yourself; conquer your
feelings, and extend the hand of reconciliation to him."
"It is too late for that, Leonore," said Henrik. "Yes, if it were
necessary for him, it would be easy; but what does he trouble himself
about me? He never loved me, never esteemed either my efforts or my
ability. And perhaps it may be with some justice that he does not think
so very highly of my talents. What have I done? And sometimes it seems
to me, even in the future, that I never shall do any thing great; that
my powers are limited, and that my spring-time is past. Stjernhoek's, on
the contrary, is yet to come; he belongs to that class which mounts
slowly, but on that account all the more steadily. I see now, much
better than I did formerly, how far he stands beyond me, and how much
higher he will rise--and his knowledge is martyrdom to me."
"But wherefore," pleaded Leonore, "these dark thoughts and feelings,
dear Henrik, when your future appears fuller of hope than ever before?
Your beautiful poetry; your prize essay, which is certain to bring you
honour; the prospect of an advantageous post, a sphere of action which
will be dear to you--all this, which in a few months will so animate
your heart--why has it at this time so lost its power over you?"
"I cannot tell," replied he; "but for some time now I have been, and am
much changed; I have no faith in my good fortune; it seems to me as if
all my beautiful hopes will vanish like a dream."
"And even if it were so," said Leonore questioningly, with humility and
tenderness, "could you not find happiness and peace at home; in the
occupation of your beloved studies; in the life with us, who love you
solely, and for your own sake?"
Henrik pressed his sister's arm to his side, but answered nothing; and a
violent passing gust of wind compelled him to stand still for a moment.
"Horrible weather!" said he, wrapping his cloak round his sister at the
same time.
"But this is your favourite weather," remarked she jestingly.
"_Was_, you should say," returned he; "now I do not like it, perhaps
because it produces a feeling in me which distresses me." With these
words he took his sister's hand and laid it on his heart. His heart beat
wildly and strongly; its beating was almost audible.
"Heavens!" exclaimed Leonore, alarmed, "Henrik, what is this?--is it
often thus?"
"Only occasionally;--I have had it now for some time," replied he; "but
don't be uneasy on this account; and, above all things, say nothing to
my mother or Gabriele about it. I have spoken with Munter on the
subject; he has prescribed for me, and does not think it of much
consequence. To-day I have had it without intermission, and perhaps I am
from that cause somewhat hypochondriacal. Forgive me, dear Leonore, that
I have teased you about it. I am much better and livelier now; this
little walk has done me good--if you only don't get cold, Leonore, or
you would certainly be punished, or at all events be threatened, with
Louise's elixir. But does there not drive a travelling carriage towards
our door, exactly as if it would stop there? Can it be Eva? The carriage
stops--it is certainly Eva!"
"Eva! Eva!" exclaimed Leonore, with cordial delight; and both brother
and sister ran so quickly to the gate that she was received into their
arms as she dismounted from the carriage.