Albano heard the report; the Minister had long appeared to him
contaminating, like a cold corpse of a soul; now he hated him still
more as a tormenting, blood-sucking dead man. For the Princess his
heart had hitherto stood security to him. She was to him a blue
day-sky, wherein to others only a hot sun blazes, wherein he, however,
through the mysterious depths of the soul and of friendship, had found
soft constellations beaming. But now since the rumor, which, like the
magicians in the presence of Moses, threw soot into her heaven, she
stood, to his eyes, shining under new lights. The hatred which he by
his very nature, i. e. from pride, had of all rumor, because it
controls and is not to be controlled, worked in him with fresh fire; he
resolved, even because Liana must be the daughter either of her
hereditary foe or of her lover, and the Princess _her_ rival, to
venture freely on the strength of his heart and what it knew, and at
this very juncture to communicate openly to the Princess his prayer for
her mediation in favor of Liana's company upon the journey,--in other
words, of his heaven.
On the morning after, the Prince came back,--the Princess immediately
had her carriage tackled,--toward evening she came with one carriage
more into town. The report ran through all card-tables that the Spanish
Countess Romeiro had arrived at the Palace. Reports are polypuses;
wounding and mutilating only multiplies them; only sticking them into
each other makes one out of two: the report of Linda's arrival
swallowed up the report of Froulay's disgraceful attempt.
But Albano! Like the discovery of a new world, this turned his old one
topsy-turvy. Linda, that foreign tropical bird, came flying in advance
of his approaching father, who rose before him like a rich land out of
the distance,--the soil where he had found so many thorns and flowers
soon sank behind him, with all its treasures and days, below the
horizon. Only Liana could not vanish with it; that muse of his youth
must he lead with him into the land of youth. By those usual magic arts
of the heart had Linda's nearness awakened in him an insuperable
longing for Liana.
He was now decided to remind the Princess of her earlier promise to
pour the life-balsam of a southern tour upon Liana's sick nerves, and
through her now, betimes, before the confusion of the last pressing
moments should prostrate anything, to put the Minister's lady in tune,
and gain her over, who, like all court people, would certainly hardly
resist a princely wish and a happy prospect.
If, however, Liana, from any fault of her own or of others, stayed
behind, then was it his sworn determination, for no power, not even his
father's, to stir from the native land of his eternal bride; but to
root himself before her sick-cloister, until she either passed out
therefrom free and cheerful again into open life, or buried herself,
darkly veiled, in the gloomy nun-choir of the dead. O, to come back to
seek her in the romantic grounds of olden time, and to find her nowhere
but behind the speech-grating of the hereditary vault,--this was a
thought his heart could not endure!
The Princess herself furnished him an opportunity of making his
request; she sent him an invitation to an astronomical party at the
observatory, through her faithful court-dame Haltermann: "I have to
write to you, verbally, merely the following," wrote she. "Come this
evening to the observatory; I and my good Haltermann are going
thither." This Haltermann, a Fraülein of few charms of spiritual
flag-feathers, but of many dogmas and premature wrinkles, had already
for years hung indissolubly upon the Princess, keeping everything
secret, and favoring all her "make-your-appearances" (_rendez-vous_) by
merely saying, "My princess is as pure as gold, and only few know her
as I do."
Nothing could happen more propitious to Albano's wishes. He stood
earliest of all on the noble observatory, in the midst of the lovely
night. It was some days after the full moon; that shining world was as
yet hidden behind the earth, but the let-on jets of its rays shot up by
fits and starts. On all mountain-peaks glimmered even now a pale light,
as if the distant morning of super-terrestrial worlds were falling upon
them. Through the valleys the light-shunning, black, earthly beast,
Night, still stretched himself out, and reared himself up against the
mountains. The mountain-castle of Liana was invisible, and showed, like
a fixed star, only a light. Suddenly the autumnal purple upon all
summits around the castle was bedewed with silver by the moon, and a
shower of light came down on the white walls and along the white
avenues of the garden; at last, a strange, pale morning, glimmering
through all bowers, lay in the garden, as it were the tender gleaming
of a high, perfectly pure spirit, who only in the holy, silent night
trod the low earth, and then and there sought nothing but the pure,
still Liana.
As Albano looked and dreamed and longed, the Princess came up, with her
Haltermann. The Professor almost broke himself in two with his salam
before them, and allowed the fixed suns no astrological influence upon
his erect posture. Albano and the Princess met each other again with an
increase of reciprocal warmth. But the first question of the Princess
was, whether he had seen the Spanish countess. Indifferently he said,
he had been invited by the Princesse since her arrival, but had not
gone. "_Ma belle sœur_ admires her most," continued the Princess;
"but she deserves it somewhat. She is majestically built, taller than
I, and fair, especially her head, her eye, and her hair. She is,
however, more plastically than picturesquely beautiful, rather
resembling a Juno or Minerva than a Madonna. But she has her
peculiarities. She cannot endure any women, except such as are simple,
straightforward, and blindly good; hence her chamber-women live and die
for her. Men she holds to be poor creatures, and says she should
despise herself if she should ever become the wife or slave of a man;
but she seeks them for the sake of information. To the Prince she has
unnecessarily, though she was in the right as to the matter of fact,
said bitter things. He laughs at it, and says there is nothing she does
love, not even children and lap-dogs. You must see her. She reads much;
she lives only with the Princesse, and seems, if one may judge by her
dress, to count little upon any conquests, at least at our court."
Albano said, many of these traits were truly grand, and broke short
off. During the conversation the Professor had diligently arranged and
screwed up everything, and was now ready to commence. He remarked upon
the bright, bland, summer-like night,--proceeded, after some
introductory observations, into the moon, in order to lead the six eyes
to the most considerable lunar spots,--foreshadowed, in a preliminary
way, several shadows overhead there,--introduced them to the Crater of
Bernoulli ("I make use of Scröter's nomenclature," said he),--the
highest mountain range Dörfel ("it consists, of course, of three
summits," said he),--the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel ("Hevel, however,
calls it Mount Horeb," said he),--then Mont Blanc, and the
ring-mountains in general; and concluded with the sly assurance, that
the observatory was, to be sure, still very deficient in instruments.
The Haltermann longed indescribably after the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel
in the moon, and endeavored to get at the telescope. "It is only a spot
in the planet, my child!" said the Princess. "And is the Mont Blanc
overhead, then, nothing but a spot, too?" asked she, disappointed. The
Princess nodded, and looked into the telescope; the magic moon hung
like a piece of day-world close to the glass. "How its fair, pale light
and all its magic passes away when it is brought near! as when the
future becomes present!" said she, to the astonishment of the
Professor, who could never make anything out of the planet excepting
precisely when it _was_ near. She interrogated him about Saturn's ring.
"There are properly two, your Highness; but the observatory just at
this time wants an instrument to see it," said he, and aimed again in
the direction of the former shot.
Albano saw his life-gardens sparkling round about him with the warm
glimmer of an after-spring; and his inner being trembled sweetly and
sadly. He took a comet-seeker, and flew round among the stars, towards
Blumenbühl, into the city, up the mountains, only not to the white
castle with the illuminated corner-chamber and the little garden. His
whole heart turned backward for shame and love before the gate of
Paradise.
At this moment, the Haltermann, at a hint to retire, led the way down
with the astronomer, in order to favor the Princess with a moment free
from witnesses. Albano stood before her, noble in the moonlight; his
eye was radiant; his features showed emotion. She grasped his hand, and
said, "We certainly do not misunderstand each other, Count?" He pressed
her hand, and his eyes gushed full. "No, Princess!" said he, softly.
"You give me your friendship. I do not deserve it, if I do not trust it
entirely. I give you now the proof of my open confidence. You know,
perhaps, the history of my fortunes and my loss; you know the
Minister." "Alas, alas!" said she; "even your hard history, noble man,
has become familiar to me."
"No!" replied he, passionately; "I was more cruel than my fate. I
tormented an innocent heart; I made an obedient daughter miserable,
sick, and blind. But I have lost her," he continued, with rising
emotion, and turned sidewise, in order not to see the glimmering
heights of Liana's residence, "and bear it as I can, but without any
secret way to repossession. Only the victim cannot be permitted to
bleed to death over yonder, with her stern, narrow-hearted mother. O,
the honey-drops of the pleasures, they and Italy's heaven, might well
heal _her_. She dies if she stays, and I stay to look on. Friend, O how
great is the favor I ask!"
"Gladly shall it be granted you! Day after to-morrow I visit the mother
and daughter, and certainly will decide the latter for the journey, in
so far as it depends upon me. I do it, however,--to be frank,--merely
out of genuine friendship for you; for the girl does not please me
entirely with her mysticism, and certainly does not love as you do. She
does everything for people merely from love to God; and that I do not
like."
"Ah, so thought I, too, once; but whom should the pious love, except
God?" said he, absorbed in himself and the night, and in too
hyberbolical a style for the taste of the Princess. His glimmering eye
hung fast on the white mountain-palace, and spring-times floated down
from the moon, and glided to and fro on the illuminated track of his
vision; and the beautiful youth wept and pressed ardently the hand of
the Princess, without being conscious of either. She respected his
heart, and disturbed it not.
At last, they both came down the high stairway, where the astronomer
joyfully awaited them, and confessed to both how very much, to speak
freely, their attachment and devotion to astronomy not only gladdened,
but even animated and inspired him.
"Day after to-morrow, certainly!" With these words, the Princess
departed, in order to grant the pensive, full-hearted youth consolation
and dreams.