Albano was now again lashed to the Ixion's wheels of the clock. The
setting off of the Princess and her answer were to suddenly set up
lights in the dark, wide cavern in which he had so long travelled,
without knowing whether it harbored frightful formations and venomous
beasts, or whether it was vaulted, and filled with glistening
arches and subterranean pillared halls. Over Liana's condition two
hands--Augusti's and that of the Minister's lady--had hitherto held
fast the veil. Both were persons who never liked to answer the
question, How do you do? However, he now let his whole soul rest upon
the Princess, since the astronomical evening, in remembering which, he
could hardly comprehend how it was that he was able at that time to
speak to a female friend about his love as much and more than ever to a
friend of his own sex. But man does not love to speak of his feelings
before a man, and does love to before a woman. A woman, however, loves
best to do so before a woman. Meanwhile, the Princess held him in bonds
by the finest flattery which can be,--by decided and silent attention.
He was as sick and sated of verbal praise as he was partial and
tributary to that which came in a practical shape.
Pending the arrival of the decision, a confused time elapsed; like a
man who travels in the night, he heard voices and saw lights; and it
needed morning to decide upon their hostile or friendly significance.
Rabette lay sick and bleeding away her faint heart; for not he had
drawn out of it the astringent dagger,--namely, Charles's love,--but
the latter had himself anticipated him with bitter-sweet tears over the
bitterest.
Charles had met him once, with his hat drawn down over his brows, and
grimly-stinging look, without a greeting. Everywhere he heard that
Charles in vain besieged and blockaded Linda's and Julienne's double
gate. This and Liana's illness made the tropical savage like a grownup
wild boy of the woods. Even in the present state of separation,--on the
death-field of _friendship_,--Albano felt it as a wound to _humanity_,
that Charles did not take for granted--for to the contrary presumption
he imputed the street-grimness--that he would not seek to see the
Countess.
Even in the Librarian, for several days, a mystery seemed to have been
lurking. He, however, since it had been growing lighter and lighter to
Alban in Schoppe's depths, and he had looked in behind his comic mask,
even to the honest eye and loving lips, became very near to his heart,
especially after so many partings; for even the Lector, according to
his custom never to court the love of any man, or, at least, faithless
friend, kept himself aloof from him,--a thing which afflicted the very
same youth, who inwardly approved it.
For several days, I say, Schoppe had been transposed into an entirely
new tune, and become his own remainder and after-summer. It began with
his blowing away at a miserable haying song a whole half-day on the
bugle; the remaining half he sang it off vocally. Instead of reading
and writing, he went up and down in the city and in his chamber. All
that which he had formerly despatched with rapidity,--running,
swallowing of victuals, speaking, smoking, starting up,--all this went
now club-footed, and finally stood fast. His slow rousing up, and his
tender, gentle step, might have seemed ludicrous to those who were
acquainted with his former days. His large, noble wolf-dog, whom he had
ten times a day suffered to hug him round the neck with his fore-paws,
and whose breast, drawn up on the skin, he so fondly pressed to his
own, when he held with him a Lange's and consistorial colloquy, he now
neglected to such a degree that the dog became attentive, and did not
know what to think of it. How little could he once endure the yelp of a
cudgelled hound without sallying out of his house-door as protector and
patron, because he conceived one might well treat men like dogs, but
not dogs themselves so! Now he could hear their screaming, merely
because, as it seemed, he did not hear it.
As he formerly often went to Albano merely to walk up and down, without
a loud word,--because he said, "By this I recognize my friend, that he
does not undertake to entertain me or himself, but will merely sit
there,"--so now he came still more mute, often touched tenderly, like a
playful child, the shoulder of Albano as he sat reading, and said, when
the latter looked behind him, "Nothing!" Meanwhile, Albano inquired not
about the change; for he knew he would surely unveil it to him in good
time. Their hearts stood over against each other like open mirrors.
So lay the dark wood of life before Albano, with its paths running
through each other and deep into the thicket, as he stood upon the
cross-way of his future and waited for his genius, who, either as a
hostile or as a good one, was to bring him Liana's decision. At last
there came from the gloomy wood a genius, but it was the dark genius,
and gave him this note from the Princess:--
"Dear Count: I am always true, and would rather be unsparing than
_un_true. The sick Mademoiselle v. F. is no longer in a condition to
make a tour or profit by it. I take a lively interest in the case.
However fondly I could wish to-day myself to speak consolation to you,
I hope, nevertheless, after this intelligence, not to have occasion to
do so.
"Your Friend."
What a dark cloud-break out of the morning redness of youth! So then
the secret joy which he had hitherto nourished had been the forerunner
of the dreadful blow,[43] the soft murmuring before the waterfall.[44]
That his very love was to be the blazing sword which pierced through
her life: O, he dwelt upon that so constantly; _that_ pained him so!
But there was no moisture in his eye; the wormwood of conscience
embitters even sorrow.
When man is no longer his own friend, then he goes to his brother, who
is a friend still, in order that _he_ may softly speak to him and
restore his heart and soul; Albano went to his Schoppe.
He found not him, but something else. Schoppe, namely, kept a diary
about "himself and the world," wherein his friend might read whatever
and whenever he wished; only he must pardon it, if he carried away with
him from the reading, since it was written throughout just as if no one
were to see it again,--angry slaps of the fan, and that, too, with the
hard end. "Why should I spare thee any more than myself?" said Schoppe.
To this _thou_ they had come without being able to say when, chary as
they generally were of this official style of the heart, this holiest
dual of souls toward others; "for I thank God," said Schoppe, "that I
live in a language in which I can sometimes say you, yes even (if men
and monkeys are subjects for it) between every two commas, your
Well-born, as well as your High-born, or Otherwise-born."
Albano found the diary open, and read with astonishment
this:--"_Amandus-day_. A stupid and extremely remarkable day for the
well-known Hesus or Hanus![45] I can hardly persuade myself that the
poor Thunder-god deserved to walk along behind the tall Proserpine,[46]
and at last to peep into her face, her brow, her lips, her neck! O
God! If such a god had stayed now on the spot! As _Pastor fido_ he
by good fortune rose up again and went on his way. O hell-goddess,
heaven-stormer of Hesus, thou hast made thyself his heaven! Can he ever
let thee go?
"_Afternoon_. The _Pastor_ becomes his own baiting-house, he knows not
how to stay; he lives now in all streets, in order to behold his
_Jeanne d'Arc-en-ciel_,[47] and suffers enough. But, Hesus, are not
sorrows the thorns, wherewith the buckle of love fastens? To-day
Friday[48] went with the Princess to the observatory. The wind is
south-east-east,[49]--read thirteen monthlies in one hour,--Spener sees
life transfigured and poetic in the shining magnifying-mirror God, as
well as another man.
"_Sabina's day_. With the _Pastor_ it grows worse, if I see right. He
is in the way to work himself over into a _billet-doux-presser_, to
powder himself by night in bed; and the knave already raises in the
heat, like milk which is kept warm, poetic cream. Only may Heaven never
grant him to fall into a rational discourse with his hell-goddess, face
to face, breath to breath, and the two souls be confounded together!
Verily, Flins[50] would snatch him away, Hesus would devour a
millennial kingdom at once; I fear he would become too wild with the
nectar, and too hard for me to control.
"_Evening_. Is it not already so far gone with the _Pastor_, that he
has borrowed him an author out of the whining decade of the age (he is
ashamed to name him), and will fain let himself be affected by the
stupid stuff, while he muses upon the effect which the author had upon
him in his fourteenth year. Of course he stumbles at him, in his
present period of life, like a night-watchman by day; but still he
cries back his cry, and has a new affection on the subject of his old.
So does the declension of _cornu_ in the grammar still smile upon me,
even to this hour, because I recollect how easily and glibly in the
golden moons of childhood I retained the whole of the _Singular_.
"_Simon Jud_.[51] Curse on it! A fair face and a false Maxd'or make, in
the course of a year, a couple of hundred knaves, who differ from each
other only in this, that one wishes to keep and the other to get
rid of the article. Hesus frowns, and charges home upon a million
rivals already. Like button- and lace-makers, or like copper- and
brass-founders, two so nearly of a trade cannot let each other get
on.[52] Right! hell-goddess, that thou hatest all men! That is, to be
sure, something for the _Pastor_,--a wound-salve! Scioppius, the two
Scaligers, and the vigorous Schlegels, &c.--"
Here the diary passes to other matters. An old portrait, for which
Schoppe had sat to himself, he had retouched. A notice to be inserted
in the "Pestitz Weekly Advertiser" announced the purpose of the
picture:--
"The undersigned, a portrait-painter of the Flemish school, makes known
that he has taken up his residence in Pestitz, and that he is ready to
paint all of every station and sex that may sit to him. As a sample of
his execution may be seen at his studio a portrait of himself, which
represents him sneezing, and which may be compared with the original on
the spot. I also cut profiles.
"Peter Schoppe,
"No. 1778."
Probably that was to move the hell-goddess to sit for once to the
sneezing painter. Albano could not but be astonished in the midst of
deep pain. In the beginning, he had imagined, according to the
simplicity of his nature, that he himself was meant by Hanus.
At this moment, Schoppe appeared. Albano spoke first, and said, softly,
"I, too, have read thy diary." The Librarian started back with an
exclamatory curse, and looked glowingly out of the window. "What is the
matter, Schoppe?" asked his friend. He whirled round, stared at him,
and said, twisting the skin of his face apart, like one who is cleaning
his teeth, and drawing up his upper lip, like a boy who bites into his
bread and butter, "I am in love," and ran up and down the chamber in a
flame, bewailing, at the same time, that he must live to experience
such a thing in himself in these his oldest days. "Read my diary no
more," he continued. "Ask not about the name, brother; no devil, no
angel, not the hell-goddess, shall know it. One day, perhaps, when I
and she lie in Abraham's bosom, and I on hers--thou art so troubled,
brother!"
"Fly gayly in the sun-atmosphere of love!" said his friend, in that
sadness of conscience which makes man simple, calm, and lowly; "I will
never ask nor disturb thee! Read that!" He gave him the note of the
Princess, and said to him also, while he read, "Cursed be every joy
where she has none! I stay here till it is decided whether she lives or
not." "I stay here too," rejoined Schoppe, with an involuntarily comic
expression. "Be serious!" said Albano. "Once I could," said he,
tearfully; "since day before yesterday no more!"
Meanwhile, Albano approved Schoppe's separation from the travelling
company; both secured to each other, even in friendship, the most
precious freedom. Of tutors' attendance neither made account. Schoppe
often ridiculed tutors of much information and manners, when they
assumed he educated anything out of Albano or into him. He said: "The
age educated, not a ninny; millions of men, not one; properly, at most,
a pedagogical group of Pleiades sent their light after him,--namely,
the seven ages of man, every age into the next following. The
individual resembled very much the entire humanity, whose revolutions
and improvements were nothing more than retouchings of a Schickaneder's
magic flute by a Vulpius. Meanwhile, however, there hovered around the
silly, discordant piece a melody of Mozart, in respect to which one
outstrips father and language-master."
"Wherefore do we sinners creep and buzz about here? Let us to Ratto's!"
said Schoppe. With extreme reluctance, Albano agreed to it; he said the
cellar had in it for him something uncomfortable, and a sultry
foreboding oppressed his bosom. Schoppe referred the presentiment to
the pressure of the rafters of his ruined pleasure-castle, which still
lay upon his breast, and the remembrance of that Roquairol, now flying
in the abyss, who had once drunk his health in the cellar, and
afterwards confessed to him in Lilar. Albano followed at last, but
reminded him of the fulfilment of another presentiment, which he had
had on the hill above Arcadia.
"We neither of us play the best personages in love; meanwhile let us go
into the cellar," said Schoppe, on the way, and, with a quite unwonted
hardness, stretched his favorite upon the rack of his drollery. Once,
when he was not himself in love, he was so capable of a tender,
indulgent, serious silence on that subject; but now no more.