Schoppe had resolved not to trouble himself at all about the
Knight,--who divided his evening between the Minister and Wehrfritz in
Blumenbühl,--but to betake himself at once to the presence of the
Princess Idoine with the great petition. First, however, he would get
the Lector as porter or _billeteur_ of the locked court-doors, and as
surety for his words. But Augusti was indescribably alarmed; he
insisted the thing would not do,--a Princess and a sick young man,
and an absolutely ridiculous ghost-scene, &c.; and his own father,
indeed, already saw through it. Schoppe upon this became a spouting
fire-engine, and left few curses or comparisons unused upon the
man-murdering nonsense of courtly and female decorum,--said it was as
beautifully shaped as a Greek fury,--it bound up the wound on a man's
neck as the cook-women did on a goose's, not till after it had bled to
death, so that the feathers might not be stained,--and he was as much
of a _courtisan_, he concluded ambiguously, as Augusti, and knew what
decency was. "May I not propose it to the Fürstinn, then, who certainly
esteems him so highly?" Augusti said, "That does not alter the case."
"Nor yet to Julienne?" "Nor yet to her," said he. "Nor yet to the most
satanic Satan?" "There is surely a good angel between," replied
Augusti, "whom you can at least with more propriety use as an
intercessor, because she is under obligations to the Knight of the
Fleece,--the Countess of Romeiro." "O, why not, indeed?" said Schoppe,
struck with the idea.
The Lector--who was one of those men that never use their own hands,
but love to do everything by a third, sixth, farthest possible one,
after a system of _handing_ analogous to the fingering-system--urged
upon the reflecting Schoppe his ready willingness to introduce him to
Linda, and her ability to do something in this "_épineuse affaire_."
Schoppe went up and down in a state of unusual distraction between two
opinions,--shook his head often and vehemently, and yet stopped
suddenly,--fluttered and shook still more violently,--looked at the
Lector with a glance of sharper inquiry,--at length he stood fast,
struck down with both arms, and said: "Thunder and lightning seize the
world! Done, then! So be it! I go right to her. Heavens, why am I then,
so to speak, so ridiculous in your eyes--I mean just now?" The courtly
Lector had, however, transformed the smile of the lips into a smile of
the eyes only. On Schoppe's face stood the warmth and haste of the
self-conqueror. As men can be at once hard of hearing amidst the common
din of life, and yet open to the finest musical tones,[65] so were
Schoppe's inner ears hardened against the vulgar noise of ordinary
impulse, but drank in thirstily all soft, low melodies of holier souls.
The Lector--loving the Count far more heartily than he was loved by
him--was for taking the Librarian by storm at once to the castle,
because just now was the most favorable hour, of court-recess, from
half past four to half past five. Schoppe said he was on hand. In the
castle Augusti commanded a servant, who understood him, to usher
Schoppe into the mirror-room. He did so; brought lights immediately
after; and Schoppe went slowly up and down, with his annoying retinue
of dumb, nimble orang-outangs-of-the-looking-glass, rehearsing his part
and calculating the future. Singularly did he feel himself seized now
with his young, fresh sense of that former freedom which he was just
suspending. He recognized Liberty, held her fast, looked upon her, and
said to her, "Go away, only for a little while; save him, and then come
back again!"
The multiplication of himself in the mirrors disgusted him. "Must ye
torment me, ye I's?" said he, and he now represented to himself
how he was standing before the richest, brightest moment and finest
gold-balance of his existence, how a grave and a great life lay in this
balance, and how his "I" must vanish from him, like the copied glass
I's round about him. Suddenly a joy darted through him, not beyond the
worth of his resolve, but greater than its occasion.
At last, near doors flew open, and then the nearest. Then entered a
tall form, with head still half turned back, all enveloped in long,
black silk. Like an enraptured moon on high tops of foliage, there
stood before him, on the dark, silken cloud, a luxuriantly blooming,
unadorned head, full of life, with black eyes full of lightnings, with
dark roses on the dazzling face, and with an enthroning, snowy brow
under the brown, overhanging locks. It seemed to Schoppe, when she
looked upon him, as if his life lay in full sunshine; and he felt, with
embarrassment, that he stood very near the queen of souls. "Herr von
Augusti," she began, earnestly, "has told me that you wished to put
into my hands a petition for your sick friend. Name it to me clearly
and freely. I will give you, with pleasure, a frank and decided
answer."
All recollections of his part were sunk to the bottom, and dissolved
within him; but the great guardian-genius, who flew along invisible
beside his life, plunged with fiery wings into his heart, and he
answered, with inspiration, "So, too, will I answer you. My Albano is
mortally sick; he has been in a fever since last evening. He loved the
departed Fraülein Liana. He lies bound to the condor's-wing of fever,
and is swept to and fro. He falls upon his knees at every knell of the
clock, and, lying close to the sunny side of fancy, prays more and more
fervently, 'Appear to me, and give me peace!' He stands upright and
dressed on the high pyre of the fantastic flame-circle, and pants and
bakes with thirst, and dries and shrivels up dreadfully, as I can
plainly see ..."
"_O, finissez donc?_" said the Countess, who had bent back with a
shudder, and slowly shaken her Venus head. "Frightful! Your petition?"
"Only the Princess Idoine," said he, coming to himself, "can fulfil it,
and rescue him, by appearing to him, and whispering him peace, since
she is said to be such a near ass-[66], cos-[67], copy, and mock-sun of
the deceased." "Is that your petition?" said the Countess. "My
greatest," said Schoppe. "Has his father sent you hither?" said she.
"No, I," said he; "his father, to be clear and free and explicit with
you, disapproves of it."
"Are you not the painter of the sneezing self-portrait?" she asked.
He bowed, and said, "Most certainly." Having replied that in an
hour he should hear the decision, she made him a short, respectful,
leave-taking obeisance, and the simple, noble form left him gazing
after her in rapture; and he was provoked that the childish mirrors
round about should dare to send after the rare goddess so many shadows
of herself.
At home he found, indeed, the crazed young man, whose ears alone lived
any longer among realities, again on his knees at the sixth stroke of
the clock; but his hope bloomed now under a warmer heaven. After an
hour, the Lector appeared, and said, with a significant smile, the
thing was going on right well; he was to get an opinion from the
physician, and then the decision would be accordingly.
Herr von Augusti gave him, with courtier-like explicitness, the more
definite intelligence, that the Countess had flown to the Princess,
whose regard for her future travelling companion she knew, and told her
she would, in Idoine's case, do it without hesitation. The Princess
considered with herself a little, and said this was a thing which only
her sister could decide. Both hastened to her, pictured to her the
whole case, and Idoine asked, with alarm, how she could help her
resemblance and her well-meant journey hither, that they should wish to
draw her so deeply into such fantastic entanglements. At this moment
Julienne came in, pale, and said she had only since morning received
intelligence of this, and it was the duty of such a good soul to grant
the apparition. Then Idoine, considering herself and everything,
answered, with dignity, it was not at all the unusualness and
impropriety of the thing which she dreaded, but the untruthfulness and
unworthiness, as she would have to play false with the holy name of a
departed soul, and cheat a sick man with a superficial similarity. The
Countess said she knew of no answer to that, and yet her feelings were
not against the thing. All were silent and perplexed. The conscientious
Idoine was moved in the tenderest heart that ever hung trembling under
the weight of such a decision upon a life. At last Linda said, with her
sharp-sightedness, "Properly speaking, however, after all, there is no
moral man to be deceived in the case, but a sleeper, a dreamer; and
imagination and delusion are not, in fact, going to be strengthened in
him, but to be subdued." Julienne drew Idoine aside, probably to
portray to her more nearly the youth, whom she had not seen any more
than Linda. Soon after, Idoine came back with her decision.
"If the physician will give a certificate that a human life hangs upon
this, then I must conquer my feeling. God knows," she added, with
emotion, "that I am quite as willing to do as to forbear, if I only
know first what is right. It is my first untruth."
The Lector hastened from Schoppe to the Doctor, in order to bring back
with him from the latter, among many turns of expression, just the most
convenient certificate.
Schoppe waited long and anxiously. After seven o'clock came a note from
Augusti: "Hold yourself in readiness; punctually at eight o'clock comes
the privy person." Forthwith, by way of sparing the patient's feverish
eyes, he put out the wax-candles, and lighted the magic hanging-lamp of
isinglass in the chamber.
He kindled the sick youth to new fever with stories of people who had
come back from the tomb, and advised him to kneel with long, ardent
prayers before the fast gate of death, in order that her mild, merciful
spirit might open it, and healingly touch him on the threshold.
Just before eight, the Princess and her sister came in their sedans.
Schoppe was himself seized with a shudder at the sight of this risen
Liana. With sparkling eye and firmly shut mouth, he led the fair
sisters into the _coulisse_, whence they already heard, out on the
adjoining stage, the youth praying. But Idoine's tender limbs trembled
at the unpractised part in which her truthful spirit must belie itself.
She wept upon it, and her fair, holy mouth was full of mute sighs. Her
sister had to embrace her often in order to encourage her heart.
The clock struck. With a frightful fervor the frantic one within prayed
for peace. The tongue of the hour was imperative. Idoine sent up a look
as a prayer to God. Schoppe slowly opened the door.
Within, blooming in the magic dusk, with arms and eyes uplifted to
heaven, knelt a beautiful son of the gods in the enchanted circle of
madness, whose only and continual cry was, "O peace! peace!" Then, with
inspiration, as if sent by God, the virgin stepped in, clothed in
white, like the deceased in the dream-temple and on the bier, with the
long veil at her side, but taller in stature, less rosy, and with a
sharper, brighter starlight in the blue ether of the eye, and more
resembling Liana among the blest, and sublimely, as if, like a
renovated spring, she had come back again from the stars, so she
appeared before him. His enchaining, fiery look terrified her. In a low
and faltering tone, she stammered, "Albano, have peace!" "Liana?"
groaned his whole breast, and, sinking down, he covered his weeping
eyes. "Peace!" cried she, more strongly and courageously, because his
eye no longer smote and staggered her; and she disappeared as a
superhuman spirit vanishes from men.
The sisters departed silently, and full of high remembrance and
satisfaction. Schoppe found him still kneeling, but looking away
enraptured, like a storm-sick mariner on tropical seas, who, after long
sleep, opens his eyes on a still, rosy-red evening, just before the
going down of the blazing sun; and the dashing wake travels on, like a
bed of roses and flames, into the sun, and the flashing cloud flies
asunder in mute fire-balls, and the distant ships float high in the
evening-red, and swim far away over the waves. So was it with the
youth.
"I have my peace now, good Schoppe," he said, softly, "and now I will
sleep in quiet." Transfigured, but pale, he rose, laid himself on the
bed, and in a few minutes a heart wearied with so long a wading in the
hot fever-sands sank down on the fresh, green oasis of slumber.