It was late when the Knight of the Fleece arrived. Schoppe showed him
joyfully the sleeping countenance, whose rose-buds seemed to burst as
in a moist, warm night. The Knight manifested great exhilaration at
this, and still more did Doctor Sphex, who looked in quite late. The
latter found the pulse not only full, but even slow, and on the way to
a still greater repose. He appealed, at the same time, to _Chaudeson_,
and several other professional examples, that great mental sufferings
had often been relieved and removed very successfully by the internal
opium of lethargy.
At last Schoppe acquainted the father with Idoine's whole method of
cure. Gaspard haughtily replied, "You still, however, knew my opinion,
Mr. Librarian?" "Certainly, but my own too," said, with bitterness, the
disturbed Schoppe. The Knight, however, entered no further into
anything,--quite after his manner of never giving the least light upon
his real self, however much it might gain thereby,--but gave the friend
a very cold signal of retreat.
The next morning, Schoppe found his beloved still in the soul's cradle
of sleep. How he budded and bloomed! How slowly, yet strongly, like a
freeman's, moved the breath in his unchained breast! Meanwhile,
Gaspard's packed carriage, which was to trundle the youth away to
Italy, stopped already, at this early hour, before the door, with its
snorting, pawing horses, and the Knight expected every minute the
waking up and the--jumping in.
The physician came also, praised crisis and pulse, added that the
cream-o'-tartar (which he had prescribed among the rest) was the cream
of life, and said, right to the father's face, when the latter was
about to wake the youth for starting, he had never yet, in all his
praxis, known any one who had so little acquaintance with critical
points as he; any waker would be in this case a murderer, and, as
physician, he most expressly forbade it.
From hour to hour Schoppe grew more and more out of humor with the
father; he thanked God now--when he considered how the Knight's
treatment had beat upon and washed over this fruit-bearing island--that
Albano had not only the heat, but also the hardness of a rock.
Dr. Sphex, equally fond of his art and his reputation, watched like a
threatening Esculapius-serpent over the pillow, and grew more
hilarious. Schoppe lingered there, nerved against any degree of
severity. The Knight took leave of every one in his son's name, and
sent all soft hearts home; for the foster-mother, Albina and others,
were not suffered so much as to see the sleeper,--because tears were to
him a cold, disagreeable Scotch mist. The Princess and her retinue were
already streaming along with the gay pennons of hope on their way to
the shining Italy.
The evening was now irrevocably set for departure, especially as, in
the night, the sleeping Liana was to be carried into the bed-chamber,
which men never again open.
Already was the blooming Endymion overspread with smiles and radiance
of joy, as a precursive morning-star of his waking day. His soul
roamed, smiling, through the sparkling-cave of subterranean treasures,
which the genius of dream unlocks; while the common waking eye stood
blind before the spirit's Eldorado, so near and yet walled round by
sleep. At last an unknown over-measure of bliss opened Albano's
eye,--the youth immediately rose with vigor,--threw himself with the
rapture of a first recognition on his father's breast, and seemed, in
the first dreamy intoxication, not to remember the spent storm behind
him, but only the blissful dream,--and in ecstasy related it thus:--
"I sailed in a white skiff on a dark stream which shot along between
smooth, high marble walls. Chained to my solitary wave, I flew
anxiously through the winding, rocky narrows, into which, at times, a
thunderbolt darted. Suddenly the stream whirled round and descended,
growing broader and wilder, over a winding stairway. There lay a broad,
flat, gray land around me, tinged by the sickle of the sun with a
loathsome, lurid, earthy light. Far from me stood a coiled-up
Lethe-flood, which crawled round and round itself. On an immense
stubble-field innumerable Walkyres,[68] on spider's-threads, shot by to
and fro with arrowy swiftness, and sang, 'The fight of life 'tis we
that weave'; then they let one flying summer after another soar
invisibly to heaven.
"Overhead swept great worlds; on every one dwelt a human being; he
stretched out his arms imploringly after another, who also stood on his
world and looked across; but the globes ran with the hermits round the
sun-sickle, and the prayers were in vain. I, too, felt a yearning.
Infinitely far before me reposed an outstretched mountain-ridge, whose
entire back, looming out of the clouds, glittered with gold and
flowers. Painfully dragged the skiff through the flat, lazy waste of
the shallow stream. Then came a sandy tract, and the stream squeezed
through a narrow channel with my jammed-up skiff. And near me a plough
turned up something long; but when it came up it was covered with a
pall--and the dark cloth melted away again into a black sea.
"The mountain-ridge stood much nearer, but longer and higher before me,
and cut through the lofty stars with its purple flowers, over which a
green wild-fire flew to and fro. The worlds, with the solitary beings,
swept away over the mountains, and came not back; and the heart yearned
to mount up and soar away after them. 'I must, I will,' cried I,
rowing. After me came stalking an angry giant, who mowed away the waves
with a sharp moon-sickle; over me ran a little condensed tempest made
out of the compressed atmosphere of the earth; it was called the
poison-ball of heaven, and sent down incessant pealings.
"On the high mountain-ridge a friendly flower called me up; the
mountain waded to meet and dam up the sea, but it almost reached now to
the worlds that were flying over, and its great fire-flowers seemed
only like red buds scattered through the deep ether. The water
boiled,--the giant and the poison-ball grew grimmer,--two long clouds
stood pointing down like raised drawbridges, and the rain rushed down
over them in leaping waves; the water and my little bark rose, but not
enough. 'No waterfall,' said the giant, laughing, 'runs _upward_ here!'
"Then I thought of my death, and named softly a holy name. Suddenly
there came swimming along high in heaven a white world under a veil, a
single glistening tear fell from heaven into the sea, and it rose with
a roar,--all waves fluttered with fins, broad wings grew on my little
skiff, the white world went over me, and the long stream snatched
itself up thundering, with the skiff on its head, out of its dry bed,
and stood on its fountain and in heaven, and the flowery mountain-ridge
beside it, and lightly glided my winged skiff through green
rosy splendor and through soft, musical murmuring of a long
flower-fragrance, into an immense radiant morning-land.
"What a broad, bright, enchanted Eden! A clear, glad morning sun, with
no tears of night, expanded with an encircling rose-wreath, looked
toward me and rose no higher. Up and down sparkled the meadows, bright
with morning dew. 'Love's tears of joy lie down below there,' sang the
hermits overhead on the long, sweeping worlds, 'and we, too, will shed
them!' I flew to the shore, where honey bloomed, while on the other
bloomed wine; and as I went, my gayly decorated little skiff, with
broad flowers puffed out for sails, followed, dancing after me over the
waves. I went into high blooming woods, where noon and night dwelt side
by side, and into green vales full of flower-twilights, and up sunny
heights, where blue days dwelt, and flew down again into the blooming
skiff, and it floated on, deep in wave-lightnings, over precious
stones, into the spring, to the rosy sun. All moved eastward, the
breezes and the waves, and the butterflies and the flowers, which had
wings, and the worlds overhead; and their giants sang down, 'We fondly
look downward,--we fondly glide downward, to the land of love, to the
golden land.'
"Then I saw my face in the waves, and it was a virgin's, full of
high rapture and love. And the brook flowed with me, now through
wheat-fields; now through a little, fragrant night, through which the
sun was seen behind sparkling glow-worms; now through a twilight,
wherein warbled a golden nightingale. Now the sun arched the tears of
joy into a rainbow, and I sailed through, and behind me they sank down
again, burning like dew. I drew nearer to the sun, and he wore already
the harvest-wreath. 'It is already noon,' sang the hermits over my
head.
"Slowly, as bees over honey-pastures, swam the thronging clouds in the
dark blue, over the divine region. From the mountain-ridge a milky-way
arched over, which sank into the sun. Bright lands unrolled themselves.
Harps of light, strung with rays, rang in the fire; a tri-clang of
three thunders agitated the land. A ringing storm-rain of dew and
radiance filled with glitter the wide Eden; it dissolved in drops, like
a weeping ecstasy. Pastoral songs floated through the pure blue air,
and a few lingering, rosy clouds danced out of the tempest after
the tones. Then the near morning-sun looked faintly out of a pale
lily-garland, and the hermits sang up there, 'O bliss, O bliss! the
evening blooms!' There was stillness, and twilight. The worlds held
themselves in silence round the sun, and encircled him with their fair
giants, resembling the human form, but higher and holier. As on the earth
the noble form of man creeps downward by the dark mirror-chain of animal
life, so did it, overhead there, mount up along a line of pure, bright,
free gods, sent from God. The worlds touched the sun, and dissolved
upon it; the sun, too, fell to pieces, in order to flow down into the
land of love, and became a sea of radiance. Then the fair gods and the
fair goddesses stretched out their arms towards each other, and touched
each other, trembling for love; but, like vibrating strings, they
disappeared from sight in their blissful trembling, and their being
became only an invisible melody; and the tones sang to each other, 'I
am with thee, and am with God'; and others sang, 'The sun was God.'
"Then the golden fields glistened with innumerable tears of joy, which
had fallen during the invisible embrace; eternity grew still, and the
breezes slept, and only the lingering, rosy light of the dissolved sun
softly stirred the flowers.
"I was alone, looked round, and my lonely heart longed dyingly for
a death. Then the white world with the veil passed slowly up the
milky-way; like a soft moon, it still glimmered a little; then it sank
down from heaven upon the holy land, and melted away upon the ground;
only the high veil remained. Then the veil withdrew itself into the
ether, and an exalted, godlike virgin, great as the other goddesses,
stood upon the earth and in heaven. All rosy radiance of the swimming
sun collected in her, and she burned in a robe of evening-red. All
invisible voices addressed her, and asked, 'Who is the Father of men,
and their Mother, and their Brother, and their Sister, and their Lover,
and their Beloved, and their Friend?' The virgin lifted steadfastly her
blue eye, and said, 'It is God!' And thereupon she looked at me
tenderly out of the high splendors, and said, 'Thou knowest me not,
Albano, for thou art yet living.' 'Unknown virgin,' said I, 'I gaze
with the pangs of a measureless love upon thy exalted countenance. I
have surely known thee; name thy name.' 'If I name it, thou wilt
awake,' said she. 'Name it!' I cried. She answered, and I awoke."