Soon after this, Albano's kind sister again let a Hesperian hour strike
and play on the musical clock of his happiness, whose keeper she
was,--an hour with which his whole life, up and down, sounded in
unison, and cleared away, and in which, as in Switzerland, when a cloud
opens, all at once heights, glaciers, mountain-peaks, now look out from
the sky. He saw his Linda again, but in new light, glowing, but like a
rose before the blushing evening red. Her love was a soft, still flame,
not a leaping of eccentric, stinging sparks. He concluded that his
father, who was a man of his word, had already made his request to her
for a priestly union, and even got her consent. Julienne told him she
wished to speak with him the next evening, at six o'clock, in his
father's chamber; that made him still more sure and glad. With new and
still more tenderly adoring emotions, he parted with Linda: the goddess
had become a saint.
When he came the next day into the paternal apartment, he found no one
there but Julienne. She gave him a slight and almost imperceptible
kiss, in order to be speedily ready with her intelligence, since her
absence was limited to so many minutes as the Princess needed to go
from the sick-bed of her husband to the apartment of the Princesse.
"She will not marry thee," she began, softly, "notwithstanding that thy
father expressed himself so strongly and finely to her, at the first
reception after the journey, upon the new good fortune of his son, for
which he had now nothing more to desire, he said, than the seal of
perpetuity. It was still more finely silvered and gilded; I have
forgotten the precise words. Thereupon she replied in her speech, which
I never can retain, that her will and thine were the real seal; every
other seal of policy imposed chains and slavery upon the fairest life."
Deeply was Albano hurt by an open refusal, which hitherto, coming upon
him as a silent one and as philosophy, had floated about untouched, as
a mere unsubstantial shadow. "That was not right; she might say _a good
while hence_, but not _never_," said he, sensitively. "Moderation,
friend!" said Julienne; "thereupon thy father reminded her, in a
friendly manner, of the conditional appearance of her own, by saying
that he could not but wish very much to transfer her fortunes out of
his own hands into nearer ones. No arbitrary condition could compel or
annihilate a will, she said. Thy father went on calmly, and added, he
had sketched, in that case, the fairest plan of life for you two; but,
in the other case, his approval of their love stood open only as long
as his stay here, which would end at his friend's death. Then he went
coolly and composedly out, as men are wont to do when they have
provoked us to a real rage."
"Hesperia, Hesperia!" cried Albano, angrily. "But did Linda really
repeat her no?" "O, too true! But, brother?" asked Julienne, with
astonishment. "Suffer me," he replied; "for is it not unrighteous, this
meddling of parents with the fairest, tenderest strings, whose
vibration and melody they at once kill, in order to call forth from
them a new tune? Is it not, then, sinful to degrade divine gifts into
state-revenues and match-moneys,--yes, match[120]-moneys indeed? Good
Linda, now we stand again on the ground, where they set up the flowers
of love for sale as hay, and where there are no other trees in paradise
than boundary-trees. No, thou free being! never through me shalt thou
cease to be so!"
Julienne stepped back some paces, and said, "I will only laugh at
thee," which she did, and then added, in earnest, "_She_, then,--is
that thy will?--shall appoint _thee_ the day when the old father is to
become visible?" "That does not follow by any means," said he. She
calmly remarked, that an excited person always complained of the
heat of another, and that Albano, in his very calmness, insisted too
sternly upon his own and others' rights; that such people went on to
demand, in passion, something beyond the right, as a pin, which fits
too nicely into the clock, when warmed stops it by its size. Then she
begged him affectionately just to leave the disentangling of the "whole
snarl" to her fingers, and to remain mild and still, lest yet more
people--perhaps, in fact, her _belle-sœur_--might interfere with
their union. Albano took it in friendship, but begged her earnestly
only not to make any plans, because he should be too honorable toward
Linda for that, and should immediately tell her the whole word of the
charade.
She disclosed to him that she had made no other plan whatever than a
plan for a happy day to-morrow, namely, to visit with Linda the
Princess Idoine in Arcadia, to whom she owed still greater things
beside a visit, particularly half of her heart. "Thou wilt ride
accidentally after us, and find us in the midst of pastoral life," she
added, "and surprise thy Linda." He said very decidedly, "No," both out
of a shrinking from Idoine's resemblance to Liana,--although he only
knew that Liana had personated her in the Dream Temple, and not, also,
that Idoine had counterfeited her before his sick-bed,--and because he
disliked to come into the presence of the Minister's lady, from a dread
as well of bitter as of sweet recollections, of both which, in such a
case, Roquairol would have brought up the rear. Julienne mischievously
objected: "Only have no fear for the Princesse; she was obliged, in
order only to rid herself of the detested bridegroom, to engage with an
oath to all her friends never to choose one below her rank,--and that
she will keep, even with thee." He answered the joke merely with the
serious repetition of his no. Well, then she should insist upon it, she
replied, that he should at least come to meet them half-way, and await
them in the "Prince's Garden,"--a park which had been laid out by Luigi
as hereditary prince, and forgotten when he came into the princely
chair. He assented to this proposition very joyfully.
She still asked, jocosely, as they parted, "Who has been presenting
thee with a new sister, lately?" He said, "That is what my father could
not draw from me." "Brother," said she, softly, "it was a gentleman who
easily takes princesses for countesses, and who, in the next place,
thinks to be still more crazy than he already is,--thy Schoppe," and
flew off.