Linda read the letter innumerable times over, wept for sweet love, and
never once thought of--forgiving. This breeze of love, which bends all
the flowers and breaks none, she had herself so long wished; and now,
all at once, after the foggy dead-calm of the heart, it came fresh and
living, through the garden of her life. She could hardly wait for eight
o'clock. She helped herself while away the time by selecting her dress,
which at last consisted of the veil, hat, and all the things which she
had worn when she found her lover for the first time on the island of
Ischia.
She placed upon her beating bosom the paradise, or orange-blossoms, the
indexes of that time and world, and went at the appointed hour, with
the blind maiden on her arm, down into the garden. As well from hatred
of Tartarus as from compliance with the letter, she took the road to
the flute-dell. The night was obscure to her eye, and the blind maiden
acted as her guide.
Overhead, on the altar-mount of Lilar, like the evil spirit on the
battlement of Paradise, stood Roquairol, looking sharply down into the
garden, to find Linda and her path. His festive-steed had been fastened
down below in the deep thicket to some foreign shrubbery. Full of fury
he saw Dian and Chariton still walking in the garden with the children,
and up in the thunder-house a little light. He cursed every disturbing
soul, for he was determined to murder this evening, in case of
necessity, every stormer of his heaven. At last he saw Linda's tall,
red-dressed form move toward the flute-dell, go up to the threshold of
bush-work, and disappear behind it.
He hastened down the long, spiral mountain, warm as a poisoned snake.
He heard behind him some one hurrying after in the long windings of the
bushes. In a fury he drew a sword-cane, which, with a pocket-pistol, he
had by him. At last he saw an odious form, like an evil spirit, running
after him; it attacked him. It was the long-armed ape of the Princess.
He run him through on the spot, in order not to be followed by him.
Below, in the open garden, he went slowly, in order not to awaken any
suspicion. He stole softly as death, when on the thunder-car of a cloud
he sails unheard through the air over a blossoming tree, beneath which
a virgin leans, and hid the murderous thunder-bolt in his breast. He
opened the high gate-shrubbery of the flute-dell; all was still within
there and dark; only in the upper heavens a singular, roaring storm
swept along and chased the herd of clouds, but on the earth it sounded
low, and not a leaf stirred. "Is any one there?" asked the blind
gate-keeper. "Good evening, maiden," said Roquairol, in order by the
tone of his speech to pass for Albano.
Deep in the vale, which now grew narrower and more leafy, Linda was
singing softly an old Spanish melody of her childhood's time. At last
she was visible; the giant-snake made the poisonous spring at the sweet
form, and she was entwined in a thousand-fold embrace.
He hung on her speechless, breathless; the cloud of his life broke;
burning tears of passion and pain and joy gushed out; all the arms into
which the stream of his love had hitherto run round in shallows, rushed
together roaring, and grasped and bore _one_ form. "Weep not, my good
Albano; we surely love each other again forever," said Linda, and the
tender, beautiful lip gave him the first, fervent kiss. Then the
fire-wheel of ecstasy whirled round and bore him with it, and around
the head which hung lashed thereto the circling flames waved high. From
a dread of being seen, if he should look, and from pleasure, he had
closed his eyes; now he opened them,--and there, so near to him and in
his arms, he beheld the lofty form, the proud, blooming countenance and
the moist, warm eyes of love. "Thou heavenly one," said he, "kill me in
this hour, that so I may die in heaven. How can I wish to live any
longer after it? O that I could pour my soul into my tears and my life
into thine, and then be no more!"
"Albano," said she, "why art thou to-day so altered, so sad, so
tender?"
"Call me rather," said he, "by _thy_ name, as lovers exchange names in
Otaheite. Perhaps I have drunk a little, too; but I truly repent of
yesterday, and I truly love thee anew. Ah, thou, dost thou, then, also
love my very innermost self, Linda?"
"Sweet youth, can I then, now, choose but love thee eternally? I do,
indeed, henceforth cleave to thee and thou to me."
"Ah, thou dost not know me. When does man know, then, that precisely
he, this very _I_, is meant and loved? Only forms are embraced, only
the fleshly covering is enfolded in the arms; who, then, clasps a
person to a person? _Perchance God_."
"And I do thee," said Linda.
"O Linda, wilt thou still love me in my grave, when the chaff of life
is flown away,--still love me in my hell, when I have deceived thee out
of love to thee? Is love, then, love's justification?"
"I love thee always, so long as thou lovest me. Art thou the
poison-flower; then am I the bee, and die on the sweet cup."
The bride sank on his neck. He clasped her passionately, and grew more
and more like the glacier, which by very warmth rolls further onward,
and in melting desolates. Around him danced the pleasures with heavenly
faces, but showed him in their hands the masks of furies.
"Thou wilt die of love; I am already dead from love. O, thou knowest
not how long ago I loved thee!" he answered.
"Glowing heart," said she, "think of this night when thou one day seest
Idoine!" "Then shall I see only my risen _sister_," said he, but
instantly trembled at the truth's having escaped his lips. "One sees,"
he added, hastily, "the risen Herculaneum, but one dwells overhead in
the blooming Portici. Thou and I saw in Baja's gold, under the sea, the
sunken arches and gates, and we sailed on farther toward living cities.
Is even Roquairol, I pray, like me in so many things, and does he love
thee so much, and has he loved thee so long, and died once, too, like
Liana?"
"But that creature I had never loved, and now am I thy eternal bride."
"Poor fellow! But I did wrong, however, I think, when I once, in the
cavern of Tartarus, renounced thee, the unseen, beforehand, out of love
toward my friend."
"Certainly not. But how have we both fallen upon the subject of this
uncomfortable being?" said she, kissing him.
"_Uncomfortable_,[126] indeed," replied he, with bitter emphasis,
blazing up in revengeful love, in a discord of rage and lust, and
determined now to weave the funeral veil over her whole future. He beat
his dark eagle's wings about his victim, and stifled and awakened
kisses; he tore the orange-blossoms from her bosom and threw them
behind him. "Love is living and dying and heaven and hell," said he;
"love is murder and fire and death and pain and pleasure. Caligula
would have placed his Cæsonia on the rack only for the sake of learning
from her why he so loved her. I could also..."
"Divine Albano, do not drink so any more! Thou art too impetuous; even
thy eyebrows storm! What art thou like?"
"All things at once, like a tempest full of glowing heat,--and my
heaven is luminous with lightning,--and I throw cold hail, and one
destruction after another; and a warm rain falls upon the flowers, and
a still bow of peace knits together heaven and earth."
At this moment he saw in heaven the storm-clouds, like storm-birds,
already flying more brightly between the stars and near the angry,
bloody eye of Mars; the moon, that came to scare and betray him, soon
threw upon him the judging eye of a god. In defiance of fate, he tore
open for his violent kisses the nun's veil and saintly splendor of the
virgin's bosom. Far off stood the beacon-tower of conscience enveloped
in thick clouds. Linda wept, trembling and glowing, on his breast. "Be
my good genius, Albano," said she. "And thy evil one. But call me only
one single time Charles," said he, full of passion. "O, be _called_
Charles, but remain my former Albano, my holy Albano," said she.
Suddenly the flutes in the dell began, which the pious father caused to
play at his evening devotions. Like tones of music on the battle-field,
they called down murder. Then did Linda's golden throne of life and of
happiness melt away, and the white, bridal garment of her innocence was
rent and burnt to ashes.
"Now am I thine until my death!" said she, softly, with streams of
tears. "Only till mine!" said he, and wept now softly with the weeping
flutes. Upon the golden ball on the mountain already glimmered the
moon, which, like an armed comet, like a one-eyed giant, pressed on, to
drive the sinner out of his Eden. "Stay till the moon comes, that I may
look into thy face," she begged. "No, thou divine one, my festive steed
already neighs; the death-torch burns down into my hand," said he, in a
low, tragic tone. The storm had passed from heaven down to the earth.
She replied, "The storm is so loud, what saidst thou, love?" He wildly
kissed again her lips and her bosom. He could not go; he could not
stay. "Go not to-morrow," said he, "to the Tragedian, I entreat thee;
the end, I hear, is too agitating."
"Besides, I never like such things. O, stay, stay longer; I am sure I
shall not see thee again to-morrow." He pressed her to himself, closed
her eyes with his face. The moon had already reared its Gorgon head in
the east; he would let go life when he let her go from his arms; and
yet every stammered word of love consumed the short moment. The storm
labored in the torn trees, and the flute-tones glided away like
butterflies, like innocent children beneath the great wing. Roquairol,
as if confounded by such a presence, was near upon the point of saying,
look at me, I am Roquairol; but the thought quickly placed itself
between, she does not deserve that of thee; no, let her learn it for
the first time in that hour when one forgives everything! Yet once more
he held her passionately clasped to himself; already the moonlight fell
in upon both; he repeated a thousand words of love and tenderness,
thrust her back, turned swiftly round, and stalked away in Albano's
dress through the vale.
"Good night, maiden," said he to the blind girl, in passing. Linda sang
not again as before. The stars looked down upon him; the storm winds
spake to him; the pleasures went along by him, but they had now the
masks of the furies on their faces. An arm struck down from heaven, an
arm grasped up from hell, and both would seize him, to tear him
asunder. "Well, well," said he, "I was fortunate indeed, but I might
have been still more so had I been her curséd Albano," and flung
himself upon his festive horse, and flew the same night to the Prince's
garden.