DAYS IN VADUZ--NATHALIE'S LETTER--A NEW YEAR'S WISH--WILDERNESS OF
DESTINY AND THE HEART.
We next meet our Firmian (promoted to higher rank on his retirement
from the world, as officers are on theirs from the service, to that of
Inspector, namely) in the Inspector's quarters at Vaduz. He found he
had to twist his way through so many thickets of prickly-pear and
impenetrable thorn-hedges, that, amid his labours, he almost forgot
that he was alone--so utterly alone--in the world. No one could endure
and overcome solitude, if it were not for the hope of companionship in
the future, or for the belief in invisible companionship in the
present.
With the Count he had only to seem to be what he really was, and then
he was most like the unconventional Leibgeber. He found the Count to be
an old man of the world, living alone, with neither wife, sons, nor
female servants--a man who filled up and adorned his grey years with
the arts and sciences, the last, and most lasting, enjoyments of a life
enjoyed to the end--and who cared for nothing on earth (saving always
the amusement of jesting upon it) except his daughter, who (as we are
aware) had been Nathalie's greatest friend in the starry and flowery
days of youth.
As he had devoted all his powers of body and soul, in early life, to
climbing to the tops of all the slipperiest _mats de cocagne_ of
pleasure, and carrying off the prizes from them, he had come down to
earth with both sides of his being a little wearied. His mental life
was now a kind of nursing, and lying in a tepid bath, which it required
a shower of cold water to make him raise himself from, and into which
fresh warm water had to be constantly being poured. The point of honour
of keeping his word, and the greatest possible happiness for his
daughter, were the only unbroken reins by which moral laws had ever
restrained him; for he looked upon all their other covenants more in
the light of flower-chains, or strings of pearls--matters which a man
of the world breaks and mends often enough in his career.
As it is easier to imitate lameness than straight walking, it was not
difficult for Siebenkæs to enact the part of his beloved _Diable
Boiteux_. The Count was somewhat struck with his white-painted face
(which was natural to him), and with his melancholy, and a heap of
nameless divergences (variations and aberrations) from Leibgeber. But
the Inspector accounted for these to his patron by saying that he was
so changed that he scarce recognised himself--that he seemed to have
become the changeling of his former self since his illness, and since
he had seen his college friend Siebenkæs depart this life in
Kuhschnappel. In brief, the Count could not but believe what he was
told; who would think of such an absurd story as the one I am telling
here? And if the reader had been present in the room himself, I am sure
he would have believed the Inspector in preference to me, if it were
for no other reason than that he remembered more of his old
conversations with the Count than the latter did himself. ('Tis true he
got this knowledge out of Leibgeber's diary.)
At the same time, as he had to speak, and act, in the capacity of
chargé-d'affaires, or resident consul, and proxy of his beloved
Leibgeber, there were two things which he was, in a high degree,
constrained to be--cheerful and kindly. Leibgeber's humour had a
greater power of colour, a greater freedom of drawing, and a more
poetic and citizen-of-the-world-ish, and ideal compass and range, than
Firmian's own[104] and this assumed brightness of temper by and by
became genuine. Moreover, his delicacy of feeling, and his friendship,
kept constantly before his mental vision, as on a Moses-cloudy-pillar
on his path of life, a shining, magnified image of Henry with a glory,
and a crown of laurel on his brow and every thought within him cried,
"Be glorious, be godlike, be a Socrates, to do honour to the spirit
whose ambassador you are." And which of us could assume the name of a
beloved person, and go and act unworthily?
Nothing on earth is so often deceived--not even women or princes--as
the conscience. Our Inspector tried to make _his_ believe that his
name had really _been_ Leibgeber in early days--just as he signed it
now--and that he really _was_ helping the Count in his work. Moreover,
who could be more ready than he to make a perfectly clean breast of the
whole story to the Count as soon as ever the proper time came? It was
easy to see that a humourous, juristic forgery, and pictorial illusion
of this sort would please him better than any amount of truths founded
upon reason, or _responsa prudentum_--to say nothing of his
gratification at finding he could have his friend, humorist, and
jurist, with two heads, two hearts, four legs and arms--in duplicate,
in short. Besides, the fact must not be lost sight of that the lies he
told were more _unavoidable_ lies than lies for the amusement of the
thing--inasmuch as he touched as seldom as he could upon Leibgeber's
previous conversations and relations, and as much as possible on his
own, which involved no breaches of truth.
Thus it is with--not our Inspector only--but man in general. He has an
indescribable fondness for _halves_, perhaps because he is a colossus
and demi-god standing, with out-stretched legs, upon two worlds. He
particularly delights in half-romances, half-postage of selfishness,
half-proofs, half-scholars (smatterers in knowledge), half-holidays,
half-spheres--and (consequently) better halves.
Siebenkæs's new labours of various kinds concealed his own pains and
sufferings from him for the first few weeks (at all events, when the
sun was not shining). But what gave him his largest extra-ration of
pleasure was the Count's satisfaction with his legal knowledge, and
careful and accurate style of doing his work. Once, when the Count said
to him, "Friend Leibgeber, you are keeping your promise like a man.
Your ability and accuracy over your work are deserving of all praise,
and I do not conceal from you that I felt just the slightest shade of a
misgiving on this very head, notwithstanding my high opinion of your
other talents. For, like your Frederick II., I consider talk and work
to be two wholly distinct things; and as regards the latter, I look for
the most accurate and methodical attention to all its details in every
one I have to deal with." Firmian rejoiced within himself, as he
thought, "At all events I have turned aside some little matter of blame
from my dear Henry, and gained a little modicum of praise for him;
though he could have done it all much better himself, if he had
chosen."
After a pleasure of self-sacrifice such as this, one always wants to go
on enjoying _fresh_ pleasures of self-sacrifice, and making new
sacrifices, just as children, who, whenever they are given anything,
cannot cease giving. He brought out his 'Selections from the Devil's
Papers,' gave them to the Count, and told him plainly and openly that
they were his own work. "This is not a deception in the slightest," he
thought; "though he supposes they are by Leibgeber; I have no other
name now." The Count never wearied of reading and praising these
papers, and what particularly pleased him was, that, in the path of
satire, he followed the guidance of his own two compatriots, the
British Castor and Pollux of humour, Swift and Sterne. Siebenkæs
listened to the encomiums on his book with such delight that he seemed
exactly like a conceited author--whereas, in reality, he _was_ nothing
but a _lover_ of his Henry, who had managed to conjure a few extra
laurel-crowns on to his image in the Count's mind.
This single enjoyment of his was, of a truth, necessary to him by way
of consolation and cordial for a life which was flowing on, beshaded
and chilled between two steep banks of legal business, week after week,
month after month. Alas! with the exception of the good Count's talk
(whose extraordinary kindness to him would have made his heart beat
even more warmly than it did, could he have thanked him for it in
another's name as well as his own),--he heard nothing better than an
occasional murmur of the waves of his life. He found himself, every
day, in his old, disagreeable post of a critic, compelled to read
what he had to give judgment upon. Formerly it had been books--now it
was lawyers. He saw into so many empty heads, into so many empty
hearts--saw such darkness in the former, such blackness in the
latter. He saw how very much the common-herd (when it comes to the
Egeria-fountain of the juristic ink-bottle to benefit its _calculi_),
is like Carlsbad bath-guests, in whose case the hot-springs bring all
diseased matter to the surface of the skin. He saw that most of the
oldest, and worst, members of the legal profession are, in only one
beautiful respect, like poisonous plants--namely, that they are not
half so poisonous, but more innocuous, while they are young. He saw
that a just judgment often did as much harm as an unjust one, and
that the one was appealed against just as much as the other. He saw
that it was easier, and, at the same time, more distasteful, to be a
judge than an advocate; although neither of them loses anything by an
injustice--for a judge is paid for a judgment reversed on appeal, just
as an advocate is for a case which he loses. He saw that, in dealing
with defendants, the principle of grooms is applied (who look upon the
currycomb as a good half of the forage). And, finally, he saw that
nobody fares worse in the affair than he who _sees_ it, and that the
devil is the very last of all things that the devil _takes_.
Amid labours and views such as these, the tender fibres of the heart
contract, and the open arms of the inner man are paralysed--the
overweighted soul scarce has the _strength_ to love, let alone the
_time_. When we love, and seek after _things_, it must be at the
expense of _persons_. If we _work_ too much, we must _love_ too
little. There was but one place where poor Firmian gave vent, once
in the twenty-four hours, to the longings and prayers of his tender
soul--namely, his pillow; and its cover was the white handkerchief
waiting for his weeping eyes. A deluge (made of tears) was over all his
former world--nothing floating on its surface but the two withered
funeral-garlands of departed days--the flowers which Lenette and
Nathalie had worn on their breasts, like petrified medicine-flowers of
his sick soul.
Living so far away, and so wholly outside the elliptical vault, he
could hear as little of Kuhschnappel as of Schraplau--of Lenette and
Nathalie not a word. He merely learned, from the 'Messenger of the Gods
and Advertiser of German Programmes,' that he was dead, and that the
critical profession was thereby deprived of one of its ablest and most
zealous members. Thus our Inspector was honoured by the necrologium
sooner than any other German scholar ever was--as soon, in fact, as the
Olympic conqueror Euthymus,[105] to whom, by a decree of the Delphic
Oracle, sacrifice and divine worship was adjudged during his lifetime.
I do not know which kind of ears--long ears or deaf--the German trump
of fame prefers to blow to.
And yet, in the depths of this ice-month of his love-imploring heart,
and in the wilderness of his loneliness, Firmian still had one living,
resplendent flower--and that was Nathalie's parting-kiss. Ah! ye who
waste and pine because of our insatiableness, did ye but know how a
kiss, which is a first and a last, blossoms and blooms throughout a
life--imperishable double-rose of speechless lips and burning souls--ye
would search for bliss more enduring--aye, and find it too! That kiss
sealed, in Firmian, and confirmed the spirit-bond immortalising and
eternising love at its loveliest and brightest hour of bloom. The
speechless lips were still eloquent, to _him_. The spirit breathed
between them as of old; and often as he saw, by night, behind the veil
of his closed, tearful eyelids, Nathalie going away from him, with all
her sacred sorrows, and vanishing down the darkling path--he never had
enough of the parting, the anguish, and the love.
At last, when six months had passed, one beautiful winter morning, when
the white hills with their snow-crystal woods lay bathed in the
rose-blood of the sun, and Aurora was stretching her pinions more
widely as she gently laid them down upon the glittering earth--there
flew a letter into Firmian's empty hand, as if borne upon the
morning-breeze of a spring as yet among the things to be. It was from
Nathalie, who, like the rest of the world, supposed him to be the Henry
of former days.
"DEAR LEIBGEBER,--I can restrain or control my heart no longer. Every
day it longs to break in pieces before yours, and show you all its
wounds. You were _once_ my friend, I know; am I quite forgotten? Have I
lost _you_ too? Ah! surely not; it is only that you cannot speak to me
for sorrow, since your Firmian died upon your breast, and still rests,
vanishing into the frost of death, upon the aching spot. Ah! why did
you persuade me to accept the fruit that grows upon his grave--and, as
it were, open that grave anew every year?[106] The first day I received
this fruit was bitter--bitterer than any other. You will see from a
little New Year's Greeting, which I addressed to myself (and which I
enclose), how I sometimes feel. One passage in it refers to a white
rose in my room, from which I managed to gather a flower or two in
December. My friend, now grant me a request, the making of which is
really my object in writing this letter--my most earnest prayer for
sorrow, a bitterer sorrow than is mine even now--for this will give me
consolation. Tell me--for there is no one else who can--and I know no
other--tell me everything about our dear one's last hours and moments;
what he said and what he suffered; how his eyes closed, and how his
life ended? All this, everything, though it will pierce my heart, I
_must_ be told. What can it cost you and me but tears?--and tears
soothe suffering eyes.
"I remain, your friend,
"NATHALIE A.
"P.S. If there were not so many causes to prevent me, I would go myself
to his resting-place and gather relics for my soul; but, if _you_ keep
silence, I do not answer for anything. I send you my congratulations on
your new appointment, and I hope I may be able to wish you joy some day
by word of mouth; my heart may become so far whole once more that I
shall be able to come and pay my dear friend a visit at her father's,
and see _you_ without dying of sorrow, at the likeness you bear to your
buried friend, _un_like you now."
* * * * *
I venture to translate[107] the pretty poem as follows:
"MY NEW YEAR'S GREETING TO MYSELF.
"The New Year's gates are open, and Fate, standing between the sun and
the burning morning clouds upon the mound of ashes of the year which
has fallen to dust, deals out the days according to their lot. What
dost thou pray for, Nathalie?
"Not for joy. Alas! all the joys which have been in my heart have left
but black thorns there; their rose-juice soon, was gone. The heavy
thunder-cloud grows as the sun-gleam brightens--and what shines upon us
is the ray reflected from the sword which the coming day will hold to
our happy hearts. No, no; I pray not for joys; they make the thirsting
heart so void. It is but sorrow that can fill it full.
"Fate deals the days according to their lot. What dost thou long for,
Nathalie?
"Not love. Oh! those who press the thorny white rose of love to their
hearts draw blood from out them; the warm tears of bliss which fall
into the blossom soon grow chill, and are dried up amain. Love, all
gleam and bloom, hangs on the morning sky of life, like some great
rose-red Aurora in the heavens. Ah! do not enter that bright glittering
cloud--it is but mist and tears. No, no; long not for love; die
of a lovelier sorrow. Sink into the chill of death under a nobler
poison-tree than is the lovely myrtle.
"Thou art kneeling at the feet of Destiny, Nathalie; tell him thy
desire!
"Neither do I desire more friends. No; we stand all, side by side, on
undermined graves--and when we have _so_ long held each other so fondly
by the hand, and _so_ long suffered together, our friend's empty mound
breaks in, and he turns pale, and sinks--and I am left alone, my life
all frozen, beside the filled-up grave. No, no: but when at last there
comes the hour when the heart will die no more, but has put on immortal
being--and when friends stand side by side in the eternal world--then
let the firmer breast beat warm and high, then let the eye, which is to
beam for ever, weep blissful tears, then let the lips, which never more
grow pale, murmur in rapture, '_Now_ come to me, beloved soul, we will
love _now_, for we shall never have to part, again.'
"Oh! thou bereaved and widowed Nathalie! what would'st thou have on
earth?
"A grave, and patience; nothing else beside. But these deny me not,
thou silence-keeping Fate! Dry thou mine eyes, then close them! Still
my heart, then break it!--Yes, _one_ day, when the free spirit spreads
her wings in a fairer heaven, and when the New Year breaks upon a purer
world--when we _all_ meet, and love, again--_then_ shall I lay my
longings, prayers, and wishes at thy feet. But none for _me_; for _I_
shall be too blest."
* * * * *
In what words could I depict the _inward_ speechlessness and
motionlessness of her friend, when he had read the paper, and still
held and gazed at it, although he could no longer either see or think.
Oh! the ice-floes of the glacier of death spread wider and wider, and
filled up one warm Tempè valley after another. The only bond by
which our solitary Firmian now held to humanity was the cord of his
death-bell and coffin--his bed was but a broader bier--and every joy
seemed a theft from the withered, leaf-stripped heart of another. And
thus the stem of his life, like that of many flowers,[108] went deeper
and deeper down, its top becoming its hidden root.
The abyss of a difficulty yawned on every side, and to do _anything_
was just as perilous as to do _nothing_. I shall lay the difficulties,
or resolutions, in their order as they struck his mind, before the
reader. In man, the devil flies up always sooner than the angel,--the
evil intention comes before the good one.[109] _His_ first was
non-moral, namely, that he should answer Nathalie, and tell her what
she wished to hear--that is, should _lie_ to her. We find the black
mourning coat as becoming, when others wear it for _us_, as warm when
_we_ wear it for _others_. "But I shall melt her heart" (said _his_)
"into fresh anguish with a continuation of wound and lie; ah! not
_even_ my actual death would be worth such pain and sorrow. Therefore I
shall keep utter silence." But _then_, she must think Henry annoyed,
and that she has lost _this_ friend too; nay, she might, in this case,
travel to Kuhschnappel, and go to his grave, and bear it as an
additional burden upon her oppressed and trembling soul. In both these
cases there was the risk of the _third_ danger--that she should come to
Vaduz, and that he should then have to convert the written lies, which
he had spared her, into spoken ones. There was but one way of escape
that he could see--the most virtuous, but the steepest--he could tell
her the truth. But with what danger to every relation of his life this
confession was fraught, even if Nathalie kept counsel--also, a yellow,
cross light would fall upon Henry in Nathalie's eyes, especially as she
had no means of knowing anything as to the nobleness and generosity of
his aims and deceptions. On the whole, there was least for his heart to
suffer on the precarious path of truth, and ultimately he resolved to
go by it.