We now stood before a mansion, the windows of which were silvered, and,
when it was darker, gilt by girandoles. Aloft over its Italian balcony
hung two balloons, one at its eastern, the other at its western
extremity. Without those beautiful globes, the counterpart, as it were,
of the two glorious ones in heaven, the sun and the moon, I should have
scarcely paid heed to the scene on earth, in the splendor of the one on
high.
Dearest friend, how beautiful was the place and the time. Around us,
in their majesty, reposed the Pyrenees, half robed in night and half
in day, not stooping, like man, beneath the load of years, but
erect--forever; and I felt why the great ancients had thought the
mountains were a breed of giants. On the mountain heads hung wreaths of
roses cloud-woven; but each time that a star appeared upon the clear,
deep sea of ether and sparkled on its azure waves, a rose from the
mountain's chaplet faded and dropped away. The Mittaghorn, alone, like
a higher spirit, gazed long after the sinking lonely sun, and glowed
with ecstasy. Down beneath us an amphitheatre of lemon-trees, by its
perfumes, brought us back to the veiled earth, and made a dusky
paradise of it. And Gione, in calm rapture, struck the chords of her
guitar, and softly did Nadine's voice accompany the gliding tones. The
nightingale in the rose-hedges by the lake awoke, and the plaintive
tones from its tiny heart pierced deep into the great heart of man; and
shining glowworms flew from rose-bush to rose-bush, but in the mirror
of the lake they were but as golden sparks, floating over pale yellow
flowers. But when we looked again towards the heavens, lo! all its
stars were gleaming, and in place of rose-woven wreaths, the mountains
were clad in extinguished rainbows, and the giant of the Pyrenees was
crowned with stars instead of roses. O my beloved Victor! in this
moment it was with each of our enraptured souls as if from its
oppressed heart earth's load had dropped away; as if from her mother's
arms, the earth were giving us, matured in the Father arms of the
infinite Creator; as if our little life were over! To ourselves, we
seemed the immortal, the exalted. We fancied that our speech of man's
immortality had been the prophecy of our own, as with two great and
noble men.[32] But though we entered the brilliant rooms, the storm of
new joys could not destroy the old ones. We were not yet able to be
without the great night around us, and we ascended the platform, that
from this little throne we might better contemplate the higher throne
of creation beneath the eternal canopy; although kneeling would have
been a higher ascension for the moved soul.
There were night-violets in a glass box, which traced Gione's name in
blooming colors. I remembered the glowworms and millipeds. I let the
former fly down upon the rose-bushes in confused star-pictures; with
the latter I fired Gione's beautiful flower namesake.
Gione looked longingly towards the eastern Mongolfiere. Wilhelmi
understood her. Her soul was as bold as it was calm, she had already
visited many of the magic caves of earth, and had ascended to the
summits of the highest Alps; she wished now to rise in the air, and to
float in the heavens above this beautiful country, and on this
beauteous night; but the enjoyment of the prospect was not her only
motive. Wilhelmi asked who should be her companion. Solitude was her
chief desire. The breadth and depth of the boat under the globe, a
chair in it, and the cords by which she would be raised and lowered,
secured the trip from all danger.
Like a celestial being she rose beneath the stars,--the night and the
height threw a mist over her rising form. A slight zephyr rocked the
blooming Aurora, and crowned the moving goddess with alternate
constellations. Now her countenance appeared surrounded by pale
supernatural rays. It seemed bright as an angel rising towards its
kindred stars through the rich dark blue space. An unusual tremor
seized on Wilhelmi and Karlson; it was as if they saw their beloved one
again carried from them on the wings of the angel of Death.
When she returned to us her eyes were red with weeping; she had
ascended, that she might in an unseen moment, shed her old heavy tears
near the stars. O the Celestial one! She smiled strangely in the
slumber of this life at higher joys than earthly ones, as sleeping
children smile when they see Angels.
It was now impossible to repress my longing for the stars, and my
petition to be allowed to ascend. Permission to use the western
Mongolfiere was willingly bestowed. Nadine, emboldened by the safe
return of her sister, and by the companion in the danger, skipped into
the boat, with her usual impulsive warmth, to refresh her thirsting
soul with the majestic immeasurability of night.
And now the suns raised us. The heavy earth sank down as the past;
wings such as man has in happy dreams bore us upwards.
The mighty vacancy and silence of space lay stretched before us even up
into the stars;--as we rose higher, the dark forests seemed but clouds,
and snow-girt mountaintops like snow-flakes. The ascending globe bore
us nearer to the harmless, silent lightning of the moon, in whose
bright satellite we seemed cradled, and which stood as a calm Elysium
beneath the heavens, and high above the thick fog air, the light heart
beating more quickly, seemed to pant with ethereal gladness to have
left the earth with out discarding its shell covering. Our ascent was
suddenly arrested--we looked down into the valley, half concealed by
distance and the darkness of the night. Only the lights from the
mansion were visible to us,--a western cloud hung like a white fog
before us, and a black eagle flew like an angel of death from the east
through the cloud pillar, seeking its summit, and a cool breeze
playfully drew us towards the mist-island. The evening red had already
passed the earth at midnight, and wandered over charming France as its
future Aurora. O, how the soul was raised towards the stars, and how
lightly did our hearts beat above the earth!
But now from the bright mansion arose sweet harmony, and the subdued
echo of the voices of our beloved ones calling upon us. And when Nadine
looked down, her lonely heart broke with longing after those dear ones;
and when she glanced into the silvered valley, over which the moon had
risen, and where the trembling waterfalls danced beside the flowing
archings of the stream and the green marble caves, and the white paths
between poplars and wheat-ears, and the whole enchanting path of our
day's journey lay silvered beneath her inconstant rays,--bright,
shining tears flowed unrestrained from her mild eyes, and she looked
imploringly to me, as if begging for consideration and secrecy, and
said expressively, "We are yet so far from the cruel earth."
When our little globe was drawn back to the shining meadows and the
merry music, she looked inquiringly at me, to ask if the traces of
tears yet remained in her eyes. She dried them more quickly, but in
vain. Silently we descended; I took her burning hand in mine, and
looked into her weeping eyes, but could not speak.... --And how could I
speak better now, dearest friend!