A few days after this the Baron received letters from his sister,
telling him, that her physicians had prescribed a few weeks at the
Baths of Ems, and urging him to meet her there before the fashionable
season.
"Come," said he to Flemming; "make this short journey with me. We will
pass a few pleasant days at Ems, and visit the other watering-places of
Nassau. It will drive away the melancholy day-dreams that haunt you.
Perhaps some future bride is even now waiting for you, with dim
presentiments and undefined longings, at the Serpent's Bath."
"Or some widow of Ems, with a cork-leg!" said Flemming, smiling; and
then added, in a toneof voice half jest, half earnest, "Certainly; let
us go in pursuit of her;--
`Whoe'er she be,
That not impossible she,
That shall command my heart and me.
Where'er she lie,
Hidden from mortal eye,
In shady leaves of destiny.' "
They started in the afternoon for Frankfort, pursuing their way slowly
along the lovely Bergstrasse, famed throughout Germany for its beauty.
They passed the ruined house where Martin Luther lay concealed after
the Diet of Worms, and through the village of Handschuhsheimer, as old
as the days of King Pepin the Short,--a hamlet, lying under the hills,
half-buried in blossoms and green leaves. Close on the right rose the
mountains of the mysterious Odenwald; and on the left lay the Neckar,
like a steel bow in the meadow. Farther westward, a thin, smoky vapor
betrayed the course of the Rhine; beyond which, like a troubled sea,
ran the blue, billowy Alsatian hills. Song of birds, and sound of
evening bells, and fragrance of sweet blossoms filled the air; and
silent and slow sank the broad red sun, half-hidden amid folding
clouds.
"We shall not pass the night at Weinheim," said the Baron to the
postilion, who had dismounted to walk up the hill, leading to the town.
"You may drive to the mill in the Valley of Birkenau."
The postilion seized one of his fat horses by the tail, and swung
himself up to his seat again. They rattled through the paved streets of
Weinheim, and took no heed of the host of the Golden Eagle, who stood
so invitingly at the door of his own inn; and the ruins of Burg
Windeck, above there, on its mountain throne, frowned at them for
hurrying by, without staying to do him homage.
"The old ruin looks well from the valley," said the Baron; "but let us
beware of climbing that steep hill. Most travellers are like children;
they must needs touch whatever they behold. They climb up to every old
broken tooth of acastle, which they find on their way;--get a toilsome
ascent and hot sunshine for their pains, and come down wearied and
disappointed. I trust we are wiser."
They crossed the bridge, and turned up the stream, passing under an
arch of stone, which serves as a gateway to this enchanted Valley of
Birkenau. A cool and lovely valley! shut in by high hills;--shaded by
alder-trees and tall poplars, under which rushes the Wechsnitz, a noisy
mountain brook, that ever and anon puts its broad shoulder to the wheel
of a mill, and shows that it can labor as well as laugh. At one of
these mills they stopped for the night.
A mill forms as characteristic a feature in the romantic German
landscape, as in the romantic German tale. It is not only a mill, but
likewise an ale-house and rural inn; so that the associations it
suggests are not of labor only, but also of pleasure. It stands in the
narrow defile, with its picturesque, thatched roof; thither throng
thepeasants, of a holiday; and there are rustic dances under the trees.
In the twilight of the fast-approaching summer night, the Baron and
Flemming walked forth along the borders of the stream. As they heard
it, rushing and gushing among the stones and tangled roots, and the
great wheel turning in the current, with its never-ceasing plash!
plash! it brought to their minds that exquisite, simple song of Goethe,
the Youth and the Mill-brook. It was for the moment a nymph, which sang
to them in the voice of the waters.
"I am persuaded," said Flemming, "that, in order fully to understand
and fell the popular poetry of Germany, one must be familiar with the
German landscape. Many sweet little poems are the outbreaks of
momentary feelings;--words, to which the song of birds, the rustling of
leaves, and the gurgle of cool waters form the appropriate music. Or
perhaps I should say they are words, which man has composed to the
music of nature. Can you not, even now, hear this brooklet tellingyou
how it is on its way to the mill, where at day-break the miller's
daughter opens her window, and comes down to bathe her face in its
stream, and her bosom is so full and white, that it kindles the glow of
love in the cool waters!"
"A most delightful ballad, truly," said the Baron. "But like many
others of our little songs, it requires a poet to fell and understand
it. Sing them in the valley and woodland shadows, and under the leafy
roofs of garden walks, and at night, and alone, as they were written.
Sing them not in the loud world,--for the loud world laughs such things
to scorn. It is Mueller who says, in that little song, where the maiden
bids the moon good evening;
`This song was made to be sung at night,
And he who reads it in broad daylight,
Will never read the mystery right;
And yet it is childlike easy!'
He has written a great many pretty songs, in which the momentary,
indefinite longings and impulses of the soul of man find an expression.
Hecalls them the songs of a Wandering Horn-player. There is one among
them much to our present purpose. He expresses in it, the feeling of
unrest and desire of motion, which the sight and sound of running
waters often produce in us. It is entitled, `Whither?' and is worth
repeating to you.
`I heard a brooklet gushing
From its rocky fountain near,
Down into the valley rushing,
So fresh and wondrous clear.
`I know not what came o'er me,
Nor who the counsel gave;
But I must hasten downward,
All with my pilgrim-stave.
`Downward, and ever farther,
And ever the brook beside;
And ever fresher murmured,
And ever clearer the tide.
`Is this the way I was going?
Whither, O brooklet, say!
Thou hast, with thy soft murmur,
Murmured my senses away.
`What do I say of a murmur?
That can no murmur be;
'T is the water-nymphs, that are singing
Their roundelays under me.
`Let them sing, my friend, let them murmur,
And wander merrily near;
The wheels of a mill are going
In every brooklet clear.' "
"There you have the poetic reverie," said Flemming, "and the dull prose
commentary and explanation in matter of fact. The song is pretty; and
was probably suggested by some such scene as this, which we are now
beholding. Doubtless all your old national traditions sprang up in the
popular mind as this song in the poet's."
"Your opinion is certainly correct," answered the Baron; "and yet all
this play of poetic fancy does not prevent me from feeling the chill
night air, and the pangs of hunger. Let us go back to the mill, and see
what our landlady has for supper. Did you observe what a loud, sharp
voice she has?"
"People always have, who live in mills, and near water-falls."
On the following morning they emerged unwillingly from the green, dark
valley, and journeyed along the level highway to Frankfort, where in
the evening they heard the glorious Don Giovanni of Mozart. Of all
operas this was Flemming's favorite. What rapturous flights of sound!
what thrilling, pathetic chimes! what wild, joyous revelry of passion!
what a delirium of sense!--what an expression of agony and woe! all the
feelings of suffering and rejoicing humanity sympathized with and
finding a voice in those tones. Flemming and the Baron listened with
ever-increasing delight.
"How wonderful this is!" exclaimed Flemming, transported by his
feelings. "How the chorus swells and dies, like the wind of summer! How
those passages of mysterious import seem to wave to and fro, like the
swaying branches of trees; from which anon some solitary sweetvoice
darts off like a bird, and floats away and revels in the bright, warm
sunshine! And then mark! how, amid the chorus of a hundred voices and a
hundred instruments,--of flutes, and drums, and trumpets,--this
universal shout and whirl-wind of the vexed air, you can so clearly
distinguish the melancholy vibration of a single string, touched by the
finger,--a mournful, sobbing sound! Ah, this is indeed human life!
where in the rushing, noisy crowd, and amid sounds of gladness, and a
thousand mingling emotions, distinctly audible to the ear of thought,
are the pulsations of some melancholy string of the heart, touched by
an invisible hand."
Then came, in the midst of these excited feelings, the ballet; drawing
its magic net about the soul. And soon, from the tangled yet harmonious
mazes of the dance, came forth a sylph-like form, her scarf floating
behind her, as if she were fanning the air with gauze-like wings.
Noiseless as a feather or a snow-flake falls, did her feet touch the
earth. She seemed to floatin the air, and the floor to bend and wave
under her, as a branch, when a bird alights upon it, and takes wing
again. Loud and rapturous applause followed each wonderful step, each
voluptuous movement; and, with a flushed cheek and burning eye, and
bosom panting to be free, stood the gracefully majestic figure for a
moment still, and then the winged feet of the swift dancing-girls
glanced round her, and she was lost again in the throng.
"How truly exquisite this is!" exclaimed the Baron, after joining
loudly in the applause. "What a noble figure! What grace! what
attitudes! How much soul in every motion! how much expression in every
gesture! I assure you, it produces upon me the same effect as a
beautiful poem. It is a poem. Every step is a word; and the whole
together a poem!"
The Baron and Flemming were delighted with the scene; and at the same
time exceedingly amused with the countenance of an old prude in the
next box, who seemed to look upon the wholemagic show, with such
feelings as Michal, Saul's daughter, experienced, when she looked from
her window and saw King David dancing and leaping with his scanty
garments.
"After all," said Flemming, "the old French priest was not so far out
of the way, when he said, in his coarse dialect, that the dance is the
Devil's procession; and paint and ornaments, the whetting of the
devil's sword; and the ring that is made in dancing, the devil's
grindstone, whereon he sharpens his sword; and finally, that a ballet
is the pomp and mass of the Devil, and whosoever entereth therein,
entereth into his pomp and mass; for the woman who singeth is the
prioress of the Devil, and they that answer are clerks, and they that
look on are parishioners, and the cymbals and flutes are the bells, and
the musicians that play are the ministers, of the Devil."
"No doubt this good lady near us, thinks so likewise," answered the
Baron laughing; "but she likes it, for all that."
When the play was over the Baron begged Flemming to sit still, till the
crowd had gone.
"I have a strange fancy," said he, "whenever I come to the theatre, to
see the end of all things. When the crowd is gone, and the curtain
raised again to air the house, and the lamps are all out, save here and
there one behind the scenes, the contrast with what has gone before is
most impressive. Every thing wears a dream-like aspect. The empty boxes
and stalls,--the silence,--the smoky twilight, and the magic scene
dismantled, produce in me a strange, mysterious feeling. It is like a
dim reflection of a theatre in water, or in a dusty mirror; and reminds
me of some of Hoffmann's wild Tales. It is a practical moral lesson,--a
commentary on the play, and makes the show complete."
It was truly as he said; only tenfold more desolate, solemn, and
impressive; and produced upon the mind the effect we experience, when
slumber is suddenly broken, and dreams and realities mingle, and we
know not yet whether we sleep or wake. As they at length passed out
through the dimly-lighted passage, they heard a vulgar-looking fellow,
with a sensual face and shaggy whiskers, say to some persons who were
standing near him, and seemed to be hangers-on of the play-house;
"I shall run her six nights at Munich, and then take her on to Vienna."
Flemming thought he was speaking of some favorite horse. He was
speaking of his beautiful wife, the ballet-dancer.