Letter.--Two new Incisions of Fate.--His Lordship's
Confession of Faith.
One must excuse a man, who, like horses, increases his speed as night
and home draw near, from a tenth intercalary day; at the end of a life
and of a book, man makes few digressions.
I have already said, that nothing presses the spiritual and spinal
marrow out of a man more than when his misfortune allows him no action;
fate still held our Victor fast with one hand, in order to beat him
sore with the other, when in these weeks of sorrow the water-wheel of
time filled up _two_ new lachrymatories out of the hearts of men, and
emptied them into eternity. First came the dismal tidings, like a
funeral knell, to Victor's ear, that the sometime friend of his youth,
Flamin, was about to expiate a step which, but for the falling out with
him, he never would have taken, with his death. Some days after the
canicular holidays,--precisely when, a year previous, the poor prisoner
had entered on his new office with so many philanthropic hopes,--that
rumor came forth like a pestilential cloud out of the session-chambers.
Victor flew, incredulous and yet trembling, to the Apothecary, in order
to get, by inquiry, a refutation. The latter candidly unfolded before
him--for the very reason that he despised and wanted to shame the
Court-Physician--all the _rapport_-lists of the court and the reports
of the _cercles_, and recited to him so much as this out of them: it
was not otherwise. Victor heard, what he already presupposed, that the
Prince had on now the leading-strings or curb-bit of his own wife, and
that she came nearer to him in consequence of Clotilda's withdrawal,
and, with her _ear_-[171] and _ring_-finger, moved the bridle, threaded
through the _nose_-ring, as if she were in fact nothing less than
his--mistress; which is a new and mournful example, how easily in these
times a fine married lady steals the privileges of a concubine. Zeusel
found it natural, "that she, as the friend of the Minister, who, as
well as his son Matthieu, had been the friend of the Chamberlain,
should seek to avenge the death of the latter upon Flamin, and
that the Minister, in order the better to get his hand into the
handle of the Parcæ's scissors, and cut in twain the thread of the
Regency-Councillor's life, himself ordained and maintained the
continued absence of his son, that the latter might not in any way
protect the unhappy favorite." In all this there was not a true
word,--Victor knew better; but so much the worse. O, does not
everything betray that Matthieu has drawn the Princess, by hints
respecting Flamin's birth, into his faithless interests, in order, like
magicians, to destroy at a distance, and by few characters? Would the
mere fear of the stigma of the challenge hold him so long beyond the
limits of the country?--Add to this, that the sun of princely favor
brooded more and more warmly over the ministerial frog-spawn. It is
true,--and Victor did not deny it,--one might expect of the Princess
that she would in time overturn with her foot the Matthieu's- or
Jacob's-ladder on which she climbed the princely heart, (whereas she
had previously reached only January's _hand_,) just as the marten lets
the drowsy eagle snatch him up into the air, and only up aloft begins
to hack at him, and keeps doing it till the bearer falls and dies; but
by this time, I think, her steadfast gratitude toward Schleunes is
abundantly excused with honest men by the fact, that still more remains
to be gotten of the uncompleted _gift_. An old lawgiver ordained a
punishment for every case of _ingratitude_; in my opinion, every one
falls into the same fault as he, if one censures and punishes every
instance of gratitude, since often the most selfish at court may have
his good reasons for it.[172]
Victor went sadly into his chamber, and looked on Flamin's picture, and
said: "O, may it not be the will of Heaven, poor fellow, that it should
be no longer possible to save thee." Victor could never, three days
after an offence, any longer avenge himself. "I forgive every one," he
used to say, "only not friends and maidens, because I am too fond of
both." But what helping hand, what twig, could he reach down into
prison to the sinking Flamin?--All he could do was to go to the Prince
with a naked prayer for his pardon. Thousands of generous acts remain
undone, because one is not entirely certain that they will produce
their legitimate fruits. But Victor went nevertheless; he had made for
himself the golden rule, _to act for another even when the result is
not a matter of certain hope_. For if we chose first to wait for that
certainty, sacrifices would be quite as rare as they were devoid of
merit.
He went to the Prince, for the first time after so long, an
interval,--with the disadvantage against him of terminating a long
absence with a petition,--spoke with the fire of a recluse in behalf of
his Flamin,--besought the Prince for the postponement of his fate till
his Lordship should return,--received the decision, "Your honored
father and I must simply leave it in the hands of justice,"--and was
coldly and proudly dismissed.
Now precisely it was, on the 5th of September of this year, when a
great eclipse of the sun made the soul as well as the earth sad and
gloomy, that the water-wheel of time had filled the first lachrymatory
vessel in his breast; it rolled over farther, and the second
overflowed. Clotilda's letter arrived on the 22d of September, at the
beginning of autumn.
"DEAR FRIEND:--
"Your honored father was still in London at the beginning of February,
and had much _French_ correspondence; then he went off to Germany, and
since that my mother knows nothing of his movements. May Destiny watch
over his important life! Upon three oaths,[173] which his absence makes
inviolable, hang many tears, many hearts, and, O God! a human life.--I
enclose a leaf from your honored father, which he wrote at my mother's,
and which contains a philosophy that makes my spirit and my prospects
more and more sad. Ah, although you once said, neither the fear nor the
hopes of man hit their mark, but always something else; still I have
the mournful right to believe my apprehensions and all the dreams of
anxiety, as I have hitherto been mistaken in nothing but in hope.--How
insatiable is man!--But even though all should come true, and I should
become too unhappy, still I should say, how could I now be too unhappy,
had I not once been too happy?"----
You will readily forgive me, if I am silent about London, and about the
impression which it might make on so _distrait_ a heart as mine. The
active stir of freedom, and the glitter of luxury and of commerce,
simply oppress a sorrowing soul, and do not make one more cheerful who
was not cheerful before. Be happy, beloved native city, my heart said,
be long and greatly happy, as I was in thee in my youth!--But then I
love rather to hasten with my mother to her country-seat, where once
three good children[174] so joyously bloomed, and there I am
inexpressibly softened, and then I fancy myself happier here than among
the happy. I only fancy it, I may well say: for when I contemplate
there all the playthings of those good children, their task-books and
their little clothes; when I seat myself under three cherry-trees
planted close together, which they in play had set out in the child's
garden, which was too narrow for them; and then when I think how on
this stage they exercised and built up their hearts for a happier life
than they have won, for a higher virtue than their relations allowed
them, and for better society than they have found,--then am I sorely
distressed, and then I feel as if I must weep and could say, I too was
born in England, and was educated in Maienthal by Emanuel.
"Ah, I cannot hide the feelings of my heart, when I write the name of
that great soul.--He was often on a mountain here, where lies a ruined
church, and where he climbed a column that was still standing, in order
to lift his eye to the stars, above which he now dwells.--I was just on
the point of writing to you now what my mother told me of his
departure; but it makes me too sad, and I will tell it to you orally. I
visit this mountain very often, because one can look down on the whole
plain eastward: here is the old tree, still hanging with its roots and
twigs down into the quarry, which lies full of broken temple columns.
Emanuel often at evening took thither the child whom he loved
most,[175] and who, when _he_ prayed on the column, with one arm wound
round the tree, looked out and leaned out, longing and singing, over
the broad landscape, and, without knowing it, wept in sweet distress at
his own tones, and at the distant fields, and at the pale morning-red
which gleamed back from the red of evening. Once, when the teacher
asked the child, 'Why art thou so still, and leavest off singing?'--the
answer was, 'Ah, I long for the morning-red. I should like to lie
in it and go through it, and look, over into the bright lands behind
there.'--I often seat myself under that tree, and lean my head against
it, and silently follow with my eye the stretch of distance even to the
horizon, which stands before Germany; and no one disturbs my weeping or
my still prayer.
"I was there to-day for the last time; for to-morrow we go with my
mother, without whom my orphan heart can no longer live, back to
Germany, to the best friend of
"The truest friend,
"CL."