Wandering, arm in arm with a friend, through the valleys and over the
mountains of the Tyrol, one sips life's fresh air and enjoyment; but to
travel the same road solitary and alone with your thoughts is time and
trouble lost. Of what interest to me are the green mountains, the dark
ravines, the blue lake, and the mighty cataracts? Instead of
contemplating them they look at me and wonder among themselves at this
solitary being. It smote me to the heart that I had found no one in
all the world who loved me more than all others. With such thoughts I
awoke every morning, and they haunted me all the day like a song which
one cannot drive away. When I entered the inn at night and sat down
wearied, and the people in the room watched me, and wondered at the
solitary wanderer, it often urged me out into the night again, where no
one could see I was alone. At a late hour I would steal back, go
quietly up to my room and throw myself upon my hot bed, and the song of
Schubert's would ring through my soul until I went to sleep: "Where
thou art not, is happiness." At last the sight of men, whom I
continually met laughing, rejoicing and exulting in this glorious
nature, became so intolerable that I slept by day, and pursued my
journey from place to place in the clear moonlight nights. There was
at least one emotion which dispelled and dissipated my thoughts: it was
fear. Let any one attempt to scale mountains alone all night long in
ignorance of the way--where the eye, unnaturally strained, beholds
distant shapes it cannot solve--where the ear, with morbid acuteness,
hears sounds without knowing whence they come--where the foot suddenly
stumbles, it may be over a root which forces its way through the rocks,
or on a slippery path which the waterfall has drenched with its
spray--and besides all this, a disconsolate waste in the heart, no
memory to cheer us, no hope to which we may cling--let any one attempt
this, and he will feel the cold chill of night both outwardly and
inwardly. The first fear of the human heart arises from God forsaking
us; but life dissipates it, and mankind, created after the image of
God, consoles us in our solitariness. When even this consolation and
love, however, forsake us, then we feel what it means to be deserted by
God and man, and nature with her silent face terrifies rather than
consoles us. Even when we firmly plant our feet upon the solid rocks,
they seem to tremble like the mists of the sea from which they once
slowly emerged. When the eye longs for the light, and the moon rises
behind the firs, reflecting their tapering tops against the bright rock
opposite, it appears to us like the dead hand of a clock which was once
wound up, and will some day cease to strike. There is no retreat for
the soul, which feels itself alone and forsaken even among the stars,
or in the heavenly world itself. One thought brings us a little
consolation: the repose, the regularity, the immensity, and the
unavoidableness of nature. Here, where the waterfall has clothed the
gray rocks on either side with green moss, the eye suddenly recognizes
a blue forget-me-not in the cool shade. It is one of millions of
sisters now blossoming along all the rivulets and in all the meadows of
earth, and which have blossomed ever since the first morning of
creation shed its entire inexhaustible wealth over the world. Every
vein in its leaves, every stamen in its cup, every fibre of its roots,
is numbered, and no power on earth can make the number more or less.
Still more, when we strain our weak eyes and, with superhuman power,
cast a more searching glance into the secrets of nature, when the
microscope discloses to us the silent laboratory of the seed, the bud
and the blossom, do we recognize the infinite, ever-recurring form in
the most minute tissues and cells, and the eternal unchangeableness of
Nature's plans in the most delicate fibre. Could we pierce still
deeper, the same form-world would reveal itself, and the vision would
lose itself as in a hall hung with mirrors. Such an infinity as this
lies hidden in this little flower. If we look up to the sky, we see
again the same system--the moon revolving around the planets, the
planets around suns, and the suns around new suns, while to the
straining eye the distant star-nebulae themselves seem to be a new and
beautiful world. Reflect then how these majestic constellations
periodically revolve, that the seasons may change, that the seed of
this forget-me-not may shed itself again and again, the cells open, the
leaves shoot out, and the blossoms decorate the carpet of the meadow;
and look upon the lady-bug which rocks itself in the blue cup of the
flower, and whose awakening into life, whose consciousness of
existence, whose living breath, are a thousand-fold more wonderful than
the tissue of the flower, or the dead mechanism of the heavenly bodies.
Consider that thou also belongest to this infinite warp and woof, and
that thou art permitted to comfort thyself with the infinite creatures
which revolve and live and disappear with thee. But if this All, with
its smallest and its greatest, with its wisdom and its power, with the
wonders of its existence, and the existence of its wonders, is the work
of a Being in whose presence thy soul does not shrink back, before whom
thou fallest prostrate in a feeling of weakness and nothingness, and to
whom thou risest again in the feeling of His love and mercy--if thou
really feelest that something dwells in thee more endless and eternal
than the cells of the flowers, the spheres of the planets, and the life
of the insect--if thou recognizest in thyself as in a shadow the
reflection of the Eternal which illuminates thee--if thou feelest in
thyself, and under and above thyself, the omnipresence of the Real, in
which thy seeming becomes being, thy trouble, rest, thy solitude,
universality--then thou knowest the One to Whom thou criest in the dark
night of life: "Creator and Father, Thy will be done in Heaven as upon
earth, and as on earth so also in me." Then it grows bright in and
about thee. The daybreak disappears with its cold mists, and a new
warmth streams through shivering nature. Thou hast found a hand which
never again leaves thee, which holds thee when the mountains tremble
and moons are extinguished. Wherever thou may'st be, thou art with
Him, and He with thee. He is the eternally near, and His is the world
with its flowers and thorns, His is man with his joys and sorrows.
"The least important thing does not happen except as God wills it."
With such thoughts I went on my way. At one time, all was well with
me; at another, troubled; for even when we have found rest and peace in
the lowest depths of the soul, it is still hard to remain undisturbed
in this holy solitude. Yes, many forget it after they find it and
scarcely know the way which leads back to it.
Weeks had flown, and not a syllable had reached me from her. "Perhaps
she is dead and lies in quiet rest," was another song forever on my
tongue, and always returning as often as I drove it from me. It was
not impossible, for the Hofrath had told me she suffered with heart
troubles, and that he expected to find her no more among the living
every morning he visited her. Could I ever forgive myself if she had
left this world and I had not taken farewell of her, nor told her at
the last moment how I loved her? Must I not follow until I found her
again in another life, and heard from her that she loved me and that I
was forgiven? How mankind defers from day to day the best it can do,
and the most beautiful things it can enjoy, without thinking that every
day may be the last one, and that lost time is lost eternity! Then all
the words of the Hofrath, the last time I saw him, recurred to me, and
I felt that I had only resolved to make my sudden journey to show my
strength to him, and that it would have been a still more difficult
task to have confessed my weakness and remained. It was clear to me
that it was my simple duty to return to her immediately and to bear
everything which Heaven ordained. But as soon as I had laid the plan
for my return journey, I suddenly remembered the words of the Hofrath:
"As soon as possible she must go away and be taken into the country."
She had herself told me that she spent the most of her time, in summer,
at her castle. Perhaps she was there, in my immediate vicinity; in one
day I could be with her. Thinking was doing; at daybreak I was off,
and at evening I stood at the gate of the castle.
The night was clear and bright. The mountain peaks glistened in the
full gold of the sunset and the lower ridges were bathed in a rosy
blue. A gray mist rose from the valleys which suddenly glistened when
it swept up into the higher regions, and then like a cloud-sea rolled
heavenwards. The whole color-play reflected itself in the gently
agitated breast of the dark lake from whose shores the mountains seemed
to rise and fall, so that only the tops of the trees and the peaks of
the church steeples and the rising smoke from the houses defined the
limits which separated the reality of the world from its reflection.
My glance, however, rested upon only one spot--the old castle--where a
presentiment told me I should find her again. No light could be seen
in the windows, no footstep broke the silence of the night. Had my
presentiment deceived me? I passed slowly through the outer gateway
and up the steps until I stood at the fore-court of the castle. Here I
saw a sentinel pacing back and forwards, and I hastened to the soldier
to inquire who was in the castle. "The Countess and her attendants are
here," was the brief reply, and in an instant I stood at the main
portal and had even pulled the bell. Then, for the first time, my
action occurred to me. No one knew me. I neither could nor dare say
who I was. I had wandered for weeks about the mountains, and looked
like a beggar. What should I say? For whom should I ask? There was
little time for consideration, however, for the door opened and a
servant in princely livery stood before me, and regarded me with
amazement.
I asked if the English lady, who I knew would never forsake the
Countess, was in the castle, and when the servant replied in the
affirmative, I begged for paper and ink and wrote her I was present to
inquire after the health of the Countess.
The servant called an attendant, who took the letter away. I heard
every step in the long halls, and every moment I waited, my position
became more unendurable. The old family portraits of the princely
house hung upon the walls--knights in full armor, ladies in antique
costume, and in the center a lady in the white robes of a nun with a
red cross upon her breast. At any other time I might have looked upon
these pictures and never thought that a human heart once beat in their
breasts. But now it seemed to me I could suddenly read whole volumes
in their features, and that all of them said to me: "We also have once
lived and suffered." Under these iron armors secrets were once hidden
as even now in my own breast. These white robes and the red cross are
real proofs that a battle was fought here like that now raging in my
own heart. Then I fancied all of them regarded me with pity, and a
loftier haughtiness rested on their features as if they would say, Thou
dost not belong to us. I was growing uneasy every moment, when
suddenly a light step dissipated my dream. The English lady came down
the stairs and asked me to step into an apartment. I looked at her
closely to see if she suspected my real emotions, but her face was
perfectly calm, and without manifesting the slightest expression of
curiosity or wonder, she said in measured tones, the Countess was much
better to-day and would see me in half an hour.
When I heard these words, I felt like the good swimmer who has ventured
far out into the sea, and first thinks of returning when his arms have
begun to grow weary. He cleaves the waves with haste, scarcely
venturing to cast a glance at the distant shore, feeling with every
stroke that his strength is failing and that he is making no headway,
until at last, purposeless and cramped, he scarcely has any realization
of his position; then suddenly his foot touches the firm bottom, and
his arm hugs the first rock on the shore. A fresh reality confronted
me, and my sufferings were a dream. There are but few such moments in
the life of man, and thousands have never known their rapture. The
mother whose child rests in her arms for the first time, the father
whose only son returns from war covered with glory, the poet in whom
his countrymen exult, the youth whose warm grasp of the hand is
returned by the beloved being with a still warmer pressure--they know
what it means when a dream becomes a reality.
At the expiration of the half hour, a servant came and conducted me
through a long suite of rooms, opened a door, and in the fading light
of the evening I saw a white figure, and above her a high window, which
looked out upon the lake and the shimmering mountains.
"How singularly people meet!" she cried out in a clear voice, and every
word was like a cool rain-drop on a hot summer's day.
"How singularly people meet, and how singularly they lose each other,"
said I; and thereupon I seized her hand, and realized that we were
together again.
"But people are to blame if they lose each other," she continued; and
her voice, which seemed always to accompany her words, like music,
involuntarily modulated into a tenderer key.
"Yes, that is true," I replied; "but first tell me, are you well, and
can I talk with you?"
"My dear friend," said she, smiling, "you know I am always sick, and if
I say that I feel well, I do so for the sake of my old Hofrath; for he
is firmly convinced that my entire life since my first year is due to
him and his skill. Before I left the Court-residence I caused him much
anxiety, for one evening my heart suddenly ceased beating, and I
experienced such distress that I thought it would never beat again.
But that is past, and why should we recall it? Only one thing troubles
me, I have hitherto believed I should some time close my eyes in
perfect repose, but now I feel that my sufferings will disturb and
embitter my departure from life." Then she placed her hand upon her
heart, and said: "But tell me, where have you been, and why have I not
heard from you all this time? The old Hofrath has given me so many
reasons for your sudden departure, that I was finally compelled to tell
him I did not believe him--and at last he gave me the most incredible
of all reasons, and counselled--what do you suppose?"
"He might seem untruthful," I interrupted, so that she should not
explain the reason, "and yet, perhaps he was only too truthful. But
this also is past, and why should we recall it?"
"No, no, my friend," said she, "why call it past? I told the Hofrath,
when he gave me the last reason for your sudden departure, that I
understood neither him nor you. I am a poor sick, forsaken being, and
my earthly existence is only a slow death. Now if Heaven sends me a
few souls who understand me, or love me, as the Hofrath calls it, why
then should it disturb their joy or mine? I had been reading my
favorite poet, the old Wordsworth, when the Hofrath made his
acknowledgment, and I said: 'My dear Hofrath, we have so many thoughts
and so few words that we must express many thoughts in every word. Now
if one who does not know us understood that our young friend loved me,
or I him, in such manner as we suppose Romeo loved Juliet and Juliet
Romeo, you would be entirely right in saying it should not be so. But
is it not true that you love me also, my old Hofrath, and that I love
you, and have loved you for many years? And has it not sometimes
occurred to you that I have neither been past remedy nor unhappy on
that account? Yes, my dear Hofrath, I will tell you still more--I
believe you have an unfortunate love for me, and are jealous of our
young friend. Do you not come every morning and inquire how I am, even
when you know I am very well? Do you not bring me the finest flowers
from your garden? Did you not oblige me to send you my portrait,
and--perhaps I ought not to disclose it--did you not come to my room
last Sunday and think I was asleep? I was really sleeping--at least I
could not stir myself. I saw you sitting at my bedside for a long
time, your eyes steadfastly fixed upon me, and I felt your glances
playing upon my face like sunbeams. At last your eyes grew weary, and
I perceived the great tears falling from them. You held your face in
your hands, and loudly sobbed: Marie, Marie! Ah, my dear Hofrath, our
young friend has never done that, and yet you have sent him away.' As
I thus talked with him, half in jest and half in earnest, as I always
speak, I perceived that I had hurt the old man's feelings. He became
perfectly silent, and blushed like a child. Then I took the volume of
Wordsworth's poems which I had been reading, and said: 'Here is another
old man whom I love, and love with my whole heart, who understands me,
and whom I understand, and yet I have never seen him, and shall never
see him on earth, since it is so to be. Now I will read you one of his
poems, that you may see how one can love, and that love is a silent
benediction which the lover lays upon the head of the beloved, and then
goes on his way in rapturous sorrow.' Then I read to him Wordsworth's
'Highland Girl;' and now, my friend, place the lamp nearer, and read
the poem to me, for it refreshes me every time I hear it. A spirit
breathes through it like the silent, everlasting evening-red, which
stretches its arms in love and blessing over the pure breast of the
snow-covered mountains."
As her words thus gradually and peacefully filled my soul, it at last
grew still and solemn in my breast again; the storm was over, and her
image floated like the silvery moonlight upon the gently rippling waves
of my love--this world-sea which rolls through the hearts of all men,
and which each calls his own while it is an all-animating pulse-beat of
the whole human race. I would most gladly have kept silent like Nature
as it lay before our view without, and ever grew stiller and darker:
But she gave me the book, and I read:
Sweet Highland Girl, a very shower
Of beauty is thy earthly dower!
Twice seven consenting years have shed
Their utmost bounty on thy head:
And these gray rocks, that household lawn,
Those trees, a veil just half withdrawn,
This fall of water that doth make
A murmur near the silent lake,
This little bay; a quiet road
That holds in shelter thy abode--
In truth, together do ye seem
Like something fashioned in a dream;
Such forms as from their covert peep
When earthly cares are laid asleep!
But, O fair creature! in the light
Of common day, so heavenly bright,
I bless thee, vision as thou art,
I bless thee with a human heart;
God shield thee to thy latest years!
Thee neither know I, nor thy peers;
And yet my eyes are filled with tears.
With earnest feeling I shall pray
For thee when I am far away;
For never saw I mien or face,
In which more plainly I could trace
Benignity and home-bred sense
Ripening in perfect innocence.
Here scattered, like a random seed,
Remote from men, thou dost not need
The embarrassed look of shy distress,
And maidenly shamefacedness:
Thou wear'st upon thy forehead clear
The freedom of a mountaineer:
A face with gladness overspread!
Soft smiles, by human kindness bred!
And seemliness complete, that sways
Thy courtesies, about thee plays;
With no restraint, but such as springs
From quick and eager visitings
Of thoughts that lie beyond the reach
Of thy few words of English speech:
A bondage sweetly brooked, a strife
That gives thy gestures grace and life!
So have I, not unmoved in mind,
Seen birds of tempest-loving kind--
Thus beating up against the wind.
What hand but would a garland cull
For thee who art so beautiful?
O happy pleasure! here to dwell
Beside thee in some heathy dell;
Adopt your homely ways and dress,
A shepherd, thou a shepherdess:
But I could frame a wish for thee
More like a grave reality:
Thou art to me but as a wave
Of the wild sea; and I would have
Some claim upon thee, if I could,
Though but of common neighborhood
What joy to hear thee, and to see!
Thy elder brother I would be,
Thy father--anything to thee!
Now thanks to heaven! that of its grace
Hath led me to this lonely place.
Joy have I had; and going hence
I bear away my recompense.
In spots like these it is we prize
Our memory, feel that she hath eyes:
Then why should I be loth to stir?
I feel this place was made for her;
To give new pleasure like the past,
Continued long as life shall last.
Nor am I loth, though pleased at heart,
Sweet Highland Girl, from thee to part;
For I, methinks, till I grow old,
As fair before me shall behold,
As I do now, the cabin small,
The lake, the bay, the waterfall,
And thee, the spirit of them all!
I had finished, and the poem had been to me like a draught of the fresh
spring-water which I had sipped so often of late as it dropped from the
cup of some large green leaf.
Then I heard her gentle voice, like the first tone of the organ, which
wakens us from our dreamy devotion, and she said:
"Thus I desire you to love me, and thus the old Hofrath loves me, and
thus in one way or another we should all love and believe in each
other. But the world, although I scarcely know it, does not seem to
understand this love and faith, and, on this earth, where we could have
lived so happily, men have made existence very wretched.
"It must have been otherwise of old, else how could Homer have created
the lovely, wholesome, tender picture of Nausikaa? Nausikaa loves
Ulysses at the first glance. She says at once to her female friends:
'Oh, that I could call such a man my spouse, and that it were his
destiny to remain here.' She was even too modest to appear in public
at the same time with him, and she says, in his presence, that if she
should bring such a handsome and majestic stranger home, the people
would say, she may have taken him for a husband. How simple and
natural all this is! But when she heard that he was going home to his
wife and children, no murmur escaped her. She disappears from our
sight, and we feel that she carried the picture of the handsome and
majestic stranger a long time afterward in her breast, with silent and
joyful admiration. Why do not our poets know this love--this joyful
acknowledgment, this calm abnegation? A later poet would have made a
womanish Werter out of Nausikaa, for the reason that love with us is
nothing more than the prelude to the comedy, or the tragedy, of
marriage. Is it true there is no longer any other love? Has the
fountain of this pure happiness wholly dried up? Are men only
acquainted with the intoxicating draught, and no longer with the
invigorating well-spring of love?"
At these words the English poet occurred to me, who also thus complains:
From heaven if this belief be sent,
If such be nature's holy plan,
Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man.
"Yet, how happy the poets are," said she. "Their words call the
deepest feelings into existence in thousands of mute souls, and how
often their songs have become a confession of the sweetest secrets!
Their heart beats in the breasts of the poor and the rich. The happy
sing with them, and the sad weep with them. But I cannot feel any poet
so completely my own as Wordsworth. I know many of my friends do not
like him. They say he is not a poet. But that is exactly why I like
him; he avoids all the hackneyed poetical catch-words, all
exaggeration, and everything comprehended in Pegasus-flights. He is
true--and does not everything lie in this one word? He opens our eyes
to the beauty which lies under our feet like the daisy in the meadow.
He calls everything by its true name. He never intends to startle,
deceive, or dazzle any one. He seeks no admiration for himself. He
only shows mankind how beautiful everything is which man's hand has not
yet spoiled or broken. Is not a dew-drop on a blade of grass more
beautiful than a pearl set in gold? Is not a living spring, which
gushes up before us, we know not whence, more beautiful than all the
fountains of Versailles? Is not his Highland Girl a lovelier and truer
expression of real beauty than Goethe's Helena, or Byron's Haidee? And
then the plainness of his language, and the purity of his thoughts! Is
it not a pity that we have never had such a poet? Schiller could have
been our Wordsworth, had he had more faith in himself than in the old
Greeks and Romans. Our Ruckert would come the nearest to him, had he
not also sought consolation and home under Eastern roses, away from his
poor Fatherland. Few poets have the courage to be just what they are.
Wordsworth had it; and as we gladly listen to great men, even in those
moments when they are not inspired, but, like other mortals, quietly
cherish their thoughts, and patiently wait the moment that will
disclose new glimpses into the infinite, so have I also listened gladly
to Wordsworth himself, in his poems, which contain nothing more than
any one might have said. The greatest poets allow themselves rest. In
Homer we often read a hundred verses without a single beauty, and just
so in Dante; while Pindar, whom all admire so much, drives me to
distraction with his ecstacies. What would I not give to spend one
summer on the lakes; visit with Wordsworth all the places to which he
has given names; greet all the trees which he has saved from the axe;
and only once watch a far-off sunset with him, which he describes as
only Turner could have painted."
It was a peculiarity of hers that her voice never dropped at the close
of her talk, as with most people; on the contrary, it rose and always
ended, as it were, in the broken seventh chord. She always talked up,
never down, to people. The melody of her sentences resembled that of
the child when it says: "Can't I, father?" There was something
beseeching in her tones, and it was well-nigh impossible to gainsay her.
"Wordsworth," said I, "is a dear poet, and a still dearer man to me,
and as one often has a more beautiful, wide-spread, and stirring
outlook from a little hill which he ascends without effort, than when
he has clambered up Mont Blanc with difficulty and weariness, so it
seems to me with Wordsworth's poetry. At first, he often appeared
commonplace to me, and I have frequently laid down his poems unable to
understand how the best minds of England to-day can cherish such an
admiration for him. The conviction has grown upon me that no poet whom
his nation, or the intellectual aristocracy of his people, recognize as
a poet, should remain unenjoyed by us, whatever his language.
Admiration is an art which we must learn. Many Germans say Racine does
not please them. The Englishman says, 'I do not understand Goethe.'
The Frenchman says Shakespeare is a boor. What does all this amount
to? Nothing more than the child who says it likes a waltz better than
a symphony of Beethoven's. The art consists in discovering and
understanding what each nation admires in its great men. He who seeks
beauty will eventually find it, and discover that the Persians are not
entirely deceived in their Hafiz, nor the Hindoos in their Kalidasa.
We cannot understand a great man all at once. It takes strength,
effort, and perseverance, and it is singular that what pleases us at
first sight seldom captivates us any length of time.
"And yet," she continued, "there is something common to all great
poets, to all true artists, to all the world's heroes, be they Persian
or Hindoo, heathen or Christian, Roman or German; it is--I hardly know
what to call it--it is the Infinite which seems to lie behind them, a
far away glance into the Eternal, an apotheosis of the most trifling
and transitory things. Goethe, the grand heathen, knew the sweet peace
which comes from Heaven; and when he sings:
"On every mountain-height
Is rest.
O'er each summit white
Thou feelest
Scarcely a breath.
The bird songs are still from each bough;
Only wait, soon shalt thou
Rest too, in death.
"does not an endless distance, a repose which earth cannot give,
disclose itself to him above the fir-clad summits? This background is
never wanting with Wordsworth. Let the carpers say what they will, it
is nevertheless only the super-earthly, be it ever so obscure, which
charms and quiets the human heart. Who has better understood this
earthly beauty than Michel Angelo?--but he understood it, because it
was to him a reflection of superearthly beauty. You know his sonnet:
["La forza d'un bel volto al ciel mi sprona
(Ch'altro in terra non e che mi diletti),
E vivo ascendo tra gli spirti eletti;
Grazia ch'ad uom mortal raro si dona.
Si ben col suo Fattor l'opra consuona,
Ch'a lui mi levo per divin concetti;
E quivi informo i pensier tutti e i detti;
Ardendo, amando per gentil persona.
Onde, se mai da due begli occhi il guardo
Torcer non so, conosco in lor la luce
Che mi mostra la via, ch'a Dio mi guide;
E se nel lume loro acceso io ardo,
Nel nobil foco mio dolce riluce
La gioja che nel cielo eterna ride."]
"The might of one fair face sublimes my love,
For it hath weaned my heart from low desires;
Nor death I heed nor purgatorial fires.
Thy beauty, antepast of joys above
Instructs me in the bliss that saints approve;
For, Oh! how good, how beautiful must be
The God that made so good a thing as thee,
So fair an image of the Heavenly Dove.
Forgive me if I cannot turn away
From those sweet eyes that are my earthly heaven,
For they are guiding stars, benignly given
To tempt my footsteps to the upward way;
And if I dwell too fondly in thy sight,
I live and love in God's peculiar light."
She was exhausted and silent, and how could I disturb that silence?
When human hearts, after friendly interchange of thoughts feel calmed
and quieted, it is as if an angel had flown through the room and we
heard the gentle flutter of wings over our heads. As my gaze rested
upon her, her lovely form seemed illuminated in the twilight of the
summer evening, and her hand, which I held in mine, alone gave me the
consciousness of her real presence. Then suddenly a bright refulgence
spread over her countenance. She felt it, opened her eyes and looked
upon me wonderingly. The wonderful brightness of her eyes, which the
half-closed eyelids covered as with a veil, shone like the lightning.
I looked around and at last saw that the moon had arisen in full
splendor between two peaks opposite the castle, and brightened the lake
and the village with its friendly smiles. Never had I seen Nature,
never had I seen her dear face so beautiful, never had such holy rest
settled down upon my soul. "Marie," said I, "in this resplendent
moment, let me, just as I am, confess my whole love. Let us, while we
feel so powerfully the nearness of the superearthly, unite our souls in
a tie which can never again be broken. Whatever love may be, Marie, I
love you and I feel, Marie, you are mine for I am thine."
I knelt before her, but ventured not to look into her eyes. My lips
touched her hand and I kissed it. At this she withdrew her hand from
me, slowly at first and then quickly and decidedly, and as I looked at
her an expression of pain was on her face. She was silent for a time,
but at last she raised herself and said with a deep sigh:
"Enough for to-day. You have caused me pain, but it is my fault.
Close the window. I feel a cold chill coming over me as if a strange
hand were touching me. Stay with me--but no, you must go. Farewell!
Sleep well! Pray that the peace of God may abide with us. We see each
other again--shall we not? To-morrow evening I await you."
Oh, where all at once had this heavenly rest flown? I saw how she
suffered, and all that, I could do was to quickly hurry away, summon
the English lady and then go alone in the darkness of night to the
village. Long time I wandered back and forth about the lake, long my
gaze strayed to the lighted window where I had just been. Finally, the
last light in the castle was extinguished. The moon mounted higher and
higher, and every pinnacle and projection and decoration on the lofty
walls grew visible in the fairy-like illumination. Here was I all
alone in the silent night. It seemed to me my brain had refused its
office, for no thought came to an end and I only felt I was alone on
this earth, that it contained no soul for me. The earth was like a
coffin, the black sky a funeral pall, and I scarcely knew whether I was
living or had long been dead. Then I suddenly looked up to the stars
with their blinking eyes, which went their way so quietly--and it
seemed to me that they were only for the lighting and consolation of
men, and then I thought of two heavenly stars which had risen in my
dark heaven so unexpectedly, and a thanksgiving rang through my
breast--a thanksgiving for the love of my angel.