heard any thing of the other. After the first storm of joy had
subsided, and breakfast was removed, the knight asked the student what
had occurred to him.
“‘To that, my friend, I can give a very short answer, and ought to give
thee a very long one. A short one, if I merely portray the outward
form and shell of my life hitherto; a long one--ah, an infinitely long
one, if thou desirest to taste the inner kernel of this shell.’
“‘Eh, silly fellow,’ cried the knight, ‘what hard discourse is this?
Give the shell and a bit of the kernel, if the whole nut is too large
for a single meal.’
“‘Then know,’ replied the other, ‘that my visible course of life was
between narrow banks. I dwelt in a little dark street, at the back of
a house inhabited by quiet people. My window looked upon a garden to
the trees and shrubs of which a solemn background was formed by the
wall of the Templars’ house. I kept myself very solitary, associating
neither with the citizens, nor with the students. The result is that I
know nothing about the large city, except the street leading from my
house to the Dominican convent, where my great master taught. When I
returned to my cell, and had kept awake till midnight by my studying
lamp, I sometimes looked out of window to cool my heated eyes by
exposure to the deep starry heaven. I then often saw a light in the
Templars’ house opposite; the knights in the white mantles of their
order passed along the galleries, like spirits in the glare of red
torches, vanished behind the pillars, and re-appeared. In the extreme
corner of the wing, curtains were let down before the windows, but
through the thinner parts of these a singular light shone, while behind
them melodies could be heard, sounding through the night sweetly and
solemnly, like forbidden desires.
“‘Thus did my days pass insignificant to outward appearance, but
internally a brilliant festival of all sorts of wonders. Albertus now
distinguished me above his other pupils; and in a short time I observed
that he repeated to me with a particular emphasis, certain words, which
passed unheeded by the rest. These were words which pointed to the
mysterious connection of all human knowledge, and a common root,
shooting into the darkest secrecy of that great tree, which in the
light above unfolded its mighty branches;--as grammar, dialectics,
eloquence, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music. At such words
his eyes would rest upon me, with the most penetrating glance, and my
looks told him, that he had kindled in me a deep desire for the last
and greatest treasures of his mind.
“‘By degrees, I became the confidant of his secret laboratory, and the
pupil to which he intended to bequeath, as a precious legacy, a portion
of his talent. There is only one marrow of things, which here in the
metal is heavy and presses down, there in the waving plant, or the
volatile bird, struggles to free itself from the original kernel. All
things undergo a perpetual change. The Creator indeed works in nature,
but nature also works for herself. And he who has the right power at
his command can call forth her own peculiar independent life, so that
the limbs which would otherwise remain bound in the Creator, will
unfold themselves to new movements. My great master conducted me with
a secure hand to that spring, where the marrow of things is flowing. I
dipped my finger therein, and all my senses were at once filled with a
superhuman power of perception. We often sat together in the sooty
melting-room, and looked into the glow of the furnace; he before, on a
low stool, I cowering behind him, giving the coals or the pieces of
ore, which he flung into the crucible with his left hand, while with
the right he affectionately held me. Then the metals defended
themselves; the salts and acids crackled; the great Regulus, who rules
all the world wished, as in a stormy fortress, to guard himself in the
midst of sharp-angled crystals; the red, blue, and green vassals were
kindled in wrath, and as if to keep us off, stretched their glaring
spears towards us, but we broke through the works and destroyed the
garrison, and the shining king humbly surrendered himself over the
ruins of dross. Gold in itself is nothing to him whose heart is not
set on earthly things, but to perceive this dearest and most precious
boon of nature in all and every thing, even in what is most trifling
and insignificant, that is a great matter to the philosopher. At other
times the stars showed us their curious circles which separated
themselves as history, and sunk to the earth, or the intimate
connection of tones and numbers was awakened to us and showed us links
which no word can describe, but which are again much more revealed by
tones and numbers. But in all this mysterious essence and
interweaving, that it might not again become a cold sticky mass,
floated, ever combining and ever freeing, that which separates itself,
both in itself and in things, amid the contest of ever fading
youth--the great, the unfathomable, the dialectic thought.
“‘Oh blessed satisfying time of the opened intelligence, of the
wandering through the inner halls of the palace, at the metal doors of
which others knock in vain! At last----”
“The wandering student, whose lips during the narrative had been
glowing more and more, took a deep red colour, while a strange fire
flashed from his eyes, stopped short here, as though suddenly sobered
from his inspiration. The knight wished in vain for the completion of
the discourse, and then said to his friend: ‘Well--_at last_?’
“‘At last,’ replied the student, in a tone of feigned indifference, ‘we
were obliged to separate, if only for a short time. My great master
now sends me to Ratisbon to ask for certain papers from the sacristy of
the cathedral, which he left there as bishop. I shall bring them to
him, and shall then, indeed, if I can, pass my life with him.’
“The young knight poured the rest of his wine into the goblet, looked
into it, and drank the wine more slowly than before. ‘Thou hast told
me strange things,’ he began after a silence, ‘but they do not stagger
me. God’s world appears to me so beautifully adorned, that I should
take no delight in tearing away the charming veil, and looking in to
the innermost core of things, as thou callest it. The sky is blue, the
stars shine, the wood rustles, the plants give fragrance, and this
blue, this shining, this rustling, this fragrance--are they not the
most beautiful things that can be, behind which there is nothing more
beautiful? Pardon me, I do not envy thee thy secret knowledge. Poor
fellow! this knowledge does not give thee a colour. Thy cheeks are
quite pale and sunken.’
“‘Every one has his appointed path, one this, the other that,’ replied
the scholar. ‘It is not the bounding of blood that constitutes life.
Marble is white, and walls of marble generally enclose the spot in
which stand the statues of the gods, yet enough of this, and now for
thyself. What hast thou done since I last saw thee?’
“‘Oh! of that,’ cried the young knight Conrad, with his usual
light-heartedness, ‘there is little to be told! I got upon horseback
and got off again, I went about to many a good prince’s court, thrust
many a spear, gained many thanks, missed many thanks, and peeped into
many a lovely woman’s eye. I can write my name, and press the knob of
my sword in wax by the side of it, and I can rhyme a song, though not
so well as Master Godfried of Strasburg.[1] I have gone through the
initiatory ceremonies, and was dubbed a knight at Firchheim. Now I am
riding to Mayence, where the emperor is going to hold a tournament, to
tumble about a little and enjoy life.’
“The student looked at the sun’s place, and said: ‘It is a pity that
after such a friendly meeting we must so soon part. Nevertheless it is
necessary, if we each design to fulfil our purpose to-day.’
“‘Come with me to Mayence,’ cried the other, as he jumped up, and eyed
the student with a singularly compassionate look, which, however,
allowed a smile to appear. ‘Leave that gloomy Ratisbon, and the
cathedral and the sacristy; cheer up thy face among jolly fellows, by
the round table, in the wine-cellar, and before the flowery windows of
fair damsels. Let the sound of flute and shaum purify thine ears of
the awful vigils of the Templars, who are considered mischievous
heretics and Baffomets’ priests over all Christendom. Come to Mayence,
Peter!’
“He was already in his saddle, when he uttered these last words, and
stretched out his hand as if in supplication, towards his friend, who
turned aside and drew back his arm in token of refusal. ‘What has come
into your head?’ he said, smiling reluctantly. ‘Ah, friend Conrad, if
I had already said every one has his appointed way, I would cry out to
thee turn back, thou volatile heedless one! Youth fades away, the jest
becomes hushed, the laugh will one day be found suddenly to fail,
because the face has become too stiff, or grins repulsively from
withered wrinkles! Woe then to him whose garners are not full, whose
chambers are not stored! Ah, there must be something dismal in such a
base, impoverished old age, and the proverb is right which says: ‘Those
who at morn too merry are, shall reap at night sorrow and care.’
Looking upon thee thus, oh brother of my youth, I may well feel
troubled about thee, for who knows in what altered condition I may find
thee again.’
“The knight gave the student’s hand a hearty shake and cried: ‘Perhaps
thou wilt be transformed when we meet again--wilt be decked out in
velvet and satin, and surpass us all!’ He darted off, and in the
distance the student heard him sing a song which was then in every
mouth, and sounded something like this:
‘No fairer flow’r, I vow, is known
Than that bright rose, sweet woman’s lips,
With such luxuriance swelling.
Close-lock’d at first, this flow’ret keeps,
When as an infant bud ’tis shown
All bold assaults repelling.
But every flow’r is wash’d by May,
On rosy lips he plants a kiss,
And straight we see them fully blowing.
Then rosy lips should find a kiss,
And every kiss should in its day
Find lips with fondness glowing.’
“A butterfly flew up before the student. ‘Is not the life of most
men,’ he said, ‘to be compared to the fluttering of this moth? Light
and motley he goes flaunting about, and yet how barren and short are
his joys.’ He rolled about his great eyes, but only an empty
alternation of light and shade reached these dim mirrors, not the full
form, the fine colour. The wood looked on him from its green depths
with an irresistible glance. ‘Suppose,’ he said, ‘I leave my patient
beast awhile on this grass-plot; it will not run away from me, and I
feel the warmest desire to wander there for an hour. How refreshing it
must be in the depths of the wood!’
“He turned aside from the high road by a narrow path, which, after
winding for a short distance through the tall trees, sloped down into
the wood. Soon he found himself in a perfect solitude, with a
rustling, whispering, and whining round him, while only a few single
gleams of sun-light reflected with a green hue, played about him like
ignis fatui. Sometimes he thought he heard his name called behind him
in the distance, and--he did not know why--the call appeared to him
hateful and repulsive. Then again he would take the sound to be a mere
delusion, but whatever he thought he always got deeper and deeper into
the dark forest. Large gnarled roots lay like snakes across the way,
stretched out, so that the student was in danger of tumbling every
moment. Stag-beetles stood like noble game in the moor, while the
purest hues of golden vegetation shone from little nooks in the rocks.
The perspiration stood on his forehead, and with increasing rapidity he
penetrated the thicket, and fled from the bright sunny world without.
It was not only the exercise of walking that made him hot, his mind was
also labouring under a burden of heavy recollections. At last, after
the pathway had long vanished from beneath his feet, he came to a
beautiful, smooth, dark spot, among some mighty oak-trees. Still he
heard his name called in the distance. ‘Here,’ he said, ‘the rude
sound yonder will no more reach me; here I shall be quietly concealed.’
He sunk down upon a great mossy stone, his heart heaved, he was
struggling with a powerful desire. ‘Forgive my presumption, great
master,’ he cried, ‘but there is a knowledge which must be followed by
action, otherwise it crushes a mortal. Here, nearer to the heart of
the great mother, where amid sprouting and growing, her pulse beats
more audibly,--here must I utter the magic word, which I heard from thy
sleeping lips, when thou spakest it in a dream; the word, at the sound
of which the creature casts aside its veil, the powers which labour
beneath bark and hide, and in the kernel of the rock, become visible,
and the language of birds becomes intelligible to the ear.’
“His lips already quivered to utter the word, but he restrained
himself, for there appeared before his eyes the sorrowful glance with
which his great master, Albertus, had entreated him to make no use of
the art he had accidentally acquired, since heavy things impended over
him who uttered the magic word designedly.
“Nevertheless, he did call it out loudly into the wood, as if the
prohibition and his own fear had given it additional force, and while
he did so, he stretched out his right hand.
“At once he felt a blow and a jerk, that made him think he had been
struck by lightning. His eyes were blinded, and it seemed as though a
violent whirlwind was hurling him through the immeasurable space. As
terrified and giddy he felt about him with his hands, he touched indeed
the mossy stone on which he had been standing, and therefore in his
mind regained the earth, but now he had a new and unpleasant sign. For
as previously he had been flung about the universe like an atom, it now
seemed to him as if his body were infinitely extended. Amid the most
frightful agonies, this newly-wakened power forced his limbs to such a
monstrous size, that he thought he must be touching the sky. The bones
of his head and chest were become as capacious as temples; into his
ears fell strange, heavenly sounds of distracting effect, and he said
to himself: ‘That is the song of the stars in their golden orbits.’
The pains at last were exchanged for a titillating pleasurable
sensation, during which he felt his body again shrink up to its
ordinary size, while the gigantic form remained standing around him
like an outer shell, or a kind of atmosphere in aërial outline. The
darkness left his eyes, while great, yellow-shining surfaces of light,
as with the sensation of dazzling, freed themselves from the pupils and
glided into the corners, where they gradually disappeared.
“While he thus regained his sight, a clear-toned, sweet chorus--he did
not know whether it was the birds alone, or whether the boughs, bushes,
and grasses joined in--sang quite plainly round him:
‘Yes, he shall hear it,
Yes, he must bear it;
To us he belongs alone.
Soon will he
By the green-wood tree,
Be dumb and cold as a stone.’
“In the block of mossy rock a light murmuring was audible. It seemed
as though the stone wished to move itself and could not, like one in a
trance. The student looked upon its surface, and lo! the green and red
veins were running together into a very ancient countenance, which from
its weary eyes looked upon him with such a mournful and supplicating
aspect, that he turned aside with horror, and sought consolation among
the trees, plants, and birds.
“Among these all was changed likewise. When he trod on the short brown
moss, it shrieked and groaned at the ungentle pressure, and he saw how
it wrung its little hairy hands and shake its green or yellow heads.
The stems of the plants and the trunks of the trees were in a constant
spiral motion, and at the same time the bark, or the outer skin,
allowed him to look into the inside, where little sprites were pouring
fine glistening drops into the tubes. The clear fluid ran from tube to
tube, while valves unceasingly opened and shut, until in the capillary
tubes of the leaves at the very top, it was transformed to a green
bloom. Soft explosions and fire now arose in the veins of the leaves;
their finely cut lips ceaselessly breathed forth a kind of ethereal
flame, while ceaselessly also the heavier part of those igneous
phenomena glided about the leaves in soft waves of vapour. In the
blue-bell flowers that were on the damp soil there was a ringing and
singing; they consoled the poor old face of stone with a lively song,
and told him that if they could only free themselves from the ground
they would with right good will release him. Out of the air strange
green, red, and yellow signs, which seemed about to join themselves to
some form, and then again were dissipated, peered at the student; worms
and chafers crawled or stepped to him on every side, uttering all sorts
of confused petitions. One wished to be this, another that; one wished
for a new cover to his wings, another had broken his proboscis; those
that were accustomed to float in the air begged for sunshine, those
that crawled, for damp. All this rabble of insects called him their
deity, so that his brain was nearly turned.
“Among the birds there was no end to the chirping, twittering, and
tale-telling. A spotted woodpecker clambered up and down the bark of
an oak, hacked and picked after the worms, and was never tired of
crying: ‘I am the forester, I must take care of the wood.’ The wren
said to the finch: ‘There is no more friendship among us. The peacock
will not allow me to strike a circle, thinking that no one has a right
to do so but himself, and therefore he has accused me to the supreme
tribunal. Nevertheless I can strike as good a circle as he with my
little brown tail.’ ‘Leave me alone,’ replied the finch, ‘I eat my
grain and care for nothing else. I have cares of quite another sort.
The proper artistical melody I can only add to my native woodland song
when they have blinded me, but it is a terrible thing that no good can
be done with one unless one is so horribly maimed.’ Others chattered
about thefts and murders, which no one but the birds had seen.
‘Over the road they fly,
Traced by no mortal eye.’
“Then they perched themselves stiffly on the branches and peeped down
mockingly at the scholar, while two impudent titmice cried out: ‘There
stands the conjurer listening to us and cannot make out what has
happened to him.’ ‘Well, how he will stare!’ screamed the whole troop,
and off they flew with a chirping which sounded half like laughter.
“The scholar now felt something thrown in his face, and looking up, saw
an ill-bred squirrel that had flung a hollow nut at his forehead, and
now lay flat with his belly upon the bough, staring him full in the
face, and crying: ‘The full one for me, the hollow for thee!’ ‘Ye
misbehaved rabble, let the strange gentleman alone,’ cried a black and
white magpie that came wagging her tail up to him, through the grass.
She then seated herself on the student’s shoulder, and said into his
ear: ‘You must not judge of us all according to these uncourteous
beasts, learned sir, there are well bred folks among us. Only see,
through that aperture, yonder wise gentleman, the wild boar, how
quietly he stands and eats his acorns, and fosters his thoughts in
silence. Willingly I will give you my company and tell you all that I
know, for talking is my delight, especially with old people.’
“‘There you are out in your reckoning,’ said the student, ‘I am still
young.’
“‘Heavens, how men can deceive themselves,’ cried the magpie, and she
looked very thoughtful.
“The student now thought he heard, from the depth of the wood, a sigh,
the sound of which penetrated his heart. He asked the cause of his
white and black companion, and she told him she would ask two lizards,
who were eating their breakfast. He accordingly went, with the magpie
on his shoulder, to the place where these creatures were to be found,
and beheld a very pretty sight. The two lizards, sure enough, were
genteel young ladies, for they sat under a great mushroom, which
stretched its golden yellow roof over them like a splendid marquee.
There they sat imbibing, with their little brown tongues, the dew from
the grass, and then wiping their mouths with one of the blades, they
went to take a walk together in a neighbouring grove of fern, which
seemingly belonged to the one who had invited her friend to the visit.
‘Shack! shack!’ cried the magpie, ‘the gentleman wants to know who it
was that sighed.’ The lizards raised their heads, waggled their tails
and cried,
‘In the bower by the spring the Princess sleeps;
Safely the spider the lady keeps.’
“‘Hem,’ said the magpie, shaking her head, ‘to think that one can be so
forgetful. To be sure in the adjoining beechen-bower slumbers the fair
Princess Doralice, about whom wicked King Spider has spun his web. Oh,
if you could save her, learned sir!’ The student’s heart was stirred,
and he asked the magpie where the bower was. The bird flew before him,
from bough to bough, to show him the way, till at last they came to a
quiet meadow, enclosed all round, through which a streamlet, taking its
source from a cleft in the rocks, was flowing among some pretty bowers
formed by beech-trees. These trees had struck their branches into the
earth, and thus arched over the ground like a roof, through which the
fine leaves of the fern were peering forth, forming as it were the
gables and loopholes of the little leafy dwelling. Upon these the
magpie sprang, peeped through a loophole, and whispered mysteriously,
‘Here sleeps the princess!” The student approached with beating heart,
knelt before the opening of the bower and looked within. Ah, there was
a sight that set his whole soul and senses into a commotion more
violent than when he uttered the magical word! On the moss, which rose
like a pillow round its fair burden, the loveliest maiden was lying
asleep. Her head was somewhat raised, one arm was placed under it, and
her white fingers glistened through the gold-brown hair, which in long
soft streams delicately wound about her neck and bosom. With
unspeakable delight and, at the same time, with a feeling of melancholy
the student gazed upon the noble face, the purple lips, the full white
limbs, which cast a bright reflection on the dark moss. The
circumstance that the sleeper, as if oppressed by some mysterious
weight, appeared to breathe in a soft agony, only rendered her more
charming in his eyes; he felt that his heart was captivated for ever,
and that those lips alone could still his passion. ‘Is it not a
shame,’ said the magpie, as she hopped through the hole into the bower
and perched on the sleeper’s arm, ‘that so lovely a princess should
thus be bound by a web?’ ‘A web?’ asked the student; ‘she is indeed
lying there wrapped in her white veil.’ ‘Oh, folly!’ cried the magpie,
‘I tell you that is all cobweb, and King Spider made it.’ ‘But who is
King Spider?’