I can never express my satisfaction when, two or three trees from the
end, I met the magic maiden herself, all hooded, and carrying an
immense umbrella.
"Where is this Chevalier of ours?" she asked me, with eagerness. "You
surely have not left him alone in the rain?"
"I was coming for you," I cried; for such was, in fact, the case. But
she noticed not my reply, and sped fleetly beneath the now weeping
trees. I stood still, the rain streaming upon my head, and the dim
thunder every now and then bursting and dying mournfully, yet in the
distance, when I heard them both behind me. How astonished was I! I
turned and joined them. They were talking very fast,--the strange girl
having her very eyes fixed on the threatening sky, at which she
laughed. He was not smiling, but seemed borne along by some impulse he
could not resist, and was even unconscious of; he held the umbrella
above them both, and she cried to me to come also beneath the canopy.
We had only one clap as we crossed the lawn,--now reeking and
deserted; but a whole levee was in the refreshment pavilion waiting
for the monarch,--so many professors robed, so many Cecilians with
their badges, that I was ready to shrink into a nonentity, instead of
feeling myself by my late privilege superior to all. Every person
appeared to turn as we made our way. But for all the clamor I heard
him whisper, "You have done with me what no one ever did yet; and oh!
I do thank you for being so kind to the foolish child. But come with
me, that I may thank you elsewhere."
"I would rather stay, sir. Here is my place, and I went out of my
place to do you that little service of which it is out of the question
to speak."
"You must not be proud. Is it too proud to be thanked, then?"
With the gentlest grace, he held out to her the single jasmine
blossom. "See, no tear has dropped upon it. Will you take its last
sigh?"
She drew it down into her hand, and, almost as airily as he moved,
glided in among the crowd, which soon divided us from her.
Seraphael himself sighed so very softly that none could have _heard_
it; but I saw it part his lips and heave his breast.
"She does not care for me, you see," he said, in a sweet, half pettish
manner, as we left the pavilion.
"Oh! sir, because she does not come with you? That is the very reason,
because she cares so much."
"How do you make that out?"
"I remember the day I brought you that water, sir, how I was afraid to
stay, although I would have given everything to stay and look at your
face; and I ran away so fast because of that."
"Oh, Carlomein, hush! or you must make me vain. I wonder very much why
you do like me; but, pray, let it be so."
"Like you!" I exclaimed, as we moved along the corridor, "you are
_all_ music,--you must be; for I knew it before I had heard you play."
"They do say so. I wonder whether it is true," said he, laughing a
bright, sudden laugh, as brightly sounding as his smile was bright to
gaze on. "We shall all know some time, I suppose. Now, Carlomein, what
am I to say to this master of yours about you? For here we are at the
door, and there is he inside."
"Pray, sir, say what you like, and nothing if you like, for I don't
care whether he storms or not."
"'Storms' is a very fine word; but, like our thunder, I expect it will
go off very quietly. How kind it was not to thunder and lighten much,
and to leave off so soon!"
"Oh! I am so glad. I hate thunder and lightning."
"Do you? and yet you ran for me. Thank you for another little lesson."
He turned and bowed to me, not mockingly, but with a sweet, grave
humor. He opened the door at that moment, and I went in behind him.
The very first person I saw was Aronach, sitting, as if he never
intended to move again, in a great wooden chair, writing in a long
book, while other attentive worthies looked over his shoulder. His
eyes were down, and my companion crept round the room next the wall as
noiselessly as a walking shadow. Then behind the chair, and putting up
his finger to those around, he embraced with one arm the chair's
stubborn back, and stretched the other forwards, spreading his slender
hand out wide into the shape of some pink, clear fan-shell, so as to
intercept the view Aronach had of his long book and that unknown
writing.
"Der Teufel!" growled Aronach, "dost thou suppose I don't know thy
hand among a thousand? But thy pranks won't disturb me any more now
than they did of old. Take it off, then, and thyself too."
"Oh! I daresay; but I won't go. I want to show thee a sight, Father
Aronach."
He then drew _my_ arm forwards, and held my hand by the wrist, as by
a handle, just under Aronach's nose. He looked indeed now; and so
sharply, snappishly, that I thought he would have bitten my fingers,
and felt very nervous. Seraphael broke into one of his laughter
chimes, but still dangled my member; and when Aronach really saw my
phiz, he no longer snapped nor roused up grandly, but sank back
impotent in that enormous chair. He winked indeed furiously, but his
eyes did not flash, so I grew still in my own mind, and thought to
speak to him first. I said, somehow, and never thinking a creature was
by, except that companion of mine,--
"Dear master, I would not have come without your leave. But you know
very well I could not refuse this gentleman, because he is a friend of
yours, and you said yourself we must all obey him."
"Whippersnapper and dandiprat! I never said such words to _thee_. I
regard him too much to inform such as thou with obedience. Thou hast,
I can see very clearly, made away with all his spirit by thy
frivolities, and I especially commend thee for dragging such as he up
the hill in this heat. There are no such things as coaches in the Kell
Platz, I suppose, or have the horses taken a holiday too?"
"Stop, stop, Aronach! for though I am a little boy," said the other,
"I am bigger than he, and I brought him, not he me; and I dragged him
thither too, for I don't like your coaches. And it is I who ought to
beg pardon for taking him from work he likes so much better than any
play, as he told me. But I did want to walk with him, that I might ask
him about my English friends, with whom he is better acquainted than I
am. He does know them, oh, so well! and had so many interesting
anecdotes!"
At the utterance of this small white fib I was almost in fits; but he
still went on,--
"I know I have done very wrong, and I was an idle boy to tempt him;
but you yourself could not help playing truant to-day. And, dearest
master,"--here his sweet, sweet voice was retrieved from the airy
gayety,--"do let me come back with you to-day, and have a
story-telling. You have not told me a story for a sad long time."
"If you come back, Chevalier, and if we are to get back before
bed-time, I would have you go along and rest, if you can, until I
shall be free; for I shall never empty my hands while you are by."
Aronach did not say "thou" here, I noticed, and his voice was even
courteous, though he still preserved his stateliness. Like a boy,
indeed, Seraphael laid hold of my arm and pulled me from the room
again. I cannot express the manly indignation of the worthies we left
in there at such sportiveness. They all stood firm, and in truth they
_were_ all older, both in body and soul, than we. But no sooner were
we outside than he began to laugh, and he laughed so that he had to
lean against the wall. I laughed too; it was a most contagious spell.
"Now, Carl," he said, "very Carlomein! we will make a tour of
discovery. I declare I don't know where I am, and am afraid to find
myself in the young ladies' bedrooms. But I want to see how things are
carried on here."
We turned this way and that way, he running down all the passages and
trying the very doors; but these were all locked.
"Oh!" he exclaimed, vivaciously, "they are, I suppose, too fine;" and
then we explored farther. One end of the corridor was screened by a
large oaken door from another range of rooms, and not without
difficulty we effected an entrance, for the key, although in the lock,
was rusty, and no joke to turn. Here, again, were doors, right and
left; here also all was hidden under lock and key that they might be
supposed to contain; but we did at last discover a curious hole at the
end, which we did not take for a room until we came inside,--having
opened the door, which was latched, and not especially convenient.
However, before we advanced I had ventured, "Sir, perhaps some one is
in there, as it is not fastened up."
"I shall not kill them, I suppose," he replied, with a curious
eagerness. Then with the old sweetness, "You are very right, I will
knock; but I know it will be knocking to nobody."
He had then touched the panel with his delicate knuckles; no voice had
answered, and with a mirthful look he lifted the latch and we both
entered. It was a sight that surprised me; for a most desolate
prison-cell could not have been darker. The window ought not to be so
named; for it let in no light, only shade, through its lack-lustrous
green glass. There was no furniture at all, except a very narrow
bed,--looking harder than Lenhart Davy's, but wearing none of that air
of his. There was a closet, as I managed to discover in a niche, but
no chest, no stove; in fact, there was nothing suggestive at all,
except one solitary picture, and that hung above the bed and looked
down into it, as it were, to protect and bless. I felt I know not how
when I saw it then and there; for it was--what picture do you think? A
copy of the very musical cherub I had met with upon Aronach's
wreath-hung walls. It was fresher, newer, in this instance, but it had
no gold or carven frame; it was bound at its edge with fair blue
ribbon only, beautifully stitched, and suspended by it too. Above the
graceful tie was twisted one long branch of lately-gathered linden
blossom, which looked itself sufficient to give an air of heaven to
the close little cell; it was even as flowers upon a tomb,--those
sighs and smiles of immortality where the mortal has passed forever!
"Oh, sir!" I said, and I turned to him,--for I knew his eyes were
attracted thither,--"oh, sir! do you know whose portrait that is? For
my master has it, and I never dared to ask him; and the others do not
know."
"It is a picture of the little boy who played truant and tempted
another little boy to play truant too."
And then, as he replied, I wondered I had not thought of such a
possibility; for looking from one to the other, I could not now but
trace a certain definite resemblance between _those_ floating baby
ringlets and the profuse dark curls wherein the elder's strength
almost seemed to hide,--so small and infinitely spiritual was he in
his incomparable organization.
"Now, sir, do come and rest a little while before we go."
He was standing abstractedly by that narrow bed, and looked as sad, as
troubled, as in the impending thunder-cloud; but he rallied just as
suddenly.
"Yes, yes; we had better go, or she might come."
I could not reply, for this singular prescience daunted me,--how could
he tell it was _her_ very room? But when we came into the corridor, I
beheld, by the noonday brightness, which was not banished thence, that
there was a kind of moist light in his eyes, not tears, but as the
tearful glimmer of some blue distance when rain is falling upon those
hills.
We threaded our way downstairs again,--for he seemed quite unwilling
to explore farther,--and I wondered where he would lead me next, when
we met Milans-Andre in the hall. The Chevalier blushed even as an
angry virgin on beholding him, but still met him cordially as before.
"Where are you staying, Chevalier? At the Fuerstin Haus?"
"I am not staying here at all. I am going back to Lorbeerstadt to
sleep, and to-morrow to Altenweg, and then to many places for many
days."
"Oh! I thought you would have supped with me, and I could have a
little initiated you. But if you are really returning to Lorbeerstadt,
pray use my carriage, which is waiting in the yard."
"You are only too amiable, my dear Andre. We shall use it with the
greatest pleasure."
Oh! how black did Andre look when Seraphael laid that small, delicate
stress upon the "we;" for I knew the invitation intended his
colleague, and included no one else. But the other evidently took it
all for granted; and again thanking him with exquisite gayety, ran out
into the court-yard, and cried to me to come and see the carriage.
"I have a little coach myself," he said to me and also to Andre, who
was lounging behind along with us; "but it is a toy compared with
yours, and I wonder I did not put it into my pocket, it is so
small,--only large enough for thee and me, Carlomein."
"Why, Seraphael, you are dreaming. There are no such equipages in all
Vienna as your father's and mother's."
"They are not mine, you see; and if I drove such, I should look like a
sparrow in a hencoop. Oh, Carlomein, what quantities of sparrows there
are in London! Do they live upon the smuts?"
At this instant the carriage, whose driver Andre had beckoned to draw
up, approached; and then we both ran to fetch Aronach, who came out
very grumbling, for the entry in the long book was scarcely dry; and
he saluted nobody, but marched after us like a person suddenly wound
up, putting himself heavily into the carriage, which he did not notice
in the least. It was an open carriage, Paris-built (as I now know),
and so luxuriously lined as not to be very fit for an expedition in
any but halcyon weather. As for Seraphael, he flung himself upon the
seat as a cowslip ball upon the grass, and scarcely shook the light
springs; and as I followed him, he made a profound bow to the owner of
the equipage, who, disconsolately enough, still stood within the
porch.
"Now, I do enjoy this, Carlomein! I cannot help loving to be saucy to
Andre,--good, excellent, and wonderful as he is."
I looked to find whether he was in earnest. But I could not tell, for
his eyes were grave, and the lips at rest. But Aronach gave a growl,
though mildly,--as the lion might growl in the day when a little child
shall lead him.
"You have not conquered that weakness yet, and, I prophesy, never
will."
"What weakness, master?" But he faltered, even as a little child.
"To excuse fools and fondle slaves."
"Oh, my master, do not scold me!" and he covered his eyes with his
little blue-veined hands. "It is so sad to be a fool or a slave that
we should do all for such we can do, especially if we are not so
ourselves. I think myself right there."
His pleading tone here modulated into the still authority I had
noticed once or twice, and Aronach gave a smile in reply, which was
the motion of the raptured look I had noticed during the
improvisation.
"Thou teachest yet, then, out of thy vocation. But thou art no more
than thou ever hast been,--too much for thy old master. And as wrens
fly faster and creep stealthier than owls, so art thou already whole
heavens beyond me."
But with tender scornfulness, Seraphael put out his hand in
deprecation, and throwing back his hair, buried his head in the
cushion of the carriage and shut his eyes. Nor did he again open them
until we entered our little town.
I need scarcely say I watched him; and often, as in a glassy mirror, I
see that face again upturned to the light,--too beautiful to require
any shadow, or to seek it,--see again the dazzling day draw forth its
lustrous symmetry, while ever the soft wind tried to lift those deep
locks from the lucid temples, but tried in vain; what I am unable to
picture to myself in so recalling being the ever restless smile that
played and fainted over the lips, while the closed eyes were feeding
upon the splendors of the Secret. I shall never forget either, though,
how they opened; and he came, as it were, to his childlike self again
as the light carriage--light indeed for Germany--dashed round the Kell
Platz, where its ponderous contemporaneous contradictions were ranged,
and took the fountain square in an unwonted sweep. Then he sat forward
and watched with the greatest eagerness, and he sprang out almost
before we stopped.
"I think Carl and I could save you these stairs, master mine," he
exclaimed. "Let us carry you up between us!"
But what do you think was the reply? Seraphael had spoken in his
gleeful voice. But Aronach wore his gravest frown as he turned and
pounced suddenly upon the other,--whipping him up in his arms, and
hoisting him to his shoulder, then speeding up the staircase with his
guest as if the weight were no greater than a flower or a bird! I
could not stir some moments from astonishment and alarm, for I had
instantaneous impressions of Seraphael flying over the balusters; but
presently, when his laugh came ringing down,--and I realized it to be
the laugh of one almost beside himself with fun,--I flew after them,
and found them on the dark landing at the foot of our own flight.
Seraphael was now upon his feet, and I quite appreciated the delicate
policy of the old head here. He said in a moment, when his breath was
steady,--
"Now, if they offer to chair thee again at the Quartzmayne Festival,
and thou turnest giddy-pate, send for me!"
"I certainly will, if they offer such an honor; but once is quite
enough, and they will not do it again."
"Why not?"
"Because I fell into the river, and was picked up by a fisherman; and
desiring to know my character after I was dead, I made him cover me
with his nets and row me down to Carstein, quite three miles. There I
supped with him, and slept too, and the next morning heard that I was
drowned."
"Oh! one knows that history, which found its way into a certain paper
among the lies, and was published in illustration of the
eccentricities of genius."
Aronach said this very cross,--I wondered whether it was with the
Press, or his pupil; but if it were with the latter, _he_ only enjoyed
it the more.
Then Aronach bade me conduct his guest into the organ-room, while he
himself put a period to those howlings of the immured ones which yet
conscientiously asserted themselves. We waited a few moments upstairs,
and then Aronach carried off the Chevalier to his own room,--a sacred
region I had never approached, and which I could only suppose to
exist. I then rushed to mine, and was so long in collecting my senses
that Starwood came to bid me to supper. I did not detain him then,
though I had so much to say; but I observed that he had his Sunday
coat on,--a little blue frock, braided; and I remembered that I ought
to have assumed my own. Still, my wardrobe was in such perfect order
(thanks to Clo) that my own week coat was more respectable than many
other boys' Sunday ones; and though I have the instinct of personal
cleanliness very strong, I cannot say I like to look smart.
When I reached our parlor, I was quite dazzled. There was a sumptuous
banquet, as I took it, arranged upon a cloth, the fineness and
whiteness of which so far transcended our daily style that I
immediately apprehended it had proceeded from the secret hoards in
that wonderful closet of Aronach's. The tall glasses were interspersed
with silver flagons, and the usual garnishings varied by all kinds of
fruits and flowers, which appeared to have sprung from a magic touch
or two of that novel magic presence. For the rest, there were
delicious milk porridge on our accounts, and honey and butter, and I
noticed those long-necked bottles, one like which Santonio had
emptied, and which I had never seen upon that table since; for Aronach
was very frugal, and taught us to be so. I was so from taste and by
habit, but Iskar would have liked to gorge himself with dainties, I
used to think. When I saw this last seated at the table I was highly
indignant, for he had set his stool by Seraphael's chair. He had
fished from his marine store of clothes a crumpled white-silk
waistcoat, over which he had invested himself with a tarnished silver
watch-chain. But I would not, if I could, recall his audacious manner
of gazing over everything upon the table and everybody in the room,
with those legs of his stretched out for any one to stumble over, or
rather on purpose to make me stumble. I knew this very well, and
avoided him by placing my stool on the opposite edge of the board,
where I could still look into the eyes I loved if I raised my own.
This insignificant episode will prove that Iskar had not grown in my
good graces, nor had I acquainted myself better with him than on the
first night of my arrival. I knew him not, but I knew _of_ him, for
every voice in the house was against him; and he gave promise of no
small power upon his instrument, together with small promise of
musical or mental excellence, as all he did was correct to caricature
and inimitably mechanical. Vain as he was of his playing, his vanity
had small scope on that score under that quiet roof shadow, so it
spent itself upon his person, which was certainly elegant, if vulgar.
I am not clear but that one of these personal attractions always
infers the other. But why I mention Iskar is that I may be permitted
to recall the expressions with which our master's guest regarded him.
It was a grieved, yet curious glance, with that child-like scrutiny of
what is not true all abashing to the false, _unless_ the false has
lost all child-likeness. Iskar must, I suppose, have lost it, for he
was not the least abashed, and was really going to begin upon his
porridge before we had all sat down, if Aronach had not awfully, but
serenely, rebuked him. Little Starwood, by my side, looked as fair and
as pretty as ever, rather more shy than usual. Seraphael, now seated,
looked round with that exquisitely sweet politeness I have never met
with but in him, and asked us each whether we would eat some honey,
for he had the honey-pot before him. I had some, of course, for the
pleasure of being helped by him, and he dropped it into my milk in a
gold flowing stream, smiling as he did so. It was so we always ate
honey at Aronach's, and it is so I eat it to this day. Little Star put
out his bowl too. Oh! those great heavy wooden bowls! it was just too
much for him, and he let it slip. Aronach was rousing to thunder upon
him, and I felt as if the ceiling were coming down (for I knew he was
angry on account of that guest of his), when we heard that voice in
its clear authority,--"Dear Aronach, do nothing! the milk is not
spoiled." And turning all of us together, we saw that he had caught
the bowl on his outstretched hands, and that not a drop had fallen. I
mention it as illustrative of that miraculous organization in which
intent and action were simultaneous, the motions of whose will it
seemed impossible to retard or anticipate. Even Iskar looked
astonished at this feat; but he had not long to wonder, for Aronach
sternly commended us to great haste in the disposal of our supper.
I needed not urging, for it was natural to feel that the master and
his master must wish to be alone,--indeed, I should have been thankful
to escape eating, though I was very hungry, that I might not be in the
way; but directly I took pains to do away with what I had before me, I
was forbidden by Aronach to "bolt."
I lay awake many hours in a vague excitement of imaginary organ sounds
welling up to heaven from heaven's under-springs. I languished in a
romantic vision of that face, surrounded with cloud-angels, itself
their out-shining light. I waited to hear his footsteps upon the
stairs when he should at length depart; but so soft was that departing
motion that even I, listening with my whole existence, heard it not,
nor heard anything to remind my heart-silence that he had come and
gone.