Jean Paul Friedrich Richter, who was born at Wunsiedel, in
Bavaria, on March 21, 1763, and died on November 14, 1825, was
the son of a poor but highly accomplished schoolmaster, who
early in his career became a Lutheran pastor at Schwarzenbach,
on the Saale. Young Richter entered Leipzig University in
1780, specially to study theology, but became one of the most
eccentric and erratic of students, a veritable literary gypsy,
roaming over vast fields of literature, collating and noting
immense stores of scientific, artistic, historic, and
philosophic facts. Driven to writing for subsistence, he only
won a reputation by slow degrees, but so great at last was the
esteem in which his countrymen held him that he is typically
styled "Der Einzige" ("The Unique"). The turning point proved
to be the issue of "The Invisible Lodge" ("Die Unsichtbare
Loge") in 1793, a romance founded on some of his academic
experiences. Then followed a brilliant series of works which
have made Richter's name famous. Among these was "Hesperus,"
published in 1794, which made him one of the most famous of
German writers. Fanciful and extravagant as the work is, and
written without any regard to the laws of composition, it is
nevertheless stamped with genius. In all Richter's stories the
plot goes for nothing; it is on the thoughts that he strikes
out by the way that his fame depends.
_I.--Friendship_
"Victor," said Flamin, to the young Englishman, "give me this night thy
friendship for ever, and swear to me that thou wilt never disturb me in
my love to thee. Swear thou wilt never plunge me in misfortune and
despair!"
The two friends were standing at midnight in the mild, sweet air of May,
alone on the watch-tower of the little watering place of St. Luna. It
was their first meeting for eight years. Flamin was the son of Chaplain
Eymann, who had retired from the court of the Prince of Flachsenfingen;
Victor was the heir of Lord Horion, a noble Englishman who lived at
Flachsenfingen and directed all the affairs of the prince. The two boys
had been sent in their infancy to London and brought up together there
for twelve years; then for six years they had lived with Chaplain Eymann
at St. Luna, and Victor had naturally conceived a great affection for
the old clergyman and a deep love for his son. When, however, Victor was
eighteen years of age, Lord Horion had sent him to Göttingen to study
medicine, and he had remained at that university for eight years.
Everybody wondered why a great English nobleman should want to bring his
son up as a physician; but Horion was a politician and his ways were
dark and secret. Neither Chaplain Eymann nor the wife of that worthy
pastor ever understood why his lordship should have been so anxious that
Flamin and Victor should be brought up together and united by the
closest ties of friendship; but being good, simple souls, they accepted
the favours showered upon their son without seeking to discover if there
were any reason for them. Eight years' absence had not diminished
Victor's affection for them, but the young English nobleman was alarmed
by the strange, wild passion which Flamin displayed as soon as they were
alone together.
"You know I love you, Flamin, more than I love myself," he said,
clasping his friend in his arms, and leading him to a seat on the
watch-tower. "Of course, I swear never to overwhelm you in misfortune,
or desert you or hate you. What is it that brings such gloomy thoughts
into your mind?"
"I will tell thee everything now, Victor!" exclaimed his friend. "I will
open all my heart to thee."
At first he was too much overcome by his feelings to speak. For a long
time the two young men remained silent, gazing into the dark blue depths
of the night The Milky Way ran, like the ring of eternity, around the
immensity of space; below it glided the sharp sickle of the moon,
cutting across the brief days and the brief joys of men. But clear among
the stars shone the Twins, those ever-burning, intertwined symbols of
friendship; westward they rose, and on the right of them blazed the
heart of the Lion. The two friends had studied astronomy together, and
when Victor pointed out the happy sign in the midnight sky, Flamin began
to tell him his troubles. He, a poor clergyman's son, had fallen wildly
in love with Clotilda, the beautiful daughter of Prince January, of
Flachsenfingen. She was living at the country seat of the Lord
Chamberlain Le Baut, at St. Luna; so poor Flamin was able to see her
every day. Knowing that he could neither forget her nor win her, he was
tortured by a strange, hopeless jealousy, and he now confessed that,
instead of looking forward with joy to Victor's return to his home, he
had been consumed with fear lest his brilliant, noble, handsome friend
should utterly eclipse him in the sight of his beloved lady.
"Cannot I do anything to help you?" said Victor, tenderly.
"Your father has immense influence over Prince January," said Flamin,
"could you beg him to get me some court position at Flachsenfingen? If
only I could make my way in the world, perhaps I might be able to hope
to win at last the hand of my lady."
Victor at once promised to do all in his power; and the two friends,
newly reattached to each other, came down from the watch-tower, and,
with their arms lovingly entwined, they returned to the parsonage.
_II.--Love_
The next day Chamberlain Le Baut gave a garden party in honour of the
son of the great English minister.
"Take good care!" said the chaplain's wife as Victor set off; "she is
very beautiful."
Victor had no need to ask who "she" was.
"I shall take care not to take care," he replied, with a smile.
Victor was too much of a man of the world to fall in love at first
sight. But when he entered the garden, and a sweet, tall, and lovely
figure came forward to greet him from behind the foliage, he felt as if
all his blood had been driven in his face. It was Clotilda. She spoke to
him, but he listened to the melody of her voice, instead of to her
words, so that he did not understand what she was saying. Her quiet,
reserved eyes, however, brought him to his senses; but still he could
not help feeling glad that, as Flamin's friend, he had some claim upon
her attention and her society. It seemed to him as if everything that
she did was done by her for the first time in life; and he would no
doubt have shown a strange embarrassment in her company if the Lord
Chamberlain and his wife and a throng of guests had not come into the
garden and surrounded him and distracted him by their compliments.
Recovering his self-possession, he concealed his real feelings by giving
full play to his faculty for malicious and witty sayings. But though he
succeeded in amusing the company, he displeased Clotilda; for the talk
fell on the topic of women.
"The thing which a girl most easily forgets," said the Lord Chamberlain,
"is how she looks; that is why she is always gazing into a mirror."
"Perhaps that is also the reason," said Victor, "why no woman regards
another as more beautiful than she is. The most that a woman will admit
is that her rival is younger than herself."
Nothing fell upon Clotilda--and this is always found in the best of her
sex--more keenly than satire upon womankind, and though she concealed
the fact that she both endured and despised this sort of wit, she began
to distrust the lips and the heart of the young Englishman, and treated
him during this time with such cold civility, that he had to exaggerate
his wild gaiety in order to conceal the grief that he felt.
But as she was walking at evening in the garden, a loose leaf blew out
of a book that she was holding, and Victor picked it up and read: "On
this earth man has only two and a half minutes--one to smile, one to
sigh, and a half a one to love; for in the midst of it he dies."
"Dahore! This is a saying of Dahore!" exclaimed Victor. "Clotilda, do
you know my beloved master Dahore?" Clotilda turned towards him, her
face transfigured with a lovely radiance. Their two noble souls
discovered at last their affinity in their common love for the wise and
gracious spirit who had nourished their young souls. For some strange
reason Lord Horion, as they found out as soon as they began to converse
together in a sweet and sincere intimacy, had had them brought up by the
same master; and Dahore, an eccentric, lovable man with a profound
wisdom, had made them, in both mind and soul, comrades to each other,
though he educated one in London and the other at St. Luna.
"He taught Flamin and me at the same time," said Victor, looking to see
what effect the name of his friend had on Clotilda. She smiled sweetly,
but mysteriously, when he went on to speak of his loving friendship for
the son of Chaplain Eymann.
The next day he knew why her smile was so mysterious. Lord Horion
arrived from Flachsenfingen with some extraordinary news. Flamin had
been appointed a counsellor to Prince January. Never had Victor in his
wildest dreams of his friend's advancement, imagined that he would
obtain at a leap so high an important position as this. The young
Englishman himself had been sent to study at Göttingen in order that he
might be qualified to act as the prince's physician; but Flamin, without
any labour, had suddenly obtained a place of authority almost equal to
that occupied by Lord Horion.
Late that evening, however, Lord Horion revealed to his son a strange
secret, in the light of which everything was explained. The Prince of
Flachsenfingen was a man of a rather weak and evil character, over whom
Horion ruled by sheer force of will. Prince January had had two
children, a boy and a girl, and the English lord had had them brought up
far away from the malicious influences of the court. In order that
January might not interfere in the education of the heir, Horion had
told him that the boy had perished in infancy in London. As a matter of
fact, the child had been brought up with Victor.
"So Flamin is the heir to the throne of Flachsenfingen!" exclaimed
Victor.
"Yes," said Horion, "and I have trained you to guide and direct him in
the same way as I guide and direct his father. For the present, however,
I must have complete control of the matter. Swear that you will not
divulge the secret of Flamin's birth to him or to any one else, before I
give you permission."
For a moment Victor hesitated. He remembered the promise that Flamin had
wrung from him on the watch-tower, and this, he was beginning to see,
might involve him in a perilous misunderstanding.
"Does Clotilda know?" he said.
"I revealed the secret to her when she came to St. Luna," said Horion,
"under the same conditions that I am now revealing it to you. She swore
to reveal it under no circumstances whatever, and you must do the same
before you leave this spot."
So Victor took the oath with a strange mixture of misgiving and joy. As
he walked back, slowly and thoughtfully, to the chaplain's house, he at
last admitted to himself that he was deeply in love with Clotilda.
Instead of returning to England and leaving Flamin in possession of the
field, as he had resolved on doing, he was now at liberty to try and win
the beautiful, noble girl. On the other hand, Flamin would misunderstand
his actions, and this would bring both of them into great danger.
The next day Victor received his appointment as physician to the Prince
of Flachsenfingen, and he was summoned to the court, together with
Clotilda. He now divined what his father's intentions were in regard to
him and the lovely young girl. Instead, however, of going with her to
Flachsenfingen, he dressed himself in poor attire and set out on an
aimless journey through Europe, without telling anyone where he was
going.
_III.--Enmity_
Victor had a profound aversion from the wild and yet vacant kind of life
that men pursued at the court of the Prince of Flachsenfingen. He was
comforted in his separation by the thought that so long as it lasted he
was spared from disturbing the delusions of her jealous brother. But
when he at last came to Flachsenfingen, he was grieved to find that his
beautiful lady had grown pale and sorrowful. Like a sweet flower taken
from the clear fresh air of the forest and placed in a hot, closed room,
she was pining in the close, heavy atmosphere of the court, which was so
crowded and yet so lonely. At the sight of her distress, Victor forgot
his promise to Flamin. Meeting her at evening in the forest near the
palace, he sank on his knees before her in the dewy grass, and told her
all his love for her, and of the promise he had made to Flamin. Clotilda
stooped and clasped his hand, and drew him up, and he folded her to his
breast.
"We must part, dearest," he said, "until my father sees fit to reveal to
your brother the secret of his birth."
A nightingale broke out into a passion of song as Victor gathered up his
courage to bid her farewell. The call of the nightingale was suddenly
answered by another nightingale. It kept flying as it sang, and, with
its voice muffled by the thick blossoms on the trees, it sent a
languishing melody flowing out of a dim, flowering dell a hundred paces
away. The two lovers, who dreaded and delayed to part, wandered
confusedly after the receding nightingale into the hollow of the forest;
they knew not that they were alone, for in their hearts was God. At last
Clotilda recovered herself, and as the nightingale ceased, she turned
round to say good-bye. But Victor lingered, and took both of her hands,
though for very grief he could not bear to look upon her. With tears in
his eyes he murmured, "Good-bye, my dearest. My heart is too heavy. I
can say no more. Do not sorrow, darling. Nothing can part us
now--neither life nor death."
Like a transfigured spirit bending down to an angel, he stooped and
touched her sweet mouth. In a gentle kiss, in which their hovering souls
only glided tremorously from afar to meet each other with fluttering
wings, he took from her yielding lips the seal of her pure love. As he
did so, there came a crashing sound from the dark trees around them.
"You scoundrel!" cried Flamin, rushing down into the hollow, his eyes
gleaming in the moonlight, and his face white with anger. "Take it, take
it! I will have your blood for this!"
He had two pistols in his hand, and he thrust one fiercely towards
Victor. The Englishman drew Clotilda aside, and then went up to his
friend, saying, "I have not wronged you. Believe me, Flamin, I remember
the oath I gave you, and I swear that I have been faithful to you. Only
wait until I see my father, and everything will be explained."
"I want no explanation, you faithless scoundrel," shouted Flamin, "Take
it, or I will kill you where you stand."
In his blind fury he was pointing the muzzle of the pistol at the
trembling form of Clotilda, and Victor snatched the weapon from him in
order to save her.
"I will have blood for this--blood, blood!" Flamin kept saying, reeling
about the floor of the dell like a drunken man.
"You are my brother, my brother!" cried Clotilda. "Don't you hear? You
are my brother!"
She ran up to Flamin to take the pistol from him, but reeled and fell to
the ground in a swoon. Victor looked at her wildly, and thinking that
she was dead, turned upon Flamin.
"If you want blood," he said sternly, "take mine."
"You fire first," exclaimed Flamin.
Victor lifted his pistol up into the air and shot at the top of a tree;
then he stood calm and silent waiting for Flamin to fire. His old friend
pointed the pistol straight at his heart, but hesitated; and Clotilda
recovered her senses and staggered to her feet, and threw herself before
her lover. Flamin looked at them in gloomy wonder without lowering his
pistol. He would have liked to kill them both with one shot, but the
instinct of a life-long friendship unnerved him. He hurled his pistol
away, saying, "It isn't worth troubling to kill a scoundrel like you,"
and then turned and strode fiercely through the forest.
* * * * *
Some weeks afterwards Victor was standing on the watch-tower at St. Luna
alone, with a letter from Lord Horion in his hand. He looked down from
the height, and he was tempted to throw himself over. He had regained
the friendship of Flamin, but it seemed to him that he had now lost all
hope of winning Clotilda. For Lord Horion had explained the whole of the
strange, tortuous policy which he had used in regard to Prince January.
He informed Victor that he had introduced Flamin to the prince, and had
proved to him that the young man was his heir. "They asked me, my dear
Victor," Horion went on to say in his letter, "a question which I was
surprised at your not asking. If Flamin is the son of the prince, where
is the son of Chaplain Eymann whom I took to London to be educated with
him? My dear boy, I have no son, and you really are the child of Eymann
and his good wife. This secret I felt bound to reveal to the prince at
the same time that I was forced to reveal the secret of Flamin's birth.
It was because I wished to postpone the revelations until you were
established in the prince's good graces that I made you take the oath
that you took so unwillingly."
Victor felt that what the heir to a great English nobleman might aspire
to, the son of a poor country clergyman could never hope to attain. By a
strange vicissitude of fortune he now found himself in the same position
as that in which Flamin had been when they met on the watch-tower after
their long separation. His mournful meditations were suddenly
interrupted by two figures who had silently crept up the stairs of the
tower. They were Flamin and Clotilda, and each of them put an arm around
Victor and led him to the parsonage. On the way he learnt that Clotilda
had known all along that he was the son of Chaplain Eymann.
* * * * *