Basil Wolgemuth had now gained the summit of his wishes. He had panted
for the river of knowledge,——had found it, and allayed his burning thirst
in its waters, which were to him a Lethe, bringing oblivion of all else.
He walked as one in a dream, or like the false prophet of old, falling
into a trance, but having his eyes open. He was gentle to his sister,
and to the patient, sorrowful Isilda; but he shrank from their society,
as he did from that of every living soul. He would disappear for days
together, wandering in the woods and mountains, far from his home.
There the student was alone, with his newly acquired sense,——there he
penetrated into the marvels of the invisible world. He saw the Sylphs of
the air floating over him, and fanning his slumbers with their ambrosial
wings. The beautiful Undines spread their cool, wavy arms around him, and
through the riven earth he beheld the Gnomes and Cobolds at work in their
treasure-caves. Borne by the Salamandrines, he viewed the caves of the
volcanoes; their lurid recesses were exposed to his gaze, and he saw the
central fires smouldering beneath the surface of the globe,——the cradles
of the earthquake.
Then, when the student returned, he would shut himself up in his chamber,
and invoke the being who had first appeared to him,——the Salamandrine. He
imbibed from her lips wisdom beyond that of man; he sunned himself in the
light of her glorious beauty, and became insensible to all earthly things.
“O my master,” Basil would often murmur, “thou wert right! What count
I now the cup of mortal pleasure while that of heaven is at my lips? I
could torture, almost destroy this poor frail body for the sake of my
soul.”
And while the student revelled in these ecstasies, his slight form grew
more shadowy, his dreamy eyes became of a more fathomless depth, and his
whole appearance was that of a spirit which had for a season assumed
this mortal coil. No thought of Isilda, no yearning for her forsaken
love, crossed his memory; the lesser feeling was all absorbed in the
greater, for the one reigning passion of Basil Wolgemuth’s soul was a
thirst after knowledge.
And Isilda, the devoted one, how fared it with her? She knew that no
other maiden had stolen her lover’s heart, and yet it was changed toward
her. She saw it to be so. Some overpowering passion had extinguished that
of love; and her life’s hope was gone. She did not pine nor weep; she
felt no anger towards Basil, for in her eyes he could do no wrong. Isilda
had worshipped him from her girlhood, with a love mixed with idolatry,
for it long seemed like “the desire of the moth for the star.” None other
had ever won a thought from the maiden, though many had wooed her; but
having once loved him, none else could have filled her heart forever.
Even Basil, when he came to measure her love by his own, dreamed not of
its intensity. So absorbing was this one passionate love, that even the
sad change in him who was its object could not weaken it. She desired
no more but to be near her betrothed; to see him; to hover round him as
silently as his shadow,——only to have the blessed privilege of loving
him, and the memory, sweet though mournful, that he had once loved her.