He hastened down the long, spiral mountain, warm as a poisoned snake.
He heard behind him some one hurrying after in the long windings of the bushes. In a fury he drew a sword-cane, which, with a pocket-pistol, he had by him. At last he saw an odious form, like an evil spirit, running after him; it attacked him. It was the long-armed ape of the Princess.
He run him through on the spot, in order not to be followed by him.
Below, in the open garden, he went slowly, in order not to awaken any suspicion. He stole softly as death, when on the thunder-car of a cloud he sails unheard through the air over a blossoming tree, beneath which a virgin leans, and hid the murderous thunder-bolt in his breast. He opened the high gate-shrubbery of the flute-dell; all was still within there and dark; only in the upper heavens a singular, roaring storm swept along and chased the herd of clouds, but on the earth it sounded low, and not a leaf stirred. "Is any one there?" asked the blind gate-keeper. "Good evening, maiden," said Roquairol, in order by the tone of his speech to pa.s.s for Albano.
Deep in the vale, which now grew narrower and more leafy, Linda was singing softly an old Spanish melody of her childhood"s time. At last she was visible; the giant-snake made the poisonous spring at the sweet form, and she was entwined in a thousand-fold embrace.
He hung on her speechless, breathless; the cloud of his life broke; burning tears of pa.s.sion and pain and joy gushed out; all the arms into which the stream of his love had hitherto run round in shallows, rushed together roaring, and grasped and bore _one_ form. "Weep not, my good Albano; we surely love each other again forever," said Linda, and the tender, beautiful lip gave him the first, fervent kiss. Then the fire-wheel of ecstasy whirled round and bore him with it, and around the head which hung lashed thereto the circling flames waved high. From a dread of being seen, if he should look, and from pleasure, he had closed his eyes; now he opened them,--and there, so near to him and in his arms, he beheld the lofty form, the proud, blooming countenance and the moist, warm eyes of love. "Thou heavenly one," said he, "kill me in this hour, that so I may die in heaven. How can I wish to live any longer after it? O that I could pour my soul into my tears and my life into thine, and then be no more!"
"Albano," said she, "why art thou to-day so altered, so sad, so tender?"
"Call me rather," said he, "by _thy_ name, as lovers exchange names in Otaheite. Perhaps I have drunk a little, too; but I truly repent of yesterday, and I truly love thee anew. Ah, thou, dost thou, then, also love my very innermost self, Linda?"
"Sweet youth, can I then, now, choose but love thee eternally? I do, indeed, henceforth cleave to thee and thou to me."
"Ah, thou dost not know me. When does man know, then, that precisely he, this very _I_, is meant and loved? Only forms are embraced, only the fleshly covering is enfolded in the arms; who, then, clasps a person to a person? _Perchance G.o.d_."
"And I do thee," said Linda.
"O Linda, wilt thou still love me in my grave, when the chaff of life is flown away,--still love me in my h.e.l.l, when I have deceived thee out of love to thee? Is love, then, love"s justification?"
"I love thee always, so long as thou lovest me. Art thou the poison-flower; then am I the bee, and die on the sweet cup."
The bride sank on his neck. He clasped her pa.s.sionately, and grew more and more like the glacier, which by very warmth rolls further onward, and in melting desolates. Around him danced the pleasures with heavenly faces, but showed him in their hands the masks of furies.
"Thou wilt die of love; I am already dead from love. O, thou knowest not how long ago I loved thee!" he answered.
"Glowing heart," said she, "think of this night when thou one day seest Idoine!" "Then shall I see only my risen _sister_," said he, but instantly trembled at the truth"s having escaped his lips. "One sees,"
he added, hastily, "the risen Herculaneum, but one dwells overhead in the blooming Portici. Thou and I saw in Baja"s gold, under the sea, the sunken arches and gates, and we sailed on farther toward living cities.
Is even Roquairol, I pray, like me in so many things, and does he love thee so much, and has he loved thee so long, and died once, too, like Liana?"
"But that creature I had never loved, and now am I thy eternal bride."
"Poor fellow! But I did wrong, however, I think, when I once, in the cavern of Tartarus, renounced thee, the unseen, beforehand, out of love toward my friend."
"Certainly not. But how have we both fallen upon the subject of this uncomfortable being?" said she, kissing him.
"_Uncomfortable_,[126] indeed," replied he, with bitter emphasis, blazing up in revengeful love, in a discord of rage and l.u.s.t, and determined now to weave the funeral veil over her whole future. He beat his dark eagle"s wings about his victim, and stifled and awakened kisses; he tore the orange-blossoms from her bosom and threw them behind him. "Love is living and dying and heaven and h.e.l.l," said he; "love is murder and fire and death and pain and pleasure. Caligula would have placed his Caesonia on the rack only for the sake of learning from her why he so loved her. I could also..."
"Divine Albano, do not drink so any more! Thou art too impetuous; even thy eyebrows storm! What art thou like?"
"All things at once, like a tempest full of glowing heat,--and my heaven is luminous with lightning,--and I throw cold hail, and one destruction after another; and a warm rain falls upon the flowers, and a still bow of peace knits together heaven and earth."
At this moment he saw in heaven the storm-clouds, like storm-birds, already flying more brightly between the stars and near the angry, b.l.o.o.d.y eye of Mars; the moon, that came to scare and betray him, soon threw upon him the judging eye of a G.o.d. In defiance of fate, he tore open for his violent kisses the nun"s veil and saintly splendor of the virgin"s bosom. Far off stood the beacon-tower of conscience enveloped in thick clouds. Linda wept, trembling and glowing, on his breast. "Be my good genius, Albano," said she. "And thy evil one. But call me only one single time Charles," said he, full of pa.s.sion. "O, be _called_ Charles, but remain my former Albano, my holy Albano," said she.
Suddenly the flutes in the dell began, which the pious father caused to play at his evening devotions. Like tones of music on the battle-field, they called down murder. Then did Linda"s golden throne of life and of happiness melt away, and the white, bridal garment of her innocence was rent and burnt to ashes.
"Now am I thine until my death!" said she, softly, with streams of tears. "Only till mine!" said he, and wept now softly with the weeping flutes. Upon the golden ball on the mountain already glimmered the moon, which, like an armed comet, like a one-eyed giant, pressed on, to drive the sinner out of his Eden. "Stay till the moon comes, that I may look into thy face," she begged. "No, thou divine one, my festive steed already neighs; the death-torch burns down into my hand," said he, in a low, tragic tone. The storm had pa.s.sed from heaven down to the earth.
She replied, "The storm is so loud, what saidst thou, love?" He wildly kissed again her lips and her bosom. He could not go; he could not stay. "Go not to-morrow," said he, "to the Tragedian, I entreat thee; the end, I hear, is too agitating."
"Besides, I never like such things. O, stay, stay longer; I am sure I shall not see thee again to-morrow." He pressed her to himself, closed her eyes with his face. The moon had already reared its Gorgon head in the east; he would let go life when he let her go from his arms; and yet every stammered word of love consumed the short moment. The storm labored in the torn trees, and the flute-tones glided away like b.u.t.terflies, like innocent children beneath the great wing. Roquairol, as if confounded by such a presence, was near upon the point of saying, look at me, I am Roquairol; but the thought quickly placed itself between, she does not deserve that of thee; no, let her learn it for the first time in that hour when one forgives everything! Yet once more he held her pa.s.sionately clasped to himself; already the moonlight fell in upon both; he repeated a thousand words of love and tenderness, thrust her back, turned swiftly round, and stalked away in Albano"s dress through the vale.
"Good night, maiden," said he to the blind girl, in pa.s.sing. Linda sang not again as before. The stars looked down upon him; the storm winds spake to him; the pleasures went along by him, but they had now the masks of the furies on their faces. An arm struck down from heaven, an arm grasped up from h.e.l.l, and both would seize him, to tear him asunder. "Well, well," said he, "I was fortunate indeed, but I might have been still more so had I been her cursed Albano," and flung himself upon his festive horse, and flew the same night to the Prince"s garden.
129. CYCLE.
Albano and his uncle went on to meet the announced Schoppe from village to village. The uncle continually pushed back the hope before them like a horizon, farther and farther, as they advanced. Once, at evening, the Count fancied he heard Schoppe"s voice close beside him; in vain, the beloved man came not yet to his heart, and with longing impatience Albano saw the clouds in heaven sail along over the way which his precious one was taking beneath them on the earth. The uncle told him a long story of a secret trouble which often weighed down the Librarian, and of his liability to attacks of madness, which had some time ago repelled him from him, because among all men there was none he dreaded so much as the madman. Of Romeiro"s portrait he seemed to know nothing.
Albano was silent with vexation, for the Spaniard was one of those insufferable men who, with sleek, steady face, and with screwed-up and helmed soul, can let another"s contradiction flutter around them without any contradiction on their part, without echo, without a reflection or alteration, and to whom another"s discourse is only a still dew, the fall of which wears away no stone. To this was added Albano"s exasperation against his new falsehood about Schoppe"s nearness, and against his own incapacity of listening for a good, long hour incredulously to what a liar is saying.
"Schoppe is, upon my word, already arrived at the Prince"s garden by another route," said the Spaniard at last, in quite a lively mood, and advised turning back, in the comfortable enjoyment of that cool, impudent faculty he had of jamming up every one who did not do homage to him, between sharp, tedious ice-fields.
They arrived before the princely garden in the midst of nothing but carriages, out of which were alighting the spectators of to-day"s dramatic festival. Albano found among them already his father, the Princess, and Julienne, and, among the actors, Bouverot, his old exercise-master Falterle, and the yellow-dressed merchant"s lady in the red shawl, who had once been less _in_ than _on_ Roquairol"s heart, and finally Roquairol himself. The Captain stepped up immediately, first and foremost, to the well-known Albano, and said, with elaborate ease, the play would begin soon, only Dian with his wife was still expected.
Dian, always easily moved, most of all by an invitation, could least of all resist one when art was the occasion; through him Chariton also was soon gained for the play, but not without one condition,--that she was to play in the piece the part of a beloved to no one but her spouse.
When Roquairol spoke with Albano, he found it hard to laugh easily, or to raise his eyelids, as if his face were frozen or swollen; and an avenging, humiliating spirit inwardly weighed his down to the earth before the pure and happy friend out of whose spring he had torn and cast away the bright sun, and over whose life he had hung an eternal plague-cloud.
Amidst the tumult of garden talk, and in the fruitless wish to impart to his sister Julienne three soft words for the Linda of whose presence he had been so long deprived, Albano saw the carriage of the Countess roll along on the heights up to Liana"s last garden, there stop, and her and Dian and Chariton alight from it.
Then he thought of nothing but to fly to the long-missed loved one,--an act which, before the many eyes, easily a.s.sumed the appearance of a longing for Dian; and at this moment, in the thirst of love, he, in fact, asked no question about eyes. "Ah, here I am, after all!" said Linda, and came to meet him, interweaving the delicate vine-tendrils of soft glances with his, so shyly and so lovingly; and the evening blush of bashfulness, like a spring-redness in the night, mantled her heaven, and the white moon of innocence stood in the midst of it. Albano was dissolved with the melting wind of this forgiveness, reproached himself with his sweet joy at her conversion, as if it were a selfish pride in his victory, and could hardly, in the fair confusion of good fortune, command his sweet astonishment and his melting heart, which would fain dissipate itself before her like a tempest into evening dew. He threw his soul into his eye, and gave it to his beloved. Before Chariton he felt that he must veil himself. To Dian and Linda he said, as they looked into the setting sun, only the word, "Ischia!"
"There lies dear Anastasius," said Chariton to Dian, "my good friend Liana buried, and one knows not properly whereabouts in the garden, for one sees really nothing but flowers and flowers; however, she so ordered it." "That is very sad and fine," said Dian; "but let it be,--gone is gone, Chariton!" and led her aside, out of indulgence to the lovers. Albano, who overlooked nothing, and overheard everything, showed plainly enough how much he had been agitated by Chariton"s words. Linda, too, perceived it. "Only speak out thy sadness," said she; "I do truly love _her_ too." "I am thinking upon the living," said he, collecting himself, and looked timidly, not upon the flower-garden, but upon the sun-enchanted[127] evening landscape; "can one, then, sufficiently forgive, and think no evil upon the earth? Linda, O how thou forgivest me to-day!"
"Friend," said she, "when you sin you shall receive forgiveness; but until then, I pray you be quiet!" He looked upon her significantly.
"Hast thou not already forgiven, and have not I too? But couldst thou have known how intimately I lived with thee during these days on the way to my Schoppe, and brought over the divine past into the future--ah, can I then tell thee all in this place?" Fortunately she--like other women, attending less to words than to looks, gestures, and actions--heard more with the spiritual than the bodily ear, and stepped not over the brink of the abyss which his words laid open so near her. Thus did these two now play, like children, near the cold thunder-charged lightning-rod, out of which at the smallest nearer approach must dart the flashing scythe of death.
Both went on with their illusions near the lightning. The sun went down with his flames by the little mountain and the smooth flowery grave over into the distant plains. Out of the depths of the princely garden came tones fluttering up through the long evening rays and deified the golden landscape. The rays were solitary wings, that sought their heart, and joined it, and then flew onward--and the loving hearts became full of wings. The rays sank, the tones soared. Around Linda and Albano lay a golden circle of gardens and mountains and green valleys, and every flower rocked with its riches under the last lingering gold, and became the cradle of the eye, the cradle of the heart. The lovers looked at each other, and upon the earth, with inspired looks; the shining world appeared to them only in the magic mirror of their hearts, and they were, themselves, both, only floating images therein.
"Linda, I will be more gentle," said he. "I swear it by the saint in whose garden we stand!" "Be so, dear one; in Lilar thou wast not so!"
said she. He understood it of his storminess toward Liana. "Bury this recollection in thy love!" said he, reddening. She looked upon him like a virgin,--her inner being had remained virginal and innocent,--as the peach turns its red and glowing side toward the sun, but keeps under the leaves the tender white. Her eye drank from his, his drank from hers; the heavens mingled with her heaven, the purple sun glimmered back out of the warm dew of loving eyes. "O that I might now kiss thee!" said Albano. "Ah, that thou mightest!" said Linda. "So goldenly did the sun once go down into the sea!" said he. "And afterward we gave each other the first kiss!" said she. "We will see each other now much oftener," said he. "Yes, indeed, and longer by day; by night I, poor one, have, indeed, no eye. Even now is my eye already going down yonder," said she, as the sun sank from sight.
It was a good, gentle spirit, or Liana"s own,--that spirit which conducts man by the gradual transition of twilight over into night, which pours soothing tears into sorrow and into ecstasy, and which suffers not the short path of love"s evening star to be overcast with clouds,--this spirit it was which saved their tongues and ears from the terrible sound which would at once have torn up the golden magic circle of evening into an all-surrounding blaze of h.e.l.l.
"Who is that coming so hastily yonder?" said Linda. "My foe," said Albano. Roquairol had missed him, and had heard of Linda"s arrival; in the h.e.l.l-torment of anxiety, lest what had happened the night before might reveal itself before them this evening, he hurried, under the pretext of going to get Dian as a performer and Albano as a hearer, up the mountain. Like a centaur, half man, half wild beast, he broke in upon the melodious souls and joys with the hollow, confused war of his whole being. But hardly had he perceived in their looks the consecration of rapture, and seen that the black curtain still lay fast upon his murder, when the grim spirit of jealousy reared itself within him. "She is now my betrothed," he said to himself; and the solar eclipse of confused repentance was eclipsed by the tempest of chagrin.
Linda, kindling into anger from an inward shudder at his similarity of voice, stood before him like a diamond, clear, sparkling, hard and cutting; but Albano, amidst the echoes of the harmony, stood gently on the churchyard of the sister of this brother, and not without some confusion. Roquairol was haunted again by yesterday"s unclean suspicion, that perhaps Albano and Linda were no longer innocent.
Angrily, he now invited Linda to make one of the spectators at his tragedy. "You told me," said she to Albano, "it concluded so tragically; I am no friend of that." "He is not at all acquainted with it," said Roquairol. "No," said Albano. As the serpent looked down upon the paradise of the first pair, so looked he with the pleasing consciousness that he could hand them the apple from the tree of knowledge which should immediately drive them out from theirs.
"Besides," she subjoined, "I see badly in the evening, or not at all."
Roquairol affected to be surprised at that, joked upon the gain which it would be to him as first lover in the play, if she only _heard_ him, and begged Dian to unite in entreating her. Not inborn, but acquired coldness, has at command the highest falsehood; the former is capable only of dissimulation, the latter of simulation also, because it at once knows and uses all ways and means of kindling a fire, and keeps its firm standing on slippery ice by the ashes of former heat. When Albano himself at length advised her to take part in the tragic enjoyment, and grant her friends of both s.e.xes below there the fair, pure enjoyment of her presence, then she consented, not without wondering at his retraction.
She took Chariton into her carriage. The men walked on ahead. On the way Roquairol said to Dian, who had to play the character of Albano in the piece, "So soon as I have said, in the fourth act, "Even spiritual love goes to meet sensual, and, after all, like a seafarer on his way eastward, arrives at last in the lands of sundown," then you fall in."
Dian laughed, and said, "I"ll fall in. In Italy, however, the pa.s.sage begins at once as a southerly and westerly one." Albano was silent for vexation, and repented having helped persuade Linda to this doubtful festival. The Princess cast sundry rapid glances of contempt at the cheated Linda, and she answered them with the like; distinguished women betray their s.e.x most in hostile contact with distinguished ones.
130. CYCLE.
Most of the spectators had in the beginning come more for the sake of the spectators and performers than of the play; but soon they were attracted by the mystery and by the extraordinary stage itself. The scene was laid on the so-called Island of Slumber in the Prince"s garden, which was covered with a wild, thick tangle of flowers, bushes, and high trees. Its eastern side showed an open, free foreground, on which the performance was to take place, with a white Sphinx on an empty tomb farther in among the green. The wings of the scenes were the dark leafy parts; pit and boxes the sh.o.r.e opposite, which was separated from the island by a lake, about as broad as a moderate-sized ship.
From two trees of the two opposite sh.o.r.es hung down like a lantern out over the middle of the lake the cage of the jay or chorus, suspended there by way of bringing her deep, dull voice nearer to the spectators.
"I am, to tell the truth, "curious," said the Knight to his son, "to know whence you will draw the tragical." "Leave me alone for that!"
said Roquairol, who had hitherto been walking backward and forward silently and uneasily, with his eyes on the ground; "only I must make a general request of the company to be pardoned the delay. When I address the moon in the fifth act, I can very well use the real one, if I only begin just so that her rising shall coincide with the last scene."