Titan: A Romance Volume II Part 31

A tall, black-dressed female form, with a veil falling down sidewise, who sat talking with his foster-father, turned round towards him as he entered. It was Idoine; but the old magic semblance pa.s.sed again over his to-day so excited soul, as if it were Liana from heaven, arrayed in immortality, prouder and bolder in the possession of unearthly powers, retaining nothing more of her former earth than goodness and charms. Both met each other again here with mutual astonishment. Julienne--conscious to herself of her little concealments and arrangements--saw a little red cloud of displeasure flit across Idoine's mild face; it was, however, gone below the horizon, so soon as Idoine perceived that the sister during the tolling for her brother's funeral could not restrain her tears, and she went kindly to meet her, seeking her hand. Idoine, easily inclined by her severity to fits of vexation, that little skirmish of wrath, had freed herself by long, sharp exercise from this finest, but strongest poison of the soul's happiness, till she at last stood in her heaven as a pure, light moon, without a rainy and cloudy atmosphere of earth.

Albano, to whom the earth, filled with the past and the dead, had become an air-globe that soared into the ether, felt himself free amidst his stars, and without earthly anxiety. He approached Idoine,--although with the consciousness of the conflicting relations of his and her house, yet with holy courage. "Her last wish in the last garden," he said, "had been heard by Heaven." With maiden-like decision of perception she went through the wilderness wherein she had to bend aside, now flowers, now thorns, in order to be neither embarra.s.sed nor injured. She answered him, "I rejoice from my heart that you have found your faithful sister forever." Wehrfritz was quite as much delighted as astonished at the frankness with which she honestly spoke the truth against all family relations. "So must one always lose much on the earth," Albano replied to her, "in order to gain much," and turned to his sister, as if he would thereby guard this word against a more ambiguous sense.

The funeral bell tolled on. The strange, happy and sad mingling of earthly lots gave all a solemn and free tone of spirit. Albina and Rabette came up, arrayed in festive dark dresses, for the procession to the burial church. Julienne divided herself between two brothers, and never did her heart, which stood at once in tears and flames, swell more romantically. She guessed how her friend Idoine thought respecting her brother Albano, for she knew her to have a steadier voice than to-day's was, and her sweet confusion was most easily evident to her from the short report which the open soul had made to her of meeting Albano again in Liana's garden; the slight maidenly recoil, too, of her pride to-day, when she was embarra.s.sed to find herself taken everywhere for a risen Liana, that beloved of the youth, made Julienne not more doubtful, but more sure.

"On a fine evening," said Albano to Idoine, "I once looked down into your lovely Arcadia, but I was not in Arcadia." "The name," replied she, and her clear eyes sank again to the earth, "is nothing more than play; properly it is an alp, and yet only with herdsmen's huts in a vale." She raised not again her large eyes, when Julienne silently took her hand and drew her away, because now the funeral bell sounded out with single, sad strokes, as a sign that the funeral ceremony was coming on, in which Julienne could not possibly deny her sisterly heart the comfort of partic.i.p.ating. "We are going to the church," said Idoine to the company. "So are we all, indeed," replied Wehrfritz, quickly. As the two maidens pa.s.sed by Albano, he observed for the first time on Idoine three little freckles, as it were traces of earth and life, which made her a mortal. He looked after the lofty, n.o.ble form, with the long floating veil, who, beside his sister, appeared like Linda, quite as majestically, only more delicately built, and whose holy gait announced a priestess, who had been wont to walk in temples before G.o.ds.

Hardly had the two disappeared, when Albano's old acquaintances, especially the women, to whom Julienne's presence had always held near in view Albano's family-tree, crowded on his heart with all signs of long-repressed cordiality, full of wishes, joys, and tears. "Be my parents still," said Albano. "Bravery is everything in this world,"

said the Director. "I did my part like a mother," said Albina, "but who could have known _this!_" Rabette said nothing; her joy and love were overpowering as her recollections. "My sister Rabette," said Albano, "gave me, when I first went to Italy, the words embroidered on a purse, 'Think of us.' This prayer I will fulfil for you all in every vicissitude of fortune";--and here, although too modest to say it, he thought of things which he might perhaps do, as Prince, for his foster-father, among which came first the restoration of his reverting male fee. "Thus, then, is many a former sorrow of the heart, for us--"

began Albina. "O, what's to do with hearts? what's to do with sorrows?"

said Wehrfritz; "to-day all is right and smooth." But Rabette understood her mother very well.

All betook themselves on their way to the temple of mourning. They heard as they approached the church the music of the hymn, "How softly they rest"; at a considerable distance bugles were essaying gladder tones. Rabette pressed Albano's hand and said, very softly, "It has been well with me, because I have learned all." She had, since hearing how Roquairol had murdered a manifold happiness and himself, cast all her love after the wretched man into his grave to moulder with him, without shedding a tear as she did it. Her heart leaped at the thought of Idoine's goodness, of her resemblance, with the mention of which her father had to-day made the angel blush, and of her beautiful comforting of Julienne, who had wept incessantly before Albano's arrival. Albina praised Julienne more on account of her sisterly affection. Rabette was silent about her; the two were sisterly rivals; moreover, Julienne had, according to her sharp, inexorable system, looked upon her very coldly as a victim of the Roquairol whom she so despised; whereas Idoine, who, by her greater knowledge of human nature, had learned to unite mildness toward female errors of the heart and moment with severity toward men, had only been gentle and just.

When they stepped into the church full of mourning lamps, Albano stole away into an unlighted corner, so as neither to disturb nor be disturbed. At the bright altar stood the serene and venerable Spener, with his uncovered head full of silver locks; the long coffin of the brother stood before the altar between rows of lights. In the arch of the church hung night, and forms were lost in the gloom; below rays and bright shadows and people crossed each other. Albano saw the iron-grated door of the hereditary sepulchre, through which his blessed parents had gone down, standing open like a gate of death; and it was to him as if once more Schoppe's tumultuous spirit stalked in, to break into the last house of man. The thought of his brother affected him but little, but the neighborhood of his still parents, who had so long watched for him, and whom he had never thanked, and the incessant tears of his sister, whom he saw in the gallery over the gate of death, took mighty hold of his heart, out of which the deep, eternal tones of lamentation drew tears, like the warm blood of sorrow and of love. He saw Idoine, with her half red, half white Lancaster rose on the black silk, standing beside his sister, drawing the veil over her eyes against many a comparing look. Here, near such altar-lights, had once the oppressed Liana knelt while swearing the renunciation of her love.

The whole constellation of his s.h.i.+ning past, of his lofty beings, had gone down below the horizon, and only _one_ bright star of all the group stood glimmering still above the earth: Idoine.

Just then the youth was seen by his friend Dian, who came hastening towards him. Without much ceremony, the Greek embraced him, and said, "Hail, hail to the beautiful transformation! There stands my Chariton; she, too, would greet thee after the manner of her speech."[158] But Chariton was looking continually at Idoine, on account of her resemblance. "Well, my good Dian, I have paid many a heart and fortune for it, and I wonder that fate has spared me thee," said Albano.

Thereupon he asked him, as architect of the church, about the condition of the hereditary sepulchre, because he wished afterward to have the ashes of his parents uncovered, in order at least to kneel down before them in silent grat.i.tude. "Of that," said Dian, surprised, "I know very little; but it is a shocking purpose, and what good is to come of it?"

The music ceased; Spener, in a low tone, began his discourse. He spoke not, however, of the Prince at his feet, nor yet of his loved ones in the hereditary tomb, but of the real life that knows no death, and which man must beget in himself. He said that, for himself, though an old man, he wished neither to die nor to live, because one could already, even here, be with G.o.d, so soon as one only had G.o.d within him, and that we ought to be able to see without grief our holiest wishes wither like sunflowers, because, after all, the lofty sun still beams on, which forever raises and nourishes new ones, and that a man must not so much prepare himself for eternity as plant in himself the eternity which is still, pure, light, deep, and everything.

Many a human breast in the church felt the poisonous point of the past broken off by this discourse. On Albano's rising sea it had poured smooth oil, and all about his life was even and radiant. Julienne's eyes had grown dry and full of serene light, and Idoine's had filled with glimmering moisture, for her heart had to-day been stirred too often not to weep in this sweet, devout, and exalting emotion. Once it seemed to Albano, as he looked towards her, as if she shone supernaturally, and as if, just as the sun from under the earth beams upon a moon, so Liana from the other world were beaming upon her countenance, and adorning this likeness of herself with a holiness beyond the reach of earth.

At the close of the discourse, Albano went quietly to the two friends, pressed his sister's hand, and begged her not to wait for the end of the sad festival. She was comforted and willing. As they stepped out of the church, a wondrous bright moonlight was spread over earth, like a sweet morning light of the higher world. Julienne begged them, instead of going in between four walls, into the prison of eyes and words, and the midst of all the din, rather to behold first the still, bright landscape.

All of them bore in their b.r.e.a.s.t.s the holy world of the serene old man out into the fair night. Not a speck of cloud, not a breath of air, stirred through the wide heaven; the stars reigned alone; earthly distances were lost in the depth of white shadows; and all mountains stood in the silvery fire of the moon. "O, how I love your serene, holy old man!" said Idoine to Albano, when she had already often pressed Julienne's hand. "How happy I am! Ah, life, like the water of the sea, is not quite sweet till it rises towards heaven." Suddenly distant bugle-tones came pealing out to them, which well-meaning country-folk sounded as a greeting before Albano's foster-home. "How comes it," said Julienne, "that in the open air and at night even the most insignificant music is pleasant and stirring?" "Perhaps because our inner music harmonizes with it more clearly and purely," said Idoine.

"And because, before the spheral music of the universe, human art and human simplicity are, at last, equally great!" added Albano. "That is just what I meant, for that is also, after all, only within ourselves,"

said Idoine, and looked lovingly and frankly into his eyes, which sank before hers, as if the moon, the mild after-summer of the sun, now dazzled him with its splendor.

Since the church festival, she had addressed herself to him oftener; her sweet voice was more tender, though more tremulous; her maidenly shyness of the resemblance to Liana seemed conquered or forgotten, as on that evening in the last garden. During Spener's discourse, her existence had decided itself within her, and on her virgin love, as on a spring soil by one warm evening rain, all buds had been opened into bloom. As he now looked upon this clear, mild eye, under the pure, cloudless brow, and the fine mouth, with inexhaustible good-will towards every living thing breathing over it, he could hardly conceive that this delicate lily, this light incense exhaled from morning redness and morning flowers, was the habitation of that firm spirit which could rule life, just as the tender cloud or the little nightingale's breast contains the thrilling peal of sound.

They stood now on the bright mountain, covered with the evergreen of youthful remembrance, where Albano had once slumbered in dreams of the future, as on a light and lofty island in the midst of the shadow-sea of two vales. The mountain-ridges of the linden city, the eternal goal of his youthful days, were snowed over by the moon, and the constellations stood upon them gleaming and great. He looked now upon Idoine: how truly did this soul belong among the stars! "When the world is purged from this low day; when heaven, with its holiest, farthest suns, looks upon this earthly land; when the heart and the nightingale alone speak,--then only does her holy time come up in heaven; then is her lofty, tranquil spirit seen and understood, and by day only her charms," thought Albano.

"How many a time, my good Albano," said the sister, "hast thou here, in thy long-left youthful years, looked toward the mountains for thine own ones,--for thy hidden parents and brothers and sisters,--for thou hadst always a good heart!" Here Idoine unconsciously looked at him with inexpressible love, and his eye met hers. "Idoine," said he,--and their souls gazed into each other, as into suddenly rising heavens, and he took the maiden's hand,--"I have that heart still; it is unhappy, but unstained." Then Idoine hid herself quickly and pa.s.sionately in Julienne's bosom, and said, scarce audibly, "Julienne, if Albano rightly knows me, then be my sister!"

"I do know thee, holy being!" said Albano, and clasped to _one_ bosom sister and bride; and from all of them there wept but _one_ joy-enraptured heart. "O ye parents," prayed the sister, "O thou G.o.d, bless, then, both of them and me, that so it may be forever!" And as she lifted her eyes to heaven, while the lovers lingered in the short, holy elysium of the first kiss, innumerable immortals looked down out of the deep-blue eternity, the distant tones and the mild rays were blended together, and the slumbering realm of the moon resounded. "Look up to the fair heaven!" cried the sister to the lovers, in the ecstasy of her joy; "the rainbow of eternal peace blooms there, and the tempests are over, and the world is all so bright and green. Wake up, my brother and sister!"

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Jean Paul here Germanizes (or Frenchifies) the Latin word _territio_ (a terrifying). The meaning is, that this marriage might well be an _in terrorem_ affair to poor Luigi (as well as to the bride, according to Schoppe's droll conceit, that all this furor of joy was a mere noise made to scare her _back_). The only other case in which the author uses this word is near the end of the third paragraph of Cycle 15, where the reader should have been informed that _real territion_ is an expression borrowed from the inquisitors, who, when _verbal_ threatenings fail, bring on _ocular_ ones by showing the instruments of torture to the victim. This is applied to Froulay's system with his children. In this sense the rod which used to hang over the fireplace or looking-gla.s.s when some of us were children was a _real territion_.--Tr.]

[Footnote 2: _Schach_ means both chess and the Persian king,--the Shah--Tr.]

[Footnote 3: In the (French and German) sense of active property, namely, that does something, brings in something. _Active debts_ are one's a.s.sets.-Tr.]

[Footnote 4: Referring, of course, to her refusal of him.--Tr.]

[Footnote 5: A French name for candlesticks.--Tr.]

[Footnote 6: Frightfully is this true cry of humanity echoed in Hess's Flying Journeys, Part IV. p. 156; at present a more humane administration has quieted it by means of the game-tax.]

[Footnote 7: It was to him a hearty pleasure to present such a marriage-poem with the rhymes, flights, and notes of admiration and exclamation by the very best new-year's rhymer in the world; and the consciousness of his pure, though satirical, purpose set him entirely at ease about any charge of being elaborate or too servile in particular applications. [The Pereat-Carmen means, an Ode of Anathema.--Tr.]]

[Footnote 8: Poison administered to obtain a succession or inheritance.

Adler.--Tr.]

[Footnote 9: Between every two windows stood a pier-gla.s.s, which blended its reflection of the distant vista with those of the windows.

Opposite each mirror stood only one window; the interval between the two was filled and concealed with foliage.]

[Footnote 10: "I am but a dream."]

[Footnote 11: "Cherished sister."]

[Footnote 12: An allusion, of course, to the theological dogma of the procession of the Holy Spirit from Father and Son.--Tr.]

[Footnote 13: "Nor let a G.o.d interpose unless a knot occurs which is worthy of such helper."]

[Footnote 14: "Nor let a fourth person (i. e. when you have the married couple and friend) intrude his advice."]

[Footnote 15: Angels' Song in Faust, where the sun completes his course with _Donnergang_.--Tr.]

[Footnote 16: _Nebelflechen_ and _Marktflecken_ are the German words; _Flecken_, like our spot, having two meanings, as if we should say spots of mist and dwelling-_spots_.--Tr.]

[Footnote 17: A coquetting with virtue as a virtuoso, of course Gaspard means. The word corresponds to _religiosity_.--Tr.]

[Footnote 18: Where the Prince had died and she had been made blind.]

[Footnote 19: _Gesichts-schwester_. Visionary is here used in the sense of _seen in vision_, as in the line where aeneas describes seeing Hector's ghost,

"I wept to see the _visionary_ man."

The reference probably is to the scene in the dream-temple, where Liana personated Idoine, Cycle 78.--Tr.]

[Footnote 20: _Stein-pflaster_ means _pavement_.--Tr.]

[Footnote 21: Or one might paraphrase Schoppe's half-punning and half-proverbial saying: "Who has never known her _durance_, never learns endurance."--Tr.]

[Footnote 22: Schoppe here alludes to the poem of Schiller, "Auch ich war in Arcadien geboren."--Tr.]

[Footnote 23: His _Lettres sur les Aveugles_.]

[Footnote 24: _Bunt auf weiss_ is the German phrase, answering to "_Schwarz auf weiss_" (in black and white). There seems to be no way in English of keeping up the a.n.a.logous neatness of the expression.--Tr.]

[Footnote 25: This word is in English in the original, and Jean Paul adds in a foot-note: _Die h.e.l.le Kammer_ (the bright chamber). Does he mean the _camera obscura_?--Tr.]