"Any one who reads one of those older Italian romances, feels himself irresistibly attracted by the free breath of adventure which pervades it; I know, indeed, that in our respectable society where every one carries his passport in his pocket book, this adventuresomeness cannot find a place; it is proscribed, and I do not see either how it can be otherwise in our condition as citizens.
"All the same, it meets the untrammelled wanderer here and there; it wears a mask before its face, but it gazes fiercely and seductively through that mask.
"I have often meditated as to wherein the charm of those fleeting meetings consists, which in no case lay claim to any endurance; it is the charm of freedom and want of fetters. There is something oppressive to the mind in this consciousness of durability, in order to reconcile oneself to it deeper reflections are needed about the necessity that fetters man's life, and the pride of a sense of duty reconciles us to the constraint of the unalterable.
"But adventure arouses affections and feelings, and touches strings, which are sure to exist in human nature; never does the blood flow more lightly and freely through our veins; never does our mental life develop more ozone than in these tempests of passion, quickly as they pass away again in the sky. Also, if that enduring bond and that nobility of feeling is wanting, which only true love of the soul is capable of giving, yet something remains that ennobles the fleeting transport of passion, the rapture about beauty which is so closely united to love, but which has paled and must be repudiated in our circumstances.
"But where do these homes of adventure lie more than in the masked land of Italy? Are we not thrilled with those spirits of revelry which in the Venetian Carnival of that gloriousmaestrospring and dance upon the strings, and seem to be beside themselves in wild exhilaration?
"Here upon the Rialto, there upon the market place, mysterious glances beckon to us, seductive pressure of the hand invites us. This is a proud beauty of the people, who at other times wears thefazzoletto, that is a lady of position who seeks acicisbeo. And upon the Roman Corso, when the long row of carriages drives down the street, we stand upon the carriage step and a delicate hand presses a bouquet into ours. Here adventure has risen and increased until it became crime, and gazed ominously and fatally at us out of the soft eyes of a Lucrezia Borgia and a Beatrice Cenci.
"But what heaven also in the land of Boccaccio, what rapture in the air, what charm in the aroma of the perfumes, which are set free by the day's glowing sun, which the evening's breeze wafts over the meadows, above the marble floors in the villas and in their sleeping chambers! There one must be a pedant, like the man from Arpinum, to think and to write of duty in a Tusculum; we other men follow Horace's example, wreath our heads with roses, take a wine bowl in our hands, and a beautiful Lydia in our arms.
"Enjoy the moment! Thus preaches Hesperia, and he who wreathes himself with its wildly growing myrtles does not remember the myrtle of German hot-houses, with which the bride adorns herself for life. I know Florence, that city of flowers, Rome the city of ruins; noisy Naples, where the tide of men, and the beating of the ocean's waves blend their roar, and whose single cyclopean eye is fire-belching Vesuvius. Yet nowhere did I feel so much at home as on the upper Italian lakes; and in spite of all the charms of Lago di Como, that splendid divided radiant mirror, which is most beautiful at that point whence one can overlook both its separate arms of water which twine themselves around the villa-clad heights; despite the loveliness of Lago di Garda, and its northerly port, above all others I have enshrined Lago Maggiore in my heart and spent two years of my life upon its shores. I know all the Swiss and Italian towns on its borders; but I lingered most fondly in Stresa, because from it a quick passage by boat bore me to the jewels of the lake, the Boromean islands.
"It was one beautiful summer's evening that I stood upon the topmost terrace of the Isola Bella; the lake glistened in the evening's crimson splendour; varied lights danced in the winding cypress walks, in the concealed shell-grottoes, and played upon the statues and obelisks of the uppermost terrace. The sister isles, the towns on the shores, the vine-surrounded villa-clad hills lay on the opposite side in a softer sheen. Sasso Ferrato, with its rocky walls, rose up defiantly in the lake; as if bathed in a red-hot glow, stood the ice-armour of the snowy peaks which guard the Alpine passes, which here lead down to the lake of Geneva, yonder to that of the four Cantons. Picturesquely the fiery red of the sinking sun contrasted with the glorious green of the Lago.
"How often people have blamed thebaroquetaste, the greenroccocoof this Isola Bella! And yet, why should one not place a jewel in a brilliant artistic setting? This Isola Bella is the most beautiful belvidere on the lake; why should that belvidere not be splendidly decorated? The art which is lavished upon that small spot of earth does not detract from that vast nature which encloses it with her gigantic Alps! And then there is something soothing in these hiding places amongst the trees, these shell-grottoes--they invite one to quiet talk, to silent happiness; and how full is the heart, when the magic of this glorious nature, these evening lights, those perfumes flowing from a hundred flower calex--the whole of that fervidly-breathing life has inspired us!
"As I stood upon the terrace, lost in dreams, two ladies appeared, accompanied by a servant in livery, who remained standing close beneath the unicorn, the arms of the Boromei; they were both tall slender figures of distinguished appearance. I bowed politely and addressed them; one was able to speak German, and the circumstance that we could thus converse without being understood by her companion, soon gave us the semblance of a certain intimacy; her whole manner was animated; she treated every subject of conversation with great vivacity, she expressed the most supreme admiration for the beauties of the scenery, in doing which, however, she preferred to employ Italian exclamations and expressions, and Tasso's language sounded so mellow, so mellifluous from her lips that I listened with silent satisfaction to that melody as if to an artistic treat.
"I looked more closely at her; she was a beautiful woman. The nobility of her features was in harmony with that magnificent form; the sculptors' and painters' ideals in the Academy and Pitti Palace of the city of flowers seemed to have gained life in her. Everything within me cried: that is beauty, such as is fitting for this enchanted garden; thus must the queen of these isles, these waves have been! And it appeared to me as if the evening's crimson, which flowed down the tall figure, and then glided into the waves, was a glorifying effulgence shed forth from her. She dazzled and enchained me; I also soon remarked that her words, looks, countenance, told of the perfect sympathy with which I inspired her.
"The other lady was distant and reserved; her demeanour was that of a proud princess. As she took her departure, she dismissed me as it were with a slight bow; but in her companion's eyes I read something like the hope of meeting again.
"I would not disappoint this hope, and daily, at sunset, found myself on the terrace of Isola Bella. Two evenings I waited in vain; but how great was my joyful surprise when, on the third evening, I met her, and, indeed, quite alone. I welcomed her with a heartfelt and warmly returned pressure of the hand.
"'My friend has left,' said she, soon after the first exchange of greetings; I learned that she now lived quite by herself in a villa at Stresa. Our conversation became lively, but it avoided everything personal. She knew Germany and German affairs, but her enthusiasm was all for beautiful Italy, where Art and Nature both disclose themselves in such enrapturing beauty. We spoke of poets, painters, theatres and music. The sun had disappeared behind the hills; only its reflection still hung upon the rosy-tinted western clouds, but to-day the scene on the terrace was peculiarly animated. Countless miladies, with red guide-books, and guttural-voiced milords succeeded one another; they cast a few cursory glances at the lake, convinced themselves that all the guaranteed items of its decorations stood on their proper places, as they are described in books--here, the Isola Madre and del Pescatore, there the Sasso Ferrato, here Stresa, yonder Pallanza--and finally took leave with an expression of perfect satisfaction. Then came a few noisy Frenchmen and women, who uttered their delight on finding a morsel of Versailles in this Italian water-basin, and then sought the laurel tree in which Napoleon had cut the word 'battaglia' before the battle of Marengo.
"It was a restless coming and going! As if in silent accord, we turned our steps towards the lonely shaded walks of the evergreen island, beneath the pines and cypresses, laurels and camellia trees. We did not talk much; often we walked silently side by side. The dusk of evening and of the green leaves seemed to hold us chained in some sweet spell. When we spoke, we spoke of that which was nearest to us, which stirred our feelings, of Nature's charms and the splendour of the manifold southern plants which were assembled there like a green court-dress for the old Palazzos; nor were the northern fir trees wanting, and I remarked that they reminded me of my home. Yet she asked no more about it. It was like a secret understanding between us not to disturb our mutualincognito, and thus even to envelop the circumstances of our lives in the same charm of twilight as that which hovered over the enchanted island.
"We descended the steps of the palazzo to the shore; an elegant gondola, with a gondolier in livery, was awaiting them.
"'May I invite you,' asked she, 'to accompany me in my bark as far as Stresa?'
"I accepted this invitation with pleasure.
"The moon had risen; the mountains' shadows floated in the silvery waves. The skiff drew a broad furrow in the molten silver that seemed to drip from the oars; the pines by the villas on the shore intercepted the moonlight with their broad fans. Like a sparkling plateau the glaciers of the Simplon Pass gleamed above a little cloud.
"How many magnificent villas shone beneath intensely dark, silvered green on the shores! Which was hers? I did not venture to ask, and she did not point to the spot on which she had taken up her abode.
"We stand under so many influences of culture, that not only our thoughts, but also our feelings, are regulated by it. That which great poets have described, bears for us the significance of personal experience; it is just as vivid in our imagination. Shakespeare's characters, which he received from Italian novels, stood before my fancy. Not a Julia was my companion, but she reminded me much of Portia; was not this the same moonlight glamour that hovered around the Belmont Villa? She possessed the figure and demeanour of a much-courted, aristocratic lady, the spirit and fervour of that enterprising rich heiress: where was her Villa Belmont? In her presence, I stood beneath the magic spell of Shakespearean poetry.
"At Stresa, I went on shore; her skiff was rowed still farther on. She vanished like a beautiful dream in the twilight of the moon's illumination that in the shrubs on the shore mingled with the shadowed mirror of the waters.
"For three evenings in succession I returned to the Isola Bella, and on each evening I found the mysterious beauty there. This adventure had gay shimmering butterfly's wings; I could not brush the coloured down from them. Naturally, liking and intimacy grew out of this constant intercourse; I hazarded bolder expression of the same. I praised her as my Armida, who held me within her spell; I praised the greater bliss that Rinaldo had enjoyed. She did not turn aside; she looked at me with her luminous eyes, as though she would read deeply in my soul. Then she sighed, plucked a camellia which bloomed beside us, and pulled it musingly to pieces.
"As we traversed the little fishing harbour of the island, in order to enter our gondola for the homeward journey, we perceived that a heavy storm was coming toward us from the Simplon, and with increasing rapidity was darkening the lake. Its billows surged uneasily, and the forks of lightning broke in the disturbed mirror of the waves. The return passage was impossible; where should we wait until the storm was over?
"'I know a comfortable place of refuge,' said she; 'here, the little fisherman's chapel. It is, as a rule, lifeless and deserted; the fishermen only pray there when they go out to fish. It is the Madonna of eels and salmon-trout who protects that sanctuary.'
"We entered the little church; all was still and pleasant there. Outside the tempest raged, and the thunder rolled with such might that the building rocked on its foundations.
"Italian churches are accustomed to be used as asylums of love. Protestant churches would be desecrated by every love which does not come before the altar; the Madonna's eye rests without anger upon the bliss of lovers exchanging vows.
"Indeed, it was only a delusion of my senses when I believed she cast an angry glance upon me, while I held my beautiful companion firmly, and pressed a fervid kiss upon her lips; it was only a sudden flash of lightning that quivered over the altar-picture.
"The glorious woman whom I encircled with my arms, was just as little wrath as the Madonna.
"And yet--is it not temerity of the man who only ventures to offer to the woman transient love? Has she not the right to a love that shall fill his whole life? May he without awe, without the fear of conscience, touch this holy thing?
"I was intoxicated by the moment; I did not think of the future. I accepted nothing, I declined nothing, but thegens d'armewho dwells in our bosom, to whom I had not listened for so long, asserted himself. I felt, in spite of all, in the presence of those fiery kisses, something of a subject's duty. I mentioned my name, position and place of habitation.
"But she laid her hand, as if imploringly, upon my lips--
"'Not these confessions, which I shall not, cannot return; shall we, then, frighten away the present beautiful dream? The witchery of happiness lies in mystery. You must never learn my name! Give me your word never to try to discover it.'
"I promised; but demanded urgently that her whole heart should be mine. She looked wondrously beautiful in the darkened chapel, when a ray of lightning, illumining her fine features, seemed to trace her figure in dazzling outlines in the twilight.
"'I only remain here three more days; then I disappear for ever--'from you also.'
"'Three days--well, but three days of perfect happiness may atone for everlasting separation. Three days--but they must be three days that can never be forgotten. Let us not think of the cold duty that constrains us to part, let us but remember that three days are still before us--yet I do not even know your name!'
"'Call me Giulia; it is one of the names that I bear.'
"In crash upon crash the storm discharged itself above us; more tempestuous became my vows. She bent towards me, whispering--
"'Men think but lightly of a heart that is quickly won, and are ever ready to repay fond love with forgetfulness and contempt.'
"I protested that that would never be the case with me.
"'And I asseverate that my heart never yet was weak enough to cherish a love which could have no hope of being a part of my life. I have struggled against love in sleepless nights, but it seemed to me as if the genius of my life rose up erectly and distinctly before me, and said--'If into your poor ruined life a sunny ray of happiness should fall, oh, then, open all your windows to it! And if it be only a short gleam of light that soon passes away, yet it will remain in your soul, full of consolation for the gloom into which the coming night plunges you. If misfortune be solemnly decreed to you by heaven and earth, if it hold you in an indissoluble spell, oh, then have courage to grasp happiness yourself; grasp that which heaven and earth would deny you. But intense love is bliss, bliss unutterable; its intensity is not measured by its lastingness--the moment is its watchword. In your arms, from your kisses I have felt what, until now, life could never give me; what only as the dream of the supreme was quickened in my soul. To every human being is granted one supreme moment--once birth and death--once the bliss of perfect love!"
"'My Giulia!' cried I, deeply stirred by her fervour.
"'Never, never can I be yours!' cried she, 'but we will meet again to say farewell! I live in the Princess Dolgia's villa! This evening come to the pavilion; here is the garden key. No one will see you; at that hour all is deserted, the Princess herself is from home; only few servants are left at the villa.'
"I kissed her lips and hands in wild devotion.
"The tempest, meanwhile, had receded farther down the lake; the moon stood amid the broken clouds, which raced in wild career around the summits of the Alps. Our bark glided softly over the now bright, now dark waves. This time Giulia showed me her villa. It was a splendid building, buried amongst flowers; it shone brightly in the moonlight.
"'There, on the left, is the pavilion,' said Giulia, as she designated a Turkish kiosque. Laurels and myrtles surrounded it; a red fir, also, from the far north, lent its shade.
"As we stepped on land, a man came out of the bushes on the shore, close to Giulia. I could not recognise his features; they were half enveloped in a kerchief.
"Annoyed at this obtrusion, I was about to send him away, but she restrained my interference with a slight movement of the hand. He spoke vehemently to her in Italian, but, in an to me, incomprehensible dialect. His gestures were somewhat menacing, so that I held myself in readiness to come to the assistance of my beloved one; but he withdrew quietly, apparently satisfied with Giulia's replies.
"She looked pale as she held out her hand, bidding me farewell for a short time.
"All my spirits were in a state of ebullition. I ascended the heights behind Stresa. I was impelled along a pathless course through vineyards and chestnut groves; the sky was again overcast. Gloomily lay the surface of the lake, but it was as though, beneath the covering of clouds, a hotter breath brooded over the earth.
"I inhaled deep draughts of the burning air of that voluptuous nature--my pulses were at fever height.
"At the same time I was possessed with a sick dread of losing the key, and every moment I felt if it were still in my pocket.
"The evening hour struck from the church tower of the little town on the shore. For half-an-hour already I had been wandering round the villa, in which no lights were shining.
"The marble balustrades and pillars gazed gloomily into the cloudy night, but the air was perfumed with a hundred invisible flowers.
"Then something like a will-o'-the-wisp quivered in the pavilion! a little lamp illuminated the branches of the red fir-tree which kept guard before it. I opened the garden door and entered the leafy walks.
"She was waiting for me at the entrance of the dainty little round building. Mats covered the floor; ottomans with soft cushions were spread round the walls, which higher up were wreathed with garlands of flowers.
"The air wafted an exquisite perfume inside and through the open window.
"She appeared more beautiful to me than ever; she was a night-flower, created for night and moonlight. Her complexion was of thatmorbidezzaof the Venetian women, which lends them such a melancholy charm; and by day, too, she wore her hair in the artistic manner of the Venetians, plaited at the side, behind a daintily-coiled head-dress. But now it flowed in dark abundance over the yellow shimmering moiré dress. She received me sadly: was not the coming parting hovering over our bliss of the present moment as restless foreboding hovers over every happiness?
"I have often read in books written by those who are learned in art, that all beauty is a self-sufficing copy of the eternal idea, whose enjoyment alone can grant harmonious contentment, that its reign ceases when the will's emotion desecrates its impalpable glory.
"It is heresy to think otherwise about it, and yet I do think otherwise. Even that people of god-like beauty, the Hellenes, thought otherwise, else they would never have invented the legend of Pygmalion: that is the solution of the enigma--beauty which does not only satisfy the ideal senses, which overpowers the whole man, so that without volition he is seized by its magic power.
"Amongst the Lemures of the East Prussian exorcists, woman, in her magical power, had first crossed my path; and that spirit of adoration which so long had held me in its bondage, was vanquished for evermore.
"Here, beneath Italy's laurels and myrtles, I was Pygmalion; but it was no cold marble that I folded in my arms. Was I ever a poet, I was one then; hymns of rapture flowed through my soul.
"For three evenings I was permitted to visit her; on the third the full moon stood above the red fir tree. The cracking of its branches in the night wind reminded me of my distant home.
"We wandered silently in the garden, forgetful of time--of everything--but that the oppression of the parting hour weighed upon us. She must go; she repeated it; I did not ask her why--I asked nothing. I still stood beneath the whole magic of her presence. Morning dawned at last, and released the dark masses of the groups of trees from the darkness with which they had been blended.
"It was a morning full of mournful sadness; tears hung on Giulia's long eye-lashes.
"'Let your thoughts return to these days, these happy days, as to a fairy-tale--for me they were more, far more! They have quite effaced all the rest of my life; and yet I must return to joyless gloom. I must--and, therefore--farewell!'
"One more burning kiss, one last embrace; I felt her tears upon my cheeks; her locks flowed over me like a tide of endless pain--we parted!
"After the little garden door was shut, something rustled near me amongst the shrubs, beneath the chestnuts; as I went farther on, I perceived a figure creeping behind me, which reminded me of that singular stranger who had already once played the spy upon us on the shore; however, I did not trouble myself about him, but went to my hotel, without again looking behind me.
"I kept my promise faithfully not to enquire about this queen of the night who had bloomed for me in such enrapturing splendour on the banks of that magic lake; held to it so faithfully that for a long time I avoided asking myself who that mysterious beauty could be?
"There is a heart's shrine for relics which one may not touch without destroying the charm that clings to those sacred recollections--the lotos-flower, which is the cradle of a god no hand may touch.
"Never to be forgotten are the days and nights on the shores of that beautiful lake. I have seen lakes in the highlands of Mongolia, amongst the mountain-giants of Thibet; but all these pictures were effaced beside the burning outlines in which the Lago Maggiore printed itself upon my soul.
"All the same in later times I often surprised myself in reprehensible curiosity; who was this Lady of the Lake? Her highly-bred manner told that she was a lady of distinction--an equal of her friend, that princess, in whose society I had first seen her. But the fetter that bound her? Was it the bond of matrimony, for which, however, in Italy, in the most aristocratic circles, thecicisbeatoffers a compensation, rendered sacred by custom!
"I thought of the Countess Guiccioli, Byron's beautiful beloved--she did not conceal her happiness from her husband--and tie used to drive his favoured rival out in Ravenna, in his carriage and six--yes, the former rented quarters in the Count's castle.
"The secret that my Giulia preserved so fearfully must be of another kind. Perhaps she was being persecuted--politically persecuted; there are highly-born women enough in Italy, who stand upon the list of the proscribed; and if she never spoke of politics it was, perhaps, in order to avert all such thoughts from me. In this way, too, it would be easiest to explain the appearance of that obnoxious stranger, who surely was a subordinate agent of her political party.
"Certainly, I always asked myself again and again, whether love which withholds every confession excepting that of its own existence, which veils everything excepting its own intensity, is not an error? Love requires the whole man to be pledged, and may not appear with a mask, such as the Parisian ladies of simplicity carry before their faces. Otherwise it is but an adventure, and as an entrancing adventure I preserve that meeting in my memory; but I am weary of adventures, they have seduced me long enough, rendered my life disturbed and unsteady; precipitated my soul from one intoxication into another, but at last, after all, only left internal desolation behind.
"And now this mysterious Giulia appears suddenly here, in my castle. Has she given up her secret--does a duty no longer bind her to maintain it? Has a turning-point in the circumstances of her life been attained? What brings her hither?--only love for me? My name, my place of abode, she knew--she has noted it better than I believed, as she seemed too indifferent to listen to it; but what does she seek here--what can she bring me but disappointment? The glamour of the magic-lantern is burned down; here are no evergreen islands, no myrtles and laurels--and a Venus Aphrodite would shiver with cold, if she had to rise out of these chilly waters.
"To all these questions, which shall no longer disquiet me, I have the answer ready--my betrothal to Eva Kalzow--and this I will hasten, in order to oppose a decided fact as a defence against the adventure which seeks me here. I have broken with my past, and I will not that what is past should interfere any longer with my present life."
Blanden had finished his recital; Doctor Kuhl, who had listened attentively, let the cigar in his hand die slowly out, as, after a rather long silence, he began to hum a popular air.
"And you say absolutely nothing?" Blanden enquired of his friend.
"I think," replied Kuhl, "aprincipessaalways remains aprincipessa--a Venus a Venus--in the North as in the South; I should have her turned out at the first opportunity, by your friend the Landrath, if she let herself be seen again in this district. She is a sort of beautiful pagan goddess--a sort of Bride of Corinth--and these ghosts are dangerous, especially for brides who are not so very distant, and whom the clergyman shall bless. But it has become late! One more dip in the sea, and then I will dream of your marble bride!"
The Ordensburg Kulmitten had donned a festive garb; its portal was garlanded with flowers, the servants appeared in livery, and the Jäger's plume of feathers especially attracted the hall-boys' and dairy-maids' attention when he showed himself in the doorway.
Towards noon the carriages containing the guests arrived. Wegen was the first; he had decorated himself with the cross of the Order of St. John, which also adorned Blanden's breast.
Wegen immediately rushed about like a whirlwind over the whole house! even the cook in the kitchen had to doff his white cap to him. There he was a person to be respected; he knew many secrets of the culinary art, and conversed with the cook like one who understood the dishes whose names stood upon themenus, and also those which ought to have stood there. Then he went with Olkewicz into the wine-cellar, and had bottles with the most divers labels upon them marshalled upstairs, like regiments before a battle.
"This is no ordinary dinner, good Olkewicz," said he, while deciding upon the order of battle. "To-day we aim at gaining votes, and for that purpose these here are our best coadjutors. Here sherry and Madeira, which put people into a good humour, so that they become most susceptible of farther enjoyments; there good claret--people thaw, conversation begins, the political arena is opened; opposite opinions greet one another politely, like combatants with their rapiers. There delicious Rhenish wine, Metternich'scher Johannisberger, flowers of the reaction; things become more lively already; the debate grows animated, sympathies find one another out, those of the same opinions shake hands together, opponents exchange fiery glances, and fight hand-to-hand. Political pulses beat high. Then comes Widow Cliquot, and, by magic, sheds a rosy light all around her; a conciliatory spirit prevails; people only feel that they are patriots, citizens of the Prussian Fatherland; even enemies now shake hands.
"That is the moment; when the reserve champagne bottles are uncorked, then must Blanden, too, overflow, with a right delicious, foaming, sparkling speech; then all goes merrily; enthusiastic consent; chairs are pushed aside; the election is ensured, and a few glasses of Tokay guard against any weak termination of the meeting. Well, then, here stand our auxiliaries--a gay army, with all possible caps--and in any case very numerous; that is the principal thing!
"On that point I agree with Napoleon--victories only are gained by numerical preponderance."
When Wegen returned to the reception room from the kitchen and cellar, he found that as yet Herman, of Gutsköhnen, and Sengen, of Lärchen, were the only guests present. They were the squires of small manors, to whom a frock-coat was an uncomfortable acquisition; they wore blue habiliments with steel buttons, and looked in amazement at their reflections in the great pier glasses of the Kulmitten drawing rooms. They were adherents of Blanden, whose hand they shook heartily; was the latter not a cavalier, not merely in political, but also in social respects? Doctor Kuhl felt himself especially drawn to them; their Herculean figures attracted him, as did the deficiency of a frock coat, for his own in which he had passed his doctor's examination had long since been hung in the lumber closet; in politics, also, he loved the representatives of the ancient cantons, the powerful men of the people, and commenced a conversation with them which, beginning with the yoking of oxen, ended with the democracy of the future.
"We must first elect worthy representatives like Blanden," said he, for he considered that he owed this acknowledgment to his friend, "but that is only the beginning. Our aim is a constitution, in which every member of the State can record his own vote upon every question. Can any one be actually represented? As little in politics as in love. Such a deputy seems to me like a harlequin, who is patched up out of so many voting papers; if he chatters about freely with a speaking trumpet, he is applauded and admired; yet he still merely represents his own views and his own convictions; there are many questions springing up afresh, upon which I myself may take a different view. What use is it to me? When I have once given my vote, from a political point of view, I am a squeezed out lemon, a cypher. Every man should give his own vote for his own opinion on every question; so must it be. The whole 'representation' rests upon an illusion that means, an X is made for an U. But we want no more illusions; and then the Parliamentary stable forage is more expensive than pasturage upon the democratic parish common. Well, in the first place, we must elect, so let us choose people of intellect, heart, and independence!"
Hermann with his Bardolph nose, that constant light-house in his face, expressed his entire concurrence with the Doctor by a powerful shake of the hand, while Sengen, a very thoughtful man, who made a short pause between every word, and between every thought a pause of several bars, expressed his doubts still as to whether his tenants would be capable of entertaining any opinion whatever about the welfare of the state.
In the meanwhile the Landrath had appeared a kindly old gentleman, a friend of Schönd and Auerswaldd, an enlightened, tolerant man, as far as the burning question was concerned, a supporter of the National Assembly, and much prepossessed in Blanden's favour, whose spirit he admired; he was the latter's most important ally. It is true he was not greatly beloved in the district; many landowners were displeased at the mildness of his rule, and also that at the Landrath's office, the superior court of corporal punishment, a mode of discipline used to bring up an improved race, was exercised in so inefficient a manner. With him came Baron von Fuchs, a perfect gentleman, who reminded one of theroccocodays, and distinguished himself by being utterly free from all prejudices. But he could not act with the same freedom, as he owned a wife of principles, a categorical imperative mood in petticoats.
Oberamtmann Werner of Schlohitten, entered the room noisily: he had first driven up to the sheepfold.
"You must sell me the new ram, Herr von Blanden; no refusal! I want it!"
"I do not sell my rams," replied Blanden.
"I will pay well, think it over! Besides, all respect for your sheepfold, my compliments to it! Not quite Schlohitten, upon my honour! The last touch so to say is wanting, the finer shades; but if I did not sit amidst the Schlohitten wool, I should gladly do so amidst that of Kulmitten!"
The reception room filled more and more, several elderly gentlemen with the iron cross upon their breasts appeared, at last also Herr Milbe, of Kuhlwangen, who again had not been in Kuhlwangen, but whom the note of invitation had found at the house of some intimate friend, where he had been engaged in a three days' game ofombre.
The uncomfortable mood which oppresses people's spirits before large dinners, as well as the craving of the inner man, by which the mind also is forced into an unwonted state of expectation, at first prevented all animated conversation, although the powerful organs of one or two agriculturists were thus able to assert themselves.
Dinner was served in the hall; the windows with their stained glass pictures did not allow the dazzling sunshine to penetrate, but shed a soft twilight, which so greatly enhances the enjoyments of a feast; the splendid table appointments, the bouquets of flowers in elegant vases, the tasteful arrangement of the table in the hall, which the slender pillar supported, and whose vaulted arch seemed to form the rays of a sun of stone, dispensed a sensation of comfort which unconsciously communicated itself to the guests. The stone flags of the floor, too, awoke historical recollections, for the spurs of the brave knights of the Order once upon a time clattered over these stones.
The dinner took its course almost in accordance with the programme, which that cunning Wegen had drawn up in the wine cellar; gradually minds and spirits became more lively, the gentlemen with the iron cross told of Leipzig and Waterloo, the Oberamtmann of Schlohitten of his ewes, Baron von Fuchs of a few adventures of the East Prussianhaute volée. The old Landrath led the general conversation to the absorbing topic; he spoke of Schön and Stein with that warmth which for all ages has distinguished the staunch friends of their Fatherland in East Prussia; he was only interrupted by Herr Milbe's noisy explanations, who sought to prove to his neighbour, that yesterday he must positively have won agrandatombreif he had playedspadilleat once and called forbasta.
"Our King," said the Landrath, "is an intellectual gentleman; he is even enthusiastic about the English state of affairs, about the land of inherited wisdom, and would be very comfortable with the Parliamentary system, because he himself is a man of great eloquence and knows how to value the results of clever speeches; but his unhappy affection for a romantic view of the State's system, in which he is strengthened by pietistic advisers, prevents him fulfilling former promises about the National Assembly; he fears to destroy the nimbus of the crown, and to endanger a divine right, which is confided to his faithful keeping."
"We are no backwoodsmen here," cried Milbe, "they shall learn that in Germany; here in East Prussia there are men who know what they want. The National Assembly is thespadillewith which we will win the game."
"Our King has sense," interposed Baron von Fuchs, "he has ideas which Voltaire might envy him, although no greater contrast can be conceived than that which exists between the French scoffer's views of life and those of our King, so devoted to religious romance; but spell-bound as he is by a philosophy and poetry, which represent the charm of the moonlight-enchanted nights of the middle ages, as suitable ideas for the enlightened days of the present time, yet he has a perfect appreciation of new ideas, and his decisions can be so little counted upon, that I should not be amazed if he suddenly placed himself at the head of the political movement, and bore the banner in his own hand before us all."
"Until then," said Hermann, for whose political fervour his nose, already in a state of red-heat, was the best gauge, "we will trust to our own strength."
And, at the same time, he struck the table until the glass of Johannisberger before him fell over.
Doctor Kuhl cried enthusiastically--
"That is right! This trial of our own strength pleases me! Thus may all perish that comes from Metternich!"
"Only do not pour away the child with the bath," cried Baron Fuchs. "Johannisberger is a delicious wine, even although the dove of Patmos does not fly around Johannisberg, and his revelations have always become fatal to the German people--pale messengers of death, like the riders in the Apocalypse!"
"If we talk of biblical wines," cried Kuhl, "then I prefer the 'Lachrimæ Christi.' It grows on fire-belching Vesuvius, and the future of nations only flourishes upon the volcanic ground of revolution."
"Heaven preserve us from revolutions!" cried the Landrath.
"As regards Johannisberger," said Fuchs, as he drank off his glass with gusto, "we will grant ample acknowledgment to our host's exquisite wine. But Prince Metternich may remind us of Goethe's verse--
'Ein echter deutscher Mann mag keinen Franzmann leidenDoch seine Weine trinkt er gern!'"
'Ein echter deutscher Mann mag keinen Franzmann leidenDoch seine Weine trinkt er gern!'"
"Drink, gentlemen, drink!" Wegen continually repeated his invitation, as he hastened from chair to chair. "Best of Barons, of what use are your beautiful speeches--your glass is empty! Herr Milbe of Kuhlwangen,tournez,tournez, Johannisberger is trump! Dear Doctor Kuhl do not think of 'Lachrimæ Christi' and the people's tears; taste this glorious flower of the reaction!"
Wegen did not need to urge Oberamtmann Werner, he had already done good work, and his neighbour, Sengen, listened, with sleepy resignation to the hymns in praise of sheep-breeding, which the best wool-producer in East Prussia sang in a voice becoming more and more maudlin.
"Two things we must have here--a National Assembly and better wool. A National Diet and wool market--those are the two vital arteries in political as in agricultural life. There is no truly free people without wool! The fine kinds, that is the principal matter. In what are we in advance of the Australians? We have no kangaroos, but we have no superfine sheep either. And in Silesia; do you see, Silesia is bestirring itself also; the States are bestirring themselves; there is intelligence in the province. The Breslau wool market proves that. I am a good patriot, yes I am," continued he, in a voice stifled with tears, "but if a man will be useful to his Fatherland, it does not merely depend upon how he votes, it does not merely depend upon the speeches that are made, it also depends upon the wool that is shorn. You understand me, Sengen, oh, we understand one another, brotherly heart!"
Sengen could only make his assent known by an animated shake of the head; for he, too, was so moved that his halting speech had become one great pause.
"The National Assembly would have a much better chance," said Hermann, in a loud, ringing voice, "if the Königsberg Jews did not also desire to have them."
"But, dear Hermann," said Kuhl, appeasingly, "the Promised Land they will never obtain, so that surely they must desire something else for themselves."
By the time that the champagne arrived, the general state of mind had attained that height which is usually succeeded by social chaos. It was, indeed, time for Blanden, who, until now, had taken little part in the conversation, to come forward with the political purpose that he associated with this dinner.
He rose, and immediately silence ensued--a compliment not only considered his due as host, but also on account of his personal position.
"While offering a welcome to all my guests," he began, "at the same time I take this opportunity to convey to you a wish which fills me at this present moment. In a short time, the election for the vacancy, which it has become necessary to fill up in our Provincial Diet, will take place, and I now introduce myself as a candidate to you, my guests, the most respected representatives of the district."
"Bravo! bravo!" cried the Landrath, and several gentlemen applauded also, while others, as Wegen remarked, became uneasy, and crumpled their dinner napkins under the table.
"Candid speech must be permitted; I will beg for no vote that is not given to me from free conviction; yet I know that I stand upon the same ground as all my guests. A new political epoch has dawned for Prussia; our Provincial Diets can no longer have any other aim than that of giving place to one general Prussian Diet, and this will one day be dismissed for a free constitution. Prussia must become a Constitutional State, like the advanced ones of the West; that is its vocation. It languishes beneath the contradictory fact that its internal arrangements, its organisations of defence, the regulations of its towns and districts are animated by a Liberal spirit, while the building lacks the necessary consummation. That which Stein, Schön, and Scharnhorst have begun tends to this consummation; it was the signal for supreme promises, and yet the coronation of the building has been left unfinished to the present day. The Bureaucratic Guard-room is to compensate to us for the Chamber of Parliament. The Prussian State is atorso; the educated circles of the people have become aware of it. Like a fresh breath, full of a future, it percolates through the whole nation; who could shut himself up from this vivifying breath? To become security for these recognised rights with power and determination, is the task which I have set to myself, and which I would further in the place where that word has gained a significant power for the State. Through the Provincial Diet to the National Diet is my watchword. Continued furtherance of Stein's and Scharnhorst's arrangements in the advanced spirit of the time! Then Prussia, which, until now, was only a doubtful Great Power, will occupy a position befitting it, and cast its old sword of Brennus, the sword of Frederick the Great, of Blücher and Gneisenau once more into the scale of European destinies. Released from the political followers opposed to the Austrian Chancellor of the State, it will again become the kingdom of Frederick the Great, that rests upon its own strength."
"We are all unanimous thereupon," cried Werner von Schlohitten, and a general jubilant applause proved this unanimity.
"Her von Blanden, he is our man," rang Hermann's deep bass.
"But you will permit us one question?" cried Milbe. "Questions are permitted not only inombre, and candidates for election may be examined."
"That is my great desire," replied Blanden.
"You are in favour of a National Assembly," continued Milbe; "that is good! A National Assembly isspadille, but there is still abasta, a second trump which we wish to play out in East Prussia. Thunder and lightning! we here are in favour of healthy human understanding, and there in Berlin they want to pull the night-cap over our ears again. We believe in our good Lord, but we are told to believe in all possible miracles. Thus we should come to a nice state ofcodillewith our politics. False piety has become the fashion; our foals are already ordered to graze in these melancholy meadows.Sapperment--we need men who do not love to grope about in such darkness; men like old Dinter, who went about in schools shedding the light of enlightenment. If all the world sits like a dummy, the game ofombrewould cease. But we in Prussia still have the best games in our hand, and will not, for a longtime yet, write the world's history in a kettle; we will not be nor remain dark men."
"That we will not, that we will not!" cried all, unanimously.
"Truly not," added Blanden, with sharp emphasis.
"Well, then, Herr von Blanden," said Milbe, with great intrepidity, and the same demeanour with which he announced a dangerous game atombre, "that is just the point. That is the evil of it!"
Baron von Fuchs pulled Milbe's coat-tail, the Landrath raised his fore-finger warningly, Wegen signed to him to stop, as he was accustomed to sign to the sentinels to cease when the latter saluted him in his lieutenant's uniform. But Milbe would not allow himself to be over-ruled.
"They say of you, Herr von Blanden, that you belong to the pious people, and, indeed, to that pious people who conducted themselves strangely in Königsberg. Thunder and lightning! it was out of the frying-pan into the fire. For anything I care, each may worship what he likes, and there have been plenty of strange saints in the world. If one man in his private chapel worships a stark-naked goddess of simply foaming meerschaum, I have nothing against it! but I should fight against it tooth and nail if such like were to become universal. I will not give my vote to the man who defends it, because he is not to my taste in religion, and similarity of taste, after all, is the principal thing, even in sacred matters."
Death-like stillness reigned around the table. Milbe's probe had touched the most vulnerable spot.
"In smoky Albertina, on the Pregel, we had a clever man, named Kant. I have read nothing of his, but I know he loved pure reason--and that, too, is my feeling; with pure want of reason I will have nothing to do. And that nourished in Königsberg," added Milbe, as he struck the table with his hand, "and it is infectious as small-pox, and our deputies shall issue an order for quarantine against it. I demand that, as truly as I am Milbe, of Kuhlwangen, and seldom in Kuhlwangen."
"It is ten years," replied Blanden, in a firm, calm voice, "since I went astray amidst those sects whose conduct I myself must now repudiate. The charm of something strange and uncommon prompted me; I was an enthusiast. Yet even in those days already I found a shoal where I had sought a haven. That lies far behind me; I have set oceans and hemispheres between myself and my past. Man errs so long as he strives. But in me every trace of enthusiasm is extinguished; my thoughts are no longer fixed upon what is mystery, will no longer seek that boundary line where the ocean, with its dark abyss, touches the sky with its bright planets. Least of all do I lean to that piety which is favoured for State reasons, and that infects the fresh life of the present with the sickly shadow of a romance long since buried. T reject the barriers of faith and conscience that are painted in the colours of the State. That which we then sought erringly was at least our own free action, an outflow of inward light; we put our whole soul into the sect of the Free Elect. It was a community of men of the same mind who were even looked askant upon by the Government. But as I am now, I stand firmly and entirely upon the ground of a Free-thinker; no sentimental extravagance has any more power over me. What Kant and his successors struggled for has become the atmosphere of my mental life, and I am ready for the most resolute defiance, like you all, if a relapse into misty credulity or fettered Government hypocrisy would destroy that which the labour of great thinkers has built up in more than half a century."
"Hem, there is something in that," said Milbe, with vigorous eulogy.
"Long live reason," cried Wegen, and the glasses were clinked merrily. Oberamtmann Werner, too, shook Blanden heartily by the hand, as he was already in a much affected mood.
"Yes, yes, these false saints are the wolves in sheep's clothing, as it says in the Bible. A good breeder of sheep must entertain especial horror of them. And I have it, I have it! Yes, brotherly heart, if you abjure it, that lamb-like pious sanctity of former days, that kissing, love-making and hypocrisy of the pious people--sweet as sugar, from the upper Haberberge--then you may still be worth something. You can represent the province capitally. You have my vote because your sheep are in good condition, and an agriculturist's intelligence is known by the fleece of his sheep. Clink glasses, brotherly heart! Only no future pious giddiness!"
The dinner company had already broken up into noisy groups. Once more the Landrath became spokesman, and by the esteem in which he was held, had been able to obtain silent hearers--
"Herr von Blanden has expressed all our sentiments; as worthy deputy from our province, he will fix his mind upon the whole. Our politics are patch-work until a general constitution forms a piece of mosaic into one organisation, and without Frederick the Great's free, tolerant spirit, our Prussia, under the hands of thevirorum obscurorum, will never, never raise itself to a brilliant position. Let us return thanks to our host for having expressed an opinion which we all share, and let us empty our glasses to his health!"
The guests' favourable sentiments found this to be the most suitable mode of expression, and at the same time the election dinner came to a termination. Now good humour began to display itself undisturbedly. Some danced upon the stone flags of the old hall of the Order, while the evening sun was already flooding the dark stained glass windows with glowing fire. Baron von Fuchs stood in one corner of the room, and had assembled an extensive circle of listeners around him; for he poured out a largecornucopiæof most interesting anecdotes which related to the nobility of the neighbouring district. There were seductions and abductions, tales of prodigality, legacy-hunting, insanity, and idiotcy; and the Baron understood how to relate all so fluently and adroitly, that the gentlemen listened with great enjoyment, as though these sad human traits existed for their amusement only. Milbe tried in vain to get a party forombretogether; even the Oberamtmann could not be roused. He already lay in a state of semi-somnolence in a cushioned chair, with blissfully transfigured features, and dreamed of golden fleeces. Doctor Kuhl, on the other hand, delighted the peasant squires with his athletic performances, by balancing the heaviest chairs upon his finger tips. Coffee was then drunk in the park, which was illuminated with lights and gay-coloured lanterns; Olkewicz had arranged everything in the best possible manner. Anyone going to the pond could see Kuhl tread water.
It was late in the evening when the guests called for their carriages.
"The feast has fulfilled my greatest expectations," said Wegen to Blanden, when the last had departed.
"And yet," replied the latter, "it lies like a nightmare upon my mind. I must for ever gaze into the hated magic mirror which every one holds before me, in order to see my distorted reflection. And if they all seem, in brightest mood, to forget that which in their hearts they cherish against me, and which obstructs the path of my desires, only some chance is needed which would awaken the past more vividly, and they would all stand against me once more. Just as it is impossible to commence life again from the beginning, so is it also impossible entirely to shake off one's past. Herculean power is wanted to cast this burden from one; I often despair of it. Well, I shall, it is to be hoped, be more successful in love than in politics. I shall hasten to bring my beloved one home."
Despite Wegen's supremely cheerful state of mind and freedom from care, Blanden could not overcome his melancholy mood on that evening. Until long after midnight, he sat on the balcony above the lake, and gazed out over the monotonous surface, and the enigma of human life rested heavily upon his soul.