Henry of Ofterdingen: A Romance Part 5

"In the vale I gladly linger, Smiling in the dusky night, For to me with rosy finger Proffers Love his cup of light.

"With its dew my spirit sunken Wafted is toward the skies, And I stand in this life drunken At the gate of paradise.

"Lulled in blessed contemplation, Vexes me no petty smart; O, the queen of all creation Gives to me her faithful heart.

"Many years of tearful sorrows Glorified this common clay,-- Thence a graven form it borrows, Life securing it for aye.

"Here the lapse of days evanished But a moment seems to me; Backward would I turn, if banished, Gazing hither gratefully."

All were most agreeably surprised and eagerly wished to discover the singer.

After some search, they found in an angle of the right wall a deep sunken path, to which the footsteps seemed to lead them. Soon they thought they perceived a light, which became clearer as they approached. A new vault of greater extent than those they had yet pa.s.sed opened before them, in the further extremity of which they saw a human form sitting by a lamp, with a great book before him upon a slab, in which he appeared to be reading.

The figure turned towards them, arose, and came forward. He was a man whose age it were impossible to guess. He seemed neither old nor young, and no traces of time were discoverable, except in his smooth silvery hair, which was parted on his forehead. An indescribable air of serenity dwelt in his eyes, as if he were looking down from a clear mountain into an infinite spring.

He had sandals upon his feet, and wore no other dress except a large mantle cast around him, which added dignity to his n.o.ble form. He expressed no surprise at their unexpected arrival, and greeted them as old acquaintances and expected guests.

"It is pleasant indeed," said he, "that you have sought me. You are the first friends I have ever seen, though I have dwelt here a long season.

It seems that men are beginning to examine our s.p.a.cious and wonderful mansion a little more closely."

The old man answered, "We did not expect to find here so friendly a host. We had been told of wild beasts and spectres, but we now find ourselves most agreeably deceived. If we have disturbed your devotions or deep meditations, pardon it to our curiosity."

"Can any sight be more delightful," said the unknown, "than the joyous and speaking countenance of man? Think not that I am a misanthrope, because you find me in this solitude. I have not shunned the world, but have only sought a retirement, where I could apply myself to my meditations undisturbed."

"Have you never grieved for your own desolation, and do not hours sometimes come, when you are fearful, and long to hear a human voice?"

"Now, no more. There was a time in my youth, when a highly wrought imagination induced me to become a hermit. Dark forebodings busied my youthful fancy. I thought to find in solitude full nourishment for my heart. The fountain of my inner life seemed inexhaustible. But I soon learned that fulness of experience must be added to it, that a young heart cannot dwell alone; nay, that man, by manifold intercourse with his race, reaches a certain self-subsisting independence."

"I myself believe," said the old man, "that there is a certain natural impulse to every mode of life; and that perhaps the experiences of increasing age lead of themselves to a withdrawal from human society.

It then seems as if society were devoted to activity as much for gain as for maintenance. It is powerfully impelled by a great hope, by a common object, and children and the aged seem not at home. Helplessness and ignorance exclude the first from it, while the latter, with every hope fulfilled, every object attained, and new hopes and objects no longer woven into their circle, turn back into themselves, and find enough employment in preparing for a higher existence. But more peculiar causes seem to have separated you entirely from men, and influenced you to resign all the comforts of society. Methinks that the tension of your mind must often relax, and give place to the most disagreeable emotions."

"I have indeed felt that; but have learned to avoid it by a strict regularity in my mode of living. For this purpose I endeavor by exercise to preserve my health, and then there is no danger. Every day I walk for several hours and enjoy the light and air as much as possible; or I remain in these halls, and busy myself at certain times with basket-braiding and carving. I exchange my ware at distant places for provisions; I have brought many books with me, and thus time pa.s.ses like a moment. In these places I have acquaintances who know where I live, and from whom I learn what is going on in the world. These will bury me when I die, and take away my books."

He led them nearer his seat, which was against the wall of the cave.

They noticed several books and a guitar lying upon the ground, and upon the wall hung a complete suit of armor apparently quite costly. The table consisted of five great stone slabs, put together in the form of a box. Upon the upper one were two sculptured male and female figures large as life, holding a garland of lilies and roses. Upon the side was inscribed,

"Frederick and Mary of Hohenzollern here returned to their native dust."

The hermit inquired of his guests concerning their fatherland, and how they had journeyed into these regions. He was kind and communicative, and displayed great knowledge of the world.

The old man said, "I see you have been a warrior; the armor betrays you."

"The dangers and vicissitudes of war, the deep, poetic spirit connected with an armed host, tore me from my youthful solitude and determined the destiny of my life. Perhaps the long tumult, the innumerable events among which I have dwelt, awakened in me a yet stronger inclination for solitude, where numberless recollections make pleasant companions; and this the more, in proportion as our view of them is varied; a view which now first discovers their true connexion, their significance, and their occult tendency. The peculiar sense for the study of man's history develops itself but tardily, and rather through the silent influence of memory than by the more forcible impressions of the present. The nearest events seem but loosely connected, yet they sympathize so much the more curiously with the remote. And it is only when one is able to comprehend in one view a lengthened series, neither interpreting too literally, nor confounding the proper method with capricious fancies, that he detects the secret chain which binds the past to the future, and learns to rear the fabric of history from hope and memory. Yet only he can succeed in discovering the simple laws of history, to whom the whole past is present. We arrive only at incomplete and c.u.mbrous formulas, and are well content to find for ourselves an available prescription, that may sufficiently expound the riddle of our own short lives. But I can truly say that each rigorous view of the events of life causes us deep and inexhaustible pleasure, and raises us, of all speculations, the highest above earthly evils.

Youth reads history only from curiosity, as it cons a story; to maturity it becomes a divinely consoling and edifying companion, preparing it gently by its wise discourses for a higher and more embracing sphere of action, and acquainting it through intelligible images with the unknown world. The church is the dwelling-house of history, the church-yard its symbolic flower-garden. History should only be written by old and pious men, whose own is drawing to its close, and who have nothing more to hope for, but transplantation to the garden. Their descriptions will be neither obscure nor dull; on the contrary a ray from the spire will exhibit everything in the most exact and beautiful light, and the Holy Spirit will hover above these rarely stirred waters."

"How true and obvious are your remarks," said the old man. "We ought certainly to spend more labor in faithfully recording the occurrences of our own times, and should leave our record as a devout bequest for posterity. There are a thousand remoter matters to which care and labor are devoted, while we trouble ourselves little with the nearer and weightier, the occurrences of our lives, and those of our relatives and generation, whose fleeting destiny we have comprehended in the idea of a Providence. We heedlessly suffer all traces of these to escape from our memories. Like consecrated relics, all facts of the past will be sought for by a wiser future, not indifferent to the biography of the most insignificant man, since in his life the lives of all his greater contemporaries will be more or less reflected."

"It is also much to be regretted," said the count of Hohenzollern, "that even the few, who have undertaken to report the deeds and events of their times, have not carried out their designs, nor striven to give order and completeness to their observations; but have proceeded almost wholly at random in the choice and collection of their facts. Any one may easily see that he only can describe plainly and perfectly, that which he knows exactly, whose origin and consequences, object and use, are present to his mind; for otherwise there will be no description, but a bewildering mixture of imperfect statements. Let a child describe an engine, or a farmer a ship, and no one can gain anything useful or instructive from their words; and so is it with most historians, who are perhaps able enough even to be wearisome in relating and collecting facts; but who forget what is most note-worthy, what first makes history historical, and connects so many varied events in an agreeable and instructive whole. If I understand all this rightly, it appears to me necessary that a historian should be also a poet; for poets alone know the art of skilfully combining events. In their tales and fables I have often noticed, with silent pleasure, a tender sympathy with the mysterious spirit of life. There is more truth in their romances than in learned chronicles. Though the heroes and their fates are inventions, yet the spirit in which they are composed is true and natural. In some degree it matters not whether those persons, in whose fates we trace our own, ever did or did not exist. We seek to contemplate the great and simple spirit of an age's phenomena; and if this wish be gratified, we are not c.u.mbered about the certainty of the existence of their external forms."[See Note II.]

"I have also been much attached to the poets on that account," said the old man. "Life and the world have become through them more clear and perceptible to me. It has appeared to me that they must be in alliance with the acute spirits of light, which penetrate and divide all natures, and spread over each a peculiar, softly tinted veil. By their songs I felt my own nature gently developed, and it could move, as it were, more freely, enjoy its social disposition and desires, poise with silent pleasure its limbs against each other, and in various forms excite delight a thousand-fold."

"Were you so happy in your country as to have some poets?" asked the hermit.

"There have been a few with us at times; but travelling seemed their chief pleasure, and therefore they scarcely ever remained long with us.

But during my wanderings in Illyria, Saxony, and Sweden, I have met some, the remembrance of whom is ever pleasant."

"You have, travelled far, and doubtless must have seen much during your life, that is wonderful."

"Our art almost compels us to look industriously around the world, and it is as if the miner were driven by a subterraneous fire. One mountain sends him to another. He never ceases his scrutiny, and during his whole life is gaining knowledge from that wonderful architecture, which has so curiously floored and wainscotted the earth under our feet. Our art is very ancient and extended. It may indeed, like our race, have migrated with the sun from the East toward the West, from the middle to the extremities. It has been obliged everywhere to combat with other difficulties; and as necessity continually urges the human spirit to wise inventions, so the miner can increase his knowledge and ability, and enrich his home with youthful experience."

"You are well nigh inverted astrologers," said the hermit; "as they ceaselessly regard the sky, wandering through its immeasurable s.p.a.ces, so do you turn your gaze to the earth, exploring its construction.

Astrologers study the forces and influences of the stars, while you are discovering the forces of rocks and mountains, and the manifold properties of earth and stone strata. To them the higher world is a book of futurity; to you the earth is a memorial of the primeval world."

"This connexion is not without its meaning," said the old man; "these shining prophets play perhaps a chief part in that old history of the wonderful creation. Men perhaps in the course of time will learn to understand them better, and to explain them by their operations, and inversely. Perhaps also the great mountain-chains exhibit the traces of their former ways, and perhaps they desired to support themselves without foreign aid, to take their own way to Heaven. Many raised themselves boldly enough that they might become stars, and therefore must now be deprived of the fair green vesture of the lower regions.

They have therefore gained nothing, except the power of influencing the weather for their fathers, and of becoming prophets for the lower world, which now they protect, and now deluge with tempests."

"Since I have dwelt in this cave," the hermit answered, "I have been accustomed to reflect more on ancient times. I cannot describe how attractive such meditations are, and I can imagine the love which a miner must cherish for his trade. When I look upon these strange old bones, which are collected in such great numbers here; when I picture to myself the savage period when those strange and monstrous beasts crowded in dense bands into these caves, driven thither perhaps by fear and terror, and finding here their death; when again I go back to the times when these caves were formed, and wide-spread floods covered the land; then I seem to myself like a dream of futurity; like a child of eternal peace. How quiet and peaceful, how mild and dear is out present nature, when compared with violent and gigantic times! The mightiest tempests, the most terrible earthquakes of our day, are but weak echoes of the throes of that first birth. Perhaps also the animal and vegetable kingdoms, and even the men who then existed, if any were found on the different islands of the ocean, were of firmer and ruder organization; at least we should not then be obliged to accuse the traditions of a giant race of being mere poetic fancies."

"It is pleasant," said the old man, "to notice the gradual pacification of nature. A concord ever becoming deeper, a more friendly intercourse, reciprocal aid and encouragement, seem gradually to have been formed; and we can look forward continually to better times. It may perhaps be possible, that here and there a little of the old leaven is fermenting, and that still more violent convulsions are to follow; yet these mighty struggles for a free and harmonious existence are visible; and in this spirit will every convulsion pa.s.s over and draw nearer to the great goal. It may be that nature is no longer so fertile, that at present no metals or precious stones, rocks or mountains are springing into existence, that plants and animals do not increase to such an astonishing size and strength; but the more that physical powers are exhausted, the more have plastic, enn.o.bling, and social powers increased. The mind has become more susceptible and tender, the fancy more varied and symbolical, the hand more free and artistic. Nature approaches man; and if she were once an uncouthly teeming rock, then is she now a quietly thriving plant, a silent human artist And of what service would be the multiplication of these treasures, of which there are now enough for the most distant age? How small is the s.p.a.ce I have surveyed; and yet what mighty stores have I at a single glance discovered, the use of which is left for future generations! What riches are enclosed in the northern mountains, what favorable signs I discovered throughout my native land, in Hungary, at the foot of the Carpathian hills, and in the rocky vales of Tyrol, Austria, and Bavaria. I might have been a rich man, if I had taken with me what I might only have picked up and broken off. In many places I saw myself as in a magic garden. On every side costly and skilfully framed metals met my sight. From the beautiful tresses and branches of silver hung glittering, ruby-red, transparent fruits; and the heavy-laden shrubs, stood upon crystal ground of inimitable workmanship. One can scarcely trust his senses in these wonderful regions, and can never grow weary of rambling through these charming solitudes, or of gloating over their jewels. I have seen much that is wonderful during my present journey, and certainly in other lands the earth is equally plentiful and fruitful."

"When," said the unknown, "one remembers the treasures which are hidden in the East, he cannot doubt what you remark; and have not distant India, Africa, and Spain been distinguished even from antiquity, by the richness of their soil? Though a soldier is not apt to take very exact notice of the veins and the clefts of mountains, yet at times I have reflected upon these shining tracts of land, which, like rare birds, indicate an unexpected bloom and fruit. How little did I imagine, when I pa.s.sed these dark dwellings joyously by the light of day, that I should ever finish my life in the bosom of a mountain! My love carried me proudly above the surface of the earth, and I hoped in later years to fall asleep in her embrace. The war having ended, I returned home, full of glad expectations of a refreshing harvest. But the spirit of the war seemed to have become the spirit of my fortune. My Maria had borne me two children in the East. They were the joy of our existence.

The voyage and the rough air of the West destroyed their bloom; they were buried a few days after my arrival in Europe. Sorrowfully I carried my disconsolate wife to our home. A silent grief weakened the thread which bound her to life. During a journey which I was obliged to take, and on which, as was her wont, she accompanied me, she gently but suddenly expired in my arms. It was near this place, where her earthly pilgrimage was finished. My resolution was taken in a moment; I found, what I had never expected; a heavenly illumination came over me; and from the day when I buried her here with my own hands, a divine hand freed my heart from all sorrow. Since then I have caused this monument to be erected. An event often seems to be endings when in fact it is beginning; and thus has it been with my life. May G.o.d grant you an old age as happy, and a spirit as quiet as mine."

Henry and the merchants had listened attentively to the conversation; and the first particularly was conscious of new developments in his prophetic soul. Many words, many thoughts, fell like quickening seeds into his breast, and soon drew him from the narrow circle of his youth to the heights of the world. The hours just pa.s.sed lay behind him like long-revolving years; and it seemed as if he had always thought and felt as now.

The hermit showed him his books. They consisted of old histories and poems. Henry turned over the leaves of these huge and beautifully illuminated works, and his curiosity was strongly excited by the short lines of the verses, the t.i.tles, some of the pa.s.sages, and the beautiful pictures which appeared here and there, like embodied words, to a.s.sist the imagination of the reader. The Hermit observed his inward gratification and explained these singular pictures. All the varied scenes of life were represented among them. Battles, funereal trains, marriage ceremonies, shipwrecks, caves, and palaces, kings, heroes, priests, men in singular costume, strange beasts, were delineated in different alternations and connexions. Henry could not sate himself with gazing at them, and wished nothing more than to remain with the hermit, who irresistibly attracted him, and to be instructed by him in these books. In the mean time the old man asked whether there were any more caves; and the hermit told him, that there were some extensive ones near, to which he would accompany him. The old man was ready; and the hermit, who observed Henry's interest in the books, induced him to remain, and to examine them more closely during their absence. Henry was glad to stay where the books were, and thanked the hermit heartily for his permission to do so. He turned over their leaves with indescribable pleasure. At last a book fell into his hands, written in a foreign tongue, which appeared to him somewhat like Latin or Italian.

He longed greatly to know the language, for the book pleased him greatly, though he did not understand a syllable of it. It had no t.i.tle; but after a little search he found some engravings. They seemed strangely familiar to him; and on examination, he discovered his own form quite discernible among the figures. He was terrified, and thought that he must be dreaming; but after having examined them again and again, he could no longer doubt their perfect resemblance. He could hardly trust his senses, when in one of the pictures he discovered the cave, the hermit, and the old man by his side. By degrees he found among the pictures the girl from the holy land, his parents, the count and countess of Thuringia, his friend the court chaplain; and many others of his acquaintance; yet their dress was changed, and seemed to belong to another period. There were many forms he could not call by name, but which nevertheless seemed known to him. He saw the exact portraits of himself, in different situations. Towards the end he appeared larger and n.o.bler. The guitar rested in his arms, and the countess handed him a wreath. He saw himself at the imperial court, on shipboard, now in warm embrace with a beautifully formed and lovely girl, now in battle with fierce-looking men, and again in friendly conversation with Saracens and Moors. He was frequently accompanied by a man of grave aspect. He felt a deep reverence for this august form, and was glad to see himself arm in arm with him. The last pictures were obscure and incomprehensible; yet some of the shapes of his dream surprised him with the most intense rapture. The conclusion of the book was wanting. Henry was very sorrowful, and wished for nothing more earnestly than to be able to read and thoroughly understand the book.

He looked over the pictures repeatedly, and was almost abashed when the company returned. A strange sort of shame overcame him. He did not suffer himself to make known his discovery, and merely asked the Hermit generally about its t.i.tle and language. He learned that it was written in the Provence tongue.

"It is long since I have read it," said the Hermit; "I do not now remember its contents very distinctly. As far as I recollect, it is a romance, relating the wonderful fortune of a poet's life, wherein the art of poesy is represented and extolled in all its various relations.

The conclusion is wanting to the ma.n.u.script, which I brought with me from Jerusalem, where I found it left with a friend, and took it, away, an a memorial of him."

They now took leave of each other. Henry was moved to tears; the cave had become so remarkable and the hermit so dear to him.

All embraced the hermit heartily, and he himself seemed to have become attached to them. Henry thought that he noticed his kind and penetrating gaze fixed upon him. His farewell words to him were full of meaning. He seemed to know of his discovery and to have reference to it. He followed them to the entrance of the cave, after having requested them, and particularly the boy, not to tell the farmers concerning him, as it would only expose him to their troublesome acquaintance.

They all promised this. As they separated from him, and commended themselves to his prayers, he said,

"But a short time and we shall see each other again, to smile at the conversation of this day. A heavenly dawn will surround us, and we shall rejoice that we greeted each other kindly in this vale of probation, and were inspired with like sentiments and antic.i.p.ations.

There are angels who guide us here in safety. If your eye is fixed upon Heaven, you will never lose the way to your home."

They separated with a silent feeling of devotion, soon found their timorous companions, and amid general conversation shortly reached the village, where Henry's mother, who had been somewhat anxious about him, received them with a thousand expressions of joy.

CHAPTER VI.