The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Volume Iv Part 10

"To keep the conversations fresh, just as salt keeps food fresh. The question is not _why_ we say them, but _how_ we say them. It would be rude indeed to talk with a charming lady as if she were a s.e.xless Amphibium. It is a duty and an obligation to allude constantly to what she is and is going to be. It is really a comical situation, considering how indelicate, stiff and guilty society is, to be an innocent girl."

"That reminds me of the famous Buffo, who, while he was always making others laugh, was so sad and solemn himself."

"Society is a chaos which can be brought into harmonious order only by wit. If one does not jest and toy with the elements of pa.s.sion, it forms thick ma.s.ses and darkens everything."

"Then there must be pa.s.sion in the air here, for it is almost dark."

"Surely you have closed your eyes, lady of my heart! Otherwise the light in them would brighten the whole room."

"I wonder, Julius, who is the more pa.s.sionate, you or I?"

"Both of us are pa.s.sionate enough. If that were not so, I should not want to live. And see! That is why I could reconcile myself to jealousy. There is everything in love--friendship, pleasant intercourse, sensuality, and even pa.s.sion. Everything must be in it, and one thing must strengthen, mitigate, enliven and elevate the other."

"Let me embrace you, darling."

"But only on one condition can I allow you to be jealous. I have often felt that a little bit of cultured and refined anger does not ill-become a man. Perhaps it is the same way with you in regard to jealousy."

"Agreed! Then I do not have to abjure it altogether."

"If only you always manifest it as prettily and as wittily as you did today."

"Did I? Well, if next time you get into so pretty and witty a pa.s.sion about it, I shall say so and praise you for it."

"Are we not worthy now to conciliate the offended G.o.ds?"

"Yes, if your discourse is entirely finished; otherwise give me the rest." [32]

METAMORPHOSES

The childlike spirit slumbers in sweet repose, and the kiss of the loving G.o.ddess arouses in him only light dreams. The rose of shame tinges his cheek; he smiles and seems to open his lips, but he does not awaken and he knows not what is going on within him. Not until after the charm of the external world, multiplied and reinforced by an inner echo, has completely permeated his entire being, does he open his eyes, reveling in the sun, and recall to mind the magic world which he saw in the gleam of the pale moonlight. The wondrous voice that awakened him is still audible, but instead of answering him it echoes back from external objects. And if in childish timidity he tries to escape from the mystery of his existence, seeking the unknown with beautiful curiosity, he hears everywhere only the echo of his own longing.

Thus the eye sees in the mirror of the river only the reflection of the blue sky, the green banks, the waving trees, and the form of the absorbed gazer. When a heart, full of unconscious love, finds itself where it hoped to find love in return, it is struck with amazement.

But we soon allow ourselves to be lured and deceived by the charm of the view into loving our own reflection. Then has the moment of winsomeness come, the soul fashions its envelop again, and breathes the final breath of perfection through form. The spirit loses itself in its clear depth and finds itself again, like Narcissus, as a flower.

Love is higher than winsomeness, and how soon would the flower of Beauty wither without the complementary birth of requited love. This moment the kiss of Amor and Psyche is the rose of life. The inspired Diotima revealed to Socrates only a half of love. Love is not merely a quiet longing for the infinite; it is also the holy enjoyment of a beautiful present. It is not merely a mixture, a transition from the mortal to the immortal, but it is a complete union of both. There is a pure love, an indivisible and simple feeling, without the slightest interference of restless striving. Every one gives the same as he takes, one just like the other, all is balanced and completed in itself, like the everlasting kiss of the divine children.

By the magic of joy the grand chaos of struggling forms dissolves into a harmonious sea of oblivion. When the ray of happiness breaks in the last tear of longing, Iris is already adorning the eternal brow of heaven with the delicate tints of her many-colored rainbow. Sweet dreams come true, and the pure forms of a new generation rise up out of Lethe's waves, beautiful as Anadyomene, and exhibit their limbs in the place of the vanished darkness. In golden youth and innocence time and man change in the divine peace of nature, and evermore Aurora comes back more beautiful than before.

Not hate, as the wise say, but love, separates people and fashions the world; and only in its light can we find this and observe it. Only in the answer of its Thou can every I completely feel its endless unity.

Then the understanding tries to unfold the inner germ of G.o.dlikeness, presses closer and closer to the goal, is full of eagerness to fashion the soul, as an artist fashions his one beloved masterpiece. In the mysteries of culture the spirit sees the play and the laws of caprice and of life. The statue of Pygmalion moves; a joyous shudder comes over the astonished artist in the consciousness of his own immortality, and, as the eagle bore Ganymede, a divine hope bears him on its mighty pinion up to Olympus.

TWO LETTERS

I

Is it then really and truly so, what I have so often quietly wished for and have never dared to express? I see the light of holy joy beaming on your face, and you modestly give me the beautiful promise.

You are to be a mother!

Farewell, Longing, and thou, gentle Grief, farewell; the world is beautiful again. Now I love the earth, and the rosy dawn of a new spring lifts its radiant head over my immortal existence. If I had some laurel, I would bind it around your brow to consecrate you to new and serious duties; for there begins now for you another life.

Therefore, give to me the wreath of myrtle. It befits me to adorn myself with the symbol of youthful innocence, since I now wander in Nature's Paradise. Hitherto all that held us together was love and pa.s.sion. Now Nature has united us more firmly with an indissoluble bond. Nature is the only true priestess of joy; she alone knows how to tie the nuptial knot, not with empty words that bring no blessing, but with fresh blossoms and living fruits from the fullness of her power.

In the endless succession of new forms creating Time plaits the wreath of Eternity, and blessed is he whom Fortune selects to be healthy and bear fruit. We are not sterile flowers among other living beings; the G.o.ds do not wish to exclude us from the great concatenation of living things, and are giving us plain tokens of their will.

So let us deserve our position in this beautiful world, let us bear the immortal fruits which the spirit chooses to create, and let us take our place in the ranks of humanity. I will establish myself on the earth, I will sow and reap for the future as well as for the present. I will utilize all my strength during the day, and in the evening I will refresh myself in the arms of the mother, who will be eternally my bride. Our son, the demure little rogue, will play around us, and help me invent mischief at your expense.

You are right; we must certainly buy the little estate. I am glad that you went right ahead with the arrangements, without waiting for my decision. Order everything just as you please; but, if I may say so, do not have it too beautiful, nor yet too useful, and, above all things, not too elaborate.

If you only arrange it all in accordance with your own judgment and do not allow yourself to be talked into the proper and conventional, everything will be quite right, and the way I want it to be; and I shall derive immense enjoyment from the beautiful property. Hitherto I have lived in a thoughtless way and without any feeling of ownership; I have tripped lightly over the earth and have never felt at home on it. Now the sanctuary of marriage has given me the rights of citizenship in the state of nature. I am no longer suspended in the empty void of general inspiration; I like the friendly restraint, I see the useful in a new light, and find everything truly useful that unites everlasting love with its object--in short everything that serves to bring about a genuine marriage. External things imbue me with profound respect, if, in their way, they are good for something; and you will some day hear me enthusiastically praise the blessedness of home and the merits of domesticity.

I understand now your preference for country life, I like you for it and feel as you do about it. I can no longer endure to see these ungainly ma.s.ses of everything that is corrupt and diseased in mankind; and when I think about them in a general way they seem to me like wild animals bound by a chain, so that they cannot even vent their rage freely. In the country, people can live side by side without offensively crowding one another. If everything were as it ought to be, beautiful mansions and cosy cottages would there adorn the green earth, as do the fresh shrubs and flowers, and create a garden worthy of the G.o.ds.

To be sure we shall find in the country the vulgarity that prevails everywhere. There ought really to be only two social cla.s.ses, the culturing and the cultured, the masculine and the feminine; instead of all artificial society, there should be a grand marriage of these two cla.s.ses and universal brotherhood of all individuals. In place of that we see a vast amount of coa.r.s.eness and, as an insignificant exception, a few who are perverted by a wrong education. But in the open air the one thing which is beautiful and good cannot be suppressed by the bad ma.s.ses and their show of omnipotence.

Do you know what period of our love seems to me particularly beautiful? To be sure, it is all beautiful and pure in my memory, and I even think of the first days with a sort of melancholy delight. But to me the most cherished period of all is the last few days, when we were living together on the estate. Another reason for living again in the country.

One thing more. Do not have the grapevines trimmed too close. I say this only because you thought they were growing too fast and luxuriantly, and because it might occur to you to want a perfectly clear view of the house on all sides. Also the green gra.s.s-plot must stay as it is; that is where the baby is to crawl and play and roll about.

Is it not true that the pain my sad letter caused you is now entirely compensated? In the midst of all these giddy joys and hopes I can no longer torment myself with care. You yourself suffered no greater pain from it than I. But what does that matter, if you love me, really love me in your very heart, without any reservation of alien thought? What pain were worth mentioning when we gain by it a deeper and more fervid consciousness of our love? And so, I am sure, you feel about it too.

Everything I am telling you, you knew long ago. There is absolutely no delight, no love in me, the cause of which does not lie concealed somewhere in the depths of your being, you everlastingly blessed creature!

Misunderstandings are sometimes good, in that they lead us to talk of what is holiest. The differences that now and then seem to arise are not in us, not in either of us; they are merely between us and on the surface, and I hope you will take this occasion to drive them off and away from you.

And what is the cause of such little repulsions except our mutual and insatiable desire to love and be loved? And without this insatiableness there is no love. We live and love to annihilation. And if it is love that first develops us into true and perfect beings, that is the very life of life, then it need not fear opposition any more than it fears life itself or humanity; peace will come to it only after the conflict of forces.

I feel happy indeed that I love a woman who is capable of loving as you do. "As you do" is a stronger expression than any superlative. How can you praise my words, when I, without wishing to, hit upon some that hurt you? I should like to say, I write too well to be able to describe to you my inward state of mind. Oh, dearest! Believe me, there is no question in you that has not its answer in me. Your love cannot be any more everlasting than mine. Admirable, however, is your beautiful jealousy of my fancy and its wild flights. That indicates rightly the boundlessness of your constancy, and leads me to hope that your jealousy is on the point of destroying itself by its own excess.

This sort of fancy--committed to writing--is no longer needed. I shall soon be with you. I am holier and more composed than I was. I can only see you in my mind and stand always before you. You yourself feel everything without my telling you, and beam with joy, thinking partly of the man you love and partly of your baby.

Do you know, while I have been writing to you, no memory could have profaned you; to me you are as everlastingly pure as the Holy Virgin of the Immaculate Conception, and you have wanted nothing to make you like the Madonna except the Child. Now you have that, now it is there and a reality. I shall soon be carrying him on my arm, telling him fairy-tales, giving him serious instruction and lessons as to how a young man has to conduct himself in the world.

And then my mind reverts to the mother. I give you an endless kiss; I watch your bosom heave with longing, and feel the mysterious throbbing of your heart. When we are together again we will think of our youth, and I will keep the present holy. You are right indeed; one hour later is infinitely later.

It is cruel that I cannot be with you right now. From sheer impatience I do all sorts of foolish things. From morning until night I do nothing but rove around here in this glorious region. Sometimes I hasten my steps, as if I had something terribly important to do, and presently find myself in some place where I had not the least desire to be. I make gestures as if I were delivering a forcible speech; I think I am alone and suddenly find myself among people. Then I have to smile when I realize how absent-minded I was.

I cannot write very long either; pretty soon I want to go out again and dream away the beautiful evening on the bank of the quiet stream.

Today I forgot among other things that it was time to send my letter off. Oh well, so much the more joy and excitement will you have when you receive it.

People are really very good to me. They not only forgive me for not taking any part in their conversation, but also for capriciously interrupting it. In a quiet way they seem even to derive hearty pleasure from my joy. Especially Juliana. I tell her very little about you, but she has a good intuition and surmises the rest. Certainly there is nothing more amiable than pure, unselfish delight in love.

I really believe that I should love my friends here, even if they were less admirable than they are. I feel a great change in my being, a general tenderness and sweet warmth in all the powers of my soul and spirit, like the beautiful exhaustion of the senses that follows the highest life. And yet it is anything but weakness. On the contrary, I know that from now on I shall be able to do everything pertaining to my vocation with more liking and with fresher vigor. I have never felt more confidence and courage to work as a man among men, to lead a heroic life, and in joyous fraternal cooperation to act for eternity.

That is my virtue; thus it becomes me to be like the G.o.ds. Yours is gently to reveal, like Nature's priestess of joy, the mystery of love; and, surrounded by worthy sons and daughters, to hallow this beautiful life into a holy festival.