The True Story of My Life Part 12

Beaulieu accompanied me to Jena. Here a hospitable home awaited me, and filled with beautiful memories from the time of Goethe, the house of the publisher Frommann. It was his kind, warm-hearted sister, who had shown me such sympathy in Berlin; the brother was not here less kind.

The Holstener Michelsen, who has a professorship at Jena, a.s.sembled a number of friends one evening, and in a graceful and cordial toast for me, expressed his sense of the importance of Danish literature, and the healthy and natural spirit which flourished in it.

In Michelsen's house I also became acquainted with Professor Hase, who, one evening having heard some of my little stories, seemed filled with great kindness towards me. What he wrote in this moment of interest on an alb.u.m leaf expresses this sentiment:

"Sch.e.l.ling--not he who now lives in Berlin, but he who lives an immortal hero in the world of mind--once said: 'Nature is the visible spirit.'

This spirit, this unseen nature, last evening was again rendered visible to me through your little tales. If on the one hand you penetrate deeply into the mysteries of nature; know and understand the language of birds, and what are the feelings of a fir-tree or a daisy, so that each seems to be there on its own account, and we and our children sympathize with them in their joys and sorrows; yet, on the other hand, all is but the image of mind; and the human heart in its infinity, trembles and throbs throughout. May this fountain in the poet's heart, which G.o.d has lent you, still for a time pour forth this refreshingly, and may these stories in the memories of the Germanic nations, become the legends of the people!" That object, for which as a writer of poetical fictions, I must strive after, is contained in these last lines.

It is also to Hase and the gifted improvisatore, Professor Wolff of Jena, to whom I am most indebted for the appearance of a uniform German edition of my writings.

This was all arranged on my arrival at Leipzig: several hours of business were added to my traveller's mode of life. The city of bookselling presented me with her bouquet, a sum of money; but she presented me with even more. I met again with Brockhaus, and pa.s.sed happy hours with Mendelssohn, that glorious man of genius. I heard him play again and again; it seemed to me that his eyes, full of soul, looked into the very depths of my being. Few men have more the stamp of the inward fire than he. A gentle, friendly wife, and beautiful children, make his rich, well-appointed house, blessed and pleasant.

When he rallied me about the Stork, and its frequent appearance in my writings, there was something so childlike and amiable revealed in this great artist!

I also met again my excellent countryman Gade, whose compositions have been so well received in Germany. I took him the text for a new opera which I had written, and which I hope to see brought out on the German stage. Gade had written the music to my drama of Agnete and the Merman, compositions which were very successful. Auerbach, whom I again found here, introduced me to many agreeable circles. I met with the composer Kalliwoda, and with K hne, whose charming little son immediately won my heart.

On my arrival at Dresden I instantly hastened to my motherly friend, the Baroness von Decken. That was a joyous hearty welcome! One equally cordial I met with from Dahl. I saw once more my Roman friend, the poet with word and color, Reineck, and met the kind-hearted Bendemann.

Professor Grahl painted me. I missed, however, one among my olden friends, the poet Brunnow. With life and cordiality he received me the last time in his room, where stood lovely flowers; now these grew over his grave. It awakens a peculiar feeling, thus for once to meet on the journey of life, to understand and love each other, and then to part--until the journey for both is ended.

I spent, to me, a highly interesting evening, with the royal family, who received me with extraordinary favor. Here also the most happy domestic life appeared to reign--a number of amiable children, all belonging to Prince Johann, were present. The least of the Princesses, a little girl, who knew that I had written the history of the Fir-tree, began very confidentially with--"Last Christmas we also had a Fir-tree, and it stood here in this room!" Afterwards, when she was led out before the other children, and had bade her parents and the King and Queen good night, she turned round at the half-closed door, and nodding to me in a friendly and familiar manner, said I was her Fairy-tale Prince.

My story of Holger Danske led the conversation to the rich stores of legends which the north possesses. I related several, and explained the peculiar spirit of the fine scenery of Denmark. Neither in this royal palace did I feel the weight of ceremony; soft, gentle eyes shone upon me. My last morning in Dresden was spent with the Minister von Knneritz, where I equally met with the most friendly reception.

The sun shone warm: it was spring who was celebrating her arrival, as I rolled out of the dear city. Thought a.s.sembled in one amount all the many who had rendered my visits so rich and happy: it was spring around me, and spring in my heart.

In Prague I had only one acquaintance, Professor Wiesenfeldt. But a letter from Dr. Carus in Dresden opened to me the hospitable house of Count Thun. The Archduke Stephan received me also in the most gracious manner; I found in him a young man full of intellect and heart.

Besides it was a very interesting point of time when I left Prague. The military, who had been stationed there a number of years, were hastening to the railway, to leave for Poland, where disturbances had broken out.

The whole city seemed in movement to take leave of its military friends; it was difficult to get through the streets which led to the railway.

Many thousand soldiers were to be accommodated; at length the train was set in motion. All around the whole hill-side was covered with people; it looked like the richest Turkey carpet woven of men, women and children, all pressed together, head to head, and waving hats and handkerchiefs. Such a ma.s.s of human beings I never saw before, or at least, never at one moment surveyed them: such a spectacle could not be painted.

We travelled the whole night through wide Bohemia: at every town stood groups of people; it was as though all the inhabitants had a.s.sembled themselves. Their brown faces, their ragged clothes, the light of their torches, their, to me, unintelligible language, gave to the whole a stamp of singularity. We flew through tunnel and over viaduct; the windows rattled, the signal whistle sounded, the steam horses snorted--I laid back my head at last in the carriage, and fell asleep under the protection of the G.o.d Morpheus.

At Olm tz, where we had fresh carnages, a voice spoke my name--it was Walter Goethe! We had travelled together the whole night without knowing it. In Vienna we met often. n.o.ble powers, true genius, live in Goethe's grandsons, in the composer as well as in the poet; but it is as if the greatness of their grandfather pressed upon them. Liszt was in Vienna, and invited me to his concert, in which otherwise it would have been impossible to find a place. I again heard his improvising of Robert! I again heard him, like a spirit of the storm, play with the chords: he is an enchanter of sounds who fills the imagination with astonishment.

Ernst also was here; when I visited him he seized the violin, and this sang in tears the secret of a human heart.

I saw the amiable Grillparzer again, and was frequently with the kindly Castelli, who just at this time had been made by the King of Denmark Knight of the Danebrog Order. He was full of joy at this, and begged me to tell my countrymen that every Dane should receive a hearty welcome from him. Some future summer he invited me to visit his grand country seat. There is something in Castelli so open and honorable, mingled with such good-natured humor, that one must like him: he appears to me the picture of a thorough Viennese. Under his portrait, which he gave me, he wrote the following little improvised verse in the style so peculiarly his own:

This portrait shall ever with loving eyes greet thee, From far shall recall the smile of thy friend; For thou, dearest Dane, 'tis a pleasure to meet thee, Thou art one to be loved and esteemed to the end.

Castelli introduced me to Seidl and Bauernfeld. At the Danisti amba.s.sador's, Baron von Lwenstern, I met Zedlitz. Most of the shining stars of Austrian literature I saw glide past me, as people on a railway see church towers; you can still say you have seen them; and still retaining the simile of the stars, I can say, that in the Concordia Society I saw the entire galaxy. Here was a host of young growing intellects, and here were men of importance. At the house of Count Szechenye, who hospitably invited me, I saw his brother from Pest, whose n.o.ble activity in Hungary is known. This short meeting I account one of the most interesting events of my stay in Vienna; the man revealed himself in all his individuality, and his eye said that you must feel confidence in him.

At my departure from Dresden her Majesty the Queen of Saxony had asked me whether I had introductions to any one at the Court of Vienna, and when I told her that I had not, the Queen was so gracious as to write a letter to her sister, the Archd.u.c.h.ess Sophia of Austria. Her imperial Highness summoned me one evening, and received me in the most gracious manner. The dowager Empress, the widow of the Emperor Francis I., was present, and full of kindness and friendship towards me; also Prince Wasa, and the hereditary Archd.u.c.h.ess of Hesse-Darmstadt. The remembrance of this evening will always remain dear and interesting to me. I read several of my little stories aloud--when I wrote them, I thought least of all that I should some day read them aloud in the imperial palace.

Before my departure I had still another visit to make, and this was to the intellectual auth.o.r.ess, Frau von Weissenthurn. She had just left a bed of sickness and was still suffering, but wished to see me. As though she were already standing on the threshold of the realm of shades, she pressed my hand and said this was the last time we should ever see each other. With a soft motherly gaze she looked at me, and at parting her penetrating eye followed me to the door.

With railway and diligence my route now led towards Triest. With steam the long train of carriages flies along the narrow rocky way, following all the windings of the river. One wonders that with all these abrupt turnings one is not dashed against the rock, or flung down into the roaring stream, and is glad when the journey is happily accomplished.

But in the slow diligence one wishes its more rapid journey might recommence, and praise the powers of the age.

At length Triest and the Adriatic sea lay before us; the Italian language sounded in our ears, but yet for me it was not Italy, the land of my desire. Meanwhile I was only a stranger here for a few hours; our Danish consul, as well as the consuls of Prussia and Oldenburg, to whom I was recommended, received me in the best possible manner. Several interesting acquaintances were made, especially with the Counts O'Donnell and Waldstein, the latter for me as a Dane having a peculiar interest, as being the descendant of that unfortunate Confitz Ulfeld and the daughter of Christian IV., Eleanore, the n.o.blest of all Danish women. Their portraits hung in his room, and Danish memorials of that period were shown me. It was the first time I had ever seen Eleanore Ulfeld's portrait, and the melancholy smile on her lips seemed to say, "Poet, sing and free from chains which a hard age had cast upon him, for whom to live and to suffer was my happiness!" Before Oehlenschl ger wrote his Dina, which treats of an episode in Ulfeld's life, I was at work on this subject, and wished to bring it on the stage, but it was then feared this would not be allowed, and I gave it up--since then I have only written four lines on Ulfeld:--

Thy virtue was concealed, not so thy failings, Thus did the world thy greatness never know, Yet still love's glorious monument proclaims it, That the best wife from thee would never go.

On the Adriatic sea I, in thought, was carried back to Ulfeld's time and the Danish islands. This meeting with Count Waldstein and his ancestor's portrait brought me back to my poet's world, and I almost forgot that the following day I could be in the middle of Italy. In beautiful mild weather I went with the steam-boat to Ancona.

It was a quiet starlight night, too beautiful to be spent in sleep. In the early morning the coast of Italy lay before us, the beautiful blue mountains with glittering snow. The sun shone warmly, the gra.s.s and the trees were so splendidly green. Last evening in Trieste, now in Ancona, in a city of the papal states,--that was almost like enchantment! Italy in all its picturesque splendor lay once more before me; spring had ripened all the fruit trees so that they had burst forth into blossom; every blade of gra.s.s in the field was filled with sunshine, the elm trees stood like caryatides enwreathed with vines, which shot forth green leaves, and above the luxuriance of foliage rose the wavelike blue mountains with their snow covering. In company with Count Paar from Vienna, the most excellent travelling companion, and a young n.o.bleman from Hungary, I now travelled on with a vetturino for five days: solitary, and more picturesque than habitable inns among the Apennines were our night's quarters. At length the Campagna, with its thought-awakening desolation, lay before us.

It was the 31st of March, 1846, when I again saw Rome, and for the third time in my life should reach this city of the world. I felt so happy, so penetrated with thankfulness and joy; how much more G.o.d had given me than a thousand others--nay, than to many thousands! And even in this very feeling there is a blessing--where joy is very great, as in the deepest grief, there is only G.o.d on whom one can lean! The first impression was--I can find no other word for it--adoration. When day unrolled for me my beloved Rome, I felt what I cannot express more briefly or better than I did in a letter to a friend: "I am growing here into the very ruins, I live with the petrified G.o.ds, and the roses are always blooming, and the church bells ringing--and yet Rome is not the Rome it was thirteen years ago when I first was here. It is as if everything were modernized, the ruins even, gra.s.s and bushes are cleared away. Everything is made so neat; the very life of the people seems to have retired; I no longer hear the tamborines in the streets, no longer see the young girls dancing their Saltarella, even in the Campagna intelligence has entered by invisible railroads; the peasant no longer believes as he used to do. At the Easter festival I saw great numbers of the people from the Campagna standing before St. Peters whilst the Pope distributed his blessing, just as though they had been Protestant strangers. This was repulsive to my feelings, I felt an impulse to kneel before the invisible saint. When I was here thirteen years ago, all knelt; now reason had conquered faith. Ten years later, when the railways will have brought cities still nearer to each other, Rome will be yet more changed. But in all that happens, everything is for the best; one always must love Rome; it is like a story book, one is always discovering new wonders, and one lives in imagination and reality."

The first time I travelled to Italy I had no eyes for sculpture; in Paris the rich pictures drew me away from the statues; for the first time when I came to Florence and stood before the Venus de Medicis, I felt as Thorwaldsen expressed, "the snow melted away from my eyes;" and a new world of art rose before me. And now at my third sojourn in Rome, after repeated wanderings through the Vatican, I prize the statues far higher than the paintings. But at what other places as at Rome, and to some degree in Naples, does this art step forth so grandly into life!

One is carried away by it, one learns to admire nature in the work of art, the beauty of form becomes spiritual.

Among the many clever and beautiful things which I saw exhibited in the studios of the young artists, two pieces of sculpture were what most deeply impressed themselves on my memory; and these were in the studio of my countryman Jerichau. I saw his group of Hercules and Hebe, which had been spoken of with such enthusiasm in the Allgemeine Zeitung and other German papers, and which, through its antique repose, and its glorious beauty, powerfully seized upon me. My imagination was filled by it, and yet I must place Jerichau's later group, the Fighting Hunter, still higher. It is formed after the model, as though it had sprung from nature. There lies in it a truth, a beauty, and a grandeur which I am convinced will make his name resound through many lands!

I have known him from the time when he was almost a boy. We were both of us born on the same island: he is from the little town of a.s.sens. We met in Copenhagen. No one, not even he himself, knew what lay within him; and half in jest, half in earnest, he spoke of the combat with himself whether he should go to America and become a savage, or to Rome and become an artist--painter or sculptor; that he did not yet know. His pencil was meanwhile thrown away: he modelled in clay, and my bust was the first which he made. He received no travelling stipendium from the Academy. As far as I know, it was a n.o.ble-minded woman, an artist herself, unprovided with means, who, from the interest she felt for the spark of genius she observed in him, a.s.sisted him so far that he reached Italy by means of a trading vessel. In the beginning he worked in Thorwaldsen's atelier. During a journey of several years, he has doubtless experienced the struggles of genius and the galling fetters of want; but now the star of fortune shines upon him. When I came to Rome, I found him physically suffering and melancholy. He was unable to bear the warm summers of Italy; and many people said he could not recover unless he visited the north, breathed the cooler air, and took sea-baths. His praises resounded through the papers, glorious works stood in his atelier; but man does not live on heavenly bread alone.

There came one day a Russian Prince, I believe, and he gave a commission for the Hunter. Two other commissions followed on the same day.

Jerichau came full of rejoicing and told this to me. A few days after he travelled with his wife, a highly gifted painter, to Denmark, from whence, strengthened body and soul, he returned, with the winter, to Rome, where the strokes of his chisel will resound so that, I hope, the world will hear them. My heart will beat joyfully with them!

I also met in Rome, Kolberg, another Danish sculptor, until now only known in Denmark, but there very highly thought of, a scholar of Thorwaldsen's and a favorite of that great master. He honored me by making my bust. I also sat once more with the kindly K chler, and saw the forms fresh as nature spread themselves over the canvas.

I sat once again with the Roman people in the amusing puppet theatre, and heard the children's merriment. Among the German artists, as well as among the Swedes and my own countrymen, I met with a hearty reception.

My birth-day was joyfully celebrated. Frau von Goethe, who was in Rome, and who chanced to be living in the very house where I brought my Improvisatore into the world, and made him spend his first years of childhood, sent me from thence a large, true Roman bouquet, a fragrant mosaic. The Swedish painter, Sdermark, proposed my health to the company whom the Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians had invited me to meet.

From my friends I received some pretty pictures and friendly keepsakes.

The Hanoverian minister, K stner, to whose friendship I am indebted for many pleasant hours, is an extremely agreeable man, possessed of no small talent for poetry, music, and painting. At his house I really saw for the first time flower-painting elevated by a poetical idea. In one of his rooms he has introduced an arabesque of flowers which presents us with the flora of the whole year. It commences with the first spring flowers, the crocus, the snow drop, and so on; then come the summer flowers, then the autumn, and at length the garland ends with the red berries and yellow-brown leaves of December.

Constantly in motion, always striving to employ every moment and to see everything, I felt myself at last very much affected by the unceasing sirocco. The Roman air did not agree with me, and I hastened, therefore, as soon as I had seen the illumination of the dome and the _girandola_, immediately after the Easter festival, through Terracina to Naples.

Count Paar travelled with me. We entered St. Lucia: the sea lay before us; Vesuvius blazed. Those were glorious evenings! moonlight nights! It was as if the heavens had elevated themselves above and the stars were withdrawn. What effect of light! In the north the moon scatters silver over the water: here it was gold. The circulating lanterns of the lighthouse now exhibited their dazzling light, now were totally extinguished. The torches of the fishing-boats threw their obelisk-formed blaze along the surface of the water, or else the boat concealed them like a black shadow, below which the surface of the water was illuminated. One fancied one could see to the bottom, where fishes and plants were in motion. Along the street itself thousands of lights were burning in the shops of the dealers in fruit and fish. Now came a troop of children with lights, and went in procession to the church of St. Lucia. Many fell down with their lights; but above the whole stood, like the hero of this great drama of light, Vesuvius with his blood-red flame and his illumined cloud of smoke.

I visited the islands of Capri and Ischia once more; and, as the heat of the sun and the strong sirocco made a longer residence in Naples oppressive to me, I went to Sarrento, Ta.s.so's city, where the foliage of the vine cast a shade, and where the air appears to me lighter. Here I wrote these pages. In Rome, by the bay of Naples and amid the Pyrenees, I put on paper the story of my life.

The well-known festival of the Madonna dell' Arco called me again to Naples, where I took up my quarters at an hotel in the middle of the city, near the Toledo Street, and found an excellent host and hostess.

I had already resided here, but only in the winter. I had now to see Naples in its summer heat and with all its wild tumult, but in what degree I had never imagined. The sun shone down with its burning heat into the narrow streets, in at the balcony door. It was necessary to shut up every place: not a breath of air stirred. Every little corner, every spot in the street on which a shadow fell was crowded with working handicraftsmen, who chattered loudly and merrily; the carriages rolled past; the drivers screamed; the tumult of the people roared like a sea in the other streets; the church bells sounded every minute; my opposite neighbor, G.o.d knows who he was, played the musical scale from morning till evening. It was enough to make one lose one's senses!

The sirocco blew its boiling-hot breath and I was perfectly overcome.

There was not another room to be had at St. Lucia, and the sea-bathing seemed rather to weaken than to invigorate me. I went therefore again into the country; but the sun burned there with the same beams; yet still the air there was more elastic, yet for all that it was to me like the poisoned mantle of Hercules, which, as it were, drew out of me strength and spirit. I, who had fancied that I must be precisely a child of the sun, so firmly did my heart always cling to the south, was forced to acknowledge that the snow of the north was in my body, that the snow melted, and that I was more and more miserable.

Most strangers felt as I myself did in this, as the Neapolitans themselves said, unusually hot summer; the greater number went away. I also would have done the same, but I was obliged to wait several days for a letter of credit; it had arrived at the right time, but lay forgotten in the hands of my banker. Yet there was a deal for me to see in Naples; many houses were open to me. I tried whether the will were not stronger than the Neapolitan heat, but I fell into such a nervous state in consequence, that till the time of my departure I was obliged to lie quietly in my hot room, where the night brought no coolness. From the morning twilight to midnight roared the noise of bells, the cry of the people, the trampling of horses on the stone pavement, and the before-mentioned practiser of the scale--it was like being on the rack; and this caused me to give up my journey to Spain, especially as I was a.s.sured, for my consolation, that I should find it just as warm there as here. The physician said that, at this season of the year, I could not sustain the journey.

I took a berth in the steam-boat Castor for Ma.r.s.eilles; the vessel was full to overflowing with pa.s.sengers; the whole quarter-deck, even the best place, was occupied by travelling carriages; under one of these I had my bed laid; many people followed my example, and the quarter-deck was soon covered with mattresses and carpets. It blew strongly; the wind increased, and in the second and third night raged to a perfect storm; the ship rolled from side to side like a cask in the open sea; the waves dashed on the ship's side and lifted up their broad heads above the bulwarks as if they would look in upon us. It was as if the carriages under which we lay would crush us to pieces, or else would be washed away by the sea. There was a lamentation, but I lay quiet, looked up at the driving clouds, and thought upon G.o.d and my beloved. When at length we reached Genoa most of the pa.s.sengers went on land: I should have been willing enough to have followed their example, that I might go by Milan to Switzerland, but my letter of credit was drawn upon Ma.r.s.eilles and some Spanish sea-ports. I was obliged to go again on board. The sea was calm; the air fresh; it was the most glorious voyage along the charming Sardinian coast. Full of strength and new life I arrived at Ma.r.s.eilles, and, as I here breathed more easily, my longing to see Spain was again renewed. I had laid the plan of seeing this country last, as the bouquet of my journey. In the suffering state in which I had been I was obliged to give it up, but I was now better. I regarded it therefore as a pointing of the finger of heaven that I should be compelled to go to Ma.r.s.eilles, and determined to venture upon the journey. The steam-vessel to Barcelona had, in the meantime, just sailed, and several days must pa.s.s before another set out. I determined therefore to travel by short days' journeys through the south of France across the Pyrenees.

Before leaving Ma.r.s.eilles, chance favored me with a short meeting with one of my friends from the North, and this was Ole Bull! He came from America, and was received in France with jubilees and serenades, of which I was myself a witness. At the _table d'h te_ in the _H tel des Empereurs_, where we both lodged, we flew towards each other. He told me what I should have expected least of all, that my works had also many friends in America, that people had inquired from him about me with the greatest interest, and that the English translations of my romances had been reprinted, and spread through the whole country in cheap editions.

My name flown over the great ocean! I felt myself at this thought quite insignificant, but yet glad and happy; wherefore should I, in preference to so many thousand others, receive such happiness?

I had and still have a feeling as though I were a poor peasant lad over whom a royal mantle is thrown. Yet I was and am made happy by all this!

Is _this_ vanity, or does it show itself in these expressions of my joy?

Ole Bull went to Algiers, I towards the Pyrenees. Through Provence, which looked to me quite Danish, I reached Nismes, where the grandeur of the splendid Roman amphitheatre at once carried me back to Italy. The memorials of antiquity in the south of France I have never heard praised as their greatness and number deserve; the so-called _Maison Quar e_ is still standing in all its splendor, like the Theseus Temple at Athens: Rome has nothing so well preserved.

In Nismes dwells the baker Reboul, who writes the most charming poems: whoever may not chance to know him from these is, however, well acquainted with him through Lamartine's Journey to the East. I found him at the house, stepped into the bakehouse, and addressed myself to a man in shirt sleeves who was putting bread into the oven; it was Reboul himself! A n.o.ble countenance which expressed a manly character greeted me. When I mentioned my name, he was courteous enough to say he was acquainted with it through the Revue de Paris, and begged me to visit him in the afternoon, when he should be able to entertain me better.