Through Night to Light Part 5

"I certainly have the honor to address the Emperor of Fez and Morocco?"

"No!" replied Berger, "The emperor is not coming; you may rely upon it."

"Is not coming!" repeated the young man; and his pale face became still paler, and his eyes wandered restlessly to and fro; "is not coming! how do you know that?"

"Because, if he should come it would not be for your happiness, as you imagine, but for your final ruin. Why do you wish him to come? To bring you gold, which you will gamble away? and jewels, which you will lavish upon your mistresses; to afford you the means of continuing a life which you ought to thank G.o.d on your knees you have escaped from--if you believe in any G.o.d? What appears to you a star of promise, is a will-o'-the-wisp from the moors. Do not trust in its glimmer--it lures you hither and thither, and each time deeper into the moor. Turn resolutely back from it! I tell you once more, the emperor is not coming! and it is fortunate for you that he does not come!"

"Do you know his majesty so intimately?" stammered the young man.

"Very intimately," said Berger, and a peculiar smile played on his features, "only too intimately. I also was misled by his majesty. You expect from his promise money and lands. I was promised--never mind what; and thus he promises everybody something else, in order to fool and trick everybody. The conviction that his majesty's promises are nothing but wind--that is the beginning of wisdom, and the last conclusion of wisdom into the bargain."

Berger had uttered the last words with a suddenly-sinking voice, as if he were speaking to himself. He paid no further attention to the young man, who was standing there, hat in hand, with an indescribably sad face. Nor did he seem to notice Oswald, who followed him silently, and most painfully affected by the touching scene.

Berger apparently felt what was going on in his companion's heart, for they had left the gate which was opened to them without delay, and found themselves on the turnpike, which followed first one bank, and then, after crossing the river on a bridge, the opposite bank, rising higher and higher into the mountains. He suddenly broke his silence and said,

"You are wondering why I did not treat the poor fellow more tenderly, instead of destroying so rudely his absurd illusions? This apparent cruelty was in reality a great kindness."

"Who is the unfortunate man?"

"A Count Mattan, from our country. He has spent during the last few years a fortune of half a million in senseless extravagance. Now he hopes for the fabulous emperor, who is to restore to him all his losses."

"But if your robbing the young man of his last consolation should deprive him of the last feeble remnant of sense----"

"You speak like Doctor Birkenhain. It makes me laugh to see how these optimists blindly try to arrest the power which drives man irresistibly into destruction, like children who try to stop a river with their little hands. My study here is the observation of this peculiar struggle, which would be grand if it were not so ludicrous. These doctors move in the dark, as if they were playing blindman's buff, and think they have cured the disease when they have gotten rid of the symptoms. They do not know, they do not even suspect, that life itself is the shoe that pinches, the garment of Nessus which burns our living body--and that to pull off this shoe, to throw away the garment, is not only the best but the only remedy by which we can escape the wretchedness of existence."

They had left the highroad and reached a clearing in the forest, which was thickly overgrown with moss and heather. Before them was a view over the tops of pine trees into the plain from which they had ascended, and far into the land of hills; behind them the forest extended upwards. It was quiet, perfectly quiet, around them. Long white gossamer floated through the thin, clear air. The flowers were gone; the birds had forgotten their songs, the locusts their chirping; summer itself had died, and Nature sat in silent grief by the corpse.

Even the autumnal sunshine had something sad in it, like a widow's smile; the blue of the sky was sickly, like the tearful eye of a mourner.

Berger had seated himself on the low stump of a tree, and Oswald lay down close by him on the thick heather. In this silence of the forest, which reminded him so forcibly of the woods of Berkow and Grenwitz, and of the painfully sweet days he had spent there, he felt that irrepressible impulse to speak which at times overcomes us all of a sudden. As the Catholic is moved to whisper his deep-hidden secrets into the ear of the priest, his personified conscience, so Oswald felt impelled to confess to the unhappy man by his side, in whom he had ever seen another self, all that he had experienced, tried to obtain, suffered and sinned, during these last eventful, fatal months. He did not think of Doctor Birkenhain's suggestion to interest Berger by all means at his command in his own fate, and thus to play the part of the physician to his patient. Was he not a very sick patient himself? But, whatever might agitate his heart--the man by his side had suffered worse things; what, he hardly dared confess to himself--the man who was wandering with lowered head in the dark labyrinth of his soul, and could find no way to light, he could hear all, all. And thus he told him, first hesitatingly, then with animation, with pa.s.sionate excitement, all he had to tell: his love of Melitta, his love of Helen, his friendship for Bruno, and how jealousy and sickness of heart had robbed him of the one, and strange circ.u.mstances and death of the other.

Berger had listened in silence, supporting his chin in his hand, and looking with his large eyes fixedly at the distance, without once interrupting Oswald. At last, when the young man wound up with the painful complaint "Why did you send me into this troublesome world? Why did you let me wander about so long in this darkness?" Berger raised his head, turned his eyes towards him, and said slowly, thoughtfully,

"Because you had to learn this also; because, as long as you were with me in Grunwald, you still believed in that great falsehood which we call life; because the pride with which you insisted upon its being a truth had to be broken. I have led you the shortest and safest way to wisdom. I knew you would allow yourself to be dazzled by false splendor; I knew you would hasten with beating heart, with parched tongue, through the lonely, white sand of the desert, towards the blue lake with the wooded sh.o.r.e, which drew back further and further as you thought you were coming nearer, until you would at last break down, cursing your sufferings and your existence. Be joyful! You have gone through with it; you have finished your first and hardest course in as many weeks as it took me years. You have opened your eyes and looked at what was there, and behold! it was not good! The value of life, the purpose of life, has become doubtful to you. You have begun to understand that the a.s.sertion of superficial optimists: Life is the purpose of life! is hardly correct--unless one could find satisfaction in striving after a purpose which can never be accomplished, or which, if it be accomplished, is worth nothing. You have seen how indissolubly untruth, stupidity, and vulgarity are interwoven with truth, honesty, wisdom, and majesty. This knowledge, which only the brutalized slave, grinning under the lash of the driver, receives with indifference, but which saddens n.o.ble hearts unto death, is the beginning of wisdom, the entrance to the great mystery."

"And the great mystery?"

Berger made no reply; he looked again with fixed eyes at the distance.

Oswald dared not repeat his question.

Deep silence all around. Silently the light gossamer floated through the clear air; silently the evening sunshine wove its golden net around the heather and the dark-green tops of the pine-trees.

They sat thus speechless side by side--silent and sad, like two children lost in the woods. But while the one, who had wound up his life, and who was fearfully in earnest with his contempt of the world, suffered himself to sink deeper and deeper into the abyss of his grief, the young, fresh vitality of the other struggled mightily towards light and air.

"What is this in me which rouses me at this very moment, when I least expected it, to oppose your wisdom?" he inquired, looking up at Berger.

"My reason tells me you are right, but my eye drinks with delight the beauty of this evening landscape; drinks it down into the heart, and there, in my heart, a voice whispers: 'The world is so fair, so fair!

and even if life makes you suffer bitter things without end, it is still sweet.' Tell me, Berger, did you ever love with all the strength of your heart? and can love die, as the summer dies, and the flowers, and the warm sunlight?"

Berger smiled--it was a strange, weird smile.

"Did I ever love?"

He cast down his eyes, and took off with his stick a piece of the thick crust of moss at his feet.

"What good does it do," he said, "to lift the veil which so many years have spread over the past? You see what is below--decay and destruction."

"And yet," he said, after a pause, "it is but right you should learn that also. Hear, then:"

"It is now thirty years. I was then at your age, but without having made your experiences; clinging to life in full, unbroken strength, and thinking it as sweet and precious as a love of my heart. If ever man was enthusiastic about liberty and beauty--about all those fail fancies with which we try to beautify our miserable existence here, and to hide its wretched hollowness--if ever man was raving about those bloodless images which we call ideals--I was that man. In my madness I fancied that eternal bliss might be won even here below wherever men were living in a free country. I believed in my native land, and sealed my faith with my blood on the battle-fields of Leipzig and Waterloo. I returned full of burning zeal to complete the great work. But before I could undertake to heal the wounds which my country had received during the war, I had to think of healing my own wounds. They sent me, when I recovered, to Fichtenau.

"In those days Fichtenau was not what it is now. There was no Kurhaus then, and no asylum for the insane; nevertheless the town was always full of visitors, for the poetic halo with which the great men of Weimar had surrounded these valleys attracted the crowd. I kept aloof, and lived only for my health and my studies.

"I boarded in the house of an old schoolmaster with whom I had become acquainted, and whose friendship I cultivated because he possessed quite a large library, and books were not so easily accessible then, especially in this remote part of the world. But the old gentleman possessed yet another treasure, besides his library--a most beautiful daughter. The daughter soon became more interesting to me than the library. You asked me if I had ever loved with all my heart. If you had known Leonora, and seen how high and how powerfully my heart then beat, you would not have asked me that question.

"It was a summer day--a marvellously beautiful summer day. We had gone out into the woods after dinner--a mixed company--young and old. We lay down on the swelling moss in the shade of the pine-trees. How my eye dwelt upon her graceful form as she did the honors of the company with merry modesty; how my ear drank in the tones of her silvery, sweet voice! It was the old song of the sirens, which was heard thousands and thousands of years ago, and which will yet be heard thousands and thousands of years hence--till the time is fulfilled.

"After the coffee we strolled about in the forest--in groups, by pairs, as accident and inclination brought it about. I had followed Leonora, who was gathering a bunch of wild-flowers. I helped her, although I did not know much of these things, and was often laughed at by the teasing girls on account of my odd selection. She however became more and more silent the deeper we went into the wood and the further we left the others behind. As she became more silent and anxious, I grew more animated and pressing. Her silence and the blush on her cheeks told me what I had long since desired in secret, what I had prayed heaven to grant me, and what I had yet never hoped to obtain.

"Then we stepped out upon this clearing. The same mountains which are there lying before us looked as blue to us, and the same sun which looks down from heaven now poured a dazzling light lavishly down upon us. And the golden light shone brightly on her dark, curling hair, and played upon her round, white shoulders; and here, on this very place, we fell into each other's arms and swore each other eternal love, amid hot kisses and hot tears.

"The stump on which I am now sitting was then a tall, slender, powerful pine-tree, and I was young and slender, and full of exuberant strength.

The tree has been cut down and burnt in the fire; I--I have become what I am----"

Berger paused and stirred up the moss at his feet with his cane. Oswald looked with reverence at the unfortunate man; but he dared not speak, nor even seize Berger's hand, which was listlessly hanging down by his side. Lofty calmness rested on Berger's face; not a gesture betrayed what was going on in his heart; but he did not look like one who requires sympathy or expects sympathy.

"Not at once," he suddenly continued--"the strength within me was great and could only be broken by piecemeal. I spoke, after our return home, to the old gentleman; he liked me and was heartily glad to see our affection. A few days later I returned to the University in order to resume my studies, which the war had interrupted. I studied with increasing diligence, for my thirst of knowledge was hardly less of an incentive than my desire to be able as soon as possible to carry Leonora home with me as my wife. I therefore went only rarely to Fichtenau, and then stayed only a short time to sun myself in Leonora's love, and to return to my work with new courage and new strength. But I had another lady-love, whom I worshipped with no less ardor--Liberty. I shared that pa.s.sion with many other n.o.ble young men. We did not mean to have shed our blood on the battlefields in vain; we were not willing to become the prey of so many jackals and wolves, after we had successfully overcome a lion. But the jackals were on their guard, and the wolves broke in our fold.

"I had been engaged in teaching for a year; I had prepared everything for the wedding; the day was fixed; I was counting the days and the hours. Suddenly, one night, I was seized in my bed by armed men. My papers were sealed up; and the next night I slept in a casemate of a fortress.

"Or, rather, I did not sleep--I was enraged, I was maddened; my hands bled from my efforts to break the bars of my cage. Gradually I consoled myself with the hope that this captivity could not last long, and Leonora--well! she would bear her hard lot like a heroine. A second Egmont, I saw freedom and my beloved hand in hand. Through night to light! Through battle to victory! That was the mystic word with which I tried to frighten back the serpent-haired monster. Despair, when it was pressing upon me and about to strike its fangs into my heart. The mystic word had ample time to prove its power. I remained in prison for five years!

"You may imagine if my faith in the so-called divine nature of the world's government was shaken during this time, which I measured by the beats of my heart, and the drops which fell, one by one, from the damp ceiling of my cell. But, I told you before, my strength was great, and I was sternly determined to live. I had heard, to be sure, in the silent nights which saw me tossing restlessly upon my hard couch, the great word that releases us, but I had understood it only half, and perhaps not quite half. I had but just begun to spell the letters in my long apprenticeship; life itself was to be my school, before I should be able to read it fluently.

"I had scarcely been set free when I hastened to this place--you may imagine with what feelings! In the beginning of my captivity I had received one or two letters from Leonora, in which she conjured me to endure patiently, and to remain faithful, appealing to the G.o.d to whom she was hourly sending up her prayers for my release. Her letters had become rarer, and after about two years none had come any more. That was my greatest sorrow; but I always believed that it was the cruelty of my jailors which denied me this consolation, and I ground my teeth and cursed my tormentors.

"I had done them injustice.

"It was far in the night when I reached Fichtenau. I drove directly to the familiar house. I jumped from the carriage and pulled the bell. A window was opened up-stairs; an old woman looked out and asked what I wanted? I inquired after the schoolmaster. 'He died three years ago,'

was the curt answer. 'And where is his daughter?' 'You must ask the great gentleman who eloped with her three years ago,' said the woman, and shut the window with violence. I stood thunderstruck. Then I laughed aloud; but I was silenced by an intense pain in the heart--for, Oswald, I had loved Leonora.

"I never knew how I reached the inn. Late in the night I roused the good people from their slumbers by my wild laughing and furious raging.

They broke open the door of my room--I was in full delirium. The air of the prison had affected my health, and the fearful blow, finding me utterly unprepared, had shaken the weakened edifice to the foundation.

I struggled four weeks for my life, but I clung to it fiercely, and Death had to give up its prey. Woe to me! That death would not have been the ordinary death to me--it would have restored me to life! If I should die now I would die for ever!"

Oswald shuddered. What was the meaning of these mysterious words: "Die forever!" Did they contain that great mystery which was yet hidden from him by a thick veil?

"My convalescence," continued Berger, "lasted long, for my strength had been utterly exhausted. I crept through the streets of the village, leaning on a stick, and rejoiced to find that I could climb, day by day, a few steps higher, until I succeeded at last in reaching this spot here--the scene of an oath, which I had fancied to be sworn for eternity, and which had pa.s.sed away with the breath of her lips. I came every day here to weep over my lost happiness, and to quarrel with Heaven who lets his sun shine upon the unjust, and hurls his lightnings at the just. For I was, like King Lear, a man more sinned against than sinning. I had meant well and faithfully in all I had hoped and striven for in life. I had loved my native land as a child loves its parents, with a simple, believing heart; and in return it had made me suffer five years in a dungeon. I had loved Leonora with every drop of blood in my heart; and in return she had betrayed me. Up to that moment I had so lived in the world that I could face all and say: Who can accuse me of a sin?--and yet! and yet! I racked my brain to solve the mystery. I had never yet understood fully that life itself is the great sin, from which all other sins flow necessarily, as the stone, once set in motion, must roll inevitably down the precipice. Thus only I gradually comprehended that He cannot be a G.o.d of love who created and still creates a world in which the sins of the fathers are punished down to the third and fourth generation--a world, the whole government of which rests on the fearful Jesuitical principles that the end sanctions the means. So far I had always tried to find out only what was good in the world and in men; now my eyes had been opened by sore sufferings for the sufferings of my fellow-beings. I now saw how every page of our history bears the record of some fearful deed that makes our hair stand on end, and our blood curdle in our veins; I saw that there is a dark corner in every man's heart which he never dares look into; that no man yet has lived who did not wish once in his life that he had never been born; I saw that the life of countless mult.i.tudes is nothing more than a desperate struggle for existence; that sickness and sin, repentance and sorrow, undermine our life most thoroughly and eat their way to the core like worms in ripe fruit; that at best our pleasures are a dance upon graves--that, if life really ever was precious, death, inexorable death, is forever scorning and scoffing at this precious life. And I looked around on nature, in which poets see an idyll, and I found that it was either dead and insensible, or, when it does feel and sympathize, only repeating the b.l.o.o.d.y drama of human existence in a ruder and more shocking form. I saw that the different races of animals are engaged in fierce, implacable warfare against each other, uninterrupted by a moment's peace, and that their wars are carried on with a cruelty by the side of which even the most refined tortures of the Inquisition appear at times very harmless proceedings.

"And whilst I thus tore the gay rags to pieces, under which cowardice and stupidity try to conceal the wounds and sores of society, there arose in my heart a feeling which I had not known before--hatred. It was only my love in another form, although I tried to persuade myself that I had forgotten the faithless one; it was only another expression of my fondness of life, although I had fancied that I had forever closed my account with life. When we really give up life, we know nothing more of love or hatred.