Titan: A Romance Volume II Part 14

A little light in our apartment can screen us against the blinding effect of the whole heaven-broad lightning-glare; so it needs in us only a single, constantly shining idea and tendency, that the rapid alternation of flame and light in the outer world may not dizzy us. Had not Albano had an end in view which could be seen far-off,--had he not kept before his eye an obelisk in his life-path,--how long would the last scene, with its pangs cutting through each other, have confounded him! Now he was like the kindled olive--and laurel-leaves around him, whose flames grow green as they are themselves. Dian, who drove away the pains of others, because he, being easily movable, soon grew from a spectator to a sharer of them, made Albano and himself gay by his ardent interest in every beautiful form, every ruin, every little joy.

He had the rare and beautiful gift of being cheerful upon journeys, of plucking every flower, but no thistle; whereas the majority jog along with the night-cap under the hat; from station to station, gaping as they go on, and in grumbling war with every face, they travel through whole paradises as if they were antechambers of h.e.l.l.

In the waste Pontine marshes, wherein only buffaloes thrive and men grow pale, Dian sought for all sorts of amus.e.m.e.nt, and even drew forth his letter-case, in order to get over the last fishing-water of the papal territory, out of the reach of Peter's fisherman successors, without falling into a deadly sleep. There he stumbled, with a modern Greek curse, upon a letter to Albano, which had been enclosed in one from Chariton, and which in Rome he had forgotten, in the hurry of departure, to hand over; but he soon laughed about it, and found it good that in this "Devil's-dale" one had something to read against sleep.

It was the following from Rabette:--

"Heartily loved brother, one longs to know whether thou still thinkest a little bit of thy friends in Blumenbuhl, now that in the magnificent Italy thou art certainly quite in thy _essee_.[89] That thou livest in all our hearts, _that_ thou hast long known, and thou shouldst only know how long after thy departure we all wept for thee, as well thy mother as myself; and a certain one[90] thinks now-a-days quite differently of thee from what he did in old times. Much has happened this winter. The Minister's lady has separated from her husband, and lives on her estate, sometimes in Arcadia with the Princess Idoine. Our Prince is dangerously sick with the dropsy, and father can get a sc.r.a.p of business from the province by this, as he says. Thy Schoppe has gone on a journey of a couple of months, leaving behind a letter to thee, which he has intrusted to father's care. He stayed latterly with us, and in thy room, and visited attentively the Countess Romeiro. It is a shame for him, for he means well; but Master Wehmeier and all of us in the place are convinced that he is, in short, mad, and he believes it, too, and says he shall therefore soon set his house in order. As touching the Countess Romeiro, she has gone off with Princess Julienne; none, however, knows whither. They say the Prince has shown her too marked attentions, and she would rather be off to Spain. Others talk of Greece, but the _certain one_ a.s.sures me she is gone to Rome to her guardian: of that now thou wilt know better than myself. The certain one undertook all that was within human possibility in order to win her, partly by letters, partly in person, to no purpose; not one smile could he gain as often as ever he addressed her even at _cour_. All this I have (wilt thou believe it?) from his mouth, for he is again often with me, and reveals to me his whole heart. Mine, however, I hold together fast, that not so much as the smallest drop of blood may trickle out from it, and G.o.d alone sees how it pa.s.ses, and what a weeping there is therein. Ah, Albano, a poor girl who is in strong health must endure much before she can die. Often my eye can no longer remain dry, and I then say his talk does it, which, to be sure, is partly true, but to thee I show the _dessous des cartes_. Never, never more can I be his, for he has not dealt ingenuously with me, but altogether recklessly, and he knows it too. Nor is a single kiss allowed him; and I tell him, only for G.o.d's sake, not to take that as a coquette's manner to draw him to me. My good parents do not rightly know what they are to make of our intercourse, and I fear father may break out; then I shall have very bitter days. But shall I repel the poor, sick, pale spirit from myself, too? shall the glowing soul, exhaling like smoke, rise to heaven, and consume itself? Whose heart will not break when he is at a _Festin_, and she immediately, offended at his presence, goes home again?--as lately happened, and he said to me, in a perfect rage, 'Well, very well, Linda, _one day_, be sure, thine eye will be wet for me.' Then I know well that he means no good, and I spare him from an anxious dread on that account; for shall two, brother and sister, sink in their bloom? He would long ago have travelled after her, had he not daily hoped she was coming back. Ah, could I tear my loving heart out of my breast, and put it into hers instead of the other, that so she might love him with all my love, Albano, right gladly would I do it. But the paper comes to an end on this side, and mother wishes on the other to write a greeting.

Farewell! is the wish of Thy faithful sister,

Rabette."

"How goes it with my most precious son? Is he prosperous, still good and well? Does he still think of his true foster-parents? This in the name of his father and in her own, asks and wishes,

His faithful mother,

Albina von W."

"P. S. His old teacher, Wehmeier, likewise greets his darling in strange lands; and we all rejoice in the prospect of his return. A."

"P. S. Brother, I, too, must make a P. S. Schoppe has painted _you know who_, and _scenes_, even, have arisen out of the circ.u.mstance. But more of this when we meet. The Princesse Idoine has visited our Princess often this winter. R."

As letters accommodate themselves more to the place, where they were born, than to that where they are delivered, it often happens that what went out as seed, arrives, after its long journey, already in a germinating state, and with roots, and inversely in the shape of blossoms rather than of dry seed; and every sheet is a double birth of two distant times, that of writing and that of reading. Thus was Albano, now under this serener sky, on this soil of a greater world of the past, and with a soul full of new springs, the less overtaken and darkened by Rabette's letter, through which the northern winter clouds had pa.s.sed. The ingenuous Rabette, the mild Albina came after him in fancy but softly over the strange mountains and through the strange climes, and laid a cooling hand on his hot brow; his old Schoppe stood in his old worth before him, and Liana floated again through the lofty blue. Toward the weather-beaten Roquairol he felt not so much as compa.s.sion, but a hard contempt; and Linda's steadfast mind was exactly after his, like the proud look and gait of Roman women. He now thought over many things more cheerfully than ever, and even wished to look once in the magic-face of that Heroine.

In _Fondi_ the Neapolitan world-garden began, and when they entered upon the road to _Mola_, they went deeper and deeper into blossoms and flowers. In flying sheets--addressed, perhaps, to his father, still more probably to his Schoppe--his bliss and his soul expressed themselves; it treasured up, as it were, some stray orange-blossoms dropped out of the Eden through which they had so rapidly flown. Here they are:--

"Shortly before sundown on Ascension-day we arrived in Mola; the native Dian was full as much overcome with the green majesty, which he had not seen for a long time, as I, and I do not yet believe him when he says that it blooms and smells more finely about Naples. I did not go at all into the city, for the sun hung already toward the sea. Around me streams the incense smoke of reeking flowers from citron-woods and meadows of jessamin and narcissus. On my left the blue Apennine flings his fountain-waters from mountain to mountain, and on my right the mighty sea presses upon the mighty earth, and the earth stretches out a firm arm and holds a shining city[91] hung with gardens, far out into the mult.i.tudinous waves,--and into the unfathomable sea lofty islands have been cast as unfathomable mountains;[92] low in the south and east a glimmering mist-land, the coast of Sorrento, grasps round the sea like a crooked-up Jupiter's-arm, and behind the distant Naples stands Vesuvius, with a cloud in heaven under the moon. 'Fall on thy knees, fortunate one,' said Dian, 'before the sumptuous prospect!' O G.o.d, why not do it in earnest? For who can behold in the glow of evening the monstrous realm of waters, how yonder busy and restless motion grows still in the distance, and only sparkles, and at last, blue and golden, blends with the sky, and how the earth here shuts in the delicate, floating fire with her long lands into a rosy, steady earth-shadow, who can behold the fire-rain of infinite life, the weaving magic circle of all forces in the water, in the sky, on the earth, without kneeling down before the infinite spirit of Nature and saying, 'How near to me thou art, O Ineffable!' O here he is both near and far, bliss and hope come glimmering from the misty coast, and also from the neighboring fountains, which the hills pour down into the sea, and in the white blossoms over my head. O does not, then, this sun, around which burning waves flutter, and the blue overhead and over yonder, and the kindling lands of men, worlds within the world,--does not this distance call out the heart and all its aspiring wishes? Will it not create and grasp into the distance and s.n.a.t.c.h its life blossoms from the highest peak of heaven? But when it looks around itself upon its own ground, there too again is the girdle of Venus thrown around the blooming circ.u.mference, brightly green grows the tall myrtle-tree near its little dark myrtle, the orange glimmers in the high, cold gra.s.s, and overhead hangs its fragrant blossom, the wheat waves with broad leaves between the enamels of the almond and the narcissus, and far off stands the cypress, and the palm towers proudly;[93] all is flower and fruit, spring and harvest. 'Shall I go this way? shall I go that way?' asks the heart in its bliss.

"Thus did I see the sun go down under the waves,--the reddening coasts fled away under their misty veils,--the world went out, land after land, from one island to another,--the last gold-dust was wafted away from the heights,--and the prayer-bells of the convents led up the heart above the stars. O how happy and how wistful was my heart, at once a wish and a flame, and in my innermost being a prayer of grat.i.tude went forth for this, that I was and am upon this earth.

"Never shall I forget that! If we throw away life as too small for our wishes, still do they not belong to life itself, and did they not come from it? If the crowned earth rears around us such blossoming sh.o.r.es, such sunny mountains, would she fain enclose therewith unhappy beings?

Why is our heart narrower than our eye? why does a cloud hardly a mile long oppress us, when that very cloud stands itself under the stars of immensity? Is not every morning and every hope a beginning of spring?

What are the thickest prison-walls of life but vine-trellises built up for the ripening of the wine-glow? And as life always cuts itself up into quarters, why must it be merely the last, and not quite as often the first, upon which a full-beaming moon follows? 'O G.o.d,' said I, as I went back through the green world which next morning becomes a glowing one, 'never let me ascribe thy eternity to any one time, except the most blissful; joy is eternal, but not pain, for this last thou hast not created.'

"'Friend,' said Dian to me, on the way, when I could not well conceal from him my inner commotion, 'what may not your feelings be, then, when you look back upon Naples on the pa.s.sage over to Ischia! For it is plain to perceive that you were born in a northern land.' 'Dear friend,' said I, 'every one is born _with_ his north or south; whether in an outer one beside, that is of little consequence.'"

So far his leaf upon Mola. But a wonderful circ.u.mstance seemed this very night to take him at his word in respect to the last a.s.surance contained in his letter. In the yard of the inn were a.s.sembled many boatmen and others; all were contending violently about an opinion, and the most were continually saying: "To-day, to be sure, is Ascension Day, and _he_, too, has wrought miracles." "Ascension?" thought Albano, and remembered his birthday, which often fell on this festival. Dian came up and related, laughing, how the people were expecting down below the ascension of a monk, who had promised it this night, and many believed him for this reason, because he had already done a wonderful work, namely, given a dead man his speech for two hours, before all Mola. They both were agreed to witness the work. The mult.i.tude swelled,--the promised man came not, who was to lead them to the place of ascension,--all became angry rather than incredulous. At length late at night a mask appeared and gave, with a motion of the hand, a sign to follow it. All streamed after, even Albano and his friend. The pure moon shone fresh out of blue skies, the wide garden of the country slept in its blossoms, but all breathed fragrance, the slumbering and the waking flowers.

The mask led the crowd to the ruins of Cicero's house, or tower, and pointed upward. Overhead, on the wall, stood a trembling man. Albano found his face more and more familiar. At last the man said: "I am a father of death: may the Father of life be merciful to me. How it goes with me I know not. There stands one among you," he added at once in a strange, namely, in the Spanish language, "to whom I appeared one Good Friday on Isola Bella, and announced the death of his sister; let him journey on to Ischia, there will he find his sister."

Albano could not hear these words without excitement and indignation.

The form of the Father of Death upon that island he saw now right clearly upon these ruins; and his promise to appear to him on a Good Friday came again to his mind. He tried now to work his way up to the ruins, so as to attack the monk. An inhabitant of Mola cried, when he heard the strange language: "The monk is talking with the Devil." The ascensionist said nothing to the contrary,--he trembled more violently,--but the people sought for him who had said it, and cried, "It is he with the mask, for he is no more to be found." At last the monk, quaking, begged they would be still when he vanished, and pray for him, and never seek his body. Albano was now close behind his back, unseen by Dian. Just then, high in the dark blue, came a flock of quails flying slowly along. The monk swiftly and staggeringly flung himself up, scattered the birds, cried out in the dark distance, "Pray!" and vanished away into the broad air.

The people cried and shouted with exultation, and part prayed; many believed now the Devil was in the play. Among the spectators lay a man with his face to the earth, and continually cried, "G.o.d have mercy on me!" But no man brought him to an explanation. Dian, privately a little superst.i.tious, said his understanding was at a stand-still here. But Albano explained how a complot of ghosts had been long twitching and drawing at his life's curtain, but some day he should yet certainly thrust his hand successfully through the curtain, and he was firmly resolved immediately to cross over from Naples to Ischia, to see his sister. "Verily," he added, "in this mother country of wonder, fantasy, and everything great, one as easily believes in fair, enriching miracles of fate, as one does in the north in dreadful robbing miracles of spirits."

Dian was also for the earliest visit to the island of Ischia; "Because otherwise," he added, "when Albano had delivered his letters in Naples, and had been drawn in to the _Ricevimenti_,[94] or on Posilippo and Vesuvius, then there would be no getting away."

On the day following they departed from Mola. The lovely sea played hide-and-seek with them on their way, and only the golden sky never veiled itself. Naples' goblet of joy already intoxicated one from afar with its fragrance and spirit. Albano cast inspired looks at _Campania Felice_, at the Colosseum in Capua, and at the broad garden, full of gardens, and even at the rough Appian Way, which its old name made softer.

But he sighed for the island of Ischia, that Arcadia of the ocean, and that wonderful place where he was to find a sister. It was not in their power earlier than in the early part of Sat.u.r.day night--if indeed waking and glancing life can be called night, particularly an Italian Sat.u.r.day night--to reach _Aversa_. Albano insisted upon their continuing on in the night toward Naples. Dian was still reluctant. By chance there stood in the post-house a beautiful girl, who might be about fourteen years old, very much troubled at having missed the coach, and determined this very night to go on to Naples, in order to reach Ischia, where her parents were, early enough on the holy Sabbath.

"She had come," she said, "from _Santa Agata_; her name was only _Agata_, and not _Santa_." "Probably her old joke," said Dian, but he was now--with his love of hovering about every fair form--himself quite in a mood for the night-ride, that so they might carry the black-eyed one along with them, who looked joyously and brightly into the fire of strange eyes. She accepted the invitation cheerfully, and prattled familiarly, like a naturalist, about Epomeo and Vesuvius, and predicted for them innumerable pleasures on the island, and altogether showed an intelligence and thoughtfulness far above her years. At last they all flew along under the bright stars out into the lovely night.

109. CYCLE

Albano goes on in the description of his journey thus:--

"A night of unrivalled serenity! The stars alone of themselves illuminated the earth, and the milky-way was silvery. A single avenue, intertwined with vine-blossoms, led to the magnificent city. Everywhere one heard people, now near, talking, now distant, singing. Out of dark chestnut woods, on moonlit hills, the nightingales called to one another. A poor, sleeping maiden, whom we had taken with us, heard the melodies even down into her dream, and sang after them; and then, when she awoke herself therewith, looked round confusedly and with a sweet smile, with the whole melody and dream still in her breast. On a slender, light two-wheeled carriage, a wagoner, standing on the pole and singing, rolled merrily along by. Women were already bearing in the cool of the hour great baskets full of flowers into the city; in the distance, as we pa.s.sed along, whole Paradises of flower-cups sent their fragrance; and the heart and the bosom drank in at once the love-draught of the sweet air. The moon had gone up bright as a sun in the high heaven, and the horizon was gilded with stars; and in the whole cloudless sky stood the dusky cloud-column of Vesuvius, alone, in the east.

"Far into the night, after two o'clock, we rolled in and through the long city of splendor, wherein the living day still bloomed on. Gay people filled the streets; the balconies sent each other songs; on the roofs bloomed flowers and trees between lamps, and the little bells of the hours prolonged the day; and the moon seemed to give warmth. Only now and then a man lay sleeping between the colonnades, as if he were taking his siesta. Dian, at home in all such matters, let the carriage stop on the southern side, toward the sea, and went far into the city, in order to arrange, through old acquaintances, the pa.s.sage across to the island, so that we might have exactly at sundown out on the sea, the richest view of the stately city, with its bay and its long coasts.

The Ischian girl wrapped herself up in her blue veil, to keep off the flies, and fell asleep on the black, sandy sh.o.r.e.

"I walked up and down alone; for me there was no night and no house.

The sea slept, the earth seemed awake. In the fleeting glimmer (the moon was already sinking towards Posilippo) I looked up over this divine frontier city of the world of waters, over this rising mountain of palaces, to where the lofty Castle of St. Elmo looks, white, out of the green foliage. With two arms the earth embraced the lovely sea; on her right, on Posilippo, she bore blooming vine-hills far out into the waves, and on the left she held cities, and spanned round its waters and its ships, and drew them up to her breast. Like a sphinx lay the jagged Capri darkly on the horizon in the water, and guarded the gates of the bay. Behind the city the volcano smoked in the ether, and occasionally sparks played between the stars.

"Now the moon sank down behind the elms of Posilippo,--the city grew dark,--the din of the night died away,--fishermen disembarked, put out their torches, and laid themselves down on the bank,--the earth seemed to sink to sleep, but the sea to wake up. A wind from the coast of Sorrento ruffled the still waves; more brightly gleamed Sorrento's sickle with the reflection at once of the moon and of morning, like silver meadows; the smoke column of Vesuvius had blown away, and from the fire-mount streamed a long, clear morning redness over the coasts as over a strange world.

"O, it was the morning twilight, full of youthful omens! Do not landscape, mountain, coasts, like an echo, speak so many the more syllables to the soul the farther off they are? How young did I feel the world and myself, and the whole morning of my life was crowded into this!

"My friend came; all was arranged; the boatmen had arrived; Agata was awakened to the joy, and we embarked, just as the dawn kindled the mountains, and, her sails swelling with the morning breezes, our little vessel flew out into the sea.

"Before we had yet doubled the promontory of Posilippo, the crater of Vesuvius threw up its glowing child, the sun, slowly into the sky, and sea and earth blazed. The half earth-girdles of Naples, with morning-red palaces, its market-place of fluttering ships, the swarm of its country-houses on the mountains and up along the sh.o.r.e, and its green throne of St. Elmo, stood proudly between two mountains, before the sea.

"When we came round Posilippo, there stood Ischia's Epomeo, like a giant of the sea, in the distance, girdled about with a wood, and with bald, white head. Gradually appeared on the immeasurable plain the islands, one after another, like scattered villages, and wildly pressed and waded the promontories into the sea. Now, mightier and more alive than the dried-up, parcelled out, stiff land, the watery kingdom opened, whose powers all, from the streams and waves even to the drops, join hands and move in concert. Almighty, and yet gentle element!

grimly thou leapest upon the lands, and swallowest them up, and, with thy undermining polypus-arms, liest stretching around the whole globle.

But thou reinest the wild streams, and meltest them down into waves; softly thou playest with thy little children, the islands, and playest on the hand which hangs out of the light gondola, and sendest out thy little waves which play before us, then bear us along, and play behind us.

"When we came along by the little Nisita, where Brutus and Cato once sought shelter after Caesar's death; when we pa.s.sed by the enchanted Baja and the magic castle where once three Romans determined upon the division of the world, and before the whole promontory, where the country-seats of great Romans stood; and when we looked down towards the mountain of c.u.ma, behind which Scipio Africa.n.u.s lived in his Linternum and died; then did the lofty life of the great ancients take possession of me, and I said to my friend: 'What men were those!

Scarcely do we learn incidentally in Pliny or Cicero that one of them has a country-house yonder, or that there is a lovely Naples. Out of the midst of nature's sea of joys their laurels grow and bear as well as out of the ice-sea of Germany and England, or out of Arabia's sand.

Alike in wildernesses and in paradises, their mighty hearts beat on.

And for these world-souls there was no dwelling except the world; only with such souls are emotions worth almost more than actions. A Roman might here weep n.o.bly for joy! Dian, say, what can a modern man do for it, that he lives so late after their ruins?'

"Youth and ruins, tottering, crumbling past and eternal fulness of life, covered the sh.o.r.e of Misenum and the whole far-stretching coast.

On the broken urns of dead G.o.ds, on the dismembered temples of Mercury and Diana, the frolicsome, light wave played, and the eternal sun; old, lonely bridge-posts in the sea, solitary temple-columns and arches, spoke, in the luxuriant splendor of life, a sober word; the old, holy names of the Elysian Fields, of Avernus, of the Dead Sea, lived still along the coast; ruins of rocks and temples lay in confusion upon the motley-colored lava; all bloomed and lived; the maidens and the boatmen sang; the mountains and the islands stood great in the young, fiery day; dolphins chased sportively along beside us; singing larks went whirling up in the ether above their narrow islands; and from all ends of the horizon ships came up and flew down again with arrowy speed. It was the divine over-fulness and intermingling of the world before me.

Sounding-strings of life were stretched over the string-bridge of Vesuvius, even to Epomeo.

"Suddenly one peal of thunder pa.s.sed along through the blue heaven over the sea. The maiden asked me, 'Why do you grow pale? it is only Vesuvius.' Then was a G.o.d near me; yes, heaven, earth, and sea stood before me as three divinities. The leaves of life's dream-book were murmuringly ruffled up by a divine morning-storm; and everywhere I read our dreams and the interpretations thereof.

"After some time, we came to a long land swallowing up the north, as it were the foot of a single mountain; it was already the lovely Ischia, and I went on sh.o.r.e intoxicated with bliss, and then, for the first time, I thought of the promise that I should there find a sister."

110. CYCLE.

With emotion, with a sort of festive solemnity, Albano trod the cool island. It was to him as if the breezes were always wafting to him the words, "The place of rest." Agata begged them both to stay with her parents, whose house lay on the sh.o.r.e, not far from the suburb-town.[95] As they went over the bridge, which connects the green rock wound round with houses to the sh.o.r.e and the city, she pointed out to them joyfully in the east the individual house. As they went along so slowly, and the high, round rock and the row of houses stood mirrored in the water; and upon the flat roofs the beautiful women who were tr.i.m.m.i.n.g the festal lamps for evening spoke busily over to each other, and greeted and questioned the returning Agata; and all faces were so glad, all forms so comely, and the very poorest in silk; and the lively boys pulled down little chestnut-tops; and the old father of the isle, the tall Epomeo, stood before them all clad in vine-foliage and spring-flowers, out of whose sweet green only scattered, white pleasure-houses of happy mountain-dwellers peeped forth;--then was it to Albano as if the heavy pack of life had fallen off from his shoulders into the water, and the erect bosom drank in from afar the cool ether flowing in from Elysium. Across the sea lay the former stormy world, with its hot coasts.