The Third of May.–The Nightingale.–The Abbate Sitting on Music.

I must here–premise, once for all, that I should be very stupid if I did not notice the multitude of improbabilities in this history: I am well aware of them all; nay, I have observed some of them–e. g. in Clotilda's behavior, or those in my hero's medical doctorship–even sooner than the reader, because I have–read everything before he has. I therefore delayed no longer, but entreated my correspondent by to-day's Hofmann-mail to write me by the dog the next time, in his portrait-box, what we were all about. I told him flatly, that the devil a bit did he know, though I did, however, of the readers and their tyranny. I must tell him (I said) that they were people of sense, whom a Biographer, nay, even a Romance-architect, dared not approach with poetic deception, but they would say, like the Areopagus, "Give us the naked historical fact here, without any superfluous poetic dressing up." And in fact it was a marvel to me, I went on to say, that he should not yet know that they had so much, partly understanding and partly four-leaved clover^[54] in them, that, if the greatest authors and tragic poets should undertake to be fine, and by Æsthetic juggleries to excite in them fear, like cuppers, or pity, like beggars, they would cold-bloodedly let these men work till they were tired, and say, "We are not to be caught." That the Reviewers, however, were still more crazy and clever, and were perhaps the best Skotometers (measurers of darkness), at the same time that they were the wretchedest Photometers (light measurers) going. And finally, I said right out to my historical adjutant, that it was no injury to him, but very much to me, that I should be translated into several languages, and therein, for every improbability in the text, be dragged down into the scourging-cellar of a note, and there sorely lashed, without daring to open my mouth, if the interpreting scoundrel who translated (or transported) my gourd-bottle-case like a cask of wine, from one country to another, should, on the way, as all carriers do, outwardly besprinkle and inwardly fill up the wine with water.–He must, at least, (I entreated him) give me an answer, that I might show it to the readers, as an evidence that I had written to him.

By the next Dog-post-day, therefore, at all events, great things may be expected.–

Besides, the 4th of May comes into that also, with what should seem its two important Thanksgiving festivals for the arrival of the two Sebastians,–the little one into the world, the elder at the bathing-town.–Even Clotilda is to be there to-morrow, and Victor is very eager (and so am I) to see her in the sunshine of love beside Flamin; for over yonder all her charms seemed to bloom round a heart not yet smitten and ripened by love's ray, as flower-leaves hide the white heart-leaves from the sun.... Matthieu came to-day to take leave, because he was going back to-morrow to the city. Our hero was less and less pleased with him, and a Page's history, which he related of himself, renewed Victor's resolve to fulfil soon the entreaty of the Parson's wife by ridding himself of such a fellow.

Matthieu, as Page, rendered service to the chief Tutor's lady, I believe both the greater and the lesser service. Nevertheless, he had once to smuggle an Abbate and conscience-keeper into one of her cabinets, which was destined to be the confessional and holy place to a degree of which, to be sure, her stupid, jealous husband had no notion. Now there was in the next room a musical armchair, upon which, in fact, one played with no other instrument than the rump; so soon as one sat down in it, it began its overtures, and I myself once sat in such a one at Prince Esterhazy's. Our Mat,^[55] as all the citizens of Flachsenfingen called him,–some government people called him even the Evangelist,–appointed the Abbate two hours too soon; but, lest the man with the shorn peruke should be tired of waiting, he first carried in the music-making chair as resting-bench and anchoring-ground for weary expectants. Toward three of the night, when the company was gone, except the chief Tutor, the counsellor of conscience, weary of standing, let his rump sink at last into the easy-chair stuffed out with favorite arias, and woke up with his breeches the whole wailing music therein with its thrilling passages, without the least possibility of stilling the cabinet-serenade of this alarmer. At last the husband darted like a herring at the final cadences (or falls), and dragged from his organ-stool the sedentary conscience-man in the midst of counterpoint and shakes, and spoiled his quail-call for him, I believe, by an administered cudgelling. The chief Tutor's lady easily guessed the master of the chair, Mat; but so very much a matter of course is pardon at court,–not merely past offences, but future ones being forgiven there by good, easy female souls,–that the chief Tutor's lady did not avenge herself upon Mat, although he served her two weeks and a half longer, till after just two weeks and a half....

Victor was indignant at Flamin's laughter; he loved drollery, but not bantering. His sweetened blood began gradually with this mother of vinegar to grow sour towards this Mat, whose cold, ironical gallantry toward the honest Agatha of itself exasperated him, though her phlegmatic, and, as it were, married pulse, beat in his absence and in his presence at the same rate. Still more heart-burning matter and acid collected in Victor's bosom, from the fact that he, who tolerated everything,–vain men, proud ones, atheists, enthusiasts,–could nevertheless not endure men who regard virtue as a kind of refined provision-bakery, wantonness as allowed, the spirit as an almsgatherer for the flesh, the heart as a blood-syringe, and our soul as a new shoot of the body. But this was what Matthieu did, who besides had a passion for philosophizing, and threatened to infect Victor's friend, who, in fact, was as cold toward the whole world of poets and spirits as a statesman, with his philosophical cancer-poison.

In the evening he endeavored to sound, a little nearer to Flamin's ear, a blast upon a second Trumpet of Fame against the departed pseudo-Evangelist. It was in the garden that he blew it. He took the hand of which Matthieu's was not worthy into his better one, and began, with the finest and heartiest forbearance.–which one must grant even to true friendship for a hollow friend,–his iconoclastic attack. For while he charged it upon the lady of the Chamberlain, that she threw down at Agatha from her high post looks nowise cleaner than what monkeys used to throw down from their high roosts at passers-by; and while he blamed the young Page, that, like many of the nobility, only among the nobility could he scent best (perhaps by the help of contrast) the heretical odor of one belonging to the burgher-class, and that his words and looks at the palace flew like icicles at the good, warm heart of Agatha; at the same time the reproach of this May-frost toward the sister was only a pretext behind which he veiled the observation, that the Page would not be Flamin's friend, if he were not Agatha's lover.

Flamin's silence (the sign of his indignation) gave the stream of his eloquence a new and swifter descent; in addition to this a nightingale, poetizing in Le Baut's garden, woke up all the echoes of love in his soul.–He therefore grasped, of course, both of Flamin's hands in that effervescence which always transformed his steps toward an object into springs, and thereby overshot the mark. Many plans miscarry, because the heart toils after the head, and because at the end of the execution one applies less caution than at its beginning. He looked upon his beloved, the fluting throat of the nightingale set the text of his love to music, and with indescribable emotion he said: "Best one, thy heart is too good not to be outwitted by those who cannot reach thee. O if, some day, the sharp edge of court ton should pass bloodily across the veins of thy breast (Flamin's looks seemed to ask, Art thou not then even satirical?)–O if he, who has no faith in virtue and disinterestedness, should one day himself cease to show any; if he should sorely betray thee; should the hand, which court-life had hardened, like a lemon-squeezer, wring blood and tears from thy heart, then, I beseech thee, despair not, only not of friendship,–for thy mother and I love thee far otherwise. O verily, at the time when thou art forced to say, Why did I not hearken to my friend who so warned me, and to my mother who so loved me?–then mayest thou come to me, to one who never changes, and who prizes thy error higher than self-interested vigilance; then would I lead thee weeping to thy mother, and say to her, take him wholly, thou only art worthy to love him." To all this Flamin said not a word. "Art thou sad, my Flamin?" "Tired! "I am sad; the plaints of the nightingale strike upon my soul like echoes of future ones," said Victor. "Are you pleased with this nightingale, Victor?" "Indescribably, as if she were a friend of my innermost soul." "Thus are people imposed on; it is Matthieu singing," Flamin quickly answered. For the Evangelist differed from a nightingale in nothing except size. And then Flamin, somewhat irritated, and yet with a pressure of his friend's hand, took his departure.

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