SCHILLER IN DRESDEN.

“That is false, I say; false!” cried Schiller, with glowing cheeks and sparkling eyes, as he walked to and fro in his little room. “It is all slander, vile slander!”

The two friends, the young councillor of the consistory, KÖrner, and the bookseller, GÖschen, stood together in the window recess, gazing sadly and sympathetically at the poet, who rushed to and fro, almost breathless with rage, hurling an angry glance at his friends, whenever he approached them.

Suddenly he stopped, and fastened his gaze on them, intently. “Why do you not reply?” asked he, in loud and wrathful tones. “Why do you allow me to accuse you both of a falsehood, without even attempting to justify yourselves?”

“Because we wish to give your just anger time to expend itself,” said KÖrner, in his soft, mild voice. “To our own great sorrow we have been compelled to wound our friend’s feelings, and it is quite natural that this wound should smart.”

“And we do not justify ourselves against these reproaches, because they do not apply to us,” added GÖschen, “and because they are only the utterance of your just indignation. Believe me, my friend, we would gladly have spared you this hour, but our friendship was greater than our pity.”

“Yes, yes, the old story,” cried Schiller, with mocking laughter. “Out of friendship, you are pitiless; out of friendship you give the death-blow to my heart! And what the most cruel enemy would hardly have the courage to whisper in my ear, merciful friendship boldly declares!”

“Schiller, you are deceived! Schiller, the girl you love is a cold-hearted coquette, who does not love you, who only keeps you in leading-strings, in order to extort presents from you, and to be able to say that a poet adores her!”

“But I will give no credit to such unworthy insinuations! My love shall not be regarded as a mere mockery. You shall not have the pitiful triumph of tearing me from the girl I love. I declare to you and the whole world, I love her, I love the beautiful, the admired, the courted Marie von Arnim. To her belong my thoughts, my wishes, and my hopes. She is my ideal of beauty, of youth, and of female loveliness. I exult in this love; it will raise me from the dust of earth to the sphere of the eternal and immortal gods!”

“My poor friend!” sighed KÖrner, “like your love, the gods only exist in your poetical fancy. Listen to reason, Schiller!”

“Reason!” cried he, stamping the floor, wrathfully. “That means the dry insipidity of every-day life, instead of life’s festival, wreathed with flowers. No, I will not listen to reason; for you call it reason to consider it possible that the most divine creature on earth could be a base coquette!”

“Now you go too far, Schiller,” said GÖschen, eagerly, “no one made such grave accusations against the daughter. We only said of the mother that she misused your love for her daughter, and that she would never consent to your union. We said that the beautiful young lady was aware of this, and continued to receive your attentions, although she knew the gentleman selected by her mother as her future husband, and would finally consent to marry him. As friends, we conceived it to be our duty to tell you this, in order that you might no longer be deceived in your noblest impulses, and continue to throw away your love, your confidence, and your money, on unworthy objects.”

“That is the word,” cried Schiller, with mocking laughter, “now you have uttered the right word! My money, or rather your money, you would say! You tremble for your vile dross! You made me advances, and Don Carlos is not yet completed. You now fear that my love might distract my attention, and draw me from my work, and that the two hundred dollars which—”

“Frederick Schiller!” cried KÖrner, interrupting him, while GÖschen turned away, his lips trembling, and his eyes filled with tears; “Frederick Schiller, now you are unjust; and that, a friend must not be, even in his deepest grief. Vile dross has nothing to do with this sacrifice of friendship, and it was not for its sake that we undertook the thankless office of making the blind see. You well know that GÖschen is a noble and disinterested friend, who rejoiced in being permitted to help the poet of Don Carlos out of his difficulties, but it is, of course, painful to him to see the loving, confiding man, squander what the poet earns.”

“It is true, it is true!” cried Schiller, “I am unjust! I reproach you instead of reproaching myself, and myself only. Oh, my friends, forgive these utterances of my anguish, consider what I endure! You are both so happy; you have all that can lend a charm to life, and adorn it. You are wealthy, you do not know what it is to have to contend with want, and to struggle for existence, nor have you any knowledge of that more painful struggle, the warfare of life without love, without some being who loves you, and is wholly yours. You, my friends, have loved and loving wives, who are yours with every fibre of their being. You have also well-appointed households, and are provided with all that is requisite to enable you to exercise a generous hospitality. But, look at me, the solitary, homeless beggar, who calls nothing on earth his own but that spark of enthusiasm which burns in his heart, who must flee to the ideal, in order to escape the too rude grasp of reality. Why must I alone rise from the richly-laden table of life with unsatisfied hunger? Why are the stars, for me, merely candles of the night, that give me light in my labors, and the sun only an economical heating apparatus, to which I am only in so far indebted as it saves me expensive fuel for my stove in winter. Grant me my portion of the repast which the gods have prepared for all mortals, let me also partake of the golden Hesperian fruit. My friends, have pity on the poor wanderer, who has been journeying through the desert of life, and would now recline on the green oasis and rest his weary limbs!” He sank down into a chair, and covered his quivering face with his trembling hands.

His two friends stood at his side regarding him sorrowfully. Neither of them had the cruel courage to break in upon this paroxysm of anguish with a word of encouragement or consolation.

A pause ensued, in which the silence was interrupted only by Schiller’s deep-drawn sighs, and the few indistinct words, which he from time to time murmured to himself. But suddenly he arose, and when he withdrew his hands from his face its expression was completely changed. His countenance was no longer quivering with pain and flushed with anger, but was pale, and his glance defiant. And when he now shook back the long yellow hair which shaded his brow, with a quick movement of the head, he looked like a lion shaking his mane, and preparing to do battle with an approaching enemy.

“Enough of these lamentations and womanish complaints,” said he, in a resolute, hoarse voice. “I will be a man who has the courage to listen to the worst and defy the greatest agony. Repeat all that you have said. I will not interrupt you again, either with complaints or reproaches. I know that you are actuated by the kindest intentions, and that, like the good surgeon, you only desire to apply the knife and fire to my wounded heart in order to heal it. And now, speak, my friends! Repeat what you have said!”

He walked hastily across the room to the little window, stood there with his back turned to the room, and beat the window-panes impatiently with his cold hands.

“Frederick, why repeat what is already burning in your head and heart?” said KÖrner, gently. “Why turn the knife once more in the wound, and tell you that your noble, generous love is not appreciated, not honored? The best and fairest princess of the world would have reason to consider herself happy and blessed, if the poet by the grace of God loved her; and yet his noble, generous love is misused by a cold, calculating woman, and made the means of adorning its object for richer suitors.”

“Proofs!” cried Schiller, imperiously, and he drummed away at the window-panes till they fairly rang.

“It is difficult for others to give proofs in such cases,” replied KÖrner, in a low voice. “You cannot prove to the man who is walking onward with closed eyes, that he is on the verge of a precipice; you can only warn him and entreat him to open his eyes, that he may see the danger which menaces. We have only considered it our duty to repeat to you what is known by all Dresden, and what all your acquaintances and friends say: that this Madame von Arnim has come to Dresden to seek a husband of rank and fortune for her daughter, and that she only encourages Frederick Schiller’s attentions, because the poet’s homage makes the beautiful young lady appear all the more desirable in the eyes of her other suitors.”

“An infernal speculation, truly!” said Schiller, with derisive laughter. “But where are the proofs? Until they are furnished, I must be permitted to doubt. I attach no importance whatever to the tattle of the good city of Dresden; to the malicious suppositions and remarks of persons with whom I am but slightly acquainted, I am also quite indifferent. But who are the friends who believe in this fable, and who have commissioned you to relate it to me? At least, give me the name of one of them.”

“I will at least give you the name of a lady friend,” said GÖschen, sadly; “her name is Sophie Albrecht, my wife’s sister.”

Schiller turned hastily to his friends, and his countenance now wore an alarmed expression.

“Sophie Albrecht!” said he, “the sensitive artist — she in whose house I first saw Marie. Is it possible that she can have uttered so unworthy a suspicion?”

“She it was who charged me to warn you,” replied GÖschen, with a sigh. “For this very reason, that you first met Madame von Arnim and her daughter in her house, does she consider it her duty to warn you and show you the abyss at your feet. At this first interview, she noticed with alarm how deep an impression the rare beauty of Miss von Arnim made on you, and how you afterwards ran blindly into the net which the old spider, the speculative mother, had set for you. This Madame von Arnim is the widow of a Saxon officer, who left her nothing but his name and his debts. She lives on a small pension given her by the king, and has, it seems, obtained a few thousand dollars from some rich relative; with this sum she has come to Dresden, where she proposes to carry out her speculation—that is, to keep house here for some little time, and to entertain society, and, above all, rich young cavaliers, among whom she hopes to find an eligible suitor for her daughter. This at least is no calumny, but Madame von Arnim very naively admitted as much to my sister-in-law, Sophie Albrecht, calling her attention to the droll circumstance, that the first candidate who presented himself was no other than a poor poet, who could offer her daughter neither rank, title, nor fortune. When Sophie reminded her that Frederick Schiller could give her daughter the high rank and title of a poet, and adorn her brow with the diamond crown of immortal renown, the sagacious lady shrugged her shoulders, and remarked that a crown of real diamonds would be far more acceptable, and that she had far rather see her daughter crowned with the coronet of a countess than with the most radiant poet’s crown conceivable. And she already had the prospect of obtaining such a one for her daughter; the poet’s admiration for her beautiful daughter had already made her quite a celebrity.”

“You are still speaking of the mother, and of the mother only,” murmured Schiller. “I know that this woman is sordid, and that she would, at any time, sell her daughter for wealth and rank, although purchased with her child’s happiness. But what do I care for the mother! Speak to me of the daughter, for she it is whom I love—she is my hope, my future.”

“My poor friend,” sighed KÖrner, as he stepped forward and laid his hand on Schiller’s shoulder. This touch and these words of sympathy startled Schiller.

“Do not lament over me, but make your accusations,” cried Schiller, and he shook his golden lion’s mane angrily. “Speak, what charges can you prefer against Marie von Arnim? But I already know what your reply would be. You would say that she has been infected by the pitiful worldly wisdom of her scheming mother, and that I am nothing more to her than the ornament with which she adorns herself for another suitor.”

“You have said so, Frederick Schiller, and it is so,” replied KÖrner, in a low voice. “Yes, the worldly-wise and scheming mother has achieved the victory over her nobler daughter, and, although her heart may suffer, she will nevertheless follow the teachings of her mother, and make a speculation of your love.”

“That is not true, that is calumny!” cried Schiller, violently. “No, no, I do not believe you! Say what you please of the mother, but do not defile her innocent daughter with such vile, unsubstantiated calumny!”

“What proofs do you demand?” asked GÖschen, shrugging his shoulders. “I repeated to you what Madam von Arnim told Sophie Albrecht, namely, that a rich suitor had already been found for her daughter.”

“Yes, that the mother had found one. But who told you that the daughter would accept him; that Marie was a party to this disgraceful intrigue?”

“Of that you can certainly best assure yourself,” said KÖrner, slowly.

“How can I do that?” asked Schiller, shuddering slightly.

“Does not Miss Marie permit you to visit her in the evening?”

“Yes, she does.”

“Only when you see a light at the window of her chamber—the signal agreed upon between you—only then you are not permitted to come. Is it not so?”

“Yes, it is so, and that you may well know, as I told you of it myself. When Marie places a light at that window it is a sign that begs me not to come, because then only the intimate family circle is assembled, to which I certainly do not as yet belong.”

“You can, perhaps, assure yourself whether the young lady was strictly accurate in her statement. You intend paying her a visit this evening, do you not?”

“Yes, I do,” cried Schiller, joyfully, “and I will fall down on my knees before her, and mentally beg her pardon for the unjust suspicions which have been uttered concerning her.”

“I do not believe that she will receive you to-day,” said KÖrner, in a low voice. “This so-called family circle will have assembled again; in all probability you will see a light in the designated window!”

“Why do you believe that?”

“Well, because I happened to converse with several young officers to-day, who are invited to Madam von Arnim’s for this evening. They asked if they might not, at last, hope to meet you there, regretting, as Madam von Arnim had told them, that your bashfulness and misanthropy made it impossible for you to appear in strange society. I denied this, of course, and assured them that Madam von Arnim had only been jesting; but they said her daughter had also often told them that Frederick Schiller was very diffident, and always avoided the larger social gatherings. ‘If that were not the case,’ said these young gentlemen, ‘Schiller would certainly appear at Madam von Arnim’s the dansante this evening, that is, unless the feelings awakened in his bosom by the presence of Count Kunheim might be of too disagreeable a nature.’”

Schiller shuddered, and a dark cloud gathered on his brow. “Who is this Count Kunheim?”

“I asked them this question also, and the young officers replied that Count Kunheim was the wealthy owner of a large landed estate in Prussia, who had intended remaining a few days in Dresden in passing through the city on his way to the baths of Teplitz. He had, however, made the acquaintance of Miss von Arnim at a party, and had been so captivated by her grace and beauty that he had now sojourned here for weeks, and was a daily visitor at Madam von Arnim’s house.”

“And she never even mentioned his name,” murmured Schiller, with trembling lips, the cold perspiration standing on his forehead in great drops.

“No, she told you nothing about him,” repeated KÖrner. “And this evening Count Kunheim will be with her again, while the little taper will burn for you at the window, announcing that the impenetrable family circle has once more closed around the fair maid and her mother.”

“If that were true—oh, my God, if that were true!” cried Schiller, looking wildly around him, his breast heaving with agitation. “If this beautiful, this divine being could really have the cruel courage to—”

He had not the courage to pronounce the bitter word which made his soul shudder, but covered his face with his hands, and stood immovable for a long time, wrestling with his grief and anguish. His two friends did not disturb him with any attempts at consolation. They understood the poet well; they knew that his heart was firm, although easily moved. They knew that after Frederick Schiller had wept and lamented like a child, he would once more be the strong, courageous man, ready to look sorrow boldly in the face. And now but a short time elapsed before the manly breast had regained sufficient strength to bear the burden of its grief. Schiller withdrew his hands from his face, threw his head back proudly, and shook his golden mane.

“You are right, all doubt must be removed,” said he; “I will see if the light has been placed at the window!”

He looked at his large silver watch—a present from his father. Its old-fashioned form, and the plain hair-guard with which it was provided, instead of a gold chain, made it any thing but an appropriate ornament for a suitor of Marie von Arnim. “It is eight o’clock,” said he—“that is, the hour of reprieve or of execution has come. Go, my friends, I will dress myself, and then—”

“But will you not permit us to accompany you to the house?” asked KÖrner. “Will you not permit your friends to remain at your side, to console you when the sad conviction dawns on your mind, or to witness your triumph, if it appears (what I sincerely hope may be the case) that we have been misinformed?”

Schiller shook his head. “No,” said he, solemnly, “there are great moments in which man can only subdue the demons when he is entirely alone, and battles against them with his own strength of soul. For me, such a moment is at hand; pray leave me, my friends!”

CHAPTER II.

GILDED POVERTY.

The chandelier in the large reception-room had been already lighted; and in the adjoining room, the door of which was thrown open, the servant hired for the occasion was occupied in lighting the candles in the plated candlesticks, while at a side table a second servant was busily engaged in arranging the cups and saucers, and providing each with a spoon; but he now discontinued his work, and turned to the elderly lady, who stood at his side, and was endeavoring to cut a moderately-sized cake into the thinnest possible slices.

“My lady,” said the servant, humbly, “ten spoons are still wanting. Will you be kind enough to give them to me?”

“Ah, it is true,” replied the lady, “I have only given you the dozen we have in daily use, and must fetch the others from the closet. You shall have them directly.”

“My lady,” remarked the first servant, “there are not candles enough. Each of the branched candlesticks requires six candles, and I have only six in all.”

“Then you will have to double the number by cutting them in two,” rejoined her ladyship, who was counting the slices of cake, to see if she had not already cut a sufficient number.

“Thirty-three,” she murmured, letting her finger rest on the last slice. “That ought to be enough. There will be twenty persons, and many of them will not take cake a second time. A good piece will be left for to-morrow, and we can invite Schiller to breakfast with us on the remainder.”

At this moment, a red-faced maid, whose attire was far from being tidy, appeared at a side door.

“My lady,” said she, “I have just been to the grocer’s to get the butter and sugar, but he would not let me have any.”

“He wouldn’t let you have any?” repeated Madame von Arnim. “What do you mean?”

“My lady,” continued the cook, in a whispering voice, and with downcast eyes, “the grocer said he would furnish nothing more until you paid his bill.”

“He is an insolent fellow, from whom you must buy nothing more, Lisette,” cried Madame von Arnim, very angrily. “I will pay this impertinent fellow to-morrow morning, when I have had my money changed, but my custom I withdraw from him forever. I wish you to understand, Lisette, in the future you are to buy nothing whatever from this man. Go to the new grocer on the corner of Market Square, give him my compliments, and tell him that I have heard his wares so highly praised that I intend to give him my patronage. He is to keep an account of all I purchase, and I will settle with him at the end of each month.”

“My lady,” said the cook, “as I have to go out again, anyhow, wouldn’t it be better for me to run over to the game dealers, in Wilsdruffer Street, and buy another turkey? One will certainly not be enough, my lady.”

“But, Lisette,” rejoined her ladyship, angrily, “what nonsense is this? When we talked over the supper together you said yourself that one turkey would be quite sufficient.”

“Yes, my lady, but you then said that only twelve persons were to be invited, and now there are twenty!”

“That makes no difference, whatever, Lisette! What will well satisfy twelve, will satisfy twenty; moreover, it is not necessary that they should be exactly satisfied. I was invited to a supper, a few evenings since, where they had nothing but a roast turkey, and a pie afterwards. There were twenty-two persons, and although each plate was provided with a respectable piece of the roast, I distinctly observed that half of the turkey was left over. Go, therefore, and get the butter and sugar, but one turkey is entirely sufficient.—Every thing depends, however, on the carving,” continued her ladyship, when the cook had taken her departure, “and I charge you, Leonhard, to make the carving-knife very sharp, and to cut the slices as thin and delicate as possible. Nothing is more vulgar than to serve up great thick pieces of meat. It makes it look as if one was not in good society, but in some restaurant where people go to eat all they desire.”

“My lady knows what my performances are in that line,” said the elder servant, simpering; “my lady has tried me before. Without boasting, I can make the impossible, possible. For instance, I carved yesterday, at Countess von Versen’s, for a company of twenty-four people, and as a roast, a single hare, but I cut it into pieces that gladdened the heart. I divided the back into as many pieces as there were joints. Eighteen joints made eighteen pieces, I divided the quarters into twenty pieces, making in all thirty-eight, and so much still remained that my lady, the countess, afterward remarked that she would perhaps have another little party this evening, and gave me two groschens extra for my services.”

“Carve the turkey so that half of it shall remain,” said her ladyship, with dignity, “and I will also give you two groschens extra.”

The servant smiled faintly and bowed in acknowledgment of this magnanimous offer. He then turned to the table at which the young servant was occupied in folding up the napkins into graceful figures. “Here are three bottles of white wine, my lady,” said Leonhard, thoughtfully. “I very much fear that it will not go round twice, even if I fill the glasses only half full.”

“Unfortunately I have no further supply of this variety,” said her ladyship, with dignity, “it will therefore be better to take a lighter wine, of which I have several varieties in my pantry. I will take these three bottles back and bring you others.” With a bold grasp she seized them and vanished through the side door.

“Do you know what her ladyship is now doing?” asked the experienced servant, Leonhard, his mouth expanded into a broad grin, as he danced through the room in his pumps, and placed the chairs in position.

“She has gone after a lighter wine,” replied the younger and inexperienced, who, with commendable zeal, was at this moment transforming the peak of a napkin into a swan’s neck.

“After a lighter wine,” repeated Leonhard, derisively. “That is, she is on her way to the pantry with her three bottles of wine, a pitcher of water, a funnel, and an empty bottle. When she enters the pantry she will lock the door, and when she opens the door and marches forth, she will have four full bottles instead of three, and only the pitcher will be empty.”

The other servant looked up in dismay, heedless of the fact that his swan’s neck was collapsing into an ordinary napkin again. “Mr. Leonhard, do you mean to say that her ladyship is diluting the wine with water?”

“Young man, that is not called diluting, but simply ‘baptizing,’ and, indeed, it is very appropriate that, in Christian society, where every body has been baptized, the wine should also receive baptism. Bear this in mind, my successor.”

“Your successor? How so, your successor?” asked the other, eagerly, as he pushed a piece of bread under a napkin, which he had just converted into a melon. “Do you propose to retire to private life, and resign your custom to me, Mr. Leonhard?”

“Such custom as this, willingly,” growled Leonhard, “that is, when I have received my money—when her ladyship pays the last penny she owes me!”

“Then she has not paid you for your services?” said the younger, in a faint voice.

“She has been in my debt since I first served her; she owes me for four dinners and eight soirÉes. She promised to pay each time, and has never kept her word; and I would certainly have discontinued coming, long ago, if I had not known that my money would then certainly be lost. As it is, I now and then receive a paltry instalment of a few groschens. To-day,” he continued, “she went so far as to promise me two groschens extra. Promised! yes, but will she keep her word? And it is very evident to me what the end of all this is to be. Her ladyship wishes to be rid of me; and I am to be set aside, little by little, and by you, my friend. To-day, we are to wait on the table together; but the next time she drums a company of matrimonial candidates together, you alone will be summoned. Therefore, I call you my successor. I hope you will profit by my example. It is a fearful thing to say, but nevertheless true, I stand before you as a living example of how her ladyship cheats a noble servant out of his well-earned wages. But patience, patience! I will not leave this field of my renown without having at least avenged myself! I intend to beg her ladyship to pay me; and if she refuses to do so, I will exercise vengeance, twofold, fearful vengeance. Before the company assembles, I will be so awkward as to fall down and break the four bottles of baptized wine—before the company is assembled, because if I did it afterwards, the guests would hear the crash, and know that she had had wine; but if I do it beforehand, nobody will believe that I broke the bottles.”

“That is a splendid idea,” observed the younger servant, grinning. “I will bear this in mind, and follow your example.”

“I told you I was a living example, my successor,” said Leonhard, impressively. “You can learn of me how to suffer, and how to avenge your wrongs.”

“But you spoke of twofold vengeance. In what will your second act of vengeance consist?”

“The second act of vengeance will be this: in spite of the promised—mark the words of your unfortunate living example—in spite of the promised two groschens, I will not cut the unhappy turkey (which, to judge by the length of her spurs, must have been torn from her family as an aged grandmother) into little, transparent slices, leaving half of it for the next day; but I will cut the whole turkey into pieces, and such great thick pieces, that it will not go round once, and nothing but the neck and drumsticks will be left when her ladyship’s turn comes. Bear this in mind for the future, my successor! I am now going to her ladyship with a flag of truce before the battle. If she rejects the conditions on which I consent to make peace, the result will be made known to you by its crashing consequences. I am now going, my successor; and I repeat it, for the last time, I am your living example!”

Gravely nodding his well-dressed and powdered head, the servant glided through the room on his inaudible dancing-shoes, and vanished through the side door, which opened into a small room, connected with the kitchen by a passage. Her ladyship was neither in this room nor in the kitchen, but, as Leonhard had prophesied, had repaired to the pantry and locked herself in. The living example smiled triumphantly, and knocked gently at the door.

“What is it?” asked her ladyship from within. “Who knocks?”

“Only Leonhard, my lady, who has come after the four bottles of wine.”

“You shall have them directly,” replied his mistress; and Leonhard, whose ear was applied to the keyhole, heard for a moment a sound as of water gurgling through a funnel. Then all was still, and he hurriedly withdrew from the keyhole.

The door was now opened, and Madame von Arnim looked out. “Come in and take the wine; there it stands.”

Leonhard danced up the two steps and into the pantry, and laid hold of the bottles, two in each hand.

“And now, my lady,” said he, bowing profoundly, and waving his arms slowly to and fro with the bottles, like a juggler who first throws himself into the proper position before beginning his performances; “and now, my lady, I beg that you will graciously accord your humble servant a few moments’ conversation.”

Her ladyship inclined her head haughtily. “Speak, Leonhard, but be brief; my company will soon arrive.”

The younger servant was still at work preparing for the supper; and, while so engaged, was at the same time reflecting on the dangers and uncertainties of life, and particularly on those attending a career so open to the caprices of fortune as that of a valet de place. Suddenly the silence was broken by a loud crash; and the servant rushed to the side door to listen. He could now distinctly hear the angry, scolding voice of her ladyship, and the humble, apologetic murmurs of the cunning Leonhard.

“Yes,” said the younger servant, grinning with delight, “he has broken the four bottles of wine! Consequently,” he quickly added, his voice subdued to a low murmur, “her ladyship has not paid him, and will probably not pay me either! That is sad, for I bought a pair of new cotton gloves especially for this occasion,” said he, surveying his hands.

No, her ladyship had not paid Leonhard; as usual, she had endeavored to console him with promises for the future, and the servant had taken his revenge. With unspeakable satisfaction, he was now engaged in picking up the fragments of glass which covered the floor, perfectly indifferent to the volleys of wrath which her ladyship thundered down upon him from the threshold of the pantry.

“What am I to do now? what can I do?” asked his mistress, finally. “To give a supper without wine is impossible!”

Having cleared the wreck away, Leonhard now arose.

“My lady,” said he, with an air of profound deference, “I deeply regret this unfortunate occurrence, and I humbly beg you to deduct the value of these four bottles of wine when you pay me my wages for the four dinners and eight soirÉes, not including to-day’s!”

“That I will do, as a matter of course,” rejoined her ladyship; “but what am I to do now!”

“I take the liberty of making a suggestion,” murmured the living example, submissively. “In the first instance, your ladyship took from me the three bottles of strong wine, giving me four bottles of a lighter variety instead. Now, as I have had the misfortune to break these four bottles, how would it do to fall back on the original three bottles of strong wine? As I pour out the wine in the pantry, I could baptize it a little, and add some water to each glass. What does your ladyship think of this plan?”

Her only reply was an annihilating glance, which Leonhard received with an air of perfect composure, as her ladyship rustled past him and descended into the kitchen.

CHAPTER III.

MARIE VON ARNIM.

With glowing cheeks and sparkling eyes her ladyship passed on, not to the parlor, but through a side door and into a small chamber. It was a plainly-furnished bedroom. It contained two uncurtained beds and a bureau, which stood in front of the only window through which but little light penetrated the room from the narrow side street into which it opened. A young girl of extraordinary beauty was sitting before the bureau, on which a single candle burned. Her small, lovely oval head was that of a Venus; the tall, slender and graceful figure, that of a Juno. In conformity with the fashion of that day, her dark-brown and shining hair was arranged in hundreds of little curls, encompassed with a golden band, which terminated on her forehead in a serpent’s head. Her eyes—the large blue eyes which contrasted so wondrously with the dark hair—were gazing at the mirror. A sad smile played about her beautiful, crimson lips, as she looked at the reflection of her own figure, at the lovely, rosy countenance, the full and rounded shoulders, the arms of dazzling whiteness, and at the tapering waist, brought out to great advantage by the closely-fitting blue silk bodice. She wore no ornament but the golden band in her hair; her jewels were her youth and her beauty; the tears which trembled on her eyelashes were more precious gems than were ever mined for in the depths of the earth, for these came unsought from the depths of her heart.

She was so completely absorbed in her sadly-sweet dreams that her mother’s entrance was unobserved; and not until now, when her mother stood at her side, was she awakened from her reverie.

“What do you wish, mamma?” she asked quickly. “Have our guests arrived? Am I to go down?” She was about to rise, but her mother motioned her back with an imperious gesture.

“Remain where you are, no one has come yet. Lisette will announce the arrivals as they come. I desire to speak with you.”

Her daughter sighed, folded her hands on her lap, and let her head fall on her bosom in mute resignation. “I think I know what you wish to speak about, mother,” she whispered.

“That I can readily believe, nor is it at all surprising that you should,” said her corpulent ladyship, as she seated herself at her daughter’s side. “I wish to speak to you of our future and of your duties. This state of things can continue no longer! I can no longer endure this life of plated poverty. I must no longer be exposed to the humiliations I am compelled to suffer at the hands of shoemakers and tailors, grocers and servants, and the host of others who are dunning me for a few paltry groschens. My creditors have compelled me to run the gantlet again to-day, and I have been so annoyed and harassed that I feel like crying.”

“Poor mother!” sighed Marie. “Ah, why did we not remain in quiet, little Pillnitz, where we were doing so well, where our modest means were sufficient for our support, and where we were not compelled to gild and burnish our poverty!”

“For the hundredth time I will tell you why we did so,” rejoined her mother, impatiently. “I left Pillnitz, and brought you to Dresden, because in Pillnitz there were only pensioned revenue officials, invalid officers, and a few gray-headed lawyers and judges, but no young gentlemen, and, least of all, no marriageable, wealthy gentlemen, for you.”

“For me, mamma? Have I ever expressed any longing to be married?”

“Perhaps not, for you are a simple-minded, foolish dreamer; but I desired it. I recognized the necessity of making a wealthy and a suitable match for you.”

“If you had recognized this necessity, mother,” cried Marie, bursting into tears, “it was very cruel of you to let any other than such wealthy, marriageable gentlemen come to our house. If this is really a matrimonial bureau, we should have permitted only those to register themselves who possessed the necessary qualifications.”

“I see you are becoming quite sarcastic and bitter,” said her ladyship, shrugging her shoulders. “You have profited somewhat by your interview with Schiller.”

Marie drew back with a quick, convulsive movement, and a sigh escaped her lips. “You should not have mentioned the name of this noble man at such a time, at a time when I am again compelled to deceive him.”

“Enough of this sentimentalism, Marie,” rejoined her mother. “Monsieur Schiller is a very pleasant and agreeable man; he may be a great poet besides, but a suitable husband for you, he is not! He can scarcely earn enough for his own support, and his clothing is not respectable. How did he look when he came here yesterday? You will admit that it is impossible to bring him into the society of rich cavaliers and elegant officers, in his disorderly costume.”

“He looked just as he did when we first met him at Madame Albrecht’s, and yet you then begged him to visit us. And you it was who afterwards encouraged his visits.”

“Nor do I regret having done so,” remarked Madame von Arnim, quietly. “Councillor Schiller is a man of high respectability and eminence. Our intimacy with him is of great advantage to us. It proves to the world that we are wise and intellectual ourselves, for otherwise, so intellectual a man would not have selected us as associates. Believe me, this intimacy has greatly advanced our social position; it has called great attention to us, and placed your youth and beauty in the proper light. Gentlemen of the highest standing and greatest wealth now consider it a great honor to be permitted to visit at our house, since they know that Frederick Schiller adores you, each one of them is anxious to achieve the renown of supplanting the celebrated poet in your favor and making you his wife. You have a great many suitors, Marie, and you owe them, in a great measure, to your intimacy with Schiller.”

“But that is wrong, that is criminal!” cried Marie, bursting into tears.

“Why so?” rejoined Madame von Arnim, laughing. “He was the alluring bait we used to catch our gold-fishes with; I can see nothing criminal in that. Why was this wise man foolish enough to fall in love with you, as he must have known that a union between you and him is impossible?”

“Why impossible?” asked Marie, quickly; she dried her eyes, and looked defiantly into her mother’s complacent, smiling countenance.

“Why impossible? Because you are of too good, too noble a family to ally yourself with a man who is not a nobleman, who has no preËminent rank.”

“Mother, Frederick Schiller’s rank is higher and more illustrious than that of counts and barons. There are hundreds of princes, counts, and barons, in the German empire, and but one poet, Frederick Schiller. Happy and highly honored throughout all Germany will the woman be to whom Frederick Schiller gives his name, whom he makes his wife.”

“Well, that may be,” said Madame von Arnim, contemptuously, “but one thing is certain, and that is, that you will never be this woman.”

“And why not?” asked Marie, passionately. “If Schiller really loves me, and offers me his hand, why shall I not accept it? Because he is not wealthy? He will know how to convert the treasures of his intellect into millions of money. Until then I can practice economy. My wants are few, and you well know, mother, that I can make a little go a long way. Then, permit me to be happy in my own way. I will tell you the whole truth, mother, I love Frederick Schiller, and, if he asks me to be his wife, I shall be the happiest of God’s creatures.”

“Nonsense!” rejoined her ladyship. “You will be kind enough to give up all thought of this foolish love, and make up your mind to marry the noble and wealthy gentleman selected for you by your mother.”

“Mother,” cried Marie, imploringly, “do not be so cruel, have pity on me! Do not compel me to destroy my own happiness, for I tell you that I can only be happy at Schiller’s side.”

“And why should you be happy?” asked her mother, coldly. “What right have you to happiness above the rest of mankind? Do you suppose I am happy? I have never been, and have never imagined I had a right to be. Life is a pretty hard nut; in attempting to crack it we break our teeth, and when we at last succeed, we find that it is empty, after all. Whether we are personally happy or not, is a matter of small moment—the one thing is to do our duty to others; and your duty it is, to repay your mother for her sacrifices for yourself and your brother. At your father’s death you were both young children, and of course his lieutenant’s paltry pension was not sufficient for our support. But I could not let you starve, and it was my duty to give you an education that would qualify you to take the position in society to which your rank entitles you. I did not hesitate for a moment, and, although I was still young, and might have made a second and an advantageous marriage, I gave up all such plans, sold my handsome and costly trousseau, and retired with you to the little town of Pillnitz, where I devoted myself wholly to the education of my children. You know that this is so, do you not?”

“I do,” replied Marie, as she grasped her mother’s hand and carried it to her lips. “You sacrificed yourself for your children, and they are indebted to you for all that they are.”

“Unfortunately, that is not a great deal as yet,” said her mother. “Your brother is only a poor second-lieutenant, whose salary is not sufficient for his support, and you are only an indigent young lady of noble birth, who must either become a governess or marry a fortune. My means are now entirely exhausted. Little by little I have sold all the valuables I possessed, my diamonds, my jewelry, and my silver-ware. I finally parted with my last jewel, the necklace inherited from my mother, in order that we might live in Dresden a year on the proceeds. But the year is almost at an end, and my money also. We cannot maintain ourselves here more than four weeks longer, and then the artistic structure of our social position will crumble over our heads, and all will be over. You will be compelled to earn your own bread, your poor brother will be reduced to the greatest extremities, and your mother will have to take up her abode in a debtors’ prison, as, after her well-considered plans have failed, she will have no means to meet the demands of her numerous creditors. All this will be your work, the responsibility rests with you.”

“O my God, have pity on me!” sobbed Marie. “Show me the result of all this trouble!”

“The result is, governess or countess,” said Madam von Arnim, quietly. “In your weakness you may suppose there could be a third alternative, that of becoming Councillor Schiller’s wife. Yet I will never give my consent to such a misalliance; a misalliance is only excusable when gilded over with extraordinary wealth. But Councillor Schiller is poor, and will always remain poor; he is an idealist, and not a practical man. I should like to know what advantage I should derive from having the poet Schiller as a son-in-law. Can he compensate me for my sacrifices? can he replace my jewels, my trousseau, and my silver-ware? You know that he cannot, and never will be able to do so. It is your sacred and imperative duty to compensate and reward me for the sacrifices which I have made for you, and to secure to me in my old age the comfortable existence of which care and solicitude for yourself and your brother have hitherto deprived me. You will marry the rich Count Kunheim. You will receive his attentions in such a manner as to encourage him to offer you his hand, which you will then accept. I command you to do so!”

“But, mother, this is impossible, I do not love the count, I cannot marry him! Have pity on me, mother!” she sank down on her knees, and raised her hands imploringly. “I repeat it; I love Frederick Schiller!”

“Well, then, love Frederick Schiller, if you will,” said her ladyship, with a shrug of her shoulders, “but marry Count Kunheim. It is given to no woman to marry the object of her first love, to make the ideal of her heart her husband. You will only share the common lot of woman; you will have to renounce your first love and make a sensible marriage. I can tell you, however, for your consolation, that marriages of the latter sort generally prove much happier in the sequel than these moneyless love-marriages. When hunger stalks in at the door love flies out at the window. On the other hand, the most lovelorn and desolate heart will finally recover, when given a daily airing in a carriage-and-four. Drive in your carriage, and accord me a seat in it; I am weary. I have been travelling life-long on the stony streets, and my feet are wounded! Marie, I entreat you, my child, take pity on the poor mother, who has suffered so much, take pity on the brother, who must give up his career in life, unless we can give him some assistance. He would be compelled to leave the army, and perhaps his only resource would be to hire himself out as a copyist to some lawyer, in order to earn a subsistence. Marie, dear Marie, I entreat you, take pity on your family! Our happiness is in your hands!”

She made no reply, she was still on her knees, had covered her countenance with her hands, and was weeping bitterly. Her mother gazed down upon her without an emotion of pity, her broad, fleshy face and little gray eyes expressed no sympathy whatever.

“Be reasonable, Marie,” said her ladyship, after a short interval, “consider the happiness of your mother and brother, rather than the momentary caprice of your heart. Cast aside these dreams, this sensitiveness, and seek your own happiness in that of your family.”

“It shall be as you say,” said Marie, rising slowly from her knees. “I will sacrifice my own happiness for your sake, but I make one condition.”

“And that is—?”

“That all these little mysteries and intrigues be discontinued, and Schiller be told the whole truth. No more signs are to be given requesting him not to come; he is no longer to be made use of and yet denied at the same time. He must not be permitted to hope that his addresses will be accepted; he must learn that they will be rejected. If he should then still desire to visit us, our door must be open to him at all times, and the light must never be placed in my window again to warn him off. This is my condition. Accept it, and I am ready to cover my face with a mask, and play the rÔle which the necessities of life compel me to assume.”

“I will accept it,” replied Madame von Arnim, “although I consider it very impolitic. Schiller’s nature is violent, easily excited, and deficient in that aristocratic cultivation which represses all the movements of natural impulse. For instance, if he should come here this evening, a very disagreeable scene might ensue; he would be capable of reproaching me or yourself quite regardless of the presence of others.”

“And he could reproach us with justice,” sighed Marie, “I am resolved rather to bear his anger than to deceive him any longer.”

“But I am not,” rejoined her ladyship, “I have a perfect horror of these scÈnes dramatiques. But you will have it so, you made it your condition, and nothing remains for me but to accept it. And now, be discreet, be sensible; induce Count Kunheim to declare himself this evening, if possible, in order that Schiller may hear of your betrothal as a fait accompli.”

“I will do your bidding,” said Marie, with a sad and yet proud smile. “Give yourself no further care, the sweet dream is at end, I have awakened. It is a sad awakening, and I will have to weep a great deal, but my tears shall not accuse you; if I am unhappy, I will not say that you were the cause of my unhappiness. It was God’s will, this shall be my consolation; God wills it and I submit!”

“And you do well, and will live to thank me for having prevented you from becoming the wife of a poor German poet. And now, that we have disposed of this disagreeable affair, come to my heart, my daughter, and give me a kiss of reconciliation.”

But, instead of throwing herself into her mother’s extended arms, Marie drew back. “No,” said she, “do not kiss me now, mother; we could only exchange a Judas kiss. Come, give me your hand, mother, and let us go to the parlor to receive our guests. Let us, however, first extinguish this candle.”

“Yes, we will, or rather I will carry it with me to the kitchen, where a little more light would not be amiss,” said her ladyship, taking the candle from the bureau. “Go to the parlor, my daughter, and receive our guests, I must first go to the kitchen to see if every thing is in order.”

They both left the chamber; Marie repaired to the parlor, and her mother passed on to the kitchen, to see if the new grocer had furnished the butter and sugar. To her great relief, she learned that he had, and, elated by this success, she determined to send to the accommodating grocer for a few bottles of wine to replace the broken ones. Nothing more was now wanting for the completion of her soirÉe! She hastily gave the cook a few instructions, and then returned to the bedchamber with the candle.

“He must not come this evening,” said her ladyship to herself; “he might frustrate the whole plan, for Marie is transformed into another being in his presence, and Count Kunheim would not fail to observe that she did not love him. No, the light must be burning—Schiller must be kept away. As the rich Countess Kunheim, Marie will some day thank me for not having kept my promise. Yes, she certainly will!”

She hastened forward to the window and placed the light in a conspicuous place. But what was that! At this moment, a loud peal of laughter resounded in the narrow street beneath the window—a peal of laughter that was so bitter, so mocking, that it startled even her ladyship’s fearless heart; it seemed almost like a threat.

Her ladyship now repaired to the parlor to receive her guests, who had begun to arrive, and this disagreeable sensation was soon forgotten. Madame von Arnim greeted each one of her guests with the same stereotyped smile—the same polite phrases. She quietly conducted the few old ladies, who had been invited to give dignity to the occasion, into the adjoining boudoir, and recruited an invalid major to play whist with them. And now, after having satisfactorily disposed of these guests, and rendered their gossiping tongues harmless, she returned to the parlor, and displayed to the assembled officers and cavaliers the smiling, pleasant countenance of a lady who is ready to become a loving and tender mother-in-law.—For propriety’s sake, a few young women had also been invited, having small pretensions to good looks, and of modest attire; such ladies as are commonly termed friends, and who are nothing more than the setting which gives additional lustre to the gem. To entertain these friends was the mission of the second-lieutenants, while the officers of higher rank and the wealthy cavaliers congregated around the goddess of their adoration—the lovely Marie von Arnim.

She was now once more the radiant beauty; her countenance was rosy and joyous, her blue eyes were bright and clear, and bore no evidence of the tears which had flowed back to her heart. A smile played about her rosy lips, and merry, jesting words escaped the mouth which but now had uttered wails and lamentations. Count Ehrhard von Kunheim was completely captivated by her grace and beauty; his gaze was fastened immovably on her lovely countenance. The homage she received from all sides was a flattering tribute to the lady of his choice—the lady he now firmly resolved to make his bride. It was very pleasant to see his future wife the object of so much adoration. He would gladly have seen the whole world at her feet, for then his triumph would have been so much greater in seeing himself favored above all the world.

He gazed proudly at the array of rank by which his love was surrounded; the expressions of admiration were sweet music in his ear. He mentally determined to address her this very evening; in a few brief hours it would be in his power to cry out to his rivals: “The lovely Marie von Arnim is mine! She is my bride!” How great, how glorious a triumph would that be! It was a pity that he was not present! To have carried off this prize before him would have crowned his triumph.

“Miss Marie,” asked the count, interrupting the joyous conversation which she was carrying on with several officers, “you have graciously promised to make me acquainted with your protÉgÉ, Mr. Schiller? Is he likely to come this evening?”

The smile faded from her lips, the lustre of her eyes was dimmed, and she looked anxiously around, as if seeking help. Her eyes met the keen, threatening glance of her mother, who at once came forward to her assistance; she felt that escape was no longer possible—the hand of fate had fallen upon her.

“I fear Councillor Schiller is not coming,” said her ladyship, in her complacent manner.

“No, he is not coming,” repeated Marie, mechanically. Regrets, and many praises of the genial poet they so much admired, and whose latest poems were so charming, now resounded from all sides.

“It is really a pity that you have never been able to gratify us by producing this celebrated poet,” said Count Kunheim to the beautiful Marie.

With a forced smile, she replied, “Yes, it is really a pity.”

“And why is he not coming?” asked several gentlemen of Madame von Arnim. “Pray tell us, why is it this councillor only comes when you are alone, and is certain of meeting no company here?”

“He avoids mankind, as the owl does the light,” replied her ladyship, smiling. “We gave him our solemn promise that we would not receive other visitors when he is with us; we promised, moreover, that we would let him know when we had company in the evening by giving him a signal.”

“And do you really give him the signal, my lady?” asked Count Kunheim.

“Yes, we do,” replied Marie, in a low voice.

“And may I ask in what the signal consists that announces to the man-fearing poet that other mortals have approached his goddess?”

“It is no secret,” said Madame von Arnim. “I will tell you, count. The signal is a lighted candle placed at the window of our dressing-room. When he sees this light, he beats a retreat, and turns his back on our house.”

“Will he come if no light is burning for him?” inquired Count Kunheim, quickly.

“He will,” replied Madame von Arnim, laughing.

“Therefore, if no light should burn in the window, he would come this evening?”

“Certainly he would. He vows that he only lives and thinks when in my daughter’s presence; and he would undoubtedly have come this evening if I had not given him the signal.”

“But, mother,” exclaimed Marie, “you are mistaken; we did not give the signal to-day.”

“Then, as you gave no signal, he has simply declined to avail himself of your invitation for this evening,” remarked Count Kunheim.

“No, no, count, he has not come, because I gave the signal.”

“Not so, my lady,” observed a cold, quiet voice behind her; “true, you gave the signal, but he has come nevertheless.”

“Schiller!” exclaimed Marie, turning pale, and yet she smiled and her eyes sparkled. She was on the point of hastening forward with extended hands to meet him, but her mother had already interposed her colossal figure between her and the poet, and was gazing at him defiantly, as if to signify her readiness to take up the gauntlet if he should meditate warfare.

“You are heartily welcome, Councillor Schiller,” said she, in dulcet tones. “We feel highly honored and are particularly pleased to have you join us at last on an evening when we have company. These gentlemen will all be delighted to make your acquaintance. We were speaking of you when you entered, and all were regretting that you were not here, and—”

“Of that I am aware,” said Schiller, interrupting her. “I had been standing in the doorway for some time, but you were conversing so eagerly that no one noticed my presence. I saw and heard all.”

Schiller’s voice trembled while uttering these words, and his countenance was deathly pale.

“Then you heard us all express an ardent desire to make your acquaintance,” said Count Kunheim, stepping forward. “I esteem myself highly fortunate in being able to gratify this desire. Permit me to introduce myself. I am Count von Kunheim.”

Schiller did not seem to observe the count’s extended hand, and bowed stiffly; he then looked over toward the window-niche, to which Marie had withdrawn, and where she stood trembling, her heart throbbing wildly. How angry, reproachful, and contemptuous, was the glance he fastened on her countenance! But his lips were mute, and as he now withdrew his gaze, he erected his head proudly, and a derisive smile quivered on his thin, compressed lips. With this smile he turned to the gentlemen again, and greeted them with a haughty inclination of his head, like a king who is receiving the homage of his subjects. “You expressed a desire to see me, gentlemen, I am here. The conversation which I overheard, compelled me to show myself for a moment, in order to correct a little error imparted to you by Madame von Arnim.”

“An error?” said her ladyship, in some confusion. “Really, Mr. Schiller, I am at a loss to understand exactly your meaning.”

“I will make myself understood, Madame von Arnim. You told these gentlemen that I avoided mankind as the owl avoids the light. But this is not the case, and I beg these gentlemen not to credit this statement. I do not avoid mankind, and I do not hate my fellow-creatures, but I love them. I love and revere the human countenance, for the spirit of God is reflected in the human eye. I love my fellow-creatures, and although they have sometimes caused me pain, and rudely awakened me from my dreams of happiness, yet, my faith in humanity is unshaken, and—”

“Oh, Schiller,” cried Marie, stepping forward from the window-niche, and no longer able to conceal her agitation, “Schiller, give me your hand, tell me—”

“Miss von Arnim,” said he, interrupting her, “I have nothing to say to you, I only desire to speak to these gentlemen! I do not wish you to consider me a foolish misanthrope, gentlemen, and therefore, I take the liberty of correcting a second erroneous statement made by Madame von Arnim. She told you that I had exacted of her the promise, to warn me by a signal-light when the ladies were entertaining company, because social intercourse was burdensome and repugnant to me. This is, however, not the case, but exactly the reverse. These ladies, and particularly Miss Marie von Arnim requested me to come here only when the window was dark, and on the other hand never to visit them when I saw a light in the window. Miss von Arnim—”

“Schiller,” said she, interrupting him, in a loud and trembling voice, and laying her hand on his arm, “Schiller, I conjure you, go no further!”

“Miss von Arnim also explained to me why she desired this,” continued Schiller, as though he had not heard Marie’s imploring voice, as though he did not feel the pressure of her trembling hand. “Miss von Arnim told me that on the evenings in which the signal would be given the circle of her mother’s nearest relatives would be assembled in the house, in which circle it was impossible to introduce a stranger. Gentlemen, it affords me great pleasure to recognize in you the dear cousins and uncles of this young lady, and I congratulate her on her brilliant and exclusive family party. And now permit me to explain why I dared to enter this house, although the light displayed in the window proclaimed the presence of the family.”

“But there was no light at the window,” exclaimed Marie, eagerly; “this is an error! I desired that you should come this evening, and on that account it was expressly understood between my mother and myself that no—”

“The light was there,” said her ladyship, interrupting her; “I had placed it there! Be still, do not interrupt the councillor; he said he had something to explain.—Continue, sir! Why did you come, although the light was displayed in the window?”

“Because I wished to know what it really meant,” replied Schiller, with composure and dignity. “You see, my lady, I am not afraid of the light, and I seek the truth, although I must admit that it is a painful and bitter truth that I have learned to-day. But man must have the courage to look facts in the face, even if it were the head of the Medusa. I have seen the truth, and am almost inclined to believe that the eternal gods must have imparted to me some of the strength of Perseus, for, as you see, I have not been transformed into stone, but am still suffering. And now that I have corrected her ladyship’s errors, I humbly beg pardon for having cast a shadow over the gayety of this assembly. It will certainly be for the last time! Farewell, ladies!”

He inclined his head slightly, but did not cast a single glance at the lovely Marie von Arnim; he did not see her faint, and fall into Count Kunheim’s arms, who lifted her tenderly and carried her to the sofa, where he gently deposited his precious burden. Nor did he see the friends rush forward to restore the insensible young lady to consciousness with their smelling-bottles and salts. No, Frederick Schiller observed nothing of all this; he walked through the parlor and antechamber toward the hall-door. Near the door stood the ‘living example,’ looking up with an expression of unspeakable admiration at the tall figure of the poet, who had written his two favorite pieces, “The Robbers,” and “Fiesco.” He was so grateful to the poet for having put her ladyship to shame, that he would gladly have knelt down and kissed his feet.

“Oh, Mr. Schiller, great Mr. Schiller,” murmured Leonhard, hastening forward to open the door, “you are not the only one whom she has deceived. She has deceived me also; I, too, am a wretched victim of her cunning. But only wait, sublime poet, only wait; I will not only avenge myself, but you also, Mr. Schiller. I will cut the pieces still larger, and the turkey shall not go half around, not half around! I will avenge both myself and Schiller!”

He did not hear a word of what Leonhard had said, for he hurried past him, down the steps, and out into the street. There he stood still for a moment gazing at the lighted windows, until a veil of unbidden tears darkened his vision. The burning tears trickling down his cheeks aroused him. He shook his head angrily, and pressed his clinched hands against his eyes to drive them back; not another tear would, he shed. Away! Away from this house! Away!

CHAPTER IV.

SOULS IN PURGATORY.

As if pursued by the Furies, with uncovered head, his yellow locks fluttering in the wind, he rushed onward through the streets, over the long Elbe bridge, past the golden crucifix, which towered in the moonlight, and now along the river bank beneath the BrÜhl Terrace, following the river, and listening to the rippling waves, that murmur of peace and eternal rest.

The moon threw golden streaks of light on the river, and a long shadow on its bank, the shadow of the poet, who was hurrying on in grief and agony. Where? He did not know, he was not conscious that he was walking on the verge of an open grave; he was only instinctively seeking a solitude, a retreat where the ear of man could not hear, nor the eye of man see him. He wished to be alone with his grief, alone in the trying hour when he would be compelled to tear the fair blossom from his heart, and tread it under foot as though it were a poisonous weed. He wished to be alone with the tears which were gushing from his soul, with the cries of agony that escaped his quivering lips—alone in the great and solemn hour when the poet was once more to receive the baptism of tears, that his poetic children, his poems, might be nourished with the blood that flowed from his wounded breast.

He had now entered the little wood which at that time skirted the river bank a few hundred yards below the terrace. Its darkness and silence was what he had sought, and what he needed. Alone! Alone with his God and his grief! A loud cry of anguish escaped his breast and must have awakened the slumbering birds. The foliage of the trees was agitated by a plaintive whispering and murmuring, as though the birds were saying to the moonbeams: “Here is a man who is suffering, who is wrestling with his agony! Console him with your golden rays, good moon; give him of your peace, starry summer eve!”

Perhaps the moon heard the plaintive appeal of the birds and the spirits of the night, for at this moment it broke forth from the concealing clouds and showed its mild, luminous countenance, and pierced the forest with its golden beams, seeking him who had disturbed the peace of slumbering Nature with the agonized cry of his wakeful, tormenting grief.

There he lies, stretched out like a corpse, or like one in a trance. But the moon sees that he is not dead, not unconscious, and sadly witnesses the tears trickling down his countenance, and hears his sobs and wails, the wails of the genius suffering after the manner of humanity; and yet the spirit of God dwells in his exalted mind, and will give him strength to overcome this grief.

The night sheds a soft light on his tearful countenance, as though it greeted him with a heavenly smile; and the stars stand still and twinkle their greetings to the poet. The melody of the birds is hushed, and they listen in the foliage, as though they understood his lamentations. Schiller had now raised his head; the stillness and solitude of the night had cooled the burning fever of his soul.

“Is it then true, am I destined only to suffer and to be deceived? Years roll on and I have not yet enjoyed the golden fruits that life promises to man, the golden fruits of Arcadia. My heart was filled with such joyous anticipations, my soul longed for these fruits. Although the spring-time of my life has hardly begun, its blossoms have already withered. All is vanity and illusion! Falsehood alone can make men happy, truth kills them like God’s lightning! I have looked thee in the face again to-day, Truth, thou relentless divinity, and my heart burns in pain, and my soul is filled with agony. The poet is a prophet, my present condition proves it; what the poet in me sung, the poor child of humanity now experiences; my sufferings are boundless.”

He buried his face in his hands, and the moon saw the tears which trickled out from between his fingers, and heard the poet’s plaintive, trembling voice break in upon the stillness of the night like the soft tones of an Æolian harp:

“And gave—albeit with tears!” repeated Schiller once more, and a cry of anguish escaped his breast. “Is it then inevitable? Is man born only to suffer, and are those right who assert that life is only a vale of sorrow, and not worth enduring?”

He seemed to be painfully meditating on this question. Nature held its breath, awaiting his answer; even the birds had ceased chirping, and the wind no longer dared to rustle in the tree-tops. In what tones will the Æolian harp of the soul respond? What reply will the poet make to the question propounded by the man?

He looks up at the bright firmament shedding its peaceful beams upon his head; he looks at the stars, and they smile on him. There is something in him that bids defiance to all sorrow and melancholy. A soft, heavenly, and yet strong voice resounds in his soul like the mysterious manifestation of the Divinity itself. He listens to this voice; the pinions of his soul no longer droop; he rises, stretches out his arms towards the moon and the stars, and his soul soars heavenward and revels in the glories of the universe.

“No,” he exclaimed, in loud and joyous tones, “no, the earth is no vale of sorrow, it is the garden of the Almighty. No, life is no bauble to be lightly thrown away; the sufferings life entails must be endured and overcome. Give me strength to overcome them, thou indwelling spirit; illumine the darkness of my human soul, thou flame of God, holy poetry! No, it were unworthy the dignity, unworthy the honor of manhood, to bow the head under the yoke of sorrow, and become the slave of melancholy for the sake of a faithless woman. A greeting to you, you golden lights of the heavens! you shall not look down on me with pity, but with proud sympathy! I am a part of the great spirit who created you, am spirit of the spirit of God, am lord of the earth. Down with you, sorrows of earth! down with you, scorpions! I will set my foot on your head, and triumph over you. You shall have no power over me. I am a man; who is more so?”

And exultantly and triumphantly he once more cried out to the night and the heavens: “I am a man!”

It was not the sky which now illumined his countenance, it was the proud smile of victory; the light in his eyes was not the reflection of the stars, but the brave courage of the soul which had elevated itself above the dust of the earth.

“The struggle is over, grief is overcome! I greet thee, thou peaceful tranquil night, thou hast applied the healing balsam to my wounded breast: and all pain will soon have vanished!”

He turned homeward, and walked rapidly through the wood and along the river bank, which was here and there skirted with clumps of bushes and shrubbery.

Suddenly he stood still and listened. It seemed to him that he had heard the despairing cry of a human voice behind some bushes, close to the river bank. Yes, he had not been mistaken, he could now hear the voice distinctly.

Schiller slowly and noiselessly approached the clump of bushes from behind which the voice had seemed to proceed; he bent the twigs aside, and, peering through the foliage, listened.

He beheld a strange sight. He saw before him the river with its rippling waves, and, on its narrow bank, kneeling in the full moonlight, a human form—a youth whose countenance was pale and emaciated, and whose long black hair fluttered in the breeze. His features were distorted with anguish, and the tears which poured down his hollow cheeks sparkled in the light like diamonds. He was partially undressed, and his coat, hat, and a book, which, to judge from its size and shape, appeared to be a Bible, lay at his side on the sand. The youth had raised his bare arms toward heaven, his hands were clasped together convulsively, and in his agony his voice trembled as he uttered these words:

“I can no longer endure life. Forgive me, O God in heaven, but I cannot! Thou knowest what my struggles have been! Thou knowest that I have tried to live—tried to bid defiance to the torments which lacerate my soul! Thou knowest how many nights I have passed on my knees, entreating Thee to send down a ray of mercy on my head, to show me an issue out of this night of despair! But it was not Thy will, Almighty Father! Thou hast not taken pity on the poor worm that writhed in the dust, on the beggar who stretched out his hands to Thee, imploring alms! Then, pardon me at least, and receive me in Thy mercy! I am about to return to Thee; O God, receive me graciously! And thou, thou hard, cruel, joyless world, thou vale of affliction, a curse upon thee—the curse of a dying mortal who has received nothing but torment at thy hands! Farewell, and—”

He arose from his knees, and rushed forward with extended arms toward the deep, silent grave that lay there ready to receive him. Suddenly a strong hand held him as in a vice, he was drawn back and hurled to the ground at the water’s edge. It seemed to him that a giant stood before him—a giant whose golden locks were surrounded by a halo, whose eyes sparkled, and whose countenance glowed with noble anger.

“Suicide,” thundered a mighty voice, “who gives you the right to murder him whom God has created! Felon, murderer, fall on your knees in the dust and pray to God for mercy and forgiveness!”

“I have prayed to God for weeks and months,” murmured the trembling youth, writhing in the dust, and not daring to look up at the luminous apparition that hovered over him like God’s avenging angel. “It was all in vain. No ray of light illumined the night of my sufferings. I wish to die, because I can no longer endure life! I flee to death to seek relief from the hunger that has been gnawing at my vitals for four days, and has made of the man a wild animal! I—”

His wailing voice was silent, his limbs no longer quivered; when Schiller knelt down at his side, he saw that his features were stiffened and that his eyes were widely extended and glassy.

Schiller laid his ear on the unfortunate man’s breast and felt his pulse. His heart was not beating; his pulse no longer throbbed.

“It is only a swoon, nothing else; death cannot ensue so quickly unless preceded by spasms. Poor unfortunate, forgive me for calling you back to the torment of existence; but we are men, and must not violate the laws of Nature. I must awaken you, poor youth!”

He stretched out his hands to the river, filled them with water, and poured it on his pale forehead, and, as he still lay motionless, he rubbed his forehead and breast with his hands, and breathed his own breath into his open mouth.

Slowly life dawned again, a ray of consciousness returned to the glassy eyes, and the trembling lips murmured a low wail, which filled the poet’s soul with sadness, and his eyes with tears of sympathy.

There lay the image of God, quivering in agony; the most pitiful complaint of the human creature was the anxious cry of the awakening human soul, “I am hungry! I am hungry!”

“And I have nothing to allay his hunger with,” said Schiller, anxiously; “nothing with which to make a man of this animal.”

“Woe is me,” groaned the youth, “this torment is fearful! Why did you call me back to my sufferings? Who gave you the right to forbid me to die?”

“Who gave you the right to die?” asked Schiller, with severity.

“Hunger,” groaned the youth, “hunger, with its scorpion teeth! If you compel me to live, then give me the bread of life! Bread! Give me bread! See, I beg for bread! I preferred to die rather than beg, but you have conquered me and bowed my head in the dust, and now I am a beggar! Give me bread! Do not let me starve!”

“I will bring you bread,” said Schiller, mildly. “But, no, you might avail yourself of my absence to accomplish your dark purpose. Swear that you will remain here until I return.”

The unfortunate youth did not reply; when Schiller again knelt down at his side, he saw that he was again in a swoon.

“When he awakens, I will have returned,” murmured Schiller. He arose, and ran rapidly to the little inn that stood at the foot of BrÜhls’s Terrace. To his great joy, a light was still burning in the main room, and, when he entered, several guests were still sitting at the table enjoying their pipes and beer. Schiller stepped up to the counter, purchased a loaf of bread and a bottle of wine, and returned with all possible haste to the unfortunate youth, who had resumed consciousness, and was, at the moment of his arrival, painfully endeavoring to raise his head.

Schiller knelt down, and rested the poor youth’s head on his knees. “Be patient, my poor friend, I bring relief, I bring bread!”

How hastily did his trembling hands clutch the loaf, and how eagerly did they carry it to his mouth! How radiant was his countenance when he had taken a long draught from the bottle which Schiller held to his pale lips.

The poet turned away, he could not endure this painful sight. Sadly and reproachfully he looked upward.

“O God, Thou hast made Thy world so rich! There is enough to provide a bounteous repast for all! The trees are laden with fruits, and man may not pluck them; the bakeries are filled with the bread of life, and man may not take, although he is starving. He sinks down in the death agony while the rich usurer drives by in his splendid equipage, and looks down proudly and contemptuously upon the unhappy man whose only crime is that he is poor. O eternal, divine Justice, it is in vain that I seek thee behind the clouds. I look for thee in vain in the palaces of the rich, and in the huts of the poor!”

“Ah, how refreshing, how delightful was this bread and wine!” sighed the unfortunate youth. “You are my saviour, you have freed me from torment. I thank you! Let me kiss this merciful hand!—You will not permit me, you withdraw it? You despise me, the suicide, the coward? You have a right to do so!”

“No,” said Schiller, gently, “I do not despise, I pity you. I also have suffered, I also have felt the scorpion stings of poverty. No, I do not despise you. All men are brothers, and must aid one another. All cares are sisters, and must console one another. Speak my brother, tell me, how can I aid you? Unburden your bosom to my sister soul, and I will try to console you.”

“You are an angel-messenger from God,” sobbed the young man. “Your lips speak the first words of sympathy I have heard for long months. I could bathe your feet in tears of gratitude. Yes, my brother, you shall hear the sad history of my life, and then you will perhaps justify, perhaps pardon, the crime I was about to commit. Oh, my brother!”

Schiller seated himself at his side on the river bank, and the pale youth rested his head on the poet’s proffered shoulder. A pause ensued. While he who had but just returned from the gates of death, was endeavoring to collect his confused and wandering thoughts, the voice of pity was resounding in the heart of him who had been stronger than his brother in the hour of trial, who had bid defiance to misfortune, and with manly fortitude had overcome grief. His heart was filled with sympathy for his weaker and less courageous brother, who had desired to flee from life because his soul lacked the pinions which had borne the poet aloft, above the dust and misery of earth.

“How can he fly to whom the Almighty, the Omnipresent, has not given the pinions of enthusiasm? He must crawl in the dust, his only thought is the gratification of his animal instincts, and like an animal he must live and perish. For him from whom God withholds this heavenly ray, all is night and darkness—no stars shine for him; it were well he sought safety in the silence of the grave, in a cessation of torment! I thank Thee, O God, for the strength Thou hast given, for the ray of light Thou hast sent down to illumine my dark path in life!”

These words did not pass Schiller’s lips, they were only uttered in the depths of his soul. He looked up at the moon and stars, journeying in unchangeable serenity on their heavenly course. “Smile on, smile on! You know nothing of man’s sufferings. The eternal laws have marked out your course. Why not ours, too? Why not man’s? Why must we wander in the desert of life, seeking happiness, and finding pain only! We conceive ourselves to be godlike, and yet we are no more than the worm that writhes in the dust, and is trodden under foot by the careless passer-by.”

These were the thoughts that passed through Schiller’s mind, while the pale youth at his side was narrating, in a voice often interrupted by sobs and tears, the history of his sufferings.

It was a simple, unvarnished story of that suffering and want altogether too proud to seek sympathy or relief. A story such as we might daily hear, if our ears were open to the mute pleadings that so often speak to us in the pale, careworn countenances of our fellow-travellers in the journey of life. Why repeat what is as old as the world! A shipwrecked life, a shipwrecked calling! There was that in this son of poverty which urged him to the acquisition of knowledge; he believed his mind endowed with treasures, and his ambitions heart whispered: “You will one day be a renowned preacher! God gave you inspiration; inspiration will give you the words with which to move the hearts of men!” He was the son of a poor tailor, but his father looked with pride on the boy who always brought home the best testimonials from his school, and who was held up to the other scholars as a model of diligence. It would be an honor for the whole family if the tailor’s son should become a learned man and a pastor. All that the parents could save and earn by hard work they willingly devoted to the education of their son, that he might become a scholar, and the pride of his family. What is there, that is glorious and beautiful, which parental love does not hope for, and prophesy for the darling son?

Young Theophilus had passed his examination with honor, and had repaired to the university in Leipsic to continue his studies when the sad intelligence of his father’s death reached him, summoning him back to Dresden, to his mother’s assistance. He now learned, what he, the student who had lived only in his books, had hitherto had no knowledge of whatever. He learned that his affectionate father had contracted debts, and pawned all that he possessed, in order that his son’s studies might be promoted. When the father found it no longer possible to assist his son, he had died of grief. And now the usurers and creditors came and took possession of every thing, regardless of the distressful cries of the unhappy mother, and the protestations of her despairing son. The law awarded them all, and they took all! Theophilus had reason to esteem it almost a blessing when his mother followed her husband to the grave a short time afterward. In the hospital of the Ursuline Sisters, he had at least found shelter for her, and six days afterward she found rest in her last abode in the narrow coffin accorded her by charity.

But where was a refuge to be found for the poor son who had so suddenly been driven from the study into the desert of life, where he could find no oasis in which to refresh himself and rest his wearied limbs? At first he refused to be discouraged, and struggled bravely. So little is needed to sustain life! and for this little he was willing to give all the knowledge acquired by honest diligence. He applied to the rich, to the learned, to artists; he offered his services, he wished to give instruction, to teach children. But, where were his recommendations? What guaranties had he to offer? The man who sought work was taken for a beggar, and the persons to whom he applied either turned their backs on him, or else offered a petty gratuity! This he invariably rejected; he wished to work, he was not a beggar. His unseasonable pride was ridiculed, his indignation called beggar insolence! Long days of struggling, of hunger, and of humiliations; long nights without shelter, rest, or refreshment! This little wood, on the river bank, had been his bedchamber for a long time. Here, on the bed of moss, accorded him by Nature, he had struggled with despair, feeling that it was gradually entwining him in its icy grasp! Finally, it held him as in a vice, and he felt that escape was no longer possible. Hunger had then spoken to him in the tempter’s voice, and whispered to his anxious soul that crime might still save him; it whispered that he could not be blamed for a theft committed under such circumstances, and hard-hearted society would alone bear the responsibility. Then, in his anguish, he had determined to seek refuge, from the tempter’s voice, in death, in the silent bed of the river.

Theophilus narrated this sad history of his sufferings with many sighs and groans. He painted a very gloomy picture of his life, and Schiller was deeply moved. He laid his hand on the poor youth’s pale brow and looked upwards, an expression of deep devotion and solemn earnestness depicted in his countenance.

“Thou hast listened to the wails of two mortals to-day, thou Spirit of the Universe. The one spoke to Thee in the anger of a man, the other in the despairing cry of a youth. Impart, to both of them, of Thy peace, and of Thy strength! Give to the man the resignation which teaches him that his mission on earth is not to be happy, but to struggle; teach the youth that the darkest night is but the harbinger of coming day, and that he must not despair while in darkness and gloom, but ever look forward hopefully to the coming light.”

murmured Theophilus, smiling sadly.

Schiller started and looked inquiringly at the youth, who, in so strange a coincidence of thought, had given expression to his despair in lines taken from the same poem from which the poet had repeated a verse in his hour of trial.

“Are the lines you have just uttered your own?” asked Schiller.

“No,” replied the youth, softly, “from whence should such inspiration come to me. The lines are from Schiller’s poem, ‘To Resignation,’ from the pen of the poet who is the favorite of the gods and muses, the poet who is adored by all Germany.”

“Do you know this Frederick Schiller, of whom you speak with such admiration?”

“No, I have never seen him, nor do I desire to see him! I love and adore him as a sublime spirit, as a disembodied genius. I would, perhaps, envy him if he should appear before me in human form.”

“Envy him, and why?”

“Because he is the chosen, the happy one! I do not wish to see the poet in bodily form; I do not wish to know that he eats and drinks like other men!”

“And suffers like other men, too,” said Schiller, softly.

“No, that is impossible!” cried Theophilus, with vivacity. “His soul is filled with Heaven and the smiles of the Divinity; he cannot suffer, he cannot be unhappy!”

Schiller did not reply. His head was thrown back, and he was gazing up at the heavens; the moon again shone on his countenance, and the starlight sparkled in the tears that rolled slowly down his cheeks. “He cannot suffer, he cannot be unhappy!” he repeated in a low voice. It seemed to him that a transformation was going on within himself, that he was growing larger and stronger, and that his heart had laid on a coat of armor. He sprang from the ground, stood proudly erect, and shook his arms aloft. “Here truly is manly strength, the sinews are tightly drawn, the muscles are firm; a genius has selected this breast as its abode, to give it strength to shake off the burden of sorrow.” He felt that his good genius had conducted him to this unhappy man, that he might be taught that the strong alone can bear pain, and that the weak must succumb under the rod of affliction. His heart was filled with pity for the weak brother at his side. “It was God’s will that I should save you from death; in so doing, I however contracted the obligation to preserve your life. I will meet this obligation. Tell me, what were your plans before your father’s death?”

“I hoped, when I should have finished my course at the university, to enter some family as teacher, where I could, in time, earn enough to enable me to go to the Catholic Seminary in Cologne, and maintain me there, while completing my studies.”

“You are a Catholic?”

“My father was from the Rhine, and my mother was of Polish extraction. Both were Catholics, and it was their fond hope that their son might some day receive ordination and become a priest of the Catholic Church. It seems, however, that I have only been ordained to misery, and I could veil my head and die in shame and remorse!”

“Young man, this is blasphemy, you forfeit God’s grace when you speak in this manner. He sent me here to save you, and with his aid I will not leave my task uncompleted. How much will enable you to prepare yourself for your future career?”

“The sum that I require is so great that I scarcely dare mention it.”

“Would one hundred dollars be sufficient?”

“That is far more than I need, more than I ever possessed!” cried Theophilus, almost terrified.

“If I should promise to give you this amount—to give it to you here, at this same place, and at this hour, in a week from to-day, would you swear to wait patiently and hopefully until then, and to make no further wicked attempt on your life?”

“I would swear to do so,” replied Theophilus, in a trembling and tearful voice.

“By the memory of your father and mother?”

“By the memory of my father and mother!”

“Well, then, my brother, with God’s help I will bring you the money in a week from to-day. I would say to-morrow, if I had the money; but I am poor, like you, my brother. No, this is hardly true. I am rich, for I have friends, and these friends will furnish the money you require, if I entreat them to do so.”

“You will narrate my history to your friends?” said Theophilus, blushing.

“That I will have to do, in order to awaken sympathy, but I will not mention your name, nor will I so closely narrate the circumstances that they can possibly divine of whom I am speaking. Moreover, you told me that you had no friends or acquaintances in Dresden?”

“True,” sighed Theophilus, letting his head sink on his breast, “misfortune knows itself only, and cares are its only friends. It conceals its wounds, and hides itself in darkness. But I have no longer the right to be proud; I bow my head in humility. Plead my cause, my noble, generous friend, my saviour! God’s mercy will give you eloquence, and the consciousness of having saved a human being from disgrace and crime will make your words irresistible. My heart is filled with the joyful conviction that God has sent you as a messenger of peace and reconciliation. I will believe in, and confide in you; I will live, because you tell me to live!”

“Live, my brother, and hope!” said Schiller, gently. “Await me at this place, and at this hour, a week from to-day; I hope to bring you the money. But you must have something with which to purchase the necessaries of life until then. Here, my brother, take all that I have in my purse. I have only four dollars, but that sum will suffice to provide you with food and lodging.”

Theophilus took the money, and kissed the giver’s hand. “I have proudly rejected the gifts offered me by the rich, preferring to die rather than receive their heartless charity. But from you, brother Samaritan, I humbly accept the gift of love. I willingly burden myself with this debt of gratitude.”

“Let us now separate,” said Schiller. “In a week we meet again. But one request I desire to make of you.”

“You have but to command, and I will obey you implicitly.”

“I beg you not to attempt to find me out, or to learn who I am? We have seen each other’s countenances in the moonlight, but they were covered with a golden veil. Do not attempt to remove this veil in the light of day, and to learn my name. I feel assured that you will make no mention of this incident of to-night, but I also desire to avoid meeting you in future. I therefore beg you not to go out much in Dresden, and not to frequent the main streets of the city. If we should meet, my heart would prompt me to extend my hand and speak to you, and that would not be desirable.”

“Further down on the Elbe there is a little inn where I can board cheaply. From here I will go to this inn and there remain till the appointed hour. I will not go near the city.”

“Good-night, brother!” said Schiller, extending his hand. “Here we shall meet again. And now, turn you to the left, and I will turn to the right. May good spirits watch over us till our return!”

CHAPTER V.

SEPARATION.

Schiller walked homeward with rapid strides. The streets of the city were silent and deserted, and the houses enveloped in darkness. He passed by the house in which she lived for whom he had suffered so much. He did not look up, but his head sank lower on his breast, and a feeling of unutterable sadness came over him; but he had no pity for himself, not a single sigh or complaint escaped his breast.

A sensation of chilliness crept over him as he now entered his solitary dwelling. No one was there to extend the hand of sympathy and bid him welcome. His two friends had awaited his return for a long time, but had finally gone home. They knew their friend’s disposition, they knew that Schiller always avoided men when his passions were aroused, and sought out some solitude where no eye could witness his struggle to subdue them.

“He very probably has gone to Loschwitz, to spend a few days in the pavilion in which he wrote ‘Don Carlos,’” said KÖrner. “His genius always directs the poet aright, and he possesses the healing balsam for his wounds in his own breast. I will go to Loschwitz myself, to-morrow, to see if he is there, and to make a few inquiries as to his condition. If I find him there I shall leave him to himself till his agitation and passion have subsided, and he voluntarily returns to his friends.”

“But if he is not there?” said GÖschen, anxiously, as they stepped out into the street. “I never before saw Schiller in so violent a state of excitement. If this fearful awakening from his delusion should overcome him—if in his despair he should—”

“Do not conclude your sentence,” said KÖrner, interrupting him, “do not utter that terrible word. Do not insult your absent friend; remember that he is a genius. He will not yield to despair like an ordinary man; his soul will soon recover its buoyancy.”

But for this night, at least, KÖrner’s prophecy was not destined to be fulfilled. True, Schiller had overcome despair, but the pain still rankled in his breast. The bed on which he threw himself in his physical exhaustion was a bed of pain. His thoughts and remembrances were the thorns that pierced his heart, and drove sleep from his couch.

He arose the next morning at a late hour in a state of feverish excitement, entered his plainly-furnished parlor, and looked gloomily around him. But yesterday his parlor had looked so cosey and comfortable, to-day it seemed so bare and desolate. Those flowers in the little vase were but yesterday so bright and fragrant, to-day they were faded. The books and papers on his table were in the greatest disorder. The appearance of the room awakened in Schiller the sensation of sadness and desolation we experience on entering the deserted room of a dear friend who has suddenly left us.

Yes, joy, love, hope, and enthusiasm, had departed from this room; it now looked dreary and desolate. How can we work, how can we write poetry, without enthusiasm, without joy?

“Elegies on a faithless sweetheart,” said Schiller, in loud, mocking tones. “A tearful poem, with the title: ‘When last I saw her in the circle of her suitors;’ or ‘The amorous swain outwitted!’”

He burst into laughter, stepped to the window, and commenced tapping on the panes with his fingers, as he had done when KÖrner and GÖschen first aroused his suspicions concerning his love. He was now reminded of this; he hastily withdrew his hands and walked back into the room. But he suddenly recoiled, and uttered a cry of dismay, as though he had seen a ghost. Marie von Arnim stood in the doorway, pale but composed, her large blue eyes fastened with an imploring expression on Schiller’s countenance.

She gave him no time to recover from his surprise, but locked the door behind her, threw her bonnet and shawl on a chair, and walked forward into the room.

“Schiller,” said she, in a soft, trembling voice, “I have come because I do not wish you to despise me, because I do not wish the thought of me to leave a shadow on your memory.”

He had now recovered his composure; a feeling of anger raged in him and demanded utterance.

“What is there surprising in your coming? Why should you not have come? Ladies of rank go in person to their tailors and shoemakers when they desire to make purchases or leave orders, why should you not come to a poet to order a nuptial poem. I am right in supposing that the young lady wishes me to write a poem in honor of her approaching nuptials with Count Kunheim, am I not? I am also right, I believe, as regards the name of that favored member of the exclusive family circle of yesterday, who is destined to become that young lady’s husband?”

“Yes, you are,” she replied, softly. “You see, Schiller, I have not interrupted you, but have received your words as the penitent receives the blows of the rod, without complaint or murmur, although blood is streaming from her wounds. But now be merciful, Schiller! let this punishment suffice, and listen to me!”

“I know what the substance of the poem is to be,” observed Schiller, in the same threatening voice. “Undoubtedly you desire a sort of illustration of the courtship, from the first meeting down to the avowal, and then the golden honeymoon is to be painted in brilliant colors. Probably it would meet your wishes if a comical feature were also introduced; for instance: a poor poet, who, in his absurd conceit, had dared to consider himself Count Kunheim’s equal, and who, acting on this belief, had even dared to fall in love with the beautiful young lady, who, of course, only laughed at his presumption.”

“No, Schiller, who would have been the proudest and happiest of women if circumstances had permitted her to avow her love freely and openly.”

“Yes,” cried Schiller, gruffly, “circumstances are always the scapegoats of the weak and faithless. I, however, admit the difficulties arising from the circumstances by which you were surrounded in this instance. You were making use of the poet’s love to allure richer suitors into your toils, a game requiring some finesse. My rÔle was neither a flattering nor a grateful one, but yet it was a rÔle, and a dramatic poet cannot expect to have good ones only. But enough of this! Let us speak of the poem. When must it be ready?”

“Schiller,” she cried, almost frantic, tears streaming from her eyes, “Schiller, will you have no pity on me?”

“Did you have pity on me?” asked he, with a sudden transition from his mocking to an angry tone of voice, and regarding Marie, who had folded her hands humbly, and was looking up at him entreatingly, with glances that grew darker and angrier as he spoke. “I ask you, did you have pity on me? Did it never occur to you, while engaged in your shrewd calculation, that you were preparing to give me a wound for which there is no cure? When two loving hearts are torn asunder by death or the hand of fate, the pain can be borne, and time may heal the wound; when the cruel laws of human society compel us to separate from those we love, a consolation still remains. The sacred, the undimmed remembrance of past hours of bliss, and the hope that time, the great equalizer, may remove all obstacles, still remains. But what consolation remains to him who has been cheated of his love, his enthusiasm, and his ideal?—to me, over whose heart the remembrance of this deception lies like a pall? From whence am I to derive faith, hope, and confidence, now that you, whom I loved, have deceived me? You have not only destroyed my happiness, but you have also offended the genius of poetry within me. Henceforth all will seem cold and insipid. The word ‘enthusiasm’ will ring in my ear like a mockery. I will even mistrust the vows of fidelity uttered by the lips of my dramatic creations; for, now that you have so shamefully deceived me, there is no longer any thing noble, pure, and beautiful.”

He hurled a last angry glance at her, and then turned away, walked to the window and looked out into the street. Marie von Arnim followed him and laid her cold, trembling hand on his arm.

“Schiller, if I were really the woman you take me to be, would I have come to you at the risk of being observed by others—at the risk of its becoming known throughout the city that I had visited you? I have come, Schiller, because I was unwilling that the most beautiful music of my life should end in discord, because I was unwilling that you should remember me with anger, when I only deserve commiseration.”

“Commiseration!” repeated Schiller, shrugging his shoulders.

“Yes,” she continued, in a soft voice, “yes, I deserve it. I am not bad, not faithless, and not false. I am only a poor girl whose heart and hands have been fettered by fate. A poor girl who cannot do what she would, but must obey God’s command and submit to her mother’s will. Do not require me to acquaint you with all the misery which afflicts my family, with the cares and humiliations which those must suffer who cover their want with a veil of wealth, and polish and plate iron poverty till it has the appearance of golden plenty. Believe me, Schiller, we are so poor that we do not know how we are to escape from our importunate creditors.”

“And yet, you gave agreeable dinners, and entertained the exclusive family circle at delightful suppers,” observed Schiller, jeeringly, and without even turning to look at Marie, who stood behind him.

“My mother would have it so, Schiller. She had sold her last jewels in order that she might be able to come to Dresden, where she hoped to marry her daughter to a fortune. Schiller, you will believe me when I swear that I knew nothing of this, and that my first and greatest joy on coming to Dresden was experienced when I made your acquaintance, and when you honored me with your notice! Schiller, I have dreamed a sweet, a blissful dream.”

“And the light in the window was the night-lamp in this dream,” he observed, in mocking tones.

“I make no attempt to justify myself,” said she, gently. “My mother gave me her commands, and I was compelled to obey. When she yesterday declared to me that the only issue out of all her troubles was for me to accept Count Kunheim’s addresses, and begged me to do so, I only consented after a long and fruitless struggle, after many tears and entreaties. I yielded to my mother’s commands, but I exacted this condition: Schiller must now learn the whole truth, these little mysteries must cease, and no light shall be placed at the window this evening, requesting him not to come. This, my mother promised, but she was cruel enough to break her promise.”

“So that I should still wander about, a deluded and credulous simpleton, if I had not broken through the barriers of the exclusive family circle in defiance of the warning light.”

“I am thankful that fate willed otherwise, and frustrated my mother’s intentions,” said Marie, gently. “When we are compelled to deny any one the happiness we would so willingly accord, it is our duty to tell him the truth, although it may be painful. Truth is a two-edged sword; it not only wounds him who hears, but him also who imparts it. I have come, Schiller,” continued Marie in an agitated voice, after a short pause, “to take leave of you—to say to you: Schiller, we shall never meet again in life, let us part in peace!”

“Never again!” murmured he, slowly turning his countenance toward the woman, who had heretofore looked so bright and joyous, so radiant with youth and beauty, and who now stood at his side so humble and submissive, her tearful eyes raised imploringly to his.

“Never again!” sighed Marie. “Our paths in life will henceforth be widely separated. I intend to marry the man whose wealth will save my mother and brother. I will be to him a faithful and grateful wife, although I may not be a loving one. I am to be affianced to Count Kunheim at noon to-day, and I have employed the last hour of my liberty in coming here to take leave of you, Schiller, and to beg forgiveness for the pain inflicted on you, of which I am the innocent cause.”

“The innocent cause!” cried Schiller, turning around and staring at her with his large, flaming eyes. “How can you say that you are the innocent cause of the pain which you inflicted on me? You knew that I loved you. I told you so, and you listened to my avowal. You gave me hope, although you must have known that my love was hopeless.”

“You speak of yourself only,” rejoined Marie, in low and trembling tones. “You are not thinking of me at all; it does not occur to you that I also have suffered, that I also have hoped. Yes, Schiller, I did suppose that my mother would yield to my prayers and entreaties; even yesterday I conjured her on my knees to permit me to seek my own happiness in my own way, as my heart prompted. At that time I was not aware that my mother’s circumstances were so desperate. I knew not that her honor and even her liberty were endangered. When she admitted that such was the case, when she disclosed the whole sorrowful truth, I felt as though my heart would break, as though all the blossoms of my future had suddenly faded. The conviction forced itself upon me that it was my duty to sacrifice, to my mother’s welfare, my own wishes and hopes. I did my duty; I gave up my own happiness to save my mother—to secure, at least, a ray of sunshine in the evening of her life. I have submitted. I will become the wife of Count Kunheim.”

“And will say to him that you joyfully accept and reciprocate his generous love!”

“No, I will not tell this noble man a falsehood, nor have I done so. When he yesterday evening offered me his hand, I told him honestly and openly that I esteemed and confided in him, and would be a very thankful and faithful wife, but that my heart was no longer free—a love dwelt therein that could never die, for it was Schiller whom I loved!”

“You told him that?” asked Schiller, with emotion. “And he—”

“He agreed with me that the heart which loved Schiller could never forget him, but added that he would only esteem me the more, and could never be jealous on account of this love. He said that my love for Schiller should be the altar of our married life and of our house—the altar to which we would bring the fruits of our noblest thoughts and feelings.”

“Noble, generous man!” cried Schiller, “Yes, he deserves to be happy and to possess you. Be his wife, Marie, and do your duty. Let the early blossom of your heart fade, and let the full summer-rose of your love bloom for your husband. You can do so, Marie, for—I say it without anger or ill-will—you have never loved me! No, do not contradict, do not attempt to assure me that such is not the case. In this hour, when my soul is elevated above all selfish wishes and desires—in this hour, I rejoice in recognizing the fact, you have never loved me. I know that a kind Providence has thus spared you the pain I now endure; I know you will be happy at the side of the noble and high-souled man who demands your hand in marriage. I do not mean to say that you will soon forget me; I think too well of myself to believe this. No, you will yet shed tears when you think of him who loved you, but the bridegroom will be there to dry these tears. With tender sympathy he will speak to you of your love, as of a beautiful dream of the spring-time, and you will find that the awakening from this dream on a bright, flowery summer day, is also beautiful, and that will console you. Some day, after many years, when my pain has long since vanished, and I have gone home to the unknown land from whence no traveller returns—some day, when your weeping children and grandchildren surround your couch, and you feel your last hour approaching, you will once more remember this dream of the spring-time. It will greet you like a ray of sunshine from the new life that is dawning. With a smile on your lips, you will turn to your children and say: ‘I leave you gold and treasures, a brilliant name and high rank. But I leave you a more precious legacy. Schiller loved me, and a poet’s love is a blessing that is inherited from generation to generation. Your father’s name gives you rank and honor before men, but the love which the poet consecrated to your mother gives you renown and immortality. Strive to be worthy of this love. Go to the grave of the poet who died in solitude and poverty, and pray for him!’”

“No, Schiller, that will not be all that I say to those who will some day surround my death-bed,” said Marie, drying her tears, in order that her large, luminous eyes might gaze at his sad countenance more fully and firmly. “I will say to them: ‘I am now returning to God, and to my first, my imperishable love. In death I may proudly and joyfully confess I have loved Schiller! I still love him!’”

The poet, as if irresistibly attracted by her enthusiasm and her glowing countenance—hardly knowing what he did—extended his arms toward Marie. She threw herself on his breast; he pressed her gently to his heart, and let his hand rest lovingly on her head.

It was a silent and solemn moment, a last blissful and sorrowful embrace. Their lips were dumb, but their hearts communed in holy thought and prayer.

After a pause, Schiller gently raised up between his hands the head that was still resting on his breast; he gazed long and lovingly into the fair girl’s countenance. The tears that flowed from his eyes fell on hers like glowing pearls, mingling with her own tears and trickling down her cheeks. Schiller bowed his head, and kissed the lips that responded warmly to his own. He then pressed her hands to his eyes and released her from his embrace.

She turned slowly, walked toward the door, and put on her shawl and bonnet. “Farewell, Schiller!”

“Farewell, Marie!”

And now she stood in the doorway, her eyes fastened on him in a last lingering look. He stood silently regarding her.

A grating noise broke in upon the silence; it was the closing door behind which Marie had vanished. Schiller remained standing at the same place, his eyes fixed on the door. Had it suddenly grown so dark? was the sun overcast? or was it only the tears in his eyes that made the room look so gloomy? Had a storm suddenly arisen? did an earthquake make the ground tremble beneath him? or was it only the storm of passion that was passing over his head? Why was it that his knees trembled, and that he would have fallen to the ground had not a chair stood near by, into which he sank, groaning?

The hour in which a man wrestles with his agony—the hour of renunciation and conquest, is sacred; the eye of God only may witness it, but no tongue must attempt to describe it, unless indeed that of the poet whose pain is surrounded by the halo of poetry—the poet to whom the hour of renunciation has also become the hour of enthusiasm.

Some one is weeping and lamenting behind that door. Is it Marie?

Some one is speaking in loud and earnest tones behind this door. Is it the poet composing an inscription for the gravestone of his love?

A loud knock is heard at the door, and then a second, and a third, in quick succession. Schiller shakes back the hair from his countenance, and hastens forward to see who is clamoring for admission.

CHAPTER VI.

THE SONG “TO JOY.”

It was the postman, who brought the poet a rosy, perfumed letter from Weimar.

With eager hands, Schiller opened and unfolded the missive. His countenance beamed with joy as he recognized Madame von Kalb’s handwriting. “Good and noble woman, you have not forgotten me! Do you still think of me lovingly?”

No, she had not forgotten him; she still loved him, and begged him, with tender and eloquent entreaties, to come to her.

“Schiller, the world is a solitude without you; you are the thought of my inmost thoughts, the soul of my soul! Frederick, separation from you has disclosed the holy mystery of your heart and of mine. It is this: We are the two halves that were one in heaven, and our mission on earth is to strive to come together, in order that our eternal indivisibility and unity of spirit may be restored. Schiller, when we are once more united, hand in hand, and are gazing in each other’s eyes, we shall feel as if we had left the earth and were once more in heaven. Frederick, come to your Charlotte!”

“Yes, I am coming to my Charlotte, I am coming!” cried Schiller, in a loud voice, as he pressed the letter to his lips. “You have saved me, you have made me myself again, Charlotte! I am no longer lonely, no longer unloved. Your heart calls me, your spirit longs for me. I feel as though my soul’s wings, destined to bear me aloft above the misery of earth, were growing stronger. They will bear me to you, Charlotte—to you, the dearest friend of my life! You shall console, you shall restore me, your friendship shall be the balsam for the wounds of my heart. Eternal Fate, I thank thee for having permitted me to hear this call of friendship in this my hour of trial. I thank thee that there is still one soul that I can call mine; I praise thee that I am not compelled to stand aside in shame and tears, like an unloved, friendless beggar, while the happy are feasting at the richly-laden table of life. One soul I can at least call my own, and I will keep her holy, and love and thank her all the days of my life. Away with tears! away with this sorrowing over a dream of happiness! Farewell, Marie! Be forgiven. I will think of you without anger, and rejoice when you become a happy countess! Farewell, Marie![32] A greeting to you, Charlotte! I am coming to you! I am coming!”

He walked slowly to and fro; the cloud of sorrow that had rested on his brow gradually lifted, and his countenance grew clearer and clearer. The man had conquered—the poet was once more himself.

“I will go to KÖrner! I must see my friend!” He took down his hat, and walked out into the street. His mind had freed itself of its fetters, his step was elastic, and he bore himself proudly, his blue eyes turned heavenward, and a joyous smile rested on his thin and delicate lips.

Thus he entered KÖrner’s dwelling, and found his friend on the point of starting to Loschwitz, to see what had become of the poet. Schiller extended both hands and greeted him with a loving glance.

“Here I am again, my friend. The prodigal son returns from his wanderings, and begs to be permitted to take up his abode in your heart once more. Will you receive him, friend KÖrner?”

“I will not only receive him, but will kill the fatted calf in honor of his return. I will give a festival, to which all our friends shall be invited, in order that they may rejoice with me, and exclaim, ‘The wanderer has returned! Blessed be the hour of his return!’”

Schiller threw himself into his friend’s arms, and pressed him to his heart. “I have caused you much sorrow and trouble. I have been a wild and stubborn fellow. Why should beautiful women be blamed for not loving this ungainly and unmannerly fellow, when there are so many handsomer, richer, and happier men in the world? Marie von Arnim is right in marrying the rich and handsome Count Kunheim; and you must not blame her on this account, or say of her that she deceived me. She has only done what we all must do on earth: she has done her duty, and God will bless her and give her His peace in the hour of death for so doing.—But let us speak no more of this.”

“No, my friend, we will speak of it no more,” said KÖrner, heartily; “let us only rejoice that you have returned to your friends; that you once more believe in us and our friendship. How happy my wife will be when her dear friend is restored to her again! how glad GÖschen will be when you once more extend your hand to him in a loving greeting!”

“Poor, generous GÖschen!” said Schiller, thoughtfully. “I was cruel and unjust to him yesterday, I imputed ignoble motives to my friend!”

“He thinks of it no longer,” said KÖrner; “he has no memory for the words spoken by your anguish. He will be only too happy when you once more greet him with a loving smile.”

“How good and patient you all are with me!” said Schiller, softly; “and how little have I deserved such treatment at your hands! In truth, I feel as though I had now returned to you after a long separation—as though I had only seen you of late through a cloud that had arisen between us, and in which a single star shone, and— Be still, no more of this! The cloud has been dissipated; I now see you again, and will rejoice with you as long as we are together.”

“Schiller, you do not contemplate leaving us?” said KÖrner, sadly.

“I am a poor wanderer, my friend, whose stay at any one place is but brief. At last, a time will come even for me, when I can lay down my staff and knapsack, and exclaim, ‘Here I will rest! This is my home!’ But the gods only know whether this home will be in the grave or in the heart of a woman!”

“No sad thoughts now, my friend, if you please, now that I am ready to exult and rejoice over your return!”

“You are right, no sad thoughts at this time! Let us turn our thoughts to joy. The first song I write shall be in praise of joy. I will no longer avoid mankind, no longer seek solitude! As you said, KÖrner, so shall it be! Give the prodigal son a festival, call our friends together, let us once more assemble around the festive board and partake of the repast of friendship and joy. This festival shall be in honor of my return and of my departure.”

KÖrner gave this festival. The lost one, who had of late withdrawn himself from his friends in the violence of his love, had now returned, and this was a fitting occasion for joy and festivity. He called his friends together; he had for each a kind word and a tender greeting. GÖschen was richly rewarded when Schiller gave him the manuscript of his Don Carlos, that was now to be given to the world, and to entwine the halo of immortality around the poet’s brow, and to enkindle and fan the flame of enthusiasm in thousands and thousands of hearts!

Six days after Schiller’s “return,” the festival which KÖrner had promised took place. KÖrner and his beautiful young wife, Theresa Huber, GÖschen, and the artist Sophie Albrecht, were present; a few friends in Leipsic had also joyfully availed themselves of KÖrner’s invitation, and had come to Dresden to see the poet once more.

There he sat at the festive board, his arm thrown around KÖrner’s neck; in his right hand he held the goblet filled with sparkling Rhine wine. His eyes beamed and his countenance shone with enthusiasm. His glance was directed upward, and, perhaps, he saw the heavens open and the countenance of the blessed, for a soft and joyous smile played about his lips.

“Look at this favorite of the muses,” cried KÖrner. “One might suppose they held him in their embrace, and were whispering words of inspiration into his poet’s heart.”

“Perhaps they are whispering a song of joy in my ear, my friend, in order that I may repeat it to you, the favorite of the gods! But before I do so, I will narrate a history—a history that will touch your hearts and open your purses, unless you are cold-hearted egotists, and then you deserve to share the fate of King Midas, whose very food and wine were turned into gold because he was a hard-hearted miser. I condemn you to this punishment if you have the courage to listen to my story without being moved to tears and generosity!”

With deep pathos and eloquence Schiller recounted to his listening friends his midnight adventure, his conversation with the poor youth who had attempted to take his own life. So graphic was his representation of the unfortunate youth’s distress and vain struggles, that the hearts of his hearers were deeply touched, and no eye remained dry.

When he had concluded his narrative and told his friends of the promise he had made to poor Theophilus, Schiller arose from his seat, took the plate which lay before him, and walked around the table, halting at each seat and extending his plate like a beggar, with soft words of entreaty. When the ready hands opened and dollars and gold-pieces rang out on the plate, Schiller inclined his head and smiled, thanking the givers with looks of tenderness.

Now he had returned to his seat and was counting the money. “Seventeen gold-pieces and thirty dollars. I thank you, my friends! You have saved a human life; you have redeemed a soul from purgatory! To-morrow night I will take this love-offering to the poor youth; the blessing of a good man will then rest on your closed eyelids, and you will be rewarded with sweet dreams and a happy awakening. Now, my dear friends, you shall receive from the poet’s lips the thanks that are glowing in my heart. Now, you shall hear the exulting song to joy which KÖrner supposed the Muses were whispering in my ear. Raise your glasses and listen; when I incline my head repeat the words last spoken.”

Schiller arose, drew a small, folded sheet of paper from his pocket, opened it, glanced over it hastily, and then let it fall on the table. He did not require it; his song resounded in his mind and brain; it was written on the tablets of his heart, and his lips now uttered it exultantly:

His eyes shone with enthusiasm, his cheeks glowed, and a heavenly smile illumined his whole countenance, while reciting his song “To Joy.” His friends caught the inspiration of his poem, arose with one accord from their seats, clasped hands and gazed into each other’s eyes—into the eyes that shone lustrously, although they were filled with tears. Now, at the culminating point of his rapture, Schiller’s countenance suddenly quivered with pain as he recited a second verse of his song:

“Who cannot, may steal alone, weeping from our holy ground,” repeated his friends. The tears gushed from their eyes; they clasped hands more firmly, and listened breathlessly to the words of the poet, whose voice now rose again to the high tones of enthusiasm. It was almost like an adoration of joy, friendship, and love. Their hearts beat higher, mightier and mightier the waves of rapture surged in their kindred souls.

They embraced each other; they wept, but with rapture, with enthusiasm. The kiss that passed from mouth to mouth was given to the whole world; for all that the world could offer of love, of friendship, and of happiness, the friends found combined at the happy festival to which Schiller had dedicated his song “To Joy.”

CHAPTER VII.

TOGETHER ONCE MORE.

Night had come, a dark, gloomy night. The moonlight that had played so beautifully, on the rippling waters of the Elbe, a week before, was wanting on this night. The sky was overcast, and the clouds that were being driven through the heavens by the wind, cast on the river dark shadows that looked like yawning graves.

Theophilus stood on the river bank at the same place where he had knelt and prayed a week before. He stood there gazing at the dark river and looking up from time to time at the driving clouds.

“If he should not respect his word, if he should not be able to keep his promise, because no generous hearts responded to his entreaties! What then? Will this river be my grave? Are the waves murmuring my death-song? No, no! be brave, Theophilus; wait patiently, be strong in hope! His voice was so gentle, so full of conviction, when he promised to meet me here to-night, to bring me help! He appeared before me like the angel Gabriel; I will believe that God sent him in human form, and that he will also send him a second time. Hope, my heart, and be strong in faith!”

He folded his hands in silent prayer, and listened anxiously to every slight noise other than the murmuring of the waves on the shore, and the rustling of the wind in the trees, that broke in upon the stillness of the night. Some distance up the river, on its opposite bank, lay the city with its many lights. On the Elbe bridge, towering conspicuously above all other objects, stood the gilded crucifix, surrounded by a circle of lighted lamps, placed there by pious hands.

Theophilus saw this crucifix, and it awakened pious thoughts and brave resolutions in his breast. “I will endure all that may befall me in patience and hope. By resignation and pious devotion, I will endeavor to atone for the sins committed in my despair. My whole life belongs to Thee, my God, and shall be dedicated to Thy service! I will serve the poor and the unfortunate. Every man who suffers shall be my brother, to every man who stumbles will I extend a helping hand. I will strive to dry the tears of the weeping, and, if I can do nothing else, I will, at least, pray with them. This, I swear to Thee, my God!—this I swear by yon luminous crucifix!”

The great bell resounded from the tower of the Catholic Church, striking the eleventh hour. Theophilus shuddered; he remembered that he had heard this bell at the moment when he was on the point of plunging into his watery grave, and that it had then resounded on his ear like a death-knell.

“Never will I hear this hour strike without fear and trembling. It will always sound to me like the knell of the doomed criminal. Grant, O God, that in such an hour I may prove myself a repentant sinner, and make atonement for my crime! I resolve that I will do so,” cried he, in a loud voice. “I swear that this eleventh hour shall each day remind me of my crime, and find me ready to devote to the welfare of mankind the life I was about to sacrifice to despair.”

“In the name of God and humanity I accept your vow!” said a solemn voice behind him. “Here I am, my brother. Forgive me for having kept you waiting, but important business prevented my coming earlier, and I found it difficult to steal away from the friends who were with me, without attracting observation. While awaiting me, you have formed good resolutions, and made your peace with God and your conscience. Hold fast to them, my brother; be firm and brave. Elevate your thoughts above things perishable, let your soul soar above the vanities of earthly existence, and you will find that spiritual joys will amply console you for the sorrows of earth. Here is the money I have brought you, here are one hundred and twenty dollars. According to your calculation it will suffice to enable you to complete your studies, and give you a start in your career. Take the money, my friend, and let us part.”

“Part! without giving me the name of my benefactor and saviour?” asked Theophilus, holding the hand, that had given him the money, firmly clasped in his own. “Part! and may I never hope to see and thank you in the light of day?”

“Thank me, my brother, by being happy. Bear the light of day within you, and then I shall be rewarded, then my memory will live in your heart. Why should I tell you my name? I am your brother, let that suffice. Go on your way, be just, and do good to others who are suffering and who are unhappy, as you were. This shall be my thanks: I say to you, with Christ: ‘What you do to the least of these my brethren, that you have done unto me.’ Bear this in mind!”

The voice was silent; Theophilus knew that he was again alone. He folded his hands, bowed his head, and prayerfully repeated the words, that, in the stillness of the night, and amid the rustling of the wind, had resounded on his ear like the solemn tones of an organ. “What you do to the least of these my brethren, that you have done unto me. Bear this in mind!”

“I will bear this in mind! I will endeavor to atone for the evil I have done! I dedicate myself to God’s service. The holy crucifix, that illumines the surrounding darkness, has also illumined the darkness of my soul. I will go to Cologne, and enter the seminary, in order that I may become a priest—a pious, humble priest of the Church of God. Farewell! earthly vanity, earthly pride, and earthly hope! I will be a priest of mercy, for God has shown me mercy, and sent an angel-messenger to save me. I will bear this in mind!”

While Theophilus was wending his way to Dresden, Schiller was journeying toward Weimar in the stage-coach. After giving Theophilus the money collected for him, Schiller had hurried to the post-office, where his friends were waiting to take leave of him, and bid the traveller a last farewell.

“Farewell! We shall soon meet again; I will soon return!” cried Schiller from the stage-coach, as it rolled out of the court-yard on through the city gate into the soft summer night.

“Charlotte is awaiting me!” murmured Schiller, as he sank back on the hard cushions. “Charlotte is awaiting me. She is the friend of my soul. Our spirits belong to each other, and I will show my friend the wounds of my heart, in order that she may heal them with the balsam of tender friendship.”

But, strange to say, the nearer he came to his journey’s end, the more joyfully his heart throbbed, the less painful its wounds became.

“Charlotte, dear Charlotte, if I were but already with you! I feel that the fire which drove me from Mannheim is not yet extinguished; a breath from your lips will suffice to kindle the spark into a conflagration.”

There is Weimar! Now the stage-coach has entered the city. Schiller is on classic ground! On the ground where Germany’s greatest poets and intellects dwell. Wieland and Herder, Bertuch and Bode, dwell here; here are also many artists and actors of eminence, and here lives the genial Duke Charles August! And yet Weimar is desolate, for Goethe is not here; he left more than a year ago.

Schiller knew this, but what did he care now! He had so longed to tread this classic ground that his heart throbbed with joy at the prospect of seeing and becoming acquainted with the celebrated men whose works he had read with so much enthusiasm—whom he could now meet with the feeling that he was not unworthy of them, and that he also now filled a place in the republic of intellect.

He had been occupied with these thoughts during the whole journey; but now they suddenly vanished. He thought only of Madame von Kalb, the friend he had not seen for two years—the friend whose dear lips had called him to her side in the hour of his deepest distress.

He had taken lodgings in the chief hotel of the city; it was already quite late in the evening, so late that it seemed hardly proper to call on a lady. He would not remain in his solitary chamber, but would walk out, and at least look at the house in which she lived. If the lights had, however, not yet been extinguished, if she should still be awake— He did not complete this thought, but sprang down the steps, ordered the servant, who was walking to and fro in the hall, to accompany him and show him the house in which Madame von Kalb lived, and rushed down the designated street with such long and rapid strides that the servant could scarcely follow him.

There is the house in which Madame von Kalb lives, a modest little house at the entrance of the park. A light is still burning behind the basement windows, and he sees the shadow of a tall woman pass across the closed curtains. “That is her figure, I would recognize it among thousands! That is Charlotte!”

“I intend to enjoy this beautiful summer night in the park,” said Schiller, turning to the servant, with a hasty movement. “You may return, I will be able to find my way back, alone.”

As soon as the servant had vanished around the next corner, he walked up to the door and opened it very softly, in order that the bell above it might not betray his entrance. “I will take her by surprise,” murmured he to himself; “I will see what effect my unexpected coming will have on my dear friend.”

The bell rang in such low tones that it could certainly not have been heard in the room. But a servant came forward from the back end of the hall.

“I call at Madame von Kalb’s request. She is in this room, is she not?”

“Madame von Kalb is in. May I have the honor of announcing you?”

“It is unnecessary, she is awaiting me. I can enter unannounced.”

He had uttered these words in subdued tones; Charlotte must not hear him, must know nothing of his arrival until he stood before her. He opened the door noiselessly, closed it gently behind him, and now stood between the door and the heavy velvet curtain that hung over the entrance. He could, however, see his friend through an opening in the curtain. She sat reclining on the sofa, her beautiful eyes gazing dreamingly into empty space. Her cheeks were pale with inward agitation, and a soft smile played about her lips. Of whom was she thinking? Of whom was she dreaming?

“Charlotte! dear Charlotte!”

She uttered a cry and sprang up from her seat.

“Charlotte, you called me to your side, and here I am! Will you not welcome me?”

She stood as though incapable of utterance, but the beautiful, the loved countenance, with its proud and noble expression, its rosy lips, and soft smile, was before him. Before her stood Schiller, whom she had yearned for since they last parted, whom she had loved ardently and faithfully for two long, long years, without having seen him. But, now he was there, he stood before her with extended arms. She thought nothing, she felt nothing more than that Schiller had returned, and was once more at her side. Happy, blissful reunion!

“Welcome, my Schiller! welcome, friend of my soul!” She threw herself on his bosom, and he entwined his arms around her, as though they were two chains with which he intended to bind, and hold her forever. Yes, forever!

“Tell me, Charlotte, that you love me! utter the word which your lips refused to confess in Mannheim. Do not again drive me out into the darkness of life, as you did in Mannheim. I am weary of wandering, and am disgusted with the world. You alone are true, in you only can I confide. Accord me a home where I may lay down my head and rest. Tell me, Charlotte, that this is my heart’s home. Tell me that you love me? You do not reply, Charlotte? Why are you silent?” He opened his arms to release her, that he might look at her. But she did not raise her head, she still lay on his breast. She had fainted! He lifted her in his arms, carried her to the sofa, and knelt down beside her. As she lay there with closed eyelids, and pale lips, he bowed down over her and pressed his glowing lips to hers, entreating her to return to life. “Charlotte, friend, awaken! Forgive me for having dared to surprise you in the wilfulness of my happiness. Return to me, friend of my soul! I will be quiet and gentle, will sit at your feet like a child, and be contented to look up at your dear countenance, and read in your eyes that you love me. Open these dear eyes! Soul of my soul, heart of my heart, let me hear your loved voice! Give me a word of consolation, of hope, of love!”

And Charlotte, called by the voice she had longed to hear for two long years, awoke, and looked up lovingly into the countenance of him who was the sun of her existence. She entwined her arms around his neck and kissed his lips and his eyes. “I greet you, I kiss you, proclaimer of my happiness.”

“You must tell me that indeed you love me. My heart thirsts for these words; it is wounded and bleeding, and you must heal it. I will drink that oblivion from your lips, Charlotte, that will make me forget all, save that you love me. It is disconsolate to be alone and unloved! I cling to your heart as the shipwrecked mariner clings to the flower thrown up before him by the waves, hoping thereby to save himself. Charlotte, do not let me sink, save me! Let me seek safety from the storm in the haven of your love! Say that you will let me seek and find peace, enthusiasm, and happiness, in this longed-for haven.”

She threw her arms around his neck, and pressed a kiss on his forehead. “I love you, Schiller, I love you; I have the courage to tell you so, and to break through all barriers, and place myself at your side. I have the courage to testify before the whole world, and even to confess to my husband: ‘I love Frederick Schiller. Our souls and hearts are bound together. Tear them asunder, if you can!’ I love you, and with that I have said all—have said, that I will be yours before God and man, and that nothing shall longer separate us.”

“And your husband?” asked Schiller, anxiously.

“He is a good and generous man,” said Charlotte, smiling. “He will not desire to hold me fettered to himself against my wish. Our union was based on convenience and interest, and was never a happy one. We have lived together but little; our natures were entirely different. I have lived in retirement, while my husband has passed his time in luxury and amusements at the court of Queen Marie Antoinette, where he is a welcome guest. We respect and esteem, but we do not love each other. When I confess my love and plead for a divorce, my husband will certainly give his consent. Then I can belong wholly to the man I not only love, but so highly esteem that I joyfully dedicate myself to him until death, and even beyond the grave.”

“It shall be as you say, my friend,” cried Schiller, raising her hand to his lips. “Nothing shall separate us, and even the king of terrors shall have no terrors for us; in the joyousness of our union of souls we will defy him. Yes, we will defy death, and the whole world!”

They kept their promises; they defied the whole world; they made no secret of their union of hearts; they denied to none that they were one and indivisible. Charlotte had the heroism to defy the world and acknowledge her love freely. She had the courage to remain whole days alone with Schiller in her little house. She held herself aloof from society, in order that Schiller might read to her his two new novels, and, above all, his ‘Don Carlos.’ Nor did she avoid being seen with him in public. How could she deny him before men, when she was so proud of him and of his love! She helped to adorn and make comfortable the little apartments he had rented; she sent him carpets, flower-vases, chairs, and many other things. She felt that she was his mother, his sister, his sweetheart, and his friend. In the ardor of her passion, she endeavored to combine the duties of these four persons in herself; she felt that the divine strength of her love would enable her to do so. In her confidence and guilelessness of heart, she never even asked herself this question: Will the man I love be willing to rise with me in this whirlwind of passion, to soar with me from heaven to heaven, and to revel in ever-youthful, celestial thought and feeling, regardless of earthly mutability?

Together, they visited the heroes of art and literature in Weimar, and, together, they drove out to Tiefurt, where the Duchess Amelia had taken up her summer residence.

The duchess gave the poet of “Don Carlos” and “Fiesco” a cordial welcome. “I was angry with you on account of your ‘Robbers,’ Mr. Councillor,” said she, “nor was ‘Louise MÜllerin’ entirely to my taste. But ‘Fiesco,’ and, above all, ‘Don Carlos,’ have reconciled me to you. You are, in truth, a great poet, and I prophesy a brilliant future for you. Remain here with us in Weimar!”

“Yes, Mr. Schiller,” cried the little maid of honor Von GÖckhausen, as she stepped forward, courtesied gracefully, and handed him a rose, “remain in Weimar. The muses have commanded me to give you their favorite, this rose, and to tell you, sub rosa, that Weimar is the abode of the gods, and that the nine maidens would be well contented to remain here.”

“GÖckhausen, take care,” said the Duchess, laughing. “I will tell Goethe what a fickle, faithless little thing you are. While he was here, my Thusnelda’s roses bloomed for him only, and for Goethe only was she the messenger of the gods and muses. Now, the faithless creature is already receiving messages from the muses for Frederick Schiller! But she is not to be blamed; the poet of ‘Don Carlos’ deserves homage; and, when even the muses worship Goethe and Schiller, why should not GÖckhausen do it also? Do you know Goethe?”

“No, not personally,” replied Schiller, softly; “but I admire him as a poet, and I shall be happy if I can some day admire and love him as a man also.”

“You should have come earlier,” sighed the duchess. “You should have made his acquaintance during the early days of his stay in Mannheim. Then, you would indeed have loved him. At that time, he was in the youthful vigor of his enthusiasm. It was a beautiful era when Goethe stood among us, like the genius of poetry, descended from heaven, enflaming our hearts with heavenly rapture. He is still a great poet, but he has now become a man of rank—a privy-councillor! Beware, my dear Councillor Schiller, lest our court atmosphere stiffen you, too, and rob your heart of its youthful freshness of enthusiasm. Goethe was a very god Apollo before he became a privy-councillor, and was entitled to a seat and voice in the state council. By all means avoid becoming a minister; the poet and the minister cannot be combined in one man. Of this, Goethe is an example.”

“No, he is not,” cried GÖckhausen, eagerly; “Goethe can be all that it pleases him to be. He will never indeed cease to be a poet; he is one in his whole being. Poetic blood courses through his veins; the minister he can shake off at any time, and be himself again. This he proved some eighteen months ago, when he suddenly took leave of our court and all its glories, and fled from the state council, and all his dignities and honors, to Italy. He cast all this trumpery of ducal grace behind him, and fled to Italy, to be the poet by the grace of God only!”

“See, my Thusnelda has returned to her old enthusiasm!” cried the duchess, laughing. “That was all I desired; I only wished to arouse her indignation, and make her love for Goethe apparent.—Now, Mr. Schiller, you see what my Thusnelda’s real sentiments are, and how true she is to her distant favorite.”

“Much truer, probably, than he is to his former favorites,” said GÖckhausen, smiling. “Men cannot be true; and I am satisfied that Werther, if he had not shot himself prematurely, would subsequently have consoled himself, although the adored Lotte was married, and could never be his. Laugh on, duchess! I am right, nevertheless. Is not Goethe himself an example of this? Did he not love Charlotte von KÄstner? If he had shot himself at that time, he could not have consoled himself afterwards with Charlotte von Stein, to become desperate once more, and finally to take a pleasant and consolatory trip to Italy, instead of leaving the world. Truly, the Charlottes are very dangerous to poets; but I would, however, advise each and every one of them to beware of falling in love with a poet, for—how forgetful I am! I beg your pardon, Madame von Kalb!”

“Why, my dear young lady?”

“Because I did not remember that you, too, were a Charlotte,” murmured the malicious maid of honor, meekly.

Von Kalb laughed, but she was more subdued and thoughtful after this visit than usual. Her eyes often rested on Schiller with a peculiar, inquiring look, and when he sat at her side on the sofa that evening, she laid her hands gently on his shoulders and gazed intently into his countenance.

“You love me, Schiller, do you not?”

“I love you, although you are a Charlotte. That is the question you intended to ask, is it not?”

She smiled and laid her head on his shoulder. “Schiller, I would that our union of heart and soul had already received its indissoluble consecration. I would that my husband had already given his consent to a separation and I were wholly yours.”

“Are you not truly and wholly mine? Is not our union indissoluble? Does not God, does not the whole world know that we are one and inseparable? Does not society respect and treat our relation to each other with consideration for both of us? The people with whom we come in contact have the discretion to leave us when they observe that we wish to be alone. Did not Von Einsiedel, who called on you this evening, leave again when the servant told him that I was with you? Was not even the Duchess Amelia so considerate as to invite us together yesterday; for that she did so out of consideration for the relation existing between us, Wieland told me. [33] You see, therefore, my dearest friend, that no one doubts, or ignores our union.”

“Why do you call me your dearest friend?” asked she, anxiously.

“Why? Because you are. Is it not your opinion, also, that friendship is the highest power of love?”

She said yes, but she was very thoughtful after Schiller had gone. “I would that my husband were here, and that the word of separation had already been spoken!” she murmured.

Several months passed before her husband arrived in Weimar. Madame had not been able to endure this uncertainty, this continued hypocrisy. She had written to her husband, confessing her love and her relation to Schiller, and begging him, as her best friend, to give her his advice and to promote her happiness.

Her husband had replied at once as follows: “My dear friend, for the very reason that I am, as you say, your best friend, I will treat your letter as though I had not received it. It is obliterated from my memory, and I only know that I love and esteem you as the mother of my little boy, and that the dearest wish of my heart is your happiness. Let us leave these little afflictions of the heart to time, the great healer. I am coming to Weimar in a few months, and we shall then see if time has not exercised its healing properties on yourself and on the heart of an easily-excited poet. If this should not be the case, however, and you should then repeat the words written in your letter, it will still be time to see whether the desires of your heart can be gratified without detriment to our son’s interests. Let us, therefore, postpone the decision for a few months.”

He had also written to Schiller, but without any reference to Charlotte’s communications. His letter was full of quite hearty sympathy, profound admiration for the poet, and earnest assurances of friendship. He concluded by announcing that he would come to Weimar in a few months, and that Schiller would find him ready to do him any service, and to make any sacrifice for him that the poet could expect at the hands of a friend.

Schiller folded the letter thoughtfully, and a glowing color suffused itself over his cheeks. “He will come,” said he to himself, in a low voice. “It will be a strange meeting for me, I already blush with shame when I think of it. He loves me, he calls me his friend, and yet he knows all! Will I really have the courage to demand this sacrifice of a friend, and—” asked he in a low voice—“and do I really so ardently desire this sacrifice? I came here to seek consolation from a dear friend, and I found love—love that has drawn me into the whirlpool of passion. We are both being driven around in its eddying circles, and who knows but that marriage is the sunken reef on which our hearts will ultimately be shipwrecked. Save us from a violent end, thou Spirit of the Universe; save me from such an end, thou genius of poetry; let me fly to some peaceful haven where I can find safety from the storms of life! There is a mystery in every human breast; it is given to God only and to time, to solve it. Let us, therefore, wait and hope!”

When her husband arrived in Weimar a few months afterward, this mystery seemed to have sunk deeper in Charlotte and Schiller’s hearts; neither of them had the courage to lift the veil and speak the decisive word. Charlotte was paler and quieter than usual, and her eyes were often stained with tears, but she did not complain and made no attempt to bring her husband to an explanation.

Only once, when she held her little boy, who had just recovered from an attack of illness, lovingly in her arms, her husband stepped up to her, and gave her a kind, inquiring look:

“Could you ever make up your mind to leave this child, Charlotte—to deliver it over to the care of a stranger.”

“Never, no, never!” cried she, folding her arms tenderly around her delicate little boy. “No, not for all the treasures—for all the happiness earth can offer, could I part with my darling child!”

“And yet you would be compelled to do so, if you should lay aside the name your child’s father bears,” said her husband, gently.

He made no explanation of his words, but his wife had well understood him, and also understood his intention when, after a short interval, he smilingly observed that he would now go to see Schiller, and take a walk with his dear friend.

When her husband had left the room she looked down at the pale child, who was slumbering in her arms. Tears gushed from her eyes, and she folded her hands over her boy’s head:

“Give us all peace, Thou who art the Spirit of Eternal Love! Give us wisdom to discern truth and strength, to make any sacrifice in its behalf!”

On the evening of this day, after a long walk which Schiller had taken with Charlotte’s husband, and during which they had conversed on the highest intellectual topics only, Schiller wrote to his bosom friend KÖrner, in Dresden: “Can you believe me when I assert, that I find it almost impossible to write anything concerning Charlotte? Nor can I even tell you why! The relation existing between us, like revealed religion, is based on faith. The results of the long experience and slow progress of the human mind are announced in the latter in a mystical manner, because reason would have taken too long a time to attain this end. The same is the case with Charlotte and myself. We commenced with a premonition of the result, and must now study and confirm our religion by the aid of reason. In the latter, as in the former case, all the intervals of fanaticism, skepticism, and superstition, have arisen, and it is to be hoped that we will ultimately arrive at that reasonable faith that is the only assurance of bliss. I think it likely that the germ of an enduring friendship exists in us both, but it is still awaiting its development. There is more unity in Charlotte’s mind than in my own, although she is more changeable in her humors and caprices. Solitude and a peculiar tendency of her being have imprinted my image more firmly in her soul, than her image could ever be imprinted in mine. Her husband treats me precisely as of yore, although he is well aware of the relation existing between us. I do not know that his presence will leave me as I am. I feel that a change has taken place within me that may be still further developed.” [34]

GOETHE AND MORITZ.

“Cheer up, my friend! Grumble no longer! Rejoice in life and throw off the burden of your cares! Open your eyes and behold the beauties of the world created by the Almighty Spirit of the Universe! We have studied and worshipped the immortal gods and immortal arts in Rome—we have been living with the ancients; now let us live for a few days with eternal youth, with ever-fading, ever-blossoming Nature! Let us live like God’s children in His glorious world!”

It was Goethe who spoke these words—not Goethe, the secretary of legation, who, at the end of the year 1786, had secretly withdrawn from his friends, and even from his beloved Madame von Stein, and fled to Italy, the land he so ardently desired to visit. No, it was not that Goethe, who, during the last months of his sojourn in Weimar, had eschewed his youthful exuberance of feeling, his exaggerated manner, and his Werther costume, and had assumed the grave dignified air which he deemed becoming in a high official! No, he who spoke these words, was the poet Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, the poet who was once more himself, now that he sojourned under Italy’s glorious skies—the poet whose soul glowed with enthusiasm, and on whose lips inspiration trembled—the poet who sought the essence of the Divinity in the least flower, and who saw the glory of his Maker reflected in the countenance of each human being.

This Goethe it was who spoke these cheering, encouraging words. He addressed them to Philip Moritz, with whom he had been living in Rome, and other parts of Italy, for the last two years, and with whom he had rejoiced and sorrowed in many pleasures and vicissitudes. They had both come to Italy to make new men of themselves. Goethe, to become himself again—to become the original, creative genius. Moritz, to heal his heart-wounds, and refresh his mind with the wonders of art and nature that abound for every man, who has eyes to see, in Italy—this land of art and poetry. Philip Moritz had eyes to see, and the woman he loved had begged him not to close them, not to shut out from his vision the treasures which the God of creation and the gods of art had so plentifully bestowed upon this favored land.

Marie von Leuthen was the woman of his love, and she it was who had entreated him to go to Italy, that he might recover from the wounds life had inflicted, his grief be healed, and hope restored to his heart.

“Go,” she had said to him, “Italy and art will be a healing balm for your wounds. Recover from them, and return after two years, renewed in mind and constant in heart, and I will give you a joyful answer if you then ask me if I love you.”

Philip Moritz had journeyed to Italy as she bade him. On arriving in Rome he learned that Goethe had been in the city for some time. Moritz at once sought out his adored poet, and since then they had been close comrades. He admired and worshipped Goethe, who tenderly loved the friend (who was often so gloomy, and whose merriment was often exaggerated), in spite of his peculiarities. Together they visited the treasures of art in Rome; together they made excursions to the neighboring villages and places of interest, on foot or on horseback, as the case might be. On an excursion of this kind to Frascati, Moritz had been thrown from his horse, and had his arm broken. Goethe had nursed him like a brother; for long days and weeks he had been the sufferer’s only consoler and associate.

“I have just left Moritz,” he wrote on one occasion to Madame von Stein. “The bandages were to-day removed from his arm, and it appears to be doing well. What I have experienced and learned at the bedside of this sufferer, in the last two weeks, may be of benefit to us both in the future. During this period he was perpetually alternating between the greatest misery and the highest delight.”[35]

This “greatest misery” the poor hypochondriac had borne in silence. The “highest delight,” he had shared with his happier friend, with Goethe, the favorite of the gods.

In the autumn they had both left Rome, and gone out to Castel Gandolfo, to pay a visit to the house of a hospitable friend. Many eminent poets and artists were sojourning at this charming place at that time. Gayety and merriment was the order of the day. It was in vain that Goethe endeavored to draw his friend Moritz into this magic circle of enjoyment. It grieved him deeply to see his friend brooding over his studies, to see the sad and gloomy expression that rested on his features. Goethe’s entreaties and exhortations were at times successful in arousing him from this condition; but, after a short interval of forced gayety and mocking merriment, he would relapse into his ordinary state of silent melancholy.

“Let us live as God’s children in His glorious world!”

Moritz raised his pale countenance from the book over which he had been brooding, and looked tenderly, and yet sadly, at Goethe.

“Happy, enviable man,” said he. “But who can feel and think as you do?”

“You can, Moritz, if you only try,” cried Goethe. “But, above all, tell me what burden is resting on your soul, and what these wrinkles on my friend’s brow mean.”

“They mean that I have a sad presentiment,” replied Moritz, with a sigh, as he threw his book aside and rose from his seat. “I am angry with myself on this account, and I have sought to dispel this presentiment, but all to no purpose! The skies of Italy are no longer serene, the whole world seems like a huge grave; of late, even Rome’s works of art have appealed to me in vain; my ear has been deaf to their sublime language.”

“But, speak out, growler, monster,” cried Goethe, impatiently, “what northern spleen has again penetrated your northern heart? what is the matter with you? What imps have taken up their abode in your brain? What crickets are fiddling in your ears, and transforming the author, the linguist, and the sage into a miserable, grief-stricken old woman, who shuffles along through God’s beautiful world, and burrows in the ground like a mole, instead of soaring upwards to the sun like an eagle?”

“Corpo di Bacco!” cried Moritz, striking the table so furiously with his fists that he sent the books flying in every direction, and upset the ink-bottle, flooding his papers with its black contents. “Corpo di Bacco! Enough of your ridicule and abuse! How dare you call me a miserable old woman, how dare you compare me with a mole? How dare you make yourself merry over my northern heart? You, above all, whose heart is a lump of ice, an extinguished coal, that even the breath of a goddess would fail to enkindle! If one of us is an iceberg, it is you, Mr. Johann Wolfgang Goethe! You are an iceberg, and your heart can never thaw again, but will remain coffined in an eternal winter. What do you know of the sufferings of a man who loves the fairest, the best, and the noblest of women, and who, tormented by terrible forebodings of her death, tears his own flesh with the serpent’s tooth of care, and who is blinded by his grief to all the beauties of God’s world!”

“That is it,” said Goethe, heartily, “then I have attained my object. With the iron hammer of my abuse I have beaten on the anvil of your obdurate temperament until I have made the sparks fly and kindle a fire. That was all I desired, you overgrown, harmless child; I only called you an old woman in order to awaken the man in you, and I now beg your pardon a thousand times for this abuse. He who has seen the old shrews that infest the neighborhood of St. Peter’s, and has suffered from their visitations in the Chiesa Maria della Pace, knows how terrible a creature such an old fright is, and how offensive it is to be compared to such a personage. I humbly beg your pardon, Philip Moritz, professor, sage, connoisseur of art, and first-class etymologist. But as for your presentiments and your fears that some evil may have befallen your sweetheart, permit me to say that they are only the vagaries of a lover who blows soap-bubbles into the air, and afterward trembles lest they should fall on his head as cannon-balls. Why, in the name of all the saints, do you give vent to your yearnings in trumpet tones, and afterward consider them the death-song of your love? Was it not agreed upon between you two lovesick children of affliction that these two years of your sojourn in Italy should be a trial of your love and fidelity? Was it not understood that you were not to exchange a single letter during this period?”

“Yes, that was our agreement,” replied Moritz. “Marie would have it so; she wished to try me, to see whether I would remain faithful and constant in love, even among the glories of Italy.”

“Well, then! What is it that oppresses you? What do these lamentations signify? What are you afraid of?”

“Do not laugh, Goethe,” murmured Philip Moritz. “I will tell you, a dream has tormented and alarmed me; a dream that has returned to me for three successive nights. I see Marie lying on her couch at the point of death, her cheeks pale and hollow, her eyes dim and fixed; old Trude kneels at her side wringing her hands, and a voice cries in my ear in heart-rending tones: ‘Philip, my beloved Philip, come! Let me die in your arms.’ This is the dream that has haunted me for three nights; these are the words that have each time awakened me from sleep, and they still resound in my ear when I am fully aroused.”

“Dreams amount to nothing,” said Goethe, shrugging his shoulders, “and your faith in them proves only that Cupid transforms even the most sensible men into foolish children, and that the wanton god can make even sages irrational.”

“I would he made you so, you mocker at love and marriage,” rejoined Moritz, grimly. “I would like to see you a victim of this divine madness. I trust that Cupid, whom you deride, will send an arrow into your icy heart and melt it in the flames of infinite love-pains and heaven-storming longings! I hope to see you, the sage who has fled from all the living beauties, from all the living women here in Italy, as though they were serpents of Eden—I hope to see you compelled by one of them to eat of the apple, and experience the dire consequences! I hope—”

“Hold, rash mortal!” said Goethe, interrupting him, with a smile. “You know that children and fools often speak the truth, and that their prophecies often become realities. It is to be hoped an all-kind Providence will preserve me from a new love, from new flames. No, the fires of love have been extinguished in my heart; in the warm ashes of friendship that still remain, a spark may sometimes glimmer sufficiently to enable me to read the name of my beloved friend, Charlotte von Stein, engraven therein.”

“Warm ashes of friendship, indeed!” observed Moritz, in mocking tones. “A sorry tenant for the heart of the poet of Werther.”

“Really,” cried Goethe, “I believe this fellow would be capable of imploring the gods to visit a ‘Werthercade’ upon me.”

“I not only would be capable of doing so, but I really will do so,” rejoined Moritz. “I entreat the gods to bless and curse you with a heaven-storming, bliss-conferring and annihilating love, for that is all that is wanting to drive the last vestiges of humanity out of you, and make of you a demi-god with a halo of love-flames around your semi-divine head. Yes, Wolfgang Goethe, poet by the grace of God, to whom the immortal have vouchsafed the honor of creating an ‘Iphigenia’ and an ‘Egmont’—yes, I hope that a glowing, flaming, and distracting love, may be visited upon you!”

“That you should not do,” said Goethe, gently, “let me make a confession, Moritz: I believe that I am not capable of such a love—am not capable of losing my own individuality in that of another. I am not capable of subjecting all other thoughts, wishes, and cravings, to the one thought, wish, and craving of love. Perhaps this was at one time my condition, perhaps my Werther spoke of my own life, and perhaps this tragedy was written with the blood of my heart, then bleeding for Charlotte KÄstner. But you perceive that I did not shoot myself like Werther. I have steeled my heart since then to enable it to rely on its own strength, and to prevent its ever being carried away by the storm of passion. I am proof against this, and will ever be so!”

“To be in Rome!” exclaimed Moritz, “in Rome, with a heart void of all save the ashes of friendship for Charlotte von Stein, and to remain cold and indifferent to the most beautiful women in the world!”

“That is not true, that is calumny!” said Goethe, smiling. “My heart is not cold, but glows with admiration and love for the noblest and loveliest woman, for the goddess of beauty, chastity, and virtue. She was my first love in Rome, and will be my only love. I yearned for her until she at last yielded to my entreaties, and took up her abode in my poor house. Yes, I possess her, she is mine! No words can give an idea of her, she is like one of Homer’s songs!”[36]

“I would like to know,” cried Moritz, in astonishment, “yes, really, I would like to know of whom you are speaking!”

“I am speaking of her,” said Goethe, pointing to a colossal bust of the Juno Ludovisi, that stood on a high pedestal in a corner of the room. He approached the pedestal, looked up into the proud and noble countenance of the chaste goddess, and greeted her with a radiant smile.

“I greet you, mysterious goddess, on whose brow love and chastity are enthroned! When I behold you I seem to hear words of revelation, and I then know that you reflect all that the fancy of the poets, the researches of the learned, and the piety of priests, ever thought or depicted that is sublime and beautiful. You are the blessing-dispensing Isis of the Egyptians, the Venus Aphrodite, and Mother Mary, all in one, and I stand before you in pious awe, adoring, loving and—”

“Holy Mary! Holy Januarius!” screamed a voice from the doorway, and a woman, in the picturesque dress of an Italian peasant, rushed into the room. “Signori, signori, a wonder, a miracle!”

“What do you mean, Signora Abazza?” asked Goethe, laughing, as Moritz, alarmed by the old woman’s screeching, withdrew hastily to the window recess.

“What do I mean?” repeated the old woman, as she sank breathlessly into a chair. “A miracle has occurred, Signori! My cat is praying to God the Father!”

“How so, signora?” asked Goethe, while Moritz had abandoned his retreat and was slowly approaching the old woman, curiosity depicted in his countenance.

“I mean just what I say, signori! I went to your bedchamber to make up the bed, and the cat accompanied me as usual. Suddenly I heard a whining and mewing, and when I looked around, supposing she had hurt herself in some way, I saw her—but come and look yourselves. It is a miracle, signori! A miracle!” She sprang up, rushed to the door of the bedchamber, opened it, looked in, and beckoned to the two friends to approach. “Softly, softly, signori; do not disturb her!”

Goethe and Moritz walked noiselessly to the door, and looked into the adjoining room. There, on the antiquated wardrobe, opposite Goethe’s bed, and illumined by the sunlight that poured in through the broad window, stood the colossal bust of the almighty Jupiter. In front of this bust, full of beauty and regal composure, stood Madame Abazza’s gray cat, upright on her hind feet. She had laid her forepaws on the god’s broad breast, and stretched her neck so that she could gaze into his majestic countenance, and touch with her tongue the lips with their godlike smile, and the beard with its curling locks. She kissed his divine lips ardently, and zealously licked his curly beard, stopping now and then to gaze for a moment at his royal countenance, and to utter a tender, plaintive mew, and then renewing her attention to beard and lips.

Goethe and Moritz looked on with smiling astonishment, the old woman with pious dismay.

“Come to me, pussy,” cried the signora at last; “come to me, my little pet, I will give you some milk and sugar; come!”

But call and entreat as she would, the cat would not allow herself to be disturbed in her devotions, not even when Goethe walked heavily through the room and stepped up to the wardrobe. She continued to kiss the god’s lips and beard, and to utter her plaintive mews. Signora Abazza, who was standing in the door-way, with folded hands, now protested that the cat sang exactly like Father Ambrose when he officiated at the morning mass, and that her heart, the signora’s, was filled with pious devotion.

“I must, however, bring this cat-mass to an end,” cried Goethe, laughing, “for if the cat continues her devotions much longer, another miracle will take place: the divine locks will dissolve, and the lips, so expressive of wisdom and majesty, will be nothing more than shapeless plaster. Halloo! father cat, away with you! You shall not transform the god into a lump of plaster!” With threatening tones and gestures he frightened the cat down from the wardrobe, and drove her out of the room. Goethe and his friend then returned to the parlor.

“Wonders are the order of the day,” said Moritz, thoughtfully, “and we are surrounded by a mysterious atmosphere of dreams and tokens.”

“Only when we are dreamers,” cried Goethe, laughing. “To the unbiassed there is nothing miraculous, to them all things seem natural.”

“How can you explain the cat’s rapturous devotion?”

“In a very prosaic, pitiful manner,” replied Goethe, smiling. “You know, exalted dreamer, that this bust was moulded but a few days ago, and you also know that grease was used to prevent the plaster from adhering to the form. Some of this grease remained in the cavities of the beard and lips; the cat’s fine sense of smell detected its presence, and she was endeavoring to lick it off.”[37]

Philip Moritz raised his arms, and looked upward with comic pathos: “Hear this mocker, this cold-hearted materialist, ye eternal, ye sublime gods! punish the blasphemer who mocks at his own poetic genius; punish him by filling his cold heart with a lost passionate love! Cast down this proud poet in the dust, in order that he be made aware that he is still a mortal in spite of his poetic renown, and that he dare not attempt to hold himself aloof from human love and human suffering!—Venus Aphrodite, pour out the lava streams of your passion on this presumptuous poet, and—”

“Hold, hold!” cried Goethe, laughing, as he seized his friend’s arms, and forcibly drew them down. “You remind me of Thetis invoking the wrath of the great Zeus upon the head of the son he believed to be guilty, and to whom the god granted his cruel prayer.”

“Signori, signori!” cried Signora Abazza from the outside.

“Come in, come in, signora! What is the matter this time?”

“Signore Zucchi has arrived from Rome with his divine signora,” said the old woman, appearing in the doorway, “they inquired at the post-office for your letters and papers, as they promised to do, and here is the mail Signora Angelica has brought you.”

Goethe hastily opened and examined the sealed package which she had handed him. “Newspapers! newspapers!” exclaimed he, throwing the folded papers on the table. “I am surrounded by living Nature, what care I for lifeless newspapers.”

“You will not read them?” said Moritz. “You have no desire to learn what is taking place in the German empire, to learn whether the emperor has undertaken another campaign against presumptuous Prussia or not?”

“No, I wish to know nothing of war,” said Goethe, softly. “I am a child of peace. I wish eternal peace to the whole world, now that I am at peace with myself.”[38]

“Then permit me, at least, to interest myself in these matters,” said Moritz, taking one of the papers from the table and opening it. With a cry of joy Goethe picked up the three letters that fell to the floor.

“Two letters for me! A letter from my Charlotte, and one from my dear friend, Herder! And here is a letter for you, friend Moritz.”

“A letter for me!” said Moritz, clutching and hastily opening the letter Goethe held in his extended hand. “Who can have written to me?”

“Read, my friend, and you will see. I will first read Herder’s letter, it probably contains his opinion of my ‘Egmont,’ which I sent him some time ago.”

He seated himself at the little table, opposite Moritz. Both were soon busily reading, and Goethe was so completely absorbed in his letter that he did not notice how pale Moritz had become, and how the letter trembled in his hands; nor did he hear the deep sighs that escaped his lips.

“I knew these fault-finders would not understand my ClÄrchen; they demand another scene, explaining her relation to Egmont. Another scene! Where am I to introduce it? Where?”

“Goethe,” said Moritz, rising and handing the letter, which he had read again and again, to his friend, “Goethe, read this, and then laugh at my dreams and presentiments, if you can.”

“What is it?” asked Goethe, looking up. “But what is the matter with you, my friend? How pale you are, and how you tremble! Tears in your eyes, too! Have you received bad news?”

“I have,” groaned Moritz. “Marie is ill. Read!”

Goethe took the letter and hastily glanced over it. It was from Professor Gedicke in Berlin; he announced that Marie Leuthen had been ill for some time; that she had, at first, concealed her illness, but now admitted it, and expressed an ardent desire to see Moritz. The physician had given it as his opinion that a reunion with her lover after so long a separation would have a beneficial effect on his patient, and infuse new life into her being; it was therefore considered desirable that Moritz should speedily return to Germany and Berlin, to restore health and happiness to his beloved. “Strange, truly strange!” said Goethe. “Your dream is being fulfilled, your presentiment has become reality.”

“Fearful reality!” groaned Moritz. “Marie will die, I shall not see her again!”

“No, oh no,” said Goethe, endeavoring to console him. “You take too gloomy a view of things; your fancy conjures up horrible visions. You will see her again. The magical influence of your presence, the heavenly fire of your love, will save her. Women are generally such sensitively constituted beings that all ordinary laws are set at defiance when they love. They die of love, and they live on love. Marie is ill because she longs to be with you; she will recover when she once more beholds you, and reads love and fidelity in your countenance.”

“Marie will die!” groaned Moritz. “God grant that I may, at least, arrive in time to kiss the last death-sigh from her lips!”

“You are then about to take your departure? You will leave Italy and return to Germany?”

Moritz shrugged his shoulders. “Truly, Goethe, in this question I see that your heart is cold and loveless. I leave here within an hour!”

Goethe extended both hands, and his eyes shone with deep sympathy, as he gazed lovingly into his friend’s pale countenance. “Moritz, I am not cold and not loveless. I understand you. I appreciate your grief. I know that you must leave me, and must answer this call. Do not misunderstand me, my friend, and when I subdue the holy flames, that glow in your soul and my own, with the prose of every-day life, remember that I have eaten much bitter fruit from the tree of knowledge, and that I anxiously avoid being poisoned in that manner again. But a blasphemer I am not, and be it far from me to desire to shake your resolution. Love is the holy god who often determines our thoughts and actions, and love it is that calls you! Go, my friend, answer this call, and may love console and give you heavenly delight. Go! I will assist you in getting ready! We will go to work at once! The stage leaves here for Rome in a few hours, and you will arrive there in time to take the mail-coach for Milan this evening.”

Goethe assisted his friend in preparing for his departure with such tender solicitude that Moritz’s eyes filled with tears at the thought of separation from his dear companion.

Angelica Kaufmann, the celebrated painter, who had now been married to the artist, Tucchi, for some months, sent twice to her friend Goethe inviting him to take a walk, but in vain. It was in vain that a merry party of artists, who were sojourning in Castel Gandolfo, sang beneath Goethe’s window, and entreated him to join them in an excursion to the mountains, where they proposed to draw, paint, and amuse themselves till evening.

Goethe let them go without him and remained with his friend, endeavoring to console and encourage him. When the trunk was entirely packed, Goethe quietly slipped a well-filled purse into the tray, hastily locked the trunk, and handed the key to Moritz. “All is now ready, my friend. Listen how our friend, the stage-driver, is cracking his whip and giving vent to his impatience, at the delay we have caused, in his charming Italian oaths. We will promise him a gratuity, as an incentive to make him drive rapidly, to ensure your arriving in Rome in time for the mail-coach.”

“May heaven grant that I arrive in Berlin in time to find Marie still living! this is all I crave! You see life has made me humble and modest; my life has been rich in misfortunes and poor in joys. I found two beautiful blossoms on my journey: Marie’s love and Goethe’s friendship. But I will lose them both; death will tread the one of these blossoms under foot, and life the other.”

Goethe laid his hand gently on Moritz’s shoulder, and gazed into his countenance in deep emotion. “What fate has determined concerning the blossom of your love, that we must await with composure and resignation, for death is an almighty king, before whom the haughtiest head must bow in reverence. But the blossom of friendship which we have so tenderly nurtured, and which has so often cheered and refreshed our hearts—that blossom we will preserve and protect from all the storms of life. You may be right in asserting that the flames of love are extinguished in my heart, but the light of friendship is still burning brightly there, and will only expire with my death. Be ever mindful of this, and, although you suppose me to be a cold lover, you shall never have cause to consider me a cold friend. Let this be our farewell; ever bear this in mind.”

“This thought will console and encourage,” said Moritz, his eyes filling with tears. “All that I have enjoyed in these last few years that was good and beautiful, I owe to you, and have enjoyed with you alone! Farewell, my Pylades! I feel that, like Orestes, I am being pursued by Furies, and driven out into the world, to death and to despair! Farewell, Goethe!”

They clasped each other in a long embrace, and then Goethe led his friend down to the stage in silence. He gave the angry driver a gratuity, and pressed his friend’s hand warmly in a last farewell.

CHAPTER IX.

LEONORA.

Goethe stood for a long time on the steps in front of the house, following with his gaze the departing stage, and listening to the jingling of the little bells with which the horses were adorned. When this also had finally become inaudible, Goethe turned slowly, a deep sigh escaping his lips, and reËntered the house.

But his apartments seemed bare and solitary, and even the drawings and paintings which had usually afforded him so much pleasure, were now distasteful.

He impatiently threw brush and palette aside and arose. “This solitude is unendurable,” he murmured to himself, “I must seek company. I wish I knew where my merry friends have gone, I would like to follow them and take part in their merrymakings. But they will all have gone, not one of them will have been misanthropical enough to remain at home. I shall probably have to content myself with the society of Signora Abazza and her cat.”

With rapid strides he passed down the broad marble steps and out into the garden. Here all was still and solitary. No human forms could be seen in the long avenues, bordered on either side with dense evergreen. No laughter or merry conversation resounded from the myrtle arbors. In vain the wind shook down the ripe fruit from the orange trees, the merry artists were not there who were in the habit of playing ball with the golden fruit. In great dejection Goethe moved leisurely down the avenue which led to the large pavilion, built on a little hill at the end of the garden, and commanding a magnificent view of Lake Albano and its wooded shores. Goethe walked slowly toward this point, regardless of his surroundings of the marble statues that stood here and there in niches hewn out of the dense evergreen, and of the murmuring of the neighboring cascades. The study of Nature in all its details usually afforded him great enjoyment. He sought out its mysteries as well in mosses, flowers, and insects, as in the tall cypress, the eagle, and the clouds. But to-day, Nature with all its beauties was unheeded by the poet, he was thinking of his absent friend; the words of separation still resounded in his ear. His mind was burdened with an anxious feeling like a presentiment of coming evil.

But Goethe was not the man to allow himself to be weighed down by sadness. He suddenly stood still, threw back the brown locks from his brow with a violent movement of the head, and looked around defiantly.

“What misery do you wish to inflict on me, hollow-eyed Melancholy,” cried he, angrily. “Where do you lie concealed? from behind which hedge have you fastened your stony gaze on me? Away with you! I will have nothing to do with you; you shall not lay your cold, damp hand on my warm human heart. I will—”

He suddenly ceased speaking, and looked up at the pavilion, astonishment depicted in his countenance. In the doorway of the pavilion, facing the garden, stood two girlish figures. A ray of sunshine penetrated the open window at the other end of the hall and illumined this door-way, surrounding these figures as with a frame of transparent gold, and encircling their heads with a halo of light. The one was tall and slender; the dark complexion, the brown cheeks, slightly tinged with crimson, the purple lips, the delicately-curved nose, the large, sparkling black eyes, the glossy black hair, and an inexpressible something in her whole appearance and expression, betrayed the Roman maiden, the proud daughter of the CÆsars. The young girl who stood at her side was entirely different in appearance. She was not so tall, and yet she was as symmetrical in form as the goddess ascending from the waves. Her light hair fell in a profusion of ringlets around the brow of transparent whiteness, and down over the delicate shoulders that were modestly veiled by her white muslin dress. Her large black eyes were milder than, but not so luminous as, those of her companion; her delicately-formed cheeks were of a rosier hue; an innocent smile played about her purple lips, and illumined her whole countenance. Her lovely head rested on her companion’s shoulder, and when she raised her right arm and laid it around her neck, the loose sleeve fell back and disclosed an arm of dazzling whiteness and rare beauty. They stood there in silence, surrounded by a halo of sunshine, looking dreamily around at the garden with its variegated autumnal hues.

At the foot of the hill on which the pavilion was situated, stood Goethe, his countenance radiant with delight, feasting his eyes on this charming picture.

“Apollo himself must have sent me this divine picture. I will engrave it deeply on my heart, that it may some day find utterance in living, breathing poetry. Ye are the fair ones of whom my soul has of late been dreaming, whenever Torquato Tasso’s image arose before my imagination. I will make you both immortal, at least in so far as it is given to the poet to make aught immortal. Apollo, I thank thee for this apparition! These are my two princesses, my two Leonoras, and here stands Tasso, looking up to them with enraptured adoration! But, O ye gods, harden my heart against the flames of love, preserve me from Tasso’s fate!”

“Signor Goethe!” exclaimed the Roman maiden, who had just perceived the poet standing at the foot of the hill, as she stepped forward to the head of the stone stairway that led up to the pavilion. She stood there bowing her head in greeting, and beckoning to him to come up, while the fair-haired girl remained in the door, smiling at her friend’s eager gestures.

“Come up, Signore; mother is in the pavilion, and a party of friends will soon join us here; we shall then play and be merry.”

“Yes, we shall play and be merry,” cried Goethe, as he rushed up the steps, and extended his hand to the fair friend who awaited him.

“A greeting to you, beautiful Amarilla, and many thanks for your kind invitation.” Signora Amarilla grasped his hand cordially, and then turned to her friend, “Leonora—”

“Leonora!” repeated Goethe, startled, “the signora’s name is Leonora?”

Signora Amarilla looked at him with astonishment. “Yes, Leonora. And why not? Is this name so remarkable, so unheard of?”

“No, not exactly that, and yet it is a remarkable coincidence that—”

In her animation, Amarilla took no notice of the words Schiller had murmured, but ran to the door, grasped her friend’s hand, and led her forward. The young girl seemed to follow her almost reluctantly; her lovely eyes were cast down, and a brighter color diffused itself over her cheeks.

“Leonora, this is the Signore Goethe, about whom I told you so much this morning—the signore who lives in Rome, in the house adjoining ours, on the Corso—the one to whom the artists recently gave the magnificent serenade that was the talk of all Rome for three days. We supposed the signore to be a rich Inglese, because he indulged in so costly a pleasure, but he tells us that he is only a poor German poet; this, however, I do not believe. But look up, Leonora! look at the gentleman! He is an intimate acquaintance of mine, and I have already told you so much about him.”

While Signora Amarilla was laughing and speaking, with the unceasing fluency of tongue peculiar to the ladies of Rome, Leonora stood at her side, her eyes still cast down. Goethe’s gaze was fixed immovably on the beautiful vision before him. Did his ardent gaze, or his glowing thoughts, exercise a magical influence over her? Slowly she raised her head, and opened the large timid eyes, shaded with long black lashes, and looked at Goethe. Their glances met, and both started; the hearts of both beat higher. Her cheeks glowed, his turned pale. He felt as though a whirlwind had arisen in his heart, and was carrying him he knew not where, either heavenward or into an abyss. His head swam, and he staggered back a step; she grasped her friend’s hand, as if to sustain herself.

Signora Amarilla had observed nothing of this mute greeting and interchange of thought; she chatted away merrily.

“Now, Signore Goethe, permit me to introduce this young lady; you will have great cause to be thankful for the honor conferred on you. This is my dear friend Signora Leonora Bandetto. Her brother is the confidential clerk in the business establishment of Mr. Jenkins. He was very homesick, and longed to be with his family in Milan. As he could not conveniently leave Rome, he begged that his sister Leonora might be permitted to come on to live with him and take charge of his household. The most beautiful daughter of Milan came to Rome in answer to this appeal. I made her acquaintance at a party at Mr. Jenkins’s, and we became friends. We love each other tenderly, and I stormed Signore Bandetto with entreaties until he consented to lend me his sister for a few weeks. Leonora came to Castel Gandolfo to-day, and will spend two weeks with us, two heavenly weeks. This is the whole story, and now let us go into the pavilion.”

She tripped gayly toward the door, leading her friend by the hand; Goethe followed them slowly, his breast filled with strange emotions.

At the entrance they were received by Signora Amarilla’s mother, who was surrounded by a number of young ladies who had just arrived. Several young gentlemen, artists and poets, soon joined the party; the little pavilion was now the scene of great gayety. Laughter and jesting resounded on all sides; and, finally, the game of lotto, the favorite game of the Romans, and the occasion of this little gathering, was commenced.

Poor Moritz, poor friend, who is journeying toward Rome in sadness, it is well that you cannot look back at this scene! It is well that you cannot see the friend for whom your heart is sorrowing, seated between the two lovely women, between Amarilla and Leonora, laughing and jesting with the former, but having eyes and thoughts for Leonora only! It is well, poor Moritz, that you cannot see Goethe’s eyes kindling with rapture, and his countenance radiant with enthusiasm, as he laughs and jests, the youngest among the young, the gayest among the gay!

It is now Signora Amarilla’s turn to keep the bank. Goethe is her partner; he divides his money and winnings with her, but the losses he bears alone. The beautiful Amarilla’s mother, who is seated in front of them on the other side of the long table, looks on with great content, laughs heartily at Signore Goethe’s jokes, and rejoices at the bank’s success, because her daughter’s little treasure increases. But a change comes over her countenance, her dark eyes no longer sparkle with delight. This change is evidently owing to the fact that Signore Wolfgang Goethe has dissolved the partnership that existed between himself and her daughter; he tendered his services as partner to Leonora, and is accepted. Not being familiar with the game, she allows Goethe to guide and direct her. She is fast losing her timidity, and is already conversing quite gayly and confidentially with the signore who eagerly gratifies all her little wishes.

The right to keep the bank now passed from Leonora to her neighbor. Goethe, however, did not offer to be her partner too, but quietly retained his place between the two lovely girls. While Amarilla, with all the animation of her southern nature, gave her exclusive attention to the game, while all the players were anxiously listening to the numbers as they were called out, and covering them on their cards with little squares of glass, Goethe sat leaning back in his chair, gazing into the beautiful countenance of his neighbor, who no longer desired to take part in the game, but preferred to cease playing, as she told Goethe naively, rather than run the risk of losing the two scudi she had already won.

“Signore, we must not tempt fortune,” said she, as she raised the little coins, which amounted to two scudi in value, in her delicate little hands, and then let them fall one by one into her lap. Unconscious of what she was doing, she continued to play with the little bajocchi and paoli, raising and letting them fall again and again into her lap.

Goethe smilingly regarded the beautiful hands as they toyed with the little coins, and thought of Correggio’s celebrated painting of DanaË and the shower of gold. The thought occurred to him: “It is well that the gods no longer roam the earth tempting innocence with such a shower! Could this lovely child also have been ensnared by the shower of gold?”

“You laugh, signore,” said Leonora, looking earnestly at Goethe; “you laugh, but it is, nevertheless, true! We must not tempt fortune; we are sure to suffer when we confide in fortune.”

“Is Fortuna so bad a goddess?” asked Goethe, smiling.

“Fortuna is no goddess,” replied Leonora, earnestly; “Fortuna is a demon, signore. She is the daughter of the tempter who spoke to the mother of mankind in the garden of Eden. If we listen to her words and allow ourselves to be ensnared by her allurements, our good thoughts vanish, and we are led astray.”

“You calumniate the noble goddess, signora. You are doubly unjust to Fortuna; has she not smiled on you to-day, and are not your thoughts good and innocent?”

“I, myself, am a proof that she is a temptress, a demon,” said Leonora, eagerly, but in a subdued voice. “I will tell you my thoughts, signore; there is something in your eyes that compels me to confess the truth. Listen, signore. When I, thanks to your good advice and skill, had won the first few paoli, I rejoiced over my fortune and thought to myself: ‘I will give these to Theresa, the old woman I see on the steps of the Santa Marie della Pace, every morning when I attend mass at this church.’ Old Theresa invariably stretches out her withered, trembling hand, and I am so rarely able to give her any thing, for my brother is not rich, signore, and we are compelled to economize his earnings. It always grieves me to have to pass by the poor woman without giving her any thing. I rejoiced over the first few paoli I had won, calculating that I could have them changed into copper coins and give Theresa one each day for a whole week. At this moment you handed me a few more paoli, telling me that I had already won an entire scudo. But what followed! Old Theresa’s image vanished from my heart; it occurred to me that my brother had recently wished for a new cravat, and that I could now purchase it with my scudo. You are laughing at me, signore, are you not? You are right; it is very bold in me to impart my foolish, girlish thoughts to so wise a gentleman as yourself.”

“No, signora, I am not laughing at you,” said Goethe, in such tender tones that she looked up in surprise and listened attentively, as though his words were sweet music. “I was only amused because your own words rebutted your accusations against Fortuna. The goddess has awakened good thoughts only in your bosom!”

“But I have not yet finished, signore! Only wait a little! My old beggar-woman was forgotten, and I had determined to devote my scudo to the purchase of the silk cravat for my brother. But I won, again and again, and you poured the little paoli into my hand, and observed laughingly: you are now rich, signora, for you have already won more than two scudi! Your words startled me; I now heard a tempting voice whispering in my breast: ‘Play on, Leonora; play on. Win one more scudo, and then you will have enough to buy the coral earrings you recently admired so much, but were unable to buy. Play on, Leonora; win money enough to purchase this jewelry.’ I was about to continue playing, thinking neither of the old woman nor of my brother, but only of my own desires. But I suddenly remembered the last words my confessor, Father Ignatio, had spoken to me in Milan when I took leave of him. He said: ‘My child, when you hear the tempter’s voice, pray for strength to resist his allurements;’ and I did pray, signore. While we were praying, I vowed to the holy virgin that I would not purchase the jewelry, but would expend my scudi for my brother and my poor old Theresa only. I will keep my vow. Now you will admit that Fortuna is a demon, a daughter of the temptress who spoke to our mother Eve, and was the cause of the expulsion of mankind from Paradise, will you not?”

Goethe did not reply; with an inward tremor that was inexplicable to himself, he gazed at the lovely being whose cheeks were flushed with animation, and whose countenance shone with the holy light of purity and innocence. Her sweet voice still rang in his ear after she had ceased speaking.

“Confess, signore!” repeated Leonora, eagerly.

Goethe gave her a look of infinite mildness and tenderness. “Signora, you, at least, are still in Paradise, and may the avenging angel with the flaming sword never touch the pure brow which the angel of innocence has kissed and sanctified.”

“We have finished, the game is at an end!” cried the imperious voice of Amarilla’s mother. In the bustle which ensued, Leonora, who was listening breathlessly, failed to catch the words which Goethe added in a low tone.

The company had arisen from the table, and formed little groups in various parts of the pavilion. Goethe had stepped to an open window and was looking out at the lake, that glittered in the last rays of the setting sun. Suddenly a hand was laid heavily on his shoulder; he slowly turned and saw Signora Frezzi, Amarilla’s mother, standing at his side. Her countenance was grave, her brow clouded, and the accustomed smile was wanting on her lips.

“Signore Goethe, you are a stranger, and are, of course, not familiar with the usages of our favored land,” said she, in subdued, reproachful tones.

“Have I sinned, signora?” asked he, gayly. “Have I been guilty of an impropriety?”

“Yes, signore, you have, and as Amarilla’s mother, I must say that I cannot suffer the innocent child to be affronted.”

“But, signora,” he asked, in alarm, “how can I have affronted your daughter?”

“I will tell you, signore. You have known my daughter since your concert in Rome, and, when we met here in Castel Gandolfo a week ago, you showed a disposition to cultivate her acquaintance. Since then you have been her companion on all our walks and excursions. It is recognized as your right by all our friends and acquaintances, and no one would dream of attempting to take your place at her side. It is a good old custom for each young lady and gentleman to select a special friend during their summer sojourn in the country. It binds the young lady and gentleman who have associated themselves in this manner, to the most enduring and delicate attentions to each other until they return to Rome, when, of course, all obligation ceases.”

“What impropriety have I committed?”

“This impropriety, signore: for the last week you have been recognized by every one as the amico of my daughter, and now, when you have scarcely made the acquaintance of her friend Leonora, you transfer the attentions hitherto shown to my daughter to this young lady. This is not proper, signore, and I must request you—”

“I have a request to make of you first, signora,” said Goethe, interrupting her in severe and imperious tones. “I must request you not to forget that I am a stranger, and cannot give up the customs and usages of my own country. In Germany it is customary for gentlemen to be polite to all ladies. This, it seems to me, is better and more agreeable than to show exclusive attention and devotion to one lady to the neglect of all others. You will have to permit me to pursue the course I deem the most proper.”

He left her side, and walked through the pavilion to the bay-window in which the two young ladies were standing. They both smiled as he approached. Amarilla had just broken off a twig of blooming myrtle from the vine that clung to the lattice-work of the pavilion, and was fastening it in Leonora’s hair. She pointed proudly to her friend:

“See how beautiful she is, signore! Does she not look like the goddess of love with the flowers of love in her hair?”

Leonora blushed and turned her head hastily toward the open window. The myrtle fell from her hair to the floor, at Goethe’s feet. He stooped down and picked it up. His heart beat tumultuously, and a feeling of wondrous delight ran through his whole being as he handed it to Amarilla to be replaced in Leonora’s hair.

“How long will it be,” said Amarilla, smiling, as she again fastened the myrtle in her friend’s hair; “how long will it be before I adorn this golden hair with a real bridal wreath!”

She looked smilingly at Goethe as she uttered these words, and this look made his heart quake. How composed this heart had hitherto been since his sojourn in Italy! How carefully had Goethe avoided awakening it from this state of dreamy repose! How sedulously had he avoided women, living only for art and nature! Now, when he hardly knew that he had a heart, it suddenly beat tumultuously, and filled his breast with all the sweet sensations and stormy desires of former days!

He was so astonished and bewildered by this revelation, that he was unable to take part in the conversation going on around him, or to appear indifferent to this charming girl. He left the pavilion and sought out the most solitary part of the park, where he walked to and fro for hours, listening to the sweet voices that were whispering in his soul. He smiled when he remembered how Moritz had entreated the gods to melt his icy heart; his friend’s wish was being gratified in a charming manner!

“I thank you, ye eternal gods, for having accorded me this highest revelation of poetry here in Italy; I thank you for having enkindled in my heart the holy flames of love. I laughed at you, Venus Aphrodite, and you are punishing the sinner with your sweetest wrath; you are permitting him to feel that undying youth is still glowing in his bosom. For love is eternal youth, and I love! Yes, I love!”

It was late at night, and his friends had long since retired to rest, but Goethe was still walking to and fro in the gloomy avenues of the park—in the avenues in which the pious fathers of the order of the holy Ignatius had formerly wandered, forming plans to divert the power and glory of the whole world into their hands.

The palace that now belonged to the wealthy Mr. Jenkins had formerly been the summer residence of the general of this order. The monastery was situated at the other end of the park. Pope Urban had once walked arm in arm with his friend the Jesuit general in these avenues, and together they had considered how they were to subjugate princes and nations, and make themselves masters of the world.

Goethe thought of this as he stepped into the main avenue, and saw before him the grand old palace.

“Truly,” murmured he, “this is the work of the holy fathers. They have thrown a Jesuit’s cloak over the mischievous god. In this disguise, he has dogged my footsteps, and, while I fondly believed myself to be conversing with an honest priest on learned topics, this impudent knave has so bewitched me that I have abjured all wisdom, and am about to become a fool among fools.”

“But what is to come of this, you fool?” asked he of himself. “Where is your love for this beautiful child to lead you?”

He listened, as if expecting an answer from the night wind that rustled by. He looked up at the moon, to see if a solution of this mystery of the future could be found in its shining countenance. In his heart the mocking words of his own song were all the while ringing, singing, and laughing in low tones:

He repeated these words again and again, as he slowly walked toward the house, endeavoring to convince himself that they embodied his own sentiments. But the moonbeams are strange sorcerers; over the glittering waters of the murmuring cascades, and in every open myrtle-blossom, he saw the countenance of a lovely girl, who seemed to greet him with her dark, starlike eyes, and whose golden hair encompassed her angel countenance as with a halo of beauty and innocence.

Goethe smiled, and whispered the following lines of the same song:

CHAPTER X.

A DREAM OF LOVE.

Strong and mighty, harnessed, and full of life, as Minerva had sprung forth from the head of Jupiter, had love suddenly arisen in Goethe’s heart. A single day had awakened it, a single night had sufficed to make it strong, mighty, and confident of victory.

When Goethe, after having passed a night of delightful dreams, left his apartments on the following morning, and repaired to the large saloon in which the Jesuit general had formerly entertained his devout guests, and in which merry artists and men of the world, and joyous and beautiful women, were now in the habit of assembling, his countenance wore a glad smile. He had bravely resolved to permit himself to be borne onward on the seething, silver waves of feeling, regardless of whither they tended—satisfied that they would bear him to some one of the enchanted isles of bliss, on the fragrant shores of which two white arms would embrace him, and two radiant eyes would whisper wondrous music in his listening heart.

He was alone in the large room. The artists had returned at a late hour from their excursion of the previous day, and had not yet left their apartments. Angelica Kaufmann, who, with her husband, the old painter Zucchi, was always the first to take her seat at the breakfast-table, had to-day sent down word that she was tormented with headache, and would breakfast in her apartments. Signora Frezzi avoided the parlor, because she did not desire to meet Goethe, whose abrupt behavior of the day before had offended her.

The newspapers that had arrived yesterday were lying around on the little tables. Goethe seated himself at one of these tables, and opened one of the large English papers which are so great a solace to the blue-eyed daughters of Albion.

Two joyous, girlish voices interrupted his reading, causing him to throw his paper hastily aside, and sending the hot blood to his cheeks.

The voices were those of Amarilla and Leonora, who had come from the park, and now entered the parlor. They were attired in simple morning dresses, and looked charming with their fresh, rosy cheeks, and the blossoming sprigs of pomegranate in their waving hair.

Amarilla’s quick, roving eye detected Goethe first, and she uttered a joyous greeting as she hurried forward with extended hands.

Leonora stood at a distance, but her smiling lips and the timid glance of her large eyes were more eloquent than Amarilla’s words could possibly be.

He stepped forward and extended his hand to Leonora, and, when she laid her little hand in his, timidly, and yet with an expression of childlike confidence, his soul exulted, his heart overflowed with joy, and his countenance beamed with delight.

Amarilla did not observe this, as she was busily engaged in pouring out the coffee at one of the tables. Leonora turned pale under Goethe’s glances, blushed, and then turned pale again, and withdrew her hand with a quick, convulsive movement. She slowly raised her eyes, and looked at Goethe so reproachfully, so anxiously, that a tremor of joy and emotion ran through his whole being.

“Be firm, my heart, do not yield so soon to this sweet enchantment! First inhale the fragrance of this purple blossom which we call love, before you pluck it and press it to your heart. Be firm, and enjoy the pure delight of the dawning sunlight!”

She glided slowly from his side, and now, when she stood at the table assisting Amarilla, her anxious look vanished; the timid little dove felt safe under the protecting wing of the older and stronger dove; she had instinctively heard the rustle of the falcon’s wings, but now that she was at the side of her sister dove she no longer feared.

Leonora smiled again, took part in the merry conversation which Amarilla had begun with Signore Wolfgang, and seated herself at his side at the breakfast-table, which Amarilla had arranged for the three. It was a beautiful morning; the fresh breeze wafted clouds of fragrance into the room through the broad, open glass doors; the rustling of the orange and myrtle trees, and the murmuring and plashing of the cascades, greeted the ear like soft music.

To Goethe, the two lovely girls between whom he sat seemed as bright and fair as the morning. Their ingenuous conversation seemed to him more charming and instructive than any conversation he had ever had with the most intellectual women, or the greatest scholars on the most profound subjects.

His attention was, however, chiefly directed to the fair daughter of Milan, the maiden with the light hair, dark eyes, and the delicate, transparent cheeks—the maiden, whose countenance was but the mirror of her soul, the mirror in which her every thought and impulse was reflected.

Amarilla had taken one of the English newspapers, had folded it into a cap in imitation of the fazzoletta of the Albanian peasant-women, and placed it jauntily on her pretty head. She was dancing around in the room, and singing in a low voice to the melody of the tarantella, one of those little love-ditties which gush so harmoniously from the lips of Italian maidens.

“She flies about like the bee, sipping sweets from every blossom, and fancies the world a vast flower-garden, created only for her delight.”

“Are you of that opinion, beautiful Leonora?” asked Goethe, with a tender glance.

She shook her head slowly. “No,” said she; “I know that both the bee and the flower are of but little importance in the great economy of the universe. I often think,” she continued, in a low voice, and with a charmingly thoughtful air, “I often think that we poor, simple girls are nothing more in the sight of God than the bee and flower, and that it is immaterial whether we live or die.”

“You have too poor an opinion of yourselves,” said Goethe, in low and impassioned tones. “You do not know that the Almighty sometimes takes pity on men, and sends an angel of innocence, grace, and beauty, to console the human soul and refresh the human heart. You do not know that you are such an angel to me!”

She shook her lovely little head dissentingly. “I only know, signore, that I am a poor ignorant girl, and that I often long to cast off my stupidity, and be able to understand what wise men say. It is, however, not altogether my own fault that I am so stupid, that—”

“You are unjust to yourself,” cried Goethe, interrupting her; “you should not confound the divine ignorance of innocence with stupidity.”

“I speak the truth only,” rejoined Leonora; “and you see that I am attempting to excuse myself by telling you that it is not wholly our own fault that we are so foolish and ignorant. Our parents and instructors, in their anxiety for our welfare, fear to open our eyes, believing it best that a girl should learn and know nothing. They do not teach us to write, because they fear that we would do nothing but write love-letters; nor would they teach us to read, if it were not to enable us to use our prayer-books. We are scarcely taught to express ourselves well in our own language; and it occurs to none to have us instructed in foreign languages, and give us access to the books of the world.”[41]

“Would you like to be able to read in these books of the world, Leonora?”

“I would give all I possess to learn English! Whenever I hear Mr. Jenkins and my brother, or Madame Zucchi and her husband, conversing in English, it makes me feel sad, and a feeling of envy comes over me that I never experience at other times. See, Signore, Amarilla has made a fazzoletta from one of these large English papers, and is skipping around with it on her head, while I—I would give every thing to be able to read and understand what is written in the papers, which I know bring us intelligence from the whole world.”

“You say you would give every thing to be able to read these papers? What will you give me if I teach you how to do so?”

“Do teach me,” she cried, clapping her little hands joyfully; “oh, do teach me! I will be so thankful, so very thankful! You will make me so happy, and I know that you are noble and generous, and will find your best reward in having made a poor ignorant girl happy.”

“Do you, then, really believe me to be so disinterested, signora?” asked Goethe, gazing earnestly into her animated countenance. “No, Leonora, you are mistaken in me! I am not so godlike as you suppose!”

At this moment the ringing tones of Amarilla’s voice were wafted in from the terrace. She was singing to the charming air so well known to every Italian maiden and youth, and so familiar even to the orange groves and flowers, because they have so often heard it resounding from the cooing, exulting lips of lovers:

Alarmed by the impassioned tones of Goethe’s voice, Leonora turned her head quickly toward the terrace. She smiled when she saw Amarilla skipping about from tree to tree, singing like a humming-bird, as she plucked a blossom or a sprig here and there, and arranged them into a bouquet.

“See, signore,” whispered Leonora as she raised her delicate little hand and pointed to her friend. “I told you before that we were not taught how to write, for fear that we would write love-letters. See what we poor ignorant girls resort to when we wish to write a love-letter. Instead of using the letters of the alphabet we take flowers, that is the whole difference.”

“Do you mean to say that Amarilla is writing a love-letter with her flowers?”

“Be still, do not betray her, signore. Look down, that no profane glance may desecrate the letters which God and the sun have created!”

“But I may look at that young man who is stealing out from behind the evergreen-hedge, may I not?”

“Of what young man are you speaking?” asked Leonora, in alarm.

“Of the young Comaccini, who is cautiously peering through those bushes, and for whom the fragrant love-letter, which Amarilla holds aloft so triumphantly, is probably intended.”

“No, do not look that way, signore,” cried Leonora, with an air of confusion, as she hastily took one of the papers from the table and handed it to Goethe.

“You said you would teach me to read these papers, to make out these difficult English words. Please do so, signore. I will be a very thankful scholar!”

Goethe smiled as he took the paper and unfolded it. He had laid his left arm on the back of the chair, in which Leonora sat; with his right hand he held the paper before her lovely countenance. He began to read and translate, word for word, the passage at which her rosy finger pointed. She listened with breathless attention, utterly unconscious that their heads were side by side, that her cheeks almost touched his, and that her fair, fragrant hair was intermingled with his brown locks. Her whole soul was filled with the determination to impress each word that Goethe uttered indelibly on her mind. Her glances flew like busy bees from the paper to his lips, unconscious that they bore a sting which was infusing sweet poison into the heart of her zealous teacher.

To be the teacher of a beautiful young girl is a dangerous office for a man who is young, and impetuous, and whose heart is not preoccupied. To read out of one book, cheek by jowl, so near to each other that the breath of his lips is mingled with hers, and that he can hear her heart’s quick throbs—when has a woman done this with impunity, unless it was her lover or her husband with whom she was reading! Francesca da Rimini would not have been murdered by her jealous husband, if she had not read Launcelot with her handsome brother-in-law Paolo Malatesta.

They too were reading for their delight, and were alone without any fear.

Amarilla sang and danced about on the terrace, and paid no attention to the two who were sitting so close together and studying the English newspaper so earnestly. The passage at which Leonora pointed, chanced to be the simple, touching history of a young man and a girl who loved each other devotedly, but could not be united because the man was already married. The girl, unable to conquer her love, and yet tormented with remorse and anguish, had buried her love and her sorrows in the dark waters of the Thames. Her lover poisoned himself when he learned the sad intelligence, leaving a letter, in which he begged that they might be permitted to rest in one grave.

Leonora’s attention was so entirely absorbed in the translation of the separate words that the meaning of what they were reading escaped her. In breathless excitement she listened to the words of glowing passion that fell from her teacher’s lips, and stored them away in her memory, as newly-acquired precious treasures. She cried out with delight, when, after they had translated the passage for the second time, she succeeded in comprehending its meaning, and could render whole sentences and periods in her own language. She was so beautiful in her innocent joy, her countenance was so animated, her eyes so radiant, the smile on her lips was so charming, that a tremor of delight ran through Goethe’s being as he gazed at the fair creature. He said to himself that it must be enchanting to open the treasures of knowledge to this charming child of Nature, and to learn from her while giving her instruction.

They were still absorbed in the English lesson, and did not observe that the door was noiselessly opened, and that a young man with a merry countenance and bright smile appeared on the threshold. But, when he saw the two, seated side by side, shoulder to shoulder, cheek to cheek, she gazing fixedly at the paper, he regarding her with an expression of passionate tenderness—when the young man saw this, his merry expression vanished, and he cast a look of anger and hatred towards the readers. Leonora had just succeeded in translating the whole narrative, unassisted by her teacher, and now uttered the concluding words in a loud voice: “They found it sweeter to die in love than to live without love!” The pale young man with the angry countenance slowly withdrew, closing the door as noiselessly as he had before opened it. They observed nothing of this, and continued reading until a number of their friends and acquaintances entered the room, when they laid the paper aside, with a sigh and a mutual look of regret and tenderness.

The servants now appeared and were soon hastily engaged in preparing the breakfast table for the numerous guests who were sojourning in the house. Angelica Kaufmann, who had just entered the room on Mr. Jenkins’s arm, stepped forward and greeted Goethe, cordially, mildly reproaching him with having neglected and forgotten her.

Goethe replied to this reproach, but not in his usual gay and unrestrained manner, and her keen glance detected a change in his countenance.

“One of the muses or goddesses of Olympus has paid you a visit this morning,” said she. “Her kiss is still burning on your cheeks, and the heavenly fire is still flaming in your eyes. Tell me, my friend, which muse or which goddess was it that kissed you?”

“Why must it have been an immortal woman, Angelica?” asked Goethe, laughing.

“Because no mortal woman can touch your hard heart. You know your friend Moritz always called you the polar bear, and maintained that you had an iceberg in your breast instead of a heart. He was right, was he not?”

“Woe is me, if he was not, but is to be!” sighed Goethe, thinking of the dire visitation Moritz had called down upon his head.

Breakfast was announced, and the guests began to seat themselves at the table. The place of honor was generally conceded to be at Goethe’s side, Mr. Jenkins therefore requested Angelica Kaufmann to take the seat on Goethe’s right hand. While he was looking around, considering to whom he should accord the second place of honor on Goethe’s left, Leonora stepped forward and quietly seated herself in the coveted place at her instructor’s side.

“I cannot separate myself from you, maestro,” said she, smiling. “You must repeat, and explain to me, a few words of our lesson. Only think, I have already forgotten the sentence which commences: ‘Sweet it is to die in love.’”

Angelica’s astonished look convinced Goethe that she had heard these words, and this confused him. His embarrassed manner, when he replied to Leonora, betrayed to Angelica the mystery of his sudden change of color when she had first spoken to him on entering the room. “I was mistaken,” said she, in a low voice, and with her soft smile, “it was not a goddess or a muse who visited you. The god of gods himself has kissed your heart and opened your eyes that you might see.”

Yes, these flaming eyes did see, and love had softened the poet’s hard heart with kisses. His soul was filled with rapture as in the days of his first boyish love; every thing seemed changed—seemed to have become brighter and fairer. When he walked in the park with his friends after breakfast it seemed to him that his feet no longer touched the earth, but that his head pierced the heavens, and that he beheld the splendor of the sun and the lustre of the stars. He had gone to the pavilion, where he had first seen Leonora, hoping to find her there now. Amarilla had drawn her aside, after breakfast, and whispered a few words in her ear. Goethe had seen her shudder, turn pale, and reluctantly follow her friend from the room. He hoped to find her in the pavilion. She was, however, not there; a few groups of ladies and gentlemen were standing at the open windows, looking at the beautiful landscape.

Goethe stepped up to one of these windows and gazed out at the lovely lake with its rippling waves and wooded banks. It had never before looked so beautiful. He did not view this picture with the eye of an artist, who desires to reproduce what be sees in oil or aquarelle, but with the eye of an enraptured mortal, before whom a new world is suddenly unfolded, a world of beauty and of love.[43]

Suddenly he heard Amarilla’s merry, laughing voice, and his heart told him that she also was near—she, the adored Leonora! Goethe turned towards the entrance. Yes, there was Leonora; there she stood on the threshold, at her side a young man, with whom she was conversing in low and eager tones.

“Here you are, Signore Goethe,” cried Amarilla, stepping forward. “We have been looking for you everywhere, we—”

“Signora,” said Goethe, interrupting her, and laying his hand gently on her arm, “pray tell me who that young man is with whom your friend Leonora is so eagerly conversing?”

“We have been looking for you to tell you this, and to make you acquainted with young Matteo. He has come to tell Leonora that the rich old uncle whose only heir he is, has suddenly died, and that no impediment to his marriage now exists.”

“What does it concern your friend whether this Mr. Matteo has grown rich, and can now marry or not?”

“What does it concern her?” said Amarilla, laughing. “Well, I should think it concerned her a great deal, as she is betrothed to this Mr. Matteo, and their marriage is to take place in a week.”

Not a muscle of his face quivered, not a look betrayed his anguish. He turned to the window, and stared out at the landscape which had before shone so lustrously in the bright sunlight. How changed! All was now night and darkness; a film had gathered over his eyes.

While he stood there, immovable, transfixed with dismay, he observed nothing of the little drama that was going on behind him; he did not feel the earnest gaze of the two pairs of eyes that were fastened on him: the eyes of Leonora, with tender sympathy; the eyes of the young man, with intense hatred.

“I saw him turn pale and shudder,” hissed Matteo in Leonora’s ear. “It startled him to hear that you were my betrothed. It seems that you have carefully concealed the fact that you were my affianced, and about to become my bride?”

“I have not concealed it, Matteo, I had only forgotten it.”

“A tender sweetheart, truly, who forgets her betrothal as soon as another, perhaps a handsomer man, makes his appearance.”

“Ah, Matteo,” whispered she, tears gushing from her eyes, “you do me injustice!”

He saw these tears and they made him furious. “Come now, and introduce me to this handsome signore,” commanded Matteo, grimly; “tell him, in my presence, that our marriage is to come off in a week. But if you shed a single tear while telling him this, I will murder him, and—”

“Step aside, signore, if you please,” said a voice behind him; “step aside, and permit me to pass through the door-way.”

The voice was cold and composed, as was also the gaze which Goethe fastened on the young man. He did not even glance at Leonora; he had no words for the fair-haired girl, who looked up into his countenance so timidly and so anxiously. He passed out into the open air, down the steps and into the garden, leaving behind him her who but yesterday had seemed to him as the dawn of a new day, the glorious sunshine of a new youth—her, who to-day had cast a pall over his soul, and had cried into his sorrowing, quivering heart the last adieu of departing youth.

He passed the confines of the park, strode rapidly into the forest and sought out its densest solitude. There, where the stillness was unbroken, save by the rustling of trees and the dreamy song of birds—there he threw himself on a bed of moss, and uttered a cry, a single, fearful cry, that made the forest ring, and betrayed to God and Nature the mystery of the anguish of a noble, human heart, that was struggling with, but had not yet overcome, its agony.

Goethe did not return home from the forest until late in the evening. He retired to his room and locked himself in, desiring to see no one, to speak to no one, until he had subdued the demons that were whispering words of wild derision and mocking despair in his heart. He would not be the slave of passion. No one should see him until he had mastered his agony. Early the next morning he again wandered forth into the forest with his portfolio under his arm; leaving a message at the house for his friends to the effect that they must not expect him back to dinner, as he had gone out to draw, and would not return till late in the evening.

His friends, and she above all, should not know what he suffered! The forest is discreet, the trees will not betray the poor child of humanity who lies at their feet struggling with his own heart.

“I will not suffer, I will not bear the yoke! Did I come to Rome for any such purpose? did I come here to see my peace and tranquillity of mind burn like dry straw, under the kindling glances of a beautiful girl? No! I will not suffer! Pain shall have no power over me! It will and shall be conquered! Away with you, hollow-eyed monster! I will tread you under foot, will grind you in the dust as I would an adder!”

He sprang up from his bed of moss, and stamped on the ground, furiously. He then walked on deeper into the forest, compelling himself to be calm, and to contemplate Nature.

“Goethe, I command you to be calm,” cried he, in stentorian tones. “I will collect buds and mosses, and choose butterflies and insects. Help me, Spirit of Nature! aid me, benign mother. Give me peace, peace!”

With firmer tread, his head proudly erect, he walked on in the silent forest, still murmuring from time to time: “I will have peace, peace!”

While Goethe was struggling with his heart, in the depths of the forest, and striving to be at peace with himself, another heart was undergoing the same ordeal, in silence and solitude. The heart of a tender, young girl, who hoped to attain by prayer what the strong man was determined to achieve by the power of his will.

She did not even know what it was that had so suddenly darkened her heart; she only felt that a change had taken place—that she was transformed into another being. An unaccountable feeling of anxiety had come over her—a restlessness that drove her from place to place, through the long avenues of the park, in search of solitude. She only asked herself this: What had she done to cause Signore Goethe to avoid her so studiously? Why had he left the house so early in the morning, and returned so late in the evening, for the past three days? Why was it that he conversed gayly with others when he returned in the evening, but had neither word nor look for her?

These questions gave her no rest; they tormented her throughout the entire day. “What wrong have I done him? Why is he angry with me? Why does he avoid me?” She sat in the pavilion repeating the questions that had made her miserable for the last three days, when suddenly Matteo, who had followed her, stepped forward and regarded her with such anger and hatred that she trembled under his glance like the dove under the claws of the falcon.

“What is the matter with you, Leonora?” he asked, gruffly. “Why are you weeping?”

“I do not know, Matteo,” murmured Leonora. “Please be patient with me, it will soon pass away.”

He laughed derisively. “You do not know! Then let me tell you. You have no honor! You have no fidelity! You are a vile, faithless creature, and not worthy of my love.”

“How can you speak so, Matteo? What have I done?”

“I will tell you what you have done,” he cried, furiously. “You have listened to the honeyed words of the tempter. Be still, do not contradict me! I saw you seated together—he, breathing sweet poison into your heart; and you, eagerly inhaling it. I hate and despise him, and I hate and curse you! There! I hurl my engagement ring at your feet, and will never take it back again—no, never! We are separated! Matteo will not stoop to marry a girl who has broken faith with him.”

“I—with you? Matteo, that is false! That is false, I tell you.”

“False, is it?” he cried, furiously. “Well then, swear by the holy virgin that your heart is pure; swear by all the saints that you love me, and that you do not love him, this Signore Goethe!”

She opened her mouth as if to speak, but no words escaped her lips. Her lovely features assumed an expression of dismay; she stared into vacancy, and stretched out her arms as if to ward off some horrible vision that had arisen before her.

“Speak!” cried he. “Swear that you do not love him!”

Her arms sank helplessly to her side, and a deathly pallor spread over her countenance as she slowly, but calmly and distinctly murmured: “I cannot swear, Matteo! I know it now, I feel it now: I do love him!”

Matteo responded with a cry of fury, and struck Leonora with his clinched fist so forcibly on the shoulder, that she fell to the ground with a cry of pain. He stood over her, cursing her, and vowing that he would have nothing more to do with the faithless woman. With a last imprecation, he then turned and rushed out of the pavilion and down into the garden. All was still in the pavilion. Leonora lay there with closed eyelids, stark and motionless, her countenance of a deathly pallor.

A pale woman glided in through the open door, looked anxiously around, and saw the form of the poor girl extended on the floor. “She has fainted! I must assist her!”

It was Angelica Kaufmann who uttered these words. She had been painting outside on the porch, had heard every word that was spoken in the pavilion, and now came to help and console the poor sufferer.

She knelt down by her side; rested her head on her knees, drew a smelling-bottle from her dress-pocket and held it to the poor girl’s nose.

She opened her eyes and gazed dreamily into the kind, sympathetic countenance of the noble woman who knelt over her.

“It is you, Signora Angelica,” murmured Leonora. “You were near? You heard all?”

“I heard all, Leonora,” said the noble artiste, bending down and kissing her pale lips.

“And you will betray me!” cried she, in dismay. “You will tell him?”

“No, Leonora, I will not betray you to any one. I will tell no human being a word of what I have overheard.”

“Swear that you will not, signora. Swear that you will keep my secret, and that you will not betray it to him, even though my life should be at stake.”

“I swear that I will not, Leonora. Have confidence in me, my child! I have suffered as you suffer, and my heart still bears the scars of deep and painful wounds. I have known the anguish of hopeless love!”

“I too, suffer; I suffer terribly,” murmured Leonora. “I would gladly die, it would be a relief!”

“Poor child, death is not so kind a friend as to hasten to our relief when we call him! We must learn to endure life, and to say with smiling lips to the dagger when we draw it from the bleeding wound: ‘Paete, paete, non dolet!’”

CHAPTER XI.

ADIEU TO ITALY.

Writhing in agony for three days and three long nights, at length Goethe found relief in the omnipresent balsam, all-healing Nature!

The poet-eagle was healed! The pinions of his soul had recovered from the wounds inflicted by Cupid’s envenomed arrow. Six days of solitude, six days of restless wandering, six days of communing with God and Nature, six days of struggling with his own weakness—these six days have made him six years older, taught him to conquer pain, and restored him to joyousness and confidence in himself.

On the morning of the seventh day, Goethe entered the room where his friends were assembled, and greeted them with all his former gayety and cordiality. No change was observable in his countenance, except that he had become a little paler, and that his large brown eyes looked still larger than usual. Only once did an anxious expression flit over his countenance, and that was when he asked Signore Zucchi why his dear friend Angelica had not come down to breakfast with her husband.

“She is not here,” replied Zucchi. “She has been in Rome for the past three days.”

“In Rome?” repeated Goethe, with astonishment. “We intended making an excursion together through the Albanian Mountains, and now she has left us! When will she return?”

“That the physicians alone can tell you,” replied Zucchi.

“Is Signora Angelica ill?” asked Goethe, with alarm.

“Oh, no, not she! But the young girl, the beautiful Leonora, has suddenly fallen ill. Angelica found her lying insensible on the floor of the pavilion. She interested herself in the poor girl, did all she could to cheer and console her, and even attempted to reconcile her to her affianced, from whom she had been estranged. Leonora, however, declared that she would never marry young Matteo—that she would become no man’s wife, but would always remain with her brother. At her earnest request, Angelica took her to Rome, to her brother’s house. She had hardly arrived there before she was taken violently ill with an attack of fever. She is in a very precarious condition, and Angelica, instead of finishing the large painting for which an Englishman has offered four thousand scudi, has made herself this poor girl’s nurse.”

Goethe had listened to this narrative in silence, his head bowed down on his breast. When Zucchi ceased speaking, he raised his head, and cast a quick glance around the room. He saw gay and unconcerned countenances only. No one observed him—the story of his anguish was known to none of his friends.

He also seemed to be perfectly quiet and composed—to be occupied solely with his paintings and drawings. When his friends suggested that the time had now arrived to carry out their projected tour through the Albanian Mountains, Goethe declined to accompany them, telling them that an alteration which his friends in Germany desired him to make in his “Egmont,” necessitated his speedy return to Rome.

Goethe returned to the city on the evening of the same day, and repaired, immediately on his arrival, to the house of Signore Bandetto, to inquire after his sister’s condition. She was still dangerously ill, and the physicians gave but little hope. Signora Angelica was with her, nursing her like a tender mother. He returned to the house for the same purpose later in the evening, and so on each ensuing day. Gradually, the bulletins were more favorable, and he was told that she was steadily improving.

Goethe had been in Rome for two weeks, and had neither written nor painted during this time; he had even avoided the gods of the Belvidere and the holy halls of St. Peter’s. The wounds of his heart were not yet quite healed. Leonora’s illness still made them smart.

To-day, he had again repaired to Signor Bandetto’s house, had seen Angelica Kaufmann, and had been told that all danger was now over. A weight of care was removed from his soul, and he now entered his studio with a gay and unclouded countenance for the first time during his stay in Rome. His studio was a scene of wild confusion; books, papers, drawings, chairs, and tables, were in the greatest disorder. The Juno Ludovisi’s head was gray with dust, and the impious chambermaid had thrown the poet’s dressing-gown over the figure of Cupid, as though the god of love were a clothes-rack.

Goethe laughed loudly, laughed for the first time in long, long weeks, and relieved the poor god of his disgraceful burden.

He then bowed profoundly, and looked intently into the mischievous god’s smiling countenance, as if to defy him to do his worst.

From this hour Goethe was once more himself. All grief had vanished from his heart, and he was again restored to his former peace and gayety. He once more belonged to the gods and muses, to poetry and to nature. But, above all, to poetry! In the hours of his anguish the arts had not been able to rescue and strengthen him, but wondrous thoughts and sublime feelings had taken root in his soul.

Pain was overcome, as was also love. When he saw Leonora, after her recovery, and when she thanked him, in faltering tones, for his sympathy, and his frequent inquiries during her illness, Goethe smiled, and treated her as a kind father treats his child, or a brother his sister.

She fully understood the meaning of this smile, and shed many bitter tears in her little room in the stillness of the night, but she did not complain. She knew that this short-lived passion had fallen from Goethe, as the withered blossom falls from the laurel-tree, and that she would be nothing more than a remembrance in his life.

This consciousness she wore as a talisman against all sorrow; the roses returned to her cheeks, her eyes once more shone lustrously, and never in her after-life did she forget Goethe, as he never forgot her. The remembrance of this beautiful girl shone as a bright, unclouded star throughout Goethe’s entire life; and in the days of his old age, when the heart that had throbbed so ardently in Rome had grown cold, Goethe said and wrote of this fair girl: “Her remembrance has never faded from my thought and soul.”

Another painful awakening soon followed this short dream of love—the awakening from the dreamy, enchanting life in Italy, the return to Germany. It was a pain and a joy at the same time. The deep pain of separation from Rome, and the joyful prospect of returning to his home and friends, and, above all, to his friend Charlotte von Stein?

“It was for her sake that I conquered this passion,” said Goethe to himself. “I told her that I would return to her, unfettered in hand and heart, and I will keep my promise. Charlotte’s love, Charlotte’s friendship, shall console me for what I have denied myself here, for what I leave behind me! You, too, will be there, Muses; you will follow me to the fatherland, and assemble lovingly around the poet in the little house in Weimar. A poet I am; that I feel; of that I am now convinced. In the next ten years of work that will at the utmost be vouchsafed me, I will strive to accomplish, by diligent application, as much that is good and great as I achieved without hard study in the days of my youthful vigor and enthusiasm. I will be diligent and joyous! I will live, create, and enjoy, and that I can do as well in Weimar as in Rome! I will bear the Italian heaven within me; I will erect ‘Torquato Tasso’ as a monument to Italy and myself. Farewell, sublime, divine Roma! A greeting to you, you dear little city, in which the prince lives whom I love, and the friend who belongs to my soul. A greeting to you, Weimar!”