On the Heights: A Novel

The queen had felt outraged by the manner in which the newspapers she had read, referred to Eberhard's death; and yet the article had been mild and reserved when compared with the utterances of the people.

They reported affairs at court as in a terrible state; it was even said that the queen had lost her reason when she heard the news of Countess Wildenort's death.

People little knew how much of truth lay in this rumor. The night that Irma had spent wandering over hill and dale, was not half so terrible as the thoughts that filled the queen's mind.

She hated and abhorred Irma, and yet envied her her death. A queen dare not commit suicide, for that were without precedent. A queen must patiently submit, while they slowly kill her according to the forms of etiquette-must suffer herself, as it were, to be embalmed while yet alive. And, even then, they do not bury her. No-they simply deposit her in a vault; dignity must not be sacrificed, and, above all, there must be no queenly suicide. They offered to bring her child; but she refused to see it, for Irma had kissed it. She would rub her cheeks again and again; they were impure, they burned, – for Irma had kissed them.

Love, friendship, faith, fidelity, nature, painting, music, eloquence-all were dead to her, for Irma had possessed them all, and now all was a lie and a caricature.

The queen started from her seat with a shudder. She had been thinking of the king, and felt sure that his remorse must goad him to self-destruction. He could not support the thought that she whom he had ruined had still enough of courage and righteousness left to give up her life. How could he live after that? How could he aim his gun at an innocent beast, instead of at himself?

He whose name is on the lips of multitudes to whom he owes duties, may not lay hands upon himself. But what right had he to indulge in conduct which must drag him down from his exalted position? To whom could he look for truth, when he himself-

The queen's thoughts almost drove her mad.

People said that the queen was crazed-it seemed as if a vague feeling had informed them of the yawning abyss that opened before her.

She gave orders that no one should be admitted. She smiled at the thought that she could still command, and that there were still some left to obey her. After some time, she sent for Doctor Gunther. He appeared at once, for he had been waiting in the anteroom.

The queen found it a great relief to confide to him the thoughts that so bewildered and confused her, but she could not force herself to say that she still felt how the king loved her-that is, as far as his wavering, restless nature would permit the existence of what might be termed love. She confessed everything to Gunther, except that-she felt ashamed that she could still associate the thought of love with that of the king.

"Ah, my friend!" said she at last, in a sad tone, "is there no chloroform for the soul, or for a part of it? – a few drops of Lethe? Teach me to forget things, to blunt my sensibility; my thoughts will kill me."

According to his usual practice, Gunther thought it best to produce an entire change of tone, instead of attempting to patch and mend the constitution at every fresh attack. He felt that, as soon as the queen had learned to think and feel differently, his path would be clear. Instead of offering to console her, he simply aided her in developing her thoughts, while he revealed to her the causes that underlie all human action. He treated the subject according to the great maxim of the solitary philosopher who claimed that all human actions are directed by the laws of nature. With those who have attained to a proper conception and understanding of these laws, the idea of forgiveness is out of the question. It may, indeed, be regarded as included in the admission of necessity.

It was thus that Gunther endeavored, as it were, to clear away the rubbish and the smoking ruins that were left after a fire. The fitful flames would, however, still burst forth, here and there.

The queen complained that all seemed chaos to her, and even went so far as to declare the desire to be virtuous as mere folly. The only comfort that Gunther offered her, was that he also knew the utter wretchedness of despair. He was not as one who, feeling himself secure from danger, calls out to him who wrestles with the agony of death: "Come to me: it is pleasant to be here." He was a companion of misery. He told her that there had been a period when he had not only despaired of his heart, and believed neither in cures nor in health, but had even lost all faith in the wisdom that rules the universe.

He acted on the principle that the only way to treat the despondent is to show them what others have suffered and yet have learned to live.

When the consciousness of this truth has dawned upon the afflicted, there is new light, and he enters upon the first stage of deliverance.

"I will impart the saddest confession of my life to you," said Gunther.

"You?"

"There was a time when I envied the frivolous, and even the vicious, their light-heartedness. I desired to be like them. Why burden one's soul with moral considerations, when one may live so pleasantly while seizing the joys the world affords us?"

Gunther paused, and the queen looked up at him in astonishment. He continued calmly:

"I have saved myself, and my rich experience has convinced me that every one of us, even though he strive for excellence, has, so to say, a skeleton closet somewhere in his soul. There must have been a time, if only a moment, when his thoughts were impure, or when he was on the point of committing a sin."

As if reflecting on what he had said, the queen was silent for a long while, and at last said:

"Tell me; are there any happy beings in this world?"

"How do you mean?"

"I mean, are there beings in whom inclination and destiny are in accord, and who are, at the same time, conscious of this harmony?"

"I thank you! I see that you are endeavoring to express yourself with precision. Your Majesty knows that, to a certain extent, I judge persons by their mode of forming sentences. It is not so important to display what is called cleverness, as to be clear and concise in what one has to say."

The queen observed that her friend endeavored to lead her to take a larger view of affairs, and to assist her in acquiring self-command; and, with a sad smile, she asked:

"And do you know the answer to my question?"

"I think I do; Your Majesty knows the story of the shirt of the happy one?"

"I do not quite remember it."

"Well, then, to tell it in as few words as possible: A certain king was ill, and it was said that he could not recover until the shirt of a happy man was procured for him. They searched and searched, and at last found a man who was unspeakably happy, and-he had no shirt to his back. I change the story according to my own conviction. Were I a poet, I would, in fancy, wander from house to house, from town to town, from country to country, describe the life of men in various conditions, and point out that, with all their complaining, they were, nevertheless, happy, or, at all events, as happy as they could be. Every human being is endowed with a certain capacity for happiness, the measure of which is regulated by his nature. It is this which determines how high or how deep, his joys or misfortunes; how blunt or how keen, his sensibility. The measure of happiness assigned to every human being corresponds to the requirements of his nature. Unhappiness is necessary in order that we may appreciate happiness, just as we need shadows to help us distinguish the light."

"And so you think that all people are happy?"

"They are so in truth, but not in reality. The reason is, they are not in accord with the requirements of their nature, and are ever seeking for happiness in that which they have not, or rather that which they are not."

"I do not quite comprehend that, but will endeavor to do so," replied the queen; "but, tell me, can he who is conscious of guilt also be happy?"

"Yes, if he acts freely, and if the knowledge of his guilt makes him more forgiving and more active in good works. Errors, irregularities, or what are termed faults, are the result of excessive or defective endowment, and may, to a certain extent, be described as the basso relievo or alto relievo of character. Faults of excess may be remedied by education and knowledge, but not those of deficiency. Most of us, however, require those who belong to us, and all whom we wish to be noble and great, to fill up the defects of their nature; and that is simply requiring the impossible."

The queen was silent for some time. She was evidently making the doctor's thoughts her own.

"I, too, have a bas-relief fault," said she, at last. "My desire to forsake the religion of my fathers and to embrace a strange faith subjected me to deceit and estrangement, and I regard this as a punishment visited upon me by God or nature. It was this that made the king look upon me as weak and vacillating, and impelled him to leave me. I was the first to think of defection, and defection at last became my punishment!"

The queen wept while uttering these words, and her tears were in pity for herself.

Gunther remained calm and quiet.

The queen was on the threshold of the second stage of knowledge.

"The mere idea of renouncing your faith-and Your Majesty may remember that I never approved of it-" said Gunther, after a long pause, "only served to show that Your Majesty felt the need of possessing convictions which were not alone in accord with your nature, but were also the outgrowth of it. Every clear perception of truth, every conquest over pain, is a transformation, a remodeling of existence, or, as it is sometimes termed, a purification."

"I understand," replied the queen. "Oh, that I knew the system by which the world is governed, and the reasons that underlie human destiny! Why was I obliged to experience this? Has it made me any better? Will it inspire me to nobler actions? Would I not have been far better if my life had remained unclouded? I was full of love for all human beings. Ah, it was so delightful to know of no one on earth who was my enemy, and still more delightful to know no one whom I must hate and detest! And what am I to-day? I feel as if, where'er I turn, a corpse lies in my path. There is no free spot left me on earth! You are a wise man; help me to banish these terrible thoughts!"

"I am not wise; and, if I were, I could not bestow my wisdom upon you. It was a saying of the ancients, that others can show you the apples of the Hesperides, but cannot gather them for you."

"Well, well! be it so. But tell me, would it not be better to grow greater and nobler and stronger in virtue, and in our faith in humanity?"

"Childlike innocence is happiness, but a clear perception of truth is a great gain and, according to my opinion, a necessary and enduring joy-"

"You avoid my question. It seems to me that you, too, are without the key."

"I do not possess it-life is inexorable. All that we can do is to bend to the descending storm, and yet remain steadfast. Sunshine will come again. We are subject to the lesser law of our own nature, and the greater law that embraces the universe. There is not a star that completes its course without deviation. Surrounding planets attract or repel it; but yet it moves on, in its appointed course, teaching mankind the lesson of perseverance."

"You offer remedies, and yet place your trust in the healing powers of nature?"

"Certainly," replied Gunther, "nature alone can help us."

After a while, he added:

"To one who is bowed down by grief, it were useless to suggest refreshing wanderings on the heights. With returning strength, the desire will return; for the will is merely the outward manifestation of inner power. Now, while bending to the blow which has just descended upon you, you are clothed and sustained by the life-giving power of nature. It is this that sustains existence until we again awaken to life and free action. My good mother, in her devout manner, used to say: 'May God help us, until we can help ourselves.'"

"I thank you!" said the queen. "I thank you," she repeated, and closed her eyes.

CHAPTER XV

On the same morning on which the king and Bronnen were closeted together at the hunting-seat, the queen sent for Gunther. He found her clad in white and resting on her couch. She looked pale and feeble, and told him how provoked she felt at the vanity and conceit which had induced her, a young queen, to regard herself as wise and good, and had led her to imagine herself as gifted with unusual endowments.

"Did you know of what was going on here?" she asked the physician.

"No; I would not have believed it possible, and it is only now that I understand the terrible death of my dear friend Eberhard. A father in such grief-"

The queen did not enter into this view of the matter and went on, as if speaking to herself:

"When I recall the days, the hours, in which she sung, I must ask myself, can it be possible to sing such songs and such words, – breathing naught but love, kindness, exaltation, purity-and at the same time have nothing in one's soul? Aye, worse than nothing-falseness and hypocrisy? Every word seems false. Have we a right to be princes, to regard ourselves as superior to others and entitled to rule them, if we do not elevate ourselves above them by purity and greatness of soul? I have become a changed being since yesterday. My soul then lay at the bottom of the sea, and the waves of death and despair raged above me; but now I wish to live. Only tell me how to endure it all. You've been at court so long and despise everything. Don't shake your head; you despise it all-! Tell me, how is one to endure it? How can one manage to live on and yet remain here? You surely possess the mystery; impart it to me, for that alone can save me."

"Your Majesty," replied the physician, "you are still feverish and excited."

"Indeed, is that the sum of all your science? Princes are right when they abuse their fellow-creatures, for even the best of men are naught but polite shadows. I had placed all my dependence upon you; I had looked up to you as one exalted far above me; and where I had hoped to clasp a hand, you offer me an empty glove. You smile; I am not delirious, I've merely awakened to the truth; I have just passed through hours in which the beautiful world-ah! how full of beauty it was-seemed filled with naught but creeping worms and loathsome corruption. Oh, it is terrible! I fancied there was one free being to whom I could tell all, and from whom I could ask everything in return; but you are not the man. Ah! there are no real men in this world. The best are nothing more than title-bearing creatures!"

"You shall not have goaded me in vain!" muttered Gunther half aloud, and rising from his seat.

"I didn't mean to offend you!" cried the queen. "Ah, thus it is; in pain and sorrow, we wound those who are nearest to us!"

"Calm yourself, Your Majesty," replied Gunther, seating himself. "If there is anything for which I may claim credit, it is that I do not indulge my sensitiveness. I am severe toward others, because I am severe toward myself."

The queen closed her eyes, but presently she looked at him intently and said:

"I fear nothing more."

Thus encouraged, Gunther went on to say:

"Human fancy cannot realize how much of vice and misery, nor, on the other hand, how much of beauty, holiness, grandeur and sublimity there is in life.

"Your Majesty, I am here at the palace, which is a world in miniature, a world in itself. All that is terrible, and all that is noble, is attracted hither-and yet, with every returning spring, the flowers bloom and the trees deck themselves in robes of green, while the stars shine over all. There is a blooming flower, a shining star even in the most despicable of beings. A drop descends from the clouds and falls upon the dusty road. The drop and the dust uniting, become the mire of the highway; but to the eye that looks deeper, the drop is still pure, although divided and subdivided until it is almost impalpably minute, and inseparable from the dust that darkens it. But even this image does not suffice. No image directed to the senses, can convey an adequate conception of the Deity. God exists even in the grain of dust. To our eyes, it is dust; but to the eye of God, it is as pure as the water and is equally the abode of infinity. The very people whom you regard as so false would like to be good, if it did not entail so much trouble and involve so many sacrifices. Most men would like to win virtue, but do not care to earn it. They all desire to draw the great prize in the lottery of morality. 'Oh, if I were only good!' said a lost creature to me, one day. Your Majesty, truth tells us that hatred and contempt are not good for they injure the soul. The true art of living requires us to recognize that which is base in its true colors, but at the same time, to avoid debasing ourselves by violent or passionate feelings against that which is wicked or vulgar. You must remove hatred from your heart, and be at peace with yourself. Hatred destroys the soul. You must grow to feel that, viewed in the proper light, vice and crime are simply defects. They may lead to a thousand sad consequences, but, of themselves, have no existence; virtue alone is a reality. Come up higher, unto where I stand, and you will find that you have been tormenting yourself with mere shadows."

"I see the steps," said the queen; "help me up!"

"Naught can avail but self-help. Each must learn to be monarch of himself, even though he wear a kingly crown. The law teaches us that, in order to retain this command over ourselves, we must not permit anger and hatred to dwell in our souls, or to poison so much of the world as is given us to enjoy, be our share great or small."

"I had too much faith in virtue and kindness."

"Very likely. As long as one believes in mankind, there will be deception and despair. We persist in judging our fellow-creatures by what they are as regards us, instead of what they are as regards themselves. And thus, as long as we believe in human virtue, we may, at times, be perplexed at finding ourselves disappointed where we least expect it. As soon, however, as we recognize the Divine in everything, even though the possessor himself is unconscious of it, we have attained a lofty standpoint, from which we feel sure both of ourselves and of the world."

The queen hurriedly raised herself and, extending both hands to Gunther, exclaimed:

"You are a worker of miracles."

"No, I am not that. I am only a physician who has held many a hand hot with fever, or stiff in death, in his own. The healing art might serve as an illustration. We help all who need our help, and do not stop to ask who they are, whence they come, or whether, when restored to health, they persist in their evil courses. Our actions are incomplete, fragmentary; thought alone is complete and all-embracing. Our deeds and ourselves are but fragments-the whole is God."

"I think I grasp your meaning. But our life, as you say, is indeed a mere fraction of life as a whole, and how is each one to bear up under the portion of suffering that falls to his individual lot? Can one-I mean it in its best sense-always be outside of one's-self?"

"I am well aware, Your Majesty, that passions and emotions cannot be regulated by ideas; for they grow in a different soil, or, to express myself correctly, move in entirely different spheres. It is but a few days since I closed the eyes of my old friend Eberhard. Even he never fully succeeded in subordinating his temperament to his philosophy; but, in his dying hour, he rose beyond the terrible grief that broke his heart-grief for his child. He summoned the thoughts of better hours to his aid-hours when his perception of the truth had been undimmed by sorrow or passion-and he died a noble, peaceful death. Your Majesty must still live and labor, elevating yourself and others, at one and the same time. Permit me to remind you of the moment when, seated under the weeping ash, your heart was filled with pity for the poor child that, from the time it enters into the world, is doubly helpless. Do you still remember how you refused to rob it of its mother? I appeal to the pure and genuine impulse of that moment. You were noble and forgiving then, because you had not yet suffered. You cast no stone at the fallen; you loved and, therefore, you forgave."

"Oh God!" cried the queen, "and what has happened to me? The woman on whose bosom my child rested is the most abandoned of creatures. I loved her, just as if she belonged to another world-a world of innocence. And now I am satisfied that she was the go-between, and that her naïveté was a mere mask concealing an unparalleled hypocrite. I imagined that truth and purity still dwelt in the simple rustic world-but everything is perverted and corrupt. The world of simplicity is base; aye, far worse than that of corruption!"

"I am not arguing about individuals. I think you mistaken in regard to Walpurga; but, admitting that you are right, of this, at least, we can be sure: morality does not depend upon so-called education or ignorance, belief or unbelief. The heart and mind which have regained purity and steadfastness alone possess true knowledge. Extend your view beyond details and take in the whole-that alone can comfort and reconcile you."

"I see where you are, but I cannot get up there. I can't always be looking through your telescope that shows naught but blue sky. I am too weak. I know what you mean; you say, in effect: 'Rise above these few people, above this span of space known as a kingdom-compared with the universe, they are but as so many blades of grass, or a mere clod of earth.'"

Gunther nodded a pleased assent, but the queen, in a sad voice, added:

"Yes, but this space and these people constitute my world. Is purity merely imaginary? If it be not about us, where can it be found?"

"Within ourselves," replied Gunther. "If it dwell within us, it is everywhere; if not, it is nowhere. He who asks for more, has not yet passed the threshold. His heart is not yet what it should be. True love for the things of this earth, and for God, the final cause of all, does not ask for love in return. We love the divine spark that dwells in creatures themselves unconscious of it: creatures who are wretched, debased and, as the church has it, unredeemed. My master taught me that the purest joys arise from this love of God or of eternally pure nature. I made this truth my own, and you can and ought to do likewise. This park is yours; but the birds that dwell in it, the air, the light, its beauty, are not yours alone, but are shared with you by all. So long as the world is ours, in the vulgar sense of the word, we may love it; but when we have made it our own, in a purer and better sense, no one can take it from us. The great thing is to be strong and to know that hatred is death, that love alone is life, and that the amount of love that we possess is the measure of the life and the divinity that dwells within us."

Gunther rose and was about to withdraw. He feared lest excessive thought might over-agitate the queen, who, however, motioned him to remain. He sat down again.

"You cannot imagine-" said the queen, after a long pause, "but that is one of the cant phrases that we have learned by heart. I mean just the reverse of what I have said. You can imagine the change that your words have effected in me."

"I can conceive it."

"Let me ask a few more questions. I believe-nay, I am sure-that on the height you occupy, and toward which you would fain lead me, there dwells eternal peace. But it seems so cold and lonely up there. I am oppressed with a sense of fear, just as if I were in a balloon ascending into a rarer atmosphere, while more and more ballast was ever being thrown out. I don't know how to make my meaning clear to you. I don't understand how to keep up affectionate relations with those about me, and yet regard them from a distance, as it were-looking upon their deeds as the mere action and reaction of natural forces. It seems to me as if, at that height, every sound and every image must vanish into thin air."

"Certainly, Your Majesty. There is a realm of thought in which hearing and sight do not exist, where there is pure thought and nothing more."