Memories: A Story of German Love

"I have never comprehended this so clearly myself," said she. "But I have often felt how difficult it must be to know whether one loves who shows not a sign of love that could not be imitated. And, again, I have thought that no one could know it unless he knew love himself, and that he could only believe in the love of another so far as he believed in his own love. As with the gift of love so is it with the gift of the Holy Spirit. They upon whom it descended heard a rushing from heaven as of a mighty wind, and there appeared to them cloven tongues like as of fire. But the rest were either amazed and perplexed, or they made sport of them and said: 'They are full of sweet wine.'

"Still, as I said to you, it is the 'German Theology' to which I am indebted for learning to believe in my belief, and what will seem a weakness to many, strengthened me the most; namely, that the old master never stops to demonstrate his propositions rigidly, but scatters them like a sower, in the hope that some grains will fall upon good soil and bear fruit a thousand fold. So our Divine Master never attempted to prove his doctrines, for the perfect conviction of truth disdains the form of a demonstration."

"Yes," I interrupted her, for I could not help thinking of the wonderful chain of proof in Spinoza's 'Ethics,' the straining after demonstration by Spinoza gives me the impression that this acute thinker could not have believed in his own doctrines with his whole heart, and that he therefore felt the necessity of fastening every mesh of his net with the utmost care. "Still," I continued, "I must acknowledge I do not share this great admiration for the 'German Theology,' although I owe the book many a doubt. To me there is a lack of the human and the poetical in it, and of warm feeling and reverence for reality altogether. The entire mysticism of the fourteenth century is wholesome as a preparative, but it first reaches solution in the divinely holy and divinely courageous return to real life, as was exemplified by Luther. Man must at some time in his life recognize his nothingness. He must feel that he is nothing of himself, that his existence, his beginning, his everlasting life are rooted in the superearthly and incomprehensible. That is the returning to God which in reality is never concluded on earth but yet leaves behind in the soul a divine home sickness, which never again ceases. But man cannot ignore the creation as the Mystics would. Although created out of nothing, that is, through and out of God, he cannot of his own power resolve himself back into this nothingness. The self-annihilation of which Tauler so often speaks is scarcely better than the sinking away of the human soul in Nirvana, as the Buddhists have it. Thus Tauler says: 'That if he by greater reverence and love could reach the highest existence in non-existence, he would willingly sink from his height into the deepest abyss.' But this annihilation of the creature was not the purpose of the Creator since he made it. 'God is transformed in man,' says Augustine, 'not man in God.' Thus mysticism should be only a fire-trial which steels the soul but does not evaporate it like boiling water in a kettle. He who has recognized the nothingness of self ought to recognize this self as a reflection of the actual divine. The 'German Theology' says:

["Was nu us geflossen ist, das ist nicht war wesen, und hat kein wesen anders dan in dem volkomen, sunder es ist ein zufal oder ein glast und ein schin, der nicht wesen ist oder nicht wesen hat anders, dan in dem sewer, da der glast us flusset, als in der sunnen oder in einem liechte."]

"What has flown out is not real substance and has no other reality except in the perfect; but it is an incident or a glare or a shimmer, which is no substance, and has no other reality, except in the fire from which a glare proceeds, as in the sun or a light."

"What is emitted from the divine, though it be only like the reflection from the fire, still has the divine reality in itself, and one might almost ask what were the fire without glow, the sun without light, or the Creator without the creature? These are questions of which it is said very truthfully:

["Welch mensche und welche creatur begert zu erfaren und zu wissen den heimlichen rat und willen gottes, der begert nicht anders denne als Adam tet und der boese geist."]

"What man or creature desires to learn and to know the secret counsel and will of God—desires nothing else but what Adam did and the evil spirit.

"For this reason, it should be enough for us to feel and to appear that we are a reflection of the divine until we are divine. No one should place under a bushel or extinguish the divine light which illuminates us, but let it beam out, that it may brighten and warm all about it. Then one feels a living fire in his veins, and a higher consecration for the struggle of life. The most trivial duties remind us of God. The earthly becomes divine, the temporal eternal, and our entire life a life in God. God is not eternal repose. He is everlasting life, which Angelus Silesius forgets when he says: 'God is without will.'

"'We pray: 'Thy will my Lord and God be done,'And lo, He has no will! He is an eternal silence.'"

She listened to me quietly, and, after a moment's reflection, said: "Health and strength belong to your faith; but there are life-weary souls, who long for rest and sleep, and feel so lonely that when they fall asleep in God, they miss the world as little as the world misses them. It is a foretaste of divine rest to them when they can wrap themselves in the divine; and this they can do, since no tie binds them fast to earth, and no wish troubles their hearts except the wish for rest.

"'Rest is the highest good, and were God not rest,Then would I avert my gaze even from Him.'

"You do the German theologian an injustice. It is true he teaches the nothingness of the external life, but he does not wish to see it annihilated. Read me the twenty-eighth chapter."

I took the book and read, while she closed her eyes and listened:

["Und wa die voreinunge geschicht in der wahrheit und wesentlich wirt, da stet vorbass der inner mensche in der einung unbeweglich und got lest den ussern menschen her und dar bewegt werden von diesem zu dem. Das muss und sol sin und geschehen, dass der usser mensche spricht und es ouch in der warheit also ist, 'ich wil weder sin noch nit sin, weder leben oder sterben, wissen oder nicht wissen, tun oder lassen, und alles das disem glich ist, sunder alles, das da muss und sol sin und geschehen, da bin ich bereit und gehorsam zu, es si in lidender wise oder in tuender wise.' Und alsoe hat der usser mensch kein warumbe oder gesuch, sunder alleine dem ewigen willen genuk zu sin. Wan das wirt bekannt in der warheit, das der inner mensche sten sol unbeweglich und der usser mensch muss und sol bewegt werden, und hat der inner mensch in siner beweglikeit ein warumb, das ist anders nichts dann ein muss- und sol-sin, geordnet von dem ewigen willen. Und wa got selber der mensch were oder ist, da ist es also. Das merket man wol in Kristo. Auch wa das in goetlichem und us goetlichem liechte ist, da ist nit geistliche hochfart noch unachtsame friheit oder frie gemute, sunder ein gruntlose demutigkeit und ein nider geschlagen und ein gesunken betrubet gemut, und alle ordenligkeit und redeligkeit, glichheit und warheit, fride und genugsamkeit, und alles das, das allen tugenden zu gehoert, das muss da sin. Wa es anders ist, da ist im nit recht, als vor gesprochen ist. Wan recht als dises oder das zu diser einung nit gehelfen oder gedienen kan, also is ouch nichtes, das es geirren oder gehindern mag, denn alleine der mensch mit sinem eigen willen, der tut im disen grossen schaden. Das sol man wissen."]

"And when the union takes place in truth and becomes real, then the inner man stands henceforth immovable in the union, and God permits the outer man to be driven hither and thither from this to that. It must and shall be and happen, that the outer man says—and is so also in truth—'I will neither be nor not be, neither live nor die, neither know nor not know, neither do nor leave undone—and everything which is similar to this, but I am ready and obedient to do everything, which must and shall be done, be it passively or actively.' And thus has the outer man no question or desire, but to, satisfy only the Eternal Will. When this will be known in truth, that the inner man shall stand, immovable, and that the outer man shall and must be moved,—the inner man has a why and wherefore of his moving, which is nothing but an 'it must and shall be' ordered by the Eternal Will. And if God himself were or is the man, it would be so. This is well seen in Christ. And what in the Divine Light is and from the Divine Light, has neither spiritual pride nor careless license nor an independent spirit—but a great humility, and a broken and contrite heart,—and all propriety and honesty, justice and truth, peace and happiness,—all that belongs to all virtues, it must have. When it is otherwise, then he is not happy, as has been said. When this does not help to this union, then there is nothing which may hinder it but man alone with his own will, which does him such great harm. That, one ought to know."

"This is sufficient," said she; "I believe we understand each other now. In another place, our unknown friend says still more unmistakably that no man is passive before death, and that the glorified man is like the hand of God, which does nothing of itself except as God wills; or, like a house in which God dwells. A God-possessed man feels this perfectly, but does not speak of it. He treasures his life in God like a love secret. It often seems to me like that silver poplar before my window. It is perfectly still at evening, and not a leaf trembles or stirs. When the morning breeze rustles and tosses every leaf, the trunk with its branches stands still and immovable, and when autumn conies, though every leaf which once rustled falls to the ground and withers, the trunk waits for a new spring."

She had lived so deep a life in her world that I did not wish to disturb it. I had but just released myself with difficulty from the magic circle of these thoughts, and scarcely knew whether she had not chosen the better part which could not be taken away from her; while we have so much trouble and care.

Thus every evening brought its new conversation, and with each evening, some new phase of her fathomless mind disclosed itself. She kept no secret from me. Her talk was only thinking and feeling aloud, and what she said must have dwelt with her many long years, for she poured out her thoughts as freely as a child that picks its lap full of flowers and then sprinkles them upon the grass. I could not disclose my soul to her as freely as she did to me, and this oppressed and pained me. Yet how few can, with those continual deceptions imposed upon us by society, called manners, politeness, consideration, prudence, and worldly wisdom, which make our entire life a masquerade! How few, even when they would, can regain the complete truth of their existence! Love itself dares not speak its own language and maintain its own silence, but must learn the set phrases of the poet and idealize, sigh and flirt instead of freely greeting, beholding and surrendering itself, I would most gladly have confessed and said to her: "You know me not," but I found that the words were not wholly true. Before I left, I gave her a volume of Arnold's poems, which I had had a short time, and begged her to read the one called "The Buried Life." It was my confession, and then I kneeled at her couch and said "Good Night." "Good Night," said she, and laid her hand upon my head, and again her touch thrilled through, every limb and the dreams of childhood uprose in my soul. I could not go, but gazed into her deep unfathomable eyes until the peace of her soul completely overshadowed mine. Then I arose and went home in silence—and in the night I dreamed of the silver poplar around which the wind roared—but not a leaf stirred on its branches.

THE BURIED LIFELight flows our war of mocking words, and yetBehold, with tears my eyes are wet;I feel a nameless sadness o'er me roll.Yes, yes, we know that we can jest;We know, we know that we can smile;But there's a something in this breastTo which thy light words bring no rest,And thy gay smiles no anodyne.Give me thy hand, and hush awhile,And turn those limpid eyes on mine,And, let me read there, love, thy inmost soul.Alas, is even love too weakTo unlock the heart, and let it speak?Are even lovers powerless to revealTo one another what indeed they feel?I knew the mass of men concealedTheir thoughts, for fear that if revealedThey would by other men be metWith blank indifference, or with blame reproved;I knew they lived and moved,Tricked in disguises, alien to the restOf men and alien to themselves—and yet,The same heart beats in every human breast.But we, my love—does a like spell benumbOur hearts—our voices?—must we too be dumb?Ah! well for us, if even we,Even for a moment, can yet freeOur hearts and have our lips unchained;For that which seals them hath been deep ordained.Fate which foresawHow frivolous a baby man would be,By what distractions he would be possessed,How he would pour himself in every strife,And well-nigh change his own identity,That it might keep from his capricious playHis genuine self, and force him to obey,Even in his own despite, his being's law,Bade through the deep recesses of our breastThe unregarded River of our Life,Pursue with indiscernible flow its way;And that we should not seeThe buried stream, and seem to beEddying about in blind uncertainty,Though driving on with it eternally.But often, in the world's most crowded streets,But often in the din of strife,There rises an unspeakable desireAfter the knowledge of our buried life;A thirst to spend our fire and restless forceIn tracking out our true original course;A longing to inquireInto the mystery of this heart that beatsSo wild, so deep, in us; to knowWhence our thoughts come, and where they go.And many a man in his own breast then delves,But deep enough, alas, none ever mines;And we have been on many thousand lines,And we have shown on each, talent and power,But hardly have we, for one little hour,Been on our own line, have we been ourselves;Hardly had skill to utter one of allThe nameless feelings that course through our breast,But they course on forever unexpressed.And long we try in vain to speak and actOur hidden self, and what we say and doIs eloquent, is well—but 'tis not true.And then we will no more be rackedWith inward striving, and demandOf all the thousand nothings of the hourTheir stupefying power;Ah! yes, and they benumb us at our call;Yet still, from time to time, vague and forlorn,From the soul's subterranean depth upborne,As from an infinitely distant land,Come airs and floating echoes, and conveyA melancholy into all our day.Only—but this is rare—When a beloved hand is laid in ours,When, jaded with the rush and glareOf the interminable hours,Our eyes can in another's eyes read clear,When our world-deafened earIs by the tones of a loved voice caressed,—A bolt is shot back somewhere in our breast,And a lost pulse of feeling stirs again:The eye sinks inward, and the heart lies plain,And what we mean, we say, and what we would, we know;A man becomes aware of his life's flow,And, hears its winding murmur, and he seesThe meadows where it glides, the sun, the breeze.And there arrives a lull in the hot raceWherein he doth forever chaseThat flying and elusive shadow, Rest;An air of coolness plays upon his face,And an unwonted calm pervades his breast.And then he thinks he knowsThe Hills where his life rose,And the Sea where it goes. . . . . . .

SIXTH MEMORY

Early the next morning, there was a knock at the door, and my old doctor, the Hofrath, entered. He was the friend, the body-and-soul-guardian of our entire little village. He had seen two generations grow up. Children whom he had brought into the world had in turn become fathers and mothers, and he treated them as his children. He himself was unmarried, and even in his old age was strong and handsome to look upon. I never knew him otherwise than as he stood before me at that time; his clear blue eyes gleaming under the bushy brows, his flowing white hair still full of youthful strength, curling and vigorous. I can never forget, also, his shoes, with their silver buckles, his white stockings, his brown coat, which always looked new, and yet seemed to be old, and his cane, which was the same I had seen standing by my bedside in childhood, when he felt my pulse and prescribed my medicines. I had often been sick, but it was always faith in this man which made me well again. I never had the slightest doubt of his ability to cure me, and when my mother said she must send for the Hofrath that I might get well again, it was as if she had said she must send for the tailor to mend my torn trousers. I had only to take the medicine, and I felt that I must be well again.

"How are you, my child?" said he, as he entered the room. "You are not looking perfectly well. You must not study too much. But I have little time to-day to talk, and only came to tell you, you must not go to see the Countess Marie again. I have been with her all night, and it is your fault. So be careful, if her life is dear to you, that you do not go again. She must leave here as soon as possible, and be taken into the country. It would be best for you also to travel for a long time. So good morning, and be a good child."

With these words, he gave me his hand, looked at me affectionately in the eyes, as if he would exact the promise, and then went on his way to look after his sick children.

I was so astonished that another had penetrated so deeply into the secrets of my soul, and that he knew what I did not know myself, that when I recovered from it he had already been long upon the street. An agitation began to seize me, as water, which has long been over the fire without stirring, suddenly bubbles up, boils, heaves and rages until it overflows.

Not see her again! I only live when I am with her. I will be calm; I will not speak a word to her; I will only stand at her window as she sleeps and dreams. But not to see her again! Not to take one farewell from her! She knows not, they cannot know, that I love her. Surely I do not love her—I desire nothing, I hope for nothing, my heart never beats more quietly then when I am with her. But I must feel her presence—I must breathe her spirit—I must go to her! She waits for me. Has destiny thrown us together without design? Ought I not to be her consolation, and ought she not to be my repose? Life is not a sport. It does not force two souls together like the grains of sand in the desert, which the sirocco whirls together and then asunder. We should hold fast the souls which friendly fate leads to us, for they are destined for us, and no power can tear them from us if we have the courage to live, to struggle, and to die for them. She would despise me if I deserted her love at the first roll of the thunder, as it were in the shadow of a tree, under which I have dreamed so many happy hours.

Then I suddenly grew calm, and heard only the words "her love;" they reverberated through all the recesses of my soul like an echo, and I was terrified at myself. "Her love," and how had I deserved it? She hardly knows me, and even if she could love me, must I not confess to her I do not deserve the love of an angel? Every thought, every hope which arose in my soul, fell back like a bird which essays to soar into the blue sky and does not see the wires which restrain it. And yet, why all this blissfulness, so near and so unattainable? Cannot God work wonders? Does He not work wonders every morning? Has He not often heard my prayer when it importuned him, and would not cease, until consolation and help came to the weary one? These are not earthly blessings for which we pray. It is only that two souls, which have found and recognized each other, may be allowed to finish their brief life-journey, arm in arm, and face to face; that I may be a support to her in suffering, and that she may be a consolation and precious burden to me until we reach the end. And if a still later spring were promised to her life, if her burdens were taken from her—Oh, what blissful scenes crowded upon my vision! The castle of her deceased mother, in the Tyrol, belonged to her. There, on the green mountains, in the fresh mountain air, among a sturdy and uncorrupted people, far away from the hurly-burly of the world, its cares and its struggles, its opinion and its censure, how blissfully we could await the close of life, and silently fade away like the evening-red! Then I pictured the dark lake, with the dancing shimmer of waves, and the clear shadows of distant glaciers reflected in it; I heard the lowing of cattle and the songs of the herdsmen; I saw the hunters with their rifles crossing the mountains, and the old and young gathering together at twilight in the village; and, to crown all, I saw her passing along like an angel of peace in benediction, and I was her guide and friend. "Poor fool!" I cried out, "poor fool! Is thy heart always to be so wild and so weak? Be a man. Think who thou art, and how far thou art from her. She is a friend. She gladly reflects herself in another's soul, but her childlike trust and candor at best only show that no deeper feeling lives in her breast for thee. Hast thou not, on many a clear summer's night, wandering alone, through the beech groves, seen how the moon sheds its light upon all the branches and leaves, how it brightens the dark, dull water of the pool and reflects itself clearly in the smallest drops? In like manner she shines upon this dark life, and thou may'st feel her gentle radiance reflected in thy heart—but hope not for a warmer glow!"

Suddenly an image approached me as it were from life; she stood before me, not like a memory but as a vision, and I realized for the first time how beautiful she was. It was not that beauty of form and face which dazzles us at the first sight of a lovely maiden, and then fades away as suddenly as a blossom in spring. It was much more the harmony of her whole being, the reality of every emotion, the spirituality of expression, the perfect union of body and soul which blesses him so who looks upon it. The beauty which nature lavishes so prodigally does not bring any satisfaction, if the person is not adapted to it and as it were deserves and overcomes it. On the other hand, it is offensive, as when we look upon an actress striding along the stage in queenly costume, and notice at every step how poorly the attire fits her, how little it becomes her. True beauty is sweetness, and sweetness is the spiritualizing of the gross, the corporeal and the earthly. It is the spiritual presence which transforms ugliness into beauty. The more I looked upon the vision which stood before me, the more I perceived, above all else, the majestic beauty of her person and the soulful depths of her whole being. Oh, what happiness was near me! And was this all—to be shown the summit of earthly bliss and then be thrust out into the flat, sandy wastes of existence? Oh, that I had never known what treasures the earth conceals! Once to love, and then to be forever alone! Once to believe, and then forever to doubt! Once to see the light, and then forever to be blinded! In comparison with this rack, all the torture-chambers of man are insignificant.

Thus rushed the wild chase of my thoughts farther and farther away until at last all was silent. The confused sensations gradually collected and settled. This repose and exhaustion they call meditation, but it is rather an inspection—one allows time for the mixture of thoughts to crystallize themselves according to eternal laws, and regards the process like an observing chemist; and the elements having assumed a form, we often wonder that they, as well as ourselves, are so entirely different from what we expected.

When I awoke from my abstraction, my first words were, "I must away." I immediately sat down and wrote the Hofrath that I should travel for fourteen days and submit entirely to him. I easily made an excuse to my parents, and at night I was on my way to the Tyrol.

SEVENTH MEMORY

Wandering, arm in arm with a friend, through the valleys and over the mountains of the Tyrol, one sips life's fresh air and enjoyment; but to travel the same road solitary and alone with your thoughts is time and trouble lost. Of what interest to me are the green mountains, the dark ravines, the blue lake, and the mighty cataracts? Instead of contemplating them they look at me and wonder among themselves at this solitary being. It smote me to the heart that I had found no one in all the world who loved me more than all others. With such thoughts I awoke every morning, and they haunted me all the day like a song which one cannot drive away. When I entered the inn at night and sat down wearied, and the people in the room watched me, and wondered at the solitary wanderer, it often urged me out into the night again, where no one could see I was alone. At a late hour I would steal back, go quietly up to my room and throw myself upon my hot bed, and the song of Schubert's would ring through my soul until I went to sleep: "Where thou art not, is happiness." At last the sight of men, whom I continually met laughing, rejoicing and exulting in this glorious nature, became so intolerable that I slept by day, and pursued my journey from place to place in the clear moonlight nights. There was at least one emotion which dispelled and dissipated my thoughts: it was fear. Let any one attempt to scale mountains alone all night long in ignorance of the way—where the eye, unnaturally strained, beholds distant shapes it cannot solve—where the ear, with morbid acuteness, hears sounds without knowing whence they come—where the foot suddenly stumbles, it may be over a root which forces its way through the rocks, or on a slippery path which the waterfall has drenched with its spray—and besides all this, a disconsolate waste in the heart, no memory to cheer us, no hope to which we may cling—let any one attempt this, and he will feel the cold chill of night both outwardly and inwardly. The first fear of the human heart arises from God forsaking us; but life dissipates it, and mankind, created after the image of God, consoles us in our solitariness. When even this consolation and love, however, forsake us, then we feel what it means to be deserted by God and man, and nature with her silent face terrifies rather than consoles us. Even when we firmly plant our feet upon the solid rocks, they seem to tremble like the mists of the sea from which they once slowly emerged. When the eye longs for the light, and the moon rises behind the firs, reflecting their tapering tops against the bright rock opposite, it appears to us like the dead hand of a clock which was once wound up, and will some day cease to strike. There is no retreat for the soul, which feels itself alone and forsaken even among the stars, or in the heavenly world itself. One thought brings us a little consolation: the repose, the regularity, the immensity, and the unavoidableness of nature. Here, where the waterfall has clothed the gray rocks on either side with green moss, the eye suddenly recognizes a blue forget-me-not in the cool shade. It is one of millions of sisters now blossoming along all the rivulets and in all the meadows of earth, and which have blossomed ever since the first morning of creation shed its entire inexhaustible wealth over the world. Every vein in its leaves, every stamen in its cup, every fibre of its roots, is numbered, and no power on earth can make the number more or less. Still more, when we strain our weak eyes and, with superhuman power, cast a more searching glance into the secrets of nature, when the microscope discloses to us the silent laboratory of the seed, the bud and the blossom, do we recognize the infinite, ever-recurring form in the most minute tissues and cells, and the eternal unchangeableness of Nature's plans in the most delicate fibre. Could we pierce still deeper, the same form-world would reveal itself, and the vision would lose itself as in a hall hung with mirrors. Such an infinity as this lies hidden in this little flower. If we look up to the sky, we see again the same system—the moon revolving around the planets, the planets around suns, and the suns around new suns, while to the straining eye the distant star-nebulae themselves seem to be a new and beautiful world. Reflect then how these majestic constellations periodically revolve, that the seasons may change, that the seed of this forget-me-not may shed itself again and again, the cells open, the leaves shoot out, and the blossoms decorate the carpet of the meadow; and look upon the lady-bug which rocks itself in the blue cup of the flower, and whose awakening into life, whose consciousness of existence, whose living breath, are a thousand-fold more wonderful than the tissue of the flower, or the dead mechanism of the heavenly bodies. Consider that thou also belongest to this infinite warp and woof, and that thou art permitted to comfort thyself with the infinite creatures which revolve and live and disappear with thee. But if this All, with its smallest and its greatest, with its wisdom and its power, with the wonders of its existence, and the existence of its wonders, is the work of a Being in whose presence thy soul does not shrink back, before whom thou fallest prostrate in a feeling of weakness and nothingness, and to whom thou risest again in the feeling of His love and mercy—if thou really feelest that something dwells in thee more endless and eternal than the cells of the flowers, the spheres of the planets, and the life of the insect—if thou recognizest in thyself as in a shadow the reflection of the Eternal which illuminates thee—if thou feelest in thyself, and under and above thyself, the omnipresence of the Real, in which thy seeming becomes being, thy trouble, rest, thy solitude, universality—then thou knowest the One to Whom thou criest in the dark night of life: "Creator and Father, Thy will be done in Heaven as upon earth, and as on earth so also in me." Then it grows bright in and about thee. The daybreak disappears with its cold mists, and a new warmth streams through shivering nature. Thou hast found a hand which never again leaves thee, which holds thee when the mountains tremble and moons are extinguished. Wherever thou may'st be, thou art with Him, and He with thee. He is the eternally near, and His is the world with its flowers and thorns, His is man with his joys and sorrows. "The least important thing does not happen except as God wills it."