Memories: A Story of German Love

With such thoughts I went on my way. At one time, all was well with me; at another, troubled; for even when we have found rest and peace in the lowest depths of the soul, it is still hard to remain undisturbed in this holy solitude. Yes, many forget it after they find it and scarcely know the way which leads back to it.

Weeks had flown, and not a syllable had reached me from her. "Perhaps she is dead and lies in quiet rest," was another song forever on my tongue, and always returning as often as I drove it from me. It was not impossible, for the Hofrath had told me she suffered with heart troubles, and that he expected to find her no more among the living every morning he visited her. Could I ever forgive myself if she had left this world and I had not taken farewell of her, nor told her at the last moment how I loved her? Must I not follow until I found her again in another life, and heard from her that she loved me and that I was forgiven? How mankind defers from day to day the best it can do, and the most beautiful things it can enjoy, without thinking that every day may be the last one, and that lost time is lost eternity! Then all the words of the Hofrath, the last time I saw him, recurred to me, and I felt that I had only resolved to make my sudden journey to show my strength to him, and that it would have been a still more difficult task to have confessed my weakness and remained. It was clear to me that it was my simple duty to return to her immediately and to bear everything which Heaven ordained. But as soon as I had laid the plan for my return journey, I suddenly remembered the words of the Hofrath: "As soon as possible she must go away and be taken into the country." She had herself told me that she spent the most of her time, in summer, at her castle. Perhaps she was there, in my immediate vicinity; in one day I could be with her. Thinking was doing; at daybreak I was off, and at evening I stood at the gate of the castle.

The night was clear and bright. The mountain peaks glistened in the full gold of the sunset and the lower ridges were bathed in a rosy blue. A gray mist rose from the valleys which suddenly glistened when it swept up into the higher regions, and then like a cloud-sea rolled heavenwards. The whole color-play reflected itself in the gently agitated breast of the dark lake from whose shores the mountains seemed to rise and fall, so that only the tops of the trees and the peaks of the church steeples and the rising smoke from the houses defined the limits which separated the reality of the world from its reflection. My glance, however, rested upon only one spot—the old castle—where a presentiment told me I should find her again. No light could be seen in the windows, no footstep broke the silence of the night. Had my presentiment deceived me? I passed slowly through the outer gateway and up the steps until I stood at the fore-court of the castle. Here I saw a sentinel pacing back and forwards, and I hastened to the soldier to inquire who was in the castle. "The Countess and her attendants are here," was the brief reply, and in an instant I stood at the main portal and had even pulled the bell. Then, for the first time, my action occurred to me. No one knew me. I neither could nor dare say who I was. I had wandered for weeks about the mountains, and looked like a beggar. What should I say? For whom should I ask? There was little time for consideration, however, for the door opened and a servant in princely livery stood before me, and regarded me with amazement.

I asked if the English lady, who I knew would never forsake the Countess, was in the castle, and when the servant replied in the affirmative, I begged for paper and ink and wrote her I was present to inquire after the health of the Countess.

The servant called an attendant, who took the letter away. I heard every step in the long halls, and every moment I waited, my position became more unendurable. The old family portraits of the princely house hung upon the walls—knights in full armor, ladies in antique costume, and in the center a lady in the white robes of a nun with a red cross upon her breast. At any other time I might have looked upon these pictures and never thought that a human heart once beat in their breasts. But now it seemed to me I could suddenly read whole volumes in their features, and that all of them said to me: "We also have once lived and suffered." Under these iron armors secrets were once hidden as even now in my own breast. These white robes and the red cross are real proofs that a battle was fought here like that now raging in my own heart. Then I fancied all of them regarded me with pity, and a loftier haughtiness rested on their features as if they would say, Thou dost not belong to us. I was growing uneasy every moment, when suddenly a light step dissipated my dream. The English lady came down the stairs and asked me to step into an apartment. I looked at her closely to see if she suspected my real emotions, but her face was perfectly calm, and without manifesting the slightest expression of curiosity or wonder, she said in measured tones, the Countess was much better to-day and would see me in half an hour.

When I heard these words, I felt like the good swimmer who has ventured far out into the sea, and first thinks of returning when his arms have begun to grow weary. He cleaves the waves with haste, scarcely venturing to cast a glance at the distant shore, feeling with every stroke that his strength is failing and that he is making no headway, until at last, purposeless and cramped, he scarcely has any realization of his position; then suddenly his foot touches the firm bottom, and his arm hugs the first rock on the shore. A fresh reality confronted me, and my sufferings were a dream. There are but few such moments in the life of man, and thousands have never known their rapture. The mother whose child rests in her arms for the first time, the father whose only son returns from war covered with glory, the poet in whom his countrymen exult, the youth whose warm grasp of the hand is returned by the beloved being with a still warmer pressure—they know what it means when a dream becomes a reality.

At the expiration of the half hour, a servant came and conducted me through a long suite of rooms, opened a door, and in the fading light of the evening I saw a white figure, and above her a high window, which looked out upon the lake and the shimmering mountains.

"How singularly people meet!" she cried out in a clear voice, and every word was like a cool rain-drop on a hot summer's day.

"How singularly people meet, and how singularly they lose each other," said I; and thereupon I seized her hand, and realized that we were together again.

"But people are to blame if they lose each other," she continued; and her voice, which seemed always to accompany her words, like music, involuntarily modulated into a tenderer key.

"Yes, that is true," I replied; "but first tell me, are you well, and can I talk with you?"

"My dear friend," said she, smiling, "you know I am always sick, and if I say that I feel well, I do so for the sake of my old Hofrath; for he is firmly convinced that my entire life since my first year is due to him and his skill. Before I left the Court-residence I caused him much anxiety, for one evening my heart suddenly ceased beating, and I experienced such distress that I thought it would never beat again. But that is past, and why should we recall it? Only one thing troubles me, I have hitherto believed I should some time close my eyes in perfect repose, but now I feel that my sufferings will disturb and embitter my departure from life." Then she placed her hand upon her heart, and said: "But tell me, where have you been, and why have I not heard from you all this time? The old Hofrath has given me so many reasons for your sudden departure, that I was finally compelled to tell him I did not believe him—and at last he gave me the most incredible of all reasons, and counselled—what do you suppose?"

"He might seem untruthful," I interrupted, so that she should not explain the reason, "and yet, perhaps he was only too truthful. But this also is past, and why should we recall it?"

"No, no, my friend," said she, "why call it past? I told the Hofrath, when he gave me the last reason for your sudden departure, that I understood neither him nor you. I am a poor sick, forsaken being, and my earthly existence is only a slow death. Now if Heaven sends me a few souls who understand me, or love me, as the Hofrath calls it, why then should it disturb their joy or mine? I had been reading my favorite poet, the old Wordsworth, when the Hofrath made his acknowledgment, and I said: 'My dear Hofrath, we have so many thoughts and so few words that we must express many thoughts in every word. Now if one who does not know us understood that our young friend loved me, or I him, in such manner as we suppose Romeo loved Juliet and Juliet Romeo, you would be entirely right in saying it should not be so. But is it not true that you love me also, my old Hofrath, and that I love you, and have loved you for many years? And has it not sometimes occurred to you that I have neither been past remedy nor unhappy on that account? Yes, my dear Hofrath, I will tell you still more—I believe you have an unfortunate love for me, and are jealous of our young friend. Do you not come every morning and inquire how I am, even when you know I am very well? Do you not bring me the finest flowers from your garden? Did you not oblige me to send you my portrait, and—perhaps I ought not to disclose it—did you not come to my room last Sunday and think I was asleep? I was really sleeping—at least I could not stir myself. I saw you sitting at my bedside for a long time, your eyes steadfastly fixed upon me, and I felt your glances playing upon my face like sunbeams. At last your eyes grew weary, and I perceived the great tears falling from them. You held your face in your hands, and loudly sobbed: Marie, Marie! Ah, my dear Hofrath, our young friend has never done that, and yet you have sent him away.' As I thus talked with him, half in jest and half in earnest, as I always speak, I perceived that I had hurt the old man's feelings. He became perfectly silent, and blushed like a child. Then I took the volume of Wordsworth's poems which I had been reading, and said: 'Here is another old man whom I love, and love with my whole heart, who understands me, and whom I understand, and yet I have never seen him, and shall never see him on earth, since it is so to be. Now I will read you one of his poems, that you may see how one can love, and that love is a silent benediction which the lover lays upon the head of the beloved, and then goes on his way in rapturous sorrow.' Then I read to him Wordsworth's 'Highland Girl;' and now, my friend, place the lamp nearer, and read the poem to me, for it refreshes me every time I hear it. A spirit breathes through it like the silent, everlasting evening-red, which stretches its arms in love and blessing over the pure breast of the snow-covered mountains."

As her words thus gradually and peacefully filled my soul, it at last grew still and solemn in my breast again; the storm was over, and her image floated like the silvery moonlight upon the gently rippling waves of my love—this world-sea which rolls through the hearts of all men, and which each calls his own while it is an all-animating pulse-beat of the whole human race. I would most gladly have kept silent like Nature as it lay before our view without, and ever grew stiller and darker: But she gave me the book, and I read:

Sweet Highland Girl, a very showerOf beauty is thy earthly dower!Twice seven consenting years have shedTheir utmost bounty on thy head:And these gray rocks, that household lawn,Those trees, a veil just half withdrawn,This fall of water that doth makeA murmur near the silent lake,This little bay; a quiet roadThat holds in shelter thy abode—In truth, together do ye seemLike something fashioned in a dream;Such forms as from their covert peepWhen earthly cares are laid asleep!But, O fair creature! in the lightOf common day, so heavenly bright,I bless thee, vision as thou art,I bless thee with a human heart;God shield thee to thy latest years!Thee neither know I, nor thy peers;And yet my eyes are filled with tears.With earnest feeling I shall prayFor thee when I am far away;For never saw I mien or face,In which more plainly I could traceBenignity and home-bred senseRipening in perfect innocence.Here scattered, like a random seed,Remote from men, thou dost not needThe embarrassed look of shy distress,And maidenly shamefacedness:Thou wear'st upon thy forehead clearThe freedom of a mountaineer:A face with gladness overspread!Soft smiles, by human kindness bred!And seemliness complete, that swaysThy courtesies, about thee plays;With no restraint, but such as springsFrom quick and eager visitingsOf thoughts that lie beyond the reachOf thy few words of English speech:A bondage sweetly brooked, a strifeThat gives thy gestures grace and life!So have I, not unmoved in mind,Seen birds of tempest-loving kind—Thus beating up against the wind.What hand but would a garland cullFor thee who art so beautiful?O happy pleasure! here to dwellBeside thee in some heathy dell;Adopt your homely ways and dress,A shepherd, thou a shepherdess:But I could frame a wish for theeMore like a grave reality:Thou art to me but as a waveOf the wild sea; and I would haveSome claim upon thee, if I could,Though but of common neighborhoodWhat joy to hear thee, and to see!Thy elder brother I would be,Thy father—anything to thee!Now thanks to heaven! that of its graceHath led me to this lonely place.Joy have I had; and going henceI bear away my recompense.In spots like these it is we prizeOur memory, feel that she hath eyes:Then why should I be loth to stir?I feel this place was made for her;To give new pleasure like the past,Continued long as life shall last.Nor am I loth, though pleased at heart,Sweet Highland Girl, from thee to part;For I, methinks, till I grow old,As fair before me shall behold,As I do now, the cabin small,The lake, the bay, the waterfall,And thee, the spirit of them all!

I had finished, and the poem had been to me like a draught of the fresh spring-water which I had sipped so often of late as it dropped from the cup of some large green leaf.

Then I heard her gentle voice, like the first tone of the organ, which wakens us from our dreamy devotion, and she said:

"Thus I desire you to love me, and thus the old Hofrath loves me, and thus in one way or another we should all love and believe in each other. But the world, although I scarcely know it, does not seem to understand this love and faith, and, on this earth, where we could have lived so happily, men have made existence very wretched.

"It must have been otherwise of old, else how could Homer have created the lovely, wholesome, tender picture of Nausikaa? Nausikaa loves Ulysses at the first glance. She says at once to her female friends: 'Oh, that I could call such a man my spouse, and that it were his destiny to remain here.' She was even too modest to appear in public at the same time with him, and she says, in his presence, that if she should bring such a handsome and majestic stranger home, the people would say, she may have taken him for a husband. How simple and natural all this is! But when she heard that he was going home to his wife and children, no murmur escaped her. She disappears from our sight, and we feel that she carried the picture of the handsome and majestic stranger a long time afterward in her breast, with silent and joyful admiration. Why do not our poets know this love—this joyful acknowledgment, this calm abnegation? A later poet would have made a womanish Werter out of Nausikaa, for the reason that love with us is nothing more than the prelude to the comedy, or the tragedy, of marriage. Is it true there is no longer any other love? Has the fountain of this pure happiness wholly dried up? Are men only acquainted with the intoxicating draught, and no longer with the invigorating well-spring of love?"

At these words the English poet occurred to me, who also thus complains:

From heaven if this belief be sent,If such be nature's holy plan,Have I not reason to lamentWhat man has made of man.

"Yet, how happy the poets are," said she. "Their words call the deepest feelings into existence in thousands of mute souls, and how often their songs have become a confession of the sweetest secrets! Their heart beats in the breasts of the poor and the rich. The happy sing with them, and the sad weep with them. But I cannot feel any poet so completely my own as Wordsworth. I know many of my friends do not like him. They say he is not a poet. But that is exactly why I like him; he avoids all the hackneyed poetical catch-words, all exaggeration, and everything comprehended in Pegasus-flights. He is true—and does not everything lie in this one word? He opens our eyes to the beauty which lies under our feet like the daisy in the meadow. He calls everything by its true name. He never intends to startle, deceive, or dazzle any one. He seeks no admiration for himself. He only shows mankind how beautiful everything is which man's hand has not yet spoiled or broken. Is not a dew-drop on a blade of grass more beautiful than a pearl set in gold? Is not a living spring, which gushes up before us, we know not whence, more beautiful than all the fountains of Versailles? Is not his Highland Girl a lovelier and truer expression of real beauty than Goethe's Helena, or Byron's Haidee? And then the plainness of his language, and the purity of his thoughts! Is it not a pity that we have never had such a poet? Schiller could have been our Wordsworth, had he had more faith in himself than in the old Greeks and Romans. Our Ruckert would come the nearest to him, had he not also sought consolation and home under Eastern roses, away from his poor Fatherland. Few poets have the courage to be just what they are. Wordsworth had it; and as we gladly listen to great men, even in those moments when they are not inspired, but, like other mortals, quietly cherish their thoughts, and patiently wait the moment that will disclose new glimpses into the infinite, so have I also listened gladly to Wordsworth himself, in his poems, which contain nothing more than any one might have said. The greatest poets allow themselves rest. In Homer we often read a hundred verses without a single beauty, and just so in Dante; while Pindar, whom all admire so much, drives me to distraction with his ecstacies. What would I not give to spend one summer on the lakes; visit with Wordsworth all the places to which he has given names; greet all the trees which he has saved from the axe; and only once watch a far-off sunset with him, which he describes as only Turner could have painted."

It was a peculiarity of hers that her voice never dropped at the close of her talk, as with most people; on the contrary, it rose and always ended, as it were, in the broken seventh chord. She always talked up, never down, to people. The melody of her sentences resembled that of the child when it says: "Can't I, father?" There was something beseeching in her tones, and it was well-nigh impossible to gainsay her.

"Wordsworth," said I, "is a dear poet, and a still dearer man to me, and as one often has a more beautiful, wide-spread, and stirring outlook from a little hill which he ascends without effort, than when he has clambered up Mont Blanc with difficulty and weariness, so it seems to me with Wordsworth's poetry. At first, he often appeared commonplace to me, and I have frequently laid down his poems unable to understand how the best minds of England to-day can cherish such an admiration for him. The conviction has grown upon me that no poet whom his nation, or the intellectual aristocracy of his people, recognize as a poet, should remain unenjoyed by us, whatever his language. Admiration is an art which we must learn. Many Germans say Racine does not please them. The Englishman says, 'I do not understand Goethe.' The Frenchman says Shakespeare is a boor. What does all this amount to? Nothing more than the child who says it likes a waltz better than a symphony of Beethoven's. The art consists in discovering and understanding what each nation admires in its great men. He who seeks beauty will eventually find it, and discover that the Persians are not entirely deceived in their Hafiz, nor the Hindoos in their Kalidasa. We cannot understand a great man all at once. It takes strength, effort, and perseverance, and it is singular that what pleases us at first sight seldom captivates us any length of time.

"And yet," she continued, "there is something common to all great poets, to all true artists, to all the world's heroes, be they Persian or Hindoo, heathen or Christian, Roman or German; it is—I hardly know what to call it—it is the Infinite which seems to lie behind them, a far away glance into the Eternal, an apotheosis of the most trifling and transitory things. Goethe, the grand heathen, knew the sweet peace which comes from Heaven; and when he sings:

"On every mountain-heightIs rest.O'er each summit whiteThou feelestScarcely a breath.The bird songs are still from each bough;Only wait, soon shalt thouRest too, in death.

"does not an endless distance, a repose which earth cannot give, disclose itself to him above the fir-clad summits? This background is never wanting with Wordsworth. Let the carpers say what they will, it is nevertheless only the super-earthly, be it ever so obscure, which charms and quiets the human heart. Who has better understood this earthly beauty than Michel Angelo?—but he understood it, because it was to him a reflection of superearthly beauty. You know his sonnet:

["La forza d'un bel volto al ciel mi sprona(Ch'altro in terra non e che mi diletti),E vivo ascendo tra gli spirti eletti;Grazia ch'ad uom mortal raro si dona.Si ben col suo Fattor l'opra consuona,Ch'a lui mi levo per divin concetti;E quivi informo i pensier tutti e i detti;Ardendo, amando per gentil persona.Onde, se mai da due begli occhi il guardoTorcer non so, conosco in lor la luceChe mi mostra la via, ch'a Dio mi guide;E se nel lume loro acceso io ardo,Nel nobil foco mio dolce riluceLa gioja che nel cielo eterna ride."]"The might of one fair face sublimes my love,For it hath weaned my heart from low desires;Nor death I heed nor purgatorial fires.Thy beauty, antepast of joys aboveInstructs me in the bliss that saints approve;For, Oh! how good, how beautiful must beThe God that made so good a thing as thee,So fair an image of the Heavenly Dove.Forgive me if I cannot turn awayFrom those sweet eyes that are my earthly heaven,For they are guiding stars, benignly givenTo tempt my footsteps to the upward way;And if I dwell too fondly in thy sight,I live and love in God's peculiar light."

She was exhausted and silent, and how could I disturb that silence? When human hearts, after friendly interchange of thoughts feel calmed and quieted, it is as if an angel had flown through the room and we heard the gentle flutter of wings over our heads. As my gaze rested upon her, her lovely form seemed illuminated in the twilight of the summer evening, and her hand, which I held in mine, alone gave me the consciousness of her real presence. Then suddenly a bright refulgence spread over her countenance. She felt it, opened her eyes and looked upon me wonderingly. The wonderful brightness of her eyes, which the half-closed eyelids covered as with a veil, shone like the lightning. I looked around and at last saw that the moon had arisen in full splendor between two peaks opposite the castle, and brightened the lake and the village with its friendly smiles. Never had I seen Nature, never had I seen her dear face so beautiful, never had such holy rest settled down upon my soul. "Marie," said I, "in this resplendent moment, let me, just as I am, confess my whole love. Let us, while we feel so powerfully the nearness of the superearthly, unite our souls in a tie which can never again be broken. Whatever love may be, Marie, I love you and I feel, Marie, you are mine for I am thine."

I knelt before her, but ventured not to look into her eyes. My lips touched her hand and I kissed it. At this she withdrew her hand from me, slowly at first and then quickly and decidedly, and as I looked at her an expression of pain was on her face. She was silent for a time, but at last she raised herself and said with a deep sigh:

"Enough for to-day. You have caused me pain, but it is my fault. Close the window. I feel a cold chill coming over me as if a strange hand were touching me. Stay with me—but no, you must go. Farewell! Sleep well! Pray that the peace of God may abide with us. We see each other again—shall we not? To-morrow evening I await you."