Withered Leaves Volume I Part 15

"What has happened, then?" asked Blanden.

"Well, Schn has fallen into disgrace; he relinquishes his post; the enemies of the const.i.tution in Berlin bear away the victory."

"They do not want a const.i.tutional State," interrupted Kuhl, "and even if you did carry it through, it would only be the semblance. The State's machinery would become rather more complicated and expensive, and that is not desired; beyond that, they know quite well, that little else in the matter will be altered. What could otherwise be set in motion with one shove, would then require several handles and winches, in order to let a noisy parliamentary machinery play; majorities are needed, and when things are needed, there they are too; more intelligent ministers are required--that is all! At present their signatures impose upon people, then their personal qualities must do so; but if you think that anything else will ever be carried out than what the Government chooses, it is a great mistake. Much dust will be raised, then those who would fain be great in Parliament would come and cry, 'I have raised all that dust,' like the fly in the fable. The car of the State, however, would roll on its way amidst the dust, and in that direction too, in which it is guided. _Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes!_ A const.i.tution would be a Danades gift to Prussia!"

"No," replied Blanden, "that which Schn and others of the same mind have been preparing for a long time, will only prove beneficial for this country when it gains life. That is my firm conviction; free const.i.tutional forms would bring another spirit into the people. While we who demand a const.i.tution are now deemed to be rebels, a time will come, when the most zealous bureaucrats will look upon such an organisation as the most natural, and will not comprehend how any one could ever doubt it, or rather have quite forgotten that the courage and zeal of the East Prussian communities first unfurled this banner.

But the obstinate refusal of the Government in Berlin fills me with joyful courage for the fight. How does it stand with my guests, Wegen?

Have you seen about my invitations?"

"Well," said Wegen, as he stroked his moustache, much satisfied, "I have managed my affair well; they are all coming, all. Some out of politeness, others from motives of political zeal and a sense of duty, as they would know, of course, what a candidate for election has to say to them; many from curiosity, to become acquainted with the Ordensburg.

They did not find you at home on their return visits; in short, you will have a perfect rainbow of political colours at your table; naturally all the others very pale, the liberal red outs.h.i.+ning them.

But, my dear friend, I have still to go to the district town. The Landrath is from home for a few days; he returns to-morrow, and will not be missing from your dinner; the Chief Deputy of the district has gout, so I must represent him. Look at me; to-day you see in me the Father of the district; do you not perceive the dignity of my demeanour? Even a couple of legal doc.u.ment wrinkles have put in their appearance! But I find nothing prepared for my reception. I do not mean wooden, triumphal arches, nor unattractive maidens clad in white, but something palatable--an enjoyable breakfast."

Blanden took care that a breakfast should be served, by which Wegen did his duty bravely, and then conducted his friend, at the latter's desire, to the stables. They were splendid places; Blanden had been as careful that horses of the finest race should fill his stalls, as he had been in devoting the most anxious attention to the neglected breed of sheep in East Prussia. He showed this living inventory, not without contented pride, and Wegen, in his good nature, went so far as to indulge this little weakness of his friend, and to let himself be led again and again into the agricultural sanctum, although he already knew every horse's head so accurately that he could have sketched it, and had sorted the wool of each single sheep on its body.

Then together they looked at the new buildings which Wegen had especially superintended, because Blanden, from horror of the masons'

noise, had taken flight.

"The guest-chambers have been carried out according to your plans,"

said Wegen, "but I permitted myself to have them ornamented with a few elegant additions. It is too cruel the way guests are treated in most houses; one is shoved into a bare room, a sort of guard room, in any corner of the house, like an old travelling trunk or carpet-bag. These elegant canopied beds and carpets, the toilet-table furnished with everything that Parisian genius has invented; even upon the chest of drawers, work materials with needles, upon the little tables beside the beds, the newest German and French novels for reading before going to sleep, are my idea. Certainly it costs a fearful sum, and in addition of your money; but you will be satisfied with it, as Kulmitten will be a radiant example for all East Prussia, and what is done for civilisation is never lost."

Blanden nodded pleasantly and approvingly to his friend, who was chatting in the brightest wine-inspired mood, and then accompanied him to his carriage, in which he drove away to occupy the proud place upon the _sella curulis_ of a Prussian Landrath.

As the evening's twilight had crept in, Blanden with Doctor Kuhl sat upon the balcony of the castle, looking over the lake. It was a cool summer evening; heavy leaden clouds lay above the lake, and the tall oak trees which shut in its broad mirror--there must have been thunder in the distance; the remains of stormy clouds were thrown up one above another, like charred logs of wood, and a freezing blast swept over the lonely lake. The lamps beside which Blanden and his friend sat, trembled in the soft sway of the evening breeze; the whole effect of the landscape had something mournfully wearisome, disconsolately monotonous; behind it again lay woods and lakes, lakes and woods; the course of cultivation had hardly touched these districts; the life of the people, the life of individuals pointed to but few memories in these forsaken places. Before Blanden's mind arose, with double charm, the picture of that Italian landscape, where in one paradise of nature, taste and cultivation create themselves enchanting asylums, where every foot's breadth of land stirs up fascinating recollections, and has been overcome by civilisation, where the great pilgrim train of strangers brings the culture of Europe in ever changing forms.

Under the influence of this mood, he began to relate his adventure on Lago Maggiore to his friend.

CHAPTER VIII.

ON LAGO MAGGIORE.

"Any one who reads one of those older Italian romances, feels himself irresistibly attracted by the free breath of adventure which pervades it; I know, indeed, that in our respectable society where every one carries his pa.s.sport in his pocket book, this adventuresomeness cannot find a place; it is proscribed, and I do not see either how it can be otherwise in our condition as citizens.

"All the same, it meets the untrammelled wanderer here and there; it wears a mask before its face, but it gazes fiercely and seductively through that mask.

"I have often meditated as to wherein the charm of those fleeting meetings consists, which in no case lay claim to any endurance; it is the charm of freedom and want of fetters. There is something oppressive to the mind in this consciousness of durability, in order to reconcile oneself to it deeper reflections are needed about the necessity that fetters man's life, and the pride of a sense of duty reconciles us to the constraint of the unalterable.

"But adventure arouses affections and feelings, and touches strings, which are sure to exist in human nature; never does the blood flow more lightly and freely through our veins; never does our mental life develop more ozone than in these tempests of pa.s.sion, quickly as they pa.s.s away again in the sky. Also, if that enduring bond and that n.o.bility of feeling is wanting, which only true love of the soul is capable of giving, yet something remains that enn.o.bles the fleeting transport of pa.s.sion, the rapture about beauty which is so closely united to love, but which has paled and must be repudiated in our circ.u.mstances.

"But where do these homes of adventure lie more than in the masked land of Italy? Are we not thrilled with those spirits of revelry which in the Venetian Carnival of that glorious _maestro_ spring and dance upon the strings, and seem to be beside themselves in wild exhilaration?

"Here upon the Rialto, there upon the market place, mysterious glances beckon to us, seductive pressure of the hand invites us. This is a proud beauty of the people, who at other times wears the _fazzoletto_, that is a lady of position who seeks a _cicisbeo_. And upon the Roman Corso, when the long row of carriages drives down the street, we stand upon the carriage step and a delicate hand presses a bouquet into ours.

Here adventure has risen and increased until it became crime, and gazed ominously and fatally at us out of the soft eyes of a Lucrezia Borgia and a Beatrice Cenci.

"But what heaven also in the land of Boccaccio, what rapture in the air, what charm in the aroma of the perfumes, which are set free by the day's glowing sun, which the evening's breeze wafts over the meadows, above the marble floors in the villas and in their sleeping chambers!

There one must be a pedant, like the man from Arpinum, to think and to write of duty in a Tusculum; we other men follow Horace's example, wreath our heads with roses, take a wine bowl in our hands, and a beautiful Lydia in our arms.

"Enjoy the moment! Thus preaches Hesperia, and he who wreathes himself with its wildly growing myrtles does not remember the myrtle of German hot-houses, with which the bride adorns herself for life. I know Florence, that city of flowers, Rome the city of ruins; noisy Naples, where the tide of men, and the beating of the ocean's waves blend their roar, and whose single cyclopean eye is fire-belching Vesuvius. Yet nowhere did I feel so much at home as on the upper Italian lakes; and in spite of all the charms of Lago di Como, that splendid divided radiant mirror, which is most beautiful at that point whence one can overlook both its separate arms of water which twine themselves around the villa-clad heights; despite the loveliness of Lago di Garda, and its northerly port, above all others I have enshrined Lago Maggiore in my heart and spent two years of my life upon its sh.o.r.es. I know all the Swiss and Italian towns on its borders; but I lingered most fondly in Stresa, because from it a quick pa.s.sage by boat bore me to the jewels of the lake, the Boromean islands.

"It was one beautiful summer's evening that I stood upon the topmost terrace of the Isola Bella; the lake glistened in the evening's crimson splendour; varied lights danced in the winding cypress walks, in the concealed sh.e.l.l-grottoes, and played upon the statues and obelisks of the uppermost terrace. The sister isles, the towns on the sh.o.r.es, the vine-surrounded villa-clad hills lay on the opposite side in a softer sheen. Sa.s.so Ferrato, with its rocky walls, rose up defiantly in the lake; as if bathed in a red-hot glow, stood the ice-armour of the snowy peaks which guard the Alpine pa.s.ses, which here lead down to the lake of Geneva, yonder to that of the four Cantons. Picturesquely the fiery red of the sinking sun contrasted with the glorious green of the Lago.

"How often people have blamed the _baroque_ taste, the green _roccoco_ of this Isola Bella! And yet, why should one not place a jewel in a brilliant artistic setting? This Isola Bella is the most beautiful belvidere on the lake; why should that belvidere not be splendidly decorated? The art which is lavished upon that small spot of earth does not detract from that vast nature which encloses it with her gigantic Alps! And then there is something soothing in these hiding places amongst the trees, these sh.e.l.l-grottoes--they invite one to quiet talk, to silent happiness; and how full is the heart, when the magic of this glorious nature, these evening lights, those perfumes flowing from a hundred flower calex--the whole of that fervidly-breathing life has inspired us!

"As I stood upon the terrace, lost in dreams, two ladies appeared, accompanied by a servant in livery, who remained standing close beneath the unicorn, the arms of the Boromei; they were both tall slender figures of distinguished appearance. I bowed politely and addressed them; one was able to speak German, and the circ.u.mstance that we could thus converse without being understood by her companion, soon gave us the semblance of a certain intimacy; her whole manner was animated; she treated every subject of conversation with great vivacity, she expressed the most supreme admiration for the beauties of the scenery, in doing which, however, she preferred to employ Italian exclamations and expressions, and Ta.s.so's language sounded so mellow, so mellifluous from her lips that I listened with silent satisfaction to that melody as if to an artistic treat.

"I looked more closely at her; she was a beautiful woman. The n.o.bility of her features was in harmony with that magnificent form; the sculptors' and painters' ideals in the Academy and Pitti Palace of the city of flowers seemed to have gained life in her. Everything within me cried: that is beauty, such as is fitting for this enchanted garden; thus must the queen of these isles, these waves have been! And it appeared to me as if the evening's crimson, which flowed down the tall figure, and then glided into the waves, was a glorifying effulgence shed forth from her. She dazzled and enchained me; I also soon remarked that her words, looks, countenance, told of the perfect sympathy with which I inspired her.

"The other lady was distant and reserved; her demeanour was that of a proud princess. As she took her departure, she dismissed me as it were with a slight bow; but in her companion's eyes I read something like the hope of meeting again.

"I would not disappoint this hope, and daily, at sunset, found myself on the terrace of Isola Bella. Two evenings I waited in vain; but how great was my joyful surprise when, on the third evening, I met her, and, indeed, quite alone. I welcomed her with a heartfelt and warmly returned pressure of the hand.

"'My friend has left,' said she, soon after the first exchange of greetings; I learned that she now lived quite by herself in a villa at Stresa. Our conversation became lively, but it avoided everything personal. She knew Germany and German affairs, but her enthusiasm was all for beautiful Italy, where Art and Nature both disclose themselves in such enrapturing beauty. We spoke of poets, painters, theatres and music. The sun had disappeared behind the hills; only its reflection still hung upon the rosy-tinted western clouds, but to-day the scene on the terrace was peculiarly animated. Countless miladies, with red guide-books, and guttural-voiced milords succeeded one another; they cast a few cursory glances at the lake, convinced themselves that all the guaranteed items of its decorations stood on their proper places, as they are described in books--here, the Isola Madre and del Pescatore, there the Sa.s.so Ferrato, here Stresa, yonder Pallanza--and finally took leave with an expression of perfect satisfaction. Then came a few noisy Frenchmen and women, who uttered their delight on finding a morsel of Versailles in this Italian water-basin, and then sought the laurel tree in which Napoleon had cut the word '_battaglia_'

before the battle of Marengo.

"It was a restless coming and going! As if in silent accord, we turned our steps towards the lonely shaded walks of the evergreen island, beneath the pines and cypresses, laurels and camellia trees. We did not talk much; often we walked silently side by side. The dusk of evening and of the green leaves seemed to hold us chained in some sweet spell.

When we spoke, we spoke of that which was nearest to us, which stirred our feelings, of Nature's charms and the splendour of the manifold southern plants which were a.s.sembled there like a green court-dress for the old Palazzos; nor were the northern fir trees wanting, and I remarked that they reminded me of my home. Yet she asked no more about it. It was like a secret understanding between us not to disturb our mutual _incognito_, and thus even to envelop the circ.u.mstances of our lives in the same charm of twilight as that which hovered over the enchanted island.

"We descended the steps of the palazzo to the sh.o.r.e; an elegant gondola, with a gondolier in livery, was awaiting them.

"'May I invite you,' asked she, 'to accompany me in my bark as far as Stresa?'

"I accepted this invitation with pleasure.

"The moon had risen; the mountains' shadows floated in the silvery waves. The skiff drew a broad furrow in the molten silver that seemed to drip from the oars; the pines by the villas on the sh.o.r.e intercepted the moonlight with their broad fans. Like a sparkling plateau the glaciers of the Simplon Pa.s.s gleamed above a little cloud.

"How many magnificent villas shone beneath intensely dark, silvered green on the sh.o.r.es! Which was hers? I did not venture to ask, and she did not point to the spot on which she had taken up her abode.

"We stand under so many influences of culture, that not only our thoughts, but also our feelings, are regulated by it. That which great poets have described, bears for us the significance of personal experience; it is just as vivid in our imagination. Shakespeare's characters, which he received from Italian novels, stood before my fancy. Not a Julia was my companion, but she reminded me much of Portia; was not this the same moonlight glamour that hovered around the Belmont Villa? She possessed the figure and demeanour of a much-courted, aristocratic lady, the spirit and fervour of that enterprising rich heiress: where was her Villa Belmont? In her presence, I stood beneath the magic spell of Shakespearean poetry.

"At Stresa, I went on sh.o.r.e; her skiff was rowed still farther on. She vanished like a beautiful dream in the twilight of the moon's illumination that in the shrubs on the sh.o.r.e mingled with the shadowed mirror of the waters.

"For three evenings in succession I returned to the Isola Bella, and on each evening I found the mysterious beauty there. This adventure had gay s.h.i.+mmering b.u.t.terfly's wings; I could not brush the coloured down from them. Naturally, liking and intimacy grew out of this constant intercourse; I hazarded bolder expression of the same. I praised her as my Armida, who held me within her spell; I praised the greater bliss that Rinaldo had enjoyed. She did not turn aside; she looked at me with her luminous eyes, as though she would read deeply in my soul. Then she sighed, plucked a camellia which bloomed beside us, and pulled it musingly to pieces.

"As we traversed the little fis.h.i.+ng harbour of the island, in order to enter our gondola for the homeward journey, we perceived that a heavy storm was coming toward us from the Simplon, and with increasing rapidity was darkening the lake. Its billows surged uneasily, and the forks of lightning broke in the disturbed mirror of the waves. The return pa.s.sage was impossible; where should we wait until the storm was over?

"'I know a comfortable place of refuge,' said she; 'here, the little fisherman's chapel. It is, as a rule, lifeless and deserted; the fishermen only pray there when they go out to fish. It is the Madonna of eels and salmon-trout who protects that sanctuary.'

"We entered the little church; all was still and pleasant there.

Outside the tempest raged, and the thunder rolled with such might that the building rocked on its foundations.

"Italian churches are accustomed to be used as asylums of love.

Protestant churches would be desecrated by every love which does not come before the altar; the Madonna's eye rests without anger upon the bliss of lovers exchanging vows.

"Indeed, it was only a delusion of my senses when I believed she cast an angry glance upon me, while I held my beautiful companion firmly, and pressed a fervid kiss upon her lips; it was only a sudden flash of lightning that quivered over the altar-picture.