Читать книгу On the Heights - Auerbach Berthold - Страница 29

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"You ask me how I like the great world. The great world, dear Emma, is but a little world, after all. But I can readily understand why they term it 'great.' It has a firmament of its own. Two suns rise daily; I mean their majesties, of course. A gracious glance, or a kind word, from either--and the day is clear and bright. Should they ignore you, the weather is dull and dreary.

"The queen is all feeling, and lives in a transcendental world of her own into which she would fain draw every one. She suggests a 'Jean Paul' born after his time, and is of a tender, clinging disposition, constantly vacillating between the dawn and twilight of emotion, and always avoiding the white light of day. She is exceedingly gracious toward me, but we cannot help feeling that we do not harmonize.

"I know not why it is, but I have of late frequently thought of a saying of my father's: 'Whenever you find yourself on friendly or affectionate terms with any one, imagine how he would seem if he had become your enemy!'

"The thought follows me like a phantom, I know not why. It must be my evil spirit.

"All here regard me as wonderfully naïve, simply because I have the courage to think for myself. I have not inherited the spectacles and tight-lacing of tradition. The world seems to follow the fashion, even in clothing the inside of their heads.

"I admire the first lady of the bedchamber most of all. She is the law incarnate, carefully covered with poudre de riz. The ladies here ridicule her, but I have only pity for those who are obliged to resort to the use of cosmetics. Ah, you can have no idea, my dear Emma, how stupid and bored some persons are when unable to indulge in scandal. There are but few who know how to enjoy themselves innocently. But I am forgetting that I intended to tell you about Countess Brinkenstein.

"She read me a lecture on etiquette. What a pity that I cannot give it you, word for word. She said many pretty things; for instance,--that we have as little right to doubt in matters of etiquette as in religion, that, in either case, reasoning always led to heresy and schism, and that one ought to feel happy to have the law ready made, instead of being obliged to frame it.

"Countess Brinkenstein, like Socrates the peripatetic, teaches by example. In the park of the summer palace there is a jutting rock, from the top of which a fine view can be obtained. It is protected on all sides by an iron rail. 'Do you observe, my dear countess,' said this high priest of etiquette to me--for she seems to have conceived quite an affection for your humble servant--'it is because we know there is a railing, that we feel perfectly safe here. If it were not for that, we should become too dizzy to remain. It is just the same with the laws of court etiquette; remove the railing and there will be some one falling every day.'

"The king enjoys conversing with Brinkenstein and, although decorous and dignified demeanor best pleases him, he is not averse to unconstrained cheerfulness. The queen is too serious; she is always grand organ. But one cannot dance to organ music, and as we are still young, we often feel like dancing. Brinkenstein must have commended me to the king, for he often addresses me, and in a manner that seems to say: 'We understand each other perfectly.'"

"June 1st (at night).

"It is a pity, dear Emma, that what I have written above bears no date. I have completely forgotten when I wrote it--auld lang syne, as it says in the pretty Scotch song.

"I feel the justice of your complaint, that my letters are written for myself and not for the one to whom they are addressed; that is, whenever I feel like writing, but not when you happen to wish for news. But you are wrong in charging this to egotism. I am not an egotist. I am wholly absorbed by the impressions of the moment. Ah, why are you not here with me! There is not a day, not a night, not an hour-- But I shall do better. That is, I mean to try, at all events.

"The king distinguishes me above all others, and I enjoy the favor of the whole court. If it were not for the demon that ever whispers to me--

"I send you my photograph. We are now wearing wings on our hats, and the feather you see on mine was taken from an eagle that the king shot with his own hand.

"Oh, what lovely days and nights we are having! If one could only do without sleep. I am giving great attention to music and sing nothing but Schumann. His music invests the soul with a magic veil, with a fire that seems to consume while it fills you with happiness, and from the spell of which none can escape, though they try ever so hard. I gladly yield to its influence. I have just been singing 'The heavens have kissed the earth.' It was late at night, and I felt as if I could go on singing forever. You know my habit of repeating the same song again and again; of all things a pot-pourri of the emotions is least to my liking. At last I lay down by the window--who was it that glided past? I dare not say. I do not care to know. There was a humming in the direction of the lamp on my table. A moth-fly had flown into it and had been consumed by the flame. The moth had not wished to die; it had imagined the light to be a glowing flower-cup, and had buried itself in it.

"It was a beautiful death! To die in the summer night, amid song and in the light of the fiery calyx. Good-night!"

"June 3d,

"No matter where I am or what I do, I am always excited, without knowing why. But I have it, after all. I am constantly thinking that this letter to you is still lying in my portfolio. If any one at court knew what I have written--I have already been on the point of burning these sheets. I beg of you, destroy them. You will,--will you not? or else conceal them in some safe place. I cannot help it, I must tell you all.

"The queen is very kind to me. Her present condition invests her with a touching, I might almost say, a sacred character.

"'Man is God's temple,' said the archbishop, who paid us a visit yesterday, 'and of no one is this so true as of a young mother; above all, a young royal mother.'

"What a noble thought!

"I now think quite differently of the queen. When she said to me, yesterday: 'Countess Irma, the king speaks of you with great affection, and I am very glad of it,' I thought to myself: Blessed be the etiquette that permits me to bend down before the queen and kiss her hand.

"Her hand is now quite full and round."

"June 5th,

"The most cheerful hours are those we spend at breakfast. I do not know how, after such Olympic moments, the rest can content themselves with every-day matters, for I always wing my flight into the boundless realm of music.

"The king is very kind to me. He is of a noble and earnest character. While I was walking with him in the park, yesterday, and we both kept step so beautifully, he said:

"'You seem like a true comrade to me, for we always walk together in perfect step. No woman has ever walked thus with me. With the queen I am always obliged to slacken my usual pace.'

"'That is only of late, I suppose.'

"'No, it is always so. Will you permit me, when we are alone, to address you as my good comrade?'

"We stopped where we were, like two children who have lost their way in the woods and do not know where they are.

"'Let us return,' was all I could say.

"We went back to the palace. I admire the king's self-control, for he at once entered into earnest conversation with his minister. Such self-control can only result from great education and innate mental power.

"But there is one thing more. Let me confide it to you.

"I feel sure that the queen meditates a step which must needs be fraught with evil to the king, to herself, and to who knows how many more. I would have liked to acquaint him with my fears, but I dared not speak of the queen at that time, and Doctor Gunther, the king's physician, had made me afraid to utter a word on the subject. I am talking in riddles, I know. I will explain all to you at some future day, if you remind me of it. In a few weeks, all will be decided. My lips are not sealed, for the queen has confided nothing to me. I have simply reasoned from appearances. But enough of this. I shall no longer torment you with riddles.

"My best friend, after all, is Doctor Gunther. He is great by nature, and still more so by education. He is always up to his own high standard. I have never yet seen him confused or uncertain. The old-fashioned phrase, a 'wise man,' is, indeed, applicable to him. He is not fond of so-called 'spirituality' or 'intellectuality,' for he is truly wise. He has great command of language. His hands are beautiful, almost priestly, as if formed for blessing. He never loses his equanimity and, what is best of all, never indulges in superlatives. When I once mentioned this to him, he agreed with me, and added: 'I should like to deprive the world of its superlatives for the next fifty years; that would oblige men to think and feel more clearly and distinctly than they now do.'

"Do you not, dear Emma, perfectly agree with this? Let us found an anti-superlative society. I admire the man, but will never be able successfully to imitate him. Through him, I have learned to believe that there have been great and wise men on earth. While yet a surgeon in the army, he was my father's friend. Afterward, he filled a professorship in Switzerland, and, for the last eighteen years, has been physician to the king. You would be delighted with him. To know him, is to enrich one's life. If I were to write down all his sayings, half the charm were lost, for you would lose the spell of his presence. He has a most convincing air and a sonorous voice, and I have heard that he used to sing very well. He is a perfect man, and loves me as if I were his niece. I shall have much more to tell you about him. Above all things, I am glad that he has a fine vein of humor. This furnishes the salt and prevents him from being included among the class of sugar-water beings.

"Colonel Bronnen is his best, perhaps his only intimate, friend, and the doctor recently told me that the colonel's manner and appearance greatly resemble that of my father while a young man."

June 15th,

"Ah, how hateful, how horrible is the thought of man's birth and death! To die--to be laid in the earth, and to know that the eyes that once glowed with life, and the lips that once smiled, are to decay. The very idea is a barbarous one. Why do we know of death? We must be immortal, or else it were terrible that we human beings should alone know that we must die. The moth-fly did not know it. It simply thought the burning light was a lovely flower, and died in that belief.

"Since last evening, we have been greatly concerned for the queen, indeed, for a double life. She was so good, so angelic.--But no, she still is, and will remain so. She will live. I have prayed for it with all my heart. Away with doubts! My prayer must avail.

"When I met the king to-day he scarcely looked at me, and it is better for me, that it should be thus. A feeling was beginning to bud within me, and now I pluck it out by the roots. It dare not be. I will be his comrade; his good, his best comrade.

"My piano, my music, my pictures, my statuettes, my bird--all seem strange to me. A human being, a two-fold life, is in mortal danger. What does all the trumpery in the world amount to now? All of it together cannot save a human life. Is original sin a truth, and is it because of that, that man must pass through the throes of death before he can behold the light?

"I would like to read, but there is no book that can serve one in such moments. One cannot even think. Nothing, nothing can be done. All the wisdom in all the books is of no avail."

"June 16th.

"Hallelujah! I have just come from church. Oh, that my song could reach you. I have just sung the Hallelujah as if I were pouring out my whole soul to God above.

"Hallelujah!

"All is well!

"The crown prince is born!

"The queen is doing well. The king is happy! the world is bright, and the blue sky overhead is cloudless.

"God be praised, that I have so soon escaped from my perplexing doubts. Perhaps it was all imagination, after all. There was not the slightest ground for my alarm.

"I am but a silly cloister plant, after all, and do not yet understand the ways of the court. Is it not so? I see you laughing at me, and see the dimples in your cheeks. I send you many kisses. Ah, all are so good and pious, and holy, and happy, and-- If I could only compose, I should produce some great work. A mute Beethoven dwells within my soul."

"July 18th.

"The crown prince's nurse is a peasant woman from the Highlands. At the king's desire, I paid her a visit. I was standing by the prince's cradle, when the king approached.

"Softly he whispered to me: 'It is indeed true; there is an angel standing by my child's cradle.'

"My hand was on the rail, and his hand rested on mine.

"The king left the room, and just imagine what happened afterward.

"The nurse, a fresh and hardy-looking peasant woman, with shrewd blue eyes--a perfect rustic beauty, indeed, to whom I had been kind in order to cheer up, and prevent her from growing homesick--now turned upon me and told me harshly, and to my face: 'You're an adulteress; you've been exchanging love-glances with the king!'

"Emma, I now feel the force of what you have often said to me: 'You idolize the people; but they are just as sinful and corrupt as the great world, and without education to curb and restrain them.'

"But what is the peasant woman to me, after all? Certain persons exist, only in so far as they serve our purposes.

"No, she is a good and sensible woman, and has asked me to forgive her boldness. I shall remain her friend. I shall, indeed."

"June 25th.

"The king evinces the greatest kindness toward me. It is only yesterday that he remarked to me, while passing:

"'Should you ever have a secret, confide it to me.'

"He knows full well that I could hardly go to my brother, as a sister should, and that my father is so far away.

"Colonel Bronnen, of the queen's regiment, is very attentive to me. He is usually quite reserved. Ah, how I envy those who possess such self-control. I have none. The demonstrative are always flattering themselves that their irrepressibility is simple honesty, whereas it is nothing but weakness.

"Bronnen tells me that you write to him at times. Can it be possible that a single thought of yours enters this palace, without being mine?

"I am delighted to know that we return to the summer palace in a fortnight from now. Cities ought to vanish during the summer. We ought to be able to transport our houses into the woods, among the mountains, or in the valleys, and in the winter they might be brought together again.

"Last evening, while we were sitting on the verandah, we were greatly amused by a joke of my brother Bruno's. He gave us a description of what might happen if the feet of all the four-post bedsteads in the city were endowed with life and, with their contents, were to come stalking along the garden-walks. It was very droll. Of course, there was some little that was scarcely proper; but Bruno, with all his impertinence, has so charming a manner that he knew how to couch his descriptions in most discreet yet piquant terms.

"It was this that suggested the idea of a migration of houses.

"It was a lively evening, full of merry jests that still seem to ring in my ears while I write to you.

"The king has a new walking-stick--he has quite a collection of such--and this one pays court to me.

"I am said to be intellectual, and this walking-stick is intellectual par excellence, and 'birds of a feather flock together,' you know.

"It is Baron Schnabelsdorf, privy councilor of one of the legations.

"Picture to yourself a dapper, beardless bachelor, always in faultless attire. Every one of the few hairs left him is made to do service, and is artistically brushed up into the form of a cock's comb. He passes for an authority in matters of statecraft. He has just returned from Rome, and was formerly attached to the embassies at Paris and Madrid and, if I am not mistaken, that at Stockholm, also. He is a fluent and ready anecdotist. He must have a familiar spirit who crams for him, for he knows everything, from the cut of Queen Elizabeth's sleeve to the latest discoveries in the milky-way and the recent excavations at Nineveh. The ladies and gentlemen have several times amused themselves by reading up one or more articles in the encyclopedia, and then directing their conversation to the subjects they had prepared themselves upon. But the omniscient Baron was, even then, better informed as to dates and circumstances than they were. He is always provided with a bonbonnière full of piquant anecdotes. He is almost constantly with the king, and it is rumored that a high position will soon be conferred upon him.

"What do you think of it? had I better marry him?

"My brother would like me to do so and, although he stoutly denies it, I still believe that Schnabelsdorf sent him to broach the affair to me. I could not help laughing, if I were to stand at the altar with this learned walking-stick. But it is, nevertheless, very flattering to know that so learned a man desires me as his spouse.

"I must be excessively learned and clever, and you ought to respect me accordingly.

"A thousand greetings and kisses, from

"Your ever spoiled

"Irma.

"P.S.--The queen's brother, the hereditary prince of ----, was at the christening, and his wife was also present. She rarely utters a word, but is beautiful. It is reported that the hereditary prince intends to seek a divorce from her, as she is childless. If, as really seems to be the case, she loves her husband, how terribly the poor thing must feel. She must have noticed my interest in her, for she treats me with marked favor, and has more to say to me than any one else. She wishes me to ride with her. The christening ceremonies were impressive and beautiful. At church, I wore a white moiré dress, and a veil fastened to my coiffure.

"At the banquet, Baron Schoning, the chamberlain, escorted me to the table. I am regarded here as of a highly poetic temperament, and the chamberlain has already presented me with a copy of his poems. (You know them. He has disguised his sublime emotions in the Highland dialect.) He affects my company and, while at table, told me lots of fearfully silly stuff. Well, as I was going to say, at the banquet I wore a dress of sea-green silk, cut out square à la madonna, and in my hair a simple wreath of heather. They all said that I looked very well, and I am inclined to believe that they told the truth."