"there sits the old frau himmelhahn, perched up in her owl-tower," said the baron to flemming, as they passed along the hauptstrasse. "she looks down through her round-eyed spectacles from her nest up there, and watches every one that goes by. i wonder what mischief she is hatching now? do you know she has nearly ruined your character in town? she says you have a rakish look, because you carry a cane, and your hair curls. your gloves, also, are a shade too light for a strictly virtuous man."
"it is very kind in her to take such good care of my character, particularly as i am a stranger in town. she is doubtless learned in the clothes-philosophy."
"and ignorant of every thing else. she asked a friend of mine the other day, whether christ was a catholic or a protestant."
"that is really too absurd!"
"not too absurd to be true. and, ignorant as she is, she contrives to do a good deal of mischief in the course of the year. why, the ladies already call you wilhelm meister."
"they are at liberty to call me what they please. but you, who know me better, know that i am something more than they would imply by the name."
"she says, moreover, that the american ladies sit with their feet out of the window, and have no pocket-handkerchiefs."
"excellent!"
they crossed the market-place and went up beneath the grand terrace into the court-yard of the castle.
"let us go up and sit under the great linden-trees, that grow on the summit of the rent tower," said flemming. "from that point as from awatch-tower we can look down into the garden, and see the crowd below us."
"and amuse ourselves, as old frau himmelhahn does, at her window in the hauptstrasse," added the baron.
the keeper's daughter unlocked for them the door of the tower, and, climbing the steep stair-case, they seated themselves on a wooden bench under the linden-trees.
"how beautifully these trees overgrow the old tower! and see what a solid mass of masonry lies in the great fosse down there, toppled from its base by the explosion of a mine! it is like a rusty helmet cleft in twain, but still crested with towering plumes!"
"and what a motley crowd in the garden! philisters and sons of the muses! and there goes the venerable thibaut, taking his evening stroll. do you see him there, with his silver hair flowing over his shoulders, and that friendly face, which has for so many years pored over the pandects. i assure you, he inspires me with awe. and yet he is a merry old man, and loves his joke, particularly at the expense of moses and other ancient lawgivers."
here their attention was diverted by a wild-looking person, who passed with long strides under the archway in the fosse, right beneath them, and disappeared among the bushes. he was ill-dressed,--his hair flying in the wind,--his movements hurried and nervous, and the expression of his broad countenance wild, strange, and earnest.
"who can that be!" asked flemming. "he strides away indignantly, like one of ossian's ghosts?"
"a great philosopher, whose name i have forgotten. truly a strange owl!"
"he looks like a lion with a hat on."
"he is a mystic, who reads schubert's history of the soul, and lives, for the most part, in the clouds of the middle ages. to him the spirit-world is still open. he believes in the transmigration of souls; and i dare say is now followingthe spirit of some departed friend, who has taken the form of yonder pigeon."
"what a strange hallucination! he lives, i suppose, in the land of cloud-shadows. and, as st. thomas aquinas was said to be lifted up from the ground by the fervor of his prayers, so, no doubt, is he by the fervor of his visions."
"he certainly appears to neglect all sublunary things; and, to judge from certain appearances, since you seem fond of holy similitudes, one would say, that, like st. serapion the sindonite, he had but one shirt. yet what cares he? he lives in that poetic dream-land of his thoughts, and clothes his dream-children in poetry."
"he is a poet, then, as well as a philosopher?"
"yes; but a poet who never writes a line. there is nothing in nature to which his imagination does not give a poetic hue. but the power to make others see these objects in the same poetic light, is wanting. still he is a man of fine powers and feelings; for, next to being a greatpoet, is the power of understanding one,--of finding one's-self in him, as we germans say."
three figures, dressed in black, now came from one of the green alleys, and stopped on the brink of a little fountain, that was playing among the gay flowers in the garden. the eldest of the three was a lady in that season of life, when the early autumn gives to the summer leaves a warmer glow, yet fades them not. though the mother of many children, she was still beautiful;--resembling those trees, which blossom in october, when the leaves are changing, and whose fruit and blossom are on the branch at once. at her side was a girl of some sixteen years, who seemed to lean upon her arm for support. her figure was slight; her countenance beautiful, though deadly white; and her meek eyes like the flower of the night-shade, pale and blue, but sending forth golden rays. they were attended by a tall youth of foreign aspect, who seemed a young antinous, with a mustache and a nose à la kosciusko. in other respects a perfect hero of romance.
"unless mine eyes deceive me," said the baron, "there is the frau von ilmenau, with her pale daughter emma, and that eternal polish count. he is always hovering about them, playing the unhappy exile, merely to excite that poor girl's sympathies; and as wretched as genius and wantonness can make him."
"why, he is already married, you know," replied flemming. "and his wife is young and beautiful."
"that does not prevent him from being in love with some one else. that question was decided in the courts of love in the middle ages. accordingly he has sent his fair wife to warsaw. but how pale the poor child looks."
"she has just recovered from severe illness. in the winter, you know, it was thought she would not live from hour to hour."
"and she has hardly recovered from that disease, before she seems threatened with a worse one; namely, a hopeless passion. however, people do not die of love now-a-days."
"seldom, perhaps," said flemming. "and yet it is folly to pretend that one ever wholly recovers from a disappointed passion. such wounds always leave a scar. there are faces i can never look upon without emotion. there are names i can never hear spoken without almost starting!"
"but whom have we here?"
"that is the french poet quinet, with his sweet german wife; one of the most interesting women i ever knew. he is the author of a very wild mystery, or dramatic prose-poem, in which the ocean, mont-blanc, and the cathedral of strassburg have parts to play; and the saints on the stained windows of the minster speak, and the statues and dead kings enact the dance of death. it is entitled ahasuerus, or the wandering jew."
"or, as the danes would translate it, the shoemaker of jerusalem. that would be a still more fantastic title for his fantastic book. you know i am no great admirer of the modern french school of writers. the tales of paul de kock, who is, i believe, the most popular of all, seem to me like obscene stories told at dinner-tables, after the ladies have retired. it has been well said of him, that he is not only populaire but populacier; and equally well said of george sand and victor hugo, that their works stand like fortifications, well built and well supplied with warlike munitions; but ineffectual against the grand army of god, which marches onward, as if nothing had happened. in surveying a national literature, the point you must start from, is national character. that lets you into many a secret; as, for example, paul de kock's popularity. the most prominent trait in the french character, is love of amusement, and excitement; and--"
"i should say, rather, the fear of ennui," interrupted flemming. "one of their own writers has said with a great deal of truth, that the gentry of france rush into paris to escape from ennui, as, in the noble days of chivalry, the defenceless inhabitants of the champaign fled into the castles, at theapproach of some plundering knight, or lawless baron; forsaking the inspired twilight of their native groves, for the luxurious shades of the royal gardens. what do you think of that?"
the baron replied with a smile;
"there is only one paris; and out of paris there is no salvation for decent people."
thus conversing of many things, sat the two friends under the linden-trees on the rent tower, till gradually the crowd disappeared from the garden, and the objects around them grew indistinct, in the fading twilight. between them and the amber-colored western sky, the dense foliage of the trees looked heavy and hard, as if cast in bronze; and already the evening stars hung like silver lamps in the towering branches of that tree of life, brought more than two centuries ago from its primeval paradise in america, to beautify the gardens of the palatinate.
"i take a mournful pleasure in gazing at that tree," said flemming, as they rose to depart. "it stands there so straight and tall, with iron bandsaround its noble trunk and limbs, in silent majesty, or whispering only in its native tongue, and freighting the homeward wind with sighs! it reminds me of some captive monarch of a savage tribe, brought over the vast ocean for a show, and chained in the public market-place of the city, disdainfully silent, or breathing only in melancholy accents a prayer for his native forest, a longing to be free."
"magnificent!" cried the baron. "i always experience something of the same feeling when i walk through a conservatory. the luxuriant plants of the tropics,--those illustrious exotics, with their gorgeous, flamingo-colored blossoms, and great, flapping leaves, like elephant's ears,--have a singular working upon my imagination; and remind me of a menagerie and wild-beasts kept in cages. but your illustration is finer;--indeed, a grand figure. put it down for an epic poem."
