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Various - "Stories by American Authors, Volume 6"

Edward Robins - "The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield"

Amedee Delorme - "Journal d'un sous officier, 1870"

Frank V. Webster - "Comrades of the Saddle"

Gray Gets New Ingram Role; Lovett Heading Ingram Digital
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The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV by Editor in Chief: Kuno Francke

E >> Editor in Chief: Kuno Francke >> The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV




"Really, have you forgotten already about yesterday evening and the
interesting company? Of course I did not know that."

"Oh! And so that is why you are so out of sorts--because I talked with
Amalia too much?"

"Talk as much as you please with anybody you please. But you must be
nice to me--that I insist on."

"You spoke so very loud; the stranger was standing close by, and I was
nervous and did not know what else to do."

"Except to be rude in your awkwardness."

"Forgive me! I plead guilty. You know how embarrassed I am with you in
society. It always hurts me to talk with you in the presence of
others."

"How nicely he manages to excuse himself!"

"The next time do not pass it over! Look out and be strict with me.
But see what you have done! Isn't it a desecration? Oh no! It isn't
possible, it is more than that. You will have to confess it--you were
jealous."

"All the evening you rudely forgot about me. I began to write it all
out for you today, but tore it up."

"And then, when I came?"

"Your being in such an awful hurry annoyed me."

"Could you love me if I were not so inflammable and electric? Are you
not so too? Have you forgotten our first embrace? In one minute love
comes and lasts for ever, or it does not come at all. Or do you think
that joy is accumulated like money and other material things, by
consistent behavior? Great happiness is like music coming out of the
air--it appears and surprises us and then vanishes again."

"And thus it was you appeared to me, darling! But you will not vanish,
will you? You shall not! I say it!"

"I will not, I will stay with you now and for all time. Listen! I feel
a strong desire to hold a long discourse with you on jealousy. But
first we ought to conciliate the offended gods."

"Rather, first the discourse and afterward the gods."

"You are right, we are not yet worthy of them. It takes you a long
time to get over it after you have been disturbed and annoyed about
something. How nice it is that you are so sensitive!"

"I am no more sensitive than you are--only in a different way."

"Well then, tell me! I am not jealous--how does it happen that you
are?"

"Am I, unless I have cause to be? Answer me that!"

"I do not know what you mean."

"Well, I am not really jealous. But tell me: What were you talking
about all yesterday evening?"

"So? It is Amalia of whom you are jealous? Is it possible? That
nonsense? I did not talk about anything with her, and that was the
funny part of it. Did I not talk just as long with Antonio, whom a
short time ago I used to see almost every day?"

"You want me to believe that you talk in the same way with the
coquettish Amalia that you do with the quiet, serious Antonio. Of
course! It is nothing more than a case of clear, pure friendship!"

"Oh no, you must not believe that--I do not wish you to. That is not
true. How can you credit me with being so foolish? For it is a very
foolish thing indeed for two people of opposite sex to form and
conceive any such relation as pure friendship. In Amalia's case it is
nothing more than playing that I love her. I should not care anything
about her at all, if she were not a little coquettish.

"Would that there were more like her in our circle! Just in fun, one
must really love all the ladies."

"Julius, I believe you are going completely crazy!"

"Now understand me aright--I do not really mean all of them, but all
of them who are lovable and happen to come one's way."

"That is nothing more than what the French call _galanterie_ and
_coquetterie_."

"Nothing more--except that I think of it as something beautiful and
clever. And then men ought to know what the ladies are doing and what
they want; and that is rarely the case. A fine pleasantry is apt to be
transformed in their hands into coarse seriousness."

"This loving just in fun is not at all a funny thing to look at."

"That is not the fault of the fun--it is just miserable jealousy.
Forgive me, dearest--I do not wish to get excited, but I must confess
that I cannot understand how any one can be jealous. For lovers do not
offend each other, but do things to please each other. Hence it must
come from uncertainty, absence of love, and unfaithfulness to oneself.
For me happiness is assured, and love is one with constancy. To be
sure, it is a different matter with people who love in the ordinary
way. The man loves only the race in his wife, the woman in her husband
only the degree of his ability and social position, and both love in
their children only their creation and their property. Under those
circumstances fidelity comes to be a merit, a virtue, and jealousy is
in order. For they are quite right in tacitly believing that there are
many like themselves, and that one man is about as good as the next,
and none of them worth very much."

"You look upon jealousy, then, as nothing but empty vulgarity and lack
of culture."

"Yes, or rather as mis-culture and perversity, which is just as bad or
still worse. According to that system the best thing for a man to do
is to marry of set purpose out of sheer obligingness and courtesy.
And certainly for such folk it must be no less convenient than
entertaining, to live out their lives together in a state of mutual
contempt. Women especially are capable of acquiring a genuine passion
for marriage; and when one of them finds it to her liking, it easily
happens that she marries half a dozen in succession, either
spiritually or bodily. And the opportunity is never wanting for a man
and wife to be delicate for a change, and talk a great deal about
friendship."

"You used to talk as if you regarded us women as incapable of
friendship. Is that really your opinion?"

"Yes, but the incapability, I think, lies more in the friendship than
in you. Whatever you love at all, you love indivisibly; for instance,
a sweetheart or a baby. With you even a sisterly relation would assume
this character."

"You are right there."

"For you friendship is too many-sided and one-sided. It has to be
absolutely spiritual and have definite, fixed bounds. This boundedness
would, only in a more refined way, be just as fatal to your character
as would sheer sensuality without love. For society, on the other
hand, it is too serious, too profound, too holy."

"Cannot people, then, talk with each other regardless of whether they
are men or women?"

"That might make society rather serious. At best, it might form an
interesting club. You understand what I mean: it would be a great
gain, if people could talk freely, and were neither too wild nor yet
too stiff. The finest and best part would always be lacking--that
which is everywhere the spirit and soul of good society--namely, that
playing with love and that love of play which, without the finer
sense, easily degenerates into jocosity. And for that reason I defend
the ambiguities too."

"Do you do that in play or by way of joke?"

"No! No! I do it in all seriousness."

"But surely not as seriously and solemnly as Pauline and her lover?"

"Heaven forbid! I really believe they would ring the church-bell when
they embrace each other, if it were only proper. Oh, it is true, my
friend, man is naturally a serious animal. We must work against this
shameful and abominable propensity with all our strength, and attack
it from all sides. To that end ambiguities are also good, except that
they are so seldom ambiguous. When they are not and allow only one
interpretation, that is not immoral, it is only obtrusive and vulgar.
Frivolous talk must be spiritual and dainty and modest, so far as
possible; for the rest as wicked as you choose."

"That is well enough, but what place have your ambiguities in
society?"

"To keep the conversations fresh, just as salt keeps food fresh. The
question is not _why_ we say them, but _how_ we say them. It would be
rude indeed to talk with a charming lady as if she were a sexless
Amphibium. It is a duty and an obligation to allude constantly to what
she is and is going to be. It is really a comical situation,
considering how indelicate, stiff and guilty society is, to be an
innocent girl."

"That reminds me of the famous Buffo, who, while he was always making
others laugh, was so sad and solemn himself."

"Society is a chaos which can be brought into harmonious order only by
wit. If one does not jest and toy with the elements of passion, it
forms thick masses and darkens everything."

"Then there must be passion in the air here, for it is almost dark."

"Surely you have closed your eyes, lady of my heart! Otherwise the
light in them would brighten the whole room."

"I wonder, Julius, who is the more passionate, you or I?"

"Both of us are passionate enough. If that were not so, I should not
want to live. And see! That is why I could reconcile myself to
jealousy. There is everything in love--friendship, pleasant
intercourse, sensuality, and even passion. Everything must be in it,
and one thing must strengthen, mitigate, enliven and elevate the
other."

"Let me embrace you, darling."

"But only on one condition can I allow you to be jealous. I have often
felt that a little bit of cultured and refined anger does not
ill-become a man. Perhaps it is the same way with you in regard to
jealousy."

"Agreed! Then I do not have to abjure it altogether."

"If only you always manifest it as prettily and as wittily as you did
today."

"Did I? Well, if next time you get into so pretty and witty a passion
about it, I shall say so and praise you for it."

"Are we not worthy now to conciliate the offended gods?"

"Yes, if your discourse is entirely finished; otherwise give me the
rest." [32]

METAMORPHOSES

The childlike spirit slumbers in sweet repose, and the kiss of the
loving goddess arouses in him only light dreams. The rose of shame
tinges his cheek; he smiles and seems to open his lips, but he does
not awaken and he knows not what is going on within him. Not until
after the charm of the external world, multiplied and reinforced by an
inner echo, has completely permeated his entire being, does he open
his eyes, reveling in the sun, and recall to mind the magic world
which he saw in the gleam of the pale moonlight. The wondrous voice
that awakened him is still audible, but instead of answering him it
echoes back from external objects. And if in childish timidity he
tries to escape from the mystery of his existence, seeking the unknown
with beautiful curiosity, he hears everywhere only the echo of his own
longing.

Thus the eye sees in the mirror of the river only the reflection of
the blue sky, the green banks, the waving trees, and the form of the
absorbed gazer. When a heart, full of unconscious love, finds itself
where it hoped to find love in return, it is struck with amazement.
But we soon allow ourselves to be lured and deceived by the charm of
the view into loving our own reflection. Then has the moment of
winsomeness come, the soul fashions its envelop again, and breathes
the final breath of perfection through form. The spirit loses itself
in its clear depth and finds itself again, like Narcissus, as a
flower.

Love is higher than winsomeness, and how soon would the flower of
Beauty wither without the complementary birth of requited love. This
moment the kiss of Amor and Psyche is the rose of life. The inspired
Diotima revealed to Socrates only a half of love. Love is not merely a
quiet longing for the infinite; it is also the holy enjoyment of a
beautiful present. It is not merely a mixture, a transition from the
mortal to the immortal, but it is a complete union of both. There is a
pure love, an indivisible and simple feeling, without the slightest
interference of restless striving. Every one gives the same as he
takes, one just like the other, all is balanced and completed in
itself, like the everlasting kiss of the divine children.

By the magic of joy the grand chaos of struggling forms dissolves into
a harmonious sea of oblivion. When the ray of happiness breaks in the
last tear of longing, Iris is already adorning the eternal brow of
heaven with the delicate tints of her many-colored rainbow. Sweet
dreams come true, and the pure forms of a new generation rise up out
of Lethe's waves, beautiful as Anadyomene, and exhibit their limbs in
the place of the vanished darkness. In golden youth and innocence time
and man change in the divine peace of nature, and evermore Aurora
comes back more beautiful than before.

Not hate, as the wise say, but love, separates people and fashions the
world; and only in its light can we find this and observe it. Only in
the answer of its Thou can every I completely feel its endless unity.
Then the understanding tries to unfold the inner germ of godlikeness,
presses closer and closer to the goal, is full of eagerness to fashion
the soul, as an artist fashions his one beloved masterpiece. In the
mysteries of culture the spirit sees the play and the laws of caprice
and of life. The statue of Pygmalion moves; a joyous shudder comes
over the astonished artist in the consciousness of his own
immortality, and, as the eagle bore Ganymede, a divine hope bears him
on its mighty pinion up to Olympus.

TWO LETTERS

I

Is it then really and truly so, what I have so often quietly wished
for and have never dared to express? I see the light of holy joy
beaming on your face, and you modestly give me the beautiful promise.
You are to be a mother!

Farewell, Longing, and thou, gentle Grief, farewell; the world is
beautiful again. Now I love the earth, and the rosy dawn of a new
spring lifts its radiant head over my immortal existence. If I had
some laurel, I would bind it around your brow to consecrate you to new
and serious duties; for there begins now for you another life.
Therefore, give to me the wreath of myrtle. It befits me to adorn
myself with the symbol of youthful innocence, since I now wander in
Nature's Paradise. Hitherto all that held us together was love and
passion. Now Nature has united us more firmly with an indissoluble
bond. Nature is the only true priestess of joy; she alone knows how to
tie the nuptial knot, not with empty words that bring no blessing, but
with fresh blossoms and living fruits from the fullness of her power.
In the endless succession of new forms creating Time plaits the wreath
of Eternity, and blessed is he whom Fortune selects to be healthy and
bear fruit. We are not sterile flowers among other living beings; the
gods do not wish to exclude us from the great concatenation of living
things, and are giving us plain tokens of their will.

So let us deserve our position in this beautiful world, let us bear
the immortal fruits which the spirit chooses to create, and let us
take our place in the ranks of humanity. I will establish myself on
the earth, I will sow and reap for the future as well as for the
present. I will utilize all my strength during the day, and in the
evening I will refresh myself in the arms of the mother, who will be
eternally my bride. Our son, the demure little rogue, will play around
us, and help me invent mischief at your expense.

* * * * *

You are right; we must certainly buy the little estate. I am glad that
you went right ahead with the arrangements, without waiting for my
decision. Order everything just as you please; but, if I may say so,
do not have it too beautiful, nor yet too useful, and, above all
things, not too elaborate.

If you only arrange it all in accordance with your own judgment and do
not allow yourself to be talked into the proper and conventional,
everything will be quite right, and the way I want it to be; and I
shall derive immense enjoyment from the beautiful property. Hitherto I
have lived in a thoughtless way and without any feeling of ownership;
I have tripped lightly over the earth and have never felt at home on
it. Now the sanctuary of marriage has given me the rights of
citizenship in the state of nature. I am no longer suspended in the
empty void of general inspiration; I like the friendly restraint, I
see the useful in a new light, and find everything truly useful that
unites everlasting love with its object--in short everything that
serves to bring about a genuine marriage. External things imbue me
with profound respect, if, in their way, they are good for something;
and you will some day hear me enthusiastically praise the blessedness
of home and the merits of domesticity.

I understand now your preference for country life, I like you for it
and feel as you do about it. I can no longer endure to see these
ungainly masses of everything that is corrupt and diseased in mankind;
and when I think about them in a general way they seem to me like wild
animals bound by a chain, so that they cannot even vent their rage
freely. In the country, people can live side by side without
offensively crowding one another. If everything were as it ought to
be, beautiful mansions and cosy cottages would there adorn the green
earth, as do the fresh shrubs and flowers, and create a garden worthy
of the gods.

To be sure we shall find in the country the vulgarity that prevails
everywhere. There ought really to be only two social classes, the
culturing and the cultured, the masculine and the feminine; instead of
all artificial society, there should be a grand marriage of these two
classes and universal brotherhood of all individuals. In place of that
we see a vast amount of coarseness and, as an insignificant exception,
a few who are perverted by a wrong education. But in the open air the
one thing which is beautiful and good cannot be suppressed by the bad
masses and their show of omnipotence.

Do you know what period of our love seems to me particularly
beautiful? To be sure, it is all beautiful and pure in my memory, and
I even think of the first days with a sort of melancholy delight. But
to me the most cherished period of all is the last few days, when we
were living together on the estate. Another reason for living again in
the country.

One thing more. Do not have the grapevines trimmed too close. I say
this only because you thought they were growing too fast and
luxuriantly, and because it might occur to you to want a perfectly
clear view of the house on all sides. Also the green grass-plot must
stay as it is; that is where the baby is to crawl and play and roll
about.

Is it not true that the pain my sad letter caused you is now entirely
compensated? In the midst of all these giddy joys and hopes I can no
longer torment myself with care. You yourself suffered no greater pain
from it than I. But what does that matter, if you love me, really love
me in your very heart, without any reservation of alien thought? What
pain were worth mentioning when we gain by it a deeper and more fervid
consciousness of our love? And so, I am sure, you feel about it too.
Everything I am telling you, you knew long ago. There is absolutely no
delight, no love in me, the cause of which does not lie concealed
somewhere in the depths of your being, you everlastingly blessed
creature!

Misunderstandings are sometimes good, in that they lead us to talk of
what is holiest. The differences that now and then seem to arise are
not in us, not in either of us; they are merely between us and on the
surface, and I hope you will take this occasion to drive them off and
away from you.

And what is the cause of such little repulsions except our mutual and
insatiable desire to love and be loved? And without this
insatiableness there is no love. We live and love to annihilation. And
if it is love that first develops us into true and perfect beings,
that is the very life of life, then it need not fear opposition any
more than it fears life itself or humanity; peace will come to it only
after the conflict of forces.

I feel happy indeed that I love a woman who is capable of loving as
you do. "As you do" is a stronger expression than any superlative. How
can you praise my words, when I, without wishing to, hit upon some
that hurt you? I should like to say, I write too well to be able to
describe to you my inward state of mind. Oh, dearest! Believe me,
there is no question in you that has not its answer in me. Your love
cannot be any more everlasting than mine. Admirable, however, is your
beautiful jealousy of my fancy and its wild flights. That indicates
rightly the boundlessness of your constancy, and leads me to hope that
your jealousy is on the point of destroying itself by its own excess.

This sort of fancy--committed to writing--is no longer needed. I shall
soon be with you. I am holier and more composed than I was. I can only
see you in my mind and stand always before you. You yourself feel
everything without my telling you, and beam with joy, thinking partly
of the man you love and partly of your baby.

* * * * *

Do you know, while I have been writing to you, no memory could have
profaned you; to me you are as everlastingly pure as the Holy Virgin
of the Immaculate Conception, and you have wanted nothing to make you
like the Madonna except the Child. Now you have that, now it is there
and a reality. I shall soon be carrying him on my arm, telling him
fairy-tales, giving him serious instruction and lessons as to how a
young man has to conduct himself in the world.

And then my mind reverts to the mother. I give you an endless kiss; I
watch your bosom heave with longing, and feel the mysterious throbbing
of your heart. When we are together again we will think of our youth,
and I will keep the present holy. You are right indeed; one hour later
is infinitely later.

It is cruel that I cannot be with you right now. From sheer impatience
I do all sorts of foolish things. From morning until night I do
nothing but rove around here in this glorious region. Sometimes I
hasten my steps, as if I had something terribly important to do, and
presently find myself in some place where I had not the least desire
to be. I make gestures as if I were delivering a forcible speech; I
think I am alone and suddenly find myself among people. Then I have to
smile when I realize how absent-minded I was.

I cannot write very long either; pretty soon I want to go out again
and dream away the beautiful evening on the bank of the quiet stream.

Today I forgot among other things that it was time to send my letter
off. Oh well, so much the more joy and excitement will you have when
you receive it.

* * * * *

People are really very good to me. They not only forgive me for not
taking any part in their conversation, but also for capriciously
interrupting it. In a quiet way they seem even to derive hearty
pleasure from my joy. Especially Juliana. I tell her very little about
you, but she has a good intuition and surmises the rest. Certainly
there is nothing more amiable than pure, unselfish delight in love.

I really believe that I should love my friends here, even if they were
less admirable than they are. I feel a great change in my being, a
general tenderness and sweet warmth in all the powers of my soul and
spirit, like the beautiful exhaustion of the senses that follows the
highest life. And yet it is anything but weakness. On the contrary, I
know that from now on I shall be able to do everything pertaining to
my vocation with more liking and with fresher vigor. I have never felt
more confidence and courage to work as a man among men, to lead a
heroic life, and in joyous fraternal cooeperation to act for eternity.

That is my virtue; thus it becomes me to be like the gods. Yours is
gently to reveal, like Nature's priestess of joy, the mystery of love;
and, surrounded by worthy sons and daughters, to hallow this beautiful
life into a holy festival.

* * * * *

I often worry about your health. You dress yourself too lightly and
are fond of the evening air; those are dangerous habits and are not
the only ones which you must break. Remember that a new order of
things is beginning for you. Hitherto I have praised your frivolity,
because it was opportune and in keeping with the rest of your nature.
I thought it feminine for you to play with Fortune, to flout caution,
to destroy whole masses of your life and environment. Now, however,
there is something that you must always bear in mind, and regard
above everything else. You must gradually train yourself--in the
allegorical sense, of course.

* * * * *

In this letter everything is all mixed up in a motley confusion, just
as praying and eating and rascality and ecstasy are mixed up in life.
Well, good night. Oh, why is it that I cannot at least be with you in
my dreams--be really with you and dream in you. For when I merely
dream of you, I am always alone. You wonder why you do not dream of
me, since you think of me so much. Dearest, do you not also have your
long spells of silence about me?

* * * * *

Amalia's letter gave me great pleasure. To be sure, I see from its
flattering tone that she does not consider me as an exception to the
men who need flattery. I do not like that at all. It would not be fair
to ask her to recognize my worth in our way. It is enough that there
is one who understands me. In her way she appreciates my worth so
beautifully. I wonder if she knows what adoration is? I doubt it, and
am sorry for her if she does not. Aren't you?