At this critical moment Lucidor felt himself again as one who has been charged with a trust, and, steeled with all his juristic science, he recalled to mind in his own favor that beautiful maxim: that we ought to treat the affairs of strangers committed to our trust as our own; and why should we not treat our own in just the same spirit. As he was well exercised in business statements, he quickly ran through all he had to say. Meantime the company, placed in a formal semicircle, seemed to be too much for him. The substance of his statement he knew well enough, but he could not find the beginning. Then on a table he observed the great inkstand, with some legal officials standing by; the high-bailiff made a movement, as if to begin his address; Lucidor wanted to precede him, and at the same moment Julia pressed his hand. This took away all his presence of mind; he was convinced that it was all decided, that all was lost for him.
LUCIDOR AND LUCINDA.
Now it was no longer the time when the present collective lifelong associations or these family ties, conventionalities of society and position, should be respected; he looked before him, withdrew his hand from Julia, and was so quickly outside the door that the company lost him before they were aware of it, and he himself outside scarcely knew where he was.
Fearing the light of the sun, which shone on his head in fullest splendor, avoiding the glances of people that he met, groping along timidly, he went onwards until he reached the large summer-house. At this point his knees were about to fail him; he rushed in, and disconsolately threw himself on the ottoman beneath the looking-glass: into such confusion had he been thrown in the midst of the precise business-like company, which seemed to be surging backwards and forwards around and within him. His past existence struggled with the present: it was a terrible moment.
And thus he lay for a time, with his face buried in the cushion, upon which Lucinda’s arm had yesterday been resting. Completely absorbed in his grief, feeling himself touched, without having perceived any one approach, he quickly raised himself; then he saw Lucinda, who was standing near him.
Fancying that she had been sent to fetch him, and charged to induce him with suitable sisterly words to accompany her back to the assembly, to his repugnant destiny, he exclaimed: “They ought not to have sent you, Lucinda, for it is you who drove me away from there; I shall not return! Give me, if you are capable of any pity, the opportunity and means for flight. For in order that you may bear witness how impossible it is to bring me back, then receive the key to my behavior, which to you and all must seem madness. Listen to the oath which I had sworn to myself, and which, as irretrievable, I now repeat aloud. With you only I wished to live, to use and enjoy my youth, and old age as well, in its true and honest completion. And let this be as firm and sure as anything that has ever been sworn before the altar, which I now swear, in leaving you, the most pitiable of all mankind.” He made a movement to slip away from her, as she stood so close in front of him, but she caught him gently in her arms.
“What are you going to do?” he exclaimed.
“Lucidor,” she said, “not pity you, as you imagine, perhaps; you are mine, I am yours. I hold you in my arms; do not be afraid of throwing yours round me. Your father is satisfied with everything; Antony is to marry my sister.”
He drew back from her, astounded.
“Can it be true?”
Lucinda laughed, and nodded; he freed himself from her arms.
“Let me once more behold at a distance her who is to belong so nearly, so closely to me.” He seized her hands.
“Face to face, Lucinda, are you mine?”
She replied, “Yes, indeed,” with the sweetest tears in the truest of eyes. He embraced her, and threw his head behind hers; he clung there like a shipwrecked man to a rock on the shore; the floor still trembled beneath him. But now his enraptured glance, opening again, fell upon the looking-glass. Then he beheld her in his arms, himself folded in hers; he looked towards it again and again. Such feelings accompany a man all through his life; at the same time, too, he saw on the mirror’s face the landscape, that but yesterday had seemed to him so gray and forbidding, now more splendid and glorious than ever: and himself in such a position on such a background! — a sufficient reward for all sufferings.
“We are not alone,” said Lucinda, and scarcely had he recovered from his rapture, when there appeared girls and boys, decked out and garlanded, carrying wreaths, filling up the entrance.
“That ought all to have been different,” exclaimed Lucinda. “How nicely it was arranged, and now it is all clumsily mixed up.” A stirring march sounded from afar, and they saw the company merrily coming in procession up the wide road. He hesitated to go to meet them, and only on her arm seemed sure of his steps. She remained at his side, awaiting from moment to moment the solemn scene of re-meeting, and of a pardon already granted.
But it had been fated differently by the mischievous gods; the merry, ringing tones of a post-horn from the opposite side seemed to throw the whole ceremony into confusion. “Who can be coming?” exclaimed Lucinda.
Lucidor shuddered at a strange presence, and the carriage too seemed quite strange. A new double-seated travelling-chaise of the latest make. She ran into the saloon. A remarkably well-dressed boy jumped down from behind, opened the door, but no one got out. The carriage was empty; the boy got in, with a few dexterous pulls he threw back the covering, and in an instant the pretty contrivance was prepared for a most pleasant drive before the eyes of all the company, who, in the meantime, had come up. Antony, hurrying in advance of the rest, handed Julia to the carriage.
“Try whether this sort of vehicle will suit you,” he said, “to drive in with me along the best roads through the world. I shall take you along no other ones; and if ever it should come to a pinch we will know how to help ourselves. Pack-horses ought to be able to carry us across the mountain and the carriage too.”
“You are a darling!” exclaimed Julia.
The boy stepped forward, and, with the dexterity of a conjuror, he showed all the conveniences, small advantages and contrivances of the whole light structure.
“On the earth I am unable to thank you,” exclaimed Julia; “only from this little movable heaven, from this cloud to which you raise me, I desire to thank you most cordially.”
She had already jumped into it, throwing a kind glance and a hand-kiss towards him.
“For the present you must not come in it with me; but there is another whom I think of taking with me on this trial drive. He has a trial still to undergo, too.”
She called to Lucidor, who, just then engaged in a diffident conversation with his father and father-in-law, gladly allowed himself to be pressed into the light vehicle, since he felt an unconquerable need of only a moment’s distraction in some way or other. He sat down by her; she called to the postilion how he should go. In the twinkling of an eye they disappeared, enveloped in dust, from the sight of the astonished spectators left behind. Julia settled herself closely and comfortably in the corner.
“Now you, too, lean back here, Herr Brother-in-law, that we may conveniently look at each other.”
Lucidor.
“You see my confusion, my embarrassment. I am still as in a dream; help me out of it.”
Julia.
“Look at the nice-looking village people, how civilly they greet us. During your stay here you have actually never been to the upper village: all well-to-do people, who are all partial to me. There is no one so rich that one cannot oblige him in some way or other by some important service. This road, along which we are driving so comfortably, my father laid out, and so set this good state of things on foot.”
Lucidor.
“I willingly believe it, and grant it; but what have these external things to do with the confusion of my mind?”
Julia.
“Only patience, I want to show you the kingdoms of the world and the glory thereof, now we are up above! How clearly the level plain lies against the mountains! All these villages owe a great deal to my father, and t
o mother and daughters too, I dare say. The outskirts of that little town yonder are the first boundaries.”
Lucidor.
“I see you are in a strange mood. You do not seem to say outright what you wished to say.”
Julia.
“Now look down here on the left, how beautifully everything discloses itself! The church with its high lime-trees, the town-house with its poplars, behind the village mound. The gardens, too, are lying before us, and the park.”
The postilion drove faster.
Julia.
“You recognize that pavilion up there; it looks just as pretty from here as the landscape does from there. At this tree we stop. Now, just at this spot, we are reflected up there in the large glass surface. They can see us there very well, but we cannot distinguish ourselves. Drive on! Probably it is not long since two people have reflected themselves there more closely, and, if I’m not much mistaken, with great mutual satisfaction.”
Lucidor in his vexation made no reply. They drove along for a while in silence; the pace was very swift.
“Here,” said Julia, “the bad road begins; some day you may make it a credit to you. Before we drive downwards look once more across the country: my mother’s beech-tree, with its magnificent summit, towers above everything.
“You drive on,” she continued to the coachman, “along the bad road; we will take the footpath through the valley, and will arrive over there before you.”
In descending, she exclaimed: “You must confess, however, that the Wandering Jew, the restless Antony Roamer, knows how to make his pilgrimages tolerably comfortable for himself and his companions. It is a very handsome and comfortable carriage.”
And by this time she was at the bottom of the hill. Lucidor followed thoughtfully, and found her sitting on a nicely-placed bench. It was Lucinda’s favorite place. She beckoned him to her.
Julia.
“So we are sitting here, and are nothing to one another! — and yet it was to have been so. The little Quicksilver would not have at all suited you. You could not love such a creature; she was repugnant to you.”
Lucidor’s astonishment increased.
Julia.
“But Lucinda, now — she is the compendium of all perfections, and the pretty sister was once for all cut out. I see it; the question is trembling on your lips — who could have informed us so correctly?”
Lucidor.
“A traitor lurks behind.”
Julia.
“Yes, indeed, there is a traitor in the game.”
Lucidor.
“Name him.”
Julia.
“He is soon unmasked. It is yourself! You have the praiseworthy, or blameworthy, habit of talking to yourself, and so I will confess, in the name of all of us, that we have in turns overheard you.”
Lucidor
(jumping up). “A nice sort of hospitality, to set a trap for the guest in this way!”
Julia.
“Not at all. We did not think of listening to you more than to any other individual. You know that your bed stands in a recess in the wall, and on the opposite side there is another, which generally serves only as a domestic repository. There we had, a few days before, forced our old gentleman to sleep, because we were a good deal concerned about him in his distant hermitage. Now on the very first evening you entered on the affair with that passionate soliloquy, the purport of which he most opportunely disclosed to us the next morning.”
Lucidor had no heart to interrupt her. He moved away.
Julia
(rising and following him). “And of what service this declaration was to us! For, I confess, although you were not precisely antipathic to me, still the position that awaited me was by no means so desirable. To become a ‘Madam High-bailiff,’ — what a horrible position! To get a good, honest man, whose duty it is to declare the law to the people, and who by sheer weight of law can never attain to justice; who does justice neither by laws above nor below, and, what is worst, not even to himself. I know what my mother has suffered from the incorruptibility, the inflexibility, of my father. At last, unfortunately after her death, he began to display a certain tenderness. He seemed to accommodate himself to the world; to reconcile himself to it, having hitherto vainly fought against it.”
Lucidor
(highly displeased at the affair, and vexed at her frivolous treatment of it — stands still). “For the diversion of one evening this might pass; but to practise such a mortifying mystification for days and nights on an unsuspecting guest, is unpaidonable.”
Julia.
“We have all shared in the guilt, we have all overheard you; but I alone expiate the guilt of listening.”
Lucidor.
“All! So much the more unpardonable. And how could you, during the day, look, without feeling abashed, at one whom you so disgracefully and illegitimately cheated by night? Still, I now see quite clearly in a glance that all your arrangements for the day were only calculated to make a fool of me. A worthy family indeed! And what becomes of your father’s love of fairness? And Lucinda — ”
Julia.
“ ‘And Lucinda,’ — what a tone! You would say how deeply it grieves you to think evil of Lucinda, to throw Lucinda into the same class with all the rest of us.”
Lucidor.
“I do not understand Lucinda.”
Julia.
“You mean to say, This pure soul, this quiet, composed being; goodness, benevolence personified; this woman as she ought to be, associating herself with a frivolous company — with an inconsiderate sister, a spoiled youngster, and certain other mysterious persons — that remains incomprehensible.”
Lucidor.
“Yes, it is indeed incomprehensible.”
Julia.
“Well, then, comprehend it. Lucinda’s hands, like those of all of us, were tied. If you had been able to observe her embarrassment, and how she could hardly restrain herself from revealing everything to you, you would love her doubly and trebly, if every true love were not on its own account ten and hundred-fold. Besides, I assure you the joke in the end became tedious to all of us.”
Lucidor.
“Why did you not put an end to it?”
Julia.
“That too must now be explained. When your first monologue had become known to our father, and he could soon observe that none of his children had any objection to such an exchange, then he determined to go over at once to your father. The importance of the business gave him some misgivings. Only a father can feel the respect that is due to a father. “He must be informed about it at the very first,” said mine, “if afterwards, when we are agreed, he is not to give a forced, reluctant consent. I know him exactly; I know how firmly he keeps to any thought, inclination or plan, and I am anxious enough about it. He has mixed up Julia, his maps and views, so closely in his thoughts, that he has already formed the plan of finally establishing everything here, when the day should come for the young couple to settle down here, and could not so easily change position and place: then he would devote to us every holiday, and whatever of kindness and goodness he had in mind. He must first know what a trick nature had played upon us, for as yet nothing has been declared, nothing decided.” Thereupon he took from us all the most solemn hand-pledge that we would watch you and, happen what might, would keep you here. How his return has been delayed, how it has cost art, labor and perseverance to obtain your father’s consent, that you may hear from him yourself. Enough, the thing is settled, and Lucinda is granted to you.”
And thus the two, quickly leaving their first seat, but stopping on the road, talking continuously, and slowly walking onwards, had reached an elevation on the other side of the meadows and another well-constructed highroad.
The carriage came driving quickly towards them; in a moment she directed her companion’s attention to a strange spectacle. All the machinery in which her brother took such pride was now animated and in motion; the wheels were conveying a number of people up and down, swing
s were oscillating, poles were being climbed, and you might see essayed all kinds of bold leaps and springs above the heads of a countless multitude.
All this the young squire had put into motion, in order to entertain the guests merrily after dinner.
“You will still drive through the lower village,” exclaimed Julia; “the people like me, and they shall see how happy I am.”
The village was deserted; the young men had already hastened, one and all, towards the pleasure-ground; old men and women, aroused by the post-horn, showed themselves at doors and windows; they were all greetings and blessings, and exclamations: “What a handsome couple!”
Julia.
“There now, you hear! we should probably have suited one another in the end; you may still repent it.”
Lucidor.
“But now, dear sister-in-law — ”
Julia.
“Just so! — ’dear,’ now that you have got rid of me.”
Lucidor.
“Only a word more. There rests a heavy responsibility upon you; what was the meaning of that pressing of my hand, when you knew and must have felt my awful position? Anything so thoroughly wicked I have never yet known in this world.”
Julia.
“Thank God, if that were expiated, all would be forgiven! I did not want you it is true; but, that you would have nothing to do with me, is a thing that no girl forgives, and that pressure of the hand, you see, was for the wretch. I confess that it was more villanous than was right, and I only forgive myself in forgiving you, and so let all be forgiven and forgotten! Here is my hand.”
He accepted it, and exclaimed: “Here we are back again already — already back in our park; and so you will probably soon have made the round of the wide world and perhaps back: we shall meet again.”
Works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Page 117