Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature – 3. The Reaction in France

45

"The morning he suffered his terrible sentence, ere yet it was day, the warder entered and said: 'Come! the hour is about to strike.' Then he fell on my breast for the last time, crying: 'Say a word, a word of power, to strengthen me for the last steps I am to take on earth!' And I said … But, Fredrik, you frighten me. What is it? Why do you rise and gaze on me thus, pale as a corpse? Fredrik– O mother! mother! stop! You said: 'When you stand before your Creator, say: My God and my Brother, forgive me for the sake of Thy passion, of my repentance, and of my mother!' Gertrud– Oh, tell how you know this? Fredrik– Because it was to me you spoke; not till this moment have I understood myself; I am your own son, now living life over again."

46

The apparition of a person, which appears to himself. There being no exact English equivalent of "Doppelgänger" and "Doppelgängerei," these words are retained throughout in German. —Transl.

47

Taine: De l'Intelligence, ii. 169.

48

"He. Then tell who you are!

"I. I am a man whose one and only aim has been the beautiful, the good, the true. I have never sacrificed to idols, never pandered to the foolish requirements of fashion; the pain caused by misunderstanding and scorn I have disregarded. In my wanderings, in my dreams, I have indeed often taken smoke for flame, but the moment I awoke I upheld what I knew to be the right. Can you say the same?

"He (with a wild, loud, grating laugh). I am not the man that you boast yourself to be, but one of a very different character. I am a cowardly, untruthful wretch, a hypocrite to myself and others; my heart is the home of selfishness, deceit is on my tongue. You misunderstood hero of the many sufferings, which of us is it that knows himself? which of us has given the true description? which is the real man? Come here and take my place if you dare? I am ready to make way for you.

"I (with horrible conviction). You are the man! Stay here and let me slink away! – And out into the night I went, to weep."

49

A. Ruge, Werke, i. 247, &c.

50

"We deem that man wise who seeks a companion for his nightly couch; then he also is wise who has a beloved among the dead."

51

"I forgive envy; pity I cannot forgive. It is beyond my power to tell how I revel in the thought of my approaching transfiguration, my sacrificial death. O brother! the time is surely drawing nigh when all men, truly understanding death, will welcome him with glad embrace, will feel that life is but the anticipation of love, that death is the bridal kiss, and dissolution, which with a bridegroom's ardour disrobes us in the bridal chamber, the hottest fire of love."

52

"Thither I go, and there every pain will be a thrill of rapture. Ere long I shall be free, be lying, intoxicated with ecstasy, in the bosom of love."

53

"Wenige wissen
Das Geheimnis der Liebe,
Fühlen Unersättlichkeit
Und ewigen Durst.
Des Abendmahls
Göttliche Bedeutung
Ist den irdischen Sinnen Rätsel;
Aber wer jemals
Von heissen, geliebten Lippen
Atem des Lebens sog,
Wem heilige Glut
In zitternden Wellen das Herz schmolz
Wem das Auge aufging,
Dass er des Himmels
Unergründliche Tiefe mass,
Wird essen von seinem Leibe
Und trinken von seinem Blute
Ewiglich.
Wer hat des irdischen Leibes
Hohen Sinn erraten?
Wer kann sagen
Dass er das Blut versteht?
Einst ist Alles Leib —
Ein Leib,
In himmlischem Blute
Schwimmt das selige Paar.
O! dass das Weltmeer
Schon errötete,
Und in duftiges Fleisch
Aufquölle der Fels!
Nie endet das süsse Mahl,
Nie sättigt die Liebe sich;
Nicht innig, nicht eigen genug
Kann sie haben den Geliebten.
Von immer zarteren Lippen
Verwandelt wird das Genossene
Inniglicher und näher.
Heissere Wollust
Durchbebt die Seele,
Durstiger und durstiger
Wird das Herz:
Und so währet der Liebe Genuss
Von Ewigkeit zu Ewigkeit.
Hätten die Nüchternen
Einmal gekostet,
Alles verliessen sie,
Und setzten sich zu uns
An den Tisch der Sehnsucht,
Der nie leer wird.
Sie erkännten der Liebe
Unendliche Fülle,
Und priesen die Nahrung
Von Leib und Blut."

54

"The new world appears, and darkens the brightest sunshine. Among moss-grown ruins one sees a marvellous future glistening; and what used to be common and everyday, now seems miraculous. The kingdom of love has come; the fable has begun to weave itself. Every soul is born again; words of power are heard again; the great world-soul moves, and puts forth bud and blossom without end…

"The world becomes a dream, our dream the world; and what we believed to have happened long ago, we now see only coming, as yet far off. Imagination must have free play, must weave her web as seems best to her, here veiling, there discovering, at last dissolving all into magic vapour. Sadness and rapture, death and life, are here by inmost sympathy but one: he who has known the highest love never recovers from its wounds."