despised, for it was an honor and a public acknowledgment, and would, perhaps, have the effect of infusing into the directors a little more respect for the poet, whose dramas they often maltreated and injured by poor and careless representation.
With a smile, Schiller folded the document and laid it aside. “Well,” said he to himself, in a low voice, “I entertain the proud hope that I am a poet ‘by the grace of God!’ Moreover, I have now become a counsellor by the grace of a duke. All that I now wish is, that I may at last become a poet and a counsellor, by the grace of the people, and that they may approve my works, and hold me worthy of the title to their love and honor. To be the people’s counsellor, is truly an honor above all honors. My soul longs for this holy and beautiful title. With all that I possess in mind and talent, in strength and energy, I will endeavor to deserve it, and to become that which is the poet’s greatest and noblest recompense—the teacher and counsellor of the people!”
CHAPTER VII.
ADIEU TO MANNHEIM!
Schiller had returned to Mannheim as ducal counsellor of Weimar. Charlotte von Kalb received this intelligence with so much joy, that Schiller could not help feeling pleased himself. He threw his arms around her, and demanded a kiss as a condition of his retention of the title. Charlotte blushingly hid her face on his bosom, but he gently raised her head, and pressed an ardent kiss on the lips which uttered no refusal. But Charlotte now demanded that Schiller should leave her; and when he refused, and begged and implored that he might be permitted to remain, her eyes glistened, and a glowing color suffused itself over her cheeks.
“Oh, Schiller, you know not what you are doing and what you demand! Do you not see that an abyss lies between us?”
“I see it, Charlotte; but the arm of Love is strong and mighty, and he who truly loves, carries the loved woman over all abysses, or else precipitates himself with her into the yawning chasm.”
“There is another alternative, Schiller, and a terrible one. The abyss is crossed, and they are joined; and then afterward his illusion vanishes—he is undeceived. The ideal has been transformed into a very ordinary woman, whom he scorns, because her love was dearer and holier to her than her virtue. She feels his scorn, and the abyss over which he had borne her becomes the grave in which she voluntarily precipitates herself, in order to escape from him she had loved. Oh, Schiller, if the eye which has heretofore regarded me lovingly should ever cast upon me a glance of contempt! It would crush me, and I should die! Yet, in dying, my lips would denounce him who had known how to love, but had not kept faith; and would arraign him as a traitor and murderer before the judgment-seat of God! Oh, Schiller, I warn you once more not to enkindle a fire in my breast which can never be extinguished or repressed when once in flames, but will blaze upward grandly and proudly, setting aside all thought of the world and its rules and prejudices. We are now walking on the verge of the abyss; you on the one side, I on the other. But our voices reach each other; we can see each other’s faces, and our glances can meet in loving friendship. You are free to go where you will; and if your path in life should lead you aside from the road on which I am journeying, I will look after you and weep, but I will make you no reproaches! Think of this, Schiller, and be contented that Charlotte should call you by the name of friend! Do not demand that she should give you another name, which you would now bless, but hereafter curse! Flee now, while it is yet time; and we shall still have the happy remembrance of the beautiful days of our friendship. Let us await the future in quiet resignation, and sustain ourselves with recollections of the past!”
“You are in a strange humor to-day, Charlotte,” said Schiller, sadly. “Your eyes are so threatening, that I would almost be afraid of you, if I did not know that my Titaness is still a gentle, loving woman in spite of her fiery enthusiasm. No, Charlotte, you accuse yourself unjustly. No, you would never curse the man you had loved; in death you would bless him for the love he had once given you. You would not denounce, but pity and excuse him whom stern necessity compelled to separate from you—from what is dearest to him on earth. You would know that his path was bleak and lonely, and that, like the faces in Dante’s ‘Inferno,’ he could only look back at the past with a tearful glance while wandering into the dreary future. This you would do, Charlotte. I know you better than you know yourself. The woman never curses the man she has truly loved; she pardons and still loves him when the stream of life surges in between, and forces him to leave her.”
“For those who truly love, who have plighted troth, there is no such compulsion,” cried Charlotte, her countenance flushed with indignation. “If you say so, Schiller, you do not know what love is. You make light of the holiest feelings when you believe that it could ever be extinguished—that the necessities of life could ever separate two hearts eternally and indissolubly united in love.”
“How strangely moved you are to-day, Charlotte!” answered Schiller, his countenance darkening. “I came here with a heart full of joy, and had so much to impart to you! I came as to a happy and peaceful retreat. But I now see that the time was badly chosen, and that Charlotte will not understand me to-day. Oh, why is it, my dear, that we human beings are all like Erostratus, who hurled the firebrand into the holy temple of the gods, and why do we all desire to unveil the mysterious picture in the temple of Isis!”
“Because we wish to look at the truth,” she cried, passionately.
“The truth is death,” sighed Schiller, “error is life; and woe to us if we are not satisfied with the beautiful illusion that adorns and disguises life, and casts a veil over death! I am going, Charlotte. It is better that I should, for you have saddened me, and awakened painful thoughts in my breast. Farewell for the present; and when I come again to-morrow, be kind and gracious to me, Charlotte, as you always are at heart!”
He took his hat, greeted her with a mournful smile, and left the room. Charlotte’s eyes followed him with a glance of dismay.
“He does not love me,” she cried in despair. “He does not love me! If he loved me, he would not have left me without plighting his eternal faith. All that I wished to hear was, that he desired an eternity of love; but he drew back in dismay and left me. He does not love me, and I, O my God, I love him!”
She sank down on her knees, covered her face with her hands, and cried bitterly.
And Schiller’s thoughts were also of a bitter, and, at the same time, somewhat disquieting nature. He avoided seeing any one, and remained in his lonely room the entire day. He walked to and fro restlessly; from time to time, he seated himself at the table and wrote a few lines, and then arose, and, resuming his walking, either talked to himself or was lost in thought.
Charlotte also kept her chamber, and avoided all intercourse with others. Late in the evening, a knock was heard at her door, and her maid announced that a letter had arrived from the Counsellor Schiller.
Charlotte opened the door, took the letter, and ordered lights to be brought in. She then tore the cover from Schiller’s letter; in it she found a little note on which the few words had been hastily written: “Dear Charlotte!—I have written down the thoughts which our conversation of to-day awakened in my bosom; and send them to you, for they belong to you. May we never share the fate of the poor youth in the temple of Sais! To seek the truth is to kill love, and yet love is the most beautiful truth; and true it is also that I love you, Charlotte! Believe this, and let us leave the great Isis veiled! FREDERICK SCHILLER.”
After reading this, Charlotte unfolded the large sheet which was also contained in the cover. It was a poem, and bore the title, “The Veiled Picture at Sais.”
Charlotte
