Minna/Book 3, Chapter 3
The following day Minna showed me a copy of the letter that she intended to send to Stephensen.
We read it together in the little summer-house, because one of the aunts, who "was not all she ought to be," had turned up, and from her company Minna was anxious to save both herself and me.
The letter calmed my feelings, as it seemed well-fitted to make an end of all this misunderstanding. It was without any bitterness and free from any trace of sentimentality, and was also written with more dignity and calmness than I had expected her to show under circumstances that so deeply moved her feelings and remembrances.
While we were together at Rathen I had sometimes looked forward to walking with Minna in her own beautiful town, and I begged her now not to waste any time.
We went through several rather plain-looking streets and lanes, all alike, which, with their entirely flagged pavement, and without gutters and cellar-stairs, made a neater and cleaner impression than a Dane expects in such quarters. The two-storeyed houses only vary a little in grey or yellowish colour; but now and again a low building extends, the big sunken roof of which peeps down on the street through many of those real Saxonian lattice windows, which are shaped like half-closed eyes and, when placed close together, give to the tiled roof the impression of a long wavy movement. The low buildings are old farmhouses, proving that not so very long ago these were the outskirts of the town.
Everywhere a rather comfortable and familiar informality prevailed. At the open window on a ground floor a young woman gave her child the breast; opposite, in a sunlit window above, a man in shirt sleeves smoked his pipe and stared across at his neighbour's roof, on the ridge of which a white cat was walking cautiously. A well-dressed man, who looked like a student, passed us with a glass mug filled with foaming beer, which he had fetched from the beer-house at the corner.
The children playing in front of the houses greeted Minna, and a little urchin of a girl, three to four years of age, with curly hair and a face full of dimples came flying along, with her poor naked legs as bent as swords, and was not content until Minna had chased her into a passage, where she allowed herself to be caught.
Less pleasing was the attention from the bigger children. A tall, bare-headed girl, with dirty stockings and trodden-down slippers, continued to shout after Minna, "Who's 'e?" And a shoemaker's boy walking in the middle of the street, who, to my astonishment, was whistling the Actors' march from the Midsummer Night's Dream so that it sounded through the whole neighbourhood, must have found something Jewish in my appearance, for he suddenly interrupted his occupation and continued to shout after me "Itzig." Sometimes all voices were drowned in the rumble of an immense waggon, the barrel-shaped canvas roof of which swayed up to the height of the windows on the first floor; a couple of heavy horses, with thick necks and muscular haunches, pulled it with a slow lumbering walk while they shook their shiny brass ornaments of rings and crests; the chains rattled, it creaked in all the fastenings, the wheels grated, and under the enormous moving mass the cobbles groaned so that one was tempted to cover one's ears. Nothing of all this was new to me, but with Minna as my companion it assumed a different and familiar aspect, for I regarded the smallest details with love, because they belonged to the associations which from childhood had both surrounded her and influenced her imagination.
This cosy bit of the old city was suddenly cut in two by the distinguished Prager Strassë, the modern artery of the residential quarter with its pulsing life of moving carriages, gaily dressed crowds, and handsome shops. We came into new broad streets, which, apart from a few lonely pedestrians and crawling cabs, were quite empty. The rows of flowers on the balconies showed up brightly against the grey mass. There were hardly any shops; on every second door was written "Pension," and over its neighbours "Hôtel garni." This did not suit our taste; in order to reach the villa quarter in our mock "house-hunting," we should have chosen the shortest way, if in this rectangular quarter the distances had not been the same length.
We soon had fine gravel under our feet, and were walking under the shade of a small avenue of maples. Dark acacias, glittering silver poplars, transparent birch tops, massive domes of plane, lime foliage, and copper beach, mixed with numerous varieties of rare bushes and trees, towered on both sides over railings, hedges, and low walls. Here and there the white limbs of a statue shone between flowers and leaves, or the fine spray of a fountain mounted and descended with gentle splashing in the middle of a fertile mass of foliage. Villa followed villa, glorious mixtures of country seats and palaces with fine façades of yellow-grey sandstone which still possessed some of its granulated sparkle. Where the big plate-glass windows stood open the outer pair of cream-coloured net curtains waved gently, and in the sombreness of the room the prism of a chandelier sparkled or the edge of a golden frame shone with a subdued light.
In a loggia formed of Doric columns with Pompeian painted walls and Caset ceiling some people were drinking coffee. Down a double zigzag staircase, which was surrounded by flowering plants, a slim lady with the tail of her riding habit over her arm was being escorted by a cavalier in bronze-coloured velvet. In a covered drive, which on the side of the villa formed a beautiful portico copied from the Villa d'Este, a landau was waiting, and a pair of chestnut horses were prancing impatiently and pawing the red gravel.
This kind of covered drive especially delighted us, and under no circumstances were we going to content ourselves with one made of iron and glass. It was settled beyond doubt that we were to have a carriage at the time when these luxurious plans were fulfilled. The aforesaid pair of chestnuts pleased us very much; at the same time we also had a strong liking for a black pair. Much consideration was naturally given to the style of the villa, and our tastes coincided, as we both preferred a not too rich renaissance. An ideal one of this kind we found at a corner near the park. It was a massive building of considerable size, stamped by a real aristocratic simplicity without the slightest sign of parvenu pretentiousness, but with imposing, grand, and noble proportions; it seemed to have been built by Semper himself, or by one of his best pupils.
"That is the one, that is our villa!" Minna exclaimed at once. She laughed hilariously at this castle in the air, but I already took it more seriously. After all, why was it impossible? It was not an unprofitable art in which I indulged; besides, I had good connections and might perhaps inherit something. Eventually, why should not one, after a life of work, be able to retire here as a rich man? My youthful courage seemed to possess unlimited power. And as I knew myself in safe possession of that which is the aim of youth, all my thoughts and dreams began to centre themselves towards that of the man: a glorious fruition of active work. The scepticism of Minna almost hurt me, as if it was a disbelief in my capacity and energy.
"No, to tell you the truth, Harald, I do not believe that it would suit me at all. Just think what such a house involves—all the servants one would have to manage. It also strikes me that with so much money I should be everlastingly wondering whether I was using it wisely, and one would be almost obliged to entertain largely. I am sure that all this would not suit me, and that I should feel much happier in managing a small homely household. For that reason I do not envy the rich at all; on the contrary, it pleases me that others, who are better fitted for them, should have such luxuries. But when I am in a selfish mood I imagine that all this is there for my sake, in order that I should have so many nice things to look at when walking with you, and so that we may have an excuse for such a foolish conversation."
We continued along the Zoological Gardens, entering "Grosser Garten," where we chose the least frequented wood-like road that curved between tall pines and broad oak trees. At last we sat down on a little hillock with a fine view to the north of the Hercules Avenue, the magnificent lime trees of which cast their shadow far away over the stubble fields in front of us. To the left, strongly lit by the sun, lay the heights on the opposite side of the Elbe, with its wood-covered banks and hollows surmounting the villages, which, with the help of the villas, form an almost continuous border of gardens and houses. The steep slopes are intersected by the terraces and walls of the vineyards, and here and there high-roofed country houses, encircled by Italian poplars, are interspersed, while on the heights above are dotted the little cottages of the vineyard workmen, looking like small watch towers. All these details continually repeated themselves, dwindling and becoming less clear and closer to one another, until they melted into an almost indefinite tone of colour at the point where the brow of the hills sloped down towards the plain. This latter stretched far away in a blue mist, and in the dim distance appeared more hazy mountain shapes floating like a sediment of the blue in the atmosphere, rather than a rising of the earth. But as the shadows on the fields grew longer the contours came out more solidly, and among them we recognised distinctly the familiar profile of Lilienstein. While on the right Loschwitzer bank the window-panes flickered like the beginning of an illumination, and we could distinguish the stone-quarries of Lilienstein as a lighter line below. It was queer to think that in this mountain-picture, which was so diminutive that it could be painted on the nail of the little finger, we could with a needle point out the place which had held so much of our happiness. Silently we pressed one another's hands, and our eyes filled with tears as we gazed towards it. It seemed to both of us that the idyll had grown to the place as a delicate flower which will not bear transplanting, and that we had left it there, and only there would be able to find it again; an irresistible home sickness overpowered and united us.
Though only a few days parted us from that time, and we sat together just as happy as we had been then, and though we looked forward to a happy union,—in spite of all this it seemed to both of us that we saw a lost paradise revealing itself out there in the glow of the setting sun, with tiny rosy clouds like Cupid-feathers floating above in the light colourless sky, little by little to glide away under the shadow of the soft wings of the night, which found us still sitting on the same spot with our arms around each other.
This constant, tender sadness in looking back on things, is it but the reaction from an idealising power which the memory itself possesses, or does it perhaps rather proceed from man's never-ceasing fear—the feeling of everlasting uncertainty with regard to the unknown fate, that by a mere mood is able to rob one of everything, except what one has experienced—an uncertainty that not only threatens from without, but also seems to warn from within, and against which perhaps only our Ego's hidden kernel in rare moments of expansion can place an equal force?