Minna/Book 3, Chapter 4
As we came out of the house on the next afternoon, Minna took my arm and turned me round quickly.
"Do you know where we are going to-day? To-day we are going to Zwinger. I want to take advantage of all you have told me about architecture, and especially about the Rococo style. Now we must repeat it in Reality's great picture-book."
And we went to Zwinger both then and on many other lovely afternoons—to Zwinger, this Palace Court of pavilions and galleries, which is an epopee in stone from a time when fondness of life and its pleasures excluded all poems except of the material order, in which one could move and enjoy, drink, dance, fence, love, ride roundabouts, and bathe in the basins of fountains under the open sky. This masterpiece of a luxurious and fantastic style, which an insipid after-taste of the Empire has taught an unproductive generation to look down upon with pseudo-classic contempt, but which now everywhere is again recognised with honour and glory. Zwinger, which seemed to be built by Saxonian gnomes, led by a faun who was in love with a muse.…
On other days we visited our godly hostess from Rathen, "the mother Elbe," in her town residence, where she is lodged between both parts of the town in a grand dwelling, which is parted into two banqueting halls by the rows of columns of three bridges. On the famous Brühl-Terrace we intoxicated ourselves at the sunset hour with the glorious metallic colours that shone and glittered between one another in the whirling of the river, until far away it bent into a golden arch in front of the blue vine-hills. Or we walked on the quay, which is ornamented by a long row of small curly poplars that seemed to be taken from a child's box of toys.
I remember a gloomy day when the sun in the last minute broke through the bank of clouds, and the sudden illumination of the windows gleamed down over the stream; it was as if Mother Elbe had unveiled her banqueting hall—a colonnade of twisted columns embossed in the purest gold.
Twice we went on board one of the little steamboats and sailed out to the idyllic vine-trailed Loschwitz, the native town of "Don Carlos," or to the Schiller garden of its neighbour Blasewitz, where Gustel of "the Camp of Wallenstein" lived.
On the way back through the town Minna usually had to make some purchases for our supper. I waited outside the sausage-maker's dainty shop while she did her catering at the marble counter.
One evening, when we returned after a long walk, her mother had gone out, and Minna had no key. We were both very hungry, and, as we had warm sausages with us, we did not hesitate long; Minna went off to the baker at the one corner and I to the beer-house at the other, and bringing respectively a "Zeilen-Semmel" and a tankard of "Kulmbacher" we met in triumph. In the dark summer-house we enjoyed with jokes and laughter the best supper I had ever eaten.
We did not visit the picture-gallery. Minna never mentioned it, and I dared not propose it for fear of bringing back painful recollections. But we often went to see the excellent collection of plaster casts, in which antique art is so well represented in all its stages.
I was surprised at the instinctive sense of art in Minna and the originality of her criticisms. She was amused over the "Æginets'" set smile, whether they killed or were killed, but at the same time remarked how advanced art already was in the treatment of the body and its movements. It struck her for the first time that an art can be at such a standard that its technique is almost perfect in certain directions, while there is something higher towards which it is moving with the uncertain footsteps of a child. And she questioned whether this was not also the case in a lower degree, with what we recognise as perfect art.
In the Parthenon Hall it was especially the Torsos from the gable groups which impressed her. But what struck her most of all were the master-pieces of the after-classic art "The Gaul," "The Grinder," "Venus of Milo"—most of the other statues of Aphrodites she passed by with indifference. She pointed out to me many details that I had not remarked myself, the life-like touch of reality in a hand or foot, remarking that in statues of modern artists which she had seen these were often made too "beautiful."
Sometimes a personal interest in these plastic studies was awakened: "How nice to have such a beautiful straight Grecian nose!" she sighed more than once, "then you would love me still more. Oh yes, you would be bound to do so."
And after having inspected a whole collection of goddesses: "But they have not got such very thin arms!"
"Why should they have?"
"I thought it was ugly to have strong arms," she answered, the blood rushing into her face as she turned away.
But our enjoyments in art, in this town where one can enjoy art, culminated ecstatically when we heard Wagner's "Valkyrie." The noble and melancholy love of these two Völsungs etherealised in a beauty of tones, the fervour of which has eternity's clear depth. How profoundly did it not penetrate our souls, uniting them in an endless sympathy! Our love reflected itself in this heavenly flow of melody as a narcissus—and loved itself.
In the beginning we whispered an occasional outburst of admiration to one another; later we were silent.
Minna pressed my hand at the words—
"When in winter's frosty wildness
First my friend I found."
And when Sieglinde distinctly, so that every syllable was heard in the dead silence of the theatre, and with such pathos as only Wagner has ever inspired an opera singer, sang—
"How fair and broad
Thy open brow,
The varying veins
In thy temples I trace!
I tremble with emotion
Resting entranced"—
she gave me a look which I know I shall feel on my death-bed. And at the end, when the curtain did not fall, but was drawn together … oh! I still see her standing up in the box, clapping with all her might and main, with sparkling eyes and moist traces of tears on her blushing cheek, more beautiful than I had ever seen her, more spiritually beautiful than anything I have seen or shall see!
We went down into the glorious foyer, the marble walls and columns of which gleamed in the late daylight. It was overcrowded with well-dressed people. Minna's dress was plain, though not so plain that it was striking, but many eyes were turned upon her. She was too moved to be worried by the attention paid to her, or even to notice it.
We stepped out upon a balcony where a mild summer air met us refreshingly. The beautiful open square, surrounded by monumental buildings, lay calm and deserted under us, while crowds swarmed over the Elbe bridge; the wood-covered heights were bathed in sunshine and seemed to be quite close. A feeling of endless happiness and richness overcame me.
"You are sighing!" said Minna, who was leaning upon me.
"It is only because I am much too happy, much more so than I deserve." I answered. "Do you know, it was rather presumptuous of me to propose to you."
She looked at me with a questioning smile.
"As I did not know all that was in you, I ought to have waited until I knew you as I do now. I discover new treasures every day. I am getting richer and richer."
Minna said nothing, but pressed my arm firmly to her bosom.