Paul Heyse

“ They are all children of the world, living entirely in the present without hope or desire for a future life. The existing world supplies them with all they ask. As Edwin says: "O beloved, a world in which we may attain such triumph over fate, over our own and that of those we love; in which the tragical is glorified by a gleam of the beautiful; in which intense joy of life sweeps through us, bringing softening tears, even as we shudder in the presence of death--such a world is not desolate." It is Heyse's own creed, this of the all-sufficiency of the present life. ”

“ And then to think that this unusual talent is doomed for the next thirty or forty years to no other expression than an endless variation of the towers, balconies, vaulted doors, and gabled roofs of a medieval nest which appears in our world like an excavated German Pompeii--But pardon me this criticism of your plan of life. I am not fitted to criticise it. However, as you wish to know the subject of my meditation, it was this problem: can a noble, liberal, artistic soul be so completely filled by commonplace family happiness? It must certainly be possible. ”

“ For instance, why does Minka's sister live like a princess, have nothing to do but draw a little play-wagon in which the young masters take an occasional pleasure drive, always receive kind words and the best fodder, and even have a love-affair with the valley-miller's donkey? And our Minka, who has just as good a character, who wears herself out with work, and is often on her legs with a load for ten hours together, now has all four struck from under her, and if she should die to-morrow, what pleasure in life has she had? ”

“ But that you, being so young, can regard it as final, as something never to be interrupted, never to be laid aside even temporarily for the sake of a higher aim--and you were even on the way to the beloved land of art, and had certainly heard and seen enough of it at the academy to have some presentiment of the joys awaiting you there--and nevertheless--"
"Oh, my lady!" he cried, suddenly starting up as if the narrow coupé had become too close and prison-like for him, "you are repeating my own thoughts! ”

“ And when I have seen the Tauber flowing along in its narrow bed as hastily as if it could not escape too soon from its restraining banks and throw itself into the Main, and with it into the Rhine, and thence into the ocean--how much I have suffered, as I ground my teeth together and slunk back to bed tired and saddened, I have never told a human soul. ”

“ But ought not a man to strive for the highest things? Ought he to be contented with a Rothenburg happiness--you yourself called it so--and especially if he devotes himself to art, should he not seek the unknown--"
"To strive for the highest," she interrupted him--"the unknown? Praise your fate that it has never made those beautiful words real to you. They are will-o'-the-wisps which lead one astray into pits and swamps. ”

“ Then I told her, even to the smallest detail, all that had happened on the lake that day, and also everything which I had felt.
"'I suspected something of the sort,' she replied quietly. 'She avoided my eye, and you--you had no thought for our child. It is a passion; that we cannot hide from ourselves. You will not think me so childish as to surrender to a miserable jealousy, overwhelm you with reproaches, or make any scene which might show our friend how much harm she has done me. Can I blame you for loving her? She is so lovable, that I myself, even yet, love her as an only sister. ”

“ Why should I pity her or her brat? Both are already as if in heaven, and if it goes hard with them, and they must hunger and freeze, can they not make that good hereafter in Paradise? But Minka, look you, sir, has had no lover, and brought no young one into the world, and when she dies she will be thrown in the flaying-place, and on doomsday, when we other poor sinners gather our bones together, of her nothing at all will be left, and it will never be credited to her that she had a harder life than her twin sister. ”

“ But the woman, the fool--since then she has become restless, and seeks the 'unknown' throughout the world, or--if she feels herself in the mood for self-deception--the ideal. Do you know that, so far, she has found nothing more ideal than the quiet, wise, warm glance of your little wife, the peace of your old-fashioned home, and that skilful hand with children and flowers, which charms both into such fresh colors? ”

“ I struck the shameless thing for laughing about it, and put salve on the wound. But Minka rolled on her back as if crazy, and would bear no bandage, and so it has grown worse with her every day, and with Hannah too. Well, at least she has had her way, and nothing much better could have happened to her. Who would take one like her for his honest wife? And if sometime she realizes that it is useless to wait for her lover, and becomes crazy with grief at his wickedness, then she has little wit to lose. ”

“ But consider how everything about her touches you--her unhappiness, her loneliness, the nobility of her whole character, and her music. At the first sound of a violin you would live it all over again. No, my dear friend, we dare not flee, and I dare not appear cowardly in your eyes. I am not so. I know that we are too firmly united to be parted by any power whatever. ”

“ But, believe me, in many respects, we barbarians are in advance of your highly refined civilization; and we make up for our lack of political liberty by our greater social freedom. If you were a Russian, you would have emancipated yourself long ago, and followed the lead of your Tauber, though in the opposite direction. And what would you have lost by it? When you returned in a year or two as a well-developed artist, would you not find your house on the same spot, your wife as domestic and youthful as ever, your children, perhaps half a head taller, but as clean and pretty as you left them? ”

“ At the best I would fall far short of a great artist! Meanwhile, you know Schiller's poem, 'Pegasus in Harness.' A horse that suffers itself to be harnessed to the plough, even though it may be of good blood, proves that it has no wings. But perhaps it might have served for something better than ploughing. And yet, if you knew--if only you knew my Christel and the children!"
"I do not for an instant doubt that you have a charming wife and lovely children, Herr Hans Doppler; and nothing is farther from my thoughts than to render you suspicious of your domestic happiness. ”

“ The ten fingers playing Bach's Prelude on the little piano below me belonged to no Englishwoman. Late last evening new guests had moved in--so the chambermaid had announced--a French man and woman, brother and sister. Which of the two was then playing I naturally did not know. But from the touch, although it was firm and strong when necessary, I decided upon the sister. I have seldom heard such beautiful, distinct, and, as it were, mature playing; yet it had no trace of so-called classic objectivity, but rather a very personal charm, as if the player's deepest nature were speaking to me. ”

“ On the stairs she stopped an instant.
"'Do you play much now?' she asked.
"'I have not touched the violin since I became a widower,' I replied. 'Music is a pleasure only when one is cheerful and sociable. In solitude it revives all buried sorrows.'
"'Yes,' she said, 'it does, and one is grateful for it. There are people so poor that their only possessions consist of old griefs, without which they could not live. They remind one that there was once a time when the heart was living, for only a living heart can feel misery. ”

“ In "Minka," the gloom of a sombre autumn day depresses us as it does Eugene, and lends some of its own unearthly sadness to the strange story.
All of Heyse's writings have atmosphere, that indefinable quality which no amount of mere description of places and people can give, but which comes of itself from the heart of the sympathetic writer. And Heyse is evidently deeply in sympathy with every subject which he treats. Feeling intensely himself, he wishes his readers to share his feeling, and he is so consummate a master of his art that he is sure of this effect. ”

“ To be so received means to be at home somewhere in this world. In my lonesome cell there is no one waiting for me. But I enjoyed that good fortune for twelve whole years, and am far better for it than our young friends yonder, who have no perception of the best things life can offer, and who speak of women as the blind do of colors. ”

“ Do you know that your artist costume is very becoming? But come, we must not linger so long in one spot. Do not take pains to show me the so-called remarkable sights, but rather the nooks that no Baedecker has noticed and marked. And as I am a commandant's wife, I will look first of all at the towers and walls, so that if Russia sometime lays siege to Rothenburg, I may revenge myself for its present conquest of me. ”

“ The full light from the lamp on the ceiling fell upon her mistress's face, and the young artist opposite became more and more devoutly absorbed in contemplating the nobly formed features, which corresponded so perfectly to the ideal of beauty that he had vaguely conceived in the model classes at the academy. But as the train approached the journey's end, he became disheartened and depressed by the thought that the rustic nooks of his old Rothenburg would appear very uninteresting to these wonderful eyes which had seen half the world. ”

“ But I confess that the future of the little human being was more momentous to me, in spite of its immortal soul, than the question whether Minka would lose or not in the final distribution of justice. If to-morrow the only person among these 'four females' who had sound human sense should be struck by lightning, what would then become of the poor fool and her baby? ”

“ Moreover, he always dressed like every one else in the town, since, being the only one of his class, he would have been conspicuous everywhere if arrayed as an artist. But he had no wish to reappear before that cosmopolitan woman in the garb of a young Philistine; so from the deepest recesses of his clothes-chest he drew forth a velvet jacket, the same in which he had first come to Rothenburg, a broad-brimmed, black felt hat, and a pair of light trousers. Christel opened her eyes when he appeared thus attired. It was a shame for the good coat to hang in the closet for the moths, he declared. ”

“ All the highroads swarmed with carriages and pedestrians, and the railroads were overcrowded in spite of the extra trains; for it was many years since there had been such continuously lovely Easter weather.
The evening express, standing in the Ansbach station ready to depart in the direction of Würzburg, was twice as long as usual. Nevertheless, every seat appeared to be occupied, when a straggler of the second class, trying to enter at the last moment, knocked in vain at every door, and peered into each coupé, meeting everywhere a more or less ungracious or mischievous shrug of the shoulders. ”

“ They consider it dangerous, and I have found this view sanctioned everywhere in men's judgments of life and fiction. 'Do not destroy my home!' cries the peaceful citizen to the passion which is breaking into his house like an armed man. And if he feels himself adequately protected by his armor of conventionality, more invulnerable than iron or steel, he fears for children and parents, and the tender heart of his wife. Although the danger may not have been great after all. Only what we recognize as true has power over our souls ”

“ At length some one discovered in the corner where the loom had stood a ghastly heap of ashes and blackened bones, undoubtedly the remains of old Betsey, who, as old women can never be warm enough, probably heated the oven so hot that the rotten thing burst and the flames reached the rafters of the loom. She must have been quickly suffocated by the smoke and have died without further pain. But what became of her daughter and the little one nobody knows, and as for the donkey, which she esteemed so highly, not the smallest piece of its hide or bones can be discovered!'"
ROTHENBURG ON THE TAUBER ”

“ When I hear it said that marriage is the death of love; that the obligation to fidelity quenches passion; and that, since no man can master his heart, even the best should hesitate before forming a life-tie, my vexation at the foolish babble runs away with my reason, and I begin to speak of things which one regards as mere exaggeration unless he has himself experienced them. ”

“ Angelo instead of the old stones of the white tower, and without venturing upon grand and lofty themes, although you have scarcely the stuff for a Raphael, then come with me. The way is free, and perhaps long enough for my extremely unselfish mood to pass away once more. But if you are wise, you will postpone your art journey until the children are old enough to be left in another's charge for a few months. Then take Christel on your arm, and cross the Alps with her; and, I promise you, even if she is only a Rothenburg child, you could present her at Monte Pincio without being ashamed of her. ”

“ You know that Gounod composed a violin accompaniment for this Prelude. The purists and Bach-pedants reject it. But it has such an irresistible melody that every violinist learns it by heart. It was not long before I had taken my instrument from its case, tuned it sufficiently, and placed the bow in position. And then began a most wonderful duet on two floors, played with as much calmness and precision as if it had been well practised. ”

“ I bade the boy take the rudder again; he shrugged his shoulders, and pointed to the Countess. Undisturbed by everything about her, she was staring wildly into the distance. We were already so far from shore that the houses were scarcely distinguishable through the gray storm-twilight. Some action was imperative. Standing up, I motioned the boatman to take my oars, and strode, wavering and staggering, to the other end of the skiff. Her eyes met mine through the veil with a stubborn, threatening look.
"'Be reasonable!' I said in German; 'I shall not suffer this any longer. ”

“ The stranger accepted the nosegay and embraced the giver, kissing her cheek. She then walked about the garden, which was surrounded with high walls, and, at this time of the year, had but little sunlight. A thick ivy covered the black walls, clothing them with a dusky green tapestry, against which the young shoots of the fruit-trees, and the beds of primroses, crocuses, and hyacinths stood out in pleasing contrast. The children were playing in one corner, and labored on in their own irregular little garden without noticing the visitor. ”