Clotilda

“ His trembling feet bear him from her—his daughter—the once proud, magnificent high priestess.
But she follows him—prays to him to save them. Still his head is erect, and his eyes are tearless. She is his own flesh and blood. She bids him think of her own early days; she hoarsely cries that in a few minutes she shall be dead, and again she prays him to seek her children, who are with Clotilda, and to watch over them. Gradually his head falls lower and lower on his breast. ”

“ To this disclosure there was wanting, what in Paris is dearest, place,—and then, too, the exordium. Clotilda was nowhere to be met alone. Connoisseurs say that every secret one tells to one of the fair sex is a sticking-plaster which attaches him to her, and often begets a second secret: was it for some such reason that Victor was so eager to contrive a way of showing to Clotilda his acquaintance with her sisterly relation?—
He stayed day after day, as, besides, the butter-week [187] of the marriage must go by first. He had already marriage-medals in his pocket. ”

“ So glistening fall the joys of men from heaven, and dissolve even while they fall! So does everything melt away! Ah, what air-castles I saw shine around me on this eminence, and how they gleamed in the evening red! Alas! all are buried under the snow and under the darkness of night!" He looked down into Clotilda's garden, in whose dark bowers, now whitened with snow, he had found and lost again the Eden of his heart. "The tones which flowed over this garden are dried up, but not the tears which streamed after them," thought he. ”

“ He himself wondered at this complaisance of the Princess, with whom, generally, petitions were sins, and who refused nothing—except what was asked. His perplexity was now only this,—how to communicate to Clotilda the indulgences of the Princess, without the offensive confession of having made a plea of her illness. But out of this slight evil a great one extricated him: when he came into her presence, she looked ten times as sick as she had day before yesterday, at the disclosure of her relationship: her blossoms, heavy with cold dew, drooped to the earth. ”

“ Hence his father, on the island, among those rules of life which, taken together, were a fine covert prophecy of his faults and fortunes, gave him this one: One commits the most follies among people whom one does not respect.
"Now, as Clotilda pleased the Prince, this Matthieu, who had been a suitor for her some years before, would seek to make her one of his conquests, in order, through her, to achieve much more important ones."
Fie! cried Victor's whole soul, now I see for the first time all the prickles of the crown of thorns which they are pressing upon thy heart, thou poor Clotilda! ”

“ She looked on him, and when her eye grew warm with a tear, heaven bowed itself and came down to them on a sunny cloud and touched the kindred beings with hot, fluttering drops.—O thou good earth! thou good Nature! thou sympathizest oftener (and always) with good men, than good men do themselves!—Before him the dream passed in which Clotilda's tears resolved the ground into an uplifting cloudlet.... ”

“ Joachime, Clotilda's lieutenant in office, had, in addition to her cold angry friendliness, a montre à régulateur rich in jewels. In a public place it costs less than in a cabinet to cover the inner man with the outer as with a theatrical mask. Victor, on whom, besides, every sorrow produced the witty effect of intoxication, betrayed the former at most by the exuberance of his vivacity.
A woman betrays herself by the opposite,—Clotilda by nothing. ”

“ And as Clotilda listened, she wished that she could turn this brave young chief away from his heathen deities, Thor and Odin, to the worship of the Christians’ God; and, revolving strange fancies in her mind, she determined what she would do when she “grew up,”—as many a girl since her day has determined. ”

“ As he rode round the barriers, gazing at the numberless lovely faces assembled there, many a heart thrilled with emotion; and as he passed the Princess Clotilda, surprise, mortification, and resentment could only too plainly be traced upon her countenance. Never before had she been so slighted. But when the knight stopped before the Lady Edith, and kneeling down, besought her to confer dignity upon the office of Queen of Love and Beauty by filling it, the young girl's astonishment was great, as she had not for a moment thought of herself as a candidate for the honor. ”

“ It is singular that the perspective thought of Clotilda's blood-relationship to Flamin was the one which he followed out least of all.
When man can obtain from reason no balsamic relief, he begs it at the hands of Hope and Illusion; and they two then willingly share his sorrow. ”

“ But here all his friends embraced him, in order to set limits to his ingenious frenzy,—and to press such an impassioned, true British heart to their own. The embrace softly warmed all his cold wounds, and he was healed, though exhausted; another's life grew into his, and love conquered death. The Englishmen, in whose eyes stood the tears of a double intoxication, could hardly tear themselves away from the humorous darling.
Clotilda, who with her female friends overheard the funeral oration in the adjoining chamber, at first held them back beseechingly from opening it. ”

“ I shall take the dumb, dreary road to the poisonous Buo-upas-tree, [176] to where death stands solitary, and there die all alone, all alone.—The dead are mutes, they have bells, and in the blue a mute will hover, and toll the death-bell.... Clotilda, Clotilda! then our love on earth is over!"
Dost thou, reader, still recognize the voice which, in his inner being, always, amidst the weeping of music, rang in the cadence of verse? ”

“ The two lovers, who dreaded and delayed to part, wandered confusedly after the receding nightingale into the hollow of the forest; they knew not that they were alone, for in their hearts was God. At last Clotilda recovered herself, and as the nightingale ceased, she turned round to say good-bye. But Victor lingered, and took both of her hands, though for very grief he could not bear to look upon her. With tears in his eyes he murmured, "Good-bye, my dearest. My heart is too heavy. I can say no more. Do not sorrow, darling. Nothing can part us now--neither life nor death." ”

“ Here is the one to Clotilda, into which with the following words he brings his request to see her:—
"If I knew that I should even for a moment oppress or disturb by this sheet the beloved soul, which will now be enjoying itself by the side of the lofty Emanuel, in the presence of spring and amidst its fair thoughts, O most gladly would I sacrifice this blessed hour, in order, perhaps, to deserve it. But no, my friend forever! your tender heart desires not my silence! Ah, man must so often conceal coldness and bitterness, why, too, even love and joy?—Nor should I be able to do it today. ”

“ What will my father say, when he sees us stand with two leading-strings, with one of which thou holdest the Princess, and I, with the other, the husband?" ... At this moment, Clotilda's recent objections to court-life fell like ice-flakes into his boiling blood; but he thought to himself: "Women, however, are a little mite more pleased with the court-residence of splendor than they themselves suspect or say, and far more than men are. ”

“ But the Chamberlain came to the Page's assistance, and said that Emanuel had actually, five years before, been refused that application. Clotilda looked, as if for help, to the only one whose attentiveness was not ironical,—our Victor, on whom the reflection of her transfiguration threw its beauty,—and asked, more in the tone of hope than of assertion, "Should one expect anything like that of such a mind?" ”

“ The trio of friends found, at the dinner-table of the Abbess, yesterday over again. Victor was immediately at home in all points; he would not continue a guest, so that the other might not continue the host. In general, maidens are seldom found again as one left them, just as their reception is always warmer or colder than their note previous; but in Clotilda's dissolving features an infinite charm announced the memory of yesterday, when she had, for two reasons, surrendered her heart to all his flames consecrated on the altar of nature and of virtue. ”

“ Children's tears flow more freely, when one shows them sympathy; and in this hour of exhaustion, Victor, who was generally made more hard by another's sympathy for him, grew softer; and when Clotilda seated herself at the window, to lean upon it her weary head, it seemed to him as if something exhorted him now to verify that which he had said to-day to the statue: Cold form, erect thyself, and show men the tears which flow from a soft heart. ”

“ After her husband's death Clotilda persuaded her three sons Clodomir, Childebert, and Clotaire to renew the quarrel, and to visit on Sigismund, Guudebald's son, his father's crime. The war which followed resulted in the union of Burgundy to the Frank empire. Clotilda retired to Tours, and practised there the austerities of a devout life till her death. ”

“ But hardly had Clotilda bade both a stammered welcome during the coming out from the green closet, when there appeared to them the angel—Emanuel, who had hastened from the convent to seek his friend. He said nothing, but looked on both with a nameless rapture, to find out whether they were right joyful, and as if to ask, "Are you not, then, now right happy, ye good souls? do you not, then, love each other inexpressibly?"—Oh, only a mortal is needed for sympathy in sorrow, but an angel for sympathy in joy ”

“ As to Clotilda, before dinner things went very well, but after dinner very ill. I speak of Sebastian, who, after the handing in of the petition to his Lordship, was happier and more light-hearted, and actually talked as frankly with Clotilda as if she were—a bride. For he had already said in Hanover, that "there was not a more tedious and holy thing than a bride, particularly if it were a friend's; sooner would he fritter away his time about the musty Pandects in Florence, or a holy body in a glass shrine at Vienna, than about her." In fact, it was hard to fall in love with Clotilda ”

“ At last Clotilda entered, in conversation with the Parson's wife. She had on a crape hat, with a black lace portcullis, which at once beautified, divided, and concealed with a pierced shadow her beautiful face. But her eye avoided Flamin's eye, and only at times stole thoughtfully after it. He proved that precisely people of the greatest courage have the least with regard to beauty; he advanced not towards her one step. She asked our Victor eagerly about the arrival and the health of his Lordship. ”

“ Their own silence loosens reserved people's tongues: Clotilda began of herself, "As I do not know what harms me here, except the rouge, I beg my physician to prohibit me this dietetic fault," i. e. to persuade the Princess into a revocation of her rouge-edict. "I should be glad," she continued, "to gain some resemblance at least to two such good friends as Giulia and Emanuel,"—i. e. a pale color, or else the notion of a speedy death. Victor threw out a hasty "Yes," and turned his smarting eye toward the rising curtain.
Never, haply, were the scenes of players and hearers more like each other. ”

“ The hints were, as will be recollected, the two propositions of becoming the lover of the Princess and the husband of Clotilda, in order to gain the Prince, and thus, as a swine does a rattlesnake, to swallow Mat with impunity. One must forgive the soul of Victor, gnawed by a worm's-nest of afflictions, for blazing up and attacking Zeusel with an eye full of the profoundest contempt, "I know not who would deserve to listen to such propositions,—unless it is he who can make them." ”

“ Clotilda's letter sets itself with an ornamental belt and a live hedge full of blossoms across our Doctor's path and shuts him off from Maienthal. For it runs thus:—
"Most Worthy Friend,—
"Perhaps no maiden is so happy as a poetess; and I think, here in this charming valley one at last becomes both. You are happy everywhere, for you can be a poet even at a court, as your beautiful poetic epistle shows me. But fancy loves to paint from paint-boxes,—the true Maienthal cannot give yours so much as you know how to put into the three landscape-pictures of it. ”

“ While queen Clotilda was staying at Paris, Childebert saw that his mother loved with especial affection the sons of Chlodomer, whom we have mentioned above, and being envious and fearful that they would have a share in the kingdom through the favor of the queen, he sent secretly to his brother king Clothar, saying: “Our mother keeps our brother’s sons with her, and wishes them to be kings. ”

“ According to Gregory of Tours, Chilperic was slain by Gundobald, his wife drowned, and of his two daughters, Chrona took the veil and Clotilda was exiled. This account, however, seems to have been a later invention. At Lyons an epitaph has been discovered of a Burgundian queen, who died in 506, and was most probably the mother of Clotilda. Clotilda was brought up in the orthodox faith. Her uncle Gundobald was asked for her hand in marriage by the Frankish king Clovis, who had just conquered northern Gaul, and the marriage was celebrated about 493. ”

“ The second was, that Clotilda sought her society quite as little: Victor could love no one whom Clotilda did not love. And now the race-weeks and visiting-Tarantula-dance hours of one man are at an end; but, alas! all posterity must yet cross the same hot line of folly and of youth.
24. DOG-POST-DAY.
Rouge.—Clotilda's Sickness.—The Play Of Iphigenia.—Difference between Plebeian and Patrician [275] Love.
On the 26th of February Victor found in the morning at Joachime's—the proud Clotilda. ”