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Imaginary Portraits

W >> Walter Horatio Pater >> Imaginary Portraits




At Strasbourg, with its mountainous goblin houses, nine stories high,
grouped snugly, in the midst of that inclement plain, like a great
stork's nest around the romantic red steeple of its cathedral, Duke
Carl became fairly captive to the Middle Age. Tarrying there week
after week he worked hard, but (without a ray of light from others)
in one long mistake, at the chronology and history of the coloured
windows. Antiquity's very self seemed expressed there, on the
visionary images of king or patriarch, in the deeply incised marks of
character, the hoary hair, the massive proportions, telling of a
length of years beyond what is lived now. Surely, past ages, could
one get at the historic soul of them, were not dead but living, rich
in company, for the entertainment, the expansion, of the present: and
Duke Carl was still without suspicion of the cynic afterthought that
such historic soul was but an arbitrary substitution, a generous loan
of one's self.

The mystic soul of Nature laid hold on him [146] next, saying, "Come!
understand, interpret me!" He was awakened one morning by the jingle
of sledge-bells along the street beneath his windows. Winter had
descended betimes from the mountains: the pale Rhine below the bridge
of boats on the long way to Kehl was swollen with ice, and for the
first time he realised that Switzerland was at hand. On a sudden he
was captive to the enthusiasm of the mountains, and hastened along
the valley of the Rhine by Alt Breisach and Basle, unrepelled by a
thousand difficulties, to Swiss farmhouses and lonely villages,
solemn still, and untouched by strangers. At Grindelwald, sleeping
at last in the close neighbourhood of the greater Alps, he had the
sense of an overbrooding presence, of some strange new companions
around him. Here one might yield one's self to the unalterable
imaginative appeal of the elements in their highest force and
simplicity--light, air, water, earth. On very early spring days a
mantle was suddenly lifted; the Alps were an apex of natural glory,
towards which, in broadening spaces of light, the whole of Europe
sloped upwards. Through them, on the right hand, as he journeyed on,
were the doorways to Italy, to Como or Venice, from yonder peak
Italy's self was visible!--as, on the left hand, in the South-german
towns, in a high-toned, artistic fineness, in the dainty, flowered
ironwork for instance, the overflow of Italian genius was traceable.
These things [147] presented themselves at last only to remind him
that, in a new intellectual hope, he was already on his way home.
Straight through life, straight through nature and man, with one's
own self-knowledge as a light thereon, not by way of the geographical
Italy or Greece, lay the road to the new Hellas, to be realised now
as the outcome of home-born German genius. At times, in that early
fine weather, looking now not southwards, but towards Germany, he
seemed to trace the outspread of a faint, not wholly natural, aurora
over the dark northern country. And it was in an actual sunrise that
the news came which finally put him on the directest road homewards.
One hardly dared breathe in the rapid uprise of all-embracing light
which seemed like the intellectual rising of the Fatherland, when up
the straggling path to his high beech-grown summit (was one safe
nowhere?) protesting over the roughness of the way, came the too
familiar voices (ennui itself made audible) of certain high
functionaries of Rosenmold, come to claim their new sovereign, close
upon the runaway.

Bringing news of the old Duke's decease! With a real grief at his
heart, he hastened now over the ground which lay between him and the
bed of death, still trying, at quieter intervals, to snatch profit by
the way; peeping, at the most unlikely hours, on the objects of his
curiosity, waiting for a glimpse of dawn through glowing [148] church
windows, penetrating into old church treasuries by candle-light,
taxing the old courtiers to pant up, for "the view," to this or that
conspicuous point in the world of hilly woodland. From one such at
last, in spite of everything with pleasure to Carl, old Rosenmold was
visible--the attic windows of the Residence, the storks on the
chimneys, the green copper roofs baking in the long, dry German
summer. The homeliness of true old Germany! He too felt it, and
yearned towards his home.

And the "beggar-maid" was there. Thoughts of her had haunted his
mind all the journey through, as he was aware, not unpleased,
graciously overflowing towards any creature he found dependent upon
him. The mere fact that she was awaiting him, at his disposition,
meekly, and as though through his long absence she had never quitted
the spot on which he had said farewell, touched his fancy, and on a
sudden concentrated his wavering preference into a practical
decision. "King Cophetua" would be hers. And his goodwill sunned
her wild-grown beauty into majesty, into a kind of queenly richness.
There was natural majesty in the heavy waves of golden hair folded
closely above the neck, built a little massively; and she looked
kind, beseeching also, capable of sorrow.

She was like clear sunny weather, with bluebells and the green
leaves, between rainy days, and seemed to embody Die Ruh auf dem
Gipfel--all [149] the restful hours he had spent of late in the wood-
sides and on the hilltops. One June day, on which she seemed to have
withdrawn into herself all the tokens of summer, brought decision to
our lover of artificial roses, who had cared so little hitherto for
the like of her. Grand-duke perforce, he would make her his wife,
and had already re-assured her with lively mockery of his horrified
ministers. "Go straight to life!" said his new poetic code; and here
was the opportunity;--here, also, the real "adventure," in comparison
of which his previous efforts that way seemed childish
theatricalities, fit only to cheat a little the profound ennui of
actual life. In a hundred stolen interviews she taught the hitherto
indifferent youth the art of love.

Duke Carl had effected arrangements for his marriage, secret, but
complete and soon to be made public. Long since he had cast
complacent eyes on a strange architectural relic, an old grange or
hunting-lodge on the heath, with he could hardly have defined what
charm of remoteness and old romance. Popular belief amused itself
with reports of the wizard who inhabited or haunted the place, his
fantastic treasures, his immense age. His windows might be seen
glittering afar on stormy nights, with a blaze of golden ornaments,
said the more adventurous loiterer. It was not because he was
suspicious still, but in a kind of wantonness [150] of affection,
and as if by way of giving yet greater zest to the luxury of their
mutual trust that Duke Carl added to his announcement of the purposed
place and time of the event a pretended test of the girl's devotion.
He tells her the story of the aged wizard, meagre and wan, to whom
she must find her way alone for the purpose of asking a question all-
important to himself. The fierce old man will try to escape with
terrible threats, will turn, or half turn, into repulsive animals.
She must cling the faster; at last the spell will be broken; he will
yield, he will become a youth once more, and give the desired answer.

The girl, otherwise so self-denying, and still modestly anxious for a
private union, not to shame his high position in the world, had
wished for one thing at least--to be loved amid the splendours
habitual to him. Duke Carl sends to the old lodge his choicest
personal possessions. For many days the public is aware of something
on hand; a few get delightful glimpses of the treasures on their way
to "the place on the heath." Was he preparing against contingencies,
should the great army, soon to pass through these parts, not leave
the country as innocently as might be desired?

The short grey day seemed a long one to those who, for various
reasons, were waiting anxiously for the darkness; the court people
fretful and on their mettle, the townsfolk suspicious, [151] Duke
Carl full of amorous longing. At her distant cottage beyond the
hills, Gretchen kept herself ready for the trial. It was expected
that certain great military officers would arrive that night,
commanders of a victorious host making its way across Northern
Germany, with no great respect for the rights of neutral territory,
often dealing with life and property too rudely to find the coveted
treasure. It was but one episode in a cruel war. Duke Carl did not
wait for the grandly illuminated supper prepared for their reception.
Events precipitated themselves. Those officers came as practically
victorious occupants, sheltering themselves for the night in the
luxurious rooms of the great palace. The army was in fact in motion
close behind its leaders, who (Gretchen warm and happy in the arms,
not of the aged wizard, but of the youthful lover) are discussing
terms for the final absorption of the duchy with those traitorous old
councillors. At their delicate supper Duke Carl amuses his companion
with caricature, amid cries of cheerful laughter, of the sleepy
courtiers entertaining their martial guests in all their pedantic
politeness, like people in some farcical dream. A priest, and
certain chosen friends to witness the marriage, were to come ere
nightfall to the grange. The lovers heard, as they thought, the
sound of distant thunder. The hours passed as they waited, and what
came at last was not the priest with [152] his companions. Could
they have been detained by the storm? Duke Carl gently re-assures
the girl--bids her believe in him, and wait. But through the wind,
grown to tempest, beyond the sound of the violent thunder--louder
than any possible thunder--nearer and nearer comes the storm of the
victorious army, like some disturbance of the earth itself, as they
flee into the tumult, out of the intolerable confinement and
suspense, dead-set upon them.

The Enlightening, the Aufklärung, according to the aspiration of Duke
Carl, was effected by other hands; Lessing and Herder, brilliant
precursors of the age of genius which centered in Goethe, coming well
within the natural limits of Carl's lifetime. As precursors Goethe
gratefully recognised them, and understood that there had been a
thousand others, looking forward to a new era in German literature
with the desire which is in some sort a "forecast of capacity,"
awakening each other to the permanent reality of a poetic ideal in
human life, slowly forming that public consciousness to which Goethe
actually addressed himself. It is their aspirations I have tried to
embody in the portrait of Carl.

A hard winter had covered the Main with a firm footing of ice. The
liveliest social intercourse was quickened thereon. I was unfailing
from early morning onwards; and, being lightly clad, found myself,
when my mother drove up later [153] to look on, fairly frozen. My
mother sat in the carriage, quite stately in her furred cloak of red
velvet, fastened on the breast with thick gold cord and tassels.

"Dear mother," I said, on the spur of the moment, "give me your furs,
I am frozen."

She was equally ready. In a moment I had on the cloak. Falling
below the knee, with its rich trimming of sables, and enriched with
gold, it became me excellently. So clad I made my way up and down
with a cheerful heart.

That was Goethe, perhaps fifty years later. His mother also related
the incident to Bettina Brentano;--"There, skated my son, like an
arrow among the groups. Away he went over the ice like a son of the
gods. Anything so beautiful is not to be seen now. I clapped my
hands for joy. Never shall I forget him as he darted out from one
arch of the bridge, and in again under the other, the wind carrying
the train behind him as he flew." In that amiable figure I seem to
see the fulfilment of the Resurgam on Carl's empty coffin--the
aspiring soul of Carl himself, in freedom and effective, at last.

[THE END]

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