Коллектив авторов - Tales from the German, Comprising specimens from the most celebrated authors

"'At last,' replied the student, in a tone of feigned indifference, 'we were obliged to separate, if only for a short time. My great master now sends me to Ratisbon to ask for certain papers from the sacristy of the cathedral, which he left there as bishop. I shall bring them to him, and shall then, indeed, if I can, pass my life with him.'

"The young knight poured the rest of his wine into the goblet, looked into it, and drank the wine more slowly than before. 'Thou hast told me strange things,' he began after a silence, 'but they do not stagger me. God's world appears to me so beautifully adorned, that I should take no delight in tearing away the charming veil, and looking in to the innermost core of things, as thou callest it. The sky is blue, the stars shine, the wood rustles, the plants give fragrance, and this blue, this shining, this rustling, this fragrance – are they not the most beautiful things that can be, behind which there is nothing more beautiful? Pardon me, I do not envy thee thy secret knowledge. Poor fellow! this knowledge does not give thee a colour. Thy cheeks are quite pale and sunken.'

"'Every one has his appointed path, one this, the other that,' replied the scholar. 'It is not the bounding of blood that constitutes life. Marble is white, and walls of marble generally enclose the spot in which stand the statues of the gods, yet enough of this, and now for thyself. What hast thou done since I last saw thee?'

"'Oh! of that,' cried the young knight Conrad, with his usual light-heartedness, 'there is little to be told! I got upon horseback and got off again, I went about to many a good prince's court, thrust many a spear, gained many thanks, missed many thanks, and peeped into many a lovely woman's eye. I can write my name, and press the knob of my sword in wax by the side of it, and I can rhyme a song, though not so well as Master Godfried of Strasburg. 11 11 One of the most celebrated poets in the 12th and 13th centuries. I have gone through the initiatory ceremonies, and was dubbed a knight at Firchheim. Now I am riding to Mayence, where the emperor is going to hold a tournament, to tumble about a little and enjoy life.'

"The student looked at the sun's place, and said: 'It is a pity that after such a friendly meeting we must so soon part. Nevertheless it is necessary, if we each design to fulfil our purpose to-day.'

"'Come with me to Mayence,' cried the other, as he jumped up, and eyed the student with a singularly compassionate look, which, however, allowed a smile to appear. 'Leave that gloomy Ratisbon, and the cathedral and the sacristy; cheer up thy face among jolly fellows, by the round table, in the wine-cellar, and before the flowery windows of fair damsels. Let the sound of flute and shaum purify thine ears of the awful vigils of the Templars, who are considered mischievous heretics and Baffomets' priests over all Christendom. Come to Mayence, Peter!'

"He was already in his saddle, when he uttered these last words, and stretched out his hand as if in supplication, towards his friend, who turned aside and drew back his arm in token of refusal. 'What has come into your head?' he said, smiling reluctantly. 'Ah, friend Conrad, if I had already said every one has his appointed way, I would cry out to thee turn back, thou volatile heedless one! Youth fades away, the jest becomes hushed, the laugh will one day be found suddenly to fail, because the face has become too stiff, or grins repulsively from withered wrinkles! Woe then to him whose garners are not full, whose chambers are not stored! Ah, there must be something dismal in such a base, impoverished old age, and the proverb is right which says: 'Those who at morn too merry are, shall reap at night sorrow and care.' Looking upon thee thus, oh brother of my youth, I may well feel troubled about thee, for who knows in what altered condition I may find thee again.'

"The knight gave the student's hand a hearty shake and cried: 'Perhaps thou wilt be transformed when we meet again – wilt be decked out in velvet and satin, and surpass us all!' He darted off, and in the distance the student heard him sing a song which was then in every mouth, and sounded something like this:

"A butterfly flew up before the student. 'Is not the life of most men,' he said, 'to be compared to the fluttering of this moth? Light and motley he goes flaunting about, and yet how barren and short are his joys.' He rolled about his great eyes, but only an empty alternation of light and shade reached these dim mirrors, not the full form, the fine colour. The wood looked on him from its green depths with an irresistible glance. 'Suppose,' he said, 'I leave my patient beast awhile on this grass-plot; it will not run away from me, and I feel the warmest desire to wander there for an hour. How refreshing it must be in the depths of the wood!'

"He turned aside from the high road by a narrow path, which, after winding for a short distance through the tall trees, sloped down into the wood. Soon he found himself in a perfect solitude, with a rustling, whispering, and whining round him, while only a few single gleams of sun-light reflected with a green hue, played about him like ignis fatui. Sometimes he thought he heard his name called behind him in the distance, and – he did not know why – the call appeared to him hateful and repulsive. Then again he would take the sound to be a mere delusion, but whatever he thought he always got deeper and deeper into the dark forest. Large gnarled roots lay like snakes across the way, stretched out, so that the student was in danger of tumbling every moment. Stag-beetles stood like noble game in the moor, while the purest hues of golden vegetation shone from little nooks in the rocks. The perspiration stood on his forehead, and with increasing rapidity he penetrated the thicket, and fled from the bright sunny world without. It was not only the exercise of walking that made him hot, his mind was also labouring under a burden of heavy recollections. At last, after the pathway had long vanished from beneath his feet, he came to a beautiful, smooth, dark spot, among some mighty oak-trees. Still he heard his name called in the distance. 'Here,' he said, 'the rude sound yonder will no more reach me; here I shall be quietly concealed.' He sunk down upon a great mossy stone, his heart heaved, he was struggling with a powerful desire. 'Forgive my presumption, great master,' he cried, 'but there is a knowledge which must be followed by action, otherwise it crushes a mortal. Here, nearer to the heart of the great mother, where amid sprouting and growing, her pulse beats more audibly, – here must I utter the magic word, which I heard from thy sleeping lips, when thou spakest it in a dream; the word, at the sound of which the creature casts aside its veil, the powers which labour beneath bark and hide, and in the kernel of the rock, become visible, and the language of birds becomes intelligible to the ear.'

"His lips already quivered to utter the word, but he restrained himself, for there appeared before his eyes the sorrowful glance with which his great master, Albertus, had entreated him to make no use of the art he had accidentally acquired, since heavy things impended over him who uttered the magic word designedly.

"Nevertheless, he did call it out loudly into the wood, as if the prohibition and his own fear had given it additional force, and while he did so, he stretched out his right hand.