Tales of the German Imagination from the Brothers Grimm to Ingeborg Bachmann (Penguin Classics)

by Unknown

  Deeply moved, he told this to the lady. ‘Back then,’ he said, lost in memories, ‘when I stood around like this on muggy afternoons, peering at the paintings in our lonesome summer cottage in the garden, admiring the curious towers in those cities, the bridges and alleys, taking particular note of the carriages and the stately cavaliers riding by, greeting the ladies in their carriages – I never thought that all that would one day come alive around me. My father often came to me and told me of some merry adventure he had had on his youthful military escapades in one or another of those depicted cities, whereupon he generally liked to withdraw into a lengthy thoughtful silence, strolling up and down in the garden. But I flung myself down in the tallest grass and stared for hours at the clouds shifting in the sky over the sultry landscape. The grasses and flowers waved quietly back and forth above me, as though they wanted to weave the strangest dreams, the bees buzzed so lazily around me and then were gone – dear God, it’s all like a sea of silence in which the heart could sink in bitter-sweet sadness!’

  ‘Enough of that!’ the lady interrupted, as if distracted, ‘everyone thinks he’s seen me somewhere before, my face surges up and flowers in all youthful dreams.’

  As she spoke she stroked the brown locks from the forehead of the handsome youth. But Florio stood up, his heart too gripped with emotion, and walked to the open window. The trees swayed outside, a nightingale flitted about, a bolt of lightning struck in the distance. The song kept wafting over the silent garden like a clear, cool current carrying the dreams of youth. The force of this music sank his spirit into deepest thought; he suddenly felt so out of place here, as though he’d stepped out of his own skin. Even the lady’s last words, of which he did not quite know what to make, left him with a strangely unsettling feeling – whereupon he muttered quietly and from the depth of his soul: ‘Dear God, let me not lose my way in this world!’ No sooner had he given vent to these words than a turbid burst of wind stirred up by the approaching storm struck him full in the face with a bewildering force. At the same moment he noticed grass and tufts of weed sprouting out of the window cornice, as in old walls. And suddenly a hissing snake went slithering out and hurled itself with its greenish-golden tail down into the abyss.

  Frightened, Florio stepped away from the window and turned back to the lady. She sat motionless and silent, as if she were listening in. Then she jumped up in a flash, went to the window and, directing her words to the night, chided him in a charming voice. But Florio could not follow, for the fierce wind whipped her words away. The thunderstorm, meanwhile, seemed to come ever closer; the wind, in the rip-roaring gusts of which solitary, heart-rending shreds of the song kept being wafted upwards, went whistling through the whole house and threatened to extinguish the wildly flickering flames of the candles. Just then a long-lasting bolt of lightning lit up the darkening room. Whereupon Florio fell back a few steps, for it seemed to him as if the lady stood there before him with eyes shut tight, her face and arms pale white. But in the wake of the fleeting flash of lightning that terrible face vanished again as quickly as it had appeared. The same dimness that had filled the room before reasserted itself, and the lady once again regarded him with a smile – but in silence and with a wistful air, as though straining to hold back tears.

  Tumbling backwards in fear, Florio had in the meantime collided with one of the statues standing against the wall. At that very moment the statue began to stir, the movement quickly spread to all the others, and soon all the statues stepped from their pedestals in a terrible shroud of silence. Florio drew his dagger and cast an uncertain look at the lady. But when he noticed that with every surging note of the song wafting up from the garden she grew ever more pallid, like a fast-fading twilight in which, finally, even the evening stars seem to be engulfed in the dark, he was gripped by a dire dread. For even the tall flowers in the vases began to twist and turn like a writhing wreath of snakes, all the knights on the tapestries suddenly resembled him and seemed to laugh scornfully; the two arms that held the candles groped and grew ever longer, as if a monstrous man sought to break free of the wall, the room filled up with eerie shadows, the lightning cast a fearful shimmer, in the glare of which Florio sensed the statues lunging at each other with such a terrible force that his hair stood on end. Gripped by terror, he staggered out of the room, through the empty echoing chambers and down the corridor of columns.

  Out in the garden, beside the still pond he’d seen that first night, stood the marble statue of Venus. The singer Fortunato seemed to float in the middle of the pond, standing upright in a skiff, still strumming a few last chords on his guitar. But Florio took even the sight of his friend for another nocturnal chimera and kept running and running, until pond, garden and palace had disappeared far behind him. Bathed in moonlight, the city stood silent before him. Except for the distant horizon, illumined by the last flashes of a dying thunderstorm, it was a crystal-clear summer night.

  The first bands of daylight already ringed the morning sky as he reached the gates of the city. He hastened to seek out Donati’s lodgings to discuss with him all the bewildering occurrences of the past night. The house was situated on one of the promontories with a splendid view of the city and the entire surrounding landscape, so it was easy enough to find the lovely spot again. But instead of the stately villa he’d visited the day before, all he found was a low-roofed hut overgrown with vines and surrounded by a small garden. Pigeons playing in the first rays of daylight strutted, cooing, back and forth across the roof; a profound peacefulness reigned all about. At that very moment a man with a scythe on his shoulder emerged from the house, singing:

  Night has faded, day is breaking

  Through night’s shroud, to work awaking.

  Darkness is the devil’s way,

  Up and at ’em, seize the day!

  The man suddenly interrupted his singing upon spotting the stranger rushing towards him, pale-faced and with dishevelled hair. Bewildered, Florio asked after Donati. But the gardener had never heard the name and seemed to take Florio for a lunatic. His daughter leant across the threshold, invigorated with a breath of the cool morning air, and studied the stranger with a wide-eyed look of surprise. ‘My God! Where have I been all this time!’ Florio muttered, half to himself, and flew in a great haste back through the gates and down the still-empty streets towards his inn.

  Here he locked himself in his room and gave himself over completely and utterly to a contemplative reflection. The lady’s indescribable beauty, the way she slowly paled and sank her ravishing eyes, stirred up such boundless longing in his heart of hearts that he felt an irresistible yearning to die then and there.

  He kept on morbidly brooding and daydreaming all that day and into the following night.

  At the crack of dawn he was back in the saddle before the gates of the city. The tireless urging of his faithful servant had finally convinced him to leave this region for ever. Slowly now and lost in thought, he travelled along the lovely road that led from Lucca out into the countryside, past darkening shrubs and flowers in which the birds still slept. Just outside the city he was joined by three other riders. Not without a hidden dread he recognized one of them as the singer Fortunato. The second was Miss Bianca’s uncle, in whose country house he had danced on that fateful evening. The latter was accompanied by a lad who rode beside him in silence and without looking up. The three had resolved to visit all of Italy, and graciously invited Florio to join them. To which, however, he replied with a silent bow of the head, neither accepting nor declining the offer, and hardly took part in their conversations.

  The rosy tint of dawn, meanwhile, spread its cool lustre over the splendid landscape, which prompted the merry Pietro to remark to Fortunato: ‘Look how strangely the faint rays of daybreak play up there amongst the stones of the old ruin on the mountain! How many times, as a young boy, did I climb around those stones with stunned amazement, curiosity and a secret trepidation! You know so many old legends, can you not enlighten us as to the orig
in and the fall of that castle, concerning which such strange rumours have spread hereabouts?’

  Florio looked up at the mountain. Ringed in solitude stood an old collapsed rampart, lovely, half-sunken columns and a heap of hand-hewn stones, the whole overgrown with a lush green tangle of tendrils, hedges and tall weeds. There was a pond beside it, over which rose a partially damaged marble statue brightly lit in the rising dawn. It was clearly the same region, the same spot where he had ambled in the enchanting garden and seen the lady. Florio shuddered in secret at the sight of it. But Fortunato said: ‘I know an old song about it, if you care to hear it.’ Whereupon, without thinking twice, he sang out, filling the crisp morning air with his clear, pleasant voice:

  A picture from the past,

  In resplendent decline,

  Of ruins grand and vast,

  O’ergrown with branch and vine.

  An ancient realm,

  Heaven reclaimed it all, and ah!

  Such bygone glory overwhelms –

  This is Italia!

  When spring winds blow,

  Sweeping o’er the green,

  A quiet reawakening below

  Transforms the scene.

  There’s something stirring in our hearts

  And in this sanctuary of the gods.

  We sense it with a start,

  Where once immortals trod.

  Listen to the trees,

  Their rustling carries voices.

  With ardent reveries

  The valley rejoices.

  And hidden by the fragrant veil

  Of spring’s sweet reawakening,

  The ancient magic casts the spell

  Of gods engaged in secret flings.

  Dame Venus hears the call

  Of birds in lively chorus,

  Enchanted, she stands tall

  Shaking off the flora.

  Around each column she curls,

  Reclaiming her sacred site,

  Winking at the world,

  In this season of sweet delights.

  Seeking out the hallowed nooks

  In the ruins of her old shrine,

  She beams with a beneficent look

  And greets spring’s every sign.

  But all is barren now,

  The place itself is hushed.

  Grass grows where once the ardent bowed,

  And where the winds now rush.

  Where once they raved,

  Diana sleeps in the woods.

  Neptune’s napping beneath the waves.

  And Cupid isn’t in the mood.

  From time to time a siren rises

  From the foamy deep,

  And with each note reprises

  A wistfulness that makes hearts leap.

  And Venus herself must ponder,

  The world she knew is gone.

  In vain do her eyes now wander,

  For her lovely body is turned to stone.

  For o’er the land and billowing waves,

  In silent majesty,

  Another woman now holds sway

  Until eternity.

  In her arms a blessed child

  This wondrous woman holds,

  And from her eyes a heavenly smile

  Spreads mercy throughout the world.

  There in the lustrous light

  The blessed son awakes,

  Shaking off the pall of night,

  To seize the day, for heaven’s sake.

  And like the lark, atwitter in the trees

  Man’s immortal soul takes flight,

  Born by the sultry magic of the breeze,

  To wrestle wrong from right.

  Everyone fell silent upon hearing the song. ‘That ruin,’ Pietro finally spoke up, ‘would then once have been a Temple of Venus, if I understood you correctly?’

  ‘Indeed,’ replied Fortunato, ‘in so far as can be surmised from the disposition of the entire structure and the surviving ornaments. It is also said that the radiant goddess found no peace. Every spring, from the terrible silence of the grave she reawakens in the green solitude of her fallen temple to celebrate earthly pleasure, and through devilish delusion manages to lead carefree young spirits astray. Excluded from the realm of eternal rest, lost in body and soul, the deluded shun life, condemned as they are restlessly to roam hither and thither, torn between wild indulgence and terrible remorse, and ultimately destroy themselves, succumbing to madness. Time and again in the selfsame place, people claim to have witnessed the jousting of ghosts, now spotting a wondrously lovely lady, now a host of handsome cavaliers, beckoning passers-by to enter an imaginary garden and palace.’

  ‘Have you ever been up there?’ asked Florio, roused from his reverie.

  ‘Just the evening before last,’ replied Fortunato.

  ‘And did you not see anything that made you wince?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said the singer, ‘except for the silent pond and the mysterious stones shimmering in the moonlight, and the endless starry firmament above. I sang a pious old song, one of those timeless tunes that waft like memories and the whisper of night, born in some far, familiar haunt, gentle airs that pass through the idyllic garden of our childhood and serve evermore as a safe haven, the sound of which helps all those with the hearts of poets find their bearings later in life. Believe me, my friend, a poet worth his salt can hazard much, for, free of pride and profanation, art has the power to name and tame the wild spirits that rear up out of the earth and reach for us.’

  No one said a word. The sun had just risen before their eyes and flung its sparkling luminescence over the earth. Whereupon Florio shivered all over, dashed a short stretch on ahead of the others and sang with a clear voice:

  Here am I, Lord! Blessed be the light

  That through the torrid heat in my breast bursts

  With all its healing might,

  Coolly quenching my thirst.

  Free at last! Released from the spell,

  Too giddy to stand tall,

  My heavenly Father knows me well,

  And will not let me fall!

  After all the mighty mood swings that grip and rend our entire being, a crystal-clear serenity takes hold of the soul, like farm fields after a thunderstorm that grow greener, bursting with life. Feeling profoundly refreshed, Florio took a vigorous look around and quietly awaited his companions, who came riding up slowly through the sea of green.

  The good-looking lad who accompanied Pietro had, in the meantime, lifted his comely head like a sunflower greeting the first burst of daybreak. In stunned amazement, Florio recognized Signorina Bianca. He was shocked to see her looking so pale; gone was the ravishing blossom in her cheeks of that evening when he first set eyes on her frolicking among the tents. Roused out of the carefree games of childhood, the poor girl had suddenly been struck with the wallop of first love. And when, thereafter, in the grip of dark forces, her dearly beloved Florio became so distant and pulled further and further away from her, until finally she gave him up for lost, she sank into a deep melancholy, the secret source of which she dared reveal to no one. But wise Pietro knew all too well what ailed her, and resolved to take his niece on a trip to foreign climes, where, under distant skies, he hoped, not to wean her off the pain, but to soothe and comfort her with distraction. To travel untroubled and, as it were, to shake off the painful past, she felt compelled to dress as a boy.

  Florio looked with gladness at the comely figure. A strange blindness had until now shrouded his gaze as if with an insidious fog. He was stunned to see how lovely she was! He spoke to her, greatly stirred, with fervent words. She rode along beside him in silence and with downcast gaze and a modest smile, surprised by this unexpected attention, as though she did not deserve such kindness. Only every now and then did she look up at him through her long black lashes, her soul laid bare in that look, as though thereby tendering an ardent plea: ‘Deceive me not again!’

  In the meantime they’d reached a windswept hill, and behind them the city of Lucca with its dark t
owers sank in the morning mist. Whereupon Florio turned to Bianca and said: ‘It’s as if I were born again, as if everything is going to be all right now that I’ve found you again. With your leave, I never again want to part.’

  In lieu of a spoken reply, Bianca returned his gaze with an uncertain, questioning look, still half withholding her burgeoning burst of joy, the picture of an angel framed by the blue morning sky. The rising sun greeted them full in the face with its long golden rays. The trees stood bathed in the glow, countless larks sang out, swishing through the clear air. And so the joyous couple and their companions rode merrily through the sparkling meadows towards the blossoming embrace of Milan.

  Descent into the Mines*

  1826

  Heinrich Heine

  I found the descent into the two best Klausthal mines, the Dorothea and the Karolina, very interesting, and I would like to describe the experience in some detail.

  A half-hour’s walk outside the city, you happen upon two big blackish buildings. There you are immediately received by miners. They are dressed in dark, generally steel-blue-coloured, wide jackets hanging down over the belly, pants of more or less the same colour, a wrap-around leather smock tied in the back and a small green felt cap, completely rimless, like a lopped-off bowling pin. The visitor likewise dons the same attire, except for the leather smock, after which he is taken in hand by a miner, a foreman, who lights his pit lamp and leads him towards a dark opening resembling a chimney sweep’s hole, climbs down to chest level, instructs the visitor to keep a tight grip on the ladder and bids him follow fearlessly.

  The descent is, in fact, a risky business; but being as yet ignorant of the workings of the mine, you are initially oblivious to the real danger. The fact that you are obliged to pull off your clothes and slip on this dark prison-like apparel already gives you a curious feeling. And now you are supposed to sink to your hands and knees and climb down, and the dark hole is so dark, and God knows how long the ladder is going to be. Yet soon you realize that the rungs leading down into the black abyss do not belong to a single ladder but rather comprise a series of fifteen to twenty ladder joints, each of which leads to a tiny platform on which you can stand and in the midst of which a new hole leads down to a new length of ladder.