"Oh! calm and holy night!

Those glowing worlds of light-- Heaven's eyes--begin to tread their mystic measure.

Soar high, like sweet bells far-off chime, Night Hymn of Love, in silv'ry rhyme-- Beat at Heaven's gate, in rhythmic, pulsant measure."

At the words "soar high," etc., the music had gone into the key of D flat major, and now Lothair and Ottmar came in, in B flat minor:

"Oh! saintly souls above, That burn in holy love, With heart and tongue all pure from earthly tainting, Drop down some balm on this poor heart, Which fails, and droops, in bitter smart, Contending here--in conflict well-nigh fainting."

Then, finally, the four voices ended in F major:

"Knock, knock, and soon the angel's voice will say, 'The gates are open! enter in for aye!'"

All of them--Lothair, Ottmar, and Cyprian--felt much affected by Theodore's lovely music, which was in the simple, serious style of the early masters. The tears came to their eyes. They embraced the clever composer; they pressed him to their hearts. The clocks tolled midnight.

"Blessed be our reunion!" cried Lothair. "Oh! glorious Serapion Brotherhood, which binds us with an eternal chain! May it ever keep green and flourish! As we have done to-night, we will continue to refresh and vivify our minds in the paths of literature and art; and our next care will be to a.s.semble again here at our Theodore's, at the same time in the evening, this day week."

SECTION II.

Seven o'clock struck. Theodore was expecting his friends impatiently.

At last Ottmar came in.

"Leander has just been with me," he said; "that was what detained me. I told him how sorry I was that I was called away by a pressing engagement. He insisted on walking with me as far as the place I was going to, but I slipped away from him in the dark--not without some difficulty. I know he knew quite well I was coming here, and wanted to come too."

"And you haven't brought him?" said Theodore. "He would have been most welcome."

"No, no," said Ottmar, "that would never have answered at all. In the first place, I don't consider that I have any right to bring in a stranger--or, if Leander is not exactly a stranger, any fifth person whatever--without the unanimous consent of the Serapion Brethren.

Besides, rather an unfortunate thing happened with regard to Leander, through Lothair's fault. Lothair told him about our delightful Serapion Brotherhood, in his usual enthusiastic style. He talked hyperbolically of the admirable tendency of the Serapiontic principle, and a.s.severated nothing less than that we meant--keeping that principle constantly in view--to incite each other to undertake all sorts of interesting and important work. On that, Leander said that an opportunity of a.s.sociating himself in this way with literary people was what it had long been his most ardent desire to meet with, and that he hoped, if we would admit him to our order, to prove himself a highly meritorious brother of it. He added that he had a great many things _in petto_, and as he said so, he made an involuntary movement of his hand towards one of his coat pockets. It was stuffed to fatness; and, to my alarm, I saw that the other pocket was so too; they were both distended with ma.n.u.scripts, and papers of an alarming aspect were sticking out of his breast pocket as well."

Here Ottmar was interrupted by the somewhat boisterous entry of Lothair, who was followed by Cyprian.

"A certain little storm cloud," said Theodore, "has been forming, rather threateningly, in the atmosphere of this Serapion Brotherhood of ours. However, Ottmar has managed to dispel it cleverly. Leander wanted to come bothering us, and stuck to poor Ottmar like grim death, till he managed to give him the slip in the dark."

"Why didn't he bring him?" asked Lothair. "He's a witty, clever, intelligent fellow: I can't think of a more eligible member of our society."

"How exactly like you that is," said Ottmar: "you are always the same old Lothair; always changing your mind; always a member of the opposition. If I had brought him, you would have been the very first to find fault with me most bitterly. You say Leander is intelligent, clever, and witty. Very well; so he is--all that and more. Everything he writes has a roundness and a finish which evinces soundness of criticism and clearness of judgment; but, in the first place, I don't believe there is a man on this earth who is so absolutely devoid of any trace of the Serapiontic principle. Everything he writes he has most maturely thought out, weighed, and considered in all its aspects, but never really _seen_. His reasoning faculty does not control his imagination; it puts itself in its place. Then he delights in a wordy prolixity which is unendurable to the hearer, if not to the reader; works of his which one must admit to possess plenty of talent and interest, are tedious beyond expression when he reads them aloud."

"There is a curious question there, connected with reading aloud; I mean as to things _adapted_ for reading aloud," said Cyprian; "it seems as if not only the most vivid life were essential to them, but that they should be restricted to a certain definite length."

"The reason, I think," said Theodore, "is that the reader must not declaim; experience tells us that _that_ is unendurable; he ought merely to slightly indicate the various feelings that arise in the course of the action, preserving a quiet tone; and this tone, after a time, produces an irresistibly narcotic effect."

"What I think," said Ottmar, "is, that a story or poem, to be adapted for reading aloud, ought to approach very closely to the dramatic, or be dramatic altogether; but then again, why is it that most comedies and tragedies are unsatisfactory when read aloud?--that is, become boring and wearisome?"

"Just because they are quite _un_dramatic, said Lothair; "or because too much has been left for the effect of the action of the actors on the stage; or because the poem is so weak and feeble in itself that it does not call up before the listener's mind any picture in clear, distinct colours, and with living figures, except with the help of the actors and the stage. However, we are losing sight of Leander, as to whom I maintain, notwithstanding what Ottmar says to the contrary, that he well deserves to be admitted to our circle."

"Well and good," said Ottmar, "but please to remember what your own experience has been of him already; how he once dogged and pursued you wherever you went, with a fat--fat dramatic poem; how you always managed to give him the slip, till he asked you and me to a splendid dinner, with grand cuisine and first-rate wines, so that we might swallow the poem, thus washed down, like a dose of medicine; how I endured two acts of it like a man, and was s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up my courage for a third, when you lost patience, and got up, declaring that you were suddenly taken very unwell, and left poor Leander in the lurch, wines, dinner, and all. Recollect how he came to your house once when you had several people with you; how he now and then rustled papers in his pockets, looking from one to the other with sly, crafty glances, in hopes that somebody would say, 'You've brought something good, haven't you, dear Leander?' How you privately implored us all, for G.o.d's sake, to take no notice whatever of this menacing rustling, but to hold our tongues. Remember how you used to liken old Leander--with a tragedy always in his breast pocket, always armed and eager for the fray--to Meros creeping to slay the tyrant, with a dagger in his breast; how once, when you were obliged to ask him to dinner, he came with a great fat ma.n.u.script in his hand, so that our hearts sunk within us; how he then announced, with the sweetest smiles, that he could only stay for an hour or so, because he had promised to go to Madame So-and-so's to tea, and to read her his last epic poem in twelve cantos; how we then breathed freely again, like men relieved from a terrible burden; and when he went away all cried, with one voice, 'Oh, poor Madame So-and-so!--what an unfortunate woman!'"

"Stop, stop, Ottmar," said Lothair; "what you say is all true enough, of course, but nothing of that sort could take place amongst Serapion Brethren. We form a strongly organized opposition to everything that is not in harmony with our fundamental principle, and I would give odds that Leander conforms to our rule."

"Don't imagine anything of the kind, dear Lothair," said Ottmar.

"Leander has a fault which many conceited writers have in common with him--he won't listen; and, just for that reason, he always wants to be the person who reads or speaks. He would always be trying to occupy the whole of our evenings with his own interminable compositions; he would take our efforts to obviate this in the worst possible part, and, consequently, mar the whole of our enjoyment: he even spoke to-day of works to be undertaken in common; and with that idea in his head he would torture us terribly."

"That is a sort of thing which never answers," said Cyprian. "It doesn't seem practicable for several people to write a work together; it would require such absolute similarity of mental disposition, such depth of insight, and such ident.i.ty of the power to grasp ideas as they suggest and succeed one another, even if a plot were fully determined on in concert. I say this from experience, although of course there are some instances to the contrary."

"At the same time," said Cyprian, "sympathetically-minded friends often give each other valuable hints and suggestions, which lead to the production of works."

"For a suggestion of that sort," said Ottmar, "I have to thank our friend Severin, who, when he comes back here, as I expect him to do immediately, will make a much better Serapion Brother than Leander. I was sitting with him in the Thiergarten, Berlin, when there happened, before our eyes, the incident which suggested the story called 'A Fragment of the Lives of Three Friends,' which I wrote, and have brought with me to read to you to-night; for when (as you shall presently hear) the pretty girl read the letter, which had been privately handed to her, with tears in her eyes, Severin cast pregnant glances at me, and whispered, 'There's something for you, Ottmar; let your fancy move its wings; write at once all about the girl, the letter, and her tears.' I did so, and here you have the result."

The friends sat down at the round table; Ottmar took a ma.n.u.script from his pocket, and read--

'A FRAGMENT OF THE LIVES OF THREE FRIENDS.

"One Whit Monday the 'Webersche Zelt,' a place of public resort in the Thiergarten, Berlin, was so densely crowded by people of every sort and kind that it was only by dint of unremitting and a.s.siduous shouting, and the most dogged perseverance of pursuit, that Alexander succeeded in capturing a much-vexed and greatly-badgered waiter, and inducing him to set out a small table under the trees beside the water, where he, with his friends Severin and Marzell (who had managed, by the exercise of fine strategical talent, to possess themselves of a couple of chairs), sat down in the happiest possible frame of mind. It was only a few days since they had come back to Berlin. Alexander had arrived from a distant province to take possession of the heritage of an aunt deceased, and the two others had come back to resume the duties of their Government appointments, from which they had been absent for a considerable time on military duty, during the important campaign which was just at an end. This was the day when they had arranged to celebrate their reunion in famous style, and, as it often happens, it was the Present, with its doings and strivings, more than the eventful Past, that was occupying their minds.

"'I can a.s.sure you,' said Alexander, taking up the steaming coffee-pot and filling the cups, 'that if you saw me in my aunt's old house--how I wander pathetically up and down the lofty chambers hung with gloomy tapestry; how Mistress Anne, my aunt's former housekeeper, a little spectral-looking creature, comes in wheezing and coughing, carrying the pewter salver with my breakfast in her trembling arms, putting it down on the table with a curious backward-sliding curtsey, and then making her exit without a word, sighing, and scuffling along on slippers too large for her feet, like the beggar wife of Locarno, while the tom-cat and the pug, eying me with dubious glances, go out after her; how I then, with a low-spirited parrot scolding at me, and china mandarins nodding at me with scornful smiles, swallow cup after cup of the coffee, scarcely daring to desecrate this virginal chamber, where amber and mastic have been wont to shed their perfumes, with vulgar tobacco reek,--I say, if you were to see me in these circ.u.mstances, you would say I was under some spell of enchantment; you would regard me as a species of Merlin. I can a.s.sure you that the easy adaptability to circ.u.mstances which you have so often blamed me for was the sole cause of my having at once taken up my quarters in my aunt's lonely house, instead of looking out for some other lodging; for the pedantic scrupulosity of her executor has rendered it an exceedingly uncanny place to be in. That strange creature of an aunt of mine (whom I scarcely ever saw) left directions in her will that everything was to remain till my arrival exactly as she left it at her death. By the side of the bed, which is resplendent in snow-white linen and sea-green silk, still stands the little tabouret, on which, as of yore, is laid out the maidenly night-dress and the much be-ribboned nightcap; under it are the embroidered slippers,--and a brightly polished silver mermaid (the handle of some piece of toilet apparatus or other) glitters as it projects from beneath the quilt, which is all over many-tinted flowers. The unfinished piece of embroidery, which she was working at shortly before her death, is still lying in the sitting-room, with Arndt's 'True Christianity' open beside it; and (what for me, at all events, fills up the measure of eeriness) in this same room there is a life-size portrait of her, taken some thirty-five or forty years ago, in her wedding-dress; in which wedding-dress, as Mistress Anne tells me with many tears, just as it is shown in the picture, she was buried.'

"'What a strange idea!' said Marzell.

"'Yet not so very odd, after all,' said Severin; 'those who die maids are called the brides of Christ, and I trust n.o.body would be reprobate enough to make fun of this pretty old fancy, which well beseems an old maiden's creed. At the same time I don't quite gather why the aunt had her portrait taken as a bride forty years ago.'

"'As the tale was told to me,' said Alexander, 'my aunt was engaged to be married at one time--indeed the wedding-day had arrived, and she was dressed and waiting for the bridegroom; but he never made his appearance, having thought proper to leave the place that morning with a "flame" of his of earlier date. My aunt took this deeply to heart, and, without being exactly queer in the head, always kept the anniversary of that marriage-day of hers, that was to have been, in a curious way. Early in the morning of it she used to put on her wedding-dress complete, and (as she had done on the day itself) lay out a little table of walnut-wood with gilt carvings in her dressing-room, with chocolate, wine, and cake for two people, and then walk slowly up and down, sighing and softly lamenting, till ten at night, when, after she had prayed fervently, Mistress Anne would undress her, and she would go silently to bed, sunk in deep reflection.'

"'I call that exceedingly touching,' said Marzell. 'Woe to the traitor who caused the poor creature that never-forgotten pain!'

"'But there may be another side to the question,' said Alexander: 'the man whom you accuse of perfidy--and who was a traitor, no doubt, whatever may have been his motives--may have had a warning from his good genius; or, if you prefer to say so, a better feeling may have come to him. Perhaps it was her money that was the attraction; he may have found out that she was imperious, quarrelsome, miserly--in short, a disagreeable person to have much to do with.'

"'Perhaps,' said Severin, laying his pipe on the table, and looking reflectively before him with his arms crossed; 'but could those silent, affecting funereal observances--those resigned regrets, heard only in her own heart, for the unfaithful scoundrel--have existed in any but a deep and tender nature, which must have been a stranger to the worldly infirmities which you accuse your aunt of? No doubt the bitter feeling--(how seldom can we altogether master it, hard beset as we are in this life of ours?)--may sometimes have manifested itself in her in various forms, not always very easily recognizable, and having a more or less unpleasant effect upon the old lady's surroundings; still, that yearly day of pious sorrow would have atoned, in my eyes, at all events, for any amount of shortcomings during the rest of the time.'

"'I agree with you, Severin,' said Marzell. 'The old lady can't have been quite so bad as Alexander--though only from hearsay--makes her out to have been; at the same time I must confess I don't like to have anything to do with folks who have had their lives embittered, and it's better that Alexander should edify himself with the story of the old lady's way of keeping her wedding-day (that ought to have been), and rummage in the well-filled boxes and chests she has left him, or gloat over the valuable "inventory," than that he should see the deserted bride, dressed for the altar, walking up and down beside her chocolate-table.'

"Alexander set the coffee-cup which he was raising to his lips down untasted on the table with a clatter; beat his hands together, and cried, 'For Heaven's sake don't put ideas of that sort into my head!

Really I feel in that state that it wouldn't astonish me if I were to see my old aunt in her bride-clothes suddenly peering, in a horrible, spectral manner, out of the middle of that group of nice-looking girls there, in the bright sunshine!'

"'That serves you right for having said what you did about your aunt, who never did you anything but kindness, even in death,' said Severin, with a quiet laugh, puffing away little blue cloudlets from his pipe, which he had resumed.

"Do you know, my dear fellows,' said Alexander, 'that the very atmosphere of that old house of mine seems to be so thoroughly impregnated with the essence and spirit of the old lady, that one has only to be in it for a day or two to find one's self imbibing it to a very appreciable extent?'

"Marzell and Severin chanced to be handing their empty cups to Alexander as he spoke; he put in the sugar and milk, and poured out the coffee with a dainty, deliberate care, and said:

"'I daresay you notice how differently I do a thing of this sort from my old way of doing it; I mean, I do it much more like an old lady; and you will be more astonished still when I tell you that I find myself taking a strange pleasure in well-polished pewter and copper, and in linen and silver plate--in everything relating to a well-ordered household. In one word, I feel like some old housekeeper. I find myself looking with a funny satisfaction at household paraphernalia of every sort, and it has suddenly dawned upon me that it is good to be the possessor of something besides a bed, a chair, a table, a lamp and an inkstand. My aunt's executor smiles and tells me I can marry whenever I choose, and have nothing to do but fix upon the bride and the parson.

What he really means is that the bride's not far to seek. He has a little bit of a daughter himself; a dressy little thing with great big eyes, excessively childish and innocent in her ways, always gushing with artlessness, and hopping about like a water-wagtail. I daresay this may have been all very well, considering her little elfin figure, some sixteen years ago or so; but now that she's two- or three-and-thirty, it gives one rather a queer sensation.'

"'Ay,' said Severin, 'and yet how very natural that kind of self-mystification is. Where is the precise point where a girl, who has taken up some particular line, in consequence of some personal peculiarity or other, is to say to herself, "I am no longer what I was; the colours I put on are still fresh and youthful, but my face has lost its bloom; so, patience! what can't be cured must be endured!" The sight of a poor girl in these circ.u.mstances fills me with pity, and, for that very reason, I could put my arms about her, take her to my heart, and comfort her.'

"'You see, Alexander,' said Marzell, 'that Severin's in his most beneficent mood to-day. First, he takes up the cudgels for your aunt, and now the executor's daughter (I think I know who the executor is--Falter, the Kriegsrath); Falter's little witch of two- or three-and-thirty, whom I know very well, inspires him with sentiments of sad, compa.s.sionate sympathy; presently he'll advise you to marry her, and cure her of that inappropriate _navete_ of hers; for that she will lay aside, as far as you are concerned at all events, the moment she says "Yes!" Don't you do anything of the kind. Experience teaches that nave little creatures of that kind are sometimes--or rather very often--of feline nature, and, out of the velvet paws which they stroke you with before the parson's blessing, can soon stick out sharp enough claws, on suitable opportunity afterwards.'

"'Heavens and earth!' cried Alexander, 'what nonsense you're talking!

Neither Falter's little witch of thirty-two, nor anybody else, were she ten times as young and charming, could induce me to go and sacrifice, of my own free will and accord, the golden years of youthful liberty and freedom which, now that a slice of the good things of this world has fallen to my share, I mean to set to work to thoroughly enjoy; and the fact is that the old bridely aunt has such a ghostly, haunting effect upon me, that I can't help a.s.sociating all sorts of eery, uncanny, shuddery feelings with the very word "bride."'