By Johann Ludwig Tieck (1773-1853), from Liebesgeschichte der schönen Magelone und des Grafen Peter von Provence.
Set by Johannes Brahms (1833-1897), “Ruhe, Süßliebchen, im Schatten”, op. 33 no. 9, from Romanzen aus L. Tieck’s Magelone, no. 9. Translation © Emily Ezust, Lied & Art Song Texts Page.

Ruhe, Süßliebchen, im Schatten
Rest, my love, in the shade
Of green, darkening night;
The grass rustles on the meadow,
The shadows fan and cool thee
And true love is awake.
Sleep, go to sleep!
Gently rustles the grove,
Eternally am I thine.
Hush, you hidden songs,
And disturb not her sweetest repose!
The flock of birds listens,
Stilled are their noisy songs.
Close thine eyes, my darling,
Sleep, go to sleep;
In the twilight
I will watch over thee.
Murmur on, you melodies,
Rush on, you quiet stream.
Lovely fantasies of love
do these melodies evoke:
Tender dreams swim after them.
Through the whispering grove
Swarm tiny golden bees
which hum thee to sleep.
“Tales from the German of Tieck.” London: Edward Moxon, 64, New Bond Street. 1831.

THE LOVECHARM
He saw nothing like her whom he was seeking for; and he could not possibly give utterance to the notion that her beloved face might perhaps be lurking behind some odious mask.
He had already ranged up and down the room three times over, and had in vain run his eyes along all the ladies that were sitting and unmaskt, when the Spaniard joined him and said: “I am glad you are come after all; are you looking for your friend?”
Emilius had quite forgotten him; he said however somewhat embarrast: “In truth I wonder I have not met him here, for his mask is not to be mistaken.”
“Can you guess what the harum-scarum fellow is about?” answered the young officer. “He never danced at all, and hardly staid ten minutes in the ballroom: for he soon fell in with his friend Anderson, who is just come up from the country: their conversation turned upon books; and as Anderson has never seen the new poem, Roderick would not rest till he had made them open one of the back rooms for him; and there he is now sitting beside a solitary taper, holding his companion fast, and declaiming the whole poem to him, not omitting even the invocation to the muse.”
“It’s just like him,” said Emilius; “he is always the child of the moment. I have done all in my power, and even run the risk of some amicable quarrels, to cure him of this habit of for ever living extempore, and playing out his whole life in impromptus, card after card, as it chances to turn up, without once looking over his hand. But these follies have struck such deep root in his heart, he would sooner part with his best friend than with them.
That very same poem, which he is so fond of that he always carries it about in his pocket, he wanted to read to me a few days ago, and I had earnestly begged him to do so: but he had scarcely got beyond the first description of the moon, when, just as I had resigned myself to the enjoyment of its beauties, he suddenly jumpt up, ran out of the room, came back with the cook’s apron round his waist, tore down the bell-rope in ringing to have the fire lighted, and insisted on broiling me some beefsteaks, for which I had not the least appetite, and which he fancies nobody in Europe dresses so well, though, if he is in luck, he does not spoil them above nine times in ten.”
The Spaniard laught, and askt: “Has he never been in love?”
“After his fashion,” replied Emilius very gravely; “as if he were making game of love and of himself, with a dozen women at a time, and, if you would believe his words, raving after every one of them: but ere a week passes over his head, they are all spunged out of it, and not even a blot is left behind.”
They parted in the crowd, and Emilius walkt toward the remote apartment, from which, long before he reacht it, he caught his friend’s loud recitative.
“Ah, so you are here too!” exclaimed Roderick, as he entered: “you have just hit the right moment; I am at the very passage where we were interrupted the other day: sit down, and you may hear the remainder.”
“I am not in a humour for it now,” said Emilius: “besides the time and place do not seem to me exactly suited to such an employment.”
“And why not?” answered Roderick. “Time and place are made for us, not we for time and place. Is not good poetry just as good at one hour as at another? Is not it right to read it? and can that which is right ever become wrong? Or would you rather dance? There is a lack of men; and you need only jump about for a few hours, at the mere risk of tiring your legs, to lay strong siege to the hearts of as many grateful beauties as you choose.”
“Good night!” cried the other with his hand on the door; “I am going home.”
Roderick called out to him: “Only one word! I shall set off tomorrow at daybreak with my friend here, to spend a few days in the country, but will look in upon you to say goodbye before we start. Should you be asleep, as is most likely, you need not take the trouble of waking; for, before a week is out, I shall be back again.—The strangest being upon earth!” he continued, turning to his neighbour.
“So moping and fretful, such a splitter of thoughts, that he turns all his pleasures sour; or rather there is no such thing as pleasure for him. Instead of walking about with his fellow creatures in broad daylight and enjoying himself, he gets down to the bottom of the well of his fancies, in the hope of now and then catching a glimpse of a star.
Everything must be in the superlative for him: everything must be pure, and majestic, and ethereal, and celestial: his heart must be always throbbing and heaving, even when he is standing before a puppet show. He never laughs or cries, but can only smile and weep; and forsooth there is mighty little difference between his weeping and his smiling.
When anything, be it what it may, falls short of his anticipations and preconceptions, which are always flying up out of reach and sight, he puts on a tragical face, and complains that it is a base and soulless world. At this very moment, I make no doubt, he is requiring that under the masks of a Pantaloon or a Punch there should be a soul glowing with unearthly desires and ideal aspirations, and that Harlequin should outmoralize Hamlet on the nothingness of sublunary things: and if these expectations are disappointed, as they can never fail to be, the dew is sure to rise into his eyes, and he will turn his back on the whole motley scene in desponding contempt.”
“He must be atrabilious then?” askt his hearer.
“Not that exactly,” answered Roderick: “he has only been spoilt by the indulgence of his overfond parents and by his own. He has accustomed himself to let his heart ebb and flow as regularly as the sea; and if this motion is ever at a stop, he cries out _a miracle!_ and would offer a prize to the philosopher who should give a satisfactory explanation of so marvellous a phenomenon. He is the best fellow under the sun; but all my painstaking to break him of this perverseness has been utterly vain and thrown away; and if I would not earn scurvy thanks for my goodwill, I must even let him follow his own devices.”
“Might not a physician do him good?” remarkt Anderson.
“It is one of his whims,” replied Roderick, “to entertain a supreme contempt for the whole medical art. He will have it that every disease is something different and distinct in every particular patient, that there is no arranging it under any class, and that it is absurd to think of healing it by attending to ancient practice, and still more so by what is called theory: he would much rather apply to an old woman, and make use of sympathetic cures.
In like manner he despises all foresight in other matters, and everything like regularity, moderation, and common sense: the last above all he holds in special abhorrence, as the antipode and arch-enemy to all enthusiasm. While yet a child he framed for himself an ideal of a noble character; and his constant aim is to make himself what he considers such, that is to say, a being who shews his superiority to all earthly things by his scorn for riches.
Merely to avoid being suspected of stinginess, or of giving unwillingly, or of caring about money, he flings it right and left by handfuls; with all his large fortune he is for ever poor and distrest, and is the bubble of all such as are not gifted with precisely the same sort of magnanimity which for himself he is determined to attain to. To be his friend is the task of all tasks: for he is so touchy, you need only cough, or eat with your knife, or not sip your drink as delicately as a cow, or even pick your teeth, to offend him mortally.”
“Was he never in love?” askt his country friend.
“Whom should he love? whom could he love?” answered Roderick. “He despises all the daughters of earth; and if he had a favorite, and were ever to suspect that she had not an angelical contempt for dress, or liked dancing at times as well as star-gazing, it would break his heart: still more tremendous would it be, if she were ever so unlucky as to sneeze.”
Meanwhile Emilius was again standing among the crowd: but on a sudden he was seized by that heart-burning, that shivering, which had already so often come over him in the midst of a multitude in a like state of excitement. It drove him out of the ballroom, out of the house, and along the desolate streets; nor did he recover and regain the quiet possession of his senses, till he reacht his lonely chamber. The night light was already burning; he sent his servant to bed: everything over the way was silent and dark, and he sat down to pour forth the feelings which the ball had aroused, in verse.
Within the heart ’tis still;
Sleep each wild thought encages:
Now stirs a wicked will,
Would see how madness rages,
And cries: Wild spirit awake!
Loud cymbals catch the cry,
And back its echoes shake;
And, shouting peals of laughter,
The trumpet rushes after,
And cries: Wild spirit awake!
Amid them flute-tones fly,
Like arrows, keen and numberless;
And with bloodhound yell
Pipes the onset swell;
And violins and violoncellos,
Creaking, clattering,
Shrieking, shattering;
And horns whence thunder bellows;
To leave the victim slumberless,
And drag forth prisoned madness,
And cruelly murder all quiet and innocent gladness.
What will be the end of this commotion?
Where the shore to this turmoiling ocean?
What seeks the tossing throng,
As it wheels and whirls along?
On! on! the lustres
Like hellstars bicker:
Let us twine in closer clusters,
On! on! ever closer and quicker!
How the silly things throb, throb amain!
Hence all quiet!
Hither riot!
Peal more proudly,
Squeal more loudly,
Ye cymbals, ye trumpets! bedull all pain,
Till it laugh again.
Thou beckonest to me, beauty’s daughter;
Smiles ripple o’er thy lips,
And o’er thine eye’s blue water;
O let me breathe on thee,
Ere parted hence we flee,
Ere aught that light eclipse!
I know that beauty’s flowers soon wither:
Those lips, within whose rosy cells
Thy spirit warbles its sweet spells,
Death’s clammy kiss ere long will press together.
I know, that face so fair and full
Is but a masquerading skull:
But hail to thee skull so fair and so fresh!
Why should I weep and whine and wail,
That what blooms now must soon grow pale,
And that worms must batten on that sweet flesh?
Let me laugh but today and tomorrow,
And what care I for sorrow,
While thus on the waves of the dance by
each other we sail?
Now thou art mine,
And I am thine:
And what though pain and trouble wait
To seize thee at the gate,
And sob, and tear, and groan, and sigh,
Stand ranged in state
On thee to fly,
Blithely let us look and cheerily
On death that grins so drearily!
What would grief with us, or anguish?
They are foes that we know how to vanquish.
I press thine answering fingers,
Thy look upon me lingers,
Or the fringe of thy garment will waft me
a kiss:
Thou rollest on in light;
I fall back into night;
Even despair is bliss.
From this delight,
From this wild revel’s surge
Perchance there may emerge
Foul jealousy, and scorn, and envious spite.
But this is our glory and pride;
When thee I despise,
I turn but my eyes,
And the fair one beside thee will welcome
my gaze,
And she is my bride!
O happy, happy maze!
Or shall it be her neighbour?
Whose eyes, like a sabre,
Flash and pierce,
Their glance is so fierce.
Thus jumping and prancing,
All together go dancing
Adown life’s giddy cave;
Nor living, nor loving,
But dizzily roving
Through dreams to a grave.
There below ’tis yet worse:
Earth’s flowers and its clay
Roof a gloomier day,
Hide a still deeper curse.
Ring then, ye cymbals, enliven this dream!
Ye horns shout a fiercer, more vulture-like scream!
And frisk caper skip prance dance yourselves
out of breath!
For your life is all art,
Love has given you no heart:
So hurrah till you plunge into bottomless
death.
He had ended, and was standing by the window. Then she came into the opposite chamber, lovely, as he had never yet seen her: her brown hair floated freely, and played in wanton ringlets about the whitest of necks; she was but lightly clad, and seemed as if she meant to finish some little household matters at this late hour of the night before she went to bed: for she placed two candles in two corners of the room, set the green cloth on the table to rights, and withdrew again.
Emilius was still sunk in his sweet dreams, and gazing on the image which his beloved had left in his mind, when to his horrour the frightful, the scarlet old woman walkt through the chamber: the gold on her head and breast glared ghastlily as it threw back the light.
She had vanisht again. Was he to believe his eyes? Was it not some delusive phantom of the night that his own feverish imagination had conjured up before him?
But no! she returned, still more hideous than before, with a long grey and black mane flying wildly and haggardly about her breast and back. The beauteous maiden followed her, pale, stiff; her lovely bosom was all bared, but her whole form was like a marble statue.
Then the old woman growled. Here something crawled forth from behind that they seemed not to perceive, or it must have struck them with the same thrilling terrour as Emilius. A serpent curled its loathsome neck, scale after something red blood, and a green sparkling eye shot over into the eye, and brain, and heart of Emilius, who instantly dropt on the ground.
He was senseless when found by Roderick some hours after.
~~~
A party of friends were sitting on the brightest summer morning in a green arbour, assembled at an excellent breakfast. Laughter and jests passed round; and many a time did the glasses kiss with a merry health to the young couple, and a wish that they might be the happiest of the happy. The bride and bridegroom were not present; she being still engaged in dressing, while the young husband was sauntering by himself down an avenue some way off, musing upon his happiness.
“What a pity it is,” said Anderson, “that we are to have no music! All our ladies are beclouded at the thought, and never in their whole lives longed for a dance so much as today, when it is quite out of the question: it is far too painful to his feelings.”
“I can tell you a secret though,” exclaimed a young officer, “that we are to have a dance after all; and a rare riotous and madcap one it will be. Everything is already arranged; the musicians are come secretly and quartered out of sight. Roderick has managed the whole business; for he says one ought not to let him always have his own way, or to humour his strange caprices overmuch, especially on such a day as this.”
“Besides,” observed another young man, “he is already become much more tractable and sociable than he used to be; so that I think he himself will not be sorry at the alteration. Indeed the whole wedding has been brought about all on the sudden, and has taken everybody by surprise.”
“His whole history,” resumed Anderson, “is just as extraordinary as his character. You must all remember how, being on his travels last autumn, he arrived in our city, and spent the winter there, living like a melancholy man almost entirely in his own room, and never visiting our theatre or taking part in any other amusement. He all but quarrelled with Roderick, his most intimate friend, for trying to divert him, and refusing to pamper all his moping fantasies.
In fact this overstrained irritability and moroseness must have been a disease that was gathering in his body: for you know he was attackt four months ago by such a violent nervous fever, that his life was for a long time despaired of. After his frenzy had raved itself out, and he returned to his senses, he had almost entirely lost his memory: nothing but his childhood and early youth kept its hold on his mind; and he was totally unable to recollect anything that had happened during his journey, or immediately before his illness.
He had to begin his acquaintance afresh with all his friends, even with Roderick; and it is only by little and little that his thoughts have grown lighter, and that the past with all that had befallen him has come back, though still in dim colours, into his memory. He had been removed into his uncle’s house, that better care might be taken of him; and he was just like a child, letting them do whatever they chose with him.
The first time he went out to enjoy the warmth of the spring in the park, he saw a girl sitting pensively by the roadside. She lookt up; her eye met his; and seized with an inexplicable yearning he stopt the carriage, got out, sat down by her, took hold of her hands, and burst into a flood of tears. His friends were again alarmed for his intellects: but he grew calm, cheerful, and conversable, got introduced to the girl’s parents, and at his very first visit askt for her hand, which, with her parents consent, she granted him.
Since that time he has been happy, and a new life has sprung up within him: day after day he has become healthier and more contented. A week ago he paid me a visit at this country house, and was above measure delighted with it; indeed so much so that he would not rest till he had made me sell it to him.
I might easily have turned his passionate desire to my own advantage, and his loss; for when he once sets his heart on a thing, he will have it, and that too forthwith. He immediately let it be got ready, sent furniture that he may spend the summer months here; and thus it has come to pass that we are all met for his wedding in my old garden.”
The house was large, and in a very lovely country. One side of it lookt on a river and some woody hills beyond; shrubs and trees of various kinds were scattered about the lawn; and immediately before the windows lay a flower garden sweetening the air. The orange and lemon trees were ranged in a large open hall, from which small doors led to the store rooms, cellars, and pantries.
On the other side a meadow spread out its green floor, opening immediately into the park. The two long wings of the house formed a spacious court; and broad open galleries, borne by three rows of pillars standing one above the other, ran round it, connecting all the rooms in the house, and giving it a singular and interesting character: for figures were perpetually moving along these arcades, some engaged in one employment, some in another.
New forms kept stepping forth between the pillars and out of the various rooms, which anon vanisht and then reappeared above or below, to be lost behind one of the doors: parties too would often assemble there for tea or for some game; and thus from below the whole had the look of a theatre, before which everybody was glad to stop awhile, with a foreboding that something strange or pleasing was sure to meet his eyes ere long.
The party of young people were just rising, when the bride came in her full dress through the garden walking toward them. She was clad in violet-coloured velvet: a sparkling necklace lay cradled on her glittering neck; the costly lace just allowed her white swelling bosom to glimmer through; and her wreath of myrtle and white roses gave her brown hair a still more beautiful tint.
She greeted them all graciously, and the young men were astonisht at her surpassing beauty. She had been gathering flowers in the garden, and was going back into the house to see after the arrangements for dinner.
The tables had been set out in the lower open gallery, and shone dazzlingly with their white coverings and their load of sparkling crystal: rich clusters of many-coloured flowers rose from the graceful necks of alabaster vases; green garlands, starred with white blossoms, twined round the columns: and it was a lovely sight to behold the bride gliding along with gentle motion between the tables and the pillars, amid the light of the flowers, overlooking the whole with a searching glance, and then vanishing; and reappearing a moment after above, to pass into her chamber.
“She is the loveliest, most enchanting creature I ever saw!” cried Anderson: “our friend is indeed a happy man.”
To be continued …
“Tales from the German of Tieck.” London: Edward Moxon, 64, New Bond Street. 1831.
THE LOVECHARM
Emilius was sitting in deep thought at his table, awaiting his friend Roderick. A light was burning before him; the winter-evening was cold; and today he wisht for the presence of his fellow traveller, though at other times wont to avoid his society; for on this evening he purpost to disclose a secret to him and ask his advice.
The timid, shy Emilius found so many difficulties, such insurmountable hindrances, in every affair he was engaged in, and in every event that befell him, that it almost seemed as if his destiny had been in an ironical mood when it threw him and Roderick together, Roderick being in all things the reverse of his friend.
Fickle, flighty, always determined and fixt by the first impression, he attempted everything, had a plan for every emergency; no undertaking was too arduous for him, no obstacles could deter him. But in the midst of the pursuit he wearied and broke down just as suddenly as at first he had kindled and sprung forward: whatever then opposed him did not act as a spur to urge him more eagerly onward, but only made him abandon and despise what he had so hotly rusht into; and thus Roderick was evermore thoughtlessly beginning something new, and with no better reason relinquishing and carelessly forgetting what he had begun just before.
Hence no day ever passed but the friends got into a quarrel, which threatened to be a death blow to their friendship: and yet what to all appearance thus divided them, was perhaps the very thing that bound them most closely together: each loved the other heartily; but each found passing satisfaction in being able to discharge the most justly deserved reproaches upon his friend.
Emilius, a rich young man of a sensitive and melancholy temperament, had become master of his fortune on his father’s death, and had set out on his travels for the sake of cultivating his mind: he had already been spending several months however in a large town, to enjoy the pleasures of the carnival, about which he never gave himself the slightest trouble, and to make certain important arrangements concerning his fortune with some relations, whom he had scarcely yet visited.
On his journey he had fallen in with the restless, ever-shifting and veering Roderick, who was living at variance with his guardians, and who, to get rid altogether of them and their troublesome admonitions, had caught eagerly at his new friend’s offer to take him with him on his travels.
On their road they had already been often on the point of separating; but after every dispute both had only felt the more forcibly that neither could live without the other. Scarcely had they got out of their carriage in any town, when Roderick had already seen everything remarkable in it, to forget it all again on the morrow: while Emilius took a week to study thoroughly whatever was said in books about it, that he might not leave anything unnoticed; and after all out of indolence thought there was hardly anything worth going to look at.
Roderick had immediately made a thousand acquaintances, and been to every public place of entertainment; and he would often bring his new-made friends to Emilius in his solitary chamber, where, as soon as he began to be tired of them, he left him alone with them.
At other times he would confound the modest Emilius by heaping extravagant praises on his talents and acquirements in the presence of learned and intelligent men, and by telling them how much information they might derive from his friend with regard to languages, antiquities, or the fine arts, though he himself could never find leisure to listen to him on these subjects when the conversation happened to turn on them.
But if Emilius ever chanced to be in a more active mood, he might almost make sure that his truant friend would have caught cold the night before at some ball or sledge-party, and be forced to keep his bed; so that, with the liveliest, most restless, and most communicative of men for his companion, Emilius lived in the greatest solitude.
On this day he confidently expected him, having made Roderick give him a solemn promise to spend the evening with him, in order to hear what it was that for several weeks had been depressing and agitating his pensive friend. Meanwhile Emilius wrote down the following lines:
‘Tis sweet when spring its choir assembles,
And every nightingale is steeping
The trees in his melodious weeping,
Till leaf and bloom with rapture trembles.
Fair is the net that moonlight weaves;
Fair are the breezes gambolings
As with lime-odours on their wings
They chase each other through the leaves.
Bright is the glory of the rose,
When Love’s rich magic decks the earth,
From countless roses Love peeps forth,
Those stars wherewith Love’s heaven glows.
But sweeter, fairer, brighter far
To me that little lamp’s pale gleaming,
When, through the narrow casement streaming
It bids me hail my evening star;
As from their braids she flings her tresses,
Then twines them in a flowery band,
While at each motion of her hand
The light robe to her fair form presses;
Or when she wakes her lute’s deep slumbers,
And, as at morning’s touch updarting,
The notes beneath her fingers starting,
Trip o’er the strings in playful numbers.
To stop their flight her voice she pours
Full after them; they laugh, and fly,
And to my heart for refuge hie:
Her voice pursues them through its doors.
Leave me, ye mischiefs! hence remove!
They bar themselves within, and say:
Till this be broken here we stay,
That thou mayst know what ’tis to love.
Emilius stood up fretfully. It grew darker, but no Roderick came; and he was wishing to tell him of his love for an unknown fair one, who dwelt in the opposite house, and who kept him at home all day long, and waking through many a night.
At length footsteps sounded on the stairs; the door opened without anybody knocking at it: and in came two gay masks with ugly visages, one of them a Turk, drest in red and blue silk, the other a Spaniard, in pale yellow and pink, with a plume of feathers waving on his hat. When Emilius was losing patience, Roderick took off his mask, shewed his well-known laughing countenance, and cried: “Heyday, my good friend, what a drowned puppy of a face! Is this the way to look in the carnival?
“I am come with my dear young officer here to carry you off: there is a grand ball tonight at the masquerade-rooms; and, as I know you have forsworn ever putting on any other suit than that which you always wear of the devil’s own colour, come with us black as you are; for it is getting somewhat late.”
Emilius felt angry, and said: “It seems that according to custom you have totally forgotten your engagement. I am extremely sorry,” (he added, turning to the stranger) “that I cannot possibly be of your party: my friend has been overhasty in promising for me; indeed I cannot go out at all, having some matters of importance to talk over with him.”
The stranger, who was well-bred and saw Emiliuses meaning, withdrew: but Roderick with the utmost indifference put on his mask again, took his stand before the glass, and exclaimed: “Verily, I am a most hideous figure, am I not? After all my pains it is a tasteless, disgusting device.”
“That there can be no question about!” answered Emilius in vehement displeasure. “Making a caricature of yourself, and stupefying your senses, are among the pleasures you are the fondest of driving at.”
“Because you don’t like dancing,” said the other, “and look upon it as a pernicious invention, not a soul in the world is to be merry. How tiresome it is when a man is made up of nothing but whims!”
“Doubtless!” replied his irritated friend; “and you afford me ample opportunity for finding that it is so. I fancied that after our agreement you would have given me this one evening; but—”
“But it is the carnival, you know,” interposed the other; “and all my acquaintances, and divers fair ladies are expecting me at the grand ball tonight. Rely upon it, my dear friend, it is mere disease in you that makes you so unreasonably averse to all such amusements.”
“Which of us has the fairest claim to be called diseased,” said Emilius, “I will not examine. But I cannot think that your incomprehensible frivolousness, your hunger and thirst for dissipation, your restless chase after pleasures that leave the heart empty, are altogether the healthiest state of human nature. On certain points at all events you might make a little allowance for my weakness, if you are determined to call it so; and you know there is nothing in the world that so sets my whole soul on edge as a ball with its frightful music.
Somebody has said, that to a deaf person who cannot hear the music a party of dancers must look like so many patients for a madhouse: but to my mind this detestable music itself, this twirling and whirling and pirouetting of half a dozen notes, each treading on its own heels, in those odious tunes, which ram themselves into our memory, nay, I might say, mix themselves up with our very blood, so that one cannot get rid of the taint for many a woeful day after,—this to me is the very trance of madness: and if I could ever bring myself to think dancing endurable, it would be dancing to the tune of silence.”
“Bravo, signor paradox-monger!” exclaimed the mask: “You are so far gone, that you choose to think the most natural, the most innocent, and the merriest thing in the world unnatural, ay, and shocking.”
“I cannot change my feelings,” said his grave friend. “From my very childhood these tunes have made me unhappy, and have often all but driven me out of my senses. They are to me the ghosts and spectres and furies in the world of sound, and they come and buzz round my head, and grin at me with horrid laughter.”
“Sheer nervousness!” returned the other; “just like your extravagant abhorrence of spiders and divers other harmless insects.”
“Harmless you call them!” cried Emilius indignantly, “because you have no repugnance to such things. To him however that feels the same disgust and loathing, the same unutterable shuddering, as I feel, start up within him and shoot through his whole frame at the sight of them, these miscreant deformities, such as toads, beetles, or that most nauseous of all Nature’s abortions, the bat, are not indifferent or insignificant: their very existence is a state of direct enmity and warfare against his.
In good truth one might smile at the unbelievers whose imagination is too barren for ghosts and fearful goblins, and such births of night as we see in sickness, to grow up in it, or who stare and marvel at Dante’s descriptions; when the commonest everyday life is perpetually paralysing our eyesight with some of these portentous distorted masterpieces among the works of horrour. Yet how can we have a real feeling and love for beauty, without detesting and recoiling from such monstrosities?”
“Why recoil from them?” askt Roderick: “why should we see nothing in the vast realm of water, in lakes, rivers, and seas, but those dismal objects which you have taught yourself to find there? why not rather look on such creatures as queer, amusing, and ludicrous mummers? so that the deep might be called a kind of large maskt ballroom.
“But your caprices go still further; for while you love roses with a sort of idolatry, there are other flowers for which you have a no less passionate hatred: yet what harm has the dear bright tulip ever done you? or all the other gay children of summer that you persecute?
Thus again you have an antipathy to sundry colours, to sundry scents, and to a number of thoughts; and you never take any pains to strengthen yourself against these moods, but give way to them and sink down into them as into a luxurious feather bed; so that I often fear I shall lose you altogether some day, and find nothing but a patchwork of whims and prejudices sitting at that table instead of my Emilius.”
Emilius was wroth to the bottom of his heart, and answered not a word. He had now given up all thought of making his intended confession; nor did the thoughtless Roderick shew the least wish to hear the secret which his melancholy companion had announced to him with such an air of solemnity. He was sitting carelessly in the armchair, playing with his mask, when on a sudden he cried: “Be so kind, Emilius, as to lend me your large cloak.”
“What for?” askt the other.
“I hear music in the church over the way,” answered Roderick; “and some how or other I have mist this hour every evening since we have been here. Today it comes just in the nick: I can cover my dress with your cloak, hiding my mask and turban under it; and so, when the music is over, I may go straight to the ball.”
Emilius muttered between his teeth as he went for the cloak to his wardrobe, and then, forcing himself to put on an ironical smile, he gave it to Roderick who was already on his legs.
“There, I’ll leave you my Turkish dagger that I bought yesterday,” said the mask, as he wrapt himself up: “Take care of it for me; it is a bad habit, this carrying about toys of cold steel: one can never tell what ill use may not be made of them, should a quarrel arise, or any other knot that it is easier to cut than untie. We shall meet again tomorrow; good bye; a pleasant evening to you.” He did not wait for an answer, but ran down stairs.
When Emilius was alone, he tried to forget his anger, and to look only at the laughable side of his friend’s behaviour. His eyes rested on the shining, finely wrought dagger, and he said: “What must be the feelings of a man who could thrust this sharp iron into the breast of an enemy! but oh, what must be his who should hurt a beloved object with it!”
He lockt it up, then gently folded back the window shutters, and lookt across the narrow street. But no light was stirring; the opposite house was quite dark; the dear form that dwelt in it, and that was wont to appear there about this time engaged in divers household affairs, seemed to be absent. ‘Perhaps she may be at the ball,’ thought Emilius, little as it sorted with her retired way of life.
Ere long however a light came in: the little girl whom his beloved unknown had about her, and with whom she used to pass a great part of the day and of the evening, carried a candle through the room and closed the shutters. A chink still let the light through, wide enough for Emilius, where he stood, to overlook a part of the little room: and there the happy youth would often stay till after midnight as if charmed to the spot, watching every motion of her hand, every look of her beloved face.
It was a joy to see her teaching the child to read, or giving her lessons in sewing and knitting. On inquiry he had learnt that the little girl was a poor orphan, whom his fair maiden had charitably taken into the house, to educate her.
Emilius’s friends could not conceive why he lived in this narrow street, in this comfortless lodging, why he was so little to be seen in society, or how he employed himself. Without employment, in solitude, he was happy: only he felt out of humour with himself at his own bashfulness, which withheld him from trying to become nearer acquainted with this beauteous being, notwithstanding the friendliness with which she had several times greeted and thankt him.
He knew not that she would often gaze over at him with eyes no less lovesick than his own: he guessed not what wishes were forming in her heart, of what an effort, what a sacrifice she felt herself capable, so she might but attain the possession of his love.
After walking a few times up and down the room, the light having gone away again with the child, he suddenly made up his mind, in spite of all his feelings and inclinations, to go to the ball; for it struck him that his unknown might have made an exception for once to her usual secluded habits, for the sake of enjoying the world and its gaieties.
The streets were brilliantly lighted up; the snow crackled under his feet; carriages rolled by him; and masks in every variety of dress whistled and twittered as they passed him. Many of the houses resounded with the dancing music which he so much abhorred; and he could not bring himself to take the nearest way to the ballroom, to which people from all quarters were streaming and flocking.
He walkt round the old church, gazed at its high tower rising majestically into the dark sky, and enjoyed the stillness and solitude of this deserted place. Within the recess of a large doorway, the varied sculptures of which he had often contemplated with pleasure, while calling up visions of the olden times and the arts that adorned them, he now again took his stand, to give himself up for a few moments to his musings.
He had not been there long, when his attention was attracted by a figure that was pacing restlessly to and fro, and seemed to be waiting for somebody. By the light of a lamp burning before an image of the Virgin, he distinctly made out the face, as well as the strange dress. It was an old woman of the uttermost hideousness, which struck the eye the more from her being grotesquely clad in a scarlet bodice embroidered with gold.
Emilius fancied at first it must be some extravagant mask that had lost its way: but the bright light soon convinced him that the old brown wrinkled face was one of Nature’s ploughing, and no mimic exaggeration.
In a few minutes two men made their appearance, wrapt up in cloaks, who seemed to approach the spot with cautious steps, often turning their heads aside to see whether anybody was following. The old woman went up to them.
“Have you got the candles?” she askt hastily and with a gruff voice.
“Here they are,” said one of the men: “you know the price; let us settle the matter and have done with it.”
The old woman seemed to be giving him some money, which he counted over beneath his cloak. “I rely upon you,” she again began, “that they are made exactly according to rule, at the right time and place, so that they cannot fail of their effect.”
“You need not be uneasy on that score,” returned the man, and hurried away.
His companion, who staid behind, was a youth: he took the old woman by the hand, and said: “Can it be true, Alexia, that certain rites and spells, as those old wild stories, in which I could never put faith, tell us, can fetter the free will of man, and make love and hatred grow up in the heart?”
“Ay forsooth!” answered the scarlet woman; “but one and one must make two, and many a one must be added thereto, before such mighty things come to pass. It is not these candles alone, moulded beneath the midnight darkness of the new moon, and drencht with human blood, it is not the mere uttering magical words and incantations, that can give you the mastery over the soul of another: there is much more belonging to such works, as the initiated well know.”
“I may depend upon you then!” cried the stranger.
“Tomorrow after midnight I am at your service,” replied the old woman. “You shall not be the first person that ever was dissatisfied with my skill. Tonight, as you have heard, I have some one else in hand, one whose senses and soul our art shall twist about whichever way we choose, just as easily as I twist this hair out of my head.”
These last words she uttered with a half grin; and they separated, walking off in different directions.
Emilius came forth from the dark niche shuddering, and lifted his looks to the image of the Virgin with the Child. “Before thine eyes, thou mild and blessed one,” he said half aloud, “are these miscreants audaciously holding their market and trafficking in their infernal drugs. But as thou embracest thy child with thy love, so doth heavenly Love encircle us all with its protecting arms; we feel their touch; and our poor hearts beat joyously and tremulously toward a greater heart that will never forsake us.”
Clouds were rolling along over the pinnacles of the tower and the high roof of the church; the everlasting stars lookt down through the midst of them gleaming with mild serenity; and Emilius drew his thoughts resolutely away from these nightly abominations, and mused on the beauty of his unknown. He again entered the peopled streets, and bent his steps toward the brightly illuminated ballroom, from which voices, and the rattling of carriages, and now and then, when there was a pause, the clamorous music, came sounding to his ears.
In the ballroom he was instantly lost amid the streaming throng: dancers ran round him; masks darted by him to and fro; kettledrums and trumpets stunned his ears; and it seemed to him as if human life had melted away into a dream. He walkt along one row after another, and his eye alone was wakeful, seeking after those beloved eyes and that fair head with its brown locks, for the sight of which he yearned this evening more intensely than ever, at the same time that he inwardly reproacht their adored possessor, for allowing herself to plunge and be lost in this stormy sea of confusion and folly.
‘No!’ he said to himself; ‘no heart that loves can willingly expose itself to this dreary hubbub of noise, in which every longing and every tear is scoft and mockt at by the wild laughter of pealing trumpets. The whispering of trees, the murmuring of brooks, the soft notes of the harp, and the song that gushes forth in all its richness and sweetness from an overflowing bosom, are the sounds in which love dwells. But this is the very thundering and shouting of hell in the frenzy of its despair….’
To be continued …
.
By Johann Ludwig Tieck (1773-1853) from Liebesgeschichte der schönen Magelone und des Grafen Peter von Provence.
Set by Johannes Brahms (1833-1897), “Sind es Schmerzen, sind es Freuden”, op. 33 no. 3 (1861-9), from Romanzen aus L. Tieck’s Magelone, no. 3. Translation © Emily Ezust, Lied & Art Song Texts Page.
Sind es Schmerzen, sind es Freuden
Are they sorrows or are they joys
Which tug at my breast?
All the old desires leave;
A thousand new flowers bloom.
Through the dusk of tears
I see suns standing in the distance, -
What languishing, what longing!
Do I dare? Shall I move closer?
Ah, and when my tears are falling,
It is dark around me;
Yet if my desires do not return,
The future is empty of hope.
So beat then, my ambitious heart,
So flow down then, my tears,
Ah, joy is only a deeper pain,
Life is a dark grave, -
Without guilt,
Should I then suffer?
How is it that in my dreams
All my thoughts
Tremble up and down?
I scarcely know myself any more.
O, hear me, kindly stars,
O hear me, green meadow,
And you, my love, hear my holy oath:
If I remain far from her,
I will die gladly.
Ah, only in the light of her gaze
Dwell life and hope and happiness!
.
Excerpt, translated from the German by G. Greville Moore, 1883.
Chapter IV
Edward sat till late in the night in his lonely room, occupied with many thoughts. Around him lay unpaid bills, and he heaped up the sums of money near them to pay them the following morning. He had succeeded in receiving a capital, under honourable conditions, on his house, and poor as he appeared, he was content with the feeling that gave him a firm resolve for the future to live in another manner. He was already active in thought; he made plans, how he should ascend from a small employment and would prepare himself in this for a more important one.
“Habit,” said he, “becomes second nature in good as well as evil, and as idleness was up till now necessary for me to be well, so for the future it shall be work. But when, when will the wished-for golden age, with a noble conscience, really and truly exist for me, that I with comfort and delight shall be able to see before me myself and certain objects at the same time. Now it is only intentions and delightful hopes, which bloom and entice me; and Oh! shall I not be weary half-way, perhaps even at the beginning of my journey?”
He looked at the rose tenderly, which seemed to smile at him radiantly from a glass of water. He took it, and with a gentle touch imprinted a soft kiss on its leaves, and breathed a sigh in the chalice; then he placed it back in the nourishing element. He had lately found it in his bosom quite withered. Since the time that it had in its flight touched his face, he had become quite a different man, without his wishing to admit it himself.
One is never so superstitious nor does one observe so eagerly presentiments, then when the heart is very much touched, and out of the storm of feelings a new life tries to produce itself. Edward did not observe himself how the small flower brought Sophy into his presence, and as he had nearly lost everything, and himself too, therefore the withered flower should be his oracle, whether it should freshen and announce to him a new happiness, and after some hours it did not unfold its leaves in the water.
Then he aided it and the prophesying power in the usual means by cutting the stalk, and holding the flower for some moments in the flame of the candle, and afterwards placing it in the cold element. Almost visibly it freshened after this powerful assistance, and bloomed so quickly and with such vigour, that Edward had to fear it would scatter all its leaves after a while although after this he was consoled and found many remembrances of his childhood, as of the life of his parent. He had unpacked all the interior of a cupboard before him, which contained accounts, references, records of a lawsuit, and much of a similar kind.
In the meanwhile, a paper unrolled itself which contained a list of the former gallery, a history of the pictures, their prices, and what had been worthy of note to the possessor in each painting. Edward, who came back from a journey when his father lay on his deathbed, had searched after the funeral a good deal after these pictures, and had ordered many a vain search. He could expect with some right that a word might be found in another bundle, hidden between papers, a leaf which named accurately these paintings, the names of the masters, as also the former owners. The writing was apparently in the last days of his father, and underneath were the words, “And these paintings are now…”
The hand had not written more, and even these words were crossed out. Now Edward searched with all the more zeal, but without a trace. The light was burnt down, his blood was hot; he threw the sheets of paper quickly about the room, but nothing shewed itself. While he unfolded an old yellow paper, he saw to his surprise a bill, which was drawn many years ago, in which his father acknowledged himself to be the debtor of Walter for a considerable sum. It was not paid, although it was not in the hands of a creditor. How was this circumstance to be explained? He put it in his pocket and calculated that if this paper was valid, he would have scarcely anything over from his house.
He looked at a purse, which he had placed in a corner, in which was arranged once again to give considerable aid to the families which he had supported up until now. For as he was frivolous in squandering away, he was likewise generous in charity; one might also have called it throwing away his money if one wanted to be severe.
“If I can only keep from touching this sum, so that the poor may once more be happy, then afterwards it is all right, to begin quite from the beginning, and only to trust in my strength.” This was his last thought before going to sleep.
Chapter VI
This day was for him one of greatest importance, for the hour had arrived in which he should present himself to the Prince, who in the meanwhile, as they had told him, had arrived. The clothes which he put on he had not worn for quite a long while. With such attention he had never before looked in the glass. He glanced at his figure, and could not help seeing that he was well made, that his eye was fiery, his face pleasant, and his forehead noble.
“The first look at me,” said he to himself, “will anyhow not displease him. All men, even those who cannot bear me, praise my quick and noble bearing; I am talented and well-informed, and what fails me I can easily repair, in my youth, with an excellent memory. He will learn to like me and, soon, I shall be indispensable to him. Intercourse with a higher world will by degrees wear away all that I have been clinging to me from bad society. If I travel with him, and must I, perhaps for a year or even longer be absent from this neighborhood, then this will serve in foreign countries only to place me more firmly in his esteem.
We then come back; my education and my claims by means of his protection obtained the most important positions at home or even abroad. I shall not then have certainly forgotten that it really was Sophy who first of all awakened my better half out of its sleep.”
He was now dressed, and took the full-bloomed monthly rose out of the glass and pressed it to his lips, to strengthen him in his course; but immediately all its leaves fell at his feet. “A bad omen!” he sighed, and went out of the house to step into the carriage. When he arrived at the palace, he gave the servant the letter which should recommend him to the Prince. While he walked past the walls, covered with mirrors, young Dietrich came, to his surprise, out of a side room, in haste and in excitement, and did not observe at first his friend.
“How was it you come here?” asked Edward, hastily. “Do you know the Prince?”
“Yes-no,” stammered Dietrich, “it is a strange affair, which, indeed, I will relate to you; but of course here there is no time for that.”
This was indeed the case, for a smartly dressed lady, glittering in jewels, entered with a noble bearing, and drove away the young painter, who withdrew, bowing awkwardly. Edward stool still, while the bright apparition came nearer to him. He wanted to bow, but his surprise paralyzed his movements, when he suddenly recognized in her, to the disadvantage of his reputation, the one who had lived so long in his house, and had diminished his fortunes more than all his errors.
“What!” he exclaimed. “Thou – you here in these rooms?”
“And why not?” said she, laughing; “here one lives well. Thou dost perceive, my friend, that I, who was formerly thy friend am now the friend of the Prince; and if thou dost seek for anything from him, I can, perhaps, be of assistance to thee, faithless one, for he has more heart than thou, and I can rely more on his favor lasting than I could rely on thee with thy inconstancy.”
Edward did not wish to remind the amiable beauty now that she was the first to leave him when she saw that his money was squandered away. He disclosed to her his position and his hopes, and she promised to intercede for him to the best of her ability.
“Only remain quiet towards me, my friend,” thus she concluded her assurances; “it cannot, and shall not, fail thee, and then we shall see if thou has preserved a spark of love for me in thy cold heart. Thou must only be careful, and in his presence act as a stranger towards me, so that he may never learn that or observe that we formerly knew each other.”
With a hasty kiss, in which the painted cheek caused him a quick aversion, she left him; and Edward paced with the greatest discomfort up and down the room, because everything had turned out so differently from what he had pictured himself. This creature, whom he could not help hating, to find her among his new associates did away with all hopes, and he resolved firmly to escape her snares and enticements, even if his virtue should cause him the greatest disadvantage. In the meanwhile, the door was opened, and the stranger whom he disliked so much entered, with his haughty gait and proud bearing.
Edward advanced towards him and said, “Perhaps you belong to the suite of his serene highness, and can tell me whether I can now have the honor to wait upon him.”
The stranger stood still, looking at him and, after a pause, answered in a cold way. “That I can tell you, of course; no one better than I.”
Edward was terrified, for he observed the letter of recommendation in his hand.
“Will the Prince not speak with me?” he asked, perplexed.
“He speaks with you now,” answered he, with such a scornful and lowering accent that the young man lost all countenance. “I have been staying for some time in this town,” continued the distinguished stranger, “and have found occasion to be acquainted, through my incognito, with men and circumstances. We came together in a somewhat peculiar way; and if I can forgive that step, of which you are well aware that it was not quite a guiltless one, though it has very naturally inspired me with distrust against your character, so that I cannot possibly yield you a place which would draw us together in a confidential proximity.
I return you, therefore, this letter, which, notwithstanding its warm recommendation, and though it comes from most esteemed hands, I cannot consider it. In as much as you have offended me personally, you are forgiven, as you did not know me; and your present confusion and perplexity is more than punishment enough for you. A young man has just left me, from whom I just bought a rather well-painted picture, and to whom I have also given some admonitions and good lessons for his future. — I see that our meeting has agitated you a little too much, and as you had probably counted on that position with too great certainty, and perhaps are in urgent momentary embarrassment, please accept this ring in remembrance of me, and as a sign that I leave you without any rancour.”
Edward, who in the meantime had time to gather his thoughts again, stepped back a pace in modesty, in saying, “Do not consider it, your serene highness, pride and arrogance if I now refuse this present, which under circumstances would have been very honourable to me. I cannot disapprove of your behavior, and you will certainly allow me also to act up to my feelings.”
“Young man,” said the Prince, “I will not injure you; and as you create in me esteem, I must also tell you that we should have remained together, notwithstanding the peculiar way we made our acquaintance, if a person whom I both esteem and believe, and whom you met a little while ago in this drawing room, had not told me so much that was prejudicial to you, and had not begged me imploringly to pay no attention to this letter.”
“I will not,” said Edward, “follow the example of this lady, and accuse her in turn, nor complain about her, for she has only spoken according to her conviction. But if your serene highness will grant me the favour to show me the picture of young Dietrich, as well as a few of your other pictures, then I will leave you with great thankfulness.”
“I shall be glad,” answered the Prince, “if you take an interest in art, though I have only a few subjects here; but a picture that I was fortunate enough, a few days ago, to obtain, outweighs in excellence an ordinary collection.”
They entered into a richly and well-ornamented cabinet, where on the walls and on some easels both old and new pictures were seen. “Here is the attempt of the young man,” said the Prince, which indeed promises something; and though I cannot gain any taste for the subject, notwithstanding this, the treatment of it is praiseworthy. The coloring is good, though somewhat glaring, the drawing is sure and the expression touching…”
The Prince drew a curtain and placed Edward in the right light, and said, “But look at this successful, delightful work of my favorite, Julio Romano. Be astonished and enraptured!”
With a loud exclamation, and with a very joyous and even smiling face, Edward had indeed to greet this picture, for it was the well-known work of his old friend, at which he had worked for well over a year. It was Psyche and Cupid reposing.

The Prince placed himself near Edward and exclaimed, “My having made this discovery pays alone my journey here! And at that simple old man’s I found this treasure — a man who as an artist plays no insignificant part, but is not so nearly esteemed as he ought to be. He possessed the picture for a long while and knew it was by Julio. In the meanwhile as he had not seen all his pictures, he had always still some doubt remaining, and he was rejoiced to learn so many circumstances and details of this master and his works from me. For, of course, he has judgment, the old man, and knows how to esteem such a treasure; but he has not penetrated into all the beauties of the painter.
I should have been ashamed to take advantage of his ignorance, for he demanded for this glorious work, which he became in possession of in a remarkable way, a far too moderate sum; I raised it in order to pay the ornament of my gallery in a worthy manner.”
“He is lucky, the ill-judged old man, to have gained such a connoisseur and noble protector as a friend. Perhaps he is in a position to increase the gallery of your serene highness with a few other rarities, for he possesses in his dark abode a good deal that he does not know or esteem, and is capricious enough to prefer often his own works to all older ones.”
Edward bid farewell, but did not go directly home, but hastened, though so lightly dressed as he was, to the park, ran cheerfully through the side-walks, covered with snow, laughed aloud and exclaimed, “Oh the world, the world! nothing but deceit and foolishness. Oh, folly, thou variegated and strange child, how nicely thou leadest thy favorites by thy glittering leading strings! Long live the great Eulenbock, he who is more excellent than Julio Romano or Raphael! I too have at last become acquainted with a true connoisseur.”

Julio Romano: The Wedding Feast of Cupid and Psyche, fresco in Palazzo del Te, Mantua. (1525-1535)