第94章

"Yes, like sweet peace, and quiet, sacred moonlight, my thoughts shall be of you, Charlotte; not like the glowing rays of the sun, or the cold light of the stars. Bright and beaming like the moon you are to me, spreading around me your soft light. Oh, beautiful golden moon, mirrored in the water, you lie as in a silvery bath, and would entice me to seek you in the murmuring depths. Hark! how the ruffled waves of the Ilm with repeated gentle caresses kiss the shore, rush from thence in golden links down the river! Sweet of the Ilm, Icome, I come!"

Goethe hastened from the balcony, threw aside his apparel, plunged into the silvery flood, shouting with joy.

What heavenly pleasure to float there, rocked by the murmuring waves, gazing at the silvery stars and the golden moon, a lovely May night, listening to the voices of Nature! Add to that the perfume-laden breeze rising from the rain-refreshed meadows. How glorious to plunge into the cool stream, splashing and dashing the water, and then to shoot like a fish through the drops falling like golden rain! Suddenly, while swimming, Goethe raised his head to listen. He thought he heard footsteps on the poet's forbidden bridge. The moon distinctly revealed a peasant from Oberweimar, who would be early to the weekly market, and so serve himself to the shortest route while no one could see him.

"Such presumption deserves punishment, my good peasant, and if there is no one else to do it the ghosts must."Listen, what a savage yell from under the bridge, and then another more unearthly!

The peasant, frightened, stopped suddenly, and looked down into the river. "Oh, what can it be?"A glistening white arm is raised menacingly toward the bridge. Awhite figure, with a black head and long black hair, is seen plunging and splashing, while fearful yells are heard from the deep.

Then it disappeared, to return, and menace, and yell, and plunge again.

The peasant shrieked with terror, and was answered with a cruel laugh. The white figure sank and rose from the river screeching and yelling, and the peasant shrieked also with terror.

"A ghost! a ghost! oh, have mercy upon us! Amen! amen!"Fright lent him wings, and he fled, followed by the savage yells of the white figure, and never stopped until he reached Oberweimar, where he related to the astonished and terrified neighbors that there was a river-ghost just by the bridge which led to the cottage of the mad secretary of legation, Goethe, and which howled in the moonlight.[Footnote: This tradition of the ghost of the Ilm has been preserved in Weimar, since Goethe's nocturnal bath, until our time.--See Lewes, vol. i., p. 451.]

With the peasant also disappeared the ghost of the Ilm.

Like a happy child of Nature, refreshed, Goethe went to his room and then again sought the balcony, to throw himself upon the carpet and gaze at the blue starry vault, and enjoy the glories of heaven with thoughtful devotion, and think of Charlotte--only of her, not once of the poor Thusnelda von Goechhausen, who passed the night upon the stairs of the Palace Belvedere, and who, at last weary with fright and exhaustion, fell asleep, and was awakened by the Duchess Amelia in the morning, laughingly demanding why she preferred the landing of the stairs for a place of repose.

"Because I am bewitched, duchess, and my sleeping-room has disappeared from earth--because some cursed demon or wizard has enchanted me, this wicked--""Beware what you say!" interrupted the duchess; "it is most probably the duke that you are inveighing against, and calling a demon and wizard."At this Thusnelda sprang up as if struck by an electric shock--"The surprise, this is what the duke promised me.""Very likely," laughed the duchess. "The courier just arrived with a letter from my son to you, and I came to bring it myself, and found you, to my surprise, sleeping here. Read it, and tell me what he says!""Oh, listen, your highness!" cried Thusnelda, after having hastily perused the contents of the ducal missive.

"'I hope I have succeeded to surprise you!

Demons and wizards have closed your doors, And weeping you slept on the stairway alone.

All witchcraft has now disappeared.

Go seek The surprise that from Berlin I brought you, Which I now offer for an atonement.'""An insolent fellow, indeed, is my son," said the duchess, "but you see, Thusnelda, he says, pater peccavi, and I am convinced that you will find something very pretty and acceptable in your room.""I will not take it--indeed I will not," pouted the lady of honor.

"He so fearfully tormented me last night. I assure your highness Iwas half dead with terror and--"

"And yet you will forgive him, Thusnelda, for the duke is your declared favorite; you dare not reproach him were he never so insolent, for you are just as much so, and not a hair's-breadth better. Come, go up and see what it is."She went, and found four masons, who had been at work since daybreak to remove the wall and replace the door. Thusnelda was obliged to laugh in spite of the unhappy night she had passed, as she climbed over rubbish and ruins into her room, and met her maid dissolved in tears, who related to her that "the duke had had her walled in, for fear she would tell the trick to her mistress.""And so you were really hermetically sealed?" said the duchess.

"Yes, your highness," whimpered the maid, "I thought I never should see daylight again. I wept and prayed all night. The only thing that consoled me was the duke's command, which Philip brought to me, to give this little box to Fraulein so soon as the wall should be taken away in the morning.""Give it to me, Lieschen," cried Thusnelda, impatiently, her face beaming with satisfaction, however, when she opened the box. "Now, duchess, that is what I call a surprise, and the duke shall be, as he ever has been, my favorite. If he does sometimes play rude tricks, he makes it all right again, in a very generous and princely manner. See what a beautiful watch his highness has brought me, ornamented with diamonds!""Yes, it is very pretty; give it to me that I may return it to the duke, and not mortify him too much, as you will not wear it.""I will accept it, duchess," cried Thusnelda, laughing--"and all is forgiven and forgotten."