Page:The Campaner thal, and other writings.djvu/81

 contradictions by which all the strings of creation, not only its harmony, are torn, because two difficulties present themselves to you, which cannot any better explain mortality… Dearest Karlson, you would bring your eternally jarring discord into this harmony of the spheres! See how calmly the day goes, how grandly the night sets in; did you not think that our spirit will rise one day from its grave of ashes, when you saw the mild pale moon rise grandly from the crater of Vesuvius?" … The sun stood on the mountains, about to plunge into the sea and swim to the new world. Nadine embraced her sister with emotion, and said, "O, we love each other forever and immortally, dearest sister." Karlson accidentally touched the chords of the lyre which he carried: Gione took it from him with one hand, gave him the other, and said, "You are the only one among us who is tormented by this melancholy belief,—and you deserve to have one so beautiful!"

This word of concealed love overpowered his long-filled heart, and two burning drops fell from the blinded eyes, and the sun gilded the holy tears, and he said, looking towards the mountains: "I can bear no annihilation but my own,—my whole heart is of your opinion, and my head must slowly follow."

I will not again mention a man whom I have blamed so often.

We now stood before a mansion, the windows of which were silvered, and, when it was darker, gilt by girandoles. Aloft over its Italian balcony hung two balloons, one at its eastern, the other at its western extremity. Without those beautiful globes, the counterpart, as it were, of the two glorious ones in heaven, the sun and the moon, I should have scarcely paid heed to the scene on earth, in the splendor of the one on high.