Chapter X: Part TWO: A Fighter in the Making (3)

In moments of revolt Albert always thought of leaving his fatherland forever, but then his love for the land that gave him birth would return—his innate fondness of the people about him would possess him, the memories of his childhood on the banks of the Rhine would hold him with chains of steel. He saw every fault in his compatriots, but the faults seemed so glaring to him, and stirred him so deeply, because he loved the people. But what people ever learned that it is its critics, not its flatterers, who love it most sincerely?

He now found himself torn by a thousand conflicts. The censor was most annoying—one could hardly give expression to one’s thoughts—and disobedience meant damp prisons; the officials were arrogant; and the land was full of Cant, Cult, and Culture. One could hardly breathe for want of free air in Germany. In order to divert the people from the tyranny of the nobles and Prussian officialdom the government encouraged orthodoxy on one hand and heterodoxy on the other. “Let the children play hard and forget other foolishness”, has always been the motto of tyrannical governments. Hegelism, Schlegelism, Schellingism, anti-Semitism—in short, anything to engage the public mind and coerce it into submission to the tyrant’s will.

Albert thirsted for freedom. True, his biting irony often escaped the scrutinising eye of the stupid censor—his thoughts emanated properly censored from his brain, he jested—but he craved a moment’s respite. For a time he had again retired to Hamburg and buried himself in work. More songs, the publication of another book, planning new themes, pondering new subjects, ever yearning for love.

One day he received a call to edit a political journal. He was thrilled. He wished to awaken Young Germany; Old Germany, he realized, was hopeless. He meant to speak freely, come what might. He wished to enroll himself among the warriors for the liberation of humanity. On his arrival in Munich he was made to feel that his renown was growing; that, in fact, he was already famous. His name was known, his songs were on everyone’s lips, his epigrams were frequently quoted. He had learned with a keen sense of pleasure that while his first two books had made him many enemies they had also enlarged his circle of admirers.

He felt that the time was ripe for the emancipation of the German mind. Every great mind miscalculates the minds of the people about him. He either underestimates or overestimates them; or rather he underestimates some of its qualities and overestimates others. Albert was no exception to this rule. While he was convinced that when “asses wish to abuse one another they call each other men” he attributed to the masses—stupider than asses—an intelligence and vision equal to his own. He jumped at the conclusion that the masses would get his viewpoint once it was presented to them. And because his clarity of vision enabled him to see the sham, superstition, and hypocrisy of the prevalent fetishes that passed for creeds, and of the tyrannies that passed for government, he imagined that others would see these great evils as soon as they were revealed to them.

The reception accorded his books deceived him. He mistook the people’s laughter for applause. He failed to see that only a handful understood him and sympathized with him. Only the chosen few understood that when one dips his pen in gall his own heart very often brims over with love. The vast majority only laughed at his mordant irony, called him a scoffer and an atheist, and hated him. When a friend had whispered in his ear “Look out for the Jesuits,” Albert only laughed. He thought it was for them to look out for him. He knew no fear.

V.

The reception given him on his arrival at Munich assured him that his friend was wrong. He had no cause to fear the Jesuits.

But the Jesuits in Munich were watching him. He was their sworn enemy, and the report that he would direct the policy of a new journal roused their ire. Munich was then the centre of Jesuitical activities. Ever since their return to Germany, after the fall of Napoleon, they had been hatching plots, creating dissension among the masses, shaping policies for their own selfish ends. They were seeking to rehabilitate themselves. They could not afford to pass in silence the caustic attacks of the jesting Albert Zorn.

Before long, however, he grew tired of political strife. He was again soul-weary. He craved the solitude of the mountains, he longed for the golden mist of the southern heavens, he yearned for the warmth of the sunny climes. A thousand mysterious voices called to him from the land of orange blossoms and echoed in his heart melodiously. He longed for a peep at Italy. Ah, Italy! Italy! When the great God kneaded the earth into shape and set the human insects into motion—the whole swarm of human insects—he allotted the Caucasian steppes to the Tartars, Prussia to the Pedants, to the Hunters he gave the British Isle, France to the gay in spirit, but Italy,—Italy!—the great God breathed upon that colorful spot lovingly, kissed it, and was about to reserve it for his favorites among the angels when he changed His mind and assigned it as a haven for the soul-weary! Alas! with the confusion of the Tower of Babel many a Tartar wandered from his homeland and many a poet strayed from his designated abode.

He wandered through Italy—through Livorno, Bagni di Lucca, Florence, Bologna, Venice—and he wandered among the ruins of antiquity, “a ruin among ruins.” He jested and scoffed, worshipped and blasphemed, honey in his heart. Poetic melodies, like birds of passage driven South, returned to him; his heart once more glowed and beat tumultuously; the nightingale again sang for him. The broken columns, the ruined towers, the shattered classic images spoke to him in a language he understood.

He wanted to forget the past, to obliterate the insults heaped upon him by his enemies. Italian skies inspire sweet dreams and make one forget troubles. The promise of a chair at the University whispered hope. Yes, he would give the rest of his life to champion the rights of the people.

While amusing himself at the Baths of Lucca he was laying plans for the future. He had received a hopeful letter about the professorship. His brain was brimming over with enthusiasm and joy. He would make all his friends proud of him and he would not only repay them with gratitude but also with service. And how gloriously his third book was coming along! The volume was so spontaneous; it was writing itself. Humor and song were flowing from his pen. Not a word of bitterness in this book, he decided. No stings, nothing but the sweetest of honey. He intended to have the third volume mirror the heavenly witchery of Italy and the flowing love of his soul; no, not a word of bitterness. At the worst, only a passage of fun-making at superstition but nothing—not a line—to offend anyone’s sensibilities.

Ah, there was again spring in his heart! Sentiments of love and freedom, like fresh roses, burst forth anew. Above him the rays of the brilliant sun pierced the mist hanging over the mountains and “sucked at the earth’s breast like a hungry suckling child.” He was again in the spring of life, everything thawing, melting, sweet murmurs everywhere. He was in love with life and every breathing creature.

And the arts of man were about him in abundance; the divine ecstasy of generations long dead impressed on palace and ruin; ecstasy filled his being to overflowing. No, not a tinge of bitterness in his heart, no acrid irony in his brain, nothing but goodwill and happiness and the effervescence of life.

VI.

But one day in November a gust of wind swept over him; a cold, damp, bleak wind that blighted the blooming flowers in his heart and covered the sun rays with a black cloud and filled his heart with sadness. No more hope for a chair at a university, no prospect of a life of contemplation and peace and song. The Jesuits had stronger influence than his friends. And as if designing to annihilate him completely the Jesuits had attacked him with all their forces.

His third volume was nearly completed when the latest affront reached him. He had quite forgotten his Hebraic strain. In the land of Virgil, with the echo of Homer from the neighboring shores, he thought himself more Greek than Hebrew, but suddenly the evaporated fumes of his smouldering agony were driven back into his heart. He was consumed by a thirst for vengeance. Since his enemies would not let him forget his Hebraism he would be like the God of the ancient Hebrews. No whining, cowering for him! Even as the Macabees of old, his progenitors, he would meet the enemy with piercing arrows and devastating rocks. He was no preacher of love for those that hated him; hate for hate! There was scornful laughter in his heart. His enemies—the Preachers of Love—had hated even those who loved them!

He was then in Florence, that dreary November day, the skies a-drizzling, thick mist screening the banks of the Arno, a severe cold in his head. He had spent six weeks, rambling, dreaming, drinking from the fountain of beauty. With all the quaint narrow streets, the art treasures around him, the buildings mellowed with age, his imagination astir with a thousand memories of antiquity, a thousand raptures to enthrall his soul, his romantic love for Catholic mysticism returned, the slumbering sensuous love he felt in his childhood. Even while he smiled at the faded Madonnas and was provoked to laughter by the hideous saints of early Tuscan conception his heart glowed with reverence and deep emotion. But that day only rancor filled his heart.

He left his lodgings and wandered along the bank of the Arno, unmindful of the cold and the pain in his head. The water of the flowing river did not reflect the azure of the Italian skies. The drizzling rain had stirred the placid surface and, like his heart, was turgid and muddy. Nothing was beautiful around him now. All was grim. For not only woman’s beauty but all beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. He wished to think of other things—he said to himself he would dismiss the “filth and stupidity” of the “congregation” at Munich—but his brain would admit no other thought. But for his birthright—or was it his birth-curse?—he would have been now on his way to assume the duties of a professor of literature and devote the rest of his life to his beloved fatherland. He shuddered, then a cynical smile appeared on his tightly closed mouth. He remembered that morning at the Franciscan school, when he revealed to Christian Lutz the fact that his father’s father had been a little Jew with long whiskers. Every time the world recalled that revelation there was a mob to jeer at him and a Father Scher to shower blows upon him!

He continued along the bank, one moment serious, his eyes closed, the next moment a strange smile on his lips.

When he reached the Ponte Grazie and made his way across the little stone bridge toward the Uffizi, his heart felt lightened. He saw the sublime jest of life; everybody laughing at everybody else. The world was a great lazaretto where every suffering inmate was laughing at the infirmities of the other. Was he not himself a suffering patient mocking the other patients? The irony of it all amused him and made him forget the drizzling rain and the pain in his head.

Presently a priest passed him, a sorry spectacle of a man; pale, emaciated, bent, his bony hands quivering, his lips muttering something. The poor fellow had spent so much time in praying that his lips moved even when not at prayer. What a face! All the pains and sorrows that human flesh was heir to were mirrored in it. Albert’s heart was wrung with pity; there was no mockery in his heart. No, he would not even reply to the attacks of his enemies. Love those that hate you! He now understood that sublime utterance. The great Jew of Galilee must have understood the jest of life, and when one understands one can only pity, not mock.

Then he passed an old church. A woman, her head and shoulders covered with a black cashmere shawl, pulled open the heavy church door and entered. He followed her in. The woman did not turn right or left but walked up to the altar, knelt on the stone steps and began to pray. He stood in the rear, his eyes gazing blankly in front of him. The church was deserted, gloomy, a strange sombre light sifting in through the many colored window-panes, leaving the long archways in twilight dimness; a swinging oil lamp in front of the beautiful image of the Madonna accentuated the nocturnal shadows beyond the reach of this glimmering light. It was noiseless yet there sounded in his ears dying echoes. Now and then a soft murmur came from somewhere as if the great organ, weary of prolonged silence, emitted a soft sigh. A thousand invisible phantoms seemed to people this empty, age-smelling church. The kneeling, praying woman, the stone images of saints, the indefinable forms flitting here and there back of the pillars, the murmuring from the side chapel, the emaciated priests outside, the Jesuits at Munich, all the religious controversies—Oh, God, what a travesty, what a jest! He wondered which was the greater jest, the festive gods of Olympus, who went about their business merrily and drank toasts from golden goblets and made love to the goddesses and slew their rivals, or the solemn, abstemious gods surrounded by shaven monks who fretfully cajoled and fawned upon their Jupiter, sadly rolling their eyes, praying for favors.

He suddenly rushed out of the church and proceeded through a narrow alley which afforded a short cut to the Uffizi. At present everything appeared farcical to him; nothing was serious. Politics, religion, love, spaghetti, literature, painting, the Seven Sins—or was it the Seven Wonders?—amusing jests all! As he entered the _Palazzo degli Uffizi_, walking past marble statues, Florentine tapestries, Satyrs, Wrestlers, Fauns, Madonnas, Venuses, Popes, Cupids, the Flight from Egypt and the Flight into Egypt, the _Weltschmerz_—the soul-weariness—of it all seized him and almost choked him with Satanic laughter. At a glance he beheld the Sublime Jesters of all ages!—Michael Angelo, Raphael, Titian, Correggio, Botticelli, Fra Angelico, da Vinci—the sublimest jester of all—each one busy with the jest of life in his own way.

He traversed vestibules and corridors, lofty vaulted chambers and frescoed palaces, and suddenly halted before a relief of the Sacrifice of Iphigeneia and close beyond it the Martyrdom of St. Justina by Paul Veronese. Were these jests, too?

He passed his hand over his eyes, then rubbed his forehead. Was he insane or had the rest of the world lost their wits? again passed through his mind. If he was sane the rest of the world could not be sane. The rest of the world took all this seriously, almost tragically—the Satyrs and the Fauns and the Madonnas and the Martyrs—and did not see the jest of it all.

His eyes dimmed by fugitive thoughts, he walked without seeing anything around him. He was feeling for the pillars, a prayer in his heart—O Lord God, I pray Thee, strengthen me, O God, that I may be avenged of the Philistines. The jeering laughter of the Philistines was in his ears. Dagon, their god, towered over him; he felt the fetters of brass against his flesh.

He returned to his lodging and plunged into work. He meant to jest but his jesting now was bitter. He was avenging himself on the Philistines. And no one ever avenged himself on the Philistines without falling with them.

VII.

There is always an element of discontent in the desire to travel. Contented people, like cattle in verdant pastures, remain on the hillside, munching their food in peace and tranquility.

He could not remain much longer in Florence. He wanted to travel, to move about. He went to Bologna, to Ferrara, to Padua, to Venice. But one cannot escape his own shadow. He carried his griefs with him. He was short of money but that mattered little to him. The memory of his gayety at the Baths of Lucca, at Livorno, at Florence, was forgotten.

Innately sensual he sought to drive away his gloom (as he had often done) by conjuring scenes of Florentine Nights and living over again those blissful moments; Signora Francesca, with those dark brown eyes, long, black lashes, rich black hair, and captivating body; Signora Letitia—that temptress, with a throbbing bosom, who carried on flirtations with half a dozen men at the same time; Matilda—that virtuous flirt, who tried to conceal her sensuousness by constantly talking about, and condemning, the sensuality of others; that pink-cheeked English girl, whose face looked as if it were bedewed with spray from the sea—No, these recollections brought no joy to his heart, not even a momentary consolation, as they had done on other occasions. He was seized with a morbid longing to wander, to wander everlastingly, to run away from himself.

While at Venice he received a letter from his brother that his father was very ill. He could read between the lines that it was a call to his father’s death-bed. Somehow, this very sad news brought him relief. It at once removed his restlessness. He was calm. He had suddenly become philosophical, stoical. It was as if one of his veins had been opened to relieve an intense pain. He left Italy and rushed back to his native land where his father was dying.

The following three months he frittered away between Hamburg and Berlin. His widowed mother had moved to Hamburg, and she begged him to stay there but he detested the city. It held for him too many bitter memories.

He finally decided to isolate himself. His action was that of the storm-tossed woman of passion who finds refuge in a nunnery.

He went to Potsdam, where he could see only “_Himmel und Soldaten_”. Potsdam in those days was not the suburb of Berlin that it is today. There was neither Subway nor Elevated nor speedy surface trains to carry one from _Unter den Linden_ to Sans Souci in half an hour. Then it was a considerable distance from the Prussian capital.

In Potsdam he found himself truly isolated, far from friends and diversions. And he had so many plans for work; the completion of another book; a humorous book, poems, essays, a political treatise. Then, again, here he was safe from his ever threatening peril—of falling in love. He had barely escaped a strong attachment for the wife of a friend, but her intellect had saved him.

He remained at Potsdam nearly six months, working feverishly on new poems.

After a time he found his self-imposed imprisonment irksome. The atmosphere in Potsdam was not to his liking either. The presence of soldiers—_die Menschenfresser_—everywhere, the artificiality of the gardens of San Souci, where the firs were “masked as orange trees” and “so unnatural that they were almost human”—everything was unbearable here.

VIII.

He longed for rest. He wished to escape from the tumults of life, from the tumults of his passions. He was a poet and wished to withdraw to bucolic quietude, indulge in pleasant reveries, and pipe sweet melodies.

With the Bible and Homer as his only companions he left his family and friends and went to the seashore. He would forget that he had been the editor of a political journal; he would forget that he had fought the Knights of Darkness; he would forget all the skirmishes in which he had engaged since his early youth. He would lie on the shore, listen to the sporting waves, and watch the clouds overhead.

He wandered along the beach in the twilight, solemn stillness all around him, the vault of heaven “like a Gothic church”, the stars above burning and flickering like countless lamps, the sweep of the waves “like the reverberations of a great organ”. At last he thought he had found himself. Again he wanted to emulate Goethe. He wanted no political strife, no controversial essays, no more ironic flings. Action was not his sphere, politics not his handiwork. He was no Ludwig Börne. He was neither agitator nor reformer. He was a literary artist and must let politics and philosophy alone. He must devote the rest of his life to the observation of nature and to the interpretation of it—that was the thirst of his soul.

Yes, the quiet and peace of the seashore suited him. No one there to engage him in polemics, no one to argue with. He had made the acquaintance of a sea captain and at times listened to tales of the sea, the sea that he loved “as much as his soul”. There were also two young women, whose acquaintance he had made, but neither of them was young or pretty enough to arouse his interest. He was jestingly frivolous with them and they, in turn, lionized him and made him conscious of his fame. Indeed, he had found himself at last. He was supremely happy. After a few more weeks of rest and recuperation he would settle down to his life-work.

One day he was seated in his room reading and dreaming. The house where he lodged was situated on an elevation away from the shore, back of an old church, and commanded a beautiful view of the ocean in the distance; “_Zur schönen Aussicht_” the owner had named his cottage.

A knock on his door and his landlord, a fisherman, handed him a packet of newspapers and a letter from Berlin. The letter contained nothing of importance beyond literary gossip. He then tore the wrappers from the newspapers and began scanning the narrow columns in a careless, casual manner when he suddenly jumped from his seat, drew his breath, and stared at the sheet before him as if convulsed. At first pallor appeared in his cheeks, then they turned red, and his whole body quivered.

“A revolution!—a revolution!—a revolution, Herr Nikkels!”

Herr Nikkels, the fisherman, stared at the speaker with unconcealed bewilderment. He had thought his lodger a little queer—always walking up and down the seashore when not bathing, or pacing up and down the floor of his room—but he had never seen him so agitated.

Albert raced up and down the room, the newspaper clutched in his hand, a strange glow on his face.

“O, it’s wonderful! glorious!—at last it has come!” he cried.

“What has happened?” the fisherman, still staring, asked.

“Ah, my dear Nikkels, the greatest thing in the world has happened! They are marching in Paris, with the tri-colored flag, singing the Marseillaise. Oh, isn’t it wonderful!” Then stretching his arms upward, “Oh, for a glimpse of Paris today.”

The fisherman drew at his pipe, shrugged his shoulders, and walked out. “This fellow Zorn is quite crazy,” he confided to his wife a few moments later.

Zorn was quite crazy that day. He did not take his prescribed sea-bath, could not read, could not write, dodged every acquaintance on the beach, rushed up and down the shore as if possessed.

Lafayette, the tri-colored flag, the Marseillaise! He could think of nothing else. He was intoxicated, delirious. All his resolutions had gone to the winds—all his resolutions for rest and quiet and peace; his hunger for calm reveries and piping melodies was gone. He was aching for strife, for the very vortex of strife. Ah, if he could whip his countrymen into action and arouse them from their sluggish contentment, perhaps they, too, would hoist the tri-colored flag and sing the Marseillaise!

_Aux armes, citoyens!_

No piping melodies for him, no fantasies, no love ditties!

_Aux armes, citoyens! Aux armes!_

He would take the lyre into his hands and sing a battle song. He was no Wolfgang von Goethe, playing with metrical verses while the enemy’s cannons were roaring at the city gates! How differently the ocean waves were galloping to the shore today! They were chanting the Marseillaise, they were calling tumultuously:

“_Aux armes, citoyens, aux armes!_”

The whole ocean was aflame with the fire that was burning in his heart; the mermaids were dancing with joy, giving a _thé dansant_ in honor of the great event. No, no, no rest for him! He was a child of the revolution, rebellion against all tyranny in his blood. He was what he was and could be no other. He would wreathe his head with flowers for the death-struggle to come. Ah, he would smite the pious hypocrites who had crept into the holy of holies to defile it! He would hurl javelins at the tyrants, with their armies of _Menschenfresser_, who were holding mankind in fetters of steel! With words like flaming stars he would set fire to the palaces of the oppressors and illumine the dingy huts of the enslaved.

_Aux armes, citoyens, aux armes!_

He was “all joy and song, all sword and flame.”

“And God said, let there be light!” The torch of the Revolution of July had spread light to all the dark places. To Poland, to Spain, to Britain, to Prussia. All eyes were turned to Paris. From there came the light!

He left the seashore. He could no longer bear the rest and quiet of the place. He went to Hamburg and restlessly watched developments. He could think of nothing but the revolution. He also watched, with a sinking heart, the renewed activities of the authorities. The censor had become even more ruthless. More than half he had written was suppressed. His publishers, the most daring in Germany, had dropped a hint of caution to him. They had learned that the Prussian government had issued a warrant for his arrest. The air of Hamburg was stifling. He wanted to breathe free air. Yes, he must fight, and, if necessary, perish in the war of human liberation. The dawn of a new religion—the religion of freedom—was rising and he must consecrate himself as one of its priests.

When he told Uncle Leopold of his intention to go to Paris the elderly gentleman heaved a sigh of relief. Indeed, he would be happy to defray all expenses for Albert’s stay in Paris as long as he pleased. To be a namesake of Albert Zorn was no great comfort in these stirring days. Leopold Zorn was no revolutionary. He was a law-abiding citizen, and as a great banker he knew that even a tyrannical government was better than a government convulsed.

Albert’s mother could not understand his desire to go to Paris. She had never been outside of Germany, and Paris seemed very distant. What would he do in Paris? Her fond hopes had been rudely shattered. Her poor husband had died with ambitions unattained and now her beloved son, the choice of her flock, was merely drifting, at an age when most men were comfortably established. Of course, she had heard of the abdication of Charles X and of the July Revolution in France, but what had these to do with her son? She was growing old, she was complaining, and craved for quiet and peace. Why go to Paris where there was so much excitement and turmoil?

“How soon will you be back?” she asked of him eagerly.

He was taking leave of her, his arms enfolding her, his sister, with a babe in her arms, standing close by.

“I can’t tell, mother dearest;” looking away wistfully.

“Do take good care of yourself and don’t get mixed up with bad company,” she spoke beseechingly. “Uncle Leopold said——”

“Yes, I know, what Uncle Leopold always says,” he struck in impatiently, with a cynical smile in the deep corners of his mouth. “Hold on to the _Thalers_ and the rest will take care of itself.”

There was a melancholy smile on the mother’s benign face. Everything Albert said sounded clever to her ears but she did not like to hear him jest about Uncle Leopold. Leopold was very good to her indeed, as he had always been in the past.

“What will you do in Paris?”

“March and sing the Marseillaise,” he said, laughing.

“Will you ever be serious?”

“It’s because I am too serious that I jest, my little mother.” He kissed her on both cheeks.

The mother sighed; a tear was slowly rolling down her face.

Albert flung his arms around his mother, embraced his sister, kissed her little son, and rushed out of the house. His tears and emotions were choking him.

Outside the sun was shining brightly, light clouds in the sky. It was the first of May, fresh, earth-scented odors in the air. A stolid sluggish fellow, with a large, heavy basket on his head, walked past Albert as he came out of his mother’s house. Albert looked after the fellow and sighed. Will _Michel_ ever quicken his step? Ah, the poor _Michel_! Albert’s heart was wrung with pain. Presently an officer loomed up in the distance. Albert jumped into the vehicle that was waiting for him at the curb.

“_Aux armes, citoyens, aux armes_!” he murmured to himself as the vehicle rattled away.