Chapter L (3)

Whether it was that love toward the Princess made the Minister bolder, or he was intoxicated by the desire of brilliantly introducing Liana to her office of court-lady; suffice it, he found in the idea good sense. If anything supplied tobacco for the calumet of the _ex parte_ peace which he had made with his son, it was this theatrical part. He hastened immediately to the Prince and the Princess with the prayer for his permission and her sympathy; and then, when he had secured both, he hastened on to his Orestes, Bouverot, and said: "_Il m'est venu une idée tres singulière qui peut-être l'est trop; cependant le prince l'a approuvée_," etc.,--and finally--for he must not forget her either--to Liana.

The Captain had already sought to persuade her beforehand. The mother opposed the dramatic imitation from self-respect, and Liana from humility; such a representation seemed to her a piece of presumption. But at last she gave in, simply because the sisterly love of the Princess had seemed to her so great and unattainable, just as if she did not cherish a similar sentiment in her own heart; thus she always regarded only the image in the mirror, not herself, as beautiful; just as the astronomer thinks the same evening, with its red splendors and night shadows, more sublime and enchanting, when he finds it in the moon, than when he stands in the midst of it on the earth. Perhaps, too, there entered another element of secret sweetness into Liana's love for the Prince's bride, namely, a step-daughter's affection; because she should once have been the bride of the Knight Gaspard. Women regard relationship more than we; hence, too, their ancestral pride is always several ancestors older than ours.

Thus, then, did she make ready her oppressed heart for the light plays of the shining festival, which the coming Cycles are to present on the New-Year's holiday, as it were, of a new Jubilee.

END OF VOL. I.

Cambridge: Stereotyped and Printed by Welch, Bigelow, & Co.

FOOTNOTES:

[192] This is Jean Paul's own image.--TR.

[193] That is, of course, some lights of hope.--TR.

[194] A German or Suabian dance.--TR.

[195] His Moral Treatises, Vol. II. p. 96.

[196] The Germans call the dash the _stroke of thought_. Here it implies an emphatic pause, as much as to say, "What do you think is coming?"--TR.

[197] At the Prince's marriage.

[198] With the Egyptians the enchanters were only learned men; with him the learned women were enchantresses.

[199] _Mémoires secrets sur les Règnes de Louis XIV._, etc. Par Duclos. Tom. I.

[200] It is well known that a cut is made in a fowl left whole as a sign that it has been upon the Prince's table, so that it may not be set on again, but otherwise enjoyed.

[201] In German, _Schutz- und Stich-blatt_,--literally, a plate to defend the hand in parrying and thrusting,--_Blatt_, meaning _leaf_ (of paper) also, conveys a _pun_ not easily translated.--TR.

[202] The blind-passenger in the German stage-coach corresponds to our _dead-head_ in stage or steamboat.--TR.

[203] See Klockenbring's collected Essays.

[204] (In German, _Spring-wurzel_.) The juice of some plant (perhaps Devil's-milk) highly and quickly corrosive.--TR.

[205] News by hand.--TR.

[206] The King had to _damer_, or make a dame of an unmarried maiden of rank, before she could go to Versailles to court.

[207] Not so miserable perhaps as a French mangling the translator remembers to have seen.--TR.

[208] He refers to the letter he had left on Liana's table, and which she had shown to her mother.--TR.

[209] _Fist_ in the original.--TR.

[210] I.e. as in a wine-press.--TR.

[211] Alluding to the horned hat once worn by graduated printers' apprentices.--TR.

[212] Beseke discovered it. See "On the Elemental Fire," by him, 1786.

[213] Venus with beautiful thighs.--TR.

* * * * *

RICHTER'S WRITINGS.

TITAN. A ROMANCE. 2 vols. 16mo. $3.00.

FLOWER, FRUIT, AND THORN PIECES. 2 vols. 16mo. $2.75.

LEVANA; OR, THE DOCTRINE OF EDUCATION. 1 vol. 16mo. $1.50.

THE CAMPANER THAL, AND OTHER WRITINGS. 1 vol. 16mo. $1.50.

HESPERUS. 2 vols. 16mo. _Preparing._

_The above volumes are printed in uniform size and style._

* * * * *

IN PRESS.

LIFE OF JEAN PAUL. By ELIZA BUCKMINSTER LEE. New Edition, Revised. 1 volume.

TICKNOR AND FIELDS, Publishers.

<pre id="pg-footer">