Chapter IX

We had taken furnished apartments in Maximilianstrasse, a remarkably wide street, very gay and attractive with its rows of fine shops and fascinating shop-windows. It begins in the heart of Munich, dose to the Royal Theatre, and, extending for over a mile, ends at the Isar, a very impetuous river, running madly over enormous stones, which appear to have been artificially cut. These stones, by their sharp angles, form giant steps over which the water dashes in cascades. We did not imagine this torrent to be navigable, but one day an unexpected sight proved to us that it was so.

On this very warm day, we slowly sauntered toward the Isar, hoping to find a little freshness in the gardens, which on the other side of the river, extend the whole length of the wide banks. Having stopped in the middle of the bridge, above a dizzying tumult of waters, we suddenly beheld in the distance four or five rafts loaded with men, which seemed to be at the mercy of the current, but were, on the contrary, very skilfully guided as they swept along.

"Savages! Pirogues!" cried Villiers.

And in fact it was a spectacle that suggested only adventurous savages shooting the rapids in canoes made from the bark of trees.

The shallowness of the water as it ran over the rocks added to the danger of being drowned that of being crushed to pieces at the slightest error in the difficult manoeuvring. We had scarcely time to tremble for these men, or even to distinguish them, standing on the rafts and leaning on their short poles, before they had passed under the bridge, and flying from the other side had disappeared from sight.

"The true course to the Abyss!" cried Villiers.

"Where do these beings come from?" I demanded, "and whither do they go?"

"Ah, it is better not to know. It is never good to investigate too deeply. We have seen a vision, have we not, of ferocious warriors descending the Ogowe, in the pursuit of a rival tribe: why should we try to convince ourselves that we have only seen worthy peasants going to the nearest market, for the very prosaic purpose of selling some vulgar product of the soil?"

"In any case they are brave as well as worthy peasants!"

But Villiers was no longer listening: his imagination had followed the warriors of the Ogowe and was wandering far away, and the part of the man that was left with us expressed itself in a confused monotone, mingled with laughter. He toyed with his ideas, as one amuses oneself at the seashore, by letting the sand fall in cascades between the fingers. But I well knew that there were some precious stones in the sand that Villiers sifted, and I lay in wait for these.

When we were finally seated on grassy hillocks in the shadows of the great trees of the English Garden, where we could look out over the fresh meadows starred with saffron blossoms like thousands of goblin fires, and the nearer willows, of a vivid green, with long strands trailing in the Isar, then at last I began to distinguish some light amid the obscurities of the discourse of Villiers.

"I have a glimpse of a misty sea, a dreamlike twilight around an unknown isle, then, in a luminous eddy, a great sphinx emerges from the waves and swims toward the bank. Across her back a violet banner is floating, and on the banner in letters of gold gleams the word: Inviolata!"

"And that is all," said Villiers; "it will never connect itself with anything and will never be explained. The intense impression, the charm, the mystery, the disquieting strangeness, are all in the picture itself, seen through an opening in the clouds, and never more to be forgotten."

"And there are some poems," added he, "which should have but a single stanza: this one for example:--

'La lourde clé du rêve à ma ceinture sonne....[1]

Isn't that complete enough? Isn't that magnificent? What could one add to that? In my foolishness and desire to make a poem I once tried--impossible! There is nothing to add. Nor is there to this other line:--

'O pasteur, Hespérus à l'occident s'allume!'[2]

The melancholy of the hour, the clear evening, the shining star and the pastoral life, it is all there; why seek for anything further?"

"It is true," said I, "that that kind of stanza, the single stanza in which a whole poem seems to be condensed, is sufficient unto itself and disdains rhyme. I have composed one myself, very absurd, but who could find a rhyme to add to it?

'Je suis le nautonier des océans lunaires!'[3]

The Italian poet, Gualdo, has quoted this line somewhere as an epigraph, in order to silence his contemporaries and make them search for its origin."

Villiers suddenly began to rummage in his pockets, and, after an agitated search, he drew out some very crumpled sheets of paper.

"Let us be serious again," said he, "let us be practical and prosaic. Here is my article upon the exposition: it is finished."

"What!" cried I, "have you not sent it yet? It will be too late: the opening of the exposition is an old story now: they will not wish to publish it."

"Oh, if you could see with what fine little touches it has all been refreshed! In the first place, I have changed the title, which is now: 'Munich during the Exposition.' Really the article isn't bad, listen to this:"

And he read:--

"The halls of the Crystal Palace are filled to overflowing, the French envoys are rudely bumped by the enormous boxes. At the exposition the paintings reach to the very cornices, and there is even talk of hanging some delayed canvases in the restaurant opposite, notably the _Casseur de Pierres_ of Courbet. We must add, however, that Courbet has also sent here a magnificent landscape, in which the water is so natural and so deep that it makes one dream dreams. That, and the _Fauconnier_ of Couture, are the pictures that we love best in the French salon, in spite of our lack of sympathy for the realistic school.

"The Germans, when they see Courbet's paintings, say, 'A painter as good as he is rough, he sees like a peasant and paints like a professor, which is saying a great deal,' they add laughing."

"Here I interpolate a sentence," said Villiers. "'It is late to speak of the exposition,' and then I go on to speak of it all the same:

"One must also mention some exquisite grisailles of Ramberg, the _Saint Joseph_ of Gysis, portraits by Lenbach, landscapes by Zwangauer, the German Daubigny, some academic sepias of Kaulbach on subjects drawn from Wagner's operas, and _The woman in the velvet Gown_, of Herr Canon, a young Austrian painter of incomparable talent. It is thought that _The Banquet of Phaton_ of Herr Anselm Feuerbach, will have the medal of honour. It is great work, truly, and since Peter Cornelius, nothing better has been done in Germany. So art is in a flourishing condition.

"I am going to slip a new sentence in there," said Villiers. "'Let us now leave the exposition, with its already old news, and take a promenade through the city.'"

And he continued his reading:--

"We love Munich, but not everyone is of our opinion. It is true that Munich is rather lacking in police officers, that _Les Pompiers de Nanterre_ is not sung here, that we notice an absence of assaults, swindlings and murders that is truly desolating for the future of this capital. On the other hand, we have seen magnificent theatres where Goethe is played, we have visited museums which contain treasures of art and of genius, we have seen monuments in the purest Greek style, great gardens like the Bois de Boulogne, immense cafés where one is served by pretty girls whom no one dreams of chaffing beyond reason, except, perhaps, some passing wags who have only their trouble for their pains.

"We have climbed up inside 'The Bavaria,' the enormous bronze statue which towers above the city, and through the eyes of which six people are able to see before them the sweep of land extending to the mountains of the Tyrol. We have visited the hall of the portraits of beautiful women of the country, where one imagines oneself in a sort of Montyon Gallery of love, and where, if her nose be of an heroic cast, the daughter of a shoemaker may find herself side by side with the daughter of a princess. The king, Ludwig I., who lodged in his palace this ingenuous display of Germanic beauty, loved all pretty women; and the good Bavarians recount that at his death the following scene must have taken place at the gate of Heaven:

"Rap! Rap!"

"'Who is there?' asks St Peter.'

"'It is I, Ludwig, King of Bavaria!'

"'One moment,' replies the blessed Apostle. Then he shouts in a voice of thunder: 'Get the eleven thousand virgins out of the way quick! Here is Ludwig of Bavaria just arriving!"

"But we must not laugh too much about that king who, in the place of military glory, has bequeathed to his people schools where the children are taught to develop a lofty and noble character."

"That is very good, Villiers, but you must not read any more," cried I, interrupting him. "Let us hurry to the post, there is still time before the evening collection. Let us send the article at once, the more you allow the time to pass, the less chance there is of its being published, for, in spite of your conciliatory sentence, present time does not wait."

[1] Forever clanks at my girdle the heavy key of the dream.

[2] O shepherd, Vesper kindles at the west!

[3] I am the boatman of the lunar seas!