Goethe and Schiller. L. Muhlbach

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СКАЧАТЬ the tyrant Philip had thrust his dagger into the breast of poor Posa, in the anger of his offended majesty, and—”

      Another attack of coughing silenced him, and resounded through the quiet solitary chamber. The sound struck upon his ear so dismally that he cast a hasty glance behind him into the gloomy space, as if looking for the ghost which had uttered such dreary tones.

      “If this continues, I am hardly repaid for having fled from my tyrannical duke,” murmured Schiller. “Truly I had better have remained and served out my poor miserable existence as regimental surgeon, than cough my life out as a German, that is, as a hungry poet.”

      But as he said this, his lips quivered, and self-reproach was depicted in his countenance.

      “Be still,” he exclaimed, “be still! Shame upon you, Schiller, for uttering such unmanly, cowardly words! You a poet, Frederick Schiller? you are not even a man! You aspire to ascend the heights of Parnassus, and sink down disheartened and discouraged when an evil annoys you on the way, and admonishes you that you are only a man, a mortal who aspires to climb to the seat of the gods. If you are a poet, Frederick Schiller, remember that the gods are watching over you, and that they will not cruelly abandon you before the goal is half achieved.

      “No,” he exclaimed in a loud voice, raising his head, and looking upward, “no, the gods will not abandon me! They will give me strength and health and a long life, that I may accomplish the task which my soul and mind and heart tell me is required at my hands. No, Parnassus stands before me, and I will climb it!” His beaming eye glanced upward in ecstasy and saw not the low dusty ceiling, the want and indigence by which he was surrounded. He gazed into immensity; the low ceiling opened to his view, and through it “he saw the heavens and the countenance of the blessed!”

      A loud noise in the street awakened him from his trance. It was the watchman blowing his horn and calling the hour in stentorian tones.

      “Four o’clock,” murmured Schiller, “the night approaches its end!—and my candle also,” he continued, smiling, as he looked at the brass candlestick, from the upper rim of which the softened tallow was falling in heavy drops, while the wick had sunk down into the liquid mass.

      Schiller shrugged his shoulders. “It appears that I must stop in the middle of my grand scene and go to bed. My good friend Streicher has in vain begged me to do so, through his musical messenger of love; and now a tallow-candle compels me to do so! What poor, miserable beings we men are! A trifling, inanimate, material thing has more power over us than the spirit, and while we oppose the latter we must submit to be overcome by the former! Therefore to bed, to bed! Farewell, my Posa! The poor human creature leaves you for a few hours, but the lofty human mind will soon return to you! Good-night, my Posa!”

      The wick of the miserable candle flared up once more and then expired with a crackling noise in the liquid tallow. “That is as it should be,” laughed Schiller; “the poet, like the mule, must be able to find his way in the dark on the verge of an abyss!”

      He groped his way through the little room to his bedchamber, and undressed himself rapidly; and the loud, regular breathing soon announced that the young poet, Frederick Schiller, was wrapped in health-giving and refreshing slumber.

CHAPTER II.

       Table of Contents

      THE TRIALS OF LIFE.

      Frederick Schiller still slept, although the pale winter sun of December stood high in the heavens, and the streets of the little city of Mannheim had long since awakened to new life and activity. Frederick Schiller still slept, and, worn out by his long vigils, his work, and his cough, might have slept on for a long time, had he not been aroused by a loud knocking at the door, and an audible step in the adjoining room.

      A young man stood on the threshold of the bedchamber and wished Schiller a hearty good-morning.

      “I can account for this, Fritz,” said he, raising his finger threateningly—“not into bed at night, not out of bed in the morning! Did I not send you my watchman as a love-messenger? But he has already complained to me that it was unavailing.”

      “Do not be angry, my Andrew,” exclaimed Schiller, extending his hand to his friend with a cordial smile. “A poet must above all things wait upon the muses submissively, and may not show them the door when they pay him a visit at an unseemly hour of the night.”

      “Ah, the nine muses would have been satisfied if you had shown them out, and had graciously accorded them the privilege of knocking at your door again this morning! But get up, Fritz! Unfortunately, I have something of pressing and grave importance to communicate!”

      With one bound Frederick Schiller was out of his bed. “Of pressing and grave importance,” he repeated, dressing rapidly, “that sounds very mystical, Andrew. And now that I look at you, I find that your usually open brow is clouded. It is no misfortune that you have to announce?”

      “No, Fritz, no misfortune, thank God, but a very great annoyance. Miserable, grovelling poverty once more stretches out its ravenous claws.”

      “What is it?” asked Schiller, breathlessly, as he drew the dressing-gown over his shoulders with trembling hands. “I am now composed and ready to hear all! Some impatient creditor who wishes to throw me into prison. Is it not so? Speak it right out, Andrew, without hesitation.”

      “Well, then, come with me into the other room. There you shall learn all,” answered Andrew Streicher, taking his friend’s hand and throwing the chamber door open, which he had closed behind him on his entrance. “Come and see!”

      “Mr. Schwelm,” exclaimed Schiller, as he observed on crossing the threshold a gentleman standing in a window-niche, whose countenance indicated that he was very ill at ease. “Yes, truly, this is my loved and faithful friend, Oswald Schwelm, from Stuttgart, the literary godfather of my career as a poet, and—But how mournful you look, dear Schwelm! and not a single word of friendship for me, no greeting?”

      “Ah, Schiller, these are hard times,” sighed Oswald Schwelm. “Anxiety and want have driven me from Stuttgart, and I come to you as a right unwelcome guest. Only believe that I deplore it deeply myself, but I cannot help it, and it is not my fault. I would gladly sacrifice every thing for my friend Schiller, but I have nothing more; and painful necessity compels me to remind you of the old debt.”

      “Do not judge him harshly, Schiller,” said Streicher, in a low voice. “Poor Schwelm’s difficulties are of a very urgent nature. You know very well that at a time when no printer could be found to put your ‘Robbers’ in press, Schwelm guaranteed to the publisher in Stuttgart the expense incurred in its publication, because he was convinced, as we all were, that the ‘Robbers’ would make you a celebrated poet, and not only insure you a harvest of honor and renown, but also of money. Now, unfortunately, the money has not yet been harvested, and poor Oswald Schwelm has had the additional misfortune of losing his capital by the failure of the commercial house in which it was deposited. Since then the publisher has dunned him in an outrageous manner, and has even obtained a warrant for his arrest; and, in order to escape, Schwelm fled from Stuttgart and came here!”

      “Forgive me, friend Schwelm,” said Schiller, rushing forward and embracing the young merchant. “Ah, my dear friends, it seems that you have mistaken me and my future; it seems that the lofty plans formed in our youthful days are not to be realized.”

      “They СКАЧАТЬ